The Stainless Steel Rat for President

Chapter 27

If you're holding your breath, why then a day is a long time. But if you are trying to fix an election, then a day is no time at all. And a day was ail that we had left.

It is hard to admit defeat, particularly for one like myself who, if you will excuse me saying so, has never been defeated. Nor was I going to be this time!

"It won't work!" I announced loudly. "That putrid politico is not getting away with it."

They stood in awe of this statement, so forcefully and firmly declared. It was only after some hesitation that Bolivar asked the all-important question. "How are you going to stop him?" How indeed? I hadn't the slightest idea.

"That will be revealed tomorrow. It takes a bigger man than Zapilote to put the skids under Slippery Jim diGriz."

I turned and marched resolutely away before there were any more embarrassing questions. What was I going to do? That vital question flickered about in my frontal lobes, and occasionally dropped into my temporal lobe, and once even into my cerebellum, without producing an answer. I returned to our suite where I bathed in perfumed water and scrubbed myself until every pore gleamed. Then I shaved, and brushed my teeth, took an upper—then a downer to get myself off the ceiling—and still no answer was forthcoming. As a last resort I tucked into a healthy breakfast, then washed it down with countless cups of black coffee. Followed by even more coffee laced with ancient ron. The results were no better.

"Face it, Jim," I said, sitting on the balcony and staring out at the view, "you have lost the election."

It was almost a relief to come to that conclusion. It cleared the air. He who fights and pulls his freight, lives to fight another date. Count your losses and get out. Lick your wounds—then return. Because there was just no way that the planet-wide election system could be fixed in a single day. As things stood now it really didn't matter how many people voted for Harapo. Their votes went in one end of the crooked voting machines and votes for Zapilote came out the other.

As soon as I faced this indisputable fact the glimmerings of an idea began tapping faintly for attention. But why? What was important about this bit of bad news? I paced the floor, smoked a cheroot, scratched my head, poured some ron, rubbed my chin and did all of the other things that are supposed to make the brain tick over. One of them must have worked because I was suddenly electrified, leaping into the air and clicking my heels together. Or rather thudding them together, since I was barefoot. I grabbed for the phone and punched in de Torres's personal number. It took a moment for the call to go through, and when his face appeared on the screen it was bouncing up and down with the sky in the background.

"What is it?" he asked. There was a regular thudding sound beating time behind his voice. Then I realized that he must have gone riding and that the telephone pickup was in the pommel of the saddle.

"Just a question if you don't mind. This planet is now theoretically an established democracy, isn't it?"

He bounced and nodded. "Theoretically is the right word. We have a constitution that promises everything, though of course we receive nothing. Our motto should be that there are no fixed rules. Anyone can be bribed, anyone corrupted. On paper, yes, we are a democracy…"

"Well that paper is what I am interested in. Where can I see a copy of this constitution?"

"In my library. It is in the memory banks, but there is also a bound volume on the stand between the windows. Why do you ask?"

"All will be revealed very soon. Thanks."

I pulled on some clothes and hurried down to the library, tiptoeing past the tall windows that opened out onto the balcony, because I could see Angelina and the boys having coffee there. It wasn't quite time for explanations yet.

The constitution was just where the marquez had said. I opened it and groaned. There were over nine thousand pages of fine print. I obviously had my work cut out for me.

There was no point in going through the massive thing page by page and scribbling out handwritten notes. Never keep a dog and bark for yourself; that's one of my mottoes. I turned on the library computer, dredged the constitution up from the memory stacks and punched it into current memory. I then wrote a simple search program and went to pour myself a drink while it began dredging through the massive thing for some nuggets of gold.

It wasn't easy. There did not seem to be much coherence to the constitution. It was written in a half-dozen styles, all of them obfuscatory of course, and contained repetitions and redundancies galore. After awhile I began to see why. It soon became obvious that Zapilote had not written the thing, but instead must have clobbered it together from a number of other documents. This was both good news and bad. Bad in that I had to scan almost every page myself, good because there was such a variety of material. There had to be something I could use among all this legal rubbish.

The shadows were lengthening across the floor before I did. A secondary reference to a sub-clause in an appendix relating to additional addenda. I read it once quickly, and as I did I felt a warm glow suffuse my body. Then I went through it again, more slowly, dancing a little jig as the glowing letters moved across the screen.

"Eureka!" I cried, unable to contain myself any longer. Then Eureka! again as I keyed in the computer's voice simulator, then actuated it to say Eureka too. And to repeat itself in a number of different voices and melodies. Within moments a chorus of booming "Eurekas!" was filling the air. Angelina appeared at the doorway and lifted one quizzical eyebrow.

