"Harrison, Harry - Rat10 - Stainless Steel Rat Joins Circus" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

Gar sighed and slipped out of the rest of the four-armed flesh man. Gloriana let go of the arm and lay down. The pseudoman at the desk stopped writing and fell over sideways onto the floor. Gar took his chair. "I had a brief message from Professor Coypu. He has been of great aid to me in developing my troupe. He said that I should help you if you asked."
"Are you in the Special Corps?" Angelina asked.
"I was. Retired. I worked in the forensic lab. Very boring once you got used to it. As the saying goes-see one corpse and you have seen them all. But I did get inspiration from the work, used it in developing my act. So you see, I do have a far more interesting job now."
"This act."
"A cover. I am..." He waved us close, looked around fearfully, then whispered, the word barely audible. "Guu. "
"Goo?" Angelina said, and he fearfully waved her to silence.
"The Galactic Union Union," he whispered. "You must have heard of us?"
"Vaguely. Aren't you union organizers?"
"We are. We go boldly forth to organize unions were none have been permitted to exist before."
"Like here on Fetorr?"
"You have it in one, comrade. And I must say that if a planet was ever ripe for organizing this one sure is."
"It could also do with a little more free free enterprise, a good bashing for the police bullies, and the introduction of some pollution controls," I said.
"That about sums it up. But keep it quiet for now. Meanwhile-what can I do for you?"
"Help us hide our son Bolivar."
"Is this the same Bolivar diGriz that cleaned out the bank yesterday,
killing a number of women and children when he escaped from the police?"
"The same. Minus the women and children of course. Plus the fact that he did not rob the bank."
"Of course." He rubbed his jaw and looked around the room. "Do you think he would mind being Megalith Man? He's having trouble with feedback controls, see."
There was a stirring in the darkness and a gray creature stumbled forward. Angelina gasped and I had to struggle not to do the same. A rotund bulging forehead almost covered its eyes. Prognathous jaw, clawed fingers and suchlike combined to produce a really disgusting simulacrum of a human being. Gar smiled and nodded.
"Good, isn't he? One of my best creations." The creature groaned, rolled its eyes up-and crashed to the floor. "Your son will be safe in there."
"He certainly will," Angelina sniffed. "And knowing him I am sure that he will probably enjoy it very much as well."
"When he arrives we will get in touch with you," I said. "Thanks."
"No thanks. The Corps takes care of its own.
I had locked our dressing-room door when we left-and it was still locked. Obviously this hadn't slowed down the onceagain male Bolivar who was now staring at the computer screen.
"Your disguise obviously worked," Angelina said. "I'll pack those clothes away." He nodded abstractedly as he typed a quick command into the machine.
"Interesting," he said. I made quizzical noises.
"I have been using the search engine on your employer."
"Chaise? Have you found anything of interest?"
"A good deal. For one thing-he doesn't exist."
"He must! We have met him!"
"I don't mean the physical form, he was there all right. I mean the story about Imperetrix Von Kaiser-Czarski, the richest man in the galaxy. I can find no trace of him."
"Those banks he owns-all over the galaxy. . ."
"Are not owned by him. They are held by corporations who in turn are owned by other corporations. I have traced back through a number of owners and they all appear to be. different. No trace of Chaise. It looks like everything that he has
told you is a lie."
My head was beginning to hurt. I sat down heavily and checked off the facts on my fingertips. "Firstly-he must be very rich or he would not be paying us four million credits a day. Except for yesterday of course. I checked. Not only didn't he deposit the money-he left a very insulting note."
"Of course he paid you. You had to think that he was whom he said he was. The large sums involved made his story plausible. Think how suspicious you would have been if had offered, say, a hundred credits a day."
"I would have kicked him out! But let us stick with what we know. Secondly, we know that all those banks on all those planets were robbed-that's a matter of public record."
"They were indeed. It is the secondary information about those planets that I am concerned about."
"Such as?"
"The circus performances, what acts were playing on what dates, that kind of thing."
The coin was slowly dropping into the slot.
"Of course! When you examine a database there is no way of telling if the events ever really happened as they are listedor if they are figments of imagination that a skilled hacker had planted. And there is no way of determining facts from planted facts on a distant planet without getting right into the records themselves, to see if they had been altered. Which, of course, cannot be done from light-years away."
"My thinking exactly. Which is why I have been snooping around in the databases here on Fetorr. Without much success. There are security locks on almost everything except train timetables. Lots of electronic doors were slammed in my screen."
"They don't like snooping."
"I was sure of that before I started. So I routed all my queries though a number of other systems. I didn't want them getting back to this computer."
Even before he had finished speaking the words there was a hammering on the dressing-room door.
"Open up in there! You have thirty seconds to comply before we break this door down."
"Who is there," Angelina said.
"Computer Crime Corps. Do not attempt to resist. You are guilty of illegal computer use and the searching of restricted files."