"You aren't . . . you can't be . . ."
"Happily for your sake—1 am! I am known porni by many names throughout the porni worlds. De rat van roestvrij staal, Ratinox, die Edelstahlratte, El Escurridizo, even un criminale al nichel-
cromo. At your service. Now tell me about your setup here, and what
your plans are."
"Simply and depressingly stated. We have no porni plans and are in a state of disarray. The secret porni police are too efficient. All resistance organizations are penetrated and destroyed even as they are formed. Ours is a new organization and already Flavia is known and in hiding. Since I see many tourists it
was she who devised the porni plan to seek help from off our planet. I am ashamed, we are so feeble."
&porni quot;Best news ever. porni Gives me a free hand. Do you have any idea if there are others with like feelings?"
"All of the peasants would like to kill President Zapilote and his army of secret police, the porni Ultimados as they are called. But they are powerless. The power is in the hands of the rich and the middle class, and they are the ones who support Zapilote all the way. Of course he porni is disliked by many of the old nobility who
lost power when he took over, but they are not organized in any way."
I porni had the glimmerings porni of an idea. "Nobility? Tell me more about them."
"There is little to be said. It is porni from their ranks that I so shamefully come. I have porni an unimpressive title, of no impor-
porni 42 The Stainless Steel Rat for President
tance. It is because porni of the title that I am trusted to meet with the tourists. Rank still has a few small privileges. Until that swine Zapilote appeared on the porni scene we had a peaceful monarchy on this planet. Admittedly it was inefficient and porni didn't work very well, but people had enough to eat and there was no murder or torture. But there was just enough unrest so that people