“That would be Dr. Beaver.”
I looked at Catarina. “Do you think maybe we’ve been had?”
“I’ve suspected it for some time now.”
“Would you officer types mind getting back to worrying about the Rodent ship blowing up?” Spooner asked, white-faced.
The Kid had the outside monitor pointed directly at the receding figure of the Nemesis. All of a sudden, Nemesis quietly blew up.
I counted to twenty.
“I believe that it is customary to cheer,” Cheeves said, and we did.
When the noise died down, I turned to Catarina. “While we’re thinking about it, maybe we ought to do something about the troopship.”
“Good point.” She reached over and flipped on the loud-hailer. “Commander of unidentified Rodent ship, this is Lieutenant Lindquist, commanding Confederation navy vessel Rustam’s Slipper. The remainder of your fleet has been destroyed. Please land your ship at the Schenectady spaceport and surrender her to the authorities there so that we can process her personnel for repatriation back to !Plixxi*.”
We waited a few minutes. “And if they don’t?” I whispered.
Catarina shrugged. “We take chalk and scrawl rude graffiti on the hull.”
A moment later, the Rodent ship responded. “We will comply with your orders.”
“I don’t know if my nerves can take much more of this,” I commented.
“Ken, your hand is bleeding!” Catarina said suddenly.
“Apparently Admiral Genghis injured you,” Cheeves said. “I believe that this would qualify you for a wound stripe.”
I looked at the thin line of blood on my left hand. “I hate to say this, but I think the stupid cat just bit me.”
“What about the money, Cheeves?” Catarina asked as we led the Rodent ship down to the spaceport.
“It is a convoluted story, Mistress Lindquist. Approximately one year ago, Prince Adolf gratuitously complained about some unexplained financial reverses. Dr. Beaver magnanimously volunteered my services in sorting matters out. I discovered that Prince Adolf wished to make discreet, delayed payments to unnamed individuals. On his behalf, I established bearer accounts, accessed through the use of special tokens.”
Catarina listened quietly.
“My suspicions were aroused when Prince Adolf asked me to manufacture duplicate tokens. It appeared unscrupulous, in that Prince Adolf would be able to withdraw the money even after ostensibly surrendering control of it. I complied with his wishes. However, inasmuch as Prince Adolf is notorious in family circles for losing items like cuff links, I manufactured a third set, which I stored in the consulate safe in the event they were needed. I then informed Dr. Beaver of my suspicions. As I had no firm evidence of wrongdoing, however, Dr. Beaver declined to allow me to pursue the matter further.
“While making plans for my departure, I concluded that I might have unexpected travel expenses and felt it would be remiss of me not to take possession of the funds as a representative of my government. I intend to make a full accounting to Dr. Beaver when circumstances permit.”
“Cheeves,” Catarina finally said in admiration, “you were born to be hung.”
As we made our landing approach, I asked her quietly, “What happens to you and me now?”
“We enjoy life for a few days. Then you work on getting your ship fixed up somehow. After all, I’m going to need a ride out of here.”
“Sure. It shouldn’t be too much trouble scraping up a crew.”
“It won’t be goodbye, Ken. At least, not yet.”
“But you’re telling me that it would be easier all around if we didn’t see very much of each other,” I said, listening to the shuttle descend.
“Why don’t you take a few days off?” she suggested. “I’ll write out a three-day pass.”
“I guess. It would be fun to go to the beach and soak up some sun and surf. I feel like absolute hell right about now.”
“Get that bite looked at first.”
When we touched down, Clyde and I were the first ones out the door. I guess I expected confetti and a brass band waiting on the ramp. Instead there was a cameraman from the Post-Dispatch and about five or six people, including Bunkie, Harry, and Commander Hiro with the van. Commander Hiro had a bandage wrapped around his head.
My disappointment showed. “I wouldn’t let it bother you, sir,” Clyde said. “I think we’re competing with a truck-pulling contest.”
“I didn’t expect a ticker-tape parade, but I thought I’d see a little more than this,” I admitted. I noticed the vendors were already out hawking “Operation Rat Patrol” T-shirts with a slightly recognisable picture of me on the front.
