Phule's Errand

14

Journal #842-

Phule sat and fiddled with his Port-a-Brain. He’d called up the data on Old Earth, the next stop in his search for Beeker and Laverna. It felt as if the search had been stretching out for months, now-although he knew it couldn’t be that long. Travel by starship was always disorienting, of course, and strange things could happen to time when you ducked through the shortcuts between distant stars. It was widely rumored that a space traveler sometimes arrived at his destination after several hyperspace jumps, placed a call to the home office back on the planet he’d started from, and found himself answering his own call…

Phule had never heard of a documented case of someone arriving back home before he left, although old space hands were always ready to tell tales to groundlings. Phule didn’t like to think about it. All he really wanted was to find his missing butler and get him to hand over the Port-a-Brain. He knew there was a chance he might lose the butler’s trail, and the security chip would throw him into hibernation.

Phule leaned back and sighed, then punched a fist softly into his cupped hand. Time to face reality. Old Earth was going to be his last stop. He’d put all the time and money and energy at his command into the job.

A confident grin came to his face. He wasn’t going to give up the game without putting on a good show. He had more resources on this world than anywhere else he’d been so far-in fact, Old Earth was one of the centers of the family munitions business. Normally, he tried not to take undue advantage of his family connections. But this wasn’t a normal situation-not after he’d searched three planets without so much as a sight of his butler. First thing off the ship, he’d call the local offices of Phule-Pruf Munitions and see what they could do to shorten his search. Unless there’d been unusual friction between the branch office and the community, a request for help from a well-established local business ought to carry some weight with the authorities. What else? He’d need to find somebody with the local knowledge to expedite his search-looking back, he had to admit that the various “native guides” he’d picked up on the other worlds he’d visited hadn’t been a whole lot of help. Here, at least, there was a family member in charge of the local branch office of Phule-Pruf Munitions. He hadn’t seen his uncle in years, but Phule knew without asking that the fellow had to be more reliable than Buck Short or Perry Sodden…

He realized with a start that there had only been one really reliable person in his entire life-good old Beeker, who despite his ill-concealed disapproval of Phule’s behavior on many occasions, had always been there with sound advice and an unfailing fund of practical know-how in the most surprisingly diverse areas. The real irony was that Phule was trying to find his one reliable servant-and falling on his face because he didn’t have anyone reliable to help him in the search! If only he could call on Beeker to help him find Beeker…

In fact, there was a way-or at least in theory there was a way. Unfortunately, it depended entirely on Beeker’s being willing to give up the mad pursuit and come back to his employer. Right here on the Port-a-Brain was a direct link to Beeker’s corresponding machine, which Phule could punch up to send a near-instant message to his absent employee from halfway across the galaxy.

It had one significant shortcoming: There was no way to force Beeker to pay attention to messages he didn’t want to read. In fact, Phule thought, even Beeker might be reluctant to take time on his vacation to read a message from his boss. So until Beeker decided he wanted to hear from his employer, paging him was going to be about as effective as attaching a paper note to a bird’s wings and asking it to deliver it to someone on another planet.

Phule sighed. He’d promised himself he wasn’t going to get sidetracked by pessimism. Not that it was all that easy-especially times like now, when it seemed like the only sane attitude to have…

“What’s wrong with hi- er, it?” asked Gears, looking at the Andromatic robot simulacrum of Phule. In the absence of Sushi, the company’s closest thing to a computer expert, Lieutenants Rembrandt and Armstrong had decided that Gears might be their best bet for a diagnosis of the robot’s problem. At least, Gears was good with other kinds of machines…

“Hit on the forehead with a golf ball,” said Armstrong. “There’s no visible damage, but then it started acting strangely.”

“And in this outfit, how’d you notice?” said Gears, with enough of a straight face that Armstrong nearly answered him. “Seriously, though, what’s it acting like? Maybe that’ll give me some kind of clue. Although it’d be nice to have a schematic of this baby’s brain.”

“If the captain ever had a schematic, it’s probably back at the casino offices on Lorelei,” said Rembrandt. “But to answer your question, the best way to describe the problem is, the robot’s trying to do everything by the book, the way General Blitzkrieg wants the company run. It’s acting just like that Major Botchup they sent to run the company the last time the captain was away.”

“Whoa, that’s scary,” said Gears. His face turned serious, and he said, “I hate to tell you this, Lieutenant, but I’m afraid this robot’s broke.”

“You’re kidding,” said Armstrong.

“No, really, it’s pretty messed up,” said Gears.

“All right, I believe you, Gears,” said Rembrandt. “Question is, can you fix it so the general can’t tell?-and I mean really fast?”

Gears shrugged. “Robot repair’s a real specialized field. I guess I know my way around the innards of a hoverjeep about as well as anybody in the Legion. I’m not going to tell nobody otherwise. If you want me to fix something else… well, no promises. Maybe Sushi could figure out what’s wrong with it, if he was around. But if this was my robot, I wouldn’t even open the cover. I’d send it right back to the factory. These Andromatic models are supposed to come with lifetime guarantees, I hear tell. You know Captain Jester always buys the best.“

“Yeah, too bad the factory’s a couple dozen parsecs away,” said Armstrong, drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair. “How about a quick fix? It just has to keep working until the general goes away…”

“Which he isn’t showing any signs of doing, thanks to all the golf matches,” said Rembrandt. “You’d think he’d get tired of the game.”

“He enjoys beating the captain,” said Armstrong, shrugging. “The robot, really, but the general doesn’t know that. Actually, I think the general’s spent so long thinking of Captain Jester as the adversary that winning-and taking a bit of the captain’s money, as well-is a special treat, even if it’s only a game.”

“Makes sense,” admitted Rembrandt, frowning. “But wait a minute… what if the robot started winning all the time?‘

“Well, the robot has been winning, every now and then,” said Armstrong. “Just enough to keep the general from figuring out it’s letting him win the matches.” He gave the robot a long stare, then said, “I’m not sure just what it’s likely to do now. Today it started playing like a world champion. The general’s not going to appreciate that. So we’ve got to fix it…”

“Yeah,” said Rembrandt. “The question is, can we?”

It took Major Sparrowhawk about three milliseconds to notice that General Blitzkrieg was boiling mad. It didn’t take a lot of thought; he pretty much gave it away when he burst in the door, bellowed out a string of curses, and threw his golf bag halfway across the office they’d been assigned on Zenobia Base.

Sparrowhawk wasn’t upset. She’d seen her boss in that condition plenty of times before. Some might even argue that it was the general’s normal mood. Whether it was or not, he’d been in an abnormally pleasant state for nearly two weeks.

She gave a mental shrug and prepared to deal with the situation. That was really the essence of her job as Blitzkrieg’s adjutant: figuring out what to do when the general was so pissed off at the universe that nobody else wanted anything to do with him. Not surprisingly, there weren’t very many other junior Legion officers willing to take on the task. That gave her a fair measure of job security, as well as a quite decent lifestyle back at Rahnsome Base, where most of the Alliance military maintained their general staff and headquarters. Here at Zenobia Base, the lifestyle was another story-although she certainly couldn’t complain about the food.

And, in fact, she’d had more than the usual amount of downtime, with the general concentrating so totally on his golf game. She felt a certain grudging admiration for Captain Jester, who’d had the foresight to build a golf course here, and to entice Blitzkrieg into an apparently endless series of matches. It had certainly kept the general out of her hair. She hadn’t even felt the usual pressure to snoop around the base, compiling a list of the violations, screw-ups, and deficiencies every base commander tried to sweep under the rug when a staff officer came to visit. She had developed a knack for finding sore spots for the general to pounce on once he’d stopped having fun. Well, it looked as if the fun was over-for her as well as for the general. And as much as she’d come to like the people she’d been dealing with on Zenobia, she knew her job.

She reached for her digital notepad. “I think you’ll want to look at this, General,” she said, in a tone of voice carefully modulated to pique his interest rather than add to his annoyance.

“I’ll be damned if I want to look at anything,” roared Blitzkrieg, pretty much the response she’d expected. He plopped himself in the padded desk chair and bellowed, “Pour me a Scotch, damn it!”

“Yes, sir,” said Sparrowhawk, already moving toward the portable bar discreetly installed on one side of the office. She quickly fixed a drink to the general’s usual specifications and carried it over to him. As he took the drink, she set the notepad down on the desk slightly to one side of him and went back to her own desk. It wouldn’t be long before curiosity got the better of him…

In fact, he succumbed to the temptation after his second sip, picking up the notepad and staring at it for a solid minute before growling, “What the hell is this about?”

“Oh, probably nothing important,” said Sparrowhawk, brightly. She took out her laser trimmer and began evening up her fingernails, then said, “I believe it’s some sort of apparatus the Zenobians are running here on the base. I’m not certain what it does, though.”

Blitzkrieg snorted and looked at the notepad again. “Are they allowed to do that?”

“I think the treaty lets them, sir,” said Sparrowhawk. She inspected her left hand. “Captain Jester would certainly know. I think he had a lot to do with the terms of the treaty,” she added.

