The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection (36 page)

I drank deep and wiped the foam from my mouth just as another young man came through the door and hurried to the adjoining table.

“Porkacoj!”
he whispered hoarsely. Two of the youths
stumbled to their feet and hurried toward the rear of the bar.

I put down my beer, scraped up my coins, and hurried after them. There was trouble here, though I did not know what kind. What he had said could be translated as bad-pigs, and must surely be local slang since I did not imagine some mucky swine were on their way. Pigs as an epithet for police is a common usage—and the reactions of
the two men seemed to bear this out. And I would lose nothing by being cautious. They hurried down a hallway and when I reached it a door at the far end was just closing. I had my hand on its knob when a loud siren sounded from the other side and a glare of illumination shone in through the cracks between door and frame.

“What’s this?” a coarse and loud voice said. “You boys maybe slipping out
through the backdoor because we got a patrol out front? Let’s see your identification.”

“We’ve done nothing wrong!”

“You’ve done nothing right so far. C’mon, the ID.”

I waited, unmoving, hoping the bad-pig outside was not joined by his stymates from the bar. The coarse laughter from the other side of the door was anything but humorous.

“Hello, hello—both out of date? Not thinking of avoiding
the draft, are you boys?”

“A clerical error,” a pale voice whimpered.

“We get a lot like that. Let’s go.”

The light went away and so did the footsteps. I waited as long as I dared, then opened the door and exited the bar. The
alley was empty, pig and prisoners were gone. I went myself, as quickly as I could without running. Then stopped. What was I running from? Once the police had left, the
bar would be the safest place in the city for me. I stopped in a dark doorway and looked back at the rear entrance. No one else came out. I counted to three hundred, then to be safe backward again to zero. The door remained closed. Cautiously, ready to flee in an instant, I went back into the bar, peered into the barroom. No police—but the glimmerings of an idea.

The four young men at the table
looked up as I came back in, the newcomer sitting at one of the recently vacated seats. I shook my head gloomily and dropped into a chair.

“The
porkacoj
got them. Both.”

“I told Bil he needed new papers, wouldn’t listen to me,” the blond one said, the one who had come with the warning. He cracked his knuckles then seized up his beer. “You got to have good papers.”

“My papers are out of date,”
I said gloomily, then waved to the waitress.

“You should have stayed in Pensildelphia then,” one of the others said, a spotty youth in an ill-fitting gold and green shirt.

“How did you know I was from Pensildelphia?” I protested. He sneered.

“Rube accent like that, were else you from?”

I sneered back and glowed with pleasure inside. Better and better. I had a peergroup of draft dodgers, one
of them who might be working with the police, and a home town. Things were looking up. I buried my nose in my beer.

“You ought to get new ID,” the friendly-warner, possible police informer, said. I sniffled.

“Easy to say here. But you can’t do it in Pensildelphia.”

“Hard to do here too. Unless you got the right contacts.”

I stood up. “I gotta go. Nice meeting you guys.”

Before leaving I checked
to make sure that the police were gone. Then I exited and waited. My new friend came out a moment later and smiled at me.

“Smart. Don’t let too many people know what’s going on. My label is Jak.”

“Call me Jim.”

“Good a name as any, Jim. How much you got to spend?”

“Not much. I had a bad year.”

“I’ll put you in touch with the man himself for three sugarlumps. He’ll want twenty.”

“ID not worth
more than ten. You get one-fifty.”

“They’re not all dumb in the backwoods, are they. Slap it in my hand and we’re on our way.”

I paid him his cut and when he turned I put the tip of my knife against his neck just under his ear and pushed just hard enough to break the skin. He stayed absolutely still when I showed him the knife with the fresh drop of blood.

“That is a little warning,” I said.
“Those pigs were waiting for whoever you flushed out. That’s not my worry. My skin is. I got a feeling that you play both sides. Play the right side with me or I will find you and slice you. Understand?”

“Understood …” he said gruffly, with a tremor in his voice. I put the knife away and clapped him on the shoulders.

“I like you, Jak. You learn easy.”

