“It wouldn’t be during season, sir,” Lin pointed out, blowing kisses to a man who gaped at them from his porch. “This is what passes for winter in this part of Dudley. We might get rain or snow while we’re here. You should ask Adri’Leta for telemetry readings on the current atmospherics.” At the sight of a trooper in dark blue leading three squads of ghosts and a movieola up the street, followed by a star shuttle hovering just off the ground, the man leaped up out of his chair, ran into his house and sealed the door, the front wall closing around it like a zipper.
“Hey, act inconspicuous,” Boland chided her.
“Yeah?” asked Amberling, raising her voice unnecessarily over the blaring brass band music. “How?”
“This is the cleanest place I’ve ever been,” said Mose, his head turning from side to side. “Next to this, the Eastwood’s a slum. No offense, captain!” he added hastily. “I forgot we’re being recorded for the mission report.”
Daivid grinned. “I’ll attest that you were overwhelmed by the pristine quality of our destination, Petty Officer Mose, and that in your efforts to be respectful of the locale it momentarily robbed you of tact.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mose said, his voice filled with relief. A snort, probably from Streb, echoed in Daivid’s other ear.
In spite of their initial protests, the Cockroaches loved being in a parade. They all shouldered their weapons and marched proudly, their occasionally visible silhouettes straight as a plumb line. The man who fled from the sight of them was a notable exception. Dudleyites were as curious as anyone else in the galaxy and not much more jaded. Parents came out of the gaudy houses carrying children who pointed to the half-invisible troopers, and cheered when the Cockroaches waved.
At the sound of approbation, Thielind increased the complexity of his shenanigans. The stick soared into the air frequently, spinning end over end, and hit the ground only occasionally as Thielind’s moves came back to him. Daivid could see the ensign’s outline as the nimble little man turned cartwheels and did back flips up the street. Later Daivid would have to ask where he had learned to tumble like that. The crowd loved all of it.
“Well, Jones, I’m waiting,” Daivid said. “You’ve got a rep to protect. Where’s your limerick?”
“I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” the hearty Cymraeg assured him. “Just working out the last syllables.”
“I’ve got you now,” said Okumede, cackling. “I’m ready now.”
“Go for it, Oku,” Lin told him.
Okumede recited. “‘We’re wandering around down on Dudley / For reasons best defined as muddly / We’ll find out what gives / From the fellow who lives / With the critters who look cute and cuddly.’”
“Not bad, not bad,” Mose said. “You’ve got messy scansion in line two, but you could say ‘The orders they gave us were muddly.’”
“I suppose,” Okumede replied, not sounding pleased to be corrected.
“Well, I’ve got one, too,” Daivid said.
“You, sir?” Jones asked. Daivid could feel the eyes of the entire troop on his back.
“Me. Ahem.” He cleared his throat, raised his hand, and declaimed. “‘To be stuck at this park out of season / Is a crime that equates with high treason / We’ll go visit Wingle / And give him a jingle / And ask him what could be the reason?’”
The platoon fell silent with respect.
“It scans perfectly,” Mose observed. “Well done, sir.”
“You get the points, sir,” Lin said.
“Congratulations, sir,” Okumede said, grudgingly. “It is better than mine.”
“Three cheers for the lieutenant!” Jones shouted. “Oggy oggy oggy!”
“Oi oi oi!” chorused the rest of the platoon.
“Yes, sir,” Daivid said, with deep satisfaction. “It’s times like this that I’m proud to be a Cockroach.”
O O O
Borden indicated a change of direