The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection by Harry Harrison Read Free Book Online

grabbedhim before he could flee.
    ‘Grab a stick and make yourself useful,’ I said. ‘I’ll teach you a new skill.’
    So we scratched like crazy under the creature’s quills while it grunted with pleasure. Trotting behind us like a pet dog when we finally left. ‘We got a friend for life,’ I said as we slipped out of the gate and I waved goodbye to our porcine pal.
    ‘Those kind of friends I can live withoutforever. You figure out what we do next?’
    ‘Absolutely. Advance planning, that’s my middle name. There is a siding down this way where they tranship from the linears to trucks. We stay away from it because the police are sure to be there. But all the trucks take the same road to the highway where there is a traffic control light. They have to stop until the highway computers see them and let themon. We go there –’
    ‘And break into the back of one of the trucks!’
    ‘You’re learning. Only we get one in the right lane going west. Otherwise we end up back in the fine city of Pearly Gates and right after that in the prison we worked so hard to get out of.’
    ‘Lead the way, Jim. You’re the brainiest kid I ever met. You’re going to go far.’
    That was my expressed wish and I nodded quick agreement.I was just sorry that he wasn’t going too. But I didn’t want to live with some far-off yokel’s life on my conscience – as much as he might deserve a little aggro. But Stinger planned far more than that. I could not be party to a killing.
    We found the road and waited in the bushes beside it. Two trucks rumbled up together – with the lights of another one following. We stayed out of sight. Firstone, then the second pulled out and headed east. When the third slowed down to stop his turn lights came on. West!
    We ran. I was fumbling with the locking bar when Stinger shouldered me aside. He hauled down and the door swung open. The truck started forward and he pushed me up into it. He had to run as it started its turn – but he grabbed the sill and pulled himself up with a single heave ofthose mighty arms. Between us we got the door closed but not sealed.
    ‘We done it!’ he said triumphantly.
    ‘We certainly did. This truck is going in the right direction for you – but I have to get back to Pearly Gates as soon as the heat dies down. In about an hour we’ll be passing through Billville. I’ll leave you there.’
    It was a quick trip. I swung down at the first stop for a light and hegripped my hand. ‘Good luck, kid,’ he called out as the truck pulled away. I couldn’t wish him the same.
    I dug out a buck coin as the truck rumbled away. And made a mental note of its registration number. As soon as it was out of sight I headed towards the lights of a phonebox. I felt like a rat as I punched the buttons for the police.
    But, really, I had no choice.

CHAPTER SIX

    Unlike the hapless Stinger, I had a careful escape plan worked out. Part of it was a literal misdirection for my late partner. He was not really stupid so it shouldn’t take him very long to figure out who had blown the whistle on him. If he talked and told the police that I had returned to the fine city of Pearly Gates – why that would be all for the better. I had no intention ofleaving Billville, not for quite a while.
    The office had been rented through an agency and all transactions had been done by computer. I had visited it before my hopeless bank job, and at that time had left some supplies there. They would come in very handy right now. I would enter through the service door of the fully-automated building – after turning off the alarms by using a concealed switchI had been prudent enough to install there. It had a timer built into it so I had ten lazy minutes to get to the office. I yawned as I picked the lock, sealed the door behind me, then trudged up three flights of stairs. Past the dull eyes of the deactivated cameras and through the invisible – and inoperative – infra-red beams. I picked the lock of the