There was a longish silence while Laverna glared at Beeker. At last, the butler shrugged and said, “We appear to be back where we began. I could venture a guess at what you mean, but it appears highly likely that, unless I were to stumble upon the correct answer at once, it’d be a mark against me. So I’ll simply have to take the coward’s way out. I’m afraid you’re going to have to tell me, my dear.”
Laverna wrinkled her nose, opened her mouth, then shut it again. Slowly, a broad grin spread over her face. “I happen to know you have some vacation time coming,” she said. “Guess where you’re taking me?”
* * *
Thumper lay back in his bunk, pleased with himself. He had to his credit one definite success at being a pain in the ass. On the negative side, the last couple of times he’d crossed paths with Chocolate Harry, the Supply sergeant had given him a withering look, but Mahatma had explained that being a pain in the ass wasn’t going to bring easy popularity with it. It was a duty, and sometimes duties weren’t really fun for those who had to perform them.
Thumper could understand that. He’d spent most of Legion Basic being the most unpopular recruit in his unit. But he knew it was more important to work hard and become a good legionnaire than to be popular with the guys. Looking back, he realized that even then, he’d been a pain in the ass. It was good to know that he’d found his niche in the Legion.
But who should he practice on next? He didn’t get much chance to interact with the command structure of Omega Company; mostly he dealt with First Sergeant Brandy, who led his training squad. And Mahatma was already making sure that Brandy stayed on her toes. He saw a good deal of Mess Sergeant Escrima, but it was clear that the volatile Escrima wasn’t a case for a rank beginner like himself. Even Mahatma tended to tread softly around the volatile mess sergeant. As for the officers, he saw them mostly at a distance; he couldn’t really dream up a good excuse for striking up a conversation with Lieutenant Armstrong or Lieutenant Rembrandt—let alone Captain Jester.
As far as his fellow legionnaire recruits, he could see that most of them were having enough trouble without anyone trying to “give them a little eye-opener,” as Mahatma liked to describe his endless questioning and probing. Oh, every now and then one of them would get too cocky and display the need for some instant deflation; but most of the time the entire squad would make it a point to apply the corrective, and if they missed the chance, Brandy was an expert at giving a recruit a quick lesson in the way things worked in the real world of Omega Company. So Thumper’s talents probably weren’t needed there, either.
Thumper sat up in his bunk; he had a good half hour left on his break. If he was serious about his new mission, he shouldn’t just wait for an opportunity to come his way. Time to go out and find one! He pulled on his Legion boots, custom-made to fit a Lepoid’s feet, and bounced out the door into Zenobia Base’s spacious parade ground.
As usual, the area was full of activity. To one side, Gears had his head under the hood of a hoverjeep, fine-tuning the engine. To another, several off-duty legionnaires were throwing around a quarble, laughing and joking as it erratically changed course just as one of them thought he’d put himself in position to catch it. In the center of the area, Brandy sat under an open-sided tent, catching up on paperwork. Beyond her, a team with shovels was digging a shallow trench, sweating and griping in the warm desert sun. No obvious opportunities there.
Then Thumper’s eyes lit on two figures he’d often seen together: Sushi and Do-Wop. Like himself and Mahatma, they were partners. And like many of the long-term members of the Omega Mob, they had perfected the technique of always seeming to be busy while doing as little actual work as possible. There, he thought, were two likely customers for his newfound specialty. He smoothed down his whiskers and hopped over to the two legionnaires. “Hello,” he said. “You are two experienced legionnaires. May a new recruit ask you a question?”
“Ya just did,” said Do-Wop with a grin.
“That does put everybody in a bind,” said Sushi. “If we said no, you’d have to take that question back, wouldn’t you?”
Thumper hadn’t been prepared for that kind of response. He could see that being a pain was going to be tougher than he thought. Thinking quickly, he said, “Refusing me the chance to ask one question doesn’t automatically mean I can’t ask other, different ones. To stop that, you’d have to say I can’t ask you any questions at all.”