“Damn thing looks suspicious as hell to me,” said Blitzkrieg. “Some kind of spy apparatus, I’d wager…”

Sparrowhawk looked up with an expression of feigned innocence. “Spy apparatus? Do you really think they’d be snooping on the Alliance?”

“I wouldn’t put anything past the scaly little bastards,” growled the general, peering at the image on Spar-rowhawk’s notepad. “Knew we couldn’t trust ‘em right from the first.”

“Well, whatever this apparatus is, they’ve got it set up right out by the perimeter,“ said Sparrowhawk. ”They aren’t even guarding it. You could probably just walk right up and inspect it.“

Blitzkrieg sipped his drink in silence, nodding slowly. After a moment he said, “Walk right up. Walk right up. You know, Major, I think I’m going to do exactly that.” He stood up and strode forcefully out the door.

Sparrowhawk waited until she’d heard the outside door close behind him, then let out a long sigh of relief. “Well, that ought to keep him out of my hair for a while longer.”

In the view screen, Old Earth was now close enough to show detail from space. It looked much like any developed world: a garland of lights across the nightside, hazed by the no-longer-pristine planetary atmosphere. The shapes of the continents were familiar from hundreds of tri-vee dramas, the stock establishing shot for what usually turned out to be the inspiring tale of an idealistic youngster struggling against the ancient, rigidly stratified society where every tiny gesture was an irrevocable status marker, and where raw talent came in a distant third to graft and nepotism. Having come from a family where he was a lifelong beneficiary of graft and nepotism, Phule had never been able to take such stories very seriously.

So Phule looked at the panorama with jaded eyes; he’d set foot on too many different worlds in the last few weeks, each at first promising and each at last a disappointment. Just as on Cut ‘N’ Shoot, Rot’n‘art, and Hix’s World, he was best advised to put aside his preconceptions and take Old Earth for what it was.

On the other hand, maybe Old Earth would be different. If you could believe the tourist brochures and guidebooks, it was the original home world from which the human race had spread out into the galaxy. But even if that was true, Phule didn’t see how it made any difference to his search.

All he wanted here was to catch up with Beeker, the right-hand man he’d taken for granted until events had proved just how indispensable he was. And when he’d found the butler, and gotten his Port-a-Brain, he’d gladly shake the dust of the home world of humanity from his shoes and return to Omega Company.

The speaker crackled, and a pleasant (if somewhat bored) female voice said, “All passengers for Old Earth please report to the shuttle boarding area. There will be three landing shuttles; the first will depart at eight-twenty-five, Galactic Standard Time, and will accept passengers from cabins eleven through forty-five…”

That would be the landing group he was in, Phule realized. He shouldered his duffel bag and headed toward the shuttle boarding area, which was just abaft the last row of first-class cabins.

He was three-quarters of the way to his destination when a stateroom door just to his left flew open just as he went past, and the occupant barged directly into him. They both went sprawling, and Phule looked up to see a pair of green eyes framed by bright red hair looking down at him. The eyes went wide with surprise, and a lush voice said, “Oh-I’m so sorry! I was on my way to the shuttles…”

“Well, so was I,” said Phule, indulgently. The pretty green-eyed young woman who’d bumped into him was pleasantly padded, and her oversize suitcase had fallen clear of him. So he hadn’t taken any damage, except perhaps to his dignity-which was not one of his particularly vulnerable areas. “Why don’t we both just head on down to the boarding area while we’re still on time. Could I help you with that bag?”

“Why, thank you, Captain,” she said, smiling. “My name’s Samantha Beliveau, by the way-but you can call me Sam. Everybody does.”

“Nice to meet you, Sam,” said Phule. “Now, we should hurry up if we’re going to make it to the shuttle. There’ll be plenty of time on board to talk.“

“Oh, I’d like that,” said Sam. Phule smiled. At least the trip down to Old Earth promised not to be boring…

Just visible from the landing area were the port facilities of Old Earth. As on most advanced worlds, the traveler’s first taste of the world was a meeting with humorless uniformed officials whose job was to intercept smugglers, terrorists, low-wage workers, and other interplanetary criminal types. Phule stood nonchalantly in line, waiting for the inspectors to begin processing passengers. He had been through customs on a hundred worlds and knew the routine by heart.

On nine out of ten worlds, the officials were unlikely to bother a Legion officer in uniform. Despite coming from the least prestigious branch of the Alliance armed services, Phule could usually count on being waved right through, or at the very most being asked to show his passport.

