The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection (145 page)

‘No.’ I doubt if a firmer ‘no’ had ever been spoken. I popped out a pair of stimtabs and chewed them as I continued my monologue in the same tone of voice. ‘There is
a certain retrogressive pleasure in being cared for and treated like an idiot child – but I think I have had enough of it. I have tackled He before this and chased him out of two of his lairs and I intend to finish him off now. I know his ways. I’m in charge of this expedition, so you will follow, not lead, and will obey orders.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she answered with lowered eyelids and bowed head. Did
this cover a mocking smile? I did not care. Me boss.

‘Me boss.’ It sounded even better said aloud in a firm and declaratory tone.

‘Yes, boss,’ she said and giggled prettily while the man on the bed writhed and chomped and the boots in the doorway were silent.

We went to work. Our prisoner slavered noisily in an unknown tongue when I took out the gag and tried to bite my fingers when I restored
it. There was a rough-looking radio
on a shelf that produced only grating broadcasts in the same language when I turned it on. Angelina’s outdoor investigations were far more productive than mine, and she pulled up by the door in an impossibly ugly conveyance that looked like a scratched, purple, plastic bathtub slung between four sets of wheels. It burbled and hissed at me when I hobbled up to
examine it.

‘Very simple to operate,’ Angelina said, showing off her technical skill. ‘There is only one switch and that turns it on. And two handles, one for the bank of wheels on each side. Forward to speed them up, back to brake them …’

‘And neutral in the middle,’ I said to demonstrate
my
technical skill, as well as the fact that I was a male chauvinist pig and this was my show. ‘And this
lead-covered lump in the rear must be a nuclear generator. Unshield a chunk of radioactive material, heat up the surrounding liquid, a heat exchanger here, secondary liquid to turn this electric generator, motors in each wheel, ugly and crude but practical. Where do we go in it?’

She pointed. ‘There seems to be a road or trail of sorts going off through that cultivated field there. And unless
memory fails – and I
know
you will be quick to correct me – that seems to be the same direction as the radio signals you detected earlier.’

A mild blow struck for femlib, and I ignored it. Particularly since she was right as the snooper soon confirmed.

‘Off we go then,’ I said, in command once again.

‘Going to kill the prisoner?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Thank you, no. But I’ll take his clothes
since mine have reached the old rag stage. If we break up the radio, he’ll have a hard job telling anyone we’re coming. He’ll chew through his gag and ropes in a couple of hours, so we can leave the burial arrangements of his associate to him. We will load our gear and be on our way.’

The firmness of my authority was dimmed slightly by the
krets krets
of my fingernails inside my tattered shirt
scratching at the rapid red-blooming growth of my sunburn. While
Angelina stomped the radio, I put on more cream. A few minutes later we were bumping along the well-worn track that twisted across the high plateau.

There was less fog and haze at this altitude, not that there was anything more to see. The rough landscape was quarried with gullies that carried away the water from the frequent rainstorms,
also removing what little topsoil still remained. Tough-looking plants clung to the rocks for protection in the sheltered spots. Occasionally we passed a branching off of the wheel marks, but the direction finder on the snooper kept us on the right track. The hard bucket seats were hideously uncomfortable, and I welcomed the gathering darkness of sunset – though of course I didn’t say this
aloud – and turned off behind a jumbled hill of great rocks for the night.

In the morning I was stiff but feeling more fit. The growth and healing drugs had whipped my cells into a frenzy of growth that had half healed my various wounds and given me a raging appetite. We dined and drank from the meager supplies that Angelina had brought – eked out by some coarse bread and dried meat liberated
from the homicidal farmers. Angelina took the wheel and I rode shotgun, not liking the look of the decomposing landscape at all. The track now wandered down from the hills as the highlands turned into a vertical escarpment of rock. Then there were more swamps and some very nasty-looking jungle into which the road dipped. Creepers hung low enough to brush our heads and the soggy trees touched overhead.
The air, which did not seem possible, became even more humid and hotter.

‘I don’t like this place,’ Angelina said, steering around a boggy spot that sloped across the track.

