"Harry Harrison - SSR 02 - The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

intersystem spacer Kannettava, a glass of strong drink before me and a dead
cigar clutched in my fingers. Listening to the announcement that we would be
landing on Cliaand within the hour. I was naked, figuratively speaking of
course. It had taken an effort of will and strong discipline to force myself
to leave every article of an illegal nature behind. I had never done this
before in my entire life. No minibombs, gas capsules, gigli saws, fingertip
drills, card holdouts, phone tappers. Nothing. Not even the lockpick that was
always fixed to my toenail. Or . . .
I grated my teeth at the thought and looked about me. The other revelers
were knocking back the tax-free booze in a determined manner and none was
looking at me. Slipping my wallet from my pocket I touched the seam at the
top. And felt a certain stiffness. Memory, how it cuts both ways, revealing
and clouding. My own subconscious was f igniting against me. Only my conscious
mind was at all enthusiastic about landing on Cliaand without any illegal
devices. I squeezed the wallet hard in the right way and the tiny but
incredibly strong lockpick dropped into my fingers. A work of art. I admired
it when I raised my glass. And said good-by. On the way back to my cabin I
dropped it into a waste disposal. It would go on with the ship while I landed
(MI this singularly inhospitable world.
Every report and interview indicated that Cliaand had the most paranoiac
customs men in the known universe. Contraband simply could not be smuggled in.
Therefore I was not trying. I was just what I appeared to be. A salesman,
representative of Fazzoletto-Mouchoir Ltd., dealers in deadly weapons. The
firm existed and I was their salesman and no amount of investigation could
prove otherwise. Let them try.
They did. Landing on Cliaand was not unlike going into prison. I, and the
handful of other debarkees, trundled down the gangway and into a gray room of
ominous aspect. We huddled together, under the eyes of watchful and heavily
armed guards, while our luggage was brought and dumped nearby. Nothing
happened until the gangway had been withdrawn and the Kannettava had departed.
Then, one by one, we were called out.
I was not first and I welcomed the opportunity to examine the local types.
They were supremely indifferent to us, stamping about in knee-high boots,
fingering their weapons and keeping their chins up high. Their uniforms were
all the same color, a color which at first glance might be mistaken for a very
unmilitary hue of carmine, a purplish red. Very quickly I realized that this
was almost exactly the color of blood, half arterial blue, half venous pink.
It was rather disgusting and hard to avoid locking at. And, in addition, gave
no small hint about the nature of the wearer.
All of the guards were on the large side and ran to protruding jaws and
little piggy eyes. Their helmets looked like fibersteel, with sinister black
visors and transparent faceplates that could be droned down. Each carried a
gaussrifle, a multipurpose and particularly deadly weapon. High capacity
batteries stored a really impressive electrical charge in the stock. When the
trigger was depressed a strong magnetic field was generated in the barrel
which accelerated the missile with a muzzle velocity that equaled any
explosive cartridge weapon. And the gaussrifle was superior in that it had a
more rapid rate of fire, made no sound, and shot out any one of an assortment
of deadly missiles, from poison needles to explosive charges. The Corps had
reports about this weapon but we had never seen (me. I made plans to rectify