02 - Misplaced Battleship by Harry Harrison

Losing track of a battleship may seem careless, but in the vastness of interstellar space, it‚As a different story altogether. When a misplaced battleship falls into the wrong hands, the stakes become dangerously high. Join the world-class con man and thief known as the Stainless Steel Rat (diGriz) as he faces yet another monumental challenge in this captivating science fiction novella by the legendary Harry Harrison. With humor and intrigue, diGriz must not only locate the missing vessel but also navigate through a web of unexpected twists. After all, the adage use a thief to catch a thief can lead to some surprising outcomes! (Summary from the book and Phil Chenevert)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Chapter two of The Misplaced Battleship by Harry Harrison. This
LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter two. The
ship was completely clean. Everything I might need for the
job was in my luggage, some of it quite lethal
and explosive and very embarrassing if it was discovered in

(00:20):
my bags. In the safety of my hotel suite, I
made a change of clothes and personality after the robot
had checked the room for bugs and very nice gadgets too,
these core robots. It looked and acted like a moron
M three all the time. It was anything, but the

(00:41):
brain was as good as any other robot brain I
have known, plus the fact that the chunky body was
crammed with devices and machines of varying use. It chugged
slowly around the room, moving my bags and laying out
my kit, and all the time following a careful route
that covered every inch of the suite. When it had finished,

(01:04):
it stopped and called the all clear. All rooms checked,
result negative except for one optic bug in that wall.
Should you be pointing like that? I asked? The robot
might make some people suspicious, you know, impossible, the robot said,
with mechanical surety. I brushed against it, and it is

(01:25):
now unserviceable. With this assurance, I pulled off my flashy
clothes and slipped into the midnight black dress uniform of
an admiral in the League Grand Fleet. It came complete
with decorations, gold bullion and all the necessary documents. I
thought it a little showy myself, but it was just

(01:46):
the thing to make the right impression in Stanuvo. Like
many other planets, this one was uniform conscious. The livery boys,
street cleaner's clerks all had to have characteristic uniforms, much
press stiege attached to them, and my black dress outfit
should rate as high as any uniform in the galaxy.

(02:06):
A long cloak would conceal the uniform while I left
the hotel, but the gold encrusted helmet and a briefcase
of papers were a problem. I had never explored all
the possibilities of the pseudo M three robot. Perhaps it
could be of help you there, sharp and chunky, I called,
do you have any concealed compartments or drawers built into

(02:29):
your steel hide? If so, let's see for a second.
I thought the robot had exploded. The thing had more
drawers in it than a battery of cash registers, big small,
flat thin that he shot out on all sides. One
held a gun and two more were stuffed with grenades.
The rest were empty. I put the hat in one,

(02:51):
the briefcase in another, and snapped my fingers. The drawers
slid shut, and its metal hide was as smooth as ever.
I pulled on a fancy sports cap, buckled the cape
up tight, and was ready to go. The luggage was
all booby trapped and could defend itself guns, gas, poisoned needles,
the usual sort of thing. In the last resort, it

(03:15):
would blow itself up. V M three went down by
a freight elevator. I used a back stairs and we
met in the street. Since it was still daylight. I
didn't take a helly, but rented a ground car instead.
We had a leisurely drive out into the country and
reached President Ferraro's house after dark, as befitted the top

(03:37):
official of a rich planet. The place was a mansion,
but the security precautions were ludicrous, to say the least.
I took myself and a three hundred fifty kilo robot
through the guards and alarms without causing the slightest stir.
President Ferraro, a bachelor, was eating his dinner. This gave

(03:59):
me enough disturbed time to reach his study. There was
absolutely nothing nothing to do with wars or battleships. That is,
if I had been interested in blackmail, I had enough
evidence in my hand to support me for life. I
was looking for something bigger than political corruption. However, when
Ferraro rolled into his study after dinner, the room was dark.

