The VMR Theory (v1.1) (4 page)

“Uh, thanks.” I pointed to the mask I was wearing. “But we’re already equipped.” Although Alt Bauernhof’s atmosphere has a respectable oxygen content, it also has more carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulfide than is healthy, not to mention what Macdonalds smell like.

Clearly annoyed that I was screwing with his memorized lines, he glowered at me and hitched up his sagging trousers with a free hand. “You will report to office 512 to arrange for off-loading of cargo. You will be escorted to office 512.”

“Thank you,” Catarina said smoothly, tucking her arm I irmly in mine and moving me along smartly before he lost either his temper or his pants.

Office 512 sent us to office 845. Office 845 sent us to office 653, which lingered over our bills of lading before finally stamping them and sending us to office 513 for payment. As Catarina had expected, the Macdonalds were in a hurry to get the stuff and had decided to cut most of the usual red tape.

As we headed for office 513 I noticed three Macdonalds in wigs, sunglasses, and silver spandex waiting for their guitars to come in. “Elvis must be turning over in his grave.”

“Oh, no, sir,” Bunkie rejoined, “the Scribbs Institute estimates tha,t Elvis turning over in his grave would register 5.9 on the Richter scale, and no such disturbance has been reported.”

“Thank you, Bunkie.”

Predictably, the boys in office 513 tried to stiff us on the money they owed by substituting payment in local currency for payment in real money. Since Macdonald currency isn’t worth spit off Alt Bauemhof, and probably isn’t worth spit
on
Alt Bauemhof, this was not an acceptable substitute. I let Bunkie negotiate, and we finally compromised on payment of half the balance in commodities, half in local currency, and waiver of all import taxes and port, exchange, and handling fees, which is pretty much what I expected.

Being unduly burdened with local currency that we would have to spend during our stay or use for toilet paper on the trip home, an impulse struck me—it felt like Catarina’s left elbow—and I dropped a wad of cash into the soup bowl in front of a Macdonald seated with a white bandage over his eyes and what looked like a begging license pinned to his head covering. “There you go, old codger.”

His Jacobson’s organs quivered, and he reached into the basket to finger the cash. “You are most gracious, effendi.”

“Your English is pretty dam good,” I blurted out.

“How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? One learns to speak passable English if one wishes to work t’is comer, effendi. It is not impossible.”

Bunkie nodded agreement. “Sir, with practice, Macdonalds can utter voiced bilabial nasals without nasal passages, and voiced and voiceless palato-alveolar affricates without an alveolar ridge. That’s pretty impressive.”

“That’s ‘m,’ ‘j,’ and ‘ch,’ “ Catarina announced, in case inquiring minds wanted to know.

“In fact,” Bunkie concluded, “the only thing Macdonalds have trouble with are voiced and voiceless dental fricatives and, of course, German vowel sounds.”

“Thank you, Bunkie.”

Bunkie executed a crisp salute. “You’re welcome, sir.”

The blindfolded Macdonald touched his head to the floor. “I am honored by your presence and cash, effendi.”

“Uh, I’m Ken Mac Kay. Pleased to meet you, honored.”

Catarina stopped leafing through our messages and raised one eyebrow. Some days, I’m fractionally slow on the update. Some people claim those days are Sunday through Saturday, inclusive.

“I am Wipo.” The blind Macdonald touched his head to the floor. “But you are tee famed Ken MacKay! It was foretold you would come.”

“By who, er, by whom?”

“By tee men who make up shipping schedules. T’ey speak to each ot’er in tee halls.”

“Oh,” I said, moderately deflated.

Bunkie looked back toward the six Macdonalds who were attempting to look casual as they followed us from office to office.

“Wipo,” I said, “you wouldn’t happen to know who these guys work for, do you?”

“Sorry. Not all of tee various security agencies confide in me.”

“Ah, thanks,” I stammered. As we headed back to the ship followed by our escort, I asked Catarina, “What’s our next move?”

“We need to get dressed.” She waved one of our messages. “We have a party to attend dirtside.”

A horrible thought struck me. “Oh, my God. We’re going to have to give our crew shore leave while we’re here.”

Spacers traditionally let off steam dirtside, and the steam my bunch generated could power oceangoing vessels. Rosalee shed her inhibitions after the
Scupper
changed owners, and Harry had none to begin with, so the two of them had approximately the same impact on a town as Attila and his Huns. While most of the places we visited took this sort of thing in stride, I had a feeling the Macdonalds might get a little upset.