‘I don’t like it even less,’ I said, gun in hand and a clip of explosive cartridges in the butt. ‘If the wildlife here is anything like that in the river, we could have some fun and games in store.’

Ever alert, I looked
ahead, behind, right and left and wished my eyeballs grew on stalks. There were numberless suspicious dark shapes among the trees and occasional heavy
crashings could be heard, but nothing appeared to threaten us. That I could see. Of course the one spot I wasn’t watching was the surface of the road, and that is where the imminent danger lay.

‘That tree has fallen right across the road,’ Angelina
said. ‘Just bump over it—’

‘I wouldn’t!’ I said, just a little bit too late as our wheels trundled over the green trunk that lay across the track and vanished into the jungle on both sides.

Our center wheels were on it when it shuddered and heaved upward in a great loop. The vehicle turned over, and Angelina and I were hurled clear. But not clear enough. I hit the ground and tucked my head in
and rolled and came up with the gun ready. A good thing too. The pseudo tree trunk was writhing nicely, while out of the foliage across the track appeared the front end of the thing.

A snake. With a head as big as a barrel, gaping mouth, flicking tongue, beady eyes, hissing like an exploding boiler. While right under those widespread jaws was Angelina, sitting up and shaking her head dizzily
and totally unaware of what was happening. There was time for one shot, and I wanted it to be a good one. As that demonic head came down, I held my wrist with my left hand to steady the gun and squeezed off a round right into the thing’s mouth. With a muffled thud its head was blown off in a cloud of smoke.

That should have been the end of it – except for a gigantic spasm that went through the
entire length of that muscular body. Before I could get out of the way, a shuddering thrashing loop struck me, bowled me over, and hurled me into the trees. This time there was no fancy roll and dive but a simple crunch splintery bang as I crashed through the branches, and one got me on the side of the head, and with a nice white explosion of pain that was that.

A period of time passed that I
was not aware of. It was the ache in my head that drew me reluctantly back to consciousness, plus a new and sharper pain in my leg. I opened one
bleary eye and saw something small and brown with a lot of claws and teeth that was tearing an opening in my pants leg in order to make lunch out of my thigh. The first hungry bite was what had woken me, and before it could go on to a second course, I
kicked it with my boot. It growled and screeched at this and showed me all its teeth but reluctantly slipped away into the foliage when I attempted another weak kick in its direction.

Weak was the word for everything I felt. It took me some time to do more than lie there and gasp and try to remember what had happened. The road, the snake, the wreck ….

‘Angelina!’ I shouted hoarsely and struggled
to my feet, ignoring the waves of pain that washed through me. ‘Angelina!’

There was no answer. I pushed through the shrubbery to witness a singularly nasty sight. A churning row of brown animals, relatives of the one who had nibbled me, were working on the carcass of the snake and had already reduced great sections of it to neatly polished rib cage. And my gun was gone. I turned back and searched
where I had fallen, but it was not there. Something was wrong, very wrong, and the shrill voice of panic was beginning to keen in the back of my head.

As long as I stayed clear of them, the carrion eaters ignored me, so I made a wide circle across the road. The car was gone as well. And so was Angelina.

This required cogent thought which was impossible with the aches and pains that were crippling
me. And I had to do something about the insects that were buzzing about the wound in my head. My medikit was still in its pocket and that was next in the order of business. In a few minutes I was soothed, de-pained, stimulated, and ready for action. But where was the action? Wherever the car was, my clicking thoughts responded. Its tracks were clear enough in the muddy ground – which also revealed
the mystery of Angelina’s disappearance. There were at least two sets of large, ugly masculine footprints around the churned area where the
vehicle had been righted. As well as another set of car tracks. Either we had been followed or a chance bunch of tourists had arrived on the scene after the snake incident. Spatters of mud and bent grass showed that both cars had carried on in the original
direction we had been going. I went that way myself, in a ground-eating trot, trying not to think about what might have happened to Angelina.

