“No,” said Phule. “If they manage to pull any more surprises out of their hats, you’ll just have to deal with them according to your best judgment. Don’t feel you have to call me—I trust you, Tullie. And if Dad has any problems with that, tell him to call me. All right?”
“I’ll tell him, Captain,” said Bascomb. He chuckled, then said, “And I wish I could listen in on that conversation,” before he broke the connection.
Phule turned to Beeker with a wry grin. “Well, I hope that’s the worst problem we have to deal with today,” he said.
The butler raised one brow. “I still find it anomalous that you would so easily part with your stock in what must be one of the more profitable of your investments, sir. Are you really so certain your father can handle it as well as you can?”
“He can if he keeps his hands off, which is all I’ve really done,” said Phule. “Besides, Beeks, I intend to write off the shares as a promotional expense, which in my tax bracket will be almost more valuable than the shares themselves. And there’s no shortage of profitable investments. Speaking of which—what do you think of Sushi’s description of this Zenobian Sklern? I’d bet we could get the off-planet marketing rights to it for a song …”
* * *
The nighttime desert air was still bone-dry, but on the cool side, as Thumper made his way along a well-trodden path out of Zenobia Base toward his destination. Brandy had shown him where the electronic sensors of the perimeter defenses were, and with that knowledge in his head, it wasn’t too hard to dodge around them. He’d know soon enough if he didn’t dodge around one; the perimeter alarm would alert Mother, who’d signal him to go investigate the disturbance—and send backup just in case it wasn’t something he couldn’t handle by himself. That would pretty much put an end to this little unauthorized excursion.
If he didn’t run into anything unexpected, he’d be back in camp well before his relief guard showed up. And he was confident he could convince Mother he was still at his post, if she decided to call him on the wrist comm to chat, or (just as likely) to check up on how well he was managing to stay awake. His new friend Mahatma had told him Mother was often like that, going out of her way to make sure the newer legionnaires didn’t get into trouble when they weren’t actively looking for it. That was good to know—but just now, he didn’t need anybody to hold his forepaw.
A dim light in the middle distance pointed out the way to his goal. He struck off in that direction, and shortly found a smoother path going his way—the clean-swept ground mark of a recent hoverjeep passage. He considered for a moment whether he needed to worry about leaving footprints, then shrugged and stepped onto the path. If he succeeded, nobody would pay any attention to a stray set of Legion-issue boot marks. And if his plan fell through, they’d have a lot more to worry about than figuring out who’d been along this trail—and when.
He was almost to his destination. He slowed down, making sure he could see everything in his pathway. (The night-vision goggles Brandy had given him for sentry duty brought out the landscape almost as clearly as in bright daylight—although there were funny color substitutions, especially where a large rock or other object glowed warmer than its surroundings.) There, a short distance ahead, was what he’d been expecting: a low-lying shape to one side of the trail, glowing brightly with the warmth of a living body. He came to a halt, not wanting to intrude on the other’s territory. “Hello,” Thumper said softly. “You can probably see me as well as I can you. Can we go somewhere to talk where we won’t wake everybody else up?”
“Why should I trust you?” the other said, in a strangely familiar guttural voice. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“To talk to you,” said Thumper. “I’m by myself, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“You have weapons.”
“Sure do,” said Thumper. “It’s part of my job to carry them. If I wanted to use them, I would have sneaked up on you from downwind and got you before you knew where I was. You know I could do it.”
There was a pause, as if the other were thinking things over, then the voice said, “Follow me.” The bright shape ahead got to its feet and began to walk quietly away from the camp it had been guarding. Thumper followed, at a distance.
Perhaps a hundred meters from the camp, the figure turned and faced Thumper. “All right, this should be safe,” it said. “What does a legionnaire want with me?”
“I told you, I want to talk,” said Thumper. “What do you have against the Legion?”
