I went over to the door and looked inside.
“I have about thirty rifles and a thousand rounds of ammo for them, and I’ve got a fifty-millimetre mortar that I don’t have any ammo for,” Kimball said. “Other than that, I’m pretty well strapped.”
“That’s really not going to be much help in stopping spaceships, “ I observed, and sighed. “Is there anything you can think of that the Civil Guard can contribute?”
“Well, there’s me. I have dual status as a reservist and a civilian technician. And I’m a pretty good ordnance tech, if you can find me something to work on. However, I’d just as soon you didn’t call me up if you don’t have anything to shoot with.”
“I understand.” I shook his hand. “Thanks, I’ll let you know.” I drove back and found Piper. “How’d you make out?” she
“Not very well. The Civil Guard here is pretty much defunct, and there’s nothing but a few rifles in the armoury. There’s a tech who’s pretty sharp. How did you make out?”
“Not well.” Piper brushed a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “We’ve double-checked, and there’s no navy vessel passing close enough to Schuyler’s World for us to divert here in time to help. We’re going to send off the mailship, but barring a miracle, it’ll be at least three weeks before the navy can respond. We’ve also been blessed with the presence of Lieutenant Commander Stemm, the Naval attaché to Dennison’s World, who came with Fast Eddie.”
“You sound like you know him,” I commented.
“I sure do. Off the record, he’s an ambitious son of a bitch. Fortunately, he had a rough trip over on the mailship, so we won’t have to worry about him for a day or two until he recovers. Let’s go meet Catarina for breakfast. Maybe she’s got some ideas. I don’t.”
We met Catarina in the Atlantic Hotel’s restaurant, where she was finishing off a Bloody Mary without the vodka. “What would you like?” she said. “In light of recent events, I’m buying.”
“I’ll go with the eggs Benedict,” I said. “Beam?”
Piper agreed. “The same. Did you talk to Dr. Beaver?”
Catarina nodded. “He’s hoping everything will turn out for the best.”
“Well, do you have any ideas? We can’t run—the only ship we have is the Scupper, and to run her through a black hole in her present condition would be a messy way of committing suicide. And we can’t fight because we don’t have anything to fight with. Will they accept a surrender? Without executing us on the spot, I mean.”
“Bucky thinks not,” Catarina said quietly. “Genghis apparently enjoys that sort of thing.” She looked down at her watch. “Commander Hiro has called a staff meeting for nine o’clock. He and Bucky are talking right now. He still wants to fight.”
“I wish I knew how,” Piper said.
“I think it’s called the Tinkerbell theory of planetary defence,” I interjected. “Maybe if we all wish hard enough, we can make it happen. Can I have the vodka from your Bloody Mary with my eggs Benedict?”
Hiro opened officers’ call wearing a sorely troubled look. He and Bucky had been talking. Apparently the more he heard about demi-brother Genghis, the less he liked.
I shut the door as the junior member present and Hiro began. “Lieutenant Commander Stemm, who arrived on the mailship, is still indisposed. At Lieutenant Lindquist’s suggestion, I have asked Dr. Beaver to be present despite his status as envoy of an enemy power.” The lines in his face stood out, and he looked like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep. “It is a little irregular, but I can’t think of anyone who is going to complain under the circumstances. You all are aware of our situation. Do any of you have suggestions?”
I nudged Piper, and she shrugged.
“Well,” I said, “I’ve got one idea, although maybe it’s not a popular one. First, we pile all of us into my ship. Now the Scupper isn’t fit to travel, but there are another seven planets in this system and enough moons and other orbital junk so that we could hide her and make rude noises at Genghis and his invasion fleet until the navy can send some real ships. What does everyone think?”
Bucky had on a bright purple jacket with a frayed collar and a candy-cane-striped waistcoat. He blinked his eyes and made a polite noise in his throat. “I regret to say that I believe my demi-brother Genghis would land his soldiery and take the citizens of Schuyler’s World hostage so that he could then threaten to shoot them if you did not immediately surrender. My demi-brother is somewhat lacking in chivalry.”
