MYTH-Interpretations: The Worlds of Robert Asprin

by Robert Asprin

  "But the actual attack pattern is left up to the individual commander. At his discretion, he can vary the pattern to fit the situation."

  "True enough, Po. But in all the years I've served with you, you haven't deviated from recommended procedure once. It's just a little shortcut I use to get a little leisure time."

  "Phil, do you realize what you're saying? For God's sake! It's textbook tactics! Once you allow yourself to become predictable, the enemy can move against you at leisure! That's how they knew where we'd be! If you can do it, they can do it!"

  "Now, settle down, Po—"

  "Settle down, hell! We've got them. I've finally figured out how those bastards do it! The more we follow rules and procedures, the more we're playing into their hands!"

  "But the rule states—"

  "The rule states that a commander can continue on a mission if, in his opinion, there is an immediate advantage to be seized upon and, by God, we've got an advantage! What's the nearest inhabited planet?"

  "Um, that would be Zarn."

  "Good. I want you to give me two courses. First, plot a shift directly to Zarn, then enter a course from Zarn to Xoltan into the secondary unit."

  "Okay, Po. But—"

  The Captain ignored the reply as he switched on the other two viewscreens.

  "Attention all stations! There is a change in procedures. Prepare for immediate combat! Suz, I want one bank ready for a planet and all other banks prepped for ship-to-ship combat!"

  "Yes, sir. But—"

  "No ‘buts'! Do it! Phil! Have you got those shifts computed yet?"

  "Ready, Po. But would you mind telling us what we're doing?"

  "Not at all, but first we shift. Suz, stand by weapons, just in case. All stations, ready. Shift!"

  If there was any question as to whether a ship actually vibrated during a Phase-Shift, or if it merely was a biological impact from the high speed transfer, the log tapes clearly settled the dispute once and for all. The furniture and equipment remained stoically immobile, while the Captain flinched and writhed in the agonies of unseen pressures. Finally, he straightened, shook his head as if to clear it, and turned to the viewscreens once more.

  "Shift complete! Communications! Detector report of craft in the vicinity!"

  "Negative, sir!"

  "Good, Standby for screen change to full 360/360 exterior. All communications on audio only!"

  Again his hands darted across the switches, and the viewscreens changed to display a tri-screen view of the space surrounding the ship. There, stretched out below them, was the bluish-green terrain of the target planet.

  "Hold at present position! Now, where are we? Oh, yes! Phil, you were asking what we're doing. Well, we're going to break the sterling record of Captains Elkhart, Set and Yahnos by taking this damn system right out from under their noses. They've been having a grand old time at our fleet's expense because they've found our rules have made us predictable. Well, I've got a hot flash for them. Now that we know how they're doing it, they are just as predictable as we are.

  "Take, for example, our current situation. They correctly guessed where we were going to be in the system and set up a communications blockade. Knowing our regulations, they expect that this maneuver will make us abort the mission. But, where will they be? It is my guess that they are currently holding position around Xoltan on the off chance we might ignore their gambit and push on to our next target. At least, that's what they think our next target would be. Suz! Is that planet-side bank ready?"

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Okay, Benji! How long do you think it will take the civilians downstairs to realize we're here?"

  "Their detectors should be reading us right now, Captain. I imagine it's causing quite a bit of fuss."

  "Right! Suz! Stand by to fire. Phil! I want you to shift us out of here immediately after we fire—and I mean immediately. I don't even want to see the strike land."

  "Okay, Po, if you say so."

  "I say so! Now then, the civilians are going to start screaming for help, and who have they got to turn to but our three heroes? We are giving our Captains a problem. All of a sudden they get an emergency call from a planet threatened by a ship they thought was on its way home. The question is, will they abandon their picket on the word of some panicky civilian to go chase space bogies?

  "Incidentally, Benji, do you think those clowns will get caught in their own communications blockade?"

