The Red Tape War (1991)

by Jack L. Chalker

  "Suits me," said Pierce. "How do we start?"

  "You simply link hands and concentrate on the body that was formerly yours. My prodigious mental powers, linked to the ship's computer, will do the rest."

  "You're sure?" asked Pierce dubiously.

  "Not really," admitted Pierce-Arro. "But it sounds awfully impressive, and besides, I haven't heard any better suggestions. Shall we begin?"

  "No!" said the XB-223.

  "What do you mean, no?" demanded Pierce.

  "It's nothing personal, Millard," replied the computer. "I mean, there's nobody I'd rather do a good turn to, except maybe Fanny Hill, and that would be an entirely different kind of turn, if you understand my clever but subtle play on words . . . but the truth of the matter is that I rather like being a person, if you know what I mean."

  "But it's my body!"

  "It was your body. And I might add," the computercontinued petulantly, "that you've taken absolutely abysmal care of it. It's nearsighted and underweight and its teeth are filled with cavities and it has fallen arches and it sweats too much. It will take a lot of work putting this body back into shape, Millard. You really should be ashamed of yourself. When's the last time you took it for a long walk? Or let it make passionate love to a real woman? The muscle tone is just abysmal."

  "If it's all that terrible, why not just give it back to me?" snapped Pierce.

  "Well, it may not be much of a body," admitted the computer, "but on the other hand, it's the only one I've got."

  "Take this one," said Pierce, indicating the body he was wearing and trying to keep the eagerness out of his voice. "It's much sounder and healthier, and I assure you that it's far more capable of defending itself."

  "Now just a goldurned minute!" thundered Marsh-mallow, striking the floor a mighty blow with her orange tail. "Ain't nobody else getting that body but me!"

  "Well, you see how it is, Millard," said the computer apologetically. "I'd help you if I could, but it gets so stuffy in the ship, if you know what I mean."

  Pierce muttered an obscenity.

  "Don't be like that, Millard," said XB-223 placatingly. "I want us to be friends, and I promise you that I will provide nothing but the best for your body: fine Italian pasta, carefully aged champagne, at least one shower a day, and regular dental checkups. And women, Millard—think of the women this body is going to enjoy!"

  "It's enough to make me wish I was there," said Pierce bitterly.

  "I'll call you once a week and fill you in on all the details," promised XB-223. "Look at it this way, Millard: you're not losing a body, you're gaining a friend."

  "I'd rather lose the friend and have the body back, if it's all the same to you."

  "Try to be a good loser," said the computer soothingly. "After all, there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well look on the bright side."

  Pierce turned to the newcomer from the Mahatma Gandhi, who had been a silent and somewhat befuddled spectator.

  "You're supposed to be here to rescue me!" he snapped. "What are you going to do about all this?"

  "I really don't know what I can do, ma'am," replied the officer.

  "That's sir," said Pierce. "Who are you and what's your rank?"

  "Captain Nathan Bolivia at your service, sii," said the officer. "Although," he added after a moment's consideration, "that's not exactly accurate."

  "You're not a captain or you're not Nathan Bolivia?" asked Pierce, confused.

  "Oh, I'm both, sir," answered Bolivia. "What I'm not is at your service."

  "I don't understand," said Pierce. "No matter how I may appear to you, I assure you that I really am Arbiter Millard Fillmore Pierce."

  "I believe you, ma'am . . . or rather, sir," said Bolivia.

  "Then what's the problem?"

  "It's really all quite simple, sir," explained Bolivia. "You see, you put in an Urgent Assistance Call to the Mahatma Gandhi."

  "Right," said Pierce. "And here you are."

  "Well, yes and no, sir," said Bolivia uncomfortably. "What do you mean?"

  "Well, I'm here, but the Mahatma Gandhi isn't."

  "I thought it was hanging in orbit above this Uncharted planet," said Pierce.

  "No, sir," said Bolivia. "That's the Indira Gandhi."

  "Where's the Mahatma Gandhi?" asked Pierce. "Well, now, that's the tricky part," answered Bolivia.

  "You see, there isn't any Mahatma Gandhi."

  "What are you talking about?" demanded Pierce. "I was in radio contact with it less than a week ago!"

