The Complete Phule’s Company Boxed Set

by Robert Asprin

  “Yeah, Mahatma’s makin’ sense,” murmured the other legionnaires. “Deep, man, deep.”

  Snipe felt a slight tingling at the back of his neck. Were these men trying to work up a justification for mutiny? Should he try to talk them back into line or go inform the major and let him take whatever measures were necessary?

  “Your other officers have accepted the major’s authority,” said Snipe, temporizing.

  “I know they did, and that is why we have continued to obey orders,” said Mahatma calmly. “But that was before the captain returned. Now, what if the captain tells us to do something? He is still an officer, is he not?”

  “Captain Jester has been relieved of command,” said Snipe, aware of a trickle of sweat on his forehead. “What is more, the major has placed him under arrest, pending investigation of his conduct in command. His authority is temporarily suspended.”

  “That is what we had heard,” said Mahatma. “Does this mean we should not follow his orders?”

  “You—” Snipe had opened his mouth to answer when he sensed another trap in Mahatma’s question, and he bit off the answer. “That depends,” he said, retrenching. “If his orders are legal, of course you should follow them. But if his orders go against the major’s, you should not.”

  “Very good, sir; that is clear,” said Mahatma, his smile even more beatific. “But one more question, please, Lieutenant Snipe. How do we know whether the captain’s orders are legal until we know the major has approved them?”

  “That’s a good question,” said Snipe. “I think, under the circumstances, that you should ignore Captain Jester’s orders until you know that they have received the major’s approval.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” said Mahatma. “I think I understand everything now.”

  “Good. As you were, then,” said Snipe, and took advantage of the opportunity to make his getaway.

  Later, he was to regret not having stayed around to see the consequences of his advice. But of course, having little experience with either the Omega Mob or Mahatma, he couldn’t have been expected to foresee what they would make of it.

  * * *

  The Reverend Jordan Ayres blinked as he entered the lighted room and saw who was waiting for him. Armstrong and Rembrandt sat together on the couch, and Brandy was perched on its arm. “Have a seat, Rev,” said Chocolate Harry, who’d called him to this clandestine meeting.

  “Thanks, don’t mind if I do,” said the chaplain, pulling a straight-backed chair up to face the couch; Chocolate Harry perched his bulk precariously on the opposite arm of the couch from Brandy, making the two oversized sergeants bookends to the pair of lieutenants. Rev looked at the four faces staring back at him and said, “Must be somethin’ important to bring all you together at once. Y’all gonna tell me what it is, or do I have to guess?”

  “I think you already know what our main problem is,” said Rembrandt, taking the lead as the senior officer present.

  “The major,” said Rev, and the four heads nodded in unison. Rev nodded, but after a pause, he shrugged and said, “Well, I can sure sympathize with that, but I don’t know what anybody here can do about it. The Legion done sent him, and I reckon we gotta put up with him.”

  “Ordinarily, I’d agree with you, Rev,” said Armstrong. “He’s our properly appointed superior officer, and if he has different ideas from what we’re used to, we can either shape up or ship out. Especially since his ideas are strictly by the books.”

  “That’s jes’ the way I see it, Lieutenant,” said Rev solemnly. “When the King got called into the Army, he done what he was told like any other boy that went to be a soldier. No special favors for him. He even got his hair cut, and that wasn’t no small sacrifice. If he could take it, I guess we can.”

  Rembrandt nodded. “That’s a reasonable attitude to take,” she said. “Our life would be easier if more legionnaires saw things that way. But, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if it’s what we need right now.”

  “Well, ma’am, I don’t know whether I can accommodate you, then,” said Rev. He stood up from his chair. “The King might have seemed like a rebel to some folks, but deep down inside, he was a great respecter of authority. Why, he even went to pay his respects to a man that—”

  Brandy cut him off. “Sit back down, Rev. Let’s get one thing straight. We don’t need you to stir up the troops against the major. He’s doing a pretty decent job of that all by himself. If they had any encouragement at all, they’d be doing everything they could to make him want to get transferred out. But the only man who could make them take that risk isn’t saying anything, and until he does, they’re afraid they’ll hurt him more than they will themselves.”

