A Company of Heroes Book Five: The Space Cadet

by Ron Miller

  “No, Dad,” she said, though it was obvious she thought he did.

  The innkeeper pressed his back against the wall outside the door, but his stomach still nearly spanned the space. His daughter, a two-thirds scale model of her father, tried to sidle past him, her back against the opposite wall, but the overlap of several inches of flesh confounded her. She had to hold the tray directly above her head where, atop her stumpy arms, it was pretty much on a level with Gerber’s eyes. He lifted it from her hands and stepped back into his room.

  “Miss?” he said.

  “Yeff?” she replied as best as she could with her breasts pressed against her face by her father’s stomach.

  “This reminds me—will you see to the brats in the caravan? Clean ‘em up as best you can—hose ‘em down en masse if you want—the bottom of the wagon has a drain—and give ‘em something to eat—milk, if you have it, I suppose. But be sure to cut it in half with water if you do.”

  “Yeff fir,” she answered as Gerber closed the door on her and her father. The broker hoped they would not be there in the morning, still jammed in the hallway.

  He placed the tray on the table and removed the cloth. His already thin lips compressed into invisibility at the grim sight of pale gristly meat of unidentifiable origin embedded in a greenish aspic of already-congealing grease, a single boiled potato that looked no larger than nor more appealing than someone’s big toe, a half dozen watery-looking cabbage leaves, a chunk of stale, grey bread and a glass of thin beer that looked disturbingly like a urine sample. He ate as much as his stomach and mood could handle, but after a few minutes decided to give the whole day up as a bad job.

  He pulled off his clothes and neatly hung them over the back of the chair, which under the unaccustomed weight tipped over backwards in a dead faint onto the grimy floor. He let them lay there. He blew out the candle and felt his way to the bed, which was as damp and clammy as he expected—bringing to mind the innkeeper’s wife’s ague-cake. Musrum’s pendulous balls, let not my thoughts go there, please.

  As he wriggled his skinny flanks into the lumpy mattress, he wondered if perhaps it might not be worthwhile trying to save something worthwhile from an otherwise miserable day; a kind of dessert as it were. He thought about the blonde girl. She was soggily fat, like a loaf of bread left in a pan of water, her skin looked like wet crêpe paper, her hair was stringy and her dwarfish features were crowded into the center of her moon face like lumps in a bowl of cold porridge. He put his hands behind his head and thought about the prospect. She had not been able, he decided upon reflection, to take her eyes from him. Surely, he concluded, he was not suffering from an unwonted conceit: it would have been difficult for anyone to mistake her expression of openly lascivious fascination and invitation, like that of an amorous cow. He fell asleep among these pleasant contemplations. This was, as it would have proved, fortunate, for, difficult though it may have been for him to imagine, he was in fact mistaken in his interpretation of the girl’s interest. She herself was just then also falling asleep, in the room directly below his own, had he but known it, wondering if such a pockmarked face as the broker possessed would absorb water like the sponge it so closely resembled. She imagined his oversoaked head oozing all night and wasn’t looking forward to having to drag the mattress down the stairs and outside for drying. It was bad enough taking care of her mother’s things. She reserved her secret lusts for the professional wrestlers to whom she wrote ramblingly illiterate pornographic letters under the pseudonym “Ursula.”

  The following morning was as grey as the last, but, at least for the moment, it was not raining. Instead, a fine ash was sifting from the low clouds. The broker declined breakfast and went directly to the stable.

  “Fed the babes last night,” offered the innkeeper, sidling along beside Gerber, “and again this morning. Didn’t have much milk—cows’re a little scarce lately, as you might imagine, sir. But we did our best with some leftover gravy, gin and wine.”

  “I’m sure,” said the broker. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Well, sir, a quarter-crown, sir, would suffice. We’ll call that even. But I’m bound to inform you, sir, that some of them babes in your wagon is dead. I cannot assume responsibility, sir, I hope you appreciate that. They got washed and fed along with the rest, and that’s all you asked of us. Spooned in the feed whether they took it or not; all got their fair share; didn’t cheat you there, sir, not so much as a spoonful.”