The man standing at the foot of the ramp frowned. “Hello, Mr. MacKay, is it? I’m Smith, from Customs and Immigration. I have had numerous reports come in that undocumented aliens have been landing in small lifecraft.” He touched his badge. “You are the owner of record of the ship up there, and I was wondering if you knew anything about this.”
I made sure Catarina wasn’t in earshot. “I have no idea where they’re coming from,” I piously told Smith. “There’s about twenty we picked up in the back of the shuttle and a few more about to land in a ship. Do your duty.”
“Why, thank you, Mr. MacKay,” Smith said, walking past me.
Clyde blinked. “That transport’s full of dope-crazed Rodent assault troops.”
I nodded. “They started it.”
Another guy pushed past the cameraman. “Mr. MacKay?”
“That’s me.”
He seized my hand and pumped it. “Good job! Give them hell!” He reached into his pocket and handed me a thick envelope. “You’re being summoned. The persons holding the mortgage on your ship have commissioned the law firm of Schmarbeck, Schneider, Schwartz-Uppendieck to file a lawsuit against you. Good luck with it.”
I stared at his back as he walked away. Catarina appeared at the shuttle door. “Is that Lydia’s car I see?” she asked.
I shuddered. “Please, anything but Lydia.”
She sighed. “All right, I’ll do the interviews. Ken, go ahead and get everyone else into the van.”
I pushed through the T-shirt vendors and went over to salute Commander Hiro. “Hello, sir. You missed a great battle.” I let a little worry seep into my voice. “Who else made it out?”
“It’s amazing, Mickey,” Hiro said wistfully, returning my salute. “Everyone is accounted for. Our Marines, Sin and Trujillo, are severely burned, but they are receiving treatment. I understand we owe a great deal to Cheeves.”
Cheeves bowed low.
“I need to go back and figure out how to write this up,” Hiro said, mopping his brow.
Spooner threw herself into Harry’s arms—literally. Harry’s big, but he’s not that big. I thought for a minute he was going to go over.
As we drove off, they started necking in the back of the van. Clyde said to me quietly, “I would just like to know—”
I patted him on the shoulder. “Trust me, Clyde. It’s the sleaze factor. Some people have got it”—I looked at Harry in the rear-view mirror—”and some people don’t.”
“Sir, perhaps Mr. Witherspoon should consider alternatives,” Cheeves said, giving me a meaningful look.
“Right,” I said. I took a piece of paper and a pen from him, scribbled down Bunkie’s name and phone number, and handed it to Clyde.
Riding Off into the Sunset
Commander Hiro confirmed my three-day pass. Clyde and I got out at his place, and I got to use the bathroom first. I polished off a bag of cookies in the shower and collapsed in bed, roughly in that order. I woke up when I heard the telephone ringing.
“What is it, Bunkie?” I asked groggily.
“Sir, you have an appointment over at the hospital.”
“How long have I been asleep? What appointment?” I tried to crawl under my pillow.
“Forty-five minutes, and you need to have your hand looked at. I also need to get a physi
cal on you before I take you off active duty status,” Bunkie explained. “Then you can go on pass.”
“Isn’t this kind of sudden?”
“Well, sir, we don’t have that much use-or-lose money in the budget, and I have a few more reservists on the payroll than I’d planned on,” Bunkie said spryly. “Please get yourself dressed and report to Room One-twenty-one at the hospital.”
Room 121 was white and painted with little pastel happy faces everywhere, except on the nurse who was waiting to examine me.
“Mr. MacKay, I am Nurse Clarkin, and you are fifteen minutes late.”
“It’s been a busy morning,” I muttered. I opened and shut my eyes a couple of times. “Don’t I get to see a doctor?”
“What makes you think the doctor would want to see you? All of you spacemen are disgusting animals. Now shut up and stick out your tongue.”
She checked my pulse, my temperature, and my eyes, ears, and throat. She took some blood work and commented, “It’s such a shame the navy is lowering its standards.”
