Phule's Errand pc-6 Read online

  “Question?” Harry frowned. “This here’s the Supply depot, Thumpy—not the freakin‘ Answer depot. But give it a shot, anyway. Maybe you’ll get lucky.”

  “Luck is an illusion,” said Thumper. He felt more confident remembering Mahatma’s words.

  “Huh? You been talkin‘ to Qual?” Chocolate Harry’s brows knit as he attempted to figure out whether or not Thumper was serious, and whether or not to take it as an insult.

  Seeing Harry’s confusion, Thumper hastened to ask his question before the Supply sergeant decided he wasn’t in the mood to bandy words with nearly raw recruits. “I understand you have a large supply of purple camouflage, Sergeant. Am I right?”

  “Sure, got anything you want,” said Chocolate Harry, relaxing as he thought he recognized a sucker asking to be fleeced. “Caps, vests, capes, socks, knapsacks-you name it, I got it. How much you need?”

  “I don’t know,” said Thumper. “Uh, that is, I don’t know whether I need it or not. How do you know it works?”

  Harry scoffed. “Man, everybody in the company knows it works. Time the robots come over the hill lookin‘ to kick butt, the purple cammy did the job. Ask the captain; ask Brandy; ask anybody-they’ll tell you. You want to be safe from robots, you gotta be wearin’ the purple.”

  “I see,” said Thumper, his ears perking up. “But do we know that it protects against alien robots, Sergeant? Wouldn’t those have different laws?”

  “What you mean, different laws?” asked Harry.

  “Everybody knows robots can’t see purple-they just built that way.”

  “I’m sorry, Sergeant, I must not have explained my point clearly,” said Thumper. “Let me try again. The brains of Alliance robots are all built with Asimov circuits that make them obey the Three Laws. Am I right?”

  “Sure,” said Harry. “They can’t build ‘em no other way. And one of the things they build into those circuits is purple-blindness. I can show you that in writin’, Thumper, writin‘ straight from the gov’ment.”

  “That’s very good, Sergeant,” said Thumper. “Of course I know the Three Laws-a robot mustn’t harm a sophont, or let a sophont come to harm if it can prevent it-we learned all that in kiddygarden. And the teachers wouldn’t tell us something if it wasn’t so. But what happens if we run into robots that weren’t made in the Alliance? Wouldn’t alien robots have different laws?”

  “Alien robots? There ain’t no alien robots, on account of there ain’t no aliens,” said Harry, his voice getting louder. “Everybody’s part of the Alliance-all the so-phonts in the galaxy. So all the robots is the same.”

  “But there are new sophonts discovered all the time,” said Thumper. “There are two races of them, both living right on this planet, that nobody knew about until the captain discovered them. What if the Zenobians had been building robots before we met them? Wouldn’t their laws be different? What about the Nanoids?”

  Harry glowered. “Look a-here. Point you’re missin‘ is, they didn’t build no robots before we met ’em,” he said. “So it don’t matter, see?”

  “But what about the next new race we discover?” asked Thumper, doing his best to preserve a calm demeanor. “Can we be sure they’ll build the same laws into their robots? And even if they do, will their robots recognize us as sophonts?”

  “Damn it, there ain’t no alien robots,” growled Chocolate Harry. “If you gonna come around bustin‘ chops, I just might decide not to sell you any freakin’ purple cammy- and then when the renegade robots come bubblin‘ out of the underbrush with their eyes shootin’ sparks and their grasping mechanisms reachin‘ out for your little furry tail, you’ll be sorry. You bet your ass is gonna be sorry!”

  Thumper decided he had time to make one more point. “But if the Three Laws are correct, then the only robots I need to be afraid of are alien robots…”

  “Take your freakin‘ alien robots and put ’em where the sun don’t shine, bunny!” Harry’s voice was a full-throated roar, now. He stood up from his chair, looming over Thumper.

  Wisely deciding not to finish his argument, Thumper made a rapid exit, quickly scurrying out the door and back to where Mahatma awaited him.

  Mahatma pointed to the Supply depot, from which Harry’s voice could still be heard, using language that certainly qualified as flamboyant. He grinned broadly as he said, “Congratulations, Thumper. I believe you have succeeded in being a pain in the ass.”

