"HARRISON, Harry - 08 - The Stainless Steel Rat Sings The Blues (V1.0)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

commit suicide if you wish to."
I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought of their humanity, but I was seized
by many hands and dragged forward before I could speak. The glass was whisked
away-and so was I. Deep down to a dank chamber, walls damp with water and
covered with moss. A cuff was clamped around my ankle; a chain ran from it to a
staple in the wall. They all exited except for the Colonel who stood with his
hand on the operating lever of the thick, undoubtedly watertight, door.
He grinned in victorious triumph, bent over and placed an antique pistol on the
floor. As I dived for it the door shut and sealed with a final thud.
Was this really the end? I turned the pistol over in my hands, saw the dull
shape of the single cartridge. End of Jim diGriz, end of the Stainless Steel
Rat, end of everything.
There was the distant thank of a valve opening and cold water gushed down on me
from a thick pipe in the ceiling. It gurgled and slopped, covering my feet, then
quickly up to my ankles. When it reached my waist I lifted the gun and looked at
it. Not much of a choice. The water rose steadily. Covered my chest, up to my
chin. I shuddered.
Then the water stopped splashing down. It was cold and I was shivering
uncontrollably. The light in the waterproof fixture revealed only stone wall,
dark water.
"What are you playing at bastardacoj?" I shouted; "Humane torture to go with
your humane murder?"
A moment later I got my answer. The level began to drop.
"I was right-torturers!" I bellowed. "Torture first-then murder. And you call
yourself civilized. Why are you doing this?"
The last of the water gurgled down the drain and the door slowly opened. I aimed
the pistol at it. I wouldn't mind drowning if I could take the cretinous colonel
or the sadistic sergeant with me.
Something dark appeared through the partly open door. The gun banged and the
bullet thudded into it. A briefcase.
"Cease fire!" a male voice called out. "I am your lawyer."
"He only has one bullet, you're safe," I heard the Colonel gay.
The briefcase came hesitantly into the room, carried by a grayhaired man who was
wearing the traditional gold-flecked and diamond decorated black suit that
adorned lawyers throughout the galaxy.
"I am your court-appointed lawyer, Pederasis Narcoses."
"What good will you do me-if the trial will be after my execution?"
"None. But that is the law. I will have to interview you now to enable me to
conduct your defense at the trial."
"This is madness-I'll be dead?"
"That is correct. But it is the law." He turned to the Colonel. "I must be alone
with my client. That is also the law."
"You have ten minutes, no longer."
"That will suffice. Admit my assistant in five minutes. He has the court papers
and the will."
The door thunked shut and Narcoses opened his briefcase and took out a plastic
bottle filled with a greenish liquid. He removed the top and handed it to me.
"Drink this, all of it. I'll hold the gun."
I handed him the weapon, took the bottle, smelled it and coughed. "Horrible. Why
should I drink it?"