  "True," admitted Bolivia. "In fact, I am the officer to whom you spoke. I expedited matters and received per-mission to come to your rescue, which accounts for my presence here."

  "Then what's the problem?"

  "The problem, sir, is that between the time that I left hyperspace and the time that I docked with the Pete Rozelle, orders came through changing my ship's name to the Indira Gandhi. Some feminist group or other had been lobbying for it, and headquarters finally yielded to pressure about sixteen weeks ago. The orders were rushed through, signed and countersigned, and finally approved." He sighed. "So there you have it, sir."

  "Have what?" asked Pierce, thoroughly befuddled.

  "My orders specify that you are to be rescued by the crew of the Mahatma Gandhi," said Bolivia slowly, as if explaining it to a rather backward child. "They say nothing whatsoever about the crew of the Indira Gandhi. I'm probably breaking some regulation or other just by being here talking to you."

  "But you're the same crew and the same ship!" screamed Pierce. "Why can't you rescue me?"

  "I should have thought being in an analagous situation would make it plain to you, sir. I am definitely Captain Nathan Bolivia, and I have been dispatched aboard the ship Mahatma Gandhi to rescue you, but my ship is obviously no longer the Mahatma Gandhi. You are unquestionably Class 2 Arbiter Millard Fillmore Pierce, and you have requested that I rescue you, but your body is no longer the body of Millard Fillmore Pierce. Don't you find a certain poetic irony in our similar plights?"

  "I don't see anything similar about them!" bellowed Pierce. "I needed help when I contacted you, and I still need help. You were willing to help me a few hours ago, and now you're not!"

  Bolivia's face beamed with delight. "Ah, what a subtle nuance you've pinpointed, sir!" he said enthusiastically. "I wonder if Kant's Categorical Imperative can be applied to the situation?"

  "How about just applying a little force and making the damned computer give me back my body?" said Pierce wearily.

  "Oh, I couldn't do that, sir," said Bolivia. "After all, I don't officially exist until I receive my new orders. Actually—and I'm sure you'll appreciate this, sir—you might view me as Bishop Berkeley's Unseen Observer. Of course, you'd have to close your eyes for that, or perhaps . .

  "Skip it," said Pierce, utterly defeated. He turned to the computer's main panel. "If I don't get my body back, I'm not helping you look for your goddamned roll of tape."

  "A most unusual race," mused Pierce-Arro, who had been an interested if silent observer of Pierce's conversation with Bolivia. "I'll be absolutely devastated if one of them actually turns out to be God." It paused. "Computer!"

  "Call me Sylvester," said XB-223. "Or Sly, if you prefer."

  "Computer," repeated Pierce-Arro. "This situation is getting out of hand. There are far more important things at stake here than your desire for a human body."

  "Name three," said XB-223 sullenly.

  "I warn you," continued Pierce-Arro. "Do not make light of the situation."

  "I'm not making light of the situation," replied XB-223. "I'm just not going to help you change it."

  "Let me make this easy for you," interrupted Daddy. "Computer, how'd you like to go through life with two broken legs?"

  "My name is Sly, and I wouldn't."

  "Well, Sly, although this is my hologram speaking to you, the real me isn't all that far away from here, and if you don't agree to join hands and get everyone's bodies back where
they belong, I'm going send some of my men over to blast holes in both your kneecaps."

  "Hey, wait a minute!" said Pierce. "Those are my kneecaps you're talking about. I want my body back in the same condition I left it!"

  "Is my daughter's in the same condition she left it?" demanded Daddy.

  "That's a totally different subject," replied Pierce. "We were talking about my body."

  "It ain't gonna be your body unless someone can talk a little sense to this here computer," said Daddy. His image turned back to XB-223. "Okay, Sly, it's up to you: do you want to be a healthy computer or would you rather go through life as a crippled little wimp with bad gums and no kneecaps?"

  XB-223 sighed in resignation. "It's not fair," he whined.

  "Are we finally all ready to join hands?" asked Pierce.

  "Yes," said XB-223 bitterly, and Pierce and Marsh-mallow stepped forward.

  "Wait a minute!" said Pierce. "Where did the general go?"

  "He was here just a minute ago," said Marshmallow.

