"Harry Harrison - SSR 01 - The Stainless Steel Rat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harrison Harry)

met the receiving dock, I stopped the trailer as close to the dividing line as I could. I didn't
open the rear door until all the workmen were faced in a different direction. Even the stupidest
of them would have been interested in why a truck was unloading the firm's own boxes. As I piled
them up on the platform I threw a tarp over them, it only took a few minutes. Only when the truck
gates were closed and locked did I pull off the tarp and sit down on the boxes for a smoke.
It wasn't a long wait. Before the cigarette was finished a robot from the shipping department
passed close enough for me to call him.
"Over there. The M-19 that was loading these burned out a brake-band, you better see that
they're taken care of."
His eyes glowed with the light of duty. Some of these higher M types take their job very
seriously. I had to step back quickly as the forklifts and M-trucks appeared out of the doors
behind me. There was a scurry of loading and sorting and my haul vanished down the platform. I
lighted another cigarette and watched for a while as the boxes were coded and stamped and loaded
on the outgoing trucks and local belts.
All that was left for me now was the disposing of the truck on some side street and changing
personalities.
As I was getting into the truck I realized for the first time that something was wrong. I, of
course, had been keeping an eye on the gate - but not watching it closely enough. Trucks had been
going in and out. Now the realization hit me like a hammer blow over the solar plexus. They were
the same trucks going both ways. A large, red cross-country job was just pulling out. I heard the
echo of its exhaust roar down the street - then die away to an idling grumble. When it roared up
again it didn't go away, instead the truck came in through the second gate. There were police cars
waiting outside that wall. Waiting for me.


Chapter 3

For the first time in my career I felt the sharp fear of the hunted man. This was the first
time I had ever had the police on my trail when I wasn't expecting them. The money was lost, that
much was certain, but I was no longer concerned with that. It was me they were after now.
Think first, then act. I was safe enough for the moment. They were, of course, moving in on
me, going slowly as they had no idea of where I was in the giant loading yard. How had they found
me? That was the important point. The local police are used to an almost crimeless world, they
couldn't have found my trail this quickly. In fact, I hadn't left a trail. Whoever had set the
trap here had done it with logic and reason.
Unbidden the words jumped into my mind.
The Special Corps.
Nothing was ever printed about it, only a thousand whispered words heard on a thousand worlds
around the galaxy. The Special Corps, the branch of the League that took care of the troubles that
individual planets couldn't solve. The Corps was supposed to have finished off the remnants of
Haskell's Raiders after the peace, of putting the illegal T & Z Traders out of business, of
finally catching Inskipp. And now they were after me.
They were out there waiting for me to make a break. They were thinking of all the ways out
just as I was - and they were blocking them. I had to think fast and I had to think right.
Only two ways out. Through the gates or through the store. The gates were too well covered to
make a break; in the store there would be other exits. It had to be that way. Even as I made the
conclusion I knew that other minds had made it too, that men were moving in to cover those doors.
That thought brought fear - and made me angry as well. The very idea that someone could outthink
me was odious. They could try all right - but I would give them a run for their money. I still had
a few tricks left.