The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You

DO NOT SMILE

A second sign to one side of it continued the message.

DO NOT FROWN

Both admonitions were being grimly obeyed. What kind of a schoolroom was this? As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness I saw a switch and a loudspeaker next to the glass; the function seemed obvious. I flicked the switch and the teacher’s voice rolled over me in drab tones.

“…Moral Philosophy. This course is a required course and every one of you will take it and stay with the course until you have a perfect grade. There are no failures. Moral Philosophy is what makes us great. Moral Philosophy is what enables us to rule. You have read your history books, you know the Days of Kekkonshiki. You know how we were abandoned, how we died, how only the Thousand were left alive. When they were weak, they died. When they were afraid, they died. When they allowed emotion to rule reason, they died. All of you are here today because they lived. Moral Philosophy enabled them to live. It will enable you to live as well. To live and grow and to leave this world and bring our rule to the weaker and softer races. We are superior. We have that right. Now tell me. If you are weak?”

“We die.” The boyish voices chanted in expressionless harmony.

“If you are afraid?”

“We die.”

“If you allow emotion…”

I switched off the program, having the feeling that I had heard more than enough for the moment. It gave pause for thought. For all of the years that I had been pursuing and battling with the gray men I had never bothered to stop and think why they were what they were. I had just taken their nastiness for granted. The few words I had overheard told me that their brutality and intransience was no accident. Abandoned, that’s what the teacher had said. For reasons lost in the depths of time a colony must have been established on this planet. For ore or minerals of some kind, possibly. It was so inhospitable, so far from the nearest settled worlds, that there had to have been a good reason to come here, to work to establish a settlement. Then the people here had been abandoned. Either for local reasons, or during the bad years of the Breakdown. Undoubtedly the colony had never been meant to be self-sustaining. But, once on its own, it had to be. The majority must have died; a handful lived. Lived—if it can be called that—by abandoning all human graces and emotions, lived by devoting their lives simply to the battle for existence. They had fought this implacably brutal planet and had won.

But they had lost a good deal of their humanity in doing this. They had become machines for survival and had brutalized themselves emotionally, crippled themselves. And passed on this disability as a strength to the future generations. Moral Philosophy. But moral only when it related to surviving on this savage planet. Most unmoral when it came to subjugating other people. Yet there was a horrible kind of correctness to it—at least from their point of view. The rest of mankind was weak and filled with unneeded emotions, smiling and frowning, wasting energy on frivolities. These people not only thought they were better– their training forced them to believe that they were better. That and the inculcated generations of hatred of the others who had abandoned them here made them into the perfect galaxy conquerors. On their terms they were helping all the planets they conquered. The weak should die; that was right. The survivors would be led down the path of righteousness to a better life.

Being few in number they could not conquer directly but must work through others. They had engineered and managed the interplanetary invasions of the Cliaand. Invasions that had been succeeding until the Special Corps had busted things up. A busting-up that I had organized. No wonder they had been eager to get their cold little hands on me.

And this was the training ground. The school that made sure that every little Kekkonshiki kid was turned into an emotionless copy of his elders. No fun here. This school for survival that perverted every natural tendency of youth fascinated me. I was warm now, and safe enough for the moment, and the more I learned about this place the better chances I would have to make some plan to do something. Other than lurk in dark corridors. I went on to the next classroom. A workshop, applied science or engineering. Bigger boys here working on apparatus of some kind.

Some kind. That kind! I clutched the metal ring about my neck while I looked on, as hypnotized and paralyzed as a bird by a snake.

They were working on the little metal boxes with push buttons. Boxes with cables that ran to collars like the one I was wearing. Scientific torture machines. I moved my hand slowly and switched on the speaker.

“…the difference is in application, not in theory. You assemble and test these synaptic generators in order to familiarize yourself with the circuitry. Then, when you go on to axion feeds you will have a working knowledge of the steps involved. Now, turn to the diagram on page thirty…”

Axion feeds. That was something I would have to learn more about. It was only a guess—but it seemed a sound one—that this gadget was the one I had never seen. But had experienced. The brainstomper that had generated all my horrible memories. Memories of things that had never happened, never existed outside of my brain. But which were none the better for that. It was all very revealing.

All very stupid of me. Standing there like a sadistic voyeur and not thinking of my flanks. Because of the teacher’s voice muttering away and I did not hear the footsteps approaching, did not know the other man was there until he turned the corner and almost walked right into me.

Thirteen

Action is superior to thought in a situation like this and I hurled myself at him, hands gasping for his throat. Silence first then quickly unconscious. He did not move but he did speak.

“Welcome to Yurusareta School. James diGriz. I was hoping you would find your way here—”

His words shut off as my thumbs closed down on his wind-pipe. He made no move to resist nor did his expression change in the slightest as he looked me calmly in the eyes. His skin was loose and wrinkled and I realized suddenly that he was very, very old.

Although I am well equipped by training and circumstance to fight, and even kill, in self-defense, I am not really very good at throttling old grandfathers to death while they are quietly watching me. My fingers loosened of their own accord. I matched the man stare for stare and snarled in my most nasty manner.

“Shout for help and you are dead in an instant.”

“That is the last thing I wish to do. My name is Hanasu and I have been looking forward to meeting you ever since you escaped. I have done my best to lead you here.”

“Would you mind explaining that?” I let my hands fall, though I was still alert for trouble.

“Of course. As soon as I heard the radio report I tried to put myself in your place. If you went south or east you would end up among the buildings of the city where you would be quickly found. If you did not do this your course would take you west in the direction of this school. Of course if you headed north you would come to the sea very quickly and would then still have to go west. Operating on this theory I changed today’s schedules and decided that all of the boys needed more exercise. They are all hating me now because they missed hours of classroom study that will have to be made up tonight. But they all did a number of kilometers on skis. Their course, not by chance, took them first south then west, to return here in a large loop along the shore. This was designed so that if you did see any of them you would follow them here. Is that what you did?”

There was no point in lying. “Yes. Now what do you plan to do?”

“Do? Why, talk to you of course. You were not seen entering the building?”

“No.”

“Better than I expected. I was sure I would have to axion-feed some people. You are very ingenious, I should have remembered that. Now, the other end of this observation gallery leads to my office. Shall we go there?”

“Why? You’re going to turn me in?”

“No. I want to talk to you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Naturally, you have no reason to. But you have little choice. Since you did not kill me at once I doubt if you will do it now. Follow me.”