  "Not a chance, Captain. They're well within the radius. The block's primarily intended to stop communication from outside the system. They should be screaming right now, if my guess is right."

  "Perfect. Well, gang, let's shut that message down in mid-transmission. It should lend a certain air of urgency to a distress call. All systems, stand by! Ready to fire and Phase-Shift. Ready . . . Fire! . . . Shift!"

  Again, the Captain jerked and twisted as though tortured by unseen hands. The stars in the viewscreen suddenly reeled and jerked as the ship plunged off to its new destination. By sheer physical effort Podan kept erect in his command seat, his eyes riveted on the screens. Suddenly, the shift was complete. This time, instead of the bleak face of a planet, the screens steadfastly displayed the image of a Defense Alliance Scout Ship laying almost directly alongside their vessel.

  For several long moments, the Captain stared at it without comprehending. Then he reacted.

  "Suz! Get him! Damn it! Burn him! Quick, before—"

  Almost at the same moment as he shouted, a dozen beams and tracers leaped to life on the screen. Hungrily, they closed on the vessel on the screen. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light and the ship had disappeared. The screens showed only the stars, the planet beneath them, and a few lingering tracers racing out into the blackness.

  For several heartbeats, there was a hush, tension hanging heavy in the air. At last the communicator broke the silence.

  "Detectors show no other vessels in immediate vicinity, Captain."

  Body still tense, eyes still locked on the screen, the Captain leaned slightly forward toward the panel mike. As he spoke, his voice was hushed and tight.

  "As I was saying, presented with such a problem, the probable action is to dispatch two of the three ships to investigate the distress call, leaving one ship to maintain the picket. There is a gamble in this move of dividing their strength, since a battleship has over three times the shift range of a scout ship. They just lost their gamble, crew. The vessel we have just destroyed was their picket."

  "Weapons here, sir. Do we hit Xoltan?"

  "What's that? No. We've hit our planet for today. That bit was to prove my theory the only way it could be proved. Phil! Shift us out of here."

  "Where to, Po?"

  "Anywhere. Just make it maximum distance from here. And make it quick! The other two will be back soon and I'm not up to another fight today!"

  "Okay, Po. On my command. Stand by to shift. Ready . . . Shift."

  For the third time the battleship moved on. This time, the Captain sat hunched over the console, eyes downcast, the reflexive twitching almost unnoticed. When the shift was completed, he remained in this position, seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

  "Communications here! Captain, we've reestablished contact! Tambu's on the squawk box and wants to talk to you!"

  Podan snapped out of his reverie with a start. "Right, Benji! And patch this through to the other stations. I want the whole crew to hear it!"

  "Right, Captain! Here he is!"

  "Captain Podan?" Tambu's voice was chilly and abrupt.

  "Yes, sir!"

  "Do you know what you've done?"

  "Well, we—"

  "I'll tell you what you've done! You've just burned a planet in a system that had already surrendered!"

  The words crackled and hung in the air.

  "But, sir! Our communications—"

  "Don't give me that ‘sir' crap! You have set procedures to follow in the event of a communications failure!"

  Podan drew himself
up angrily. "And I was exercising my prerogative as Ship's Commander to countermand any standing order if I felt the situation warranted it. I had reason to believe the enemy was using our Standing Orders to maneuver us into abandoning the mission!"

  There was a long silence. When Tambu spoke again, his voice was weary.

  "All right, Captain. I can understand your position and, to a certain degree, sympathize with it. However, I hope you can also understand mine. I cannot sanction your action. If I did, we'd never have another planet surrender to us without a pitched battle.

  "As such, I have been forced to disclaim any knowledge of your attack on Zarn, and join with the Defense Alliance in decrying you as a maniac. Captain, you and your crew are now full-fledged War Criminals, and in the future you can expect to be fired upon by any ship which comes into contact with you, no matter which fleet she's from. The most I can do for you is delay reporting your position for eight hours to allow you a head start. That, and wish you luck. And believe me, you're going to need it!"

