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Authors: Harry Harrison

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BOOK: The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell
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I had them now. Even Angelina was leaning forward, waiting
for further revelation. I smiled serenely, buffed my fingers on my shirt, turned and pointed.
“There's your spy.”
They all turned to look.
“The spy is none other than my good companion from the rock mine—Berkk.”
“HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT, Jim!” Angelina said. “He saved your life.”
“He did—and I saved his.”
“He was a prisoner like you. He wouldn't spy for Slakey.”
“He was. And he did.”
Coypu got into the disbelieving act. “Impossible. You told me, he's a simple mechanic. It would take a mathematician of incredible skill to alter those equations so subtly that I would never notice the changes.”
I raised my hands to silence the growing protest.
“Dear friends—why don't we put this to the empirical test. Let's ask him.”
In a matter of seconds the professor had pumped a massive electronic charge into Berkk's brain and drained it out of his heel. Leaving the brain empty of all intelligence. The captive Slakey was now just random fizzling electrons, which was fine; there were certainly enough other manifestations of him around. Then Coypu seized up the other fully charged TF that was full of Berkk and plugged it back to his body. A switch was thrown and, hopefully, Berkk was back home again. Dr. Mastigophora filled a hypodermic with psycho blaster antidote
and shot it into Berkk's arm. He stirred and moaned and his eyes fluttered open.
“Why am I strapped down?”
I recognized his voice. Slakey was gone and Berkk was home again.
“Free him if you please, Professor.” The clamps jumped open and I went to remove the restraining belt.
“Ouch,” Berkk said, touching his bruised lips. “It was Slakey, wasn't it? He did this to me.” He sat up and groaned. “Was it worth it? Did you get what you needed?”
“Not quite,” I said. “But before we go into that—I would like to ask you one simple question.”
“What's that?”
“Why did you sabotage Professor Coypu's interuniversal transporter?”
“Why … why do you think I would do a thing like that?”
“You tell me, Berkk.”
He looked around at us, not smiling, with a very trapped-animal look. This suddenly changed. He looked up blankly; and a horrified expression transformed his face. “No!” he shouted hoarsely. “Don't do that—you can't …”
Then he dropped his face into his hands and wept unashamedly. No one spoke, not knowing what was happening. Finally he looked up, dragged his sleeve across his wet eyes.
“Gone,” he said. “Back to the rock quarrying. Back to that hell in Heaven.”
“Would you be kind enough to explain?” I asked.
“Me, I, you know. Me twice. He, I mean me, is back in the quarry. Grabbed by that foul one-eyed robot.”
Sudden realization struck. “Did Slakey duplicate you the way he duplicates himself?”
“Yes.”
“Then all is clear,” I said smugly.
“Not to a lot of us, diGriz,” Angelina said, all patience gone. “Spell it out so we peasants can understand. And quickly.”
“Sorry, my love. But the explanation is a simple one. When Slakey had me thrown into the rock works he must have been worried about my presence in Heaven, and even more concerned about what Coypu or the Special Corps would do next. So he enlisted Berkk here to watch me. Doubled him and must have done horrible things to one of him to make the other be his spy.”
“Chains,” Berkk moaned. “Torture. Electric shock. I had to do what he told me because I felt everything that he was doing to the other me. Chained to the wall in Slakey's lab.”
“And of course because you knew everything that you and I were doing, the other you also knew everything that we were doing and reported it to Slakey?”
“All the time. Slakey had me build those rebar cages so we could escape. He knew just what we were doing at the very moment we were doing it.”
“But escaping in those cages was very dangerous!”
“What did he care? If we died it wouldn't have bothered him in the slightest. But once we had landed on the rock pile safely, he cleared out the cyclotron building so we could get through it. When we reached the unnildecnovum sorting tables he sent the robot after us to see what would happen, if we had any way of escaping. We did.”
“You spying rat,” Angelina said, and I saw her fingers arching into claws. “A viper in our bosom. We save your life and all you can do is sabotage the professor's machine.”
“I had no choice,” Ron moaned. “The me with Slakey told him everything. Slakey was ready to kill that me at any time if I didn't do what he ordered. When I woke up after the operation you had all gone away. I came here and this laboratory was empty—the professor was sleeping. That was Slakey's perfect chance to do the sabotage. I did exactly what he told me to do. Changed the equations and the settings and everything.”
“Did he also order you to volunteer to have his brain pumped into your head?”
“That was my idea, I really meant I was volunteering—he also ordered me to do it, knowing you would get nothing out
of it. And it would add to my credibility. I had no choice …”
“Forget it,” I said. “It's all in the past and we can get through to the other universes again since the professor has undone your damage. Your spying days for Slakey are over, so now you can spy for us. You could very well be the key to putting paid to all the Slakeys. Help us and maybe we will be able to save the other you.”
“Could you really?”
“We can but try. Now—the first question. What is going on with all the rock mining and crushing and sorting? We still have no idea of what Slakey's operation is all about. You used the word ‘unnildecnovum.' What is it?”
“I have no idea. But since the other me was with Slakey all of the time I could see and hear everything that he did. He used the word in reference to the sorting tables, just once.”
“It must be the substance we were looking for,” Angelina said. “But what is it used for?”
“I don't know. But I do know it is the most important thing for Slakey. Nothing else really matters. And I think I know where it goes. Slakey kept me chained to the machine, the one like the professor's there, so I could tell him everything that was happening. But I could also see everything that he was doing. There were sometimes up to three of him present at one time. They didn't talk because, after all, they were all the same person. But one time he had that robot on the screen and he said something like ‘Take the unnildecnovum there.' That was all.”
“That's enough,” Professor Coypu said, throwing some switches and pointing at the screen. Blue skies and floating white clouds. “Heaven. That's where it is all happening. He could have his mine on any one of a thousand planets, but what he mines ends up in Heaven for processing—”
“Just a moment if you please, Professor,” I said. “What was that remark about any one of a thousand planets?”
“The substance he is mining. Very common.”
“You know what it is?”
“Of course. Your clothing and Angelina's were coated with it. It is called coal. A crystalline form of carbon. It can be found
on a great number of planets. He has it mined and ground to a fine powder. It is then bombarded in the cyclotron where a certain small proportion is changed to unnildecnovum, which is then sorted out by the women. Its very name reveals its identity. Unnildecnovum, one hundred and nineteen in the periodic table. A new element with unknown qualities. Entropy is involved, that is all we can be sure of. The women can detect that, so they can sort the unnildecnovum from the coal dust. This is then collected by that shoddy robot and taken—some place for some reason.”
“Find the place—and we find the reason,” I said triumphantly. “It
has
to be in Heaven, that is one thing we can be sure of.”
“I'll take care of that,” Inskipp said as he marched in. He had undoubtedly been monitoring everything that was happening in the lab and had picked the right moment to take over. “The Space Marines are on their way here. Gunships, tanks, flame throwers, field guns …”
“No way, José,” I said with a great deal of feeling. “You can't hijack my operation at this late date. Nor do we need all the troops and armaments. We keep this small. Remember—we have only one man to fight. Even if he has a number of manifestations. Him—and his rickety robot which Angelina has promised to take care of in a suitably destructive manner. We have put together a good fighting team and we all go in together. If Professor Coypu can give us defenses against Slakey's weapons.”
“Already done,” Coypu said with unseemly self-satisfaction. “I have analyzed the atmosphere of Heaven. I know that he uses energy weapons and has an hypnotic gas, in addition to the addictive gases already present in the atmosphere.”
He pressed a button and what appeared to be a transparent space suit popped out on the end of an extending arm. He pointed out its attributes.
“It is made of transparent seringera. A substance that is almost indestructible, unpierceable, a barrier to force fields and
impervious to gases. Under the outer surface there is a nanomolecular structure that responds in a microsecond to a sudden impact such as a bullet. These molecules lock together and become stronger than the strongest steel, stopping the projectile before it has penetrated less than a millimeter. This small powerpack on the back, here, recycles and reconstitutes the gases and water in your breath so the suit may be sealed and worn for up to one hundred hours. It also powers a built-in gravchute that can be used for levitating if needs be. I will demonstrate.”
He tore off his shoes, stripped off shirt and sarong, to reveal the fact that he wore purple undershorts with little mauve robots embroidered on them, trimmed with gold. He seized the transparent suit and wriggled into it, pulled the bubble helmet down to seal it. His voice rasped from the external speaker.
“There is no blade sharp enough to cut it.” He opened a box of equipment and seized up a knife, plunged it into his chest. It bounced off. As did the other weapons he attacked himself with. Powering up the gravchute, he bounced off the ceiling, still firing his deadly devices. Soon the air was filled with noxious gases, whizzing missiles that threatened the rest of us, if not him. Coughing and gasping, we fled the chamber and did not return until the demonstration was over and the aircon turned up high.
“Wonderful, Professor,” I said dabbing my eyes with the corner of my handkerchief. “We pull on your fancy suits and go to Heaven. When I say we I of course mean me and my family, along with Berkk and Sybil. The professor monitors our movements and our leader, Inskipp, stands ready to send any reinforcements that we might need. Any questions?”
“Sounds just insane enough to succeed,” Angelina said. “How soon do we get our playsuits, Professor?”
“They'll be ready by morning.”
“Fine.” She smiled at us all. “We can have a little party tonight to celebrate our coming victory, the rout of Slakey, and the reunification of Berkk with himself. All right?”
A chorus of agreement was her answer. The robar hurried over to open the cocktail hour, and even Inskipp condescended this once to sipping a small dry sherry.
“I am very interested in this unnildecnovum,” he said licking a trace of wine from his lips. “This madman has organized numerous religions to raise money to imprison slaves to mine coal to convert it to unnildecnovum—why? It must have some very unusual properties or why should he go to all this effort? I am very curious about what can be done with it. Or what it does to other things, or whatever. And I am going to find out. Go forth, Jim, and succeed. And bring me back a sample and an explanation.”
“Good as done,” I said and raised my glass.
We all drank to that.
WE ALL WORE SWIMMING OUTFITS under the transparent suits. Angelina and Sybil looked quite fetching. I quickly averted my eyes from one, blew a kiss to the other.
“Equipment check,” I said, drawing my gun and holding it up. “One paralysis pistol, fully charged. A container of sleep-gas grenades, another of smoke. Combat knife with silver toothpick. Manacles for securing prisoners, truth drug injector for making them talk.”
“Plus a diamond-blade power saw for cutting up a certain robot,” Angelina said, holding up the lethal looking object.
“All in order, all accounted for. Just one thing more.” I picked up a backpack that had a medical red cross on a white background printed on it. “For emergencies. Are you on the circuit, all-powerful Inskipp?”
“I am,” his voice rattled in my ear. “I have countless deadly standbys standing by in case you need help.”
“Wonderful! Professor Coypu, if you please—unlock the door.”
He threw the switch and the red light above the steel door, studded with boltheads and massive rivets, turned to green. I
grabbed the handle and turned it, threw the door wide and we strode into Heaven.
“What's with the clouds?” I asked, pushing my finger into one floating by; it tinkled merrily.
“A life-form indigenous to this planet,”
Coypu's voice said in my ear.
“It has crystalline guts, which explains the tinkling sound, and it floats because it generates methane. Be careful with sparks because they could blow up.”
Not only could, but did. In a blast of flame that washed over me. I blinked at the glare but felt nothing. Apparently Slakey had us under observation and had opened fire. Other clouds were now floating our way, but were shot down before they could get close. They blew up nicely. When the last cloud of smoke had drifted away I pointed across the neatly cut greensward.
“There, that's the way we go. Valhalla is a con and just for show and Paradise is still being rebuilt. Nor do we wish to visit the rubbish dump. The bit of Heaven I found Slakey in is off in that direction. All we have to do is follow the yellow brick road.”
Angelina looked around as we walked. “This would be a very pleasant planet if it weren't for Slakey.”
“We are here to do something about that.”
“We will. Do I hear music?”
“Are those birds up ahead?” Sybil asked.
“Not quite,” I said, recognizing the fluttering creatures. “I looked them up in a volume called
Everything You Wanted to Know About Religion But Were Afraid to Ask.
They are legendary creatures called cherubim or cherubs. Asexual apparently, and great harp players, not to mention choristers.”