“You’re right, kid,” said Do-Wop. “Now go away.”
“Hang on, partner,” said Sushi. “I’d like to find out what the new guy wants—your name’s Thumper, right?”
“That’s right,” said Thumper. “And now you’ve asked me two questions, both of which I’ve already answered. If we’re going to be fair, you should be willing to answer mine in return.”
“Who said we’re supposed to be fair?” said Do-Wop. “This is the farkin’ Space Legion.”
“That’s three questions,” said Thumper calmly. Now he was beginning to hit his stride. “I’ll answer the last one if you’ll answer mine.”
That, at last, seemed to have exceeded Do-Wop’s ability to parse. He shook his head and rolled his eyes while saying nothing—at least, nothing articulate.
But before Thumper could relish the taste of victory, Sushi took up the slack. “OK, new guy, it’s a deal. You may not ask us any questions. Now, you tell us who said we were supposed to be fair.”
Since Thumper hadn’t even considered the question as having a real answer, that left him as speechless as Do-Wop. Sushi laughed, and said, “Looks like we’re even, Thumper.” And with that, he took Do-Wop by the collar and led him off, leaving Thumper to wonder whether he might not need a few more lessons from Mahatma.
* * *
“Beeks? Beeks, where are you?” Phule peered around his office, a puzzled expression on his face. He wasn’t used to having to look for his butler. It was much more frequently the case that Beeker would appear, unasked for, at exactly the time when his services were most useful.
Fortunately, there was a way to contact the butler even when he was out of earshot. Phule punched the intercom button on his wrist communicator and heard the answering buzz from the unit on the other end. Phule waited for the butler to acknowledge the call; undoubtedly Beeker had just gotten involved in some routine housekeeping task, and time had slipped away from him.
The buzz repeated. Phule stared at the comm unit in annoyance. This was starting to be a nuisance. It was too late in the day to assume that the butler might have removed the wrist comm for a short while to take a shower. (In fact, the comm was designed for all-weather operation, and its manufacturer touted it as capable of withstanding up to six hours of unprotected immersion in twenty fathoms of salt water. Even so, there were times when it was more convenient just to take it off—and this was far from an emergency.)
Phule pushed another button on the comm. “Mother—do you have any idea where Beeker is? I’ve been trying to raise him, and he doesn’t answer.”
“Well, honey, if you don’t know what he’s up to, what makes you think I’m gonna tell?” said the impertinent voice of Comm Central.
“I don’t need to know what he’s up to, Mother,” said Phule, a trifle impatient. “I just need to buzz him. Can you find him for me?”
“Why, sure, sweetie,” said Mother. “Let me try a quick trace on his wrist comm …” There was a brief pause, presumably while she called up the search programs connected to her console. When her voice came back, it was with a note of puzzlement. “Huh, that’s funny. I’m getting a location out in the desert. Wonder what he’s doing out there?”
“Desert?” Phule wrinkled his brow. “That doesn’t make sense at all. Give me the coordinates, and I’ll have somebody run out and check it.”
“You got it,” said Mother. “I’ll send the coordinates to your Port-a-Brain. Later, darlin’.” She broke the connection.
A moment later, a series of numbers appeared on Phule’s screen. He punched
them into his map program; sure enough, they corresponded to a spot some distance from camp. He raised his wrist comm to his mouth again. “Brandy, this is the captain. I want a search party to the following location, soon as they can get there.” He read off the numbers.
“Got it, Captain,” said the sergeant. “If you don’t mind my asking, what’s the deal out there?”
“I’m not sure,” said Phule. “I’ve been trying to raise Beeker on his comm, and he doesn’t answer. Mother ran a trace, and it comes back with that location. Maybe he’s injured …”
“Maybe,” said Brandy. There was a moment of silence, then she said, “Uh, not to interfere with your plans, Captain, but I have a hunch that maybe you ought to run a trace on Nightingale’s comm. Just to see what turns up, y’know?”