(04:22):
I heard him murmur something about the servants and fumble
for the switch before he found it. The robot closed
the door and turned on the lights. I sat behind
his desk, all his personal papers before me, weighed it
down with a pistol, and as fierce a scowl as
I could raise, smeared across my face. Before he got

(04:43):
over the shock, I snapped and ordered at him come
over here and sit down quick. The robot hustled him
across the room at the same time, so he had
no choice except to obey. When he saw the papers
on the desk, his eyes bulged and he just gurgled
a little. Before he could recover, I threw a thick

(05:04):
folder in front of him. I am Admiral Farr League
Grand fleet. These are my credentials. You had better check them,
since they were as good as any rear admirals. I
didn't worry in the slightest. Ferraro went through them as
carefully as he could in his rattle state, even checking
the seals under u V. It gave him time to
regain a bit of control, and he used it to bluster.

(05:28):
What do you mean by entering my private quarters and burglaring?
You're in very bad trouble, I said, in as gloomy
a voice as I could muster. Ferraro's tanned face went
a dirty gray at my words. I pressed the advantage.
I am arresting you for conspiracy, extortion, theft, and whatever

(05:49):
other charges developed after a careful review of these documents
seize him. This last ardor was directed at the robot,
who was well briefed in its role. It rumbled forward
and locked its hand around Ferraro's wrist, handcuffed style. He
barely noticed. I can explain, he said, desperately. Everything can

(06:09):
be explained. There is no need to make such charges.
I don't know what papers you have there, so I
wouldn't attempt to say they are all forgeries. I have
many enemies. You know, if the League knew the difficulties
faced on the backward planet like this, that will be
entirely enough, I snapped, cutting him off with a wave
of my hand. All those questions will be answered by

(06:32):
a court at the proper time. There was only one
question I want an answer to. Now, why are you
building that battleship? The man was a great actor. His
eyes opened wide, his jaw dropped. He sank back into
the chair as if he had been tapped lightly with
a hammer. When he managed to speak, the words were

(06:54):
completely unnecessary. He had already registered every evidence of injured innocence.
What battleship? He gasped, The Warlord class battleship that is
being built at the Centerintola Space Yards disguise. Behind these blueprints,
I threw them across the desk to him and pointed

(07:15):
to one corner. Those are your initials authorizing construction. Ferraro
still had the baffled act going as he fumbled with
the papers, examined the initials and such. I gave him
plenty of time. He finally put them down, shaking his head.
I know nothing about any battleship. These are plans for

(07:36):
a new cargo liner. Those are my initials. I recall
putting them there. I phrased my question carefully, as I
had him right where I wanted him. Now you deny
any knowledge of the Warlord battleship that is being built
from these modified plans. These are the plans for an
ordinary passenger freighter. That is all I know. His words

(07:59):
had the simple innocence of a young child's. Was he
ever caught? I sat back with a relaxed sigh and
lit a cigar. Wouldn't you be interested in knowing something
about that robot who was holding you? I said. He
looked down, as if aware for the first time that

(08:20):
the robot had been holding him by the wrist during
the interview. That is no ordinary robot. It has a
number of interesting devices built into its fingertips, thermocouples, galvanometers,
things like that. While you talked, it registered your skin temperature,
blood pressure, amount of perspiration and such. In other words,

(08:43):
it is an efficient and fast working lie detector. We
will now hear all about your lies. Ferraro pulled away
from the robot's hand as if it had been a
poisonous snake. I blew a relaxed smoke ring report, I
said to the robot, has this man told any lies? Many?

(09:04):
The robots said exactly seventy four percent of all statements
he made were fake. Very good, I nodded, throwing the
last lock on my trap. That means he knows all
about this battleship. The subject has no knowledge of the battleship,
the robot said coldly, all of his statements concerning the

(09:25):
construction of this ship were true. Now it was my
turn for the gate being and eye popping act. While
Ferraro pulled himself together, he had no idea. I wasn't
interested in his other hanky panky, but could tell I
had had a low blow. It took an effort, but
I managed to get my mind back into gear and

(09:46):
consider the evidence. If President Ferraro didn't know about the battleship,
he must have been taken in by the cover up job.
But if he wasn't responsible, who was some militaristic clique
that meant to overthrow him and take power. I didn't
know enough about the planet, so I enlisted Ferraro on

(10:06):
my side. That was easy, even without the threat of
exposure of the documents I had found in his files.
Using their disclosure as a prod I could have made
him jump through hoops. It wasn't necessary. As soon as
I showed him the different blueprints and explained the possibilities,
he understood. If anything, he was more eager than I

(10:29):
to find out who was using his administration as a
cat's paw. By silent agreement, the documents were forgotten. We
agreed that the next logical step would be the center
Intola's space shards. He had some idea of snipping around
quietly first, trying to get a line to his political opponents.