  “You mean the captain,” said Rev. He was still on his feet, but his hand rested on the back of the chair.

  “That’s right,” said Brandy, fixing Rev with her gaze. “This whole company—officers, noncoms, right down to the newest rookies—would jump into a black hole for the captain. But as long as they’re worried that they’d be hurting him, they won’t take the first step. And the captain’s acting pretty strange, in case you haven’t noticed.”

  “Why, I reckon I have noticed, Brandy,” said the chaplain. “He’s been mighty distracted ever since he came back from the desert. Word has it the heat must have touched his mind. Have y’all found his butler yet?”

  “No, Beeker’s still missing,” said Armstrong grimly. “We’re working on something that might tell us what’s happened to him, but I can’t give you details. I’m afraid it’s a long shot, though.”

  “A shame. He was a good feller, mighty good feller,” said Rev, shaking his head. Then he sat down and looked at the four legionnaires. “But what do y’all want me to do, then?”

  “We need you to go talk to the captain,” said Rembrandt. “He’s the one who asked for you to be sent to the company. We think maybe you have a chance to get through to him, even though he seems to have shut out the rest of us.”

  “Do you really think so?” the chaplain’s expression took on a hint of soulful intensity.

  “We do, Rev,” said Rembrandt. “This is one area where you’re the expert. We need you to help the captain. Once he’s back in command of himself, then he can decide whether to try to recover command of his company. Until that happens, our hands are really tied. But we don’t think that can happen without you.”

  “Without me?” Rev sat up straight, and his chest expanded. “Well, if it’s a question of helpin’ the man get back to his right sense of himself, you can count on me. I’ll get right to it.”

  “Good, Rev, we appreciate it,” said Rembrandt. “We knew you’d step up for us.” She shook the chaplain’s hand, and all the others shook his hand in turn. Then Rev turned and left the room, a man with a mission.

  When he had left, Rembrandt turned to the other three and said, “All right, we’ve got Rev working on getting the captain back in shape. Now, what do we want him to do when we’ve got him back?”

  There was a silence as they stared at one another, uncomfortable with the question Rembrandt had put on the table. Then, as if someone had thrown a switch, they all began talking at once.

  It took them several sentences before they figured out they all wanted exactly the same thing.

  * * *

  The Reverend Jordan Ayres was not, on the whole, a man who placed great value on subtlety. He had found his answers to the problems of life, and they were big answers, flamboyant, in-your-face answers. And, in the manner of all true believers, he tried to make those answers work for everyone around him. For the most part, they did work, if only because the way people usually solved their problems was to do something, almost anything, besides sitting and brooding on them.

  However, it seemed to the chaplain that whatever was ailing Captain Jester was going to require a more subtle approach than with the usual legionnaires who had come to him for counseling. Here was a man who was used to being in control, a man rich in power and possession
s. A man whose clothes always fit perfectly, whose expression rarely showed doubt or frustration. A man, it occurred to him, much like the King. What worked to console a homesick Legion recruit might not be appropriate for the captain. An amazing percentage of life’s little problems will shrivel up and blow away when one can wave a Dilithium Express card at them.

  “Good mornin’, Captain,” said Rev, walking up to the bench where Phule sat riffling through a stack of Legion personnel forms.

  “Why, good morning to you,” said the captain, looking up with a bright smile. “It’s great to see you again. Why don’t you sit down for a minute and talk?”

  “Don’t mind if I do,” said Rev, sliding onto the bench next to him. “Been a while since we had a good jaw session. Course, you’ve been away for a while, too. Must have been a mighty … uh … interesting journey you had there.” Perhaps, thought Rev, talking about the journey would open the way for the captain to speak of his troubles.

