Stainless Steel Rat 11: The Stainless Steel Rat Returns by Harry Harrison

. . . ?
    With the question came the answer!
    “Tell me, Stramm, what is it they always got an awful lot of down on the farm?”
    He frowned. “I don’t know—I’m a city lad. But . . . !” Hiseyes bulged—and then he smiled broadly. “You can throw anything away!”
    “Right! So this will be the first spacer to land using . . .”
    “Pig Poo Power!”
    I was quite pleased with myself for this keen bit of lateral thinking. Stramm was rubbing his lantern jaw, deep in thought.
    “Logistics,” he muttered, “logistics . . .”
    “Not a problem. Call a specialist.”
    I grabbed the ship’s phone, switched to all compartments, spoke in my most authoritarian voice.
    “Now hear this. Will Elmo report to the engine room at once. Elmo needed below.”
    I was examining the seals on the tank’s inspection hatch when he arrived, brimming with curiosity. This instantly became bucolic bliss when the nature of my request became clear.
    “Why that is shore a great idea, Cousin Jim. I admit that this was getting to be a problem what with . . .”
    “Work first, explain later. You will need buckets and wheelbarrows, shovels and pitchforks . . .”
    “We got all them things.” He rushed off, his voice dying in the distance. “When the boys hear about this they will be happier than swine with their trotters in a trough!”
    It was quite easy to visualize what came next with the boys, and I wanted none of it.
    “I leave you in control of the situation, stout engineer Stramm. Until things have been . . . finalized . . . I should avoid the corridors between here and the sty deck. Should there be any more problems please contact me on the bridge.”
    I fled. Buckets and barrows and hearty earthy oaths were already sounding in the distance. I joined Kirpal and accepted his kind offer of a cup of tea. His placid smile turned to a scowl when I told him about Rifuti’s latest perfidy.
    “I shall radio details to the planetary police. They may grab him before he goes off-planet.”
    “A possible chance,” I muttered. Sure that he would long be gone.
    A bell on Kirpal’s computer pinged and he put his cup down. He muttered to himself, punched in some more figures and nodded happily when a throaty buzzer sounded.
    “Good. Course alignment entered and correct.” He pressed a large red button. “Done. We’re beginning our first Bloat.”
    I scratched my finger in my ear, not having heard right.
    “Earwax maybe. I, ha-ha, did not hear right. For a moment there I thought you said bloat!”
    “I did. This spacer isn’t exactly new . . .”
    As he said this his face had the same gloomy expression as that of engineer Stramm when he talked about the ship. His voice echoed from the depths of depression.
    “You’ve seen what antiques we have for landing jets. Well, the ship’s main drive is not much better.”
    “No Faster Than Light Drive?”
    “Hardly. We have what is an ancient, long-superseded, outdated and archaic form of transportation called the Bloater Drive.”
    My finger quivered toward my ear—but I resisted. “Would you mind, sort of, you know, explaining that in a bit more detail?”
    “Of course.” He took a pair of wire-rimmed glasses froma drawer in the console and put them on, then steepled his fingers before him. Why did I think that he had been a professor in one of his many incarnations? “How acquainted are you with nuclear physics?”
    “Use words of one syllable—or less!—and I’ll be able to follow you.”
    He nodded gloomily and sighed. I could hear his thoughts: another microcephalic.
    “Have you heard of molecular binding energies?”
    “Positively! I have used a molebinding device most successfully in the past.” In the profitable pursuit of crime, I neglected to add.
    “Then you are aware of molecular theory. In this reaction molecular binding energy is weakened so that another molecule can actually penetrate the molecules in an existing structure. The Bloater Drive