  “Yes, yes. Get my horse ready. I must be on my way.”

  “Yes, sir, right away, sir.”

  The innkeeper bustled into the open door of the stable and kicked at a pile of straw that proved to be the stable boy’s bed.

  “Get the gentleman’s rig together, boy,” he ordered as a gaunt, stupid, pimply face emerged and looked at its master sullenly. The innkeeper repeated the order as the boy shuffled off, scratching his skinny posterior.

  “Now,” he continued, turning to face the broker, “perhaps the good gentleman might consider a, um, business proposition?”

  “Business?”

  “Yes, sir. I was just wondering...well, sir, I was just wondering what you planned to do with them dead babies in there. Seemed to me that they can’t be doing you much good now.”

  “No. They’re expected losses. I make allowances for a certain percentage.”

  “Well, then, sir, that being the case, perhaps you might consider selling them to me?”

  “Selling them?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “To you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, you’re perfectly correct: I have no use for them now. Wouldn’t do any harm at all if I could turn a little profit on them. What were you thinking of offering?”

  “Well, sir, would you consider, say, five pfennigs each?”

  “Five pfennigs?” He had paid fifteen apiece, but this would at least cut his losses by a third.

  “Well, six, then,” offered the innkeeper, misinterpreting the broker’s thoughtful silence.

  “Sold. How many did you find?”

  “There was five dead’uns as of this morning. But I’ll take all you got.”

  There proved to be six and the innkeeper handed over thirty-six copper coins while the stable boy removed the tiny bodies, dropping them into an empty feed bag. That left twenty-one still alive. at least five crowns apiece, perhaps more, there was still a handsome profit waiting in Blavek, even if Gerber lost another half dozen. This did not cause him to reconsider his promise to retire and he was even then contemplating his brother’s long-standing offer to join him in his pencil eraser business.

  The transaction satisfactorily completed, the broker climbed atop his wagon, tied a handkerchief over his mouth and nose against the pervasive ash, and flicked the reins. The horse, its head hanging morosely and coughing delicately, like an aesthetic consumptive, began to move. Gerber glanced over his shoulder, but both the innkeeper and the stableboy were gone. Only the daughter was visible, struggling to drag a soggy mattress from the door and into the open yard. He turned back to face the long road to the east. It glistened like a snail track amid the black landscape. He didn’t give the innkeeper another thought, though several hours later he did momentarily wonder what he had wanted with the babies.

  III.

  Hipner Pilnipott preferred to be known as The Fox, though no one called him that other than his students, who were required to do so, and the woman whom everyone thought was his mother not the least because she encouraged it while secretly considering it a very funny title, mainly because of its inappropriateness. Pilnipott did indeed resemble any one of several different animals, none of which were anything like a fox. Of all the suggested alternatives—echidna, hedgehog and beaver, to name but a few—the most apt was the ordinary garden mole. For a mole, he would have been, of course, very large, but for a human being he was in fact quite small. He was pear-shaped and almost neckless—the smoothly curving line connecting the crown of his head with
his expansive hips being unbroken by any discernable neck or shoulders. He resembled, in fact, an eggplant more than anything in the animal kingdom. His face came to a dull point; his blunt, protruding nose, made all the more prominent by the lack of either chin or forehead, was moist and pimply. He was fearsomely nearsighted and his already small eyes—as damp and beady as a pair of capers—were shrunk to pinpoints by the thick concave lenses he wore.