She condescended to stick a proper bandage on my thumb and made me take something to fight the inflammation. “Well, you appear to be mostly alive.”
“Thanks, Nurse Clarkin. Look, I’m starving. Is there some place around here I could get a hamburger or something?”
“Hamburgers are full of nitrites and other carcinogens. No wonder you are such a pallid, pitiful specimen.” She shook her head. “If you eat anything that unsavoury and nauseating, you may have a reaction, and in your condition, I won’t answer for the consequences.”
“Nurse Clarkin, do you have some kind of a personal problem?”
“I do not answer personal questions from strange men. Now step down and breathe in,” she said icily.
That was when I found out that nurses have very cold hands.
“I can’t do anything more with you,” she announced finally. “The treasurer’s office will mail you the results.”
“Thank you,” I said politely. I immediately went looking for a burger place and found one right outside the front door. After I ordered a burger and a beer, I figured out why they called it a “burger” rather than a “hamburger” and ended up throwing most of it away.
Cursing Nurse Clarkin’s soul, I had a salad and a milkshake instead.
On the way out, I scanned the newspaper headlines. “MacKay Does It Again!” and “Ensign Blasts Rodent War Fleet” they read, which I suppose was about the best I could have expected, given Catarina’s sense of humour. Apparently Lydia Dare had finally finished digesting Catarina’s report, because as I was standing there, the headlines on the screen changed to read, “Local Vamp Wins Rodent War, Saves Planet” and “Rodent Blood Shed—Is It Snack Time?”
I was wide awake when I got back. Clyde was still blissfully snoring, so I grabbed a towel and a bathing suit and asked Bunkie to pick me up and drive me to the beach.
The beach turned out to be an unprepossessing stretch of grey sand littered with kids cheerfully playing ball and building sand flophouses. Staking out a space away from the tourists in aloha shirts, I lay down on my towel and closed my eyes, thinking that a little rest and sunshine would put me right.
It wasn’t something that a little rest would cure. When I woke up, instead of sand, I saw hospital happy faces and Nurse Clarkin.
“Had a nice nap?” she crooned.
I was completely wrung out, and my head hurt. “I haven’t decided whether I’m dead or alive,” I answered truthfully.
“I’m not surprised.”
I looked at her. “I hope I’m not dead. This might be permanent. What happened?”
She sniffed. “Spirituous liquors are the Devil’s tools.”
“What’s wrong with me, anyway?”
“I will check on your prognosis and discuss it with you later after you have had a chance to adjust to your surroundings.” She ostentatiously ignored the electronic notepad on the bed that would have told her everything she wanted to know.
“Tell me the truth, Nurse. Does anybody else work in this hospital, and what is this thing in my arm?”
“That’s a glucose drip. Don’t play with it. You’re dehydrated. You have a sodium imbalance accentuating your natural hostility.”
“I’m not hostile! I’m hungry and also uncomfortable;” I hefted my pillow right-handed. “This pillow here feels like a sack of sand,” I said, thinking of something other than sand.
“Complain, complain, complain! That’s all you patients ever do. What do you think a hospital is for? If you’re hungry, I have a nice dinner right here for you.”
She whisked it under my nose. I’d forgotten that hospitals purchase leftover food from airlines and prisons.
I poked a turgid sprig of broccoli. “Are these things vegetables? What happened to the food?”
That earned me a real sniff. “In addition to my other duties, I am the hospital nutritionist.”
Apparently, the damnable things were steamed for precisely ninety-seven seconds so that they wouldn’t lose nutrients. I spent the next ten minutes listening to my stomach send me messages while Nurse Clarkin expounded on the horrors of overcooked vegetables. I never realised what Freud was getting at until she started explaining the intense disdain she felt for limp carrots.
I held out as long as I could and finally broke. “Look, Nurse Clarkin, how about if you just bring me up a handful of cookies? I m dying for a cookie.”
“Sorry, you don’t get any dessert if you don’t clean your plate. The wholesome meal in front of you has the exact nutritional balance for a weird person like you.”
