Phule Me Twice (12 page)

"And what is your greatest concern, in a nutshell?" asked Phule.

"It is mostly our worry as to their capabilities and intentions," said Korg. "No wise race allows a strange beast to sit on the edge of its nest unexamined."

"Well, we'll see what we can do for you," said Phule. Then he added with all the confidence he could muster, "We've got the most sophisticated equipment in the Alliance, and some people who can make it do tricks even the designers never thought of. We'll get to the bottom of it, don't you worry."

"Flight Leftenant Qual's reports have given me great faith in you, Captain," said Korg, grinning again. "I am sure you will come up with a solution."

Phule wished he was anywhere near as confident as Korg seemed to be.

Journal #537

The curious thing about the Zenobian Empire was that it largely overlapped Alliance territory. The Zenobians had even settled colonies on planets in several systems the Alliance thought of as its own. But the lizardlike aliens preferred an environment that most of the Alliance races found oppressively hot and therefore tended to settle planets closer to the primaries than those settled by other sophonts. Since space travel was normally conducted at light speed, and the two races used entirely different frequencies for communication, there had been no direct contact between the races until one of their ships made an emergency landing on Haskin's Planet and was discovered by members of my employer's company.

Now that the Zenobians had declared their intention of working with the predominantly human Alliance, the two species were amazed to learn just how many systems they had inhabited in common without at all interacting, like fish in the depths of a mountain lake and gorgeous flowers on the bank.

One of the biggest surprises was the location of the Zenobians' home planet.

The knock on the stateroom door was expected. With a sigh, Lola stood up and went to open it. Out in the corridor stood a dark-haired man in ship's uniform, carrying an electronic notebook. He showed an ID card and said, "Good day, ma'am. I'm investigating an incident overnight. Would you mind answering a few questions?"

"Why, of course not," said Lola, looking at the card. "Master at arms-that sounds exciting. Was the ship attacked?"

"I could do without that kind of excitement, ma'am," said the officer with a low chuckle. "Master at arms is just an old-fashioned title for a ship's security officer. On a ship like this, that's a part-time job. I earn my keep by being purser, and second engineer in a real pinch."

"Well, I don't know whether to be disappointed or not," said Lola with a flippant gesture. "Space travel is so unromantic. I've had more excitement on a hoverbus. What kind of incident are you investigating, Mr...uh, Mr. Hernandez?"

"One of the lifeboats left the ship, and about the only way that could have happened was if there was a person on board. So we're checking to see if anyone's missing. I have this cabin listed as a double. You're Miss Miller, I presume-sharing with a Mr. Reeves?"

"That's right," said Lola. She took a seat on the love seat to one side of the small stateroom and crossed her legs. "Ernie's gone to the lounge for a drink. I expect he'll be back to change for dinner, say in an hour or so. Did you need to see him now?"

"Not really, ma'am," said Hernandez. "Right now, we're getting a quick count of passengers so we can determine who's missing. Then we'll know who took the lifeboat."

"What will you do when you learn that?" asked Lola, leaning forward and toying with a strand of hair. This officer might be an interesting person to get to know better, she thought. After all, the ship's purser might have access to a fair amount of money.

"I expect we'll try to attach the hijacker's assets," said the officer. "One of these lifeboats costs as much as a small intrasystem space yacht. If you've ever priced those, you know it's no joke. Even if we recover it in one piece, it'll cost us a fair amount to get it back into service."

"I can imagine," she said. "I wonder why anyone would take it. Where would this hijacker be planning to go?"

"His plans don't matter much, ma'am," said Hernandez. "Once the boat's launched, it's programmed to find the nearest planet that humans could survive on, and land there. There's no manual override at all. After all, the designers have to assume that it'll be carrying passengers with no astrogational skills. Trying to land other than by automatics would be sheer suicide."

"The nearest planet," mused Lola. "Where would that be, now?"

"When the boat deployed, we were still within the system where Lorelei station's located, ma'am," said the officer. "There's one marginally habitable planet, listed on our charts as HR-63. A hot one, but breathable air and a solid surface. Our fellow will be landing there, probably in two or three weeks' time, and the boat has sufficient supplies to keep one person alive for a couple of years. I doubt he'll need them for long, though. We've recently learned that the planet is inhabited, and the indigenes have joined the Alliance. We'll have to go through State, but maybe they can get them to take him into custody until he can be sent back to face charges."

