Phule Me Twice (16 page)

"That's not good," said Phule. "Let's find someplace to set down before power runs out entirely. If worse comes to worst, we'll call base and have somebody take a run out and pick us up."

"Yes, sir," said Beeker. "There's a clear area just ahead. I'll put us down there." He slid into the driver's seat and flipped the control switch over to manual. After a moment, he said, "The controls aren't responding, sir. Shall I activate the emergency signal?"

Phule nodded and took up an extra notch in his safety belt. "Yes, and I'll try to raise the base on the comm." He touched the On button on his wrist communicator and lifted it closer to his mouth. "Mother, come in. This is Jester with a priority call. Mother, come in." The communicator emitted aloud burst of white noise but nothing resembling a coherent signal. "Mayday, Mayday, Mother, can you hear me?"

Beeker turned around to look at him. "Sir, if I may make a suggestion, perhaps you should continue to transmit, on the chance that she can hear you but cannot reply. Tell them our position, and perhaps they can send someone to aid us. I will attempt to regain control of the vehicle."

"Good plan," said Phule. "If you can just get the thing stopped, at least we won't have to worry about hitting anything."

"That is what I have been attempting, sir," said Beeker. He returned his attention to the controls. After a few moments he said, "We are veering off course, sir. The vehicle appears to be under external control. Should we abandon it?"

Phule looked at the boulder-strewn ground passing beneath the jeep and shook his head. "We're still moving too fast," he said. "I think we're better off riding it out-unless something happens to make staying aboard worse than jumping. If we do get stranded out here, we'll probably need the jeep's emergency kit."

"Yes, sir," said Beeker, reaching up to hold his hat.

"The power readout's still dropping, sir. I don't think we've slowed down, though."

If anything, it felt as if they'd picked up speed. The jeep was headed almost at right angles to its original. course, now, and none of Beeker's efforts made any apparent difference. In the usual course of things, if power failed, the grav units would've lowered the hoverjeep gently to the ground-but at this speed, there would have been nothing gentle about it. The only thing to do was hold on and hope the crash protection was up to its job if they hit anything too solid.

As the jeep sped onward, Phule kept sending his Mayday message, while Beeker kept a lookout for any sign of imminent collision or other danger. But neither the jeep's built-in comm unit nor Phule's wrist communicator showed any sign that it was in contact with the base. Phule was still trying to give Mother (who might or might not have been able to hear him) his best guess of where they were and what was happening, when the jeep suddenly lost speed and came slowly to the ground.

Journal #550

Second Lieutenant Snipe was almost instantly dubbed "Lieutenant Sneak" by the Omega Mob. He was, if possible, more cordially hated by most of the enlisted legionnaires than even his superior, Major Botchup. And while the two other lieutenants were more or less forced to tolerate him, they were unable to find even the smallest ground for camaraderie with him.

This no doubt derived in large part from their having seen the transformation of Omega Company, under my employer's guidance, from the least desirable billet in the Legion into a place where one might build a career. Botchup and Snipe had not been part of that transformation; instead, they were seen (quite accurately) as being sent to tear down everything that Captain Jester had built.

Neither the callow major nor his smirking subaltern-and certainly none of the brass who had sent them on their mission-quite understood that before they could persuade the newly liberated genie to return to its bottle, they would have to reconstruct the original bottle, which had long since been broken into a million fragments.

"Well, Snipe, what do you think of this outfit?" said Maor Botchup. He was firmly established in Phule's office, which was specially set up as a command center in the event of military action. A thick stack of Omega Company personnel dossiers was on his desk, and the screen of the major's computer was already filled with his notes.

Snipe twisted his mouth. "A very poor excuse for a combat unit, sir," he said. "It's even worse than I expected. There's no sign of proper discipline, not even among the officers. Half the personnel is totally unsuited or the jobs they're doing. Believe it or not, the woman running communications can barely speak a coherent sentence. I suspect we'll want a psychological evaluation here, sir. The supply sergeant is grossly out of shape and its around reading hovercycle magazines. The enlisted personnel have no respect at all; there's a Volton who insulted me directly and tried to browbeat me when I nailed him on it."

"We can't allow that," said Botchup. "Give me a written report with the details, and I'll take care of it. Just looking at these files, I can see that Jester has let them run amok." He shook his head. "They're lucky they've lever had to deal with any real threats."

"Yes, sir," said Snipe. "It's a good thing General Blitzkrieg assigned you to set them right, sir. Captain Jester has let the company go completely to seed."

"I've been going over Jester's file in particular," said Botchup. He pointed toward a shipping box sitting on a hair by the door. The box was marked Captain Jester: Personal. It had been brought from Phule's office in the Company's Landoor headquarters. Now that the CO's office belonged to Botchup, these personal effects would normally be removed to Phule's quarters, but the sealing tape was cut and the top lay open. "No warm laser crystals yet, but with all you've told me, it's just a matter of time before I find something big enough to have him booted out of the Legion entirely."