We went in silence and I hoped that he
was making the right conclusions. I don’t like threats and when threatened I do the opposite of what I am requested. But my experience of the petty criminal led me to believe that threats tended to work with them. Part of the time.

Our route took us past a number of other bars and Jak looked carefully into each one before going on. He struck paydirt in the fifth one and waved me in after him.
This place was dark and smokefilled, with jangling music blasting from all sides. Jak led the way to the rear of the room, to an alcove where the music was not quite as loud, at least not as loud as the striped outfit the fat man was wearing. He leaned back in a heavy chair and sipped at a tiny, poisonous green drink.

“Hello, Captain,” my guide said.

“Get dead quickly, Jak. I don’t want your
kind here.”

“Don’t say that even funning, Captain. I got good business for you here, a mission of mercy. This grassgreen cutlet is a step ahead of the draft. Needs new ID.”

The tiny eyes swiveled toward me. “How much you got, cutlet?”

“Jak says one-fifty for him, ten for you. I already paid him his.”

“Jak’s a liar. Twelve is the price and I give him his cut.”

“You’re on.”

It was an instant
transaction. I gave him the money and he passed over the grubby plastic folder. Inside there was a blurred picture of a youth who could have been anyone my age, along with other vital facts including a birthdate quite different from my own.

“This says that I am only fifteen years old!” I protested.

“You got a baby face. You can get away with it. Drop a few years—or join the army.”

“I feel younger
already.” I pocketed the ID and rose. “Thanks for the help.”

“Any time. Long as you got the sugarlumps.”

I left the bar, crossed the road and found a dark doorway to lurk in. It was a short wait because Jak came out soon after me and strolled away. I strolled behind him at a slightly faster stroll. I was breathing down his neck before he heard my footsteps and spun about.

“Just me, Jak, don’t
worry. I wanted to thank you for the favor.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s all right.” He rolled his eyes around at the deserted street.

“You could do me another favor, Jak. Let me see your own ID. I just want to compare it to mine to make sure the Captain didn’t give me a ringer.”

“He wouldn’t do that!”

“Let’s make sure.” My dagger blade twinkled in the streetlight and he rooted inside his jacket then
handed me a folder very much like my own. I turned to look at it under the light, then handed it back. But Jak was the suspicious type. He glanced at it before putting it away—and dropped his jaw prettily.

“This ain’t mine—this is yours!”

“That’s right. I switched them. You told me that ID was good. So use it.”

His cries of protest died behind as I walked uphill away from the shore. To a better
neighborhood without a criminal element. I felt very pleased with myself. The ID could have been good—in
which case Jak would lose nothing. But if it were faulty in any way it would be his problem, not mine. The biter bit. A very evenhanded solution. And I was going in the right direction. Once away from the waterfront things did get better, the buildings taller, the streets cleaner, the lights
brighter. And I got tireder. Another bar beckoned and I responded. Velvet drapes, soft lights, leather upholstery, better-looking waitress. She was not impressed by my clothes, but she was by the tip I passed over when my beer arrived.

I had very little time to enjoy it. This was a well-policed city and the bad-pigs came in pairs. A brace of them waddled in through the door and my stomach slipped
closer to the floor. But what was I worrying about? My ID was fine.

They circuited the room, looking at identification, and finally reached my table.

“Good evening, officers,” I smarmed.

“Knock off the cagal and let’s see it.”

I smiled and passed over the folder. The one who opened it widened his nostrils and snorted with pleasure.

“Why look what we got here! This is Jak the joike strolled
away from his home turf. That’s not nice, Jak.”

“It’s a free world!”

“Not for you, Jak. We all know about the deal you made with harbor police. Stay there and rat on your friends and you get left alone. But you strayed out of your turf, Jak.”

“I’ll go back now,” I said rising with a sinking feeling.

“Too late,” they said in unison as they slapped on the cuffs.

“Far too late,” the nostril-flarer
said. “You’re out of business, Jak, and in the army.”

This really was the biter bit. This time I had been just a little too smart for my own good. It looked like my new and exciting military career had just begun.

