The Complete Phule’s Company Boxed Set

by Robert Asprin

  “Gee, thanks,” said Ernie. He thought a moment, frowning, before he continued. “Does this mean …”

  “Forget about it,” said Lola, in a tone that left no room for doubt. “Right now, my main priority is keeping my skin intact. Which means getting a ticket on the next space liner headed back to Lorelei.”

  “That’s going to cost us an arm and a leg,” grumbled Ernie.

  Lola fixed him with an exasperated stare. “And what do you think it’ll cost us not to go back?”

  “I know, I know,” said Ernie. “We’ve gotta look as if we’re gonna try to finish the job. But what if we can’t, anyway? We’ll be out all that money, and running for our lives, to boot. If we’re gonna spend the rest of our lives running, what’s the point of blowing all our money right from the git-go? Worse, what’s the point of spending it to get someplace where the guys who’re trying to do us in are running the show?”

  “If they were really running the show on Lorelei, they wouldn’t have to bring us in to snatch Phule,” said Lola. “Hey, they might even have figured out that Phule’s got a robot there to impersonate him. That little fact could be worth a nice bundle, all by itself.”

  Ernie frowned again. “Why didn’t you think of that when those bastards were getting ready to work me over?”

  “It wasn’t the right time to play that card,” said Lola, calmly. “Those guys didn’t come here looking for information, so why should we give it to them? We have to hang on to it until we can trade it for something we want.”

  “Yeah, huh?” said Ernie. “Next time the big guys have you tied up with plasteel, ready to slice and dice and barbecue, I can guarantee you—you’ll have a damn good idea what you want.”

  “Ernie, Ernie,” said Lola, shaking her head. “I got us out of that little fix, didn’t I? If we keep obsessing about every little setback, we’ll never make any progress toward our long-range goals. You understand that, don’t you?”

  “My longest-range goal is to keep on breathing,” said Ernie. “It ain’t such a bad idea to avoid unnecessary pain, either. Come to think of it, there’s no such thing as necessary pain, in my book.”

  “Well, we’ll do what we can to avoid pain,” said Lola. “But the best way to ensure that, right about now, is to get ourselves on a starship headed for Lorelei. So give me your credit chip, and I’ll get busy on that—and once we’re on the way, we’ll have plenty of time to work out the next steps.”

  “All right,” said Ernie, reaching for his wallet. “But this better be good.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Lola, brightly. “I expect everything to work out perfectly this time.” Her smile as she took his credit chip was almost sincere enough to convince him.

  * * *

  Sergeant Mayhem’s eyes bulged out in disbelief. He’d been assigned as the Space Legion recruiting officer on Teloon for close to fifteen years—ever since he’d managed to pyramid a minor injury sustained during the Stoddard’s World police action into a cushy desk job far from any chance of action. Little had he realized just how far he was going to be from the action. In his entire time on Teloon, he’d averaged less than one recruit a year—on a planet with a population pushing the three billion mark!

  He still didn’t understand how the Legion could afford to keep him here. Probably some clerk had figured out that letting him retire, paying his pension (a hefty sum, considering his years in service), giving him passage to a world of his choice, and shipping a replacement out to Teloon would cost the Legion more than keeping him on the rolls. Assuming they were ever going to replace him—given his results over the years, it hardly seemed worth the Legion’s while.

  But sure enough, here sat one of the planet’s natives on the other side of his desk, practically begging to enlist! It took all his will power to keep from drooling at the prospect. “Well, sonny, do you think you have what it takes to be a legionnaire?” he asked. The question blithely skimmed over the fact that all it really took to be a legionnaire was the ability to walk, stumble, or crawl into a recruiting station and do something—almost anything—that could reasonably be interpreted as an effort to enlist. The Legion was far from picky.

