A Company of Heroes Book Five: The Space Cadet

by Ron Miller

  Within days of her arrival in Spolkeen, Judikha had heard of Herumia Pataskala, aka Mother Pataskala, or “Mommy” as she was more familiarly known. There was not a word in the tabloids in which Judikha had first read of her, nor in the rumors she’d picked up on the streets that was the least exaggerated. Born of Mostazan parents some sixty-odd years earlier, Mother Pataskala had arrived with her husband in Spolkeen along with hundreds of others in the Great Immigration of ought nine. Five years later the two opened a dry goods and haberdashery in the very three-story building in which Judikha now stood, in the heart of what was to become the Mostazan residential district—”Little Mostaza” as it eventually came to be known. Indeed, it is probably no exaggeration to suggest that the Pataskala’s store was the nucleus around which the district grew, like a pearl around a speck of grit.

  The Pataskalas prospered and, for all outward appearances, were still in the same profitable line of business. “Mommy” Pataskala’s husband had died some ten years before Judikha’s arrival in Spolkeen, though by that time the old woman was so much in control of the business that his passing was scarcely noticed, for by then he had long since become a nonentity. It had been a long time since she had any interest in the dry goods business, which she only maintained for its ostensibly legitimate appearance—which, in fact, fooled no one. Mommy Pataskala was, in fact, a receiver of stolen goods without peer. She was a genius at business and acute in her acquaintance with the machinery of the law and its assorted representatives, and uncanny in her association with the criminal classes. What she could have accomplished had her talents been honestly directed can only be speculated upon.

  It was claimed with considerable truth that she never left a criminal her creditor and that she operated a veritable “Bureau of Conviction Prevention” for the benefit of her associates. When in trouble with the police the apprehended rogues never had to appeal to Mommy in vain and most eventually escaped through her financial assistance. She kept a pair of excellent attorneys (the well-known firm of Brabblebott and Woost) on an annual retainer of 5,000 crowns. Whenever her pets got into trouble, she provided the bail and defrayed the expenses of their trial...for which effort she taxed them mercilessly afterward—which everyone freely admitted was still better than doing hard labor in some prison on the Peigambaran border. She was repaid for this protectiveness by developing a fine band of lawbreakers who were always in her debt and service. Judikha, comparing this to the methods employed by The Fox, could find nothing but admiration.

  While she drove hard bargains with those who had stolen property to dispose of, she also had the well-deserved reputation of dealing with scrupulous honesty with these same felons. She paid in cash and at once and was never short of coin no matter what the amount might be. She even advanced funds against projected “jobs”, though only to those whose resumés elicited such extraordinary confidence. Her adherence to criminal ethics gained her absolute confidence among the shady gentry—and with that confidence came absolute power.

  This was the creature who now faced Judikha across the broad, shining expanse of polished mahogany. While Judikha was impressed by Mommy Pataskala’s reputation, she found little about the woman’s presence to impress her. She was tiny to the point of dwarfism. Her head was enormously out of proportion to her misshapen body, which appeared to be nothing more than a collection of random lumps wrapped in a black taffeta bag. Her arms were no longer than Judikha’s forearms and Judikha was able to see as she approached the desk that Mommy was only able to peer over it because she was standing on her chair. Her face, under an untidy nest of grey hair, looked exactly like a fist with two doll’s eyes glued to it.

  “What’s your name?” were the first words out of the hag’s mouth, which appeared to be entirely innocent of teeth.

  Judikha pondered this for a moment. Her plan since reaching Spolkeen—such as it was—was to take on an assumed name and return to Blavek as soon as she’d accumulated enough funds to do so. But what harm could there be in telling this person the truth? There was little chance, if there were any basis to her reputation at all, of her passing it along to the authorities. And there was every possibility that Mommy Pataskala already knew exactly who she was so that lying would be counter-productive.

  “Judikha, ma’am. Judikha J. Judikha.”

  “Judikha, eh? You know I’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

  “So I take it.”

  “You also know you’ve been operating without a license?”

  “License?”

  “Yes, dear. It’s only because you’re a recent stranger that I’m paying you this courtesy. After all, you’ve only been here a few weeks—I can excuse your unfamiliarity with our customs, but there must come a point where you ought to become educated in them.”

  “I certainly wouldn’t want to offend in my ignorance.”

  “Of course not. Exactly what I thought you’d say. Will you have a seat?”

  Judikha chose a chair into the almost pastry-like upholstery of which she sank uncomfortably. In the meanwhile, Mommy Pataskala had hopped from her chair, disappearing entirely until she came waddling around the corner of her sarcophagus-like desk. Judikha felt a pang of empathy as she saw that the woman had to support herself with a pair of tiny canes and that every step seemed a laborious effort. Mommy’s head was about on a level with Judikha’s kneecaps.

  “You see, my dear,” Mommy continued, “we have a very well-ordered social structure here in Spolkeen. There is myself, of course, who is at the top, which is as it should be. And then there is everyone else. Everyone else doesn’t include you, not yet at any rate, so you can see how precarious your present position is.”

  “With absolute clarity.”

  “Excellent! Well, then, given that, I must tell you I’ve been most impressed by the reports I’ve been receiving regarding your skills. Most impressed.”

  This was disappointing news to Judikha, who had rightly prided herself on the undetectability of her thievery. I must be getting old.

  “I don’t suppose I’m mistaken, given that you’ve come to us from Blavek, that you’re a graduate of old Pilnipott?”

  “Why, yes, I am.” “Old Pilnipott”, eh? How he would’ve enjoyed hearing that!

  “I thought as much. Recognize his touch anywhere. Don’t approve much of his organization but it’s hard to find fault with his training. Puts out some fine people but he’s always going to be second-rater himself. Look what thirty years’ work has got him!”

  “I’ve no doubt but that you’re right, ma’am.”

  “Of course I’m right. Yet I sometimes fear that I overprotect my little society and that it has grown lax and sloppy as a result. Without any serious fear of arrest or reprisal, they’ve had no reason to keep sharp. So you can imagine the delight with which I learned of what I can only refer to as your artistry—” That’s much more like it, Judikha thought. “—a kind of larcenous ballet, if you will. Took me back to the old days, I can tell you.” The old woman’s eyes glazed as she lost herself for a moment in some nostalgic reminiscence. But only for a moment. They quickly hardened again, regaining their former resemblance to ball bearings.

  “Be all that as it may, it still does not relieve you from your responsibility.”

  “Resposibility?”

  “Yes, to me. You must understand that nothing is appropriated in this city and its immediate environs that does not pass through my hands. You can steal what you need to eat, if you wish, but anything more than that, even to the smallest coin snatched from a child’s pocket, must come to me. I will either give you fair value or your rightful share.”

  “And I receive?”

  “Enough to live on and more besides. No one under my protection has failed to prosper unless by fault of their own incompetence. If you’ve been an excellent thief in the past, think how much more successful you will become without fear of arrest and imprisonment hanging over you.”

  It was exactly that fear that made me as sharp as
I am. And this creature was only just complaining that her overprotectiveness had resulted in poor workmanship. A terrible inconsistency, but I don’t see anything to be gained from pointing this out to her...

  “All I want to do is save enough money to get back to Tamlaght.”

  “Fine, fine! I can assure you that you will do that a lot faster with my help than without it.”

  “In that case, I’m glad to join you.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t have to explain the alternatives,” Mommy said, striking a gong with the end of her cane. In answer to the summons the same man who had led Judikha earlier came through the door.

  “Pifflin, this is Miss Judikha. She’s now a member of our organization. Will you please give her the standard tour? And when you’ve finished, take her around to Brabblebott and get her name on a contract.”

  With this, she turned her back on Judikha—who knew a dismissal when she saw one—climbed back onto her chair and became reabsorbed in her ledgers.

  Judikha spent the remainder of the day learning just how extensive the Pataskala organization was. Being a port city, Spolkeen had a constant flux of goods of all sorts, especially silks from Ibraila. Everything appropriated from this flow found its way into Mommy’s hands. This included, Judikha learned, the 300,000 crowns’ worth of inventory stolen from H. Q. Hool and Sons, an exploit that was spoken of with awe as far away as Blavek, to say nothing of the master robberies of the warehouses of Speel, Speel, Speel and Spool, which had been the stuff of conversation in public houses and pool halls on two continents.

  To handle this enormous volume of contraband, Mommy Pataskala maintained offices in several parts of Spolkeen, as well as branch offices in six other cities, including the capital, where stolen goods could be received in bulk and where every item that came into her possession was expertly examined and appraised before being passed along to a special department where scores of skillful girls removed trademarks, registration numbers and labels. When the items left, every possible identification had been deftly and expertly obliterated. Judikha was astonished when she was told that the Pataskala combine accounted for revenues of more than thirteen million crowns per annum.

  In the six months following, Judikha labored dutifully for Mommy Pataskala and saw the figures in the little account book she had been issued gradually rising to an entirely satisfactory figure. By the end of the year, she was certain, she would have enough to return to Blavek with enough left over to support her for some months, maybe even a year.

  There were other benefits to her new-found largess. She ate better than ever before. Still addicted to the simple foods she’d grown up with, she could now afford meals that were better prepared, more substantial and of infinitely higher quality. Her lanky figure gradually became sleek and hydrodynamic. She dressed better, too, no longer being reduced to what she could pilfer from ragpickers’ bins. Although still partial to trousers for her “work” she now owned—for the first time in her life—skirts and dresses. Also for the first time she found she had leisure time, and grew fond of frequenting the city’s sole park and its nicer cafés and restaurants. She found herself enjoying the sensation created by her new wardrobe and discovered herself even stopping to brush her hair before going out, an unprecedented condescension to her personal appearance.

  It was toward the end of this period that her idyll ended.

  She had been enjoying a pleasant lunch in a small café not far from the central plaza when a hulking figure, without preamble, sat in the chair opposite hers. With his back to the street and the sun, it took a moment for her dazzled eyes to resolve the silhouette into the figure of a uniformed Space Patrolman. I’ve been found out! was the first chilling thought to enter her mind, just before Found out what? I may be in trouble with the police back home, but I’ve no quarrel with the Patrol and they none with me. Nevertheless, she was instantly on her guard.