Phule’s jaw dropped. “Good grief! Why didn’t I think of that?” he said once he’d recovered. “Hang on a moment, Brandy. I’ll have Mother check it out—and thanks for the hint!”
Two minutes later he had his answer: Nightingale’s wrist comm was in the same location as Beeker’s, and both were evidently turned off. Mother snickered as she said, “Hey, Cap baby, doesn’t your butler have a private bedroom? You wouldn’t think he’d have to go all the way out in the desert for a little privacy with his lady …”
Phule’s face had turned an especially vivid shade of pink. “I would never have thought of it,” he said, glad (not for the first time) that he hadn’t ordered full video capabilities for the company’s wrist comms. He thought for a moment, then said, “Try them again in—uh, half an hour—no, make it an hour. If they don’t answer then, let me know, and I’ll decide what to do.”
“Yes, sir,” said Mother, and closed the connection. Phule didn’t even notice her unaccustomed formality. His butler’s uncharacteristic absence—and the even more uncharacteristic explanation for it—had driven everything else out of his mind.
It was only after an hour and a half, when he finally sent the search party, that he began to regret not following his first impulses. But by then, it was far too late.
* * *
“So, do you think you can trace them?” Phule said anxiously. Beeker had been his right-hand man for so long that he was having some difficulty even formulating a coherent plan in his absence. But the butler was undeniably off-planet, as the note Phule had just found on his desk made clear.
Sir: I have decided to take my vacation, effective at once. I will be traveling with Medic 2nd Class Nightingale—please consider this her formal application for her accumulated leave. Our apologies for giving such short notice, but we were fortunate enough to get reservations for some very desirable events. We shall return in approximately six weeks.
—B.
Now Phule was going to have to do without his butler’s help—and that meant drawing on all the resources at his command. Ironic that the first job facing him was figuring out where Beeker had gone …
“I have a couple of ideas,” said Sushi. “Let me log on and see if what I can find out. Some of it’s going to depend on just how hard Beeker and Nightingale are trying to cover their tracks …”
“Cover their tracks?” Phule frowned. “Do you mean they might not want to be found?”
“That’s not such a weird idea,” said Sushi. “I mean, you notice he didn’t give you his destination. Look at it from Beeker’s point of view. This is the first time I can remember him being away since you took over the company. If you go get him and bring him back to Zenobia, all he’s got to look forward to is going back to work again. That’s not exactly something to get all enthusiastic about, is it?”
“Perhaps not,” said Phule. “But if he wanted some time off, why didn’t he just come and ask me? I would have given him his vacation time, either here or off-planet. I’m not that hard to get along with. Why would Beeker just leave?” Phule hadn’t ever considered the possibility that Beeker might be far less enthusiastic about returning to his assigned duties than his employer was to have him back.
“Don’t ask me, ask him,” said Sushi. “You want me to run that trace?”
“Of course. How long do you think it’ll take to find out?”
Sushi turned to his view screen and considered. “If we’re lucky and they didn’t bother to hide their backtrail, I should be able to tell you something right away. If not …”
“If not?” asked Phule, leaning forward to peer at Sushi’s view screen.
“If not, I can call in some of my family contacts and get you the real dope,” said Do-Wop with a sneer. He’d been sitting in the opposite corner of the room, playing a handheld martial arts game. “Computers is OK when they work, but there’s nothing like the good old grapevine when you wanna find somethin’ out.”
“Right, your family contacts might be able to tell us whether they bought any pizza and put it on their credit cards,” said Sushi. “That’s assuming either one of them used their right name, which is what we’re trying to figure out to begin with.”
“If I was with a broad like that, I sure wouldn’t give my right name,” said Do-Wop. He followed that statement with an appreciative wolf whistle.
“If you were with somebody like her, you’d be likely to get both your arms cut off within fifteen minutes,” said Sushi without looking up from his view screen. “No, make it fifteen seconds. She’s probably the most dangerous person ever to set foot on this planet, and I think I’m pretty well qualified to make that statement.”