  “I honestly don’t know, sir,” said the native. “All I can say is that I’ve been doing everything I possibly can to prepare myself. I’ve got excellent grades in school …”

  “Good, very good,” said Sergeant Mayhem, nodding enthusiastically. He himself had left school as early as the law on his home planet allowed—at roughly age fourteen, if he remembered correctly. It had been a good while back. His lack of education hadn’t hampered his Legion career, as far as he could tell. How smart did a guy have to be to carry a gun and dig ditches?

  “And I think I’m in excellent physical condition,” the native continued. “I’ve played three varsity sports, and I’ve got belts in two different martial arts …”

  “Great,” said Mayhem. That made it slightly more likely that the recruit would complete basic Legion training—which he needed to do if the recruiting officer was going to get his bonus for bringing in a live one. Mayhem had lost the bonus on about a third of his recruits. He always hated it when that happened. But this one sounded as if he might actually make it through the not-too-rigorous Legion boot camp … as long as he didn’t mind being treated like dirt.

  “You have any idea what you’re getting yourself in for?” he asked, somewhat reluctantly. He certainly didn’t want to scare the kid off, but the regulations required him to make it more or less clear that this wasn’t going to be any kind of picnic. “The Legion’s not for softies, you know,” he continued. “If the Alliance winds up in a war, it’s the Legion that’s going to get sent to fight it. You understand what that means, don’t you?”

  “I understand, sir, and I’m ready,” said the native. “What do I have to do to join?”

  “Read this paper and sign it,” said Mayhem. “You’ll take a copy home, and think about it for twenty-four hours. If you haven’t changed your mind by tomorrow, you’re in.”

  “Yes, sir!” said the native. He practically bounced over the desk to grab the stylus out of Mayhem’s hands and quickly put his signature on the enlistment form, then handed the top copy back to the sergeant.

  “Zigger,” said Mayhem, looking at the form. “Well, you’ll want to choose a Legion name before you report for training. You might start thinking about what name you want.”

  “Oh, I’ve thought about it a long time,” said Zigger. “I’ve already made up my mind …”

  “Don’t tell me,” said Mayhem. “Once you join, nobody should know your civilian name. The pay computer will keep your records so everything is in order, but I can tell you for a fact that nobody in the Legion will look into it during your actual term of service. That way, you’ll be judged by what you do in the Legion uniform: not what you’ve done before or who your parents were.”

  The latter was a polite fiction. In fact, a lot of Legion officers were where they were because of who their parents were—and how much they’d been willing to spend to put them in an officer’s uniform. But there was no point in telling this kid the hard facts of life. He’d figure them out soon enough, probably at the hand of a snotty junior officer who’d spent most of his life ordering servants around and considered enlisted legionnaires one more variety of servant.

  Mayhem didn’t particularly care, as long as he’d cashed the recruitment bonus well before the kid learned what a rotten deal he’d signed up for. Whatever happened to the kid after that was the kid’s own lookout. Mayhem grinned, just thinking about the bonus, and the kid grinned back. Sucker, thought Mayhem. I wish I had a million more like you. But you’ll do. You’ll do just fine, for now.

  * * *

  “Hello, sweetie,” came Mother’s insinuating voice over the intercom in Phule’s office. “That cute Ambassador Gottesman is on the line, asking for you.”

  “Great, put him through,” said Phule. He wondered what the Alliance’s ambassador was calling about
this time. By now, Phule and his Legion company had established themselves as firm favorites with the diplomatic branch. Their successful peacekeeping mission on Landoor, then their performance in the delicate position of establishing the first Alliance presence on Zenobia, had given State two comparatively easy victories in situations where a good deal had been at stake. But it was too soon for the authorities to be considering a new mission for the Omega Mob. And it was as sure a bet as anything in the galaxy that Gottesman was not spending State’s money on an interstellar voice call just to chat up his old friend. Something interesting was undoubtedly on deck.

  The light on Phule’s desk came on, then the ambassador’s voice came through. “Hello, Captain Jester—I hope all’s well out your way,” said the ambassador.

  “Coming along very smoothly, sir,” said Phule. “The Zenobians have pretty much accepted us as the logical go-betweens in their attempts to establish relations with the Nanoids. And our talks with the Nanoids have progressed to the point where we can begin to address substantive issues.”