"I thought you might have something to do with this insane chorus. Dare I guess? Does it have any bearing on our little problem?"

"Big problem, my sweet!" I said, seizing her hands and dancing her around the room. "A large problem that appeared insoluble until this very minute, though don't tell anyone else that. I would not want to spoil my reputation for infallibility. I have come up with an answer that is so simple I dare not breathe it aloud—to any other than you—in case word might reach the forces of evil that oppose us. They could easily avert disaster if they knew in time what I was planning. But they shall not know—and this evening's news broadcast will be designed to so infuriate Zapilote that he will work his evil will to excess. Come—to the recording studio!"

I am not a sadist at heart, so I really was not overjoyed that our broadcast would spoil many a TV viewer's evening. But I needed prime time for my announcement. The program I planned to interrupt could easily be repeated-though I couldn't imagine why. It was a loathsome series about a family of perverted sadists who ran a boarding kennel cum insane asylum where people could leave off their nutsy relatives when they went on vacation. It was entitled Ain't Love Grand and was purported to be watched by one hundred and eight percent of the viewing audience. Some of them were obviously watching it twice.

We finished our recording just in time. The boys had set up and tested the satellite interrupters and they were in perfect working order. Our signal would be broadcast from the dish aerial on the roof, going first to the geostationary satellite in orbit high above us. All of the normal programs would then be shorted out while our program was relayed from one satellite to another, finally to be beamed back to the expectant audiences on the planet below. They were in for a different kind of thrill tonight.

"Three more minutes," James said, slipping the big cassette of tape into the player. "Aren't you afraid of losing your audience, Dad? Won't they turn off their sets when they see that they are getting a political broadcast?"

"Not the way we've written it. They'll be glued to their chairs. Watch and see." Our homely little family scene was being repeated around the globe. The father turning on the set, then sitting down in the best chair with brimming glass or cup. The mother at his side, doing something domestic like knitting booties or fiddling the tax returns. The children at their feet, the servants in their hovels huddling around their battered machines. All the world awaited breathlessly its favorite program. It began.

And was ruthlessly interrupted just as it got into full sadistic swing. The picture blinked and sputtered and was replaced by a view of Angelina clutching at a microphone. She was wearing the same uniform as those of the regular announcers, while the background was an exact duplicate of the national news studio.

"I have terrible news to bring to you," she said in a horror-filled voice. "There has been an assassination. No, not the loathsome Zapilote, that is almost too much to ask. Presidential candidate Sir Hector Harapo will now tell you what has happened. After his brief talk the regular program will be resumed. Sir Harapo." My bearded image appeared, fist raised for banging down on the table before me.

"Assassination!" I banged. "Do you know what has been assassinated? I'll tell you what. Your free choice, guaranteed under our sacred constitution, to elect the presidential candidate you think is best. That choice has been assassinated. By whom, you ask? By that little worm Zapilote who has eaten away the core of our noble republic, that's who. I have always spoken well of my opponent in this presidential race. I shall do so no longer. I shall name him as the gray-furred, long-whiskered, foul-breathed rat that he is. A rodent gnawing away at the supports of our heroic republic. He flaunts our laws. He tried to prevent me from running for office by secretly closing all nominations—but I out-thought him there. Easy enough to do with a creature that has the IQ of a retarded cockroach. Since his first attempt to stop me was foiled he has tried again. He has moved forward the election date in an attempt to prevent me from meeting you good voters out there, to stop me from telling you of his sins and my abilities. But that shall not be so!" I stopped for breath and recorded cheering echoed loudly. It faded when I raised my hand.

"You noble voters will have your chance tomorrow. Get out there and vote! Vote for Harapo and de Torres, because every vote for us is a vote for liberty and will bring a bubble of froth to the demented lips of Zapilote the dictator, soon to be deposed. He cannot win! It shall be a landslide for Harapo! Let us sweep the board in order to sweep that loathsome maggot into the dustbin of history! Thank you." The announcement ended with martial music and snapping flags.

"I get a feeling you don't like this guy, Dad," Bolivar said.

"You're going to make him angry. If he has his way you won't get a single vote," James added.

I stood and went over to my discarded doctor outfit and removed the most ornate medal from it. I bade James rise and pinned it to his broad chest and we all cheered.

"That is an award for clear-eyed vision, my son. You have, as they say, hit the nail squarely on the head."

"Well, thanks, I'll wear it always. Even in the shower. But would you like to clarify a bit just how you can win by losing massively?"

"I'm afraid that must remain a secret between myself and your mother, for at least a little while longer. No word of my plans must be breathed aloud, even within these castle walls. You shall know, first thing after the returns for the voting come tomorrow. If you can figure out by then just what I am up to—why you get another medal,"