  “I suppose you could say so,” said Phule with a shrug. “There’s not much of a story to tell, though. I’m just as glad to be here at the end of it, if you want to know the truth.”

  “Yes, I suspect you are,” said Rev. This wasn’t going quite the way he’d planned; he shifted his tack, hoping to bring the captain out. “The terrible depredations you went through out in the desert might have took more out of you than you realized at first—”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t make a big thing of it,” said Phule. “Now, I bet you’ve got some interesting stories of your own.” He gestured toward Rev, as if inviting him to tell some of those stories.

  Rev sighed. Maybe he was better falling back on his tried-and-true approach, despite the captain’s difference from his usual converts. “The best story I know ain’t about me, it’s about a poor boy on old Earth,” he began. “Didn’t nobody pay him much mind when he was a little tad, ’cause his folks weren’t rich or important. They was jes’ plain folks, down on their luck—”

  Phule held up a hand to break in. “Everybody has a streak of bad luck now and then. Best thing to do, if you ask me, is just keep plugging away and wait for it to change. Of course, you have to know the odds, and you can’t take foolish risks. We want you to play with your head, not over it.” He grinned as if he’d said something profound.

  Rev frowned. “Why sure, Captain, jes’ like you say,” he said. He tried to steer the subject back to the point he was trying to make. “But this here boy I’m talkin’ about, he had a fire burnin’ inside him, sure ’nuff.”

  “That’s good, really good,” said Phule, nodding. “If you think he’d fit in with our operation here, that’s the kind of person we’re looking for. He could get in touch with personnel. Tell him to mention your name, and of course I’ll make sure his application gets taken seriously—”

  “Well, that’s not really what I’m gettin’ after, Captain,” said Rev, scratching his head. Captain Jester didn’t seem to really be listening to him, and that was unusual, in his experience. Every boss he’d ever worked for claimed that listening to his people was a main priority, and almost none of them really did it. The captain had always been one of those who listened, and better yet remembered what he’d heard, and—best of all—followed up. But now …

  “I’m glad you were able to stop by for a while,” the captain was saying. “I’ve gotten so busy I don’t have much time to talk to my old friends these days. But of course, for you, the door is always open.”

  “Sure, Captain, but like I was saying—” Rev tried to get one last word in.

  The captain cut him off. “I’m afraid I’ve neglected this pile of work as long as I can justify. So, as much as I’ve enjoyed it, I guess I’ll have to drag myself away for now.” He stood and extended a hand. “Be sure to drop in again, next time you’re in the station.”

  “Uh, yes sir,” said Rev, taking the hand and pumping it almost by reflex. “Uh, one more thing—”

  The captain wasn’t going to be swayed. “Why don’t you just head on out and enjoy yourself while you’re here? A chance to let your hair down and just be yourself is good for anybody. And one tip: Our dollar slots give the best odds on the station.” He winked and then sat down to his papers with an air that made it clear the interview was over.

  Rev walked away in a daze. Things were even worse than he’d feared. He made his way to Rembrandt, saying not a word. The lieutenant looked up from her desktop, an anxious expression on her face. “Well, Rev, how’d it go?”

  Rev shook his head. “I hate to say it, ma’am, but it ain’t good at all. Not one bit.” He paused and turned his eyes to the ground, then looked back at her. “If you’re expectin’ help from the captain, I’m afraid you got a long wait ’fore it gets here.”

  * * *

  Rev’s report convinced Rembrandt that it was imperative to follow up on Sushi’s plan to find out what had happened to Phule’s hoverjeep—and to Beeker. With the plan jumped up to top priority, she began recruiting a search party.

  Almost the entire company would have gone if she’d asked them. In the end, she chose six, with a particular eye to scouting skills and wilderness survival experience. Several legionnaires that her criteria kept off the team besieged her with complaints that their other skills more than compensated for these lacks. Remembering what had happened when she’d deferred to the troops in making up a similar “rescue party” on Landoor, Rembrandt stuck to her guns.