  “Good, good,” said the ambassador. “State’s hoping to get a xenological team there to handle these negotiations on a more professional basis, but until one of the two native parties makes a formal request we can’t very well stick our nose in. Have you seen any sign that either side is likely to make such a request?”

  “Nothing so far, sir,” said Phule. “But the Zenobians are still not convinced that the Nanoids aren’t off-planet intruders, and to be honest with you we can’t prove that, either. We’re moving along as best we can, but I can’t say there’s any sign of a major breakthrough yet.”

  “Well, if you’re doing your best, that’s likely to be as good a job as anyone can do,” said Gottesman. “We’ll just have to bide our time. Ghu knows, we’re used to that in the diplomatic branch. But here’s something you can do for us in the meantime, Captain. I understand Zenobia is pretty much an untamed world, out beyond the natives’ urban centers.”

  “I suppose so,” said Phule. “Out where we are is certainly wild enough. What do you have in mind, sir?”

  The ambassador cleared his throat, and said, “Well, as it happens, we’ve got a number of civilians who’ve done the government a few favors over the years, if you know what I mean. And it so happens that some of them have gotten the idea that there might be some fairly large game running loose on Zenobia—something on the order of the larger dinosaurs. Am I right about that, Captain?”

  “Well, there are some fairly large specimens here, if what I saw in the zoo back in the capital city is any indication,” said Phule. “I can’t say I’ve seen any such in the wild, though—we’re out here in the desert, you know, and most of the animals I’ve seen out here are fairly small—although a few of them are pretty nasty. But most of the larger creatures on this world seem to be swamp-dwellers. Anyway, the natives don’t really seem to want us trampling through their swamps—I get the idea those are prime recreation areas, from their point of view.”

  “I see,” said the ambassador. “Well, I may ask you to talk to some of their people to see if we can get some exceptions made. There are a couple of VIPs who’ve taken a fancy to do some serious big-game hunting, and they’ve gotten the notion that some of the beasties there on Zenobia are about as big as they come. Have you heard anything about an animal the natives call a gryff?”

  “Not much more than the name,” admitted Phule. “From what the natives say, I’d guess it’s a big, slow-moving, and rather stupid herbivore. Not very exciting to hunt, I’d imagine.”

  “Nothing’s very exciting to hunt, as far as I’m concerned,” said the ambassador. “Much more civilized to play TetraGo in a comfortable chair with a cold drink close to hand. But there’s no accounting for tastes. I get the impression that if it’s big enough, that’s all the justification some of these fellows need. How much trouble do you think it’d be to get the Zenobians’ permission for a party of off-worlders to come in and bag a few trophies?”

  “All I can promise is to give it a try,” said Phule, dubiously. “Give me a couple of days, and I’ll get back to you if I can convince them …”

  “Great, I knew I could count on you,” said Ambassador Gottesman. “And remember, you can always call on me if you need anything that State can help with. Gotta run …” And he closed the connection.

  “Well, the Zenobians aren’t going to like this one bit,” said Phule, looking across the office at Beeker, who’d sat there silently during the call. “I can imagine Chief Potentary Korg’s face when I run this idea past him.”

  “Something like this was inevitable, sir,” said the butler. “The State Department didn’t support you for this assignment out of altruism, you know. It was just a matter of time before the quid pro quo became obvious.”

  “Well, Gottesman has taken our side against the general more than once,” said Phule. “I can’t refuse him something in return. It’s only fair.”

  Beeker sniffed. “There’s nothing fair about it,” he said. “In fact, it has a distinct odor …”

  “So we’ll hold our noses and do what we can,” said Phule, with a resigned tone. “If the Zenobians say no, that’ll be an end to it.”

  “I doubt it, sir,” said Beeker, but Phule wasn’t listening.