  “Mind if I join you?” asked the giant, who she observed was so over adorned with muscles that he was literally bursting from his uniform.

  “You already have.”

  “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

  “Only my thoughts, such as they were.” Figuring there was nothing to lose by being direct, she continued: “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I think so.”

  “You haven’t perhaps mistaken me for someone else?”

  “Nope—not if your name is Judikha J. Judikha, I haven’t.”

  “Well, it might be and it might not be. It kind of depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “Depends on what happens if I am who you think I am.”

  “Oh, nothing’s going to happen! Nothing bad, anyway—or at least not to you at any rate. In fact, if you are this Judikha J. Judikha it could be very much to your advantage.”

  “Oh? And how might that be?”

  “How’s the coffee in this place?”

  “Better than a thumbtack in the eye.”

  “Sounds better than what I’ve been getting lately.”

  He signaled for a waiter and ordered a cup. Judikha warily but politely declined his offer to order something for her as well. She preferred discovering what the man wanted before placing herself in even that tiny debt. There was an awkward silence while the two of them appraised one another. For Judikha’s part, she saw a hulking big lout of a man, youngish—perhaps only five years her senior—in a uniform bearing the insignia of a spaceman, first class. That told her nothing. The rest of him was more informative, or at least suggestive: a broad, open, honest face that wore its simple emotions as blatantly as a flagship carrying its signals, big, horny workman’s hands that had seen their share of grease and caustic liquids—and the impact of not a few human faces, no doubt. An appealing, uncomplicated-looking man who was pleasant enough, surely, but this simplicity she was certain hid something deeper. It’s entirely possible that the Patrolman was much more impressed by what he was looking at than she was: a lean, rangy, teenaged girl with an alert hawkish face framed in a mass of ill-kept locks the color of bitter chocolate that spilled untidily over the broad shoulders that were accentuated by the swooping neckline of the embroidered peasant blouse she was wearing. He very much liked the look of keen intelligence in the unwavering gaze of her mahogany eyes.

  “Look,” he said at last, sitting his half-emptied cup onto its saucer, “there’s no use beating around the bush. I’m not like that and don’t know how to do it. I’ll just put the thing to you direct-like and, well, there it’ll be.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “I—we—know who you are and why you’re here. Now, there’s no need to get all in a swivet, the Patrol has no interest at all in your record...in fact, I’ve seen it myself and can assure you that I at least don’t think you’ve gotten a square deal and the Patrol pretty much thinks the same thing. Nothing we can do about that, of course, the Patrol doesn’t have any authority in civil matters. But there is one thing it can do.”

  “And that is?”

  “It can get you in.”

  “Into what?”

  “Into the Patrol. That’s what you want to do, isn’t it?

  Judikha had no idea at all what to make of this extraordinary statement. To cover her confusion and give herself a little time to think, she changed the subject.

  “You have the advantage of me.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You know my name but you haven’t yet introduced yourself.”

  “Oh! Ah! My apologies, Miss.” Judikha was amused to see that the man was genuinely embarrassed. “I’m Patrolman First Class Dybbuk, Dybyo Dybbuk, ma’am, and I sure apologize for my bad manners.”

  “Think nothing of it. I’m pleased to meet you, Patrolman Dybbuk. I don’t want to be offensive, but why you? I mean, why send a Patrolman to see me instead of an officer?”

  “No offense taken at all, Miss Judikha. I think it was because someone thought you wouldn’t trust an officer.”

  Well, they
got me there, she admitted.

  “So, Patrolman Dybbuk, just what does the Patrol have in mind? I mean, what possible interest could they have in me? It can’t be anything special—I can’t be the only one who wanted to get into the Patrol and failed: there must be thousands. Surely the Patrol’s not willing to accept me—history or no history—just because of my good looks?”

  “No, Miss, they’re not...I mean, not that you’re not good-looking—I mean...”

  “I understand,” she said, saving the man from another paroxysm of embarrassment. “It’s all right. But the Patrol must want something in exchange.”

  “That it does. That it does. Look,” he said, leaning over the table and lowering his voice conspiratorially, “I told you that the Patrol doesn’t concern itself in civil affairs, but when civil affairs intrude on the Patrol, well, you can see it has to take care of things itself?”

  “I’m not sure if I follow you.”

  “This person you work for, this Mommy Pataskala...”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Please, Miss Judikha, we know all about her and what you do for her...here, see this?”

  He handed Judikha a folded paper. She was astonished to see that it was a photostat of her account with Mommy, from the day she began to late the previous afternoon. How they had managed to procure such a document was beyond her...she was certain it would have horrified Mommy, who was inordinately proud of her security.

  “Well, all right. I work for Mommy Pataskala. So what? Are you going to arrest me?”

  “No no no! Not at all! The Patrol has no jurisdiction here.”

  “You’re going to turn me in, then?”

  “Whyever would we do that? The Patrol not only has no jurisdiction, it has no interest in local affairs. It’s the Space Patrol, after all. Besides, I told you the Patrol was willing to ignore your, ah, past indiscretion.”