“Dangerous? Compared to who?” said Do-Wop. “You wouldn’t know dangerous if it bit you on the ass …”
“Hang on, here’s something that might help us find them,” said Sushi. “Hmmm … Captain, do you know off the top of your head what model Port-A-Brain you two have?”
“Uh … I’ll have to look it up,” said Phule. “Why, is there some way you can trace it?”
“Not as precisely as I’d like,” said Sushi. “But if it’s the model I think it is, there’s an antitheft feature built in that might let me trace it. It’s limited—somebody who spends as much for it as you did doesn’t want anybody else always knowing where he is or what he’s doing. So the antitheft trace is password-enabled—which means it won’t tell us exactly where Beeker is unless he wants us to know. But there’s one other trace feature he can’t turn off. Every time it goes through interplanetary customs, it records its passage—that’s supposedly an antismuggling feature certain reactionary local governments insisted on. And that means we can figure out what world they’re on even if Beeker never boots it up.”
“Ah, that ain’t much use,” said Do-Wop. “What if they don’t go through customs?”
“What if they never go to a planet?” said Phule. “For now, let’s assume we can trace them. If it turns out we can’t, we’ll figure out what our next step’s got to be. Get to work on it, Sushi. Until I tell you otherwise, this is your highest priority. OK?”
“I hear you, Captain,” said Sushi, grinning. “Just get me the model number of Beeker’s Port-a-Brain, and the serial number, if you have a record of that. I’ll find them for you, or Do-Wop can remove my Yakuza tattoos—the hard way.”
“I’d better get those numbers for you then,” said Phule, standing up and heading toward the door.
“No hurry, Captain,” said Do-Wop. “It ain’t often I get to see Soosh sweat, and I plan to enjoy it while I got it.”
“Yes, but as long as Beeker’s gone, I’m the one who’ll be sweating,” said Phule. “Sorry to cut into your pleasure.” He turned and went out the door, walking fast.
* * *
An hour later—an anxious hour, from Phule’s point of view—Sushi sauntered in the door of Phule’s office. “OK, Captain, here’s what I’ve found,” he said. “Beeker’s computer went through customs on a planet called Cut ’N’ Shoot.”
“Cut ’N’ Shoot?” Phule frowned. “I never heard of it.”
“Neither did I until just a little while ago,” said Sushi. “It’s a fairly new colony, discovered by explorer
s from Tejas and mostly settled from there. Main industry right now is mining, but there’s some local agriculture and the usual mix of misfits who want a new place to start over.”
“Just like the Omega Mob,” said Rembrandt, chuckling.
“I would take exception if it weren’t mostly true,” said Phule. “I wonder what’s the quickest way to get there?” He blinked. Beeker had always been the one who arranged travel plans for him. Now he would have to learn to do it himself …
“I already had Mother check that out, Captain,” said Sushi. “We can get a private shuttle to Lorelei—which is what Beeker and Laverna did—and from there we catch the regular liner to the Tejas sector, where we catch the local. The shuttle can be here on twenty-four-hour notice, so just say when you want it.”
“Three days ago,” said Phule wryly. “Remmie, you know the routine—you’re the senior lieutenant, so you’re acting CO while I’m gone. And I honestly don’t know how long that’ll be, so you’re going to have to be ready for a long haul if that’s what it takes.”
“We aren’t worried about that, Captain,” said Lieutenant Rembrandt, smiling bravely. “We can manage if you really need to be away. But wouldn’t it be easier to hire somebody on Cut ’N’ Shoot to find them than to go running off yourself? I mean, with your family’s connections …”
“This is something I have to do in person, Rembrandt,” said Phule. “If Beeker runs off without a word, something unusual is going on. I can’t trust a stranger with that, not halfway across the Alliance. I’ve got to be there and talk to him myself. Now, are you sure you can handle the company by yourself?”
Rembrandt nodded. “Armstrong and I have done it before, remember? And if things get really sticky, Brandy and the other noncoms are there to bail us out. Just don’t get into anything you can’t get out of by yourself.”
Phule's Errand Page 4
