"WHAT?" roared Roosevelt.
"Thank heaven!" breathed Pierce.
"Thank Daddy!" added Pierce-Arro, just to be on the safe side.
"Oh, that doesn't mean we won't shoot them, sir," Feinstein assured Roosevelt hastily. "As a matter of fact, I can't wait to fill the ugly little bastards full of lead. We just can't do so on your orders. So much the better for you, wouldn't you say? This way there won't be any nasty inquiries about your commanding us to shoot unarmed and obviously defenseless prisoners." He turned to the other furloughed lizards. "Are you ready, men?" he cried.
"Ready!" they responded in unison.
Pierce turned to Nathan Bolivia. "Do something!" he pleaded.
"I wish I could, I really do," replied Bolivia pleasantly. "But my hands are tied. I am merely an unofficial observer, here to—" A communicator beeped in his pocket. "Take heart!" he said, withdrawing the device. "These may be new orders coming through." He flipped open the mechanism. "Bolivia here!"
"It's third and nine to go on the Bengals' 37-yardline," said a voice, "and the Steelers go into their Prevent Defense. Here's the snap, and—"
"Wrong channel," Bolivia apologized, tapping the device with a forefinger. "Let me try again.
Bolivia here!"
"Captain Bolivia, this is Sector Headquarters. Repeat, this is Sector Headquarters. Do you read me?"
"Loud and clear."
"Glad we reached you, Bolivia," said the voice. "Have you made contact with Pierce and the girl yet?"
"Yes, sir."
"Good. There seems to be a galactic invasion under way"—Pierce grinned triumphantly at the lizards as he heard the words—"and it has come to our attention that Pierce and the girl may well have something to do with it."
"No!" cried Pierce. "We're trying to prevent it!"
"Did you say something, Captain Bolivia?"
"No, sir . . . but—"
"Good. Time is running out. Your mission is to find Pierce and the girl—"
"I've already found them," interrupted Bolivia.
"Do let me finish, Captain," said the voice. "Your job is to find Pierce and the girl and to terminate them, with extreme prejudice. You got that?"
"You're quite sure, sir?" asked Bolivia as Pierce frantically tried to grab the device out of his hands. "That's an order, Captain. Headquarters over and out."
The communicator went dead.
"It's ridiculous, of course," said Bolivia to Pierce. "You're perfectly innocent. The culprits are these lizards,and maybe whoever wound up inside the ship's computer."
"I'm glad you understand the situation," said Pierce.
"Oh, I do," said Bolivia apologetically. "And after I kill you, I intend to write up a protest in the strongest possible language. I just want you to know that."
"But we're innocent!" protested Pierce. "We're the good guys! You know that!"
"Of course I do," said Bolivia, drawing his weapon. "But orders are orders. Would you mind standing closer together, please? Headquarters gets really irked with us if we waste ammunition unnecessarily."
"Captain Bolivia, we are not at war with you personally—at least, not yet," said Feinstein.
"Could you move a bit to the left, to make sure that you're not in our line of fire?"
"Certainly," said Bolivia. "But I'll have you know that these people are my responsibility. I'll do the shooting."
"Boys, boys," said Roosevelt placatingly. "Let's not lose our heads over this. There's lots of victims for everyone."
Bolivia thought it over for a moment, then shrugged and nodded. "What the hell," he said, walking over and joining the lizard marksmen. "I suppose it doesn't really matter as long as the job gets done."
"That's the spirit!" said Roosevelt. "Now let's get this show on the road."
"Please, sir," said Feinstein. "We're not under your jurisdiction for another thirty-eight seconds. Men!" he added in a shrill voice. "Let's get this show on the road!"
"They're going to do it!" muttered Pierce unbelievingly. "They're really going to do it!"
"I suppose it's too late to go back to being a navigational computer?" whined XB-223.
"All right, men!" cried Feinstein, raising his rifle to what passed for his shoulder. "Ready!"
"Are you open to a counteroffer?" asked Pierce plaintively.
"Aim!"
"I gotta go to the bathroom," said Marshmallow. "FIRE!"