  “Mother, have you seen Beeker?” Phule said into the office intercom.

  “That depends, sweetie. Do you mean have I seen him today?” said Mother. “Or recently today? Or just have I seen him?”

  Phule rolled his eyes. In any other Legion unit, Mother’s ongoing impertinence to her commanding officer would’ve been grounds for a reprimand-possibly some even harder disciplinary measure. But when Phule first came to Omega Company, she’d been a different person. So different that her name among her fellow legionnaires was “Shrinking Violet.” Only when he’d put her behind a microphone and let her communicate to the company without showing her face did her assertiveness become apparent. That simple step had turned a cringing liability into one of the company’s main assets-and if a bit of smart-mouthed repartee was the price for it, it was one he was willing to pay.

  Of course, at times like now, when he was in a hurry, the price seemed a bit stiff.

  “Recently today would be good,” he said. “And if not recently, just tell me the last time you did see him.”

  “Oh, let me see… it must have been just after eleven hundred hours,” she said. “That’d be a little before lunchtime, hon,” she added helpfully.

  “Eleven hundred…” Phule looked at the time readout on his wrist communicator. “That’s nearly three hours ago. Where was he when you saw him, Mother?”

  “Headed out toward the perimeter,” said Mother. She paused a beat, then added, “with Nightingale. They make a really cute couple, don’t you think, sweetie?”

  Phule sputtered for a few moments, trying to figure out how to fit his mental image of his butler into the same lobe of his brain as the words cute couple. After several unconvincing tries, he asked the first reasonable question that came to mind. “Which way were they headed, Mother?”

  He could almost hear the smirk that accompanied her reply. “Now, dearie, that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, er, yes,” said Phule, dully. “That’s what I was asking you to do, I thought.”

  “You should think again, silly boy,” said Mother. “Or maybe that’s your problem. Using your head when it’s the totally wrong thing to do. Don’t worry, they’ll be back, and then you can ask poor old Beekie whatever it was you wanted to ask. I’m sure it can wait until then.”

  “Poor old Beekie?” said Phule, even more confused than before.

  “You heard me the first time, sweetie,” said Mother, and she broke the connection before Phule could ask her anything else.

  In the hot midday sun at the edge of Zenobia Base, Flight Leftenant Qual and three members of his team worked to adjust the sklern, their long-range holographic image projector. One of the triumphs of Zenobian technology, the sklern had already proved its value as a means to spread terror to an unsuspecting enemy. Now, Qual and his troops were working on means of using the sklern to deceive an enemy into misallocating forces, defending against nonexistent threats, or other tactical and strategic errors growing out of mistaking illusion for reality.

  A short distance away, a pudgy figure in a modified Legion uniform stood watching the Zenobians. Rev’s interest in the saurian natives of this planet had been piqued with the discovery that, somewhere in the distant past, Zenobia had been exposed to the charismatic presence of the King-the guiding figure on whose inspiring career his church rested its teachings. Some among Omega Company dismissed the event as a random electronic signal traveling across the limitless space between Zenobia and Old Earth. Others… well, Rev was one of those others. And he had long since decided that, when it cam
e to the King, there was very little that could be called random.

  And so he listened to the Zenobians’ chatter, hoping that a stray word might give him a deeper insight into the meaning of their experience. In his business, a stray word or gesture could mean worlds upon worlds…

  “Did you witness Hrap’s presentation last twilight?” one of the Zenobians asked another. Their translators were always on, so an eavesdropping human could easily follow their conversations-well, at least more easily than if their conversation was left untranslated. The idiosyncratic character of the Zenobian language had been one of the oddball discoveries the members of Omega Company had made in the year or so its forces had been present on the planet. In fact, the Zenobian language was quirky enough that Alliance military intelligence had developed a strong interest in its potential as an unbreakable code.

  “Hrap is well-known as an open cloaca,” said the second Zenobian. “It would be redundant to witness his giving extended proof thereof.”

  The first riposted, “I will not contest his cloacahood, but balanced judgment would consider his favor with the masses.”

