The Stainless Steel Rat eBook Collection by Harry Harrison Page B

wallowingin a dark depression and thoroughly immersed in the bath of self-pity. Which I normally cannot stand. Nor could I this time. I looked in the mirror at the hollow-eyed and woe begone face and stuck my tongue out at it.
    ‘Sissy!’ I said. ‘Momma’s boy, whiner, self-indulgent wimp,’ and added whatever other insults I could think of. Having cleansed the air a bit I made a sandwich and a pot of coffee– no alcohol to clog the synapses! – and sat down to munch and guzzle and think about the future. What next?
    Nothing. At least nothing constructive that I could think of at this moment. All of my plans had ended at a blank wall and I could see no way around or over it. I slumped back and snapped my fingers at the 3V. A commercial channel came on and before I could change channels the announcerappeared in glorious three dimension and colour. I didn’t switch because the announcer was a she and wearing only the flimsiest of swimsuits.
    ‘Come where the balmy breezes blow,’ she cajoled. ‘Come join me on the silver sands of beautiful Vaticano Beach where the sun and waves will refresh your soul …’
    I turned the thing off. My soul was in fine shape and the fine shape of the announcer onlygave me more problems to think about. Future first, heterosexual love later. But the commercial had at least given me the beginning of an idea.
    A holiday? Take a break? Why not – lately I had been working harder than any of the businessmen I so badly did not want to become. Crime had paid, and paid nicely, so why didn’tI spend some of the hard-earned loot? I probably wouldn’t be able to escapefrom my problems. I had learned by experience that physical displacement was never a solution. My troubles always went with me, as ever-present and nagging as a toothache. But I could take them with me to some place where I might find the leisure and opportunity to sort them out.
    Where? I punched up a holiday guide from the database and flipped through it. Nothing seemed to appeal. The beach?Only if I could meet the girl from the commercial, which seemed far from likely. Posh hotels, expensive cruises, museum tours, all of them seemed about as exciting as a weekend on a porcuswine ranch. Maybe that was it – I needed a breath of fresh air. As a farm boy I had seen enough of the great outdoors, usually over the top of a pile of porcuswine you-know-what. With that sort of background I hadwelcomed my move to the city with open arms – and hadn’t ventured out since.
    That might be the very answer. Not back to the farm but into the wilderness. To get away from people and things, to do a little chatting with mother nature. The more I thought of it the better it sounded. And I knew just where I wanted to go, an ambition I had had since I was knee-high to a porcuswinelet. The CathedralMountains. Those snow-covered peaks, pointing towards the sky like giant church towers, how they used to fill my childish dreams! Well why not? About time to make a few dreams come true.
    Shopping for backpack, sleeping bag, thermal tent, cooking pots, lights – all the gear needed – was half the fun. Once outfitted I couldn’t waste time on the linear but took the plane to Rafael instead. I bulgedmy eyes at the mountains as we came in to land and snapped my fingers and fidgeted while I waited for the luggage. I had studied the maps and knew that the Cathedral Trail crossed the road in the foothills north of the airport. I should have taken the connecting bus like the others, instead of being conspicuous in a taxi, but I was in too much of a rush.
    ‘Pretty dangerous, kid, I mean walkingthe trail alone.’ The elderly driver smacked his lips as he launched into a litany of doom. ‘Get lost easily enough. Get eaten by direwolves. Landslides and avalanches. And …’
    ‘And I’m meeting friends. Twenty of them. The Boy Sprouts Hiking Team of Lower Armmpitt. We’re gonna have fun,’ I invented rapidly.
    ‘Didn’t see no Boy Sprouts out here