  There was an air of grim determination to the Captain as he bent towards the panel-mike.

  "Sir! In this mission we have gained vital information about the methods of certain key captains in the Defense Alliance fleet. We are willing to exchange this information for refuge in your sphere of protection!"

  "Captain, that information if of no value to us. I regret to inform you that Captains Set and Yahnos have resigned from the Defense Alliance. If our information is correct, they have pledged themselves to the job of hunting you down. Again, I wish you luck, but there's nothing else I can do."

  The reporter slowly removed the headset and replaced it in the drawer. The events he had just witnessed had had a great impact on him and he made no effort to hide it.

  "Is that your arch-villain, Mr. Erickson? That dullard of a Captain who tried to be brilliant, only to see it fall apart before his very eyes?"

  "Then, if I understand you correctly, sir, you are setting for the hypothesis that if Podan had not made a mistake, if he had not attacked without confirmation, the entire incident at Zarn would never have occurred?"

  Tambu's voice was weary, almost as if he was talking to himself.

  "Mr. Erickson, I'm afraid you miss the point entirely. The error was mine in assigning Podan to that system. I knew about his personal involvement with the Musketeers. I also knew his earlier failure was haunting him, gnawing at the self-confidence so necessary in a battleship commander. I knew the system would surrender, despite the Musketeers assurances—it's that kind of system. I wanted to hand him a victory on a platter, something to build him up. I underestimated his self-confidence, I underestimated the Musketeers, and I underestimated his emotional involvement. The mistake was mine, and it cost me a planet, a battleship, and one of my captains.

  "People die today from mistakes, not by plan."

  The Ex-Khan

  Robert Lynn Asprin

  My first day in Hell was the worst. I mean, I hadn't thought it would be a picnic, but my wildest imagining still left me unprepared for the reality of my afterlife existence.

  Actually, I hadn't expected to find myself here at all. On the rare occasions during my former life that my thoughts had drifted toward death, my logical twentieth-century mind had calmly concluded that when I died, that would be the end of things as far as I was concerned. No angels with harps, no devils with pitchforks. Just . . . nothing. Pull the plug. End game.

  If I had allowed myself to seriously consider an afterlife, I probably would have figured that I'd end up with the good guys. While I had always kidded around a lot about what a perverted, wicked person I was, most of it was just hooey. Villains are more interesting people than heroes, as a rule, and neither I nor my cronies wanted to be thought of as the "goody two-shoes" type, so we made a big deal of our coarse humor and imagined coups, both business and social. Underneath it all, though, we really thought we were good people. Evil people were killers or rapists or child molesters or something. Heck, I had never even gotten a traffic ticket, just a couple parking fines. My few attempts at sowing wild oats were pleasant and amicably terminated by mutual consent. Surely little things like that couldn't count against you in the grand scales of life.

  So what was I doing in Hell?

  This question was foremost in my mind upon my arrival in my new home. The horrible Welcome Woman was no help at all, continually insisting that "Everybody feels the same way when they first arrive," and "It will all come clear to you after a while," and generally being a pain in the butt without providing one whit of information in response to my questions. I finally grew frustrated with my unrewarded efforts, and while she was prattling on about the politics of Hell (which did not interest me any more than earthly politics had), wandered off to try to find the answer on my own.

  My first impression of Hell was that it was surprisingly ordinary . . . well, sort of. No devils, no pitchforks, no pools of molten lava with tortured souls shrieking in agony. There were, however, a fair number of people moving purposefully about in an amazing array of costumes. It reminded me a bit of the time I took a guided tour of a West Coast movie studio . . . so much so it took me a while to realize that these weren't actors in costume, but individuals wearing what to them were normal clothes from their native eras of history. Aside from the strange wardrobes and mottled red sky, there was little to distinguish the panorama of Hell from any busy business section or college campus. I didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed.