“Which means he probably would shoot them. It was just a thought,” I said.
“Does anybody have any other ideas?” Hiro asked heavily.
“I should mention that I fear for the consequences if my demi-brother’s soldiers are permitted to invade,” Bucky said. “They might not wish to return home.”
“I don’t understand. Why wouldn’t they?” Hiro asked. It seemed a sensible question, considering this was Schuyler’s World.
“I suppose it has much to do with our planetary psychology,” Bucky said. “It is sort of a small dream with each of us to become a gentleman farmer and own our own little patch of soil to grow Brussels sprouts on.”
“Brussels sprouts?” I asked.
“Tasty little morsels, aren’t they? I can’t think why you humans don’t grow more of them.”
“Maybe it’s an acquired taste,” Catarina interrupted. “Anyway, are you saying that the invasion force has been promised land here?”
“Oh, undoubtedly.” Beaver nodded firmly. “Why else would they want to leave home? It was all in Cheeves’s message.”
Piper almost choked.
“Cheeves sent a message?” Catarina asked very softly. “May we see it?”
“Oh, certainly.” Beaver slapped the pockets on his waistcoat. “I have a printout here somewhere.”
“Look,” I said, “forget the message for now. Unless we find some space weapons, we’re dead. Right now, we’re just going around in circles.”
“Wheely?” Catarina said under her breath with a perfectly straight face.
“Mickey is right,” Hiro said. “We need weapons. The navy has never given up a planet without a fight.” He paused. “I’m not sure anyone has asked us to before, but it would set a terrible precedent.” He slapped his hand down firmly on the table. “There has to be something we can do. We need weapons.”
“Oh, how unfortunate,” Beaver said. His whiskers twitched. “Cheeves did say that the invasion fleet would arrive next Friday, which gives us a week to look. I can’t think where you could find any, unless of course there are some in the cargo Adolf was supposed to pick up at the spaceport.”
“What cargo?” Piper and I asked in unison.
“I believe that it is manifested as agricultural machinery,” Beaver said. “Cheeves apologised in his message for not seeing to it before he left. Although I can’t think why anyone would be shipping agricultural machinery to my planet...”
Piper and I were out the door before he could finish. We left Catarina behind to explain to Commander Hiro.
When we got to the customs area, we found a woman with pigtails that were that funny blond colour you associate with too much bleach. She was eating a sandwich and reading a bridal-fashions magazine.
Piper leaned on her terminal and asked her where the stuff consigned to Adolf’s ship was located.
“Hey, I’m on my break!” the woman protested.
“I’m Lieutenant Piper from the navy, and this is an emergency. Your planet’s about to be invaded, and we need to check that cargo.” She pointed a thumb at me. “Ensign MacKay here is a desperate man.”
“Oh.” The girl swallowed what she was eating and pondered this. “I can’t tell you stuff like that. I guess you’d have to ask the customs inspector.”
“Where is the customs inspector?” I asked, moving her out box aside and sitting on the corner of her desk.
“It’s only a part-time appointment, you know. I guess he’s working his regular job,” she said, staring up a
t me. “I’m pretty sure the stuff you want is up there, on the space platform, you know?” She pointed at the ceiling.
“Makes sense,” I agreed. “It would cost too much to send it down just to shuttle it right back up.”
“Let me check.” The girl punched up some data on her terminal. “It’s there!” she said triumphantly.
“Thanks, you’ve been a great help,” Piper assured her, grabbing my sleeve.
“Now what do we do?” I asked.
“Where’s the shuttle pilot?” Piper asked the girl. “I’m going up to check it out.”
The girl shrugged expressively.
“Every time I’ve seen the California Kid, he’s off taking a siesta,” I said, pointing out the door at the hydrogen tanks. “I’m sure he’s over there somewhere, but he’ll need to fuel up. Kimball, the technician at the Civil Guard armoury, would be the perfect guy to go with you. Let me give him a call.”