  His detractors, however, were being far too literal, for while Pilnipott might physically be mole-like he did indeed resemble a fox in the only really significant way: he was magnificently wily. He had been a brilliant child in an environment where intelligence was underappreciated, especially when combined with any physical handicap, let alone the catalog of infirmities which burdened young Pilnipott. As might be expected, a decade of humiliations and beatings had driven the boy into a world of his own making. He devoured every book, magazine, tabloid and dime novel which had even so much as a single sentence describing a crime or a criminal. The most successful thief, malfeasor, misdemeanant, miscreant, pickpocket, picklock, burglar, second story man, scofflaw, gangster, racketeer, thug, swindler, confidence man, highwayman or outlaw became his ardent hero. Being an intelligent lad, however, he was not satisfied with admiration—he wanted to emulate. But, being intelligent, he was all too aware of his physical limitations. He was clumsy, nearly blind, claustrophobic, acrophobic, nervous, fretful and prone to jump at sudden, loud noises. His voice, weak and fluting, would never command respect. An order to “stick ‘em up!” would only result in a tolerant chuckle and either a pat on the head or a sharp cuff against an earhole.

  He realized, however, that a successful crime actually consisted of two separate and distinct parts: planning and commission. These did not necessarily have to be performed by the same person. Indeed, there were persuasive arguments as to why they should be undertaken by entirely different people. The thug, physically active, with adept fingers and sharp eyes, capable of carrying any crime to its successful conclusion, did not of necessity possess the brains to invent that crime, let alone think through all possible consequences and permutations. That’s why so many of them, young Pilnipott reasoned, had a night’s dangerous labor rewarded with only a few crowns or a handful of worthless silverplate—or, all too often, several years at hard labor. On the other hand, the criminal mastermind, able to plan an escapade to its last detail, foreseeing every circumstance, did not of necessity have the brute skills required for its execution.

  Young Pilnipott decided to become a criminal mastermind.

  Establishing himself proved to be a slow process, for he had to convince those who had hitherto considered him a laughingstock to now consider him a genius and become his willing and subservient accomplices. To overcome this formidable difficulty, he formulated a sublime plan, meticulously worked out over a period of months in every conceivable detail. Its rewards, if the scheme were successfully performed, would be great—certainly greater than anything his prospective collaborators had ever received from their petty crimes. As an additional inducement, he declined any personal gain: his accomplices could share among themselves all of the profits. This latter was considered an almost inconceivable largess.

  Initially skeptical, the others could not help but be impressed by the detail of the plan, its promised reward and the bland confidence of its inventor. They accepted the scheme, said they’d give it a try and then they’d see.

  It seems almost unnecessary to say that Pilnipott’s idea was a success and that his collaborationists, impressed beyond all expressing, even had they been that articulate, came back to him—and not merely as equals, but with the fawning respect due a true leader. And, of course, they readily agreed to split any future proceeds.

  This satisfied Pilnipott—who had immediately insisted on the nom de crime of The Fox—through his teens and early twenties, but there came gradually a niggling dissatisfaction. He became aware of a lack of absolute control that kept his schemes from being performed with the faultlessness that he expected and demanded. No matter how perfectly formed were his plans, no matter that every possible contingency was allowed for, however unlikely, there was always one factor over which he had little or no control and that was that he had to depend upon others to carry out his perfectly-conceived crime—yet he was of necessity forced to employ the labor that was available—rather like a master architect who has to rely on retarded children to construct his buildings. However adept The Fox’s associates may be, however experienced, adroit and clever, they were nevertheless contaminated by unknown frailties, loyalties and motives. He found this annoyingly unacceptable.

  Being a genius, The Fox quickly invented a solution that was as epic as it was brilliant. He would create his own gang as literally as a sculptor creates his own models from raw clay, molding and shaping to suit himself and no other.

  The first experiment took years before he was assured that it would, indeed, work. He had an infant kidnaped and brought to his headquarters. Here, he had it cared for by an old woman (whom many thought was his mother but was not) until it was old enough to begin its training—which would be sometime between its twelfth and eighteenth month, The Fox determined.