This trotting didn’t last long. The heat and fatigue slowed me to a shambling walk. A stimtab took care of one, and I just sweated out the other. The tracks were clear, and I followed. In less than an hour the road had wound its way up out of the jungle
and into the dry hills. Coming around a turn, I had a quick glimpse of one of the cars pulled up ahead and I drew quickly back.

A plan was needed. My gun had vanished, so shooting down the kidnappers was slightly out of the question. The few remaining devices in my clothing were nonlethal, though I did have a wrist holder full of grenades that Angelina had given me. This was the answer. A handful
of sleepgas bombs to drop the kidnappers before they could shoot me. And maybe a couple of explosive grenades in the other hand just in case any of the enemy were not near Angelina and needed more dramatic means of disposal.

Thus armed and ready, I crept forward from rock to rock, took a deep breath, and jumped into the clearing where both vehicles waited.

And caught the wooden club in the side
of my head, wielded by the guard who had been waiting quietly for someone to pull this kind of stunt.

I was only out a fraction of a second, long enough for my wrists and ankles to be tied and all my weapons that they could find to be stripped from me. For this disaster I can blame only myself and my inattention. Fatigue and stimulants may have contributed, but my own stupidity had been the cause. I cursed myself under my breath, which did no good at all, as I was dragged across the ground
and dumped down by Angelina.

‘Are you all right?’ I croaked.

‘Of course. And in far better shape than you are.’

Which was true. Her clothing was torn and there were some bruises where she had been knocked around. Someone was going to pay and pay well for that. I could hear my teeth grating together. And she was tied just as I was.

‘They thought you were dead,’ she said. ‘And so did I.’ There
was a wealth of unsaid feeling in her words, and I tried a smile which was a little more twisted than I like. ‘I don’t know how long we lay there; I was unconscious, too. When I came to, I was like this, and they had taken the guns and everything and were loading it all into the cars. Then we left. There was nothing I could do to stop them. All they speak is that same horrible language.’

They
looked as horrible as their language sounded, all scruffy clothing and greasy leather straps, bushels of matted dirty hair and beard. I had an entirely unnecessary closer look at one of them when he came over and twisted my head to one side and the other while he compared my crunched features with a good photograph of myself that he had. I snapped my teeth at the filthy fingers, but he pulled them
away in time. These must be He’s men; the photo proved that, though I had no idea where He got it from. Taken during one of our tangles in time, no doubt, and treasured in his
pocket ever since. At this point I noticed the ugliest and smelliest of the lot ogling Angelina, and I snapped at his ankle and was kicked aside for my pains.

Give Angelina that, she is a very direct-minded girl. When she
knows what she wants, she gets it, no matter what. Now she saw the only way we could get out of this mess and she used it. Woman’s wiles. With no hint of disgust at the ugly brute she lavished her attentions upon. She could not speak their language, but the language she did speak was as old as mankind. Turning away from me, she smiled at the hairy beast and gave a twist of her head to call him
over. Her shoulders were back, her charming figure prominent, her hips tilted coyly.

Of course it worked. There was a bit of lively discussion with the other two, but Hairiest knocked one of them down, and that was that. They looked on with burning jealousy as he stalked over to her. She smiled her warmest and held out her slim, bound wrists.

What man could resist that unspoken appeal? Certainly
not this shambling hulk. He cut the thongs on her wrists and put his knife away as she bent to free her ankles. When he hauled her to her feet, she arose eagerly. He locked her in a bearlike embrace, bending his face to hers.

I could have told him that he would be safer off trying to kiss a saber-tooth tiger, but I did not. What happened next only I could see because the jealous watchers were
blocked from sight by the bulk of his body. Who would imagine that those delicate fingers could shape themselves into that hard a point, that the thin wrist could propel the hand so deep into bushy’s gut? Lovely. He bent to her and, with only a gentle sigh, kept bending. For a moment she supported his weight – then stepped back and screamed as he folded to the ground.

A picture of feminine innocence,
hands to cheeks, eyes staring, shrieking at the strange occurrence of a strong man collapsing at her feet. Of course the other two ran over, but there were the beginnings of expressions of cold suspicion on their faces. The first one carried my gun.