“Stinking humans,” growled Barky, the Environmental Dog. “Make other sophonts do all the work, take all the credit.”
“Not everybody in the Legion’s human,” said Thumper. “There’s me, for one. And the Gambolts, and the Volton, and the Synthians.”
“All the leaders are human,” said Barky.
“That’s true,” said Thumper. “Especially the commanding general. I got in trouble with him back in basic training. But that’s a long story, and it’s not what I came here to talk about.”
Barky said nothing, waiting.
“All right,” said Thumper, shrugging. “All I really need to say is that you and your humans are doing your jobs, and we’re doing ours, and there’s no reason we need to be enemies. Have you caught us polluting or destroying the environment?”
“Not yet,” said Barky, reluctantly. “But if you do your job, sooner or later it will hurt the environment. War is not healthy …”
“For living things,” Thumper said. “I learned that in school. They had us watch your show a lot.”
“Then you know what I mean,” said the Environmental Dog.
“Sure,” said Thumper. “But we aren’t here fighting a war. In fact, I don’t think there’s a war anywhere in Alliance space we could be going to fight. So we’ve got to do other jobs. If the other guys are telling me the truth, what we’re doing here is keeping a war from getting started.”
“I’m sure that is very wonderful,” said Barky. “You will no doubt be able to tell me how bringing more soldiers and weapons to a place where there is no war is going to keep one from starting.”
“Some of the other guys can answer that better than I can,” said Thumper. “I came out here to talk about something else, though. Answer me this: Your job is to fight pollution, but is it better to fight it, or to prevent it from happening at all?”
“You know the answer to that,” growled Barky. “What are you telling me?”
“I’m telling you something you’ll be very interested in hearing,” said Thumper. “Listen to this …”
Thumper spoke quickly, skipping over all but the most crucial details. But Barky only interrupted him with questions twice. By the end, the Environmental Dog was growling and gnashing his teeth. “All right, you’ve convinced me,” he said at last. “You can count on me.”
“Good,” said Thumper. “We’ll let you know when we need you to help.” He turned and headed back along the trail to his guard post. It was with considerable relief that he discovered that his little excursion hadn’t been noticed at all.
Or so he thought. He settled into his assigned guard post, ready to spend the rest of his shift doing the duty to which he’d been assigned. He had a feeling of accomplishment—he had done his part to counteract what he saw as the greatest threat to the missions of both the Legion and the AEIOU here on Zenobia.
A more experienced legionnaire might have noticed the shadowy figure that had trailed him all the way to the AEIOU camp and eavesdropped on his entire conversation with Barky. Perhaps a more experienced legionnaire would have circled back to observe the AEIOU camp after he had announced his departure. Then he might have seen that his conversation with Barky was just the beginning of the evening’s events …
Chapter Sixteen
Journal #744
Those of us who spend much time with the class of humans who travel to distant worlds to pursue golf, bird-watching, mountain climbing, or underwater fandootery, cannot fail to note how little intere
st these people have in the sophonts native to the worlds they visit. At best, they poke gentle fun at their customs and language; at worst, they consider them lesser races to be pushed out of the way when they happen to inhabit a particularly valuable sand trap or fandooter’s reef. Curious, then, how their attitude changes when one of the locals presents himself in the role of a native guide—and how uncritically they accept the native’s qualifications for a task that none of them would dare undertake without considerable special training.
* * *
Euston O’Better sat at a camp table in the center of the hunters’ campground, scanning a rough topographical map of the eastern part of the main Zenobian continent. It was rough because it had been downloaded from the landing craft’s navigational computer, which had scanned the surface during their approach to the current landing site. O’Better was almost certain that the Legion company had better maps, but those were currently unavailable to him. The Legion captain had smiled and hinted at military secrets. “We’ll try to get a civilian-legal map printed out for you,” he drawled, but nothing had so far come of it.