Catarina looked up into the artificial lighting. “You’re right, but there’s no way around it—it’s in their contracts, and it’ll look strange to the Macdonalds if we don’t let them go.”

Bunkie patted me on the wrist. “Be brave, sir.”

I looked at her. “Uh, Bunkie, would you consider—” She shook her head. “No, sir. Somebody needs to supervise the Macdonalds unloading the cargo, so I’m going to stay up here where it’s safe.”

“All right,” I sighed, and I heard Catarina mutter something that might have been a prayer.

After we got back, Clyde volunteered to help Bunkie watch the ship. I gathered the liberty party on the bridge to read them the riot act. Pulling the prybar out of Rosalee’s pocket, I banged the deck plates. “All right. Everybody listen up.”

An expectant hush fell over my merry band of Visigoths. I’ve noticed that holding a blunt instrument in a suggestive manner is the best way to appeal to my crew’s better nature.

“First things first, gang. No riots. None.”

“Not even a little one?” Rosalee wheedled. Strangers often chat with her on the street, probably on the theory that if they don’t, she might attack.

“Not even an itsy-bitsy, little one,” Catarina said firmly.

“That brings me to the subject of cops—no picking fights with the cops.” I folded my arms. “This is not a Confederation planet. If you so much as look at a cop cross-eyed, they’ll throw you in the slammer.”

“It’ll take about twelve of the oily little toads,” Harry muttered under his breath.

“Don’t even think about it,” Catarina admonished him sternly. “They’ll shoot you, and they’ll send us a bill for the ammunition.”

“What a bunch of weenies,” Wyma Jean said.

I banged the deck plates again with my borrowed prybar. “That brings us to the next item. No insulting language. Do not refer to the locals as ‘oily toads’ or ‘greasers,’ and avoid singing songs that they might find offensive. There’s one song the Macdonalds are particularly sensitive about, and singing it is a felony offense. Even saying ‘E-I-E-I-O’ is enough to land your tail in jail. So let’s not.”

“Bunch of party poopers,” Rosalee muttered.

“One moment,” Catarina interrupted. “Harry, are you packing?”

Harry owns a 12mm Osoro, the kind of weapon that almost qualifies as a handgun but can do double duty as antiaircraft artillery and, if you’re as big as Harry, you can almost conceal it. “Yes, ma’am,” Harry admitted. “Sorry, Harry. It stays, or you do.”

“Aw, come on, if I leave it, I’ll practically be unarmed down there!”

She smiled. “That’s the idea.”

Harry solemnly handed it over to Clyde.

“Think of yourselves as guests here. Pretend you like these people. Make friends,” I said.

“And don’t get caught,” Catarina added.

On that high note we trooped off to the commuter terminal. Like most planets with a real space station, Alt Bauernhof ran regular shuttles from the station to the surface, and Bunkie had booked us seats.

“Don’t you worry about a thing while you’re at that party, Ken,” Harry assured me as we watched the station recede on the overhead vision screen, “we’re going to do cultural stuff.”

Minnie and Mickey nodded their heads up and down in unison, which confirmed my worst fears.

On the viewscreen a small rocket gracefully leaped away from the space station. Descending, it reached an appropriate orbit over the planet, where it unfolded into a dazzling display of multicolored light which hung in space spelling out its message in a cursive script.

“I’m not sure,” I said, studying the flowing Macdonald lettering. “It’s either for antacid or tooth powder.”

When the shuttle grounded, Catarina and I picked up our baggage and watched our happy henchmen hop into an animal-drawn taxi and speed away, in a manner of speaking, into the sunset.

A fresh set of shadows nonchalantly took up positions, watching us. “You know, I’m beginning to think that you-know-who didn’t think through all of the angles on sending us here.”

Catarina shook her head. “I’m afraid she did.”

I shuddered. “Well, what’s the an-play for onight-tay?”

“First, let’s stop at the embassy and make sure we have rooms.” Alt Bauemhof didn’t have much of a tourist trade, and the Confederation Embassy was the only place on the planet that maintained an Earthlike atmosphere and served human meals.

Catarina flagged down a taxi, a ground car this time, and showed the driver the address for the embassy. As the driver whipped across two lanes of traffic to make a left-hand turn the wrong way up a one-way street, I asked him, “Do you speak English?”