  Flight Leftenant Qual was an obvious choice for the team. His local knowledge was orders of magnitude beyond anyone else’s, of course, even when you remembered that he’d grown up in a swampy region rather than these semidesert conditions. Even then, she harbored some doubt whether the Zenobians were entirely trustworthy. After all, in one of his last messages, the captain had hinted that the local military was eavesdropping on him in between negotiating sessions. Also, considering how few members of his race were in camp, Qual’s absence would be more easily noticed than that of any other possible participant. In the end, she decided that his local knowledge trumped all the objections.

  Tempted as she was to include all three Gambolts, she reluctantly decided that she couldn’t in good conscience leave the camp without any of the catlike aliens and their uncanny scouting abilities. So Dukes and Rube stayed behind, while Garbo—who, of the three, seemed best adjusted to working with humans—went with the team. So did Garbo’s partner, Brick. Not just because the two were inseparable companions; as it turned out, Brick came from a backcountry region of her home world, an arid region known as Nueva Arrakis. She had the kind of instinctive knowledge of desert scouting that only comes to someone who’d spent their growing-up years in dry country.

  Mahatma and Double-X had the skills she needed, while neither would be missed if they were away from base for a week or more. Except for the latter factor, Brandy and Escrima would have been her first choices for the assignment, but neither could just walk off without being missed. Well, she had the best team she could put together, and she’d have to trust it to do the job that had to be done.

  She’d had the most difficulty deciding who was going to command the team. All three of the company’s sergeants had wanted to do it, but none of them could just disappear from the base without being missed fairly quickly. Finally, Rembrandt took the bit in her teeth. “The major isn’t any part of this mission, and the captain’s not himself right now,” she told them. “I’m next in rank, so it’s my job to make the decisions.”

  That was before Sushi had stormed into her office, demanding to be put on the team. Her original instinct had been to leave him off the team, despite the fact that it was his idea to send the expedition out to begin with.

  “Look, I can’t bring you along,” she told him. “You’re a city boy. You’d slow us down way too much in the kind of country we’ll be traveling in. Besides, we need you to monitor the alien signals so you can tell us about any changes in them. That means you have to stay behind and stay in touch via communicator.”

  S
ushi wasn’t budging. “Have you forgotten that the communicator’s on the fritz?” he pointed out. “We can’t pick up signals from more than a couple of miles beyond the perimeter, let alone where we’re going to be. Now that I’ve figured out what frequency the aliens are using, I can monitor it with a handheld unit, which is what I’ve been working on the last couple of days. I’ve got it down to three kilos in weight, and it’s no bigger than a shoe box.”

  After he showed her the new unit, Rembrandt was convinced, and she added him to the team. But this meant she’d have to cut somebody else to keep the team to a manageable size. That was going to be tricky; all the members had useful skills, although only Qual seemed really indispensable. Cutting either Garbo or Brick probably meant she’d have to drop the other, and she couldn’t afford to lose both. So that left Mahatma and Double-X as the possible choices.

  She agonized over it for a whole afternoon before a peremptory communicator message ordered the officers to the command center. Rushing to the meeting, she rounded a corner and nearly collided with Louie, who was speeding silently down the cross-corridor on his glide-board. The Synthian swerved just in time to avoid hitting Rembrandt; but in her abrupt stop, she wrenched her lower back. By the time she got to Botchup’s office, it was starting to stiffen up. By the time the meeting was over, she couldn’t stand. The autodoc scanned her, displayed a diagnosis of muscle spasm, and dispensed a bottle of pills that stopped the pain well enough for her to sit at a desk and work, but it was obvious she was in no shape to head a team into rough country.

  That made Flight Leftenant Qual the de facto team leader. Now Rembrandt was glad she’d given in to Sushi’s demands to be included; of all the remaining team members, he had the most leadership potential and the clearest sense of their mission. And, perhaps most importantly, he seemed to have the best idea what Qual was talking about; the translator’s mangled renditions of the Zenobian language were sometimes more impenetrable than the Alliance tax code.