Piper nodded and pulled the girl’s terminal around so she could scroll up Adolf’s manifest.
“Wow, this is exciting,” the girl said. “Is there, like, a hidden camera in here or something?” She waved. “Hi, Mom!”
I grabbed the phone off the desk and called Kimball, who said he’d get a space suit and some tools and head on over. The girl pulled out a compact, touched up her makeup, and pasted a bright smile on her face. Then she began minutely examining the corners of the room. She waved again, a little more uncertainly.
The shuttle pilot nicknamed the California Kid wandered through the door.
“We need you to fuel up,” I said. “Your planet is about to be invaded, and Lieutenant Piper here needs to get up to the space station.”
The Kid nodded. “Sounds radical.” He walked out in the same unhurried fashion.
“Is he in on this, too?” the girl behind the desk asked.
“Have you ever read Tamarkin’s Demographics of Colonial Migrations?” I asked Piper. “Somewhere in there he describes colonists as ‘offscourings of society and their diseased progeny, instinctively seeking places where their only competitors are other misfits.’ “
Piper looked at me. “How else would a ship like yours make a living?”
“Right,” I said, “I’ll wait here for Kimball while you go get packed for the trip.”
Piper took off for her car while I leaned over and reassured the girl behind the desk. “It’s okay. It really is an invasion.”
While she headed off for the ladies’ room to have a nervous breakdown, I called up Catarina to tell her the plan.
Her image on the screen nodded without very much enthusiasm. “Commander Hiro may be a little giddy right now, but if Beam finds weapons up there, and if we can get them working, we still have Genghis coming at us with a Phoenix-class cruiser.” She grimaced. “Out of a misplaced sense of honour, Bucky has volunteered to accompany us as an observer.”
“Oh, “I said.
“Had it occurred to you that the only two places we can mount weaponry are the space platform and your ship?”
“No,” I said slowly, “but the thought would have come to me eventually. And if it’s okay with you, I’d just as soon change the subject. You know, in all the excitement I forgot to ask you whether you’ve figured out who masterminded the drug smuggling?”
Her face tightened. “Possibly. Can anyone there hear you?”
I listened for the water running in the ladies’ room and turned down the volume on the phone. “No.”
“A few weeks ago, the Second Bank of Schenectady had four six-figure bearer accounts.”
“Hold it. What’s a bearer account?”
“In essence, it’s an account without a registered owner. Anyone who presents proper identification can claim it.”
“That doesn’t sound very honest,” I commented.
“It’s a very nice way to give dirty money a quick rinse and soak,” Catarina agreed. “The banks don’t pay interest on deposits, so they like the idea. There are five or six other planets I can think of where it’s legal.”
“Why bearer accounts? Didn’t Davie and Bernie get paid off in jewels?”
“Davie and Bernie did. I wouldn’t recommend the idea. Have you ever tried to fence hot jewels?”
“No. Not easy?”
“Not easy. There’s not much of a market for them most places, and isotope analysis makes them easy to identify. If your paymaster gets annoyed with you, he or she can reduce the value very easily by leaving accurate descriptions with the local authorities. Bearer accounts are a better way to exchange payment. Well, two large ones got cleaned out.”
“Whoever did it can’t get very far.”
“He already did.” Catarina sighed. “It was Cheeves.”
“Cheeves? You’re kidding! Are you sure?”
“How many meter-tall Rodents are mere on this planet?” she asked. “I have him on camera.”
“Why Cheeves?”
She sighed again. “I don’t know. It may have been the money. That’s always a good motive. There’s another thought that’s even less appealing—Cheeves is Bucky’s first cousin. He isn’t that far out of the line of succession.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. If Cheeves isn’t on our side, why would he tip us about weaponry in Adolf’s shipment?”
“Ken, what would you do if Piper didn’t find any weapons up there?”