“New York!” he said, waggling his tongue.

Twenty minutes later, after we made him pull over, we figured out that he couldn’t speak English
or
Sklo’kotax.

I asked Catarina, “Do you think—no, forget the question. He couldn’t have.”

“New York!” he said, waggling his tongue.

Eschewing further discussion, Catarina got out and flagged down the Secret Police who were surreptitiously following us. “We need a lift to the Confederation Embassy,” she explained, opening the door and climbing in.

The two operatives in the car looked at each other.

Catarina added, “If you get us there in ten minutes, we won’t tell your boss how much we appreciate your assistance.”

Cop Number One looked at Cop Number Two, who lolled his head helplessly and moved us out of there at a high rate of speed.

The traffic was light, so we zipped along, passing street vendors who cheerfully waved fingers and other appendages, and badly whitewashed buildings that suggested the Macdonalds stressed functionality over aesthetics. The architectural style was half-baked, and so were the mud bricks. The combination made the downtown edifices resemble a collection of diseased horse droppings.

“Local building style, or did someone visit Washington during the pigeon season?” I inquired.

“It is tee unquenchable desire of tee common people to avoid any foreign influences,” Cop Number Two said awkwardly as we passed one enterprising citizen with a White Sox baseball cap on his pointy little head.

We pulled up in front of the Confederation Embassy with two minutes to spare, and our secret policemen blew bubbles of relief.

“We appreciate this very much,” Catarina said, peeling off a few bills from my wad. “Do you accept gratuities?”

“Of course not!” the driver said indignantly, reaching for the cash.

Catarina winked at me. “We should be back in about half an hour.”

As they drove away I asked her, “Is this wise?”

“Would you rather chance the cabs?” She tucked her arm in mine. “Come on.”

The Marine guards at the gate saluted and passed us through the pressure doors to a reception room decorated in a charming mixture of middle Versailles and early motel. The second secretary, a portly man with a black toothbrush mustache and the turtle-in-shell look you associate with career diplomats, was waiting for us. Rising from behind his desk, he greeted us without any evident signs of warmth. “I am Second Secretary Mushtaq Rizvi. I bid you welcome to Klo’klotixa.” He glanced at his watch. “I have asked the third military attache to be present for this discussion.”

He gave us wristband Sklo’kotax-English dictionaries so we would know useful phrases in the local language, like “Where is the rest room?” and “Would you please stop torturing me?” and a moment later the third attache walked in.

Catarina’s eyes lit up. “Why, it’s Mailboat Bobby Stemm. So this is where Lydia parked you. How nice to see you!” she said with absolutely transparent insincerity.

Bobby Stemm hunched his shoulders, looking slightly less than pleased to see us again.

Bobby had reached Schuyler’s World on a mailship a few days before Prince Genghis’s invading Rodent hordes showed up. On arrival he tried to order us to surrender to Genghis’s less than tender mercy on the theory that giving up would embarrass the navy less than getting ourselves blown away. Although Bobby’s golden profile belongs on a recruiting poster, it was not his finest hour. He ended up wearing the proverbial egg-yolk mascara after we whipped Genghis. The navy being somewhat sensitive about its image, after Bobby was depicted as cowering under a couch in the movie loosely based on our exploits, his career took a sharp nosedive.

He said, with obvious trepidation, “With the second military attache indisposed, Secretary Rizvi asked me to be present.”

“Indisposed. Irate husband?” Catarina inquired sweetly.

Bobby unbent slightly. “Well, yes. Fortunately, a terrible shot.”

“It’s nice to see that attache duty hasn’t changed.”

Bobby reached over and shook my hand gingerly. “Good to see you again, MacKay. I understand you’re a vampire, too. How does one catch McLendon’s Syndrome?”

I gave him a toothy grin. “Shaking hands works for me.”

Bobby yanked his hand back, and Catarina leaned over the desk. “Bobby, if we’re going to be working together, I should mention that I had them backdate my promotion to lieutenant commander to be absolutely certain that I would be senior to you. Got that?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Stemm nodded his head up and down like a puppet.

“Lieutenant Commander Stemm has informed me that you are here at the request of Navy Intelligence,” Rizvi said sternly. “I must insist on being kept apprised of your activities. Negotiations between the Foreign Office and the Klo’klotixa government are at a delicate stage, and Ambassador Meisenhelder has instructed me to avoid anything which might upset them.”