The flying cloud came closer, plucked strings tinkling and falsettos singing. Another swarm appeared, singing lustily despite the fact they had no lungs, being just heads with wings sprouting from behind their ears. This was pretty strange and I was beginning to have certain suspicions.
“Are these creatures native to this planet?” Angelina asked.
“I have no idea—but I would dearly love to find out.”
They flew lower, circling and chorusing high-pitchedly just above our heads. I bent my knees—and sprang. Grabbing one by the leg before it could float away. It kept on singing, blue eyes staring upwards. I squeezed it, touched the wings, tried to lift the ribbons around its loins. So that was it. I twisted with both hands and tore its head off.
“Jim—you monster!” Angelina cried.
“Not really.” I pulled the head away and wires came out of its neck. It kept on singing and fluttering its butterfly wings. I released it and it floated away still singing from its dangling head.
“Null-G robots filled with recorded music. Slakey must have built them to add verisimilitude to the landscape for conning his suckers.”
The road curved through a glen filled with flowering shrubs. As we approached something burst out of the bushes and galloped towards us.
“That's mine!” Angelina cried out happily as she ran towards it. A stained and scratched robot with one good eye. I hurried after her, not to spoil her fun but to stand by in case of accidents.
There were none. It was all done quite deliberately. When it swung its mighty hand, tipped with razor-sharp fingers, at her she swung her power saw up even faster. The hand clanked down on the road leaving the robot with a metal stump. Two stumps an instant later.
It tried to kick her. There was another clang and it tried to hop away on its remaining leg. Then, limbless, it rolled along the ground.
“You are not nice to people,” she said, saw ready. “You are just insensate metal so you do not feel what I am doing to you. You do only as you are instructed. It is your master who is next.”
The head rolled over close to my feet. I looked down and smiled as the light in its single eye faded and died.
“One down,” I said as I kicked it aside. “Now we follow this road to its master's lair. And please stay alert, gang. Slakey
knows that we are coming and will throw everything at us that he can.”
Sudden memory flashed and I jumped. Shouting.
“Off the road!”
A little too late. The slurping sounded and the road rolled out from under our feet disclosing the chasm beneath.
“Gravchutes!” I ordered, turning mine on. Our descent into the pit stopped just before we hit the jagged stalagmites and sharp blades that projected up from the pit floor below. We zoomed up and out to safety and our advance continued. Beside the road.
“There it is,” I said, pointing to the white temple on the hill ahead. “That's where I met a fat old Slakey playing God in this unheavenly Heaven. I wonder if he'll be there now?”
We were about to find out, approaching the marble steps with caution. They were not moving this time, no celestial escalator for us. We strode up resolutely until we could see the throne. And Slakey sitting on it. Scowling ferociously.
“You are not welcome here,” he said, shaking his head. His fat jowls jiggled and the golden halo bounced with the movement.
“Don't be inhospitable, Professor,” I said. “Answer a few questions and we'll be on our way.”
“This
is my answer,” he snarled as he reached back and seized his halo—and hurled it at me. It exploded as it struck my suit, knocking me down with the impact. I climbed back to my feet and saw Slakey, throne and all, vanish into the floor.
As he went down—so did the ceiling. The supporting pillars must have been pistons as well. Before we could escape out of the way the entire thing, stone ceiling, roof and lintels and all, crushed us like beetles.
Or it would have crushed us like beetles if we hadn't been wearing our battle suits. As the weight of stone struck the nanomolecules in the fabric locked and the suits became as rigid as steel.
Steel coffins. “Can anyone move?” I shouted. My only answer was grunts and groans. Was this the end? Crushed under
a power-operated temple in Heaven. Waiting for our air to run out. One hundred hours—and then asphyxiation.
“No … way!” I muttered angrily. My hands were at my sides. All the pressure was on my chest which stayed as hard as nanosteel. But there was no weight on my hand and I could wiggle my fingers. Move them, feeling along my belt in the darkness. Plucking out a percussion grenade by feel. Pushing it into the rubble of broken stone, as far out as I could reach. Taking as deep a breath as I could. Triggering it.
Flame and a great explosion of sound. Smoke and dust of course—that settled and blew away to disclose a crater in the stone. With sunlight filtering in.
A few more grenades did the job. I stumbled to my feet, staggering as another explosion rocked the ruin of the temple, and Angelina emerged from the cloud of smoke. We embraced, then blasted free the others.
“Could we please not do that again,” Sybil said, more than a little shaken by the experience.
“An act of desperation on his part,” I told her. “Trying to pick us off before we closed in on them. It didn't work—and now we take the fight to them.”
“How?” Angelina asked, ever practical.
“This way,” I said, leading them back down the steps. “That first pit we fell into in the road was just that. A pitfall pit for killing people. But this pit leads to the underworld where his entire operation is taking place.”
As I said that, I flipped another grenade towards the place on the road where I and the robot had dropped through. It blew up nicely and opened a hole into the deep chasm below.
“I'll lead since I've been this way before.”
We powered up our gravchutes and leaped into the jagged opening. Floated down slowly instead of dropping as I had the first time. The jagged stone walls moved past at a leisurely pace, lit by the ruddy glow from below. Then the bleak, black landscape with its sporadic gouts of flame came into view. The table-like structures were still there, barely revealed by the ruddy light. But there was a difference—the women were gone.
We soon discovered why. They were all grouped together before the buildings. My troops landed and spread out, weapons ready.
“Don't shoot!” Angelina called out. “Those women, they're the victims, the workers here.”
As we warily came closer we could hear a low moaning, and the familiar coughing. It was pretty obvious why. They were tied together, ten or twenty in a bunch, bound with ropes.
“Safety is here!” I called out. “We've come to free you.”
“Oh no you're not,” Slakey said in chorus. Behind each group of women was a Slakey with a gun. They all spoke at the same time because of course they were all the same person.
“Leave or we kill them,” he/they chorused as each of them raised his gun and aimed it at the captive victims.
It was stalemate.
“You can't get away with this,” I said, playing for time, wondering what I could do to save them.
“Yes I can,” the massed voices said. “I will count to three. If you have not gone by then, one in every group will die. You will have killed them. Then another and another. One … two …”
“Stop,” I called out. “We're going.”
But we didn't—the women did. The coughing and moaning was replaced by silence and a whooshing sound as they popped out of existence. I had a moment of dreadful fear that they were gone, dead—until I saw the shocked expression on every Slakey's face.
Professor Coypu—of course! He had been watching and had snatched them out of Heaven to the safety of Prime Base.
I raised my gun and shot the nearest Slakey, ran towards his inert body. Everyone else was shooting now and a blast of fire rocked me back. I stumbled, ran on, grabbed for the Slakey I had shot.
Grabbed empty air as he vanished. The firing was dying down, stopped, as the Slakeys disappeared one by one. Angelina reholstered her gun and came over to me, patted my arm. “I saw that you killed one. Congratulations.”
“Premature. I used my paralysis pistol since I wanted to talk to him.”
“What next?”
“A very good question. There is no point in going to the coal mines right now because that's just the place that supplies the raw ingredient. The same goes for the cyclotron chamber because we know that the unnildecnovum is made there, but brought here for separation from the coal dust.”
“Then we find where it is taken.”
“Of course—and it can't be far.” I turned to Berkk. “You heard Slakey order the now extinct robot to bring it somewhere?”
“That's right.”
I turned and pointed past the rows of empty tables. “That way, it has to be that way. The opposite direction from the cyclotron. Let's go look.”
We went. Warily. Knowing that we were getting close to the end of our quest and that Slakey would not like this in any way. He didn't.
“Take cover!” I shouted as I dived. I had only a quick glimpse of the weapon as it floated into position in front of us, a large field gun of some kind.
It fired and the shell exploded close by. The ground rose and slammed into me; chunks of shrapnel and shattered rock rained down. This was not good at all—even Coypu's battle suits could not protect a body from a direct hit. It fired again—then vanished.
“Got it,”
Coypu's voice spoke in my radio earpiece.
“A remote controlled siege gun. I dropped it into a volcano in Hell from a great height. Are there any more?”
“Not that I can see. But—thanks for the quick action.”
We advanced, past the spot where the gun had appeared, and on towards a solid metal fortress-like structure. I didn't like the look of it—liked it even less when ports flipped open and rapid-firing weapons appeared. Firing rapidly.
BOOK: The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell
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