The natives undoubtedly had maps, too, but the hunting party had yet to meet an actual Zenobian. They’d all seen them on the tri-vee, of course. They looked like little dinosaurs, O’Better remembered, although they reportedly had a primitive spacegoing technology. And Willard Phule—Captain Jester—had talked them into a sweetheart deal with his father’s company.
There was a roundish feature on the map, about fifty kilos west of the camp, that had looked a lot like a salt dome when they’d flown in over it. That might indicate subsurface mineral deposits, in which O’Better had a professional interest. But they had to get out into the desert, where the Legion wasn’t looking over their every move, before he could find out whether there was anything more to it. He’d have to do some seismic testing, and that required making few loud noises—more than they could get away with this close to a military installation. Especially one whose leader had reportedly negotiated an exclusive on trade rights with the natives. Out in the desert, nobody’d notice—and if they did, the “hunters” could always explain it away as gunfire. After all, if you were trying to kill a dino, you needed a real big gun—didn’t you? And, thanks to the crooked Supply sergeant, they were going to be trying out some really big ones this time out.
He smiled and rolled up his map. Hunting dinos was fine, especially if it gave him the chance to test a few otherwise unobtainable weapons. His friends at BigBoum Armaments would be very interested in his report on the capabilities of the new weapons Omega Company was supplied with—thanks to the company commander’s father, who just happened to be the CEO of Phule-Proof, BigBoum’s main competitor. And if at the same time he managed to get a lead on some unexploited mineral rights that he could possibly convince the ignorant natives to let him exploit—why, there was a lot to be said for combining business with pleasure.
He had just decided it wasn’t worth trying to get the computer to enhance the printout—if only because he wasn’t sure he really knew how to get the stubborn machine to do what he wanted—when a high-pitched voice said, right behind his left ear, “Hello, you are leader of the hunting humans?”
O’Better turned to see a reptilian face with a mouthful of sharp-looking teeth, and nearly jumped out of his skin. “Wh-who the hell are you?” he asked.
“I am Qual, your hunting guide,” said the creature, grinning ferociously. At second glance, O’Better saw that it was wearing a battered straw hat and ragged camouflage. “A friend with big ears told me of your need, and so here I am standing.”
“OK, you’re the guide,” said O’Better. He turned toward the tents, and shouted, “Hey, guys, our guide’s here!”
The other hunters emerged, looking curiously at the little Zenobian. O’Better turned back to Qual, and said, “It’s about time you got here—we’ve been settin’ on our duffs just waitin’ for you. Couldn’t get squat done without a native guide.”
“Oho, this is why you sit,” said Qual. The Zenobian peered about the camp, then said, “These are your hunting companions? We should converse so I can determine what part of our planet offers the creatures you desire to kill and eat.”
“Oh, I don’t know if we’ll want to eat any dinos,” said L.P. Asho, looking curiously at Qual. “Though I suppose if they were tasty, we might think about it …”
“Not eating?” Qual’s mouth opened wide, showing his teeth again. “If not eating, why shooting?”
“Well, we figured we’d mount ’em …”
“Human not talking sense,” said Qual, making a noise that sounded suspiciously like laughter. “Mounting much better when alive. Then they still can move …”
Austen Tay-Shun scratched his head and changed the subject. “What do they taste like, anyway? What kinds do you folks eat?”
“The small ones, of course,” said Qual. “They taste much like the Old Earth bird known as chicken. And they are not known for deciding to try to eat you instead.”
“Well, it’s the big ones we want, anyway, Qual,” said O’Better. “Where would you go if you wanted to find some of them?”
“There are some astonishing specimens at Lhort’s Stretch,” said Qual. “It is where I would certainly go first.”
“Great, that’s the place for us then,” said L.P. Asho. “How do we get there?”
Qual rubbed his chin, pondering. “From my home, I would take the red trackway,” he said. “It costs a smacker and a half, but one needn’t pay to store the scooting-thing.”
“Trackway? I don’t get it …” said Asho.