(10:51):
I gave him to understand that the League and the
League Navy in particular wanted to stop the construction of
the battleship. After that he could play his politics. With
this point understood. He called his car and squadron of
guards and we made a parade to the shipyards. It
was a four hour drive, and we made plans on

(11:12):
the way down. The spaceyard manager was named Rocca, and
he was happily asleep when we arrived, but not for long.
The parade of uniforms and guns in the middle of
the night had him frightened into a state where he
could hardly walk. I imagine he was as full of
petty larceny as Ferraro. No innocent man could have looked

(11:34):
so terror stricken. Taking advantage of the situation, I latched
my motorized lie detector on to him and began snapping
the questions. Even before I had all the answers, I
began to get the drift of things. They were a
little frightening too. The manager of the spaceyard that was
building the ship had no idea of its true nature.

(11:57):
Anyone with less self esteem than myself, or who had
led a more honest early life, might have doubted his
own reasoning. At that moment, I didn't. The ship on
the ways still resembled a warship to six places, and
knowing human nature the way I do, that was too
much of a coincidence to expect. Ockham's razor always points

(12:20):
the way. If there were two choices to take, take
the simpler. In this case, I chose the natural acquisitive
instinct of man, as opposed to blind chance an accident. Nevertheless,
I put the theory to the test. Looking over the
original blueprints again, the big superstructure hit my eye. In
order to turn the ship into a warship that would

(12:42):
have to be one of the first things to go. Roka,
I barked, in what I hoped was authentic old space
dog manner. Look at these plans, at this space going
front porch. Here is it still being built onto the ship?
He shook his head at once and said, no, the
plans were changed. We had to fit in some kind
of new meteor repelling gear for operating the planetary debris belt.

(13:06):
I flipped through my case and drew out a plan.
Does your new gear look anything like this, I asked,
throwing it across the table to him. He rubbed his
jaw while he looked at it. Well, he said, hesitatingly,
I don't want to say for certain, After all, these
details aren't in my department. I'm just responsible for a

(13:27):
final assembly, not you know, work. But this surely looks
like the thing they installed, big thing, lots of power leads.
It was a battleship, all right, no doubt of that now.
I mentally reached around to pat myself on the back.
When the meaning of his words sank in installed, I shouted,
did you say installed? Rocca collapsed away from my roar

(13:52):
and gnawed his nails. Yes, he said, not too long ago.
I remember there was some trouble, and what else? I
interrupted him. Cold moisture was beginning to collect along my spine.
Now the drive's controls are they in two? Why? Yes?
He said, how did you know? The normal scheduling was

(14:12):
changed around, causing a great deal of unnecessary trouble. The
coal sweat was now a running river of fear. I
was beginning to have the feeling that I had been
missing the boat all along the line. The original estimated
date of completion was nearly a year away, but there
was no real reason why that couldn't be changed too

(14:35):
cars guns, I bellowed to the space yard. If that
ship is anywhere near completion, we are in big, big trouble.
All the board guards had a great time with the sirens, light,
six clerators on the floor and that sort of thing.
We blasted a screaming hole through the night right to
the space Yard and through the gate. It didn't make

(14:58):
any difference. We were still too late. A uniformed watchman
frantically waved to us, and the whole convoy jerked to
a stop. The ship was gone. Rocca couldn't believe it,
neither could the President. They wandered up and down the
empty ways where it had been built. I just crunched

(15:19):
down in the back of the car, chewing my cigar
to pieces and cursing myself for being a fool. I
had missed the obvious fact, being carried away by the
thought of a planetary government building a warship. The government
was involved, for sure, but only as a pawn. No

(15:40):
little planet bound military mind could have dreamed up as
big a scheme as this. I smelled a rat, a
stainless steel one, someone who operated the way I had
done before my conversion. Now that the rodent was well
out of the bag, I knew just swear to look,

(16:01):
and had a pretty good idea of what I would find. Roca,
the space yard manager, had staggered back and was pulling
at his hair, cursing and crying. At the same time,
President Ferraro had his gun out and was staring at
it grimly. It was hard to tell if he was
thinking of murder or suicide. I didn't care which. All

(16:21):
he had to worry about was the next election, when
the voters and the political competition would carve him up
for losing the ship. My troubles were a little bigger.
I had to find the battleship before it blasted its
way across the galaxy. Roca, I shouted, get into the car.
I want to see your records, all your records, and

(16:43):
I want to see them right now. He climbed wearily
in and had directed the driver before he fully realized
what was happening. Blinking at the sickly light of dawn
brought him slowly back to reality. But Admiral the hour,
everyone will be asleep. I just growled, but it was enough.

