No tourist here! Two men in military uniform, weapons drawn, came into the room. I waited until I was sure there were no more coming before stepping out behind them. "Looking for someone?" I asked.
They spun about, weapons swinging up, growling with anger. I held my breath and popped the sleep capsule under their noses, then stepped back while they clanked and clattered to the carpet. One of them was about my size which presented me with a very obvious yet still interesting idea.
My only real complaint was that I would have preferred it if the soldier had bathed more often. When I put his uniform on over my beach clothes I had a definite fragrance to remember him by. As neat as his uniform was, his undergarments were a lacework of holes and patches. A soldier's salary could not be very high. But no money had been spared on his equipment. Microradio, ion rifle with a full charge, . 50 recoilless sidearm and full refill clips of ammunition. By the time I had put everything into place I looked quite efficiently military. And my skin was tanned to the same color as that of the locals.
"Well done, Jim, well done indeed," I congratulated myself.
"The Stainless Steel Rat strikes again, penetrating where no other dares, insinuating himself into the ferroconcrete wainscoting of society. Moving like a ghost, striking like lightning. Fearless and forceful. Great!" With my morale heightened by these well-deserved compliments I gave a last adjustment to my uniform and opened the door.
The doorframe exploded beside my face and bullets crashed and screamed around me.
Chapter 5
I slammed the door shut again and hurled myself aside. Just as another burst of firing stitched a neat row of holes through the paneling of the dgor where I had been standing.
"This will not do much for the tourist trade," I muttered, as I crawled on my belly to the balcony. Now that I knew that these boys were playing for keeps, I draped the helmet over the gunbarrel and poked it forward cautiously. Quick shots sounded from the adjoining balcony and the helmet jumped and clattered at my feet. Short-tempered. I put it on again and tried to ignore the shining dents.
"You should not be so greedy, James," I said. "You are paying now for your little luncheon break." Harsh words, but true enough-and I deserved them. When I am right, which is very often, I admit it. But when lam wrong I admit that as well. A criminal who tries to fool himself is very quickly an ex-criminal and is either two meters underground or looking out at the sky through the bars in front of his window.
"Moment of contrition has passed. Now-how do you get out of this. "Think hard." I thought. Both my flanks were held by the enemy and time was running out. Time to open a new flank. I hurried into the bathroom, just as automatic fire penetrated the front door once again. The shower seemed the best bet at this time of day. I didn't want to cause any accidents to innocent bystanders. I took out the debonder, switched it on, then quickly ran it in a circle over the bottom of the shower pan.
The molecular debonder has been called a disintegrator ray, which is not true. It does not destroy any material at all. It simply works on the molecular bonds that hold all matter together, lessening their charges for a brief instant. When this happens the binding energy that binds the molecules of matter to each other no longer holds them together. Simple enough, isn't it?
The bottom of the shower pan, and the floor beneath it, fell away and smashed down into the shower of the apartment directly below. As I dropped through after it I heard the apartment door behind me crash open. The wisest thing to do now was to keep moving. I did. Out of the bathroom and into the sitting room where I found a trembling female tourist from our ship. She was frantically punching a number into the phone. She looked up at me and screamed.
"Cana, caballero, Espanol, ron!" I called out hoarsely, exhausting my knowledge of the local language at the same time. She screamed and fainted. Wonderful. I eased the door open a crack; the hall was empty.
It was time for speed, not caution. I went down the hall at a dead run, brushing past a gaggle of tourists, and on into the corridor that led to the service stairs. I always check the layout of a new building when I first arrive and, not for the first time, I was glad that I had this habit. The door to the service stairs was just where I had seen it last and I was about to pull it open when I heard the thunder of running feet inside. They were ahead of me! But the sound began to die away. I took a chance and opened the door a crack. Wide enough to see uniformed backs vanishing down the stairs. Perfect!
I vanished after them.
The sergeant leading the pack shouted encouragement at the soldiers as they ran, stumbling on the stairs in their heavy boots. I scurried down after them, stayed just behind themthen merged with the pack as the stragglers slowed, gasping for breath. We all staggered out on the ground floor in a shambling run to join the other soldiers and police milling about here. It was simplicity itself to work my way out to the edge of the mob, then to slip away between the buildings.
A few minutes later I found myself whistling cheerily as I stowed the uniform and equipment in a bin behind the hotel kitchen. Once this had been done I became a simple tourist again, one of the goggle-eyed horde that milled about and shouted to one another for information about what was going on. Some of the guides and hotel workers were attempting to calm them, but I stayed well away from any of the locals, no matter how innocent they appeared to be. I joined some tourists on the beach, and if I strolled further down the sunny sands than they did, who was to say no? A headland pushed out to form a bay here, and when I walked around it I was safely out of sight of the hotel and all of the disturbance I had so unwittingly caused.
By this time I was pleasantly tired. An easy climb up the bank brought me to the edge of the jungle. I sat down gratefully in the shade of a large tree, out of sight of the beach below, and enjoyed the changing colors of the twilight. "The sun dropped into the ocean, without the slightest hiss, and darkness slowly descended. So did 1. The grass was soft, the jungle free of tropical insects; my eyes closed and I slept the sleep of the innocent and the just.
It was either the ron or the exercise, or both, for I didn't stir until the rising sun struck color from the sky above. I yawned, stretched-and listened to the rumble of my empty stomach. It was time to return. But before I did, I emptied my pockets of all my illegal equipment and buried the items at the base of a large tree. Then, innocent and unshaven I made my way back to the hotel complex.
With the same amount of precaution I had used in leaving it. After all I had gone through I did not want to get a hole blown through me by some trigger-happy recruit. The only way to get off this planet was to surrender to the authorities. But I wanted to do that on my own terms.
The restaurant was the ideal place. I approached it under the cover of the ornamental shrubbery, out of sight of the policemen stamping up and down before the entrance, and slipped in through an open window. A few early risers were already tucking into their breakfasts and I intended to do the same. I filled a plate from the buffet, poured a glass of juice and a cup of coffee, and was well into the same before one of the waiters noticed me and did a trembling take. As he hurried off I took my coffee and moved to another table that was closer to the other diners.
"What was all that trouble about yesterday?" I asked an elderly couple who were shoveling down eggs as though the last hen alive had just died.
"Won't tell us, that's what. Not a word," he said between bites. She nodded agreement, never slowing. "Not good enough I told them. Didn't pay my money to watch a gunfight. Money back I told them, next ship out." Before I could think of a witty answer there was a struggle in the doorway as a half-dozen policemen pushed their way through and ran to my table. Guns pointed.