I thought for a moment. “Even with wrecked lattices, the Scupper has a fifty-fifty shot of making it through to Brasilia Nuevo.”
Catarina looked very tired. “Ken, Commander Hiro wants to fight it out if we can find anything to fight with. That’s what the navy is for. But I’m not going to kid you—I don’t care what Adolf has stashed away up there, the odds of our coming out of this are a lot less than fifty-fifty.”
“Are you suggesting that Cheeves is setting us up?”
“It’s possible,” she conceded. “Why don’t you do a qualitative analysis on the situation?”
“Well, let’s see.” I ran my fingers through my hair and thought for a minute. “There are what?—three probable outcomes: Genghis blows us away and causes Bucky to meet with an accident thanks to the information that Cheeves supplied, we blow Genghis away thanks to the information that Cheeves supplied, or all of us blow each other away.”
“All three outcomes result in Cheeves being richer, closer to the throne, and at least arguably in the good graces of any and all survivors,” Catarina postulated.
“I don’t like the way this is starting to sound,” I whined.
Catarina blew me a kiss and signed off.
Kimball drove up about fifteen minutes later with a flight bag and a chest of tools that was almost as large as he was. He pulled up in front of the customs shack and stuck his head out the window. “Can I leave this parked here?”
“Sure. Are you sure you got enough stuff?” I was trying not to stare at the tool chest.
Kimball gave me a funny look. “I brought a toothbrush and an extra change of clothes. Did I forget something?”
“No, you’re fine,” I conceded.
Piper showed up, her eyes sparkling, about twice as excited as I’d ever seen her get. I made introductions. “Ken, have you talked to Commander Hiro?” she asked.
“No, but I called Catarina.”
“Good.” She nodded to Kimball. “Okay. Kimball and I will see what’s up there. If it turns out Adolf left some weaponry we can use, we’ll try and install it, either on your ship or on the platform itself. We’ll call you and let you know if we need anything. Don’t forget to let your ship know what’s going on.” She transferred her keys from her right pocket to mine. “Here, take my car.”
“Right.” I winked at her. “We’ll all see what we can do here with a hope and a prayer.”
“Why don’t you do the hoping and let Catarina do the praying?” She gave me a quick slap on the backside. “Wish us luck! Come on, Kid!”
Kimball and the Kid obediently fell in behind her. Piper was obviously psyched—
weaponry does that to some people. I watched the shuttle take off, then drove back to the office.
Catarina was waiting for me as I walked in the door. “ ‘Operation Hope and a Prayer’ is well and truly launched,” I told her. “Piper and Kimball are on their way.”
“ ‘Operation Hope and a Prayer’?” Catarina smiled.
I caught myself before she had a chance to respond. “No. No. Have I set myself up for a wicked line?”
She nodded primly.
“How bad? Real bad?”
Catarina kept nodding.
“I still think a pun is the absolute lowest form of humour. How about if I walk outside, and walk back in, and we both pretend this conversation never happened?”
Catarina turned her head demurely. “Do you remember the night we met?”
“I remember perfectly,” I deadpanned. “You wore blue. The Germans wore grey.”
“Louie,” she said, “I think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, although it might be a very short one.”
We briefed Hiro, and Bunkie called up the news media while the rest of us brainstormed. It was a lot of storm and not much brain until Piper called in to say that she and Kimball had dug up two missile launchers with twenty reloads, two shipboard target-acquisition systems, and fifty hunter-seeker active mines. They were already starting to mount one of the launchers on the station loading platform. We told them to put the other one in the Scupper’s Number One hold in the middle of the racketball court.
Clyde and Bunkie started working on logistics. Catarina and I broke away to try and come up with a plan for a decent minefield. We knocked off for Leopard Milk and cookies—neither of us appreciated experiments with the local pizza—and went back to work until about midnight.
The next morning, the first thing I did was scroll up the newspaper to see what kind of coverage they’d given the invasion, and the second thing I did was hunt up Bunkie.
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