Today, he was glad to see, the line seemed to be moving steadily through the gates. The shipboard lunch menu hadn’t appealed to him, and as a result he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Once through customs, he fully intended to find the best restaurant in the vicinity and enjoy a leisurely meal, with a glass or two of Old Earth’s legendary vintages. His luggage could wait…

Finally, he came to the head of the line, waited a moment for one of the agents to become available, and stepped up to the desk. “Good afternoon,” he said, smiling pleasantly. It never hurt to be polite when dealing with bureaucrats, he’d found.

The agent was a human male of average height, with dark hair and a bushy moustache. On the lapel of his decidedly dowdy uniform was a regulation plastic name tag that read agt. g. c. fox. To Phule’s surprise, the agent snatched his passport as if he suspected it of being contraband. “State your reason for coming to Old Earth,” he said, sharply. His tone suggested that describing the afternoon as “good” was the height of impertinence.

“I’m here on personal business,” said Phule, keeping his face neutral.

Fox alternately stared at the passport and tapped a small keyboard attached to the computer screen on his desktop. After an uncomfortably long interval, he snapped his gaze back to Phule. “Planet of residence,” he barked. “Zenobia,” said Phule. “I’m stationed there with…”

“Just answer the questions I ask,” said Fox. “Zenobia…” He tapped a key, looked at his screen, then glared at Phule. “There’s no listing for a planet Zenobia in my database.”

“They’re independent allies,” said Phule. “I’m stationed there with…”

“You already said that,” Fox scolded. He looked back at his screen, taking his time. Abruptly he pointed at Phule and barked, “Are you importing any prohibited organic substances?”

“Of course not,” said Phule, standing up straighten “I am an officer of the Space Legion!”

Agent Fox snorted. Then Phule noticed, a short distance away, a stern-faced man in the same blue uniform as Fox, watching him. The man’s name tag read supervisor l. hawkridge. Suddenly aware of Phule’s gaze, the man gave a stiff nod toward Fox, then moved on to survey another part of the entry concourse.

“As if that made any difference,” said Fox, visibly relaxing as the supervisor walked away. “With what the Legion pays, a little income on the side looks pretty good to most officers.” The customs agent looked at Phule’s passport again, then leaned forward on his desk and lowered his voice. “Sure you’re not importing anything prohibited? There’s people I know that might be interested.”

“Yes, interested enough to throw me in the cooler for a few years,“ said Phule. ”If I were bringing in anything illegal, do you think I’d tell a customs officer?“

“Hey, ya never know,” said Fox, shrugging. “In this business, a guy’s gotta take whatever comes along. If a smuggler’s dumb enough to tell me he’s bringing something in, I’d be crazy not to take advantage.” He slid Phule’s passport back across the counter.

Phule noticed that Fox hadn’t made it exactly clear whether “take advantage” meant arresting the smuggler or taking a cut of the proceeds in return for letting him through. It might be very useful to know which he meant- just in case, as Chocolate Harry might have put it. He turned a knowing smile on the agent, and said, “Well, how do you catch the smart ones?”

Fox stroked his moustache with a thumb and index finger. “Well, we’ve got our tricks, and I probably shouldn’t give them away. To tell the truth, we probably don’t catch the really smart ones, but not everybody’s as smart as they think they are. You’d be surprised how many people think they can just give the agent a couple of bucks to turn a blind eye, right in front of everybody…”

Phule shrugged. “Some people never learn how to handle things discreetly.” He tucked his passport back into his pocket, not bothering to look whether the hundred-credit note he’d folded inside it was still there. He had a pretty good idea, though. If he needed help with immigration matters in the future, he was pretty sure he could turn to Agent Fox.

As Phule went away, Fox quickly noted down the name and hotel address from the captain’s passport. He was pretty sure he recognized the name from somewhere-he was the kind of person who kept track of such things. And if the captain was who Fox thought he was, certain people would be very interested in knowing he’d come to Old Earth. In any case, as Fox had learned, it never hurt to keep an eye open.

“I’ll be damned,” said General Blitzkrieg. “Right in the middle of an Alliance base…”

He was staring at a strange machine, tended by a group of the native Zenobians, all wearing what he assumed were local military uniforms. Just what the machine was, he couldn’t quite make out. But he knew an infringement on Legion prerogatives when he saw one. And he was just mad enough to go ahead and call the damned lizards on it.

“See here, what’s this all about?” he bellowed, striding forward in his most intimidating manner. Even dressed in his golf shorts and cap, he could summon up a galaxy-class bluster. “I demand an explanation!”

The lizards turned and looked at him, their expressions bright and curious. One of them-evidently the group leader-stepped forward. It was wearing a translator, which intoned, “Salutings, alien creature! Is it not that you are the General Flashbang? Flight Leftenant Qual has reported all to us.”

