Loud voices sounded from the other room. When she went out she opened the door quickly then closed it behind her. She was back in a moment with glass and welcome bottle.

  “Not too much,” she said.

  “Never,” I said, knocking back a quick one. “What’s up?”

  “Lots of excitement. The house detective showed up and James told him to alert the police and get the doctor on call. Said that Chaise had broken in and tried to rob us. All the blood was caused by the wound on the burglar’s leg.” I knew better than to ask how that had happened. “The people in the room above us sounded the alarm when the shot came through floor. Fortunately missed them. The fire department was here but we sent them away. I’ll get some better painkiller from the doctor when he arrives. Meanwhile, be a dear and put Bolivar into the picture.”

  “Right, good as done.” A few more sips while I was waiting for him to come to the phone. He sounded worried.

  “Don’t be. We had an armed intruder, who is no longer armed and I am sure very sorry that he intruded. James took him out.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Chaise, would you believe it? Somehow he followed you here.”

  “Impossible. We have an undercover agent in his bank. He has been there since yesterday, he has never left.”

  “But…” I was at a loss for words. Luckily Bolivar was still in possession of his wits.

  “There must be two Kaizis! That would explain a lot o things. Could be twins, like Bolivar and me. I have to go now I must get back to destroying the economy. Keep me in touch.”

  Angelina came in and carefully closed the door behind her cutting off the sound of even more voices. “Police, an insurance investigator, the doctor-I bribed him to get these-and even Puissanto has shown up.”

  “Chaise is still in the bank-yet he is lying on the floor out there.”

  “Lift your arm.” She shook antibiotic onto the wound.

  “Bolivar thinks that there are two Kaizis.”

  “Very possible. That would explain how he put me into that cell while he was working on you back here. I always thought that there was something suspicious about him.”

  “Suspicious? Like his being twins? You never told me!”

  “Just feminine intuition. I was waiting to make sure.” She tied the compression bandage around the wound, then held the ultrasound injector against my forearm. It blasted painkiller through my skin; everything became quite rosy quite soon. I frowned as she took the bottle and glass away. I was relaxing in the golden glow when the door opened again and she came back in. Only it wasn’t her but the muscle-bound figure of Puissanto instead.

  “Got yourself into quite a bit of trouble,” he said. Looking at the bandage and the blood on my clothes.

  “A flesh wound. You should have seen the other guy.”

  “I have. A good job. But his career is just about at an end. He and his brother’s.”

  “Twins?”

  “No. This one’s the older brother. He had a little surgery to make them look alike. It helps them in their interstellar con games. We in GIT have been after them for tax evasion for a long time. I’m glad you finally smoked them out.”

  “What’s going to happen to them?”

  “A lot. My department of Galactic Tax Inspection has been working closely with the local tax authorities and the police. Their simple-minded brother in the hospital has already been fingered for assisting in the murder of a worker named Iba. Igor will get medical and psychiatric treatment. But the wounded brother in the next room goes down for murder. No death sentence on Fetorr. But a life sentence here really does mean life.”

  “Two down and one to go.”

  “They want the other Chaise on this planet for bank robbery-Igor’s confession will help there. They’ll put him in the slammer for a good long time for that crime alone. If he ever gets out they will turn him over to us for sentencing for interstellar tax evasion.”

  “Well done,” I said as he turned to leave. “The good guys seem to have won. But what about that wanted criminal who has been in all the papers? The superthief, the Stainless Steel Rat?”

  He turned back. “The feeling among the honest police - and there are very few of them-seems to be that he was pretty well framed by Chaise. They would like to interview him, and they still have some charges outstanding against him. But, unhappily, it has been reported that he fled the planet and is now in hiding well beyond their jurisdiction.” He rooted in his pocket, took something out. “Anyway-they never had much evidence.” He threw it onto the bed and left.

  I picked it up and ran my fingertips over the burnished surface. A metal cutout of a stainless steel rat. I sighed. And fell asleep holding it.

  CHAPTER 28

  Some things I remember, others I had to be told about. The mixture of painkillers, booze, fatigue, shock, you name it, kept me out of the picture for a bit. We must have left the hotel safely because the next thing I knew I was in a hospital bed recovering from surgery.

  “Went absolutely fine,” Angelina said. She was sitting by the bed holding my hand. This was the first thing that I saw when I opened my eyes. And not a bad sight at all.

  “Fine?” I muttered.

  “The operation on your arm. You had a nasty flesh wound right through your biceps. The medicos cultured a fine new chunk of muscle cells from a couple of cells that you donated. Planted the new muscle, then covered the wound with a skin culture of the same kind. The pain should be gone by now.”