  Every night, Pilnipott read bedtime stories to the child—carefully chosen from his own highly idiosyncratic library of criminous books and periodicals. In addition, he took some considerable creative pleasure in recasting fairy tales, folk stories, legends and myths in a more criminal light. By the time the child was old enough to read on his own, it had its own peculiar literary slant well-developed, to say nothing of a coterie of outlaw heroes. Where other children dreamed of emulating Captain Truly Ironheart, the Savior of Woldercan, Pilnipott’s protégé worshiped Scarface Dan, the Demon Highwayman. Even more important than the humanities was the child’s practical education. His instructors were the elder pickpockets, thieves and confidence artists who, though respected and acknowledged masters of their craft, were finding their effectiveness hampered by the various infirmities of age. All of them were glad of The Fox’s offer. Better, they thought, that their efforts be rewarded by passing their experience and skill to a new generation than by spending their declining years in prison, betrayed by trembling fingers, tardy reflexes and meandering thoughts, wasting their considerable talents sewing gloves or assembling mailbags.

  While the child was still barely able to walk on his own, Pilnipott rented him to various mendicants, beggars and confidence artists. These were delighted to have the use of a chubby, golden-haired, patently innocent waif and readily put him to any number of imaginative uses. Lomza Lohardarga, a beggar who had perfected the art of appearing completely legless, found her income more than doubled through no more effort on her part than holding an infant in her arms. Where a citizen would have passed by her with scarcely a downward glance—or perhaps a glare of annoyance when they found their busy path impeded by her unpleasantly truncated body—they now found their coins attracted to the radiantly-smiling babe like a needle to a magnet. “Fwank ‘oo kin’ thir,” the infant would lisp. “Mufoom bwess ‘oo.” Only the hardest hearts were able to turn away with a dry eye.

  Broffol de Wet, a cat burglar of legendary repute, trained the child to slither through gates, railings, grilles and ventilators, allowing him unobtrusive, clueless access to hitherto inaccessible plunder in a crime spree that confounded police for more than a decade. Raoul Wo-Wo and his partner Esdraelon L. Hoorn, the most accomplished bunco-artists in Guesclin, found that a child added an invaluable aura of verisimilitude to their scams. They offered to purchase the boy outright and although the sum was a staggering one, Pilnipott gently but firmly refused.

  At the same time The Fox’s protégé was being gainfully if illegally employed, his higher education was continued by the practical example of some of the most accomplished criminals in the country. By the time that the boy was four or five years old, Pilnipott had no fear of sending him out with only his own wit and devices to guide him. When after th
e first week The Fox contemplated, with some amazement, the accumulated loot representing the unaided efforts of his creation, he knew that his scheme had been vindicated.

  He then advertised widely among the kidnappers and baby brokers, picking and choosing as carefully as a finicky shopper selecting a melon. The dozen or so infants thus selected every six months were transported to Pilnipott’s headquarters in the Transmoltus. There, for eighteen months, they were taken care of with, if not kindness, at least the bland, indifferent attention a dairy farmer would give a profitable herd. A high-ceilinged loft over a sponge warehouse had been transformed into a rudimentary nursery, given over to the care of the half-crippled hag who may or may not have been The Fox’s mother. In exchange for a daily quart of gin she saw that the infants were fed, if irregularly, and cleaned perhaps less often than absolutely necessary. The Fox, who maintained his own apartments three floors above, was not inconvenienced by either of these derelictions. Indeed, once he knew that his experiment was viable, he took no especial interest whatsoever in any of his charges for the first year and a half. After that, his only interest lay in the weekly accounting of their income. He trusted in his genius and the smoothly operating machine he had created.

  For the remaining decades of his life, Hipner Pilnipott devoted himself to writing his memoirs, an encyclopedia of criminal techniques and a long-running series of popular teenage romances.

  But let it not be thought that the children were in any way abused or maltreated or that they lived in conditions that were particularly substandard—at least as compared to what they would have suffered if left in their original environments, had they survived at all. Indeed, given the increasingly bilateral state of Tamlaghtese economy—the rapidity with which its population was being divided into two classes: the very small number who were benefitting directly from the introduction of spaceflight versus everyone else—Pilnipott’s children actually fared better than the largest proportion of the citizenry. He made certain they realized and appreciated this and that they grew up to despise the plump, pink children who were being pampered like suckling piglets in the big houses across the river and smugly confident they were more fortunate than the gaunt children scavaging ashcans in Transmoltan alleys. Pilnipott’s children, repeated assured that this contempt was real, hated tenfold in return.