Confused, the general reverted to his tried-and-true strategy: bellowing louder. “I’m General Blitzkrieg, and I want to know what the hell you’re doing here on a Legion base!”

Another Zenobian answered him. “We faithfully regulate the sklern,” it said, in a nasal monotone.

“Regulate?” stormed Blitzkrieg. “I’ll show you regulate-and I mean Legion regulations! This entire base is three hundred sixty-five degrees out of regulations, and this infernal device is just the tip of the ice cube! I’ll have every one of you in the brig for espionage!” Blitzkrieg paused for breath, but he was interrupted before he could crank his tirade into a higher gear.

“Evenin‘, General,” came a drawling voice from behind him.

The general turned; there stood Rev, the preposterous chaplain of this preposterous company. “What the hell are you doing here?“ said Blitzkrieg. ”Better scurry back to your chapel before you find yourself in more trouble than your King can get you out of!“

“With the King on my side, I can handle a heap of trouble,” said Rev. “But there’s no sense lookin‘ for trouble where there ain’t any. What’s your problem with these fellers?”

Blitzkrieg waved a hand. “Why, it’s obvious! These damned foreigners are using a Legion ”base to spy on the Alliance! And Jester’s letting them do it, without blinking an eye!“

Rev scratched his head. “Beggin‘ your pardon, General- it don’t seem quite right to call these fellers foreigners. They’re the ones who live here, and they invited us in…”

“This is still a Legion base,” countered Blitzkrieg, in a full roar. “Not as if anybody here seems to act like it. Look around-you’d think there wasn’t any such thing as regulations…”

“We regulate the sklern,” chorused all three of the Zenobians, in slightly different mechanical voices.

“Who the hell asked you?” Blitzkrieg bellowed, loud enough to rattle windows on the other side of the camp.

The three Zenobians stood there unperturbed, baring their carnosaur grins at the general. After a moment, one said, “We take self-regard that you inquire of our tasking, oh mighty Flashbang.” The others nodded and clapped their miniature hands.

“There y’go, General,” murmured Rev. “Little fellers just love to work.”

“They’re spying!” shouted Blitzkrieg. “I don’t know what this machine does, but…”

“We shall gleefully elucidate, oh mighty one,” said the Zenobian with the nasal translator. “Engage the revealing rings, my hearty fellows!” The others fell instantly to work, throwing foot-long toggle switches and adjusting knobs the size of dinner plates.

“What the hell are they doing?” said Blitzkrieg. “I don’t like the looks of this…”

“All will be transparent in a small fraction of a time unit,” said another Zenobian. Out in the desert beyond the edge of the camp, something purple hovered in the air. “Ho, Svip! Retreat the dexter node, lest it overwarm!”

“Dexter node withdrawn,” said Svip. “Reification proceeding.” The purple something became clearer, and perhaps a bit closer.

“Aw, this looks like one of their real good ones,” said Rev, staring at the purple. “I don’t understand jes’ how this thing works, but it sure does beat anything else I’ve seen…”

Just as he’d said this, the purple shape coalesced into a life-size gryff, one of the large herbivores native to the fertile plains that covered much of the continent west of the desert in which the Legion camp lay. It appeared to be munching on a thick cud of greenery, staring complacently into space, perhaps a dozen yards beyond the base’s perimeter.

“What the devil is that thing?” said Blitzkrieg.

“Some kind of critter,” said Rev, looking at it with mild curiosity. “That might be the kind they call a grip-they claim it won’t bother you if you keep your distance. The locals say they’ve kilt off all the dangerous ones. They didn’t get all the ones that like to nibble on people, though.”

“The sklern performs exemplarily!” said Svip, the monotone of the translator not entirely suppressing his enthusiasm.

“I don’t like the way that damned thing’s looking at me,” muttered Blitzkrieg, drawing back a bit from the perimeter.

“Aw, it can’t hurt nobody, General,” said Rev. “It’s jes’ an…”

At this point the gryff let out a roar and tossed its head, its eyes-which were about the size of grapefruits- apparently fixed on Blitzkrieg. The general withdrew another step, and even Rev seemed startled by the sudden noise. The gryff raised one foreleg and began pawing at the ground-it would have taken a keen, cold-blooded observer to note that the claws of its pawing foot were disturbing neither the dirt nor the vegetation through which they passed.

Give Blitzkrieg some credit for courage, in any case. It wasn’t until the gryff let out another snort, tossed its head, and broke into a full charge in the general’s direction that he broke and ran.

It wasn’t until he was nearly back to the base module that he stopped to determine that it hadn’t followed him; indeed, it was nowhere to be seen.