  “It is!” I flexed my arm. Gloriana put her front trotters up on the bed and snuffled my hand. I managed to give her a good scratch or two. “Oh, the miracles of modern medical science.” I looked around. “Where am I?”

  “In the medical facilities of the Banco Cuerpo Especial. Which in addition to being the bank of the Special Corps is also an official embassy. It also happens to have its own hospital as well. We are here and safe until the Corps spacer arrives. Soon now.”

  “We?”

  “Bolivar is here as well. The Fetorr police are still looking for him for escaping from their jail. But they are not looking too hard since they have so much else on their hands. James will be here soon. He is finishing the last computerized transfers of all the financial shennanigans. A great profit he says, mostly for the Corps, but a good bit for us for setting the whole thing up.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Perfectly fine. After all it was you who got shot.”

  “But it was you who had to sit there and watch it.” I thrashed about and managed to sit up in the bed. “I’m getting up.”

  “Of course. Your clothes are folded on the chair there.”

  I was a little woozy at first, but that soon passed. Angelina led the way down the hall to a relaxing sort of lounge room with attractive-looking food and drink dispensers against the wall. Bolivar was there drinking a beer and it was reunion time all over again.

  “I hear that all of your financial gamesmanship has paid off.”

  “It certainly has. We have turned a good profit without bankrupting the planet, as Chaise planned to do. Aside from our money-market profits, I am happy to report that you are also well-off financially.”

  “Who, me? Chaise told me that he had cleaned my account out of all the money he had paid to me.”

  “He did. I was sure from the very beginning that is what he planned to do-and there was no real way to stop him. However, as the money was being transferred from bank to bank I saw to it that over five percent was deducted as bank charges. The total sums transferred were so large that even that amount is really impressive. That money is safely buried.”

  “Buried? I have the feeling that I am missing something.”

  “It’s very simple. The percentage of the money, that we slipped out as it was being transferred, was taken out as cash. Untraceable. With it we bought chips of nanomemory from James’s firm. Those chips hold so many nanobytes of memory that one of them the size of your fingernail is worth hundreds of thousands of credits. I buried them in the garden under the roses.”

  “Well I never…” And I hadn’t.

  “I’m looking forward to picking some of those roses,” was Angelina’s practical suggestion.

  Our happiness was intense, and our pleasure squared when James came in.

  “All done!” he announced. “The Fetorr operation has ended most satisfactory for all concerned.”

  “Not for all I hope,” said I. “Have Chaise, Kaizi-2, and Igor met their just deserts?”

  “Justice is swift here, particularly when you try to pinch all of the planetary assets. The gruesome twosome are tucked away where the sun does not shine, with numbers on their chests and bars on their window. Their younger brother is recovering his health and is singing like a bird. He was mentally-if not physically-abused by his older brothers. He is institutionalized and under treatment. Now that he knows that he is beyond the reach of his brothers he appears to be happy for the first time in his life.”

  “I was feeling guilty about causing him that heart attack,” I said. “I guess I shouldn’t be.” I smacked my lips dryly. “If Angelina is as thirsty as I am she needs liquid aid.”

  “Good as done. A wine and a beer in that order?” Bolivar asked as he went to the bar. We nodded agreement. James joined him and poured a beer for himself.

  Then we all raised our glasses on high.

  “Can anyone think of a toast?” Angelina asked.

  There was silence until I coughed. They all looked at me.

  “Of course. It is a quite simple one. To my family. To missing wives soon to be joined with their distant husbands. Then-a long life and a happy one for each and every one of us.”

  We drank to that.

  “And a year’s vacation for your mother and I,” I added.

  “I don’t believe it,” James added.

  “Nor do I,” James added.

  “But it is true,” Angelina said. “We had a long talk about it. No work and plenty play. All calls from Inskipp go unanswered. The Special Corps can take care of itself. We live off of our savings and resist all schemes, honest or dishonest, to add more credits to our kitty.”

  Both boys were dumbfounded. James gurgled and spoke for them both.

  “And-at the end of the year…”

  “Why we start another year of doing exactly the same thing,” Angelina said, smiling sweetly.

  The twins looked at me and I nodded patient agreement. “Look, boys, I have saved the universe just once too often. I have been elected president, traveled in time, defeated alien races, robbed countless banks. The time has come, I do believe, to rest on my laurels.” I thought a moment. “There is of course one bit of work I might do …”

  “You never!” Angelina said, quite angrily.

  “Don’t misunderstand! Not crookery. I meant I might write down my memoirs. No one will believe me of course.”

  “Then disguise them as fiction!”

  “Of course-what a splendid idea. And I even have a title. The first volume shall be titled-The Stainless Steel Rat. With plenty more volumes to come.”