"Oh, that would be good," said Lola, trying to sound enthusiastic about it. This was bad news. It meant that she and Ernie would have to take evasive measures, after all. She'd been hoping the boat and the robot would simply disappear into empty space, leaving no clues who had stolen it. On the other hand, it might take a while for the indigenes to turn over the robot, which would give her and Ernie plenty of time to disappear on their own. "What's this new race I haven't heard about?" she asked, fluttering her eyelids. If she was going to get this purser to pay attention to her, she had to keep him talking.

"A bunch of miniature dinosaurs," said Hernandez with a quirky grin. "They call themselves Zenobians."

"Invisible alien drones, huh? That's one I ain't heard before," said Do-Wop.

"There's got to be an explanation for it," said Sushi. "Invisibility doesn't work, except in specially rigged circumstances. It's easy to make something hard to find from a certain angle or direction-say, for a magician working on holovision or on a stage. But even when it's invisible from the audience, somebody watching from backstage or the wings would usually be able to see how it's done."

"I'll take your word for it," said Phule, who'd called his new base as soon as the conference with Korg was over. "The point is, you two are the champion tricksters in the company, and that means you're the best I'm likely to get. If there's any way to make something invisible, you'll either know it or figure it out. So that's your job, Figure out how these drones are staying invisible. I'll bring you the Zenobians' intercepts of the alien signals. Anything you need in the way of equipment, it's yours. I want results as soon as you can get 'em."

"Sure, Captain, you got it," said Do-Wop. He rubbed his hands together and said, "Me and Soosh can't figure it out, it can't be done."

"We'll get an equipment list to Chocolate Harry as soon as we've checked out the data," said Sushi. "Any chance of a look at the Zenobians' equipment? I could tell a lot more if I knew what its capabilities are."

"I think we can manage that," said Phule. "Korg says he's ordered his military people to cooperate with us, although I doubt they'll show us any really secret stuff. Anything else?"

"Sure, some dancing girls and a keg of beer, while you're at it," said Do-Wop. "Can't expect us to come up with brainstorms without the necessities."

Phule smiled. "I'll remind you that we're a bit off the usual supply routes for dancing girls; they may take a while to deliver. You can requisition beer through the usual channels."

"Man, that's just not the Omega Mob way," griped Do-Wop. "This outfit does everything first class, don't ya know?"

"I'm glad to hear you say that," said Phule, laughing. "If you'll think back a moment, you just might recall that I'm the one who invented the Omega Mob way. Or have you mercifully blanked the swamps of Haskin's Planet out of your memory?"

Without batting an eye, Do-Wop pointed out the window to the desolate Zenobian landscape: scraggly brush, sun-baked rocks, arid streambeds, low hills in the distance. He turned back to the communicator pickup and said, "You're telling me this joint is some kind of improvement, Cap?"

"Sure," said Phule, deadpan. "Think about it. Back on Haskin's, you were either up to your boot tops in swamp or sitting in a run-down camp waiting to go back to the swamp. Here, you've got the latest state-of-the-art field encampment, and the Zenobians probably won't let you anywhere near the swamps."

"It's still way too much like bein' in the Legion for my blood," said Do-Wop. "But I guess I don't have any selection as far as that."

"Of course not," said Phule, leaning closer to the pickup on his end. "You two draw up the list of equipment you'll need, and get it to Harry ASAP. I want you to drop everything else for this project, understand?"

"You got it, Cap'n," said Do-Wop, suddenly enthusiastic. He nudged Sushi, then (just to be on the safe side) asked Phule, "This means no regular duty of any kind, right?"

"Consider this your regular duty for now, and give it your full attention," said Phule. "I'll expect a preliminary report to be on my desk as soon as I return to camp-the day after tomorrow, if things go according to schedule. Anything else? Good, then go to work." He cut the connection.

The two partners looked at each other. "Well, you heard the captain," said Sushi. "Let's get to work on this job before he decides to give it to somebody else and puts us back to doing real work."

"Man, I was really hoping for the dancing girls," said Do-Wop, pretending to sulk.

"Keep that up and you'll have Sergeant Brandy doing the not-so-soft-shoe on your behind," said Sushi. He punched his partner playfully in the shoulder and said, "Grab your comp-u-note and start listing stuff we can use."

"OK, then, first thing we gotta have is the beer," said Do-Wop. "Gimme enough of that, and I can think of almost anything."