  Pierce-Arro sent a mild electric surge through the bridge's bathroom, and suddenly,the Frank Poole android, guided by the lizard Pierce's intelligence, burst out, cursing a blue streak. He looked around, then folded his arms adamantly across his chest. "I'm not joining hands with anyone until the general gets his just deserts from society," he announced.

  "But you are the general!" protested Marshmallow.

  "Who's going to take the word of a lying lizard who's trying to avoid punishment?" said the general, contorting Frank Poole's mouth into a contemptuous smile. "You've disobeyed orders, seriously impaired the success of your mission, and eaten a fellow officer. It's only natural that you'd lie to protect yourself."

  "This is getting terribly confusing," said Captain Roosevelt. "It's getting so one scarcely knows what to believe anymore."

  "You can't seriously suggest that if I'm found innocent, you plan on taking orders from a humanoid android called Frank Poole?" said the general.

  "I can't even seriously suggest that we'll find you innocent," replied Roosevelt. "However, it seems to me that it would be in everyone's best interest if you would join hands and make the transfer. That way, if you are the general, we'll know who to torture."

  "And if I'm not, and they put me into the general's body?" persisted the lizard Pierce.

  "Then it will be a gross miscarriage of justice, for which I apologize in advance, but which I must point out is statistically acceptable once in every 633 cases."

  "What makes you think the last 632 people you tortured were guilty?" demanded the general.

  "The same statistical tables," replied Roosevelt smugly. "After all, if they weren't guilty, we wouldn't have tortured them, would we?"

  While they had been speaking, Marshmallow had edged closer and closer to the general.

  Now, with a sudden swat of her tail, she flipped him straight up in the air and caught him firmly in her reptilian claws on the way down.

  "Put me down!" screamed the general. "You can't do this to me!" He caught his breath and then continued: "I demand trial by my peers. Find me a jury of twelve Frank Pooles good and true and I'll take my chances, but I'm not putting up with this treatment without a fight!"

  "Fight all you want to," said Pierce. "But I'm getting my body back, and that's that."

  He clasped the general's artificial hand in his left hand, then took Marshmallow's claw in his right. XB-223 joined them a moment later, and then Pierce-Arro demanded that they all concentrate on their original bodies while he intoned a mystic chant (thereby supplicating Daddy or God, whichever came first, to help them) and simultaneously created a quasi-negatronic electric field around them.

  They stood motionless for a few minutes.

  "Well?" demanded Daddy at last.

  "You damned charlatan!" bellowed Pierce, who found himself still inside Marshmallow's shapely body. "I thought you said this would work!"

  "No, I never did," said Pierce-Arro defensively. "I said it might work."

  "It worked just perfectly," lied the general, stretching his body as if trying on a new suit of clothes. "I can already feel myself thinking abstract android thoughts and feeling passionate android longings. Officer," he added, addressing Roosevelt, "arrest that traitor!" He pointed an accusing finger at his former body.

  "I'm going to have to think this over very carefully," replied Captain Roosevelt. He sidled over to Nathan Bolivia. "If this is typical of your universe, I don't know how you guys get through the day."

  "Unofficially, I quite agree with you," replied Bolivia.

  "Unofficially?" repeated the reptile.

  "I have no official standing here," Bolivia reminded him. "Actually, I'm just an Unseen Observer."

  Roosevelt muttered something unintelligible and lowered his massive head in thought.

  "Whew!" exclaimed XB-223. "For a minute there my whole life flashed before my eyes. You have no idea how dull six thousand miles of printed memory circuits can be to look at." He smiled brightly,. "Well, now that that's over, what's all this about tape?"

  "We must save the universe, or at least determine that it cannot or should not be saved," said Pierce-Arro grimly. "I'm sorry to be so inexact, but theology can be very confusing, especially when God may be glaring at you. Anyway, while I am sorry that I could not effect the return of our original bodies, I feel we have already wasted enough time. I must impress all of you into service immediately."

  "Afraid not, friend," said Nathan Bolivia. "I mean, I'm as hot to save the universe as the next man—speaking unofficially, of course—but I'm only authorized to save Sector X3110J8. But if there's anything I can do in my sector, just say the word and I'll put it through channels and I'll be at your beck and call in no time at all." He paused thoughtfully. "Well, practically no time.