“Nurse Clarkin, don’t you have a boyfriend to ventilate on?”
“How would you like to be wearing a catheter?”
“Look, why don’t you just give me my clothes, and I’m gone.”
“You’re not going anywhere. The doctor said you need bed rest, and I can’t release you. If I gave you your clothes, you’d just wear them, and that’s against hospital regulations. Besides, your mother dresses you funny.” She looked down her long nose at me. “There are some people who have been waiting to visit you. Now that you’re awake, I’ll tell them that they can see you.”
She flounced out and slammed the door, leaving me with a plateful of cold veggies.
I flipped the tray aside and considered life’s cruelties. About twenty minutes later, Annalee McHugh came through the door.
“Oh, hello, Annalee. Thanks for stopping by. I was hoping Catarina would spring me out of this dump. They won’t give me my clothes.”
“You shouldn’t need them.”
“Whatever you do, don’t get yourself admitted. The food they serve here is poison, and they don’t give you enough of it. I’m so mad that I can’t even see straight, and I’m dying for a chocolate chip cookie.”
“Funny, you should say that, Ken. Dying is just what I had in mind.”
I really wasn’t paying attention. “What, I realise that Schuyler’s World is a hell of a place to get stuck, but you never struck me as the suicidal type.”
“Not quite, Ken.” She pulled out a pistol and smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile to see. “I was thinking more about homicide. All right, thief. What did you do with the money?”
“What money? You mean, for the Scupper! It’s going to be months before the navy pays up.”
“Don’t play games with me, Ken. You used my half coin to clean out my account. What did you do with the money? I want it back!” McHugh demanded.
“McHugh, will you talk sense and quit playing with that thing? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t act stupider than you are. I want my money. You got ten seconds.”
A little light finally dawned. “Oh. So that’s what that coin was for. I was wondering.” I thought for a moment. “Cheeves cleaned out the bearer accounts at Second Schenectady, and I haven’t gotten around to asking him what he did with the cash.”
The pistol drooped. “You’re telling the truth
, aren’t you?” McHugh said in disbelief.
“I’m glad we got that straight, Annalee. Now will you help me get this thing out of my arm? I want to sneak down to the kitchen in this place and steal something real to eat. I’d really like some chocolate.”
“How about lead, instead?” She pointed the pistol at me.
“Come on, Annalee. I’m feeling really lousy right now, and I really don’t have time for this. Are you telling me that after what we’ve been through together, you’d shoot me?”
“In a heartbeat.”
It finally occurred to me that she was serious about all this. “I suppose you’re going to tell me how you planned this,” I said, hoping she would explain instead of just shooting me the way any normal criminal would.
“Sure, I’ll fill in some of your surmises. Ironsides and Bobo were my tools from the beginning. They were childishly easy to manipulate.” She chuckled macabrely.
She told me: The deals. The treacheries. The betrayals.
I tried to remember what I was supposed to say next. “How long have you been running the stuff, Annalee?”
“A few years now,” she answered, the amusement ringing in her voice. She had her eyes slitted, watching me. “One or two more shipments would have put me over.”
“Was it worth it, Annalee? I mean, really?” I asked, thinking about how starved I was.
“You bet your ass, Ken!” she said, selecting a target.
“Just explain one last thing. People saw you come in. How do you expect to get away with this?”
She levelled her pistol at my midsection. “I told the people at the desk that I was Elaine O’Day.”
“Oh. That makes sense.” I tried to think of one last thing to ask her, since my head was hurting and I really didn’t want to have to deal with this. “Annalee, why are you doing this?”
“Let’s see. You screwed up an almost foolproof smuggling scheme. You cost me the Scupper—I bought up half of the ship’s outstanding debt and would have owned her free and clear in a year or so. You made me serve on the same damn ship as Harry. And you let Cheeves clean out my bearer account with every centavo I managed to save because you were so damned stupid you forgot to give me back my coin. Is that enough, or should I mention other things?”
McClendon's Syndrome (v1.1) Page 32