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Sushi with a very convincing shudder. The shudder might even have been real.

"Sarge, we got a bone to pick with you."

Chocolate Harry looked up. He'd been sitting at his makeshift desk, reading Biker's Dream magazine. There stood half a dozen legionnaires with grim expressions on their faces. Only a veteran could have spotted (as Harry did) the edge of worry behind their determined front.

"Sure, dudes, what's up?" Harry shifted his bulk on the reinforced camp stool he occupied. Without making any particular deal out of it, he picked up a bayonet and began cleaning his fingernails with the finely honed point. Behind him was the prefabricated shed that was the company's supply depot here on Zenobia.

"Well, it's like this," said Street, who seemed to be the leader of this delegation. "You told everybody we were goin' to be fightin' them renegade robots, off on some asteroid-"

"Well, bro, that was the scuttlebutt at the time," said C. H. "You stay around the Legion long enough, you hear all kinds of stuff, and after a while you get a feel for what you can believe and what you can't."

Street's face took on a puzzled expression. "Man, it was you done told us that."

Chocolate Harry didn't look up from his fingernail cleaning. "Was it, now? You sure 'bout that, Street?"

Street turned to his companions for support, and when he saw them nodding their heads, he turned back to the supply sergeant and said, "Yeah, it was you, all right. You kep' tellin' , us 'bout that asteroid full of renegade robots and how we was gonna need this here robot camo to keep 'em from zappin' us. Ain't that right?"

"What if it is?" asked Harry casually.

"Well, looks to me like this ain't no freakin' asteroid," said Street, sweeping his arm around the horizon in a grand circle. "So we done been skanked, is what I think."

Chocolate Harry's broad face took on an expression of profound sympathy. "Skanked? What makes you think that, Street?" He looked around at the others. "I'm surprised at you. Double-X, what're you doin' here? Brick, Slayer, you too? And Spartacus-you and me have always been tight."

"Sarge, you told us we needed that robot camo, and we paid you a pretty stiff price for it," said Double-X, trying to regain control of the encounter. Like the other legionnaires in the group, he wore several garments made of the purple-splotched fabric Chocolate Harry had represented as robot-proof. "But they sent us to this here world, not that asteroid."

"Now, you all must have misunderstood me," said Harry. "I never said we were gonna get sent to that asteroid, did I? I said that's where the robots was from, that's all. Now, here we are on a planet with an unknown enemy. Who's to say it ain't the renegade robots, huh? How you know it ain't, Street?"

"Hmmm..." Street scratched his head. "Well, you got me there, Sarge." He looked around at his companions again, fishing for support.

Chocolate Harry didn't give the moment of silence a chance to linger. "Now, the thing about a robot is, it's a machine," he said. "You can't fight a robot like you would a regular organic sophont. These Zenobian stun rays, they ain't worth a nickel 'gainst a bot, no way."

"I can see that could be a problem," said Brick, nodding. She'd experienced the stun ray firsthand and was among the company's best long-range experts with it. Then she furrowed her brow and said, "But it's only a problem if the robots show up here. How do we know they're going to show up, Sarge?"

"Well, that's where an old legionnaire like me can just feel a few things in his bones," said Chocolate Harry, leaning back and slipping the bayonet back into its sheath. "These Zenobians, they've had the stun ray longer than anybody, right?"

"Yeah, I guess so," said Brick. The others nodded, too. It seemed a logical conclusion.

Chocolate Harry spread the fingers of his left hand and began to count off his points as he made them. "So, they call us here. That's gotta mean they found an enemy they can't handle, right?"

"Yeah, that must be what it mean," said Street, a frown of concentration on his face.

"So what kinda enemy can't they handle with the stun ray?" said Harry, looking at the faces of his audience. "Gotta be robots!" He slapped his hand on his thigh with a loud smack.

"Sarge's makin' sense," said Double-X, almost against his will.

"Damn straight I'm makin' sense," said Chocolate Harry, seizing his advantage. "They've brought us in here because they have a robot invasion. It's as plain as the nose on Tusk-anini's face. The stun ray's worthless, and it's the Legion that's gotta pick up the pieces. And you know who that means."

He stared around at the ring of now-worried faces, hanging on his every word. "If I was you, I'd be makin' sure I had plenty of robot camo, and I'd be practicin' my conventional weapons. 'Cause when the hammer comes down, you're the ones gotta stop it. Got it?"