  “The masses are themselves cloacae,” interjected a third voice. Curiously, as Rev had previously noted, even machine translations of Zenobian voices carried a strong hint of the individuality of the speakers. Rev would likely have had trouble telling the three Zenobians apart visually, but their voices were as distinctive as holos of three different landscapes.

  “Take care not to swerve from your settings,” said Qual, who listened to the previous discussion without comment. “We approach the activation potential…”

  “Amplitude settings in perfect alignment,” said the Zenobian who had begun the discussion. Rev thought he detected a note of condescension in the reply.

  “Yo, Rev, you got a minute?” came a voice from the other direction. Rev turned to see Roadkill, one of the newer group of legionnaires, standing a short distance away. Roadkill was an occasional attendee at Rev’s services, though he hadn’t yet responded to Rev’s efforts to persuade the legionnaires of Omega Company to become full members of the Church of the King.

  Perhaps this was the time, thought Rev. “Why, sure, son, what can I do for you?”

  Roadkill looked down at the ground. “Well, Rev, I been thinkin‘.”

  Rev nodded benevolently. “That’s good, son, that’s always good. A feller oughta think about things.”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Roadkill. It wasn’t clear whether he really agreed or was trying to be polite. In fact, now that he’d gotten Rev’s attention, Roadkill looked as if he wanted nothing better than to escape. But after squirming and making several false starts while Rev waited with ostentatious patience, he finally blurted out, “It’s about the church, Rev.”

  “Well, that don’t surprise me, Roadkill,” said Rev. “A lot of the troops like to talk to me about that.”

  “Well, I’ve just been wondering…”

  “Here, son, don’t be shy,” said Rev. “Whatever it is you want to ask, I’m here to answer it.”

  “You sure?” asked Roadkill, looking sidewise at Rev. “I mean, I don’t want to embarrass nobody…”

  “Go ahead, spit it out,” said Rev. “There’s not much a man in my shoes ain’t already heard a few times.”

  “OK, then,” said Roadkill. “What I want to know is why the music’s so un. I mean, the King was some kinda musician, right? So why isn’t the church music bein‘ triffer?”

  “Well, son, we gotta go with the talent we have,” said Rev, trying his best not to show his dismay. “If you knew some good musicians on the base, I could maybe ask ‘em to play once in a while.”

  “You mean that?” said Roadkill, his eyes lighting up. “Coz me and some of the guys…”

  “You got a band?” Rev perked up. Attendance had been a bit slack lately; maybe this would be a way to spark interest among the younger legionnaires. “We can talk about you playin‘ for the King, if you can play somethin’ that fits in. You got somethin‘ I can listen to?”

  “Sure,” said Roadkill. He reached in the front pocket of his jumpsuit and pulled out a plugin. “Listen to that, and if you like it, we’ll talk more.”

  “Sure, I can’t wait to hear it,” said Rev. Secretly, he wondered just what kind of music the younger legionnaires were listening to these days. He’d always preferred the classics, himself: Jerry Lee, Gene Vincent, Sheb Wooley, and of course the King. But maybe it was time to open his ears a bit. That would be just what the King would tell him to do…

  He tucked the plugin into his own pocket and promptly forgot about it.

  3

  Journal #770-

  All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.

  “Neurons, spare, freeze-dried, three cases,” said the tall Black woman, bending down to look at the bottom shelf of the medical supply closet.

  “Neurons, spare, freeze-dried, three cases-check,” said Beeker. He marked the item on the handheld electrotablet he was using to record the information for transfer to the medical supply database that had just been set up. Until just a day ago, Chocolate Harry had been in charge of the base’s medical supplies. With an autodoc taking care of the legionnaires of Omega Company, there hadn’t been any particular reason to separate the medical materials from the general supplies. But with a live medic on-planet, that was about to change.

  Nightingale-formerly known as Laverna-stood up and stretched. “OK,” she said, tiredly. “Looks as if we’ve got almost everything a detached company is going to need. Unless you’re planning on some kind of war breaking out here, I ought to be able to do the job.“

  “I would have expected that of you,” said Beeker, who’d volunteered to help the company’s new medic inventory her infirmary’s supplies.