  Chapter Three

  Journal #653

  The job description of a junior Legion officer—and make no mistake about it, my employer was extremely junior—does not in the normal course of affairs include diplomatic negotiations with the supreme rulers of alien planets. For the most part, a Legion captain is expected to avoid attracting the notice of anyone other than his immediate superiors. As far as any actual decision-making, that is best left to those qualified, which in practice usually means the sergeants nominally under his command.

  In this matter as in many others, my employer had made himself the exception, as much by sheer luck as by any great personal initiative. Having been the first human to make contact with the Zenobians, he found himself invited to lead the first military expedition to the home world of that unusual race. And, more or less by default, once on Zenobia, he became the senior representative of the Alliance government. As a result, he was responsible for the negotiation of all kinds of business between off-worlders and the natives.

  As the astute reader will already have grasped, this had both its advantages—notably the possibility of putting himself in the position of prime beneficiary of any unusually lucrative business—and its disadvantages. After a number of months on the planet, my employer had just begun to realize just what some of the latter might be.

  * * *

  “That is impossible, Captain,” said Chief Potentary Korg. Phule couldn’t read the Zenobian leader’s face, but there wasn’t much doubt about what his words meant. The translator’s confidence-level readout was sitting on 93% +/-5%. Between the languages of two races of sophonts that had evolved on separate planets with no interspecies contact until the last couple of years, electronic translation didn’t get any more confident than that. At least, the machine seemed to think so …

  “The Legion doesn’t like to use that word,” said Phule, with a smile he hoped the Zenobian would read the same way a human would. A display of teeth wasn’t necessarily a friendly gesture, especially when dealing with a race of carnivorous dinosaur-like aliens, but so far he hadn’t had any adverse reactions to the expression.

  “The Legion’s lexical preferences are not my affair,” said Korg. He showed his own teeth—which Phule knew was probably equivalent to a human smile. At least, when Flight Leftenant Qual showed his teeth, it was a smile. So at least the Zenobian didn’t seem to be personally offended by the request. It looked more as if his refusal was a policy matter that Phule could turn around by offering a few incentives.

  Phule had dealt with that kind of problem before. “Of course, we wouldn’t expect to bring a party of off-world hunters onto your planet without some compensation …” he began.

  “Compe
nsation?” Korg blinked. “It is not a matter that can be orthagonalized by compensation, Captain. This is the sacred ancestral swampland of the Zenobian race that you propose I allow your off-world hunters to invade.”

  Phule held up his hands. “Chief Korg, I hope you don’t think I’d come to you with such an unseemly proposal. In fact, we off-worlders are only here at your invitation. It would be very bad form for us to try to tell you to open up any particular areas of your beautiful planet for off-world visitors. But you were willing to open an area that your people weren’t using for our Legion camp. Why not another area for off-world people to hunt in—for appropriate compensation, of course?”

  Korg stood up and went to the window, staring out at the huge asparagus-like trees that lined the street outside. After a moment he turned to face the video pickup, and said, “I will take this under consideration. There may be areas we can allow your hunters to visit—as long as they remain within the bounds specified, and destroy only those species we permit. And at the same time I shall determine what compensation ought to be appropriate—if your hunters are prosperous enough to come visit Zenobia simply to hunt, I would expect that they can sustain a significant disbursement for the privilege.”

  “That sounds like something we can agree on,” said Phule. “Could you have some of your people give me a list of areas that might become available for hunting? And, if possible, some indication of what kind of game would be available in those areas? Once I have that in hand, we can begin to find out how much our bigwigs might be willing to pay for the privilege of coming here to hunt.”

  “So let it be encoded,” said Chief Potentary Korg. “So let it be done.” He closed the videophone connection.

  Phule turned to Beeker, who had sat just out of the video pickup’s field of view, monitoring the exchange. “Well, Beeks, I think we’ve got what we’re after—assuming the old lizard doesn’t set too high a price for shooting his dinos.”

  “Since State will be footing the bill, I suspect the price will be no object, sir,” said Beeker. “They can simply have the IRS pass the cost along to the taxpayers—business as usual, in other words.”