“It is a public conveyance,” said Qual, grinning. “One waits at a designated corner, the trackway vehicle comes, and one boards …”
“Ah, it’s some kind of damned bus,” said O’Better. Then he stared at Qual, hands on hips. “Wait a minute, Qual. Do you go hunting at this place?”
“Oh, no, all the creatures are protected,” said Qual. “It is a place for the young ones and the savants to observe them.”
“A zoo,” said Asho, disgusted. “Listen, Qual. We want to go someplace where we can shoot the stupid dinos, not just look at ’em. That’s what we’re here for, and that’s what we want.”
“Oho, that is distinct,” said Qual. “You humans are very strange, but now this makes a certain sense even to me. In fact, you are very near one of the very best places to find some very large creatures.”
“Aw right,” said Tay-Shun. Then he narrowed his eyes, and asked, “Can we shoot ’em?”
“Why, yes, if you have the weapons,” said Qual. “But let me see all your trappings, so I can determine whether all is in readiness. If you have a lack, I know a person who can supply it. With any fortune, we shall be stalking large creatures before a matta can hop twice.”
“What’s a matta?” asked L.P. Asho.
“I dunno, what’s a matta wit’ you?” said Qual, grinning.
The three hunters stood there scratching their heads until Qual said, “But make haste! The game’s afoot.” He ducked quickly into the nearest tent, where a loud screech greeted his entrance.
“Oh, hellfire,” said Euston O’Better, as Qual bolted from the tent, dodging a high-heeled shoe thrown at his head. Another just followed, but by then he was out of range. “Guess we should’ve told Dallas the native was here. You know how spooky she gets sometimes.”
Qual looked accusingly at the hunters, but simply said, “Perhaps you should bring out your trappings for me to look at here. Is more dangerous inside than I suspected.”
“Little feller, you don’t know the half of it,” said Euston O’Better. His companions nodded, gravely.
* * *
“Damn it all,” said Lola. She’d been pacing furiously back and forth in the little hotel room on one of Lorelei’s back streets, away from the casino district. Ernie, sitting on the bed, swiveled his head back and forth, watching her. She reminded him of a shuttlecraft in a crowded spaceport. Which, unless somebody g
ot a really bright idea, might be the next scene the two of them would be seeing.
She stopped and stared out the window at the distant gleam of neon. “For a short while there, we had the whole game won,” she said. “I knew it was too good to be true.”
“Too good to be true?” Ernie repeated, stupidly. “Mr. Phule and the other casino bosses were all ready to give us five million spifflers, just to go away and leave ’em alone, and you call that too good to be true? We could’ve lived like kings, anywhere in the Alliance.”
“Yeah, and had the mob on us the minute we let down our guard,” snarled Lola. “If only the stupid casino publicity department hadn’t sent our picture out to the galactic media. If Mr. V and his boys were ready to murder us before, what do you think they’ll be now?”
Ernie shook his head, trying to conjure up an answer that could do justice to the probable wrath of the mob enforcers who’d come to their apartment back on Bu-Tse to remind them of the job he and Lola had left undone on Lorelei—capturing Captain Jester (A.K.A. Willard Phule), and delivering him into the hands of the syndicate. So he and Lola had come back to Lorelei, but the job was still undone. And now …
Whatever answer he’d been about to offer was aborted by the hotel room’s door suddenly swinging open.
“Hello, Ernie,” said the heavyset man who walked in. There were two other men behind him, who stood barring the door, which until just a moment ago had been soundly locked. While they were simply standing there, there was very little doubt what they were there for—or what they would do if either Ernie or Lola made a wrong move. The man removed his hat and turned to the window. “And Miss Lola. A pleasure to see you both here. But enough small talk—I’ve come to see what progress you’ve made on your assignment.” He paused frowning. “You have made progress, correct?”
The Complete Phule’s Company Boxed Set Page 137