  “You’re a trusting sort, aren’t you?” said Nightingale, deadpan. But there was a noticeable edge to her voice.

  “Yes, when circumstances justify it,” said Beeker, raising an eyebrow. “I trusted you to finish training and come join this company, and so you have. Show me the fault in that.”

  Nightingale said, “Well-ll…” Then she fell silent, with a sidelong glance at the butler.

  Beeker elevated his other eyebrow. After waiting a long moment, he said (with an unaccustomed show of impatience), “Are you going to continue your remarks, or am I going to be forced to rely on guesswork? I don’t pretend to be expert at interpreting silences.”

  Nightingale shrugged. “If you really want me to point out a fault in your behavior, you might consider that some men would have been glad to come with me instead of waiting for me to come back to them.”

  “Some men,” Beeker repeated, stiffly. “Is that a general comment, or am I to infer someone in particular from it?”

  “Infer whatever you like,” said Laverna, with a look that might have meant anything.

  Beeker was having nothing to do with that gambit. “Actually, I’d like a direct answer,” he said, spreading his hands apart, palms up. “Hints and guesses are all very well in their place, mind you, but there comes a point when one needs to know what the other person is really trying to say. If you were expecting me to read your mind, I fear you’re in for a disappointment.”

  Laverna looked at him over one shoulder. “Funny, I thought butlers were good at that kind of thing.”

  “It’s often a professional advantage to give one’s master that impression,“ said Beeker. ”You may have found yourself in a similar position with your former employer.“ He favored her with a small, knowing smile. ”Of course, one never reveals that one’s employer’s unspoken wishes are so transparent that a none-too-bright child could see through them. The master might take it as a reflection on his intelligence.“

  “Uh-huh,” said Laverna. “I’ve looked down the barrel of that gun a few times. All right, I get your point.” She took a deep breath, then said, “It seems to me that I’m the one who’s made all the adjustments in this relationship. I leave Lorelei, start over in a completely
new field, going through Legion Basic-which is every bit as nasty as you’d expect-and then buckle down to a year of advanced medical training. Meanwhile, you get to lounge around luxury resorts, acting as father confessor to Omega Company, with occasional breaks to help your boss juggle his investments. I finally pull some strings to get myself reassigned to your boss’s outfit, and what do I find?”

  There was a longish silence while Laverna glared at Beeker. At last, the butler shrugged, and said, “We appear to be back where we began. I could venture a guess at what you mean, but it appears highly likely that, unless I were to stumble upon the correct answer at once, it’d be a mark against me. So I’ll simply have to take the coward’s way out. I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me, my dear.”

  Laverna wrinkled her nose, opened her mouth, then shut it again. Slowly a broad grin spread over her face. “I happen to know you have some vacation time coming,” she said. “Guess where you’re taking me?”

  Thumper lay back in his bunk, pleased with himself. He had to his credit one definite success at being a pain in the ass. On the negative side, the last couple of times he’d crossed paths with Chocolate Harry, the Supply sergeant had given him a withering look; but Mahatma had explained that being a pain in the ass wasn’t going to bring easy popularity with it. It was a duty, and sometimes duties weren’t really fun for those who had to perform them.

  Thumper could understand that. He’d spent most of Legion Basic being the most unpopular recruit in his unit. But he knew it was more important to work hard and become a good legionnaire than to be popular with the guys. Looking back, he realized that even then, he’d been a pain in the ass. It was good to know that he’d found his niche in the Legion.

  But who should he practice on next? He didn’t get much chance to interact with the command structure of Omega Company; mostly he dealt with First Sergeant Brandy, who led his training squad. And Mahatma was already making sure that Brandy stayed on her toes. He saw a good deal of Mess Sergeant Escrima; but it was clear that the volatile Escrima wasn’t a case for a rank beginner like himself. Even Mahatma tended to tread softly around the volatile mess sergeant. As for the officers, he saw them mostly at a distance; he couldn’t really dream up a good excuse for striking up a conversation with Lieutenant Armstrong or Lieutenant Rembrandt-let alone Captain Jester.