"C'mon, Chalker! If you drop all the unnecessary things like eating, sleeping, family, and the like, you can write this in a few days and we'll make our deadline."
"Don't bug me, Resnick! I've just came off finishing a 350,000-word serial novel immediately after another biggie and I'm just bushed. I've got tickets to Europe and a month without computers, modems, faxes, or phones, and I want my life back!"
"Oh, yeah? And what's all that when we can have a hardcover, huh? Besides, who cares about Europe? If you don't finish your part quick I won't make it to Africa!"
The entire assemblage froze and looked around in puzzlement.
"What was that?" Feinstein asked at last.
"It—it sounded like an argument among the Gods," Pierce-Arro responded, awed.
"I hate to mention this, but could we get to the shooting now and discuss metaphysics later?"
Roosevelt asked plaintively.
The human Pierce tried to think of some way to stop it, at least for another twenty-five seconds.
"Use the Force, Pierce," came a voice in his head. "You're in the wrong galaxy and the wrong epic!" Pierce shot back with the speed of thought.
"I know. But they pay me to come in and add a little class to things with no other redeeming social value, and this certainly qualifies."
Pierce shook off the momentary interruption. "Look, men—you don't want to shoot little old me, do you?" he asked, wiggling Marshmallow's body.
The lizard soldiers paused a moment. Finally Gomez asked, "Why not?"
" 'Cause I might be useful to big, strong, handsome boys like you."
Feinstein, at least, seemed to be taking the bait. "Wait a minute, boys. This has some interesting possibilities."
"How's about we just shoot the others and leave her for us?" Brownschweigger suggested.
Feinstein shrugged. "Why not? Okay, one more time, guys. Spare the strange-looking one, then ready . . . aim . . .”
"You can't shoot," Pierce told them.
"Huh? Why not?"
"Your furlough's up. You're back under military command again and you no longer have the authority."
There was a moment of tense silence, then one of the soldiers said, "He's right. I just checked my watch. Typical damned navy furlough. Never get off the ship, never enough time, never get to do anything fun."
"Well, this isn't all that serious a problem," said Captain Roosevelt. "I'll just give you boys another fur-lough."
"Sorry, sir," Feinstein responded. "You can't. Regu-lations. Everyone else has to have one before it's our turn again.
The general sighed. "Oh, all right. Send over five more and we'll do it right this time!"
"I really wouldn't recommend it, sir."
"What? What's wrong this time?"
"Well, sir, it would just be a waste of time. They don't have operable weapons, either."
Roosevelt was stunned. "You mean—all this and your guns don't work?"
"No sir. Well, they work once. When you pulled that phony attack, everybody fired at least once. That was it. They sent us ten million energy packs that short out when you try and fire them. The manufacture was contracted out to a shady manufacturing concern that used defective parts." He paused. "They did give us the best price, though."
"What! Why wasn't I told of this?"
"You were, sir. We sent the notification forms out to you a month ago. They should arrive any time now."
"Who's this shady supplier? I'll have him boiled in oil!"
"Ah, I believe the company is owned by the President's son, sir."
"Oh." He
sighed. "Well, I suppose we could do it manually. Knives and all that."
"On the computer and the android? Not practical. Nor is it anywhere in our MOS. We're navy men, sir! We get to blow up people from afar!"
"I'm a marine, damn it! And so are you!"
"No, sir. No marine enlisted men boarded. The order to leave arrived before their orders to report reached them."
Captain Nathan Bolivia cleared his throat. "Pardon me, but I believe I have the answer to your problem," he said softly.
"Eh?"
"I might remind you that I was just instructed to terminate them. I was willing, in the interest of interspecies cooperation and the spirit of harmony and goodwill to allow you to do it, but, since you can't, I must in any event."
Roosevelt sighed. "All right, then. Stand back, men! Let the nice gentleman carry out his orders."
Nathan Bolivia stepped forward and took out his imposing pistol, taking aim at Pierce, whose Marshmallow eyes widened.
"Hold it!" the Arbiter cried. "You can't carry out those illegal orders, Bolivia! If you do, they'll leave you out to hang, twisting slowly in the wind."
