The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You

their way, we sat down to dinner. We were just about finished with the meal when the satellite announced its return.

“That was fast,” Angelina said.

“Too fast. If something got the spyeye I think they have some pretty good detection equipment. Let us see what it found out.”

I speeded up the recording until we got to the busy part. The star in the center of the screen rushed at us and became a burning sun in an instant. The figures on the second screen revealed that the system had four planets and that radiation consistent with communication and industrial activity was coming from four of them. The spyeye headed for the nearest world and skimmed low.

“My, oh my,” Angelina whispered, and I could only nod agreement.

The entire planet appeared to be a single fortress. Mouths of great guns gaped upwards from thick-walled fortresses; row after row of spaceships were lined up in apparently endless ranks. As the spyeye skimmed along countless war machines rolled up over the horizon. No bit of the planet’s natural surface seemed visible, just more and more machines of war.

“There, look,” I said “That looks just like the space whale that swallowed up the admirals and their satellite. And another of the same—and another.”

“I wonder if they’re friendly?” Angelina said, and was barely able to smile at her own joke. The boys were goggle-eyed and silent.

The end came quickly. Four sudden blips on the radar, closing at headlong speed—and the screen went blank.

“Not too friendly,” I said, and poured myself a drink with a none-too-steady hand. “Make a recording of what we discovered and get it started on a relay back to base. Route it by the nearest base with a psiman so a condensed report can get back soonest. Then I would like someone to suggest a next step for us. Once we have made the report of what we have discovered we are on our own again.”

“And expendable?” Bolivar asked.

“You’re catching on, son.”

“Great,” James said. “On our own with orders from no one.”

I don’t know how much he meant it, but I was proud of my sons right then and there. “Any suggestions?” I asked. “Because. if not I have the glimmerings of a plan.”

“You’re the captain, dear,” Angelina said, and I think she meant it.

“Right. I don’t know if you noticed it on the readout, but that star system is filled with spatial debris. I suggest we find the right-sized hunk of rock and hollow it out and slip one of the patrol boats inside. If we shield it correctly there will be nothing to show that is different from the rest of the boulders floating around that system. Then ease it into orbit, check out the other planets, see if there are any satellites we can slip up on, generally get more information so we can plot out a plan of attack. There must be someplace we can get closer to that isn’t armed to the teeth like that first planet. Agreed?”

After some discussion—since no one could come up with a better plan—it was. We moved out in space drive, radar blipping, and within an hour had found a cloud of rocks and stone, meteoric iron and interstellar mountains, apparently in elliptic orbit about the nearest star. I eased up slowly to the mass, matching velocities and picking out the one we wanted.

“There,” I announced. “Right shape, right size, almost pure iron so it will shield the ship within. Angelina, take the helm and bring us in close. Bolivar, you and I will suit up and slip over there in the patrol boat. We can use its guns to drill the hole we need. James will do communications at this end Keep in touch with us and send over any special equipment we might need. It should be an easy job.”

It was. At minimum output the nose cannon on the patrol boat drilled neatly into the iron, sending out clouds of monatomic gas. When the hole looked deep enough I sealed my suit and went out to examine it for myself, drifting down the length of the silvery drill hole.

“Looks good,” I said when I emerged. “Bolivar, do you think you can ease her in, nose first, without breaking off too many pieces of that ship?”

“A piece of cake, Dad!”

He was as good as his word, and I stood to one side as the patrol boat slid silently by and vanished from sight. Now we could plant instrumentation on the surface, connect it through to the ship, cut another hunk of asteroid to plug the hole when we went in, arrange braces for the boat…

I was facing the Gnasher as I floated there, and she was clearly visible as she stood by two kilometers away at the edge of the spatial debris field. Her ports glowed cheerfully in the interstellar darkness and I looked forward to getting back and getting my feet up after a good day’s work.

Then the black form appeared, blotting out the stars. It was big and fast, very fast, and the mouthlike glowing opening appeared even as it rushed forward. Opening and engulfing the Gnasher and closing again—then vanishing. All in an instant while I could only stay mute in paralyzed silence.

Then it was gone. The ship, Angelina, James.

Gone.

Six

I have had my bad moments but this one, without a doubt, was just about bottom. I was frozen there, fists clenched, staring in horror at the spot where the ship had been but an instant before. Up until this time the sticky moments in my life had, for the most part, involved me and me alone. This solitary danger clears the mind wonderfully, and promotes the gushing of the adrenals when instant action is needed for survival. But now I wasn’t threatened or in danger, or possibly dead—but Angelina and James were. And there was nothing I could do.

I must have made some sound while thinking this, undoubtedly a nasty one, because Bolivar’s voice rang in my ears.

“Dad? What’s going on? Is something wrong?”

The tension broke and I dived for the ship, explaining what had happened as I shot into the airlock. He was white-faced but in control of himself when I appeared in the control compartment.

“What do we do?” he asked in a much subdued voice.

“I don’t know yet. Go after them of course—but where do we go? We need a plan…”

A high-pitched warble sounded from the communication equipment and I bulged my eyes in that direction.

“What is it?” Bolivar asked.

“A general psi-alarm. I’ve read about it in the training manuals but I never heard of it being used before.” I punched a course into the controls. “As you undoubtedly know, radio waves travel at the speed of light, so that a message transmitted from a station one hundred light years away would take a hundred years to reach us. Not the speediest form of communication. So most messages are carried in ships from point to point. This is also the only form of communication that is exempt from Einsteinian laws. Psi, which appears to be instantaneous. So the psimen can talk to one another, brain to brain, without a time lag. All of the good ones work for the League and most of these for Special Corps. There are electronic devices that can detect psi communication, but only at full strength and on a simple on-off basis. Every League ship is equipped with a detector like this, though they have never been used except in tests. To make them switch on every psiman alive broadcasts the same thought at the same time. The single word—trouble. When this psi-alarm is received every ship spacewarps to the nearest broadcast station to find out what is wrong. We’re on our way.”

“Mom and James…”

“Finding them will take some thought—and some help. And, call it a nagging hunch, but I have a feeling that this alarm is not unrelated to this present business we are involved in.”

Unhappily, I was right. We broke out near a repeater beacon and the recorded signal instantly blasted out of our radio.

“…return to base. All ships report for orders. Seventeen League planets have been attacked by alien forces in the past hour. Space war has opened on a number of fronts. Report for orders. All ships return to base. All ships…”