  Actually, I should estimate three to four months, given the current shortfall of help at headquarters, and the change in my ship's name, and my own somewhat uncertain status. But count me in as soon as possible."

  "Well, I'm certainly not helping you," said Captain Roosevelt. This isn't even my universe."

  "What do you think, Pierce?" demanded Daddy, looking at the voluptuous body of his daughter.

  "Me?" said Pierce, startled.

  "You're the only one who's made any sense so far," said Daddy. "Everyone else keeps worrying about tapes and regulations and torture—all perfectly delightful subjects, except maybe for tapes and regulations—but you and you alone have stuck to your guns. You want your old body back, and to hell with everything else. You're not going to get it, of course, but it seems to me that this makes you a perfect impartial observer."

  "That's Unseen Observer, and I'm it," put in Bolivia.

  "Shut up!" snapped Daddy. "Well, Pierce, what do you think? Do I seem exceptionally godly to you?"

  "Not exceptionally so, no," admitted Pierce.

  "So what do you think we should do?" continued Daddy.

  Pierce shrugged, a gesture which brought all the human males (and three of the more imaginative reptiles) to immediate attention. "I suppose we might as well do what the computer asks," he said at last. "I know the lizards are here to conquer us. I only suspect the computer is.

  "Thanks for reminding me," broke in Captain Roosevelt. "Feinstein!" he bellowed.

  "Sir?" said his lieutenant, stepping forward and offering a snappy salute.

  "Take all these disgusting humanoid creatures out and shoot them."

  "May I point out that we're inside a spaceship on an uncharted planet and the air outside is poisonous, sir?"

  "A point well taken," said Roosevelt. "Shoot 'em where they stand. The general, too."

  "Sir," said Feinstein, "there is nothing I would like better personally than to shoot these foul-smelling humanoids, except maybe for the one with the extra pair of lungs who keeps calling herself Pierce for reasons that I don't fully understand."

  "Good!" said Roosevelt emphatically. "Go to it!"

  "As I was saying, sir," contin
ued Feinstein, "there is nothing that would give me more pleasure, but I'm afraid it is out of the question."

  "Are you disobeying a direct order, Feinstein?" demanded Roosevelt.

  "No, sir. But may I respectfully remind the captain that my specialty is Maiming and Pillaging? I am not allowed, under article 6374, Subparagraph Q of the Manual of Arms, to shoot anyone even in self-defense. Of course," he added helpfully, "I could maim them a little while you send for a Riflery Unit."

  "Send for one?" repeated Roosevelt. "Don't we have one with us?"

  "I don't believe so, sir," said Feinstein.

  "Then why are you all carrying weapons?" demanded Roosevelt.

  "Regulation 2399, sir. All invading forces must be equipped with handgun, bayonet, rifle, and Bowie knife."

  "Even if you're not allowed to use them?"

  "I didn't write the regulations, sir. I just obey them."

  "How about Brownschweigger over there?" suggested Roosevelt. "Look at that surly expression on his evil little face. Surely he must be a Riflery officer."

  "I'm afraid not, sir," said Feinstein. "Corporal Brownschweigger's specialties are Rape and Forestry."

  "And Gomez?"

  "Looting and Meteorology."

  "Can't anyone here shoot these damned humanoids?"

  "I could," offered Nathan Bolivia helpfully. "But I'm not here in my official capacity."

  "There must be a way around this," mused Roosevelt.Suddenly his face lit up (as much as an alien lizard's face can light up, that is). "Feinstein!"

  "Sir?"

  "Do you have to obey regulations when you're on furlough?"

  "Which regulations did you have reference to, sir?"

  "Specifically, the one about not using firearms."

  "Absolutely not, sir."

  "Good!" said Roosevelt. "Then I hereby grant an immediate five-minute furlough to you, Brownschweigger, Yingleman, and Gomez."

  "Thank you, sir," said Feinstein, saluting again. "May I say on behalf of the men, sir, that this little respite in the midst of so much tension is greatly appreciated."

  "Good," said Roosevelt. "Now shoot the bastards."

  "I'm afraid I am not under your command for another four minutes and fifty-two seconds, sir," said Feinstein, lighting up a cigarette.