"None too soon, sir, to judge from what I've seen," said Snipe, nodding vigorously. "I suspect their combat readiness is as pathetic as everything else Jester's had a hand in. It's appalling that Omega company was given a mission as crucial as this one."

"Chalk that up to Jester's being in bed with the politicos," said Botchup. "He pulled the wool over some ambassador's eyes and talked him into backing this company for Zenobia. I'm surprised he wanted it. Really-you'd think he'd have been happier with a soft billet like Landoor."

"Sir, perhaps Jester's angling for a political career after he leaves the Legion," said Snipe. "There's nothing quite like leading a unit in battle to convince the voters you're leadership material. They never ask how many casualties your unit took."

"That's the way of it," said Botchup. "The dilettantes get all the credit, while the real legionnaires do the dirty work. Well, this time, the real legionnaires are going to take back command of the company before the dilettantes know what hit 'em. And if I have to put half the company in the stockade to turn it around, that's what I'll do."

"Starting with the captain, sir?" Snipe grinned maliciously.

"Starting with the captain," agreed Botchup. "As soon as he gets back from his little junket to the native capital, he's going to have a lot of explaining to do."

"Very good, sir," said Snipe. After a moment's thought, he asked, "Should we order him back to base, sir? I'd think the sooner you can make him an example, the sooner this company will toe the line."

"No, I want time to build my case against him," said Botchup. "Besides, there's nothing he can do from a distance, and by the time he gets back, I'll have gone a long way toward establishing my own authority."

Snipe leaned forward and spoke in a quiet voice. "Should we take any steps to prevent the other officers from warning him, sir?"

"No," said Botchup with a nasty smile. "Let them yell their heads off, Snipe. If Jester realizes just what's in store for him, he may just cut and run. That's the usual way with his kind, and it'd suit me fine. Then I could get down to the business of turning this company around without any interference from him-or his cronies."

"Very good, sir," said Snipe. "I can see you're not going to be satisfied with half measures."

"Not at all," said Botchup. "Now, why don't you get started on your report. I want to know every single rotten spot in this particular apple, Snipe. You name the names, and I'll kick the asses."

"Yes, sir!" said Snipe with a salute that could have been molded in plastic and used as a model in the Legion Academy. He turned and strode out of the command center, grinning like a madman. It didn't matter at all to Snipe that he was planning to take the best company in the Legion and return it to the mediocrity from which it had arisen. His orders said to do it, and the last thing Snipe would ever do was question an order...Unless, of course, it was to his personal advantage to do so.

The Zenobian desert baked under its glowing primary, a hot, yellow G star. Until recently, humans had looked at the system and seen only worthless real estate: all the planets were in orbits either too close to or too far away from the primary for the system to be of interest. Except for one very useful space station, there was no Alliance presence here. Only when a Zenobian scout ship had made an emergency landing on Haskin's Planet, halfway across the galaxy, did the Alliance learn the real story of this unappealing world-unappealing to human beings, but not to the lizardlike race that called it home.

The Zenobians were swamp dwellers, evolved from quasi-saurian stock. In the manner of all intelligent races, they had transformed much of their world into the sort of environment they favored. But much still remained in a state of nature, inhabited only by untamed indigenous lifeforms. A good third of its land surface was in fact arid, similar to this patch perhaps a hundred kilometers from the Alliance camp.

Neither the Zenobian astronomers nor human lookouts observed the fireball cross the, sky. After all, there were dozens of such events on any given day, far too many to be of interest, unless the objects causing them were large enough to damage a populated area. But this object was no threat, and so nobody even noticed when it rotated and fired braking rockets, or when, in the lower atmosphere, it popped a hatch and deployed a drogue parachute.

And when the escape capsule settled to the ground in a shallow depression that in the rainy season would briefly become a lake, only a few dull-witted desert creatures were there to see the main hatch spring open and a lone figure emerge.

This was just as well, since the figure that emerged looked ill prepared for the environment it had arrived in. Dressed in a white dinner jacket and starched shirt, it looked as if it had come directly from a formal dance at some exclusive country club. Its highly polished shoes were obviously designed for a polished parquet floor or at worst a well-manicured lawn-hardly for a trek across untracked wilderness. Any man with a lick of sense would have been sobered by his first glimpse of the forbidding desert that stretched away from the escape capsule in all directions.

Of course, this was not a man but a custom-made Andromatic robot, designed and programmed to impersonate its owner, Willard Phule in his role as owner/manager of the Fat Chance Casino on Lorelei. The Zenobian desert held no more fears for it than the hotel corridors from which it had been kidnapped. In fact, it had very few fears at all. In this detail, it was more like its human model than perhaps its builders realized.

