“Take him. Chain him. Bind him. Bring him.”
This was all done with ruthless efficiency. My toes dragged along the floor as I was whisked back to the cell, stripped at gunpoint, thrown to the floor with my black robe thrown on top of me. The door clanged shut and I was alone. Very much alone.
“Cheer up, Jim, you’ve been in worse trouble before,” I chirped smilingly. Then snarled, “When?”
Back in the pits again. My abortive attempt at escape had only gained me a few bruises.
“This can’t be it!” I shouted. “It can’t all end just like this.”
“It can-and it will,” the Colonel’s funereal voice intoned as the cell door opened again. A dozen guns were pointed at me as a guard brought in a tray with a bottle of champagne on it and a single glass.
I watched in stupefied disbelief as he twisted the cork out. There was a pop and a gush as the golden fluid filled the glass. He handed it to me.
“What’s this, what’s this?” I mumbled, staring wide-eyed at the rising bubbles.
“Your last request,” Neuredan said. “That and a cigarette.”
He took one from a package and lit it, holding it out to me. I shook my head. “I don’t smoke.” He ground the cigarette under his heel. “Anyway-champagne and a cigarette thats not my last request.”
“Yes it is. Forms of last request are standardized by law. Drink.”
I drank. It tasted all right. I belched and handed back the glass. “I’ll take a refill.” Anything to gain time, to think. I watched the wine being poured and my brain was dull and empty. “You never told me about the . . . execution.”
“Do you want to know?”
“Not really.”
“Then I will be pleased to tell you. I assure you that there was extensive deliberation over the correct method to be used. Thought was given to the firing squad, electrocution, poison gas-a number of possibilities were actively considered when the law was passed. But all of them involve someone pulling a switch or a trigger, and that would not be humane to the someone.”
“Humane! What about the prisoner?”
“Of no importance. Your death has been decreed and will take place as soon as possible. This is what will happen. You will be taken to a sealed chamber and chained there. The entrance will be locked. After this the chamber will be flooded with water by an automatic device actuated by your body heat. It is always there, always turned on. You alone will be responsible for your own execution. Now isn’t that quite humane?”
“Drowning is humane all of a sudden?”
“Possibly not. But you will be left a pistol containing a single bullet. You can commit suicide if you wish to.”
I opened my mouth to tell him what I thought of their humanity, but I was seized by many hands and dragged forward before I could speak. The glass was whisked away-and so was I. Deep down to a dank chamber, walls damp with water and covered with moss. A cuff was clamped around my ankle; a chain ran from it to a staple in the wall. They all exited except for the Colonel who stood with his hand on the operating lever of the thick, undoubtedly watertight, door.
He grinned in victorious triumph, bent over and placed an antique pistol on the floor. As I dived for it the door shut and sealed with a final thud.
Was this really the end? I turned the pistol over in my hands, saw the dull shape of the single cartridge. End of Jim diGriz, end of the Stainless Steel Rat, end of everything.
There was the distant thank of a valve opening and cold water gushed down on me from a thick pipe in the ceiling. It gurgled and slopped, covering my feet, then quickly up to my ankles. When it reached my waist I lifted the gun and looked at it. Not much of a choice. The water rose steadily. Covered my chest, up to my chin. I shuddered.
Then the water stopped splashing down. It was cold and I was shivering uncontrollably. The light in the waterproof fixture revealed only stone wall, dark water.