"05 - The SSR for President" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

copy on its cover glowing with self-importance. "Come to sunny perfection on the holiday world of Paraiso-Aqui," I read aloud.
Angelina, sitting at my side, was reading from a more sober and thinner volume, appropriately bound in black.
"Paraiso-Aqui is a planet that was settled during the first galactic expansion and only recently rediscovered. It is noteworthy for having the most corrupt form of government in the galaxy."
"A slight difference of opinion between these two sources," I said, rubbing my hands together with anticipatory glee.
"Afternoon bouillon, sir?" the steward-robot asked, bowing and scraping before us.
"Not even to bathe in, you mechanized toady," I said. "Ill have a large Altairian panther juice on the rocks. Better make that twoЧ" "One," Angelina said firmly. "Bouillon for me." "Yes, madam, delighted, perfect choice, wonderful," the obsequious machine salivated, bowing and nodding and rubbing its hands together as it writhed away. I hated it. Just as much as I hated everything else about this space-going cruise ship, the Luxurious Paradise Planet Tour, as well as all of the repulsive and loathsomely garbed tourists who gathered in shrieking throngs throughout the lounge.
"But we're dressed the same way, my darling," Angelina said. I must have spoken my thoughts aloud in the passion of the moment. And we were indeed dressed the same way. With a vengeance! I wore a short-sleeved shirt patterned with hideous purple and yellow blossoms. With shorts to match. Angelina wore exactly the same outfit, admittedly filling hers out in a far more attractive way. Also, in the latest holiday fashion, we had our hair dyed blonde and curled into

11

12 The Stainless Steel Rat for President

little green-tipped ringlets. I would have felt like an absolute fool were it not for the fact that all of our fellow travelers

were garbed and coiffed in an equally repulsive fashion. A perfect disguise, yes, but what a price it exacted from my free soul! I opened the brochure to reveal a holopic of a deep blue

sea under a light blue sky. The waves stirred and crashed onto the beach with a tiny crashing sound; a faint smell of sea brine wafted up from the page.
"Happy natives laugh away their days in the sunshine amidst the gustatory glories of sun-ripened fruit and freshcaught fish. "
Angelina read quietly from her book, a dark counterpoint to mine. "
"The inhabitants live in a condition of near-slavery; poverty and disease is the norm. The rule of the dictators government is absolute."
"Thirty minutes to planetfall . . . planetfall in thirty minutes," the loudspeakers whispered. The tourists stirred and squeaked with excitement. I threw my guidebook into the atomic oubliette where it exploded with a puff of smoke, thin cries echoing from its recorded pages.
"We'll just have to see for ourselves," I said. Angelina handed me the Special Corps report and I nodded and sent it after the other. "If that is found in our luggage we are finished before we even begin."
The steward smarmed up and we took our drinks. Angelina smiled across her steaming cup at me. "Now, don't be a spoilsport, Jim diGriz. This is not only a cover, but is a real holiday as well. You're going to enjoy it if I have to throttle

you into submission. Think of it as a second honeymoonЧ no, afirst one! We never did have a proper one."
"Aren't we a little late? After all the twins are almost twenty years old . . ."
"Which makes me hideous, middle-aged and unattractive I suppose?" There was ice in her words and menace in her voice, I threw my drink asideЧit ate a hole in the carpet where it fellЧand dropped on my knees before her.
"Angelina mine! Light of my life! More beautiful with each passing day!" Which was true enough; she was curved and warm and lovely, with more of her delicate pink skin out of the holiday outfit than in it. I seized her hands and kissed her fingers passionately and all of the tourists cheered while she smiled and nodded.

The Stainless Steel Rat for President 13

"That's more like it," she said. "A little holiday from crime will do us both a world of good."
"Then we were on the ground and the lock was opened;

warm air and sweet music rolled in from outside. I settled my camera around my neck, put on my sunglasses, took Angelina by the arm and joined the ecstatic throng. Their happiness

was catching. Angelina caught it, smiling and laughing with the others, humming along with the catchy music. I was immune. I chortled and grimaced with the best of them, but inside it was the same old hot-tempered and cold-blooded diGriz who peeped out at the world.
But it was hard to be a curmudgeon in a place like this. The spaceport was sited at the ocean's edge; the salt tang in the air was delicious and sharp. The sun was as warm as advertised. Smiling native girls, bare-busted and buxom, greeting the tourists with wreaths of flowers and tiny bottles of some golden beverage. I pocketed the bottle and sniffed the flow-

ers, pretending indifference to the mammalian magnificence on all sides, knowing full well that Angelina had her steely eyes on me. The crowd of voyagers moved forward so smoothly that within a few moments we were facing the official at passport control. He was as brown-skinned and smiling as the girls, but was wearing a shirt, no doubt to demonstrate his executive position.
"Bonvenu al faraiso-Aqui," he said, extending his hand. "Viaj pasportoj, mi petas."
"So you speak Esperanto on this planet," I said, responding in the same language as I passed over my interstellar identity card. Forged of course.
"Not everyone," he said, still smiling, as he slipped the card into the machine before him. "Our language is the beautiful Espanol. But everyone you will meet will speak Esperanto, have no fear." He looked at the machine's screen while he talked, which of course revealed nothing except the blandest untrue information about me. When he returned the card he pointed to the gadget-covered camera about my neck.
"That is indeed a fine photographic apparatus you have there."
"It should beЧcost me more credits than you see in a year I bet, ho-ho."
"Ho-ho," ;he echoed, the smile not quite so sincere now. "May I look at this machine?"

14 The Stainless Steel Rat for President

"Why? It's just a camera." "There are certain regulations about cameras, you see." "Why? Got something to hide?"