After scanning the horizon in all directions, the robot Phule's delicate sensors detected a signal of human origin from a not-unreasonable distance. Without a glance at the considerable stock of survival gear with which its escape capsule had been supplied, the robot turned in the direction of the signal and began walking. There was an incongruous grin on its face.

The unimaginative desert creatures, having decided that the robot was neither a threat nor a potential meal, turned back to their business.

Double-X crossed his arms and stared at Brandy. "OK, Sarge, what's the story?" the legionnaire demanded. "Who's getting punished and how?"

Brandy stared back at him from behind the desk. In a lot of circumstances, she'd have bitten his head off for the impertinence. But this wasn't a lot of circumstances; the major's heavy-handed discipline had made her as angry as any of her troops. "The story is, the major's sticking to his guns. Which means punishment for the whole company."

Double-X's face turned red, and he angrily blurted out, "Yo, Sarge, you saw what the major did to Roadkill. I'm here to tell you, everybody in the company says that stinks."

"Tell me about it," she said wearily. "While we're telling each other about things, the major's pissed about discipline-like you guys talking back when I say something. He hears you interrupting me or griping about his orders, he's likely to bust humps a good bit more. Not that I can't handle it, or even worse, but a word to the wise, Double-X, a word to the wise."

Double-X looked around as if to check for eavesdroppers before answering. Then he put his hands on the desktop, leaned forward, and lowered his voice. "Man, that stinks even worse," he said.

"A brilliant deduction," said Brandy, slapping her hand on her desktop. "Just what do you suggest doing about the problem?"

Double-X fidgeted, his face screwed up in a frown. "I dunno, Sarge," he admitted at last. "If the cap'n was here, I bet he'd have some way to get us out from under this mess."

"I wish he was here, myself," said Brandy. "I don't think he'd be any happier than the rest of us with what's going down, but I know he'd have some ideas for fixing it." She paused and lowered her voice. "But don't get your hopes too high, Double-X. Botchup is the latest dirty trick from Headquarters, and he's got the full authority of the top brass backing him. I'm afraid not even the captain's going to be able to flick him aside all that easily."

Double-X shrugged. "All I know is, the captain's took 'em on and won before. If anybody can do it again, he's the man."

"Well, then you better hope he gets back soon," said Brandy. She paused a moment, then said, "You got anything else to gripe about, or are you going to hang out here until the major notices and puts you down for extra punishment?"

"Man, I don't need no part of that," said Double-X. "Catch you later, Sarge."

"Yeah, see you on punishment duty," said Brandy. She didn't laugh, and neither did Double-X.

"Where are we?" asked Phule. He had opened the jeep's canopy and was standing up, scanning the horizon for signs of...He realized he wasn't sure what he was scanning for, but at the moment there was nothing noteworthy in sight, unless the boulders and scrubby vegetation concealed secrets beyond his guessing.

Beeker looked up from the map he had taken out. "Very approximately, sir, we are midway between the Zenobians' capital and our own base. We have strayed some distance off our original course, however, and I cannot locate us exactly. Our instruments are not providing meaningful information at the moment."

"Yeah, I got that impression," said Phule. He sat down in the seat and looked over Beeker's shoulder. "Does the map show any landmarks in this general area?"

"Nothing, really," said the butler. "But this is an ordnance survey map provided by our hosts. They could conceivably have omitted items they preferred not to let us know about."

"That'd be a lot of trouble to confuse an ally," said Phule, although even as he said it, he remembered being ordered to provide similarly doctored information to Leftenant Qual when the Zenobian had been an observer with Omega Company. He shrugged. "Anyway, there's nothing obviously military in eyeball range. Unless they've got it pretty well camouflaged, that is." He paused. "Hmmm...we are trying to locate an invader that appears to have unusually effective camouflage..."

"You don't think the Hidden Ones brought us down here, do you?" Beeker laughed. "What reason could they have for that? Although I don't pretend to comprehend the psychology of an alien species; quite frankly, the human race gives me enough trouble." He accompanied this remark with a meaningful nod in Phule's direction.

Phule ignored the nod-or perhaps he simply missed it. "There's not much research on the psychology of interstellar warfare," he said, seriously. "There haven't been a whole lot of examples to study, partly because it's usually not cost-effective. But any race that gets cheap FTL has at least the capability to wage interstellar war. That's why there's a Legion-so that if some rogue species tries to attack another race's world, we can stop it."

"In theory," said Beeker, peering nervously at the landscape beyond the hoverjeep. "Still, someone appears to have invaded this world. Unless the Zenobians are deceiving us for some reason."

"I've considered that," said Phule. "Even the ambassador had some suspicions on that score. Don't worry, old man, I'm keeping an open mind about it. On balance, I think they're telling the truth about the invasion. There are still some questions I haven't gotten good answers to..."