  Bolivar rubbed his jaw in thought. “You know, I have always had a secret ambition. After lunar exploration, that is. My newfound expertise in banking will be of great help. I have always felt, deep down, that I wanted to be a publisher. Can I start with your book, Dad?”

  “Of course. Draw up the contract and make sure that the advance on signing is a big one.”

  “Good as done!”

  He began to enthusiastically punch contract details into his pocket computer. James collected the empty glasses and went to get another round of drinks. Angelina leaned over and took my hand.

  “You do mean it, Jim, about retiring?”

  “I certainly do. If I had any doubts before, this mess with Chaise has washed them away. There are lots of worlds out there. Let us go out and enjoy them.”

  “Those are the most beautiful words that I think I have ever heard.” Then she dug into her purse and took something out and passed it over to me.

  “Found that in your pocket. Want to keep it?”

  I looked at it and shook my head. “What in the world would I do with a stainless steel rat?”

  “Then I’ll have it,” she said, and put it away. “I’ll lock it in a box and keep it handy. Then, whenever I am feeling depressed, or out of sorts, or worried or just anything except just plain happy, I will take it out and look at it. To remind myself of all the fun that we have had.” She smiled around at her family, leaned over and gave Gloriana a little scratch between the ears.

  “And to also remind myself that we are all so very lucky that we came out of all of our various adventures and escapades without permanent damage.”

  We drank to that as well.

  At peace.

  THE END?

  Page 173 of 174

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  The Stainless Steel Rat Returns

  XII of The Stainless Steel Rat

  Harry Harrison

  Tor (Dec 2009)

  * * *

  Tags: Fiction

  After a ten-year absence, the return of one of the most enduring series characters in modern SF

  James Bolivar "Slippery Jim" DiGriz, Special Corps agent, master con man, interstellar criminal (retired), is living high on the hog on the planet of Moolaplenty when a long-lost cousin and a shipful of swine arrive to drain his bank account and send him and his lovely wife, Angelina, wandering the stars on the wildest journey since Gulliver's Travels.

  In this darkly satiric work, Harry Harrison bring his most famous character out of retirement for a grand tour of the galaxy. The Stainless Steel Rat rides again: a cocktail in his hand, a smile on his lips, and larceny in his heart, in search of adventure, gravitons, and a way to get rid of the pigs.

  From Publishers Weekly

  Harrison returns to his long-running interstellar adventure series for the first time since 1999's The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus. Slippery Jim DiGriz, a thief and con artist, is enjoying a comfortable 35th-century life when his hick relatives show up, farm animals in tow, looking for a handout. Jim and his beloved wife, Angelina, are soon careening around to various backwater worlds where Jim hopes to ditch the unwanted kinfolk. The series' 1960s origins are most painfully obvious in the descriptions of a planet where the green-skinned, shiftless, slow-witted majority oppresses the smarter, slower-breeding, pink-skinned minority. Shocked not by the race wars but by the existence of races at all, Jim (himself quite pink) declares that the different skin colors "should have been bred out centuries ago." Modern readers are unlikely to find this tale appealing in any way.

  Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

  From Booklist

  Slippery Jim DiGriz has been retired from both interstellar intrigue and the printed page for nearly 10 years. Now a long-lost and unwelcome cousin arrives to spoil his cushy retirement on the planet Moneyplenty. The Stainless Steel Rat and his wife, Angelina, have to hit the spaceways to recoup their fortunes. This they do, after a long series of adventures, done with a satirical eye and a fine sense of how to keep the pacing fast. The Rat is a classic outlaw-as-hero type, the bandit with a heart of refined metal, and as such has become one of Harrison’s most enduring creations. Wherever there’s an audience for Slippery Jim, this latest tale should go on the shelves. --Roland Green

  THE

  STAINLESS

  STEEL RAT

  RETURNS

  PREVIOUSLY BY HARRY HARRISON,

  FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

  Galactic Dreams

  The Jupiter Plague

  Montezuma’s Revenge

  One Step from Earth

  Planet of No Return

  Planet of the Damned

  The QE2 Is Missing

  Queen Victoria’s Revenge

  A Rebel in Time

  Skyfall

  Stainless Steel Visions

  The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell

  The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus

  Stonehenge

  A Transatlantic Tunnel, Hurrah!

  50 in 50

  A Stainless Steel Trio

  Make Room! Make Room!

  The Stainless Steel Rat Returns

  THE HAMMER AND THE CROSS TRILOGY

  The Hammer and the Cross

  One King’s Way

  King and Emperor

  HARRY HARRISON

  THE

  STAINLESS

  STEEL RAT

  RETURNS

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK / NEW YORK

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TITLE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19