"Huh? Why not?"
Pierce wasn't certain if the man's tone betrayed relief or regret.
"Who gave you your orders, Captain?"
"Why, the Supervising Admiral, Sector—oh. I see."
Pierce nodded. "The moment we crashed, we fell under the jurisdiction of the Space Rescue Service, of which you're not a member. Then, by transferring to alien control, we came under the First Contact Act and thus the Diplomatic Service, since a state of war has not yet been declared.
You are totally powerless to act, sir, until you effect a transfer to the proper Command, although it will take an Arbiter to figure out whose jurisdiction we're now under. Of course, you could radio your commander and have the paperwork started to get an Arbiter out here to settle that point, and then put in for a transfer for you and/or your ship to make the necessary adjustments.
That should give you the authority—indeed the responsibility—to shoot us in, oh, four to six months, give or take a week. Unless, of course, you want to take the entire responsibility upon yourself without any proper clearances
.
"You've got to be kidding! Everybody knows that the whole purpose of bureaucracy and red tape is so that, even as it creates a full employment economy, it's impossible to blame anyone for anything!"
Pierce smiled a sweet Marshmallow-type smile. "Just doing my job."
Captain Roosevelt was turning yellow with mauve spots in frustration. "Wait a minute! You mean there's nothing that anybody can do to kill these—these creatures?"
"Oh, I'm certain that somebody can, at the proper time," Bolivia responded glibly. "However, there appears nothing that we, either of us, can do at this point."
Feinstein cleared his throat. "Uh, sir, perhaps we can make some adjustments to kind of get around things."
"Huh? What do you mean?"
"Well, we have only the word of bizarre aliens that that is not General Pierce. I submit, sir, that by any security coded tests—eyes, fingerprints, scale pattern—it would prove to be General Pierce. This ship has already been turned to junk, and we've added our own mess. I'm sure if I, ah, inspect the airlock seals they'll be found serviceable for all our reporting purposes—although, of course, I have been known to be wrong. There are no serviceable spacesuits, the existing power plant is on its last legs . . . Well, I would recommend that we just leave them here, pending instructions from higher-ups and until the paperwork is right. And, of course, it might take months for the paperwork to be right, and until then they'd be in protective custody—protected from anyone else getting to them."
"You can't do that!" Pierce objected. "We'll starve! If we don't run out of air first!"
"Hmmm . . ." the lizard Pierce muttered in the android body. "I won't starve. Not in here. Nice idea."
"Don't worry," Feinstein told him. "You'll need a recharge and every one of those will sap the limited power our glorious attack left to the ship. Those whatever they are in the navigational computer won't let you, so you're done in. And they'll need the power, more than they've got, so they're finished, too. Simple and elegant."
"No," said Roosevelt thoughtfully. "It's not good enough. Needs an officer to plan it properly.
Now, I'll tell you what we'll do. We'll leave them in the shell ship to run out of power, air, and provisions; and die while we keep everyone else away."
"A brilliant plan, sir!" Feinstein enthused.
"Yes. It is, isn't it? Gad! I don't know how I come up with these things. Very well, then. All of you others over there! You, Captain Bolivia, are free to go, of course. And, men, I want everything vital to the sustenance of life not only as we know it but as we can't imagine it thoroughly inspected, if you know what I mean. We want everything just right on the paperwork, don't we?"
Brownschweigger frowned. "Gee, I thought the idea was to let 'em die here. I can't see why we gotta inspect—"
"That's enough, Brownschweigger," Feinstein responded. "I'll explain it all to you while we inspect that airlock over there. Come on, and bring your crowbar."
"We could just rush them, you know," Sly, the ex-computer, suggested. "I mean, there's only a couple thousand of 'em."
Everybody ignored him.
Soon the soldiers had made a horrible mess even worse, and were about to bid farewell.
Roosevelt pointed to Marshmallow, now in the lizard-Pierce's body. "Take him with us! The paperwork requires a proper scapegoat!"
"Who you callin' a him?"
"You. And a Section Eight won't do you any good on our ship. The only thing worse than torture and death on our ship is being turned over to the psychiatric section."
"Well, I ain't goin' and that's that! Ain't no way I'm gonna let my body outta my sight!"
Roosevelt removed his pistol from its holster and pointed it at her.
"Oh, you'll come along, all right. Unless you want to die heroically."
"You ain't got no ammo," she reminded him.
"As the report said, the weapons work once. I'm an officer. My job is to stand back and order men into battle to be slaughtered. I haven't fired my weapon at all yet."
"Well, you might as well shoot me, then, 'cause if I gotta leave life ain't worth livin'!"
Roosevelt fired, and the lizard body was bathed in a white glow for a moment, then it stiffened and dropped to the deck.
"Hey! That's my body you're dealing with, Roosevelt!" lizard-Pierce screamed.
"My god! You've killed her!" Pierce cried.
"Nothing of the sort. If I killed the general here they'd give him a hero's funeral and a medal and a statue. It's merely a hard stun. Feinstein! Get the military police here to drag this lump back to the ship!"
Pierce looked at Bolivia. "You've got to stop them! Authority be damned!"
Bolivia shrugged. "Sorry, but, technically, they are dealing entirely with their own species and attempting to take a potential criminal back to their own ship. It's simply none of our affair."
"But that's a human inside that lizard body!"
He shrugged. "So you say. Personally, I think you're all mad, including the aliens. Even if I grant your supposition, you ought to know as well as anyone that all that counts are appearances.
Reality is irrelevant, particularly to the government, so long as the paperwork's right. After all, who would ever be in government if they had to actually face and deal with reality? Nobody competent would take the job, and the incompetents would really be able to do something."
Pierce stared at him. "You didn't, by some chance, start out as an Arbiter, did you?"
"Uh, actually, no. I started out as a god, you see, and I had all the answers. Then I devolved myself to a much more comfortable level."
"A god? All the answers? And you did this to yourself?"
"Sure. I had all the answers, but I discovered I never could think of the questions. So I created bureaucracy to
handle the questions and retired. It's much, much more peaceful this way, and I even get to take vacations to Europe. Well, I see they're sealing the airlock—or pre-tending to, anyway. Got to go. Best of luck and all that."
And, with that and a wave of his hand, Captain Nathan Bolivia disappeared.
For a moment they all stared at him. Finally, Pierce called out to those now inhabiting the computer. "Hey! You two in there! Can you tell us how he did that or where he went?"
"Very little functions correctly anymore," Pierce-Arro responded, "but, for the record, we'd say he's back aboard the Gandhi, whatever Gandhi they're calling them-selves this week, we suppose."
"Do we have any power at all?"
"Some. More than they thought, we suspect, but not enough to do any good. If so, we'd blast that Gandhi shipfor its blasphemy. We know what God looks like, and it isn't that little deflated wimp!"
Pierce sighed and sank into the command chair. "Well, then, that's it, I guess. How much time do you think we've got?"
"Hard to say. If you all wouldn't breathe, the air would last much longer. They rerouted the food synthesizer into the sewage system, which is great for efficiency but not for actually eating anything. It just keeps making foul-looking stuff and immediately vaporizing it in the garbage, taking the energy and remaking foul-looking stuff and immediately—"
"We get the idea." Pierce sighed.
"The water system isn't much better, but by alternately idling the main engines while inducing maintenance fluids it is possible to recover a liquid that the data banks of this hunk of junk say is safe for you to drink. Of course, there's the question to answer first before we can do it."
"Huh? What?"
"Why should we? It takes energy, and the mains are depleted. Besides, we are here to conquer you and it seems practical to withhold needed substances until you accept the truth. That goes for you, too, General. No more juice."
The android considered it. "All right, then, I admit you have us, and I am certain my, er, colleagues here will agree. We are at your mercy."
Pierce saw where he was going and nodded. "Yes, that's right. We surrender. We're conquered and your prisoners."
"Hmmm . . . And what about the other fellow?" The two Pierces looked at the XB-223
navigational computer who was otherwise occupied.
The Red Tape War (1991) Page 15