The cell was small, the bed hard, I had no complaints. After the strenuous day I had just finished, sleep was the only thing that I wanted. I must have been snoring as I fell toward the canvas covers, with no memory of my face ever touching the stained pillow. I slept the sleep of exhaustion and awoke when a gray shaft of light filtered in through the barred window. I felt cheered and
rested until I realized where I was. Dark depression fell.

“Well, it could be worse,” I said cheerily.

“How?” I snarled dispiritedly. There was no easy answer to that. My stomach rumbled with hunger and thirst and the depression deepened. “Cry-baby,” I sneered. “You’ve had it much worse than this. They took the dagger but nothing else. You have your money, your identification.” And the lockpick
I added in silence. The presence of that little tool had a warming affect, holding out hope of eventual escape.

“I’m hungry!” a youthful voice cried out and there was a rattling of bars. Others took up the cry.

“Food. We’re not criminals!”

“My mom always brought me breakfast in bed …” I was not too impressed by this last wail of complaint but sympathized with the general attitude. I joined
the cry. “All right, all right, shut up,” an older and gruffer voice called
out. “Chow is on the way. Not that you deserve anything, bunch of draft dodgers.”

“Cagal on that sergeant—I don’t see your fat chunk in the army.”

I looked forward to meeting the last speaker; he showed a little more courage than the rest of the wailers. The wait wasn’t too long, though it was scarcely worth it. Cold
noodle soup with sweet red beans is not my idea of the way to start the day. I wondered how it would end.

I had plenty of time for wondering because after feeding time in the zoo we were left strictly alone. I stared up at the cracked ceiling and slowly began to realize that my ill fortune wasn’t that bad when closely examined. I was alive and well in Nevenkebla. With a promising career ahead
of me. I would learn the ropes, find out all I could about this society, maybe even get a lead on Garth—or General Zennor if Bibs had overheard the name correctly. He was in the army and I would very soon be in the army, which fact might work to my advantage. And I had the lockpick. When the right moment came I could do a little vanishing act. And how bad could the army be? I had been a soldier on
Spiovente, which training should come in handy …

Oh, how we do fool ourselves.

Somewhere around midday, when my cowardly peer group were beginning to howl for more nourishment, the crash of opening cell doors began. The howls changed to cries of complaint as we were ordered from our cells and cuffed wrist to wrist in a long daisychain. About a dozen of us, similar of age and gloomy of mein.
The unknown future lay darkly ahead. With much stumbling and curses we were led from the cell block to the prison compound where a barred vehicle waited to transport us to our destiny. It moved away silently after we had been herded aboard, battery or fuel cell powered, out into the crowded city streets. Clothes were slightly different, vehicles of unusual shapes, but it could have been any world
of advanced technology. No wonder they had cut themselves off from the rest of this decadent planet. Selfish—but understandable.

No effete amenities like seats were provided for hardened criminals: so we clutched to the bars and swayed into each other at the turns. A thin, dark-haired youth secured to my left wrist sighed tremulously, then turned to me.

“How long you been on the run?” he asked.

“All my life.”

“Very funny. I’ve had six months since my birthday, six short months. Now it’s all over.”

“You’re not dying—just going into the army.”

“What’s the difference? My brother got drafted last year. He smuggled a letter out to me. That’s when I decided to run. Do you know what he wrote—?”

His eyes opened wide and he shivered at the memory, but before he could speak our transport slammed
to a halt and we were ordered out.

The street scene was one to give joy to the eyes of any sadist. Varying forms of transport had converged on the plaza before the tall building. Emerging from them were young men, hundreds, perhaps thousands of them, all wearing upon their faces a uniform expression of despair. Only our little band was manacled—the rest clutched the yellow draft notices that
had dragged them to their destiny. A few of them had the energy to make mock of our manacled state, but they shrunk away under the chorus of our jeers. At least we had made some attempt, no matter how feeble, to escape military impressment. Nor did it appear to make any difference to the authorities. They did not care how they had managed to grab the bodies. Once inside the doors our chains were stripped
away and we were herded into line with all the others. The faceless military machine was about to engulf us.