(17:05):
Rocca caught the idea from my expression and grabbed the
car phone. The office doors were open when we got there.
Normally I cursed the paper tangles of bureaucracy, but this
was one time when I blessed them all. These people
had it down to a fine science. Not a Rivet fell,

(17:25):
but that its fall was noted in quadruplicate, and later
A followed up with a memo Rivet wastage query. The
facts I needed were all neatly tucked away in their
paper catacombs. All I had to do was sniff them out.
I didn't try to look for first causes. This would
have taken too long. It's that I concentrated my attention

(17:47):
on the recent modifications like the gun turrent that would
quickly give me a trail to the guilty parties. Once
the clerks understood what I had in mind, they hurled
themselves into their work, urged on by the fires of
patriotism and the burning voices of their superiors. All I
had to do was suggest a line of search, and

(18:08):
the relevant documents would begin appearing at once. Bit by bit,
a pattern started to emerge, a delicate web work of forgery, bribery,
chicanery and falsehood. It could only have been conceived by
a mind as brilliantly crooked as my own. I chewed
my lip with jealousy. Like all great ideas, this one

(18:31):
was basically simple. A party, our parties unknown, had neatly
warped the ship construction program to their own ends. Undoubtedly
they had started the program for the giant transport that
would have to be checked later. And once the program
was under way, it had been guided with a skill

(18:51):
that bordered on genius. Orders were originated in many places,
passed on, changed, and shoveled A painfully traced each one
to its source. Many times the source was a forgery.
Some changes seemed to be unexplainable until I noticed the
officers in question had a temporary secretary while their normal

(19:15):
assistance were ill. All the girls had food poisoning, a
regular epidemic. It seemed each of them in turn had
been replaced by the same girl. She stayed just long
enough in each position to see that the battleship plan
moved forward one more nuch. The girl was obviously the

(19:36):
assistant to the mastermind who originated the scheme. He sat
in the center of the plot like a spider on
its web, pulling the strings that set things into motion.
My first thought that a gang was involved proved wrong.
All my secondary suspects turned out to be simple forgeries,
not individuals. In the few cases where forgery was inadequate,

(19:59):
my mysterious X had apparently hired himself to do the job.
X himself had the permanent job of assistant engineering designer.
One by one, the untangled threads ran to his office.
He also had a secretary whose illnesses coincided with her
employment in other offices. When I straightened up from my desk,

(20:22):
the ache in my back stabbed like a hot wire.
I swallowed a pain killer and looked around at my
drooping slack eyed assistance who had shared the sleepless, seventy
two hour task. They sat or slumped against the furniture,
waiting for my conclusions. Even President Ferraro was there, his
hair looking striggly where he had pulled out handfuls. You've

(20:45):
found them, the criminal ring, he asked, his fingers groping
over his scalp for a fresh hold. I have found them, yes,
I said hoarsely, But not a criminal ring, an inspired
master criminal who apparently has more executive ability in one
ear lobe than all your bribe bloated bureaucrats and his

(21:05):
female assistant. They pulled the entire job by themselves. His name,
our undoubtedly pseudo name, is pepe Nero. The girl is
called Angelina. Arrest them at once, guards guards. Ferraro's voice
died away as he ran out of the room. I
talked to his vanishing back. That is just what we

(21:27):
intend to do, but it's a little difficult at the moment,
since they are the ones who not only built the battleship,
but undoubtedly stole it as well. It was fully automated,
so no crew is necessary. What do you plan to do?
One of the clerks asked I shall do nothing, I
told him, with the snapped precision of an old space dog.

(21:48):
The League Fleet is already closing in on the Renegades,
and you will be informed of the capture. Thank you
for your assistance. End of Section two The