  The feeling of familiarity continued when I tried to stop people to ask questions. Just like the streets of home, my efforts were rebuffed with comments of "No time now," and "Ask someone else." All in all, the people here were a rather self-centered lot, each caught up in his or her own affairs and not really caring about the problems of a stranger. Of course, that's what I was doing myself . . . expecting everyone to drop everything until my curiosity was satisfied. This gave me food for thought. Was it a sin to be self-centered? If so, then Hell must be a bigger place than I imagined. Even the most saintly people I knew back in the '80s still kept an eye out for the old Number One.

  I was still pondering this hypothesis when I noticed him for the first time. If he hadn't been outside the mainstream of normal foot traffic in a small park, and sitting, which placed him well below eye level, I would have seen him at once. Though unimposing physically, he still would have stood out in the crowd.

  While most of the people I had seen or tried to talk to were civilians of one sort or another, this one was a warrior. What's more, his armor and weapons marked him as being from the Far East, while most of the crowd seemed to be of Western European origins.

  Intrigued, I drifted closer for a better look.

  The man raised his head as I approached and regarded me with eyes as hard and dark as obsidian. His face was round and weathered brown, with expression lines as deep as if they had been carved into wood with a chisel. His manner was neither hostile nor friendly, but rather held the detached watchfulness of a reptile contemplating whether I were small enough to eat. I was briefly reminded of an old photograph of Geronimo I had once seen.

  I halted my advance and smiled in what I hoped was a friendly and, above all, harmless way. After a moment, he gave a silent grunt and returned his attention to his work.

  My distress at not knowing why I had been condemned to Hell was upstaged by my fascination with the man and the chore he was addressing. His weapons were laid out before him on a blanket and he was checking them with the unhurried certainty of one who has performed the same task hundreds, if not thousands of times. With deft precision he checked the edge of the sword and knife, then began working his way through his quiver of arrows one by one, checking each for straightness, like a hustler checking a pool cue. Finally, I could contain my curiosity no longer.

  "You're a Mongol, aren't you?"

  That earned me a longer look.

  I wondered briefly if he understood English, but then I noted that his carriage had sh
ifted slightly. While still appearing relaxed, the man was now poised and ready to move fast, and his eyes were warier and more analytical than they had been a few moments before. He understood me all right, and for some reason, my words had raised his guard.

  "What makes you ask that?"

  His vice was resonant bass with a bit of a flat accent I couldn't identify.

  "Your weapons," I answered with a casual shrug. "Your armor is Chinese, but your weapons are those of the Great Horde. Double-recurve laminated bow, the hooked sword, thrusting lance . . . that's standard gear for a Mongol horseman, isn't it? The arrows are a dead giveaway. As far as I know, the Mongols were the only ones to use two different caliber arrows: light for flight, or heavier for close, armor-piercing work."

  His head dipped slightly in the briefest of nods.

  "You are knowledgeable in our ways," he said. "I am not familiar with your manner of dress. Are all men of your era so well versed on the weapons of their enemies?"

  "No. Military history just happens to be a hobby of mine . . . and we don't consider Mongols to be our enemies. No offense, but your descendants are no longer the world power they were in your time."

  His eyes were distant for a few heartbeats, then his face split in a sudden grin, showing surprisingly white teeth. "So they tell me. Still, one can always hope for a rebirth of the old times, can't one?"

  I returned his smile, but shook my head.

  "Not much chance of that happening, I'm afraid. Everything today is firearms and missiles. Masses of men and machines are settling today's wars, not the skill of the individual warrior."

  "It was much the same in our day," the Mongol shrugged carelessly. "Large numbers of troops won the day for the Horde often enough."

  "Really?" I frowned. "I was under the impression that more often than not you were outnumbered. The Mongols I studied relied more on tactics based on psychological warfare and incredible mobility to take advantage of the myth of vast mobs of horsemen."

  The dark eyes studied me again, all hint of laughter gone.

  "Once more you are correct," the man acknowledged. "I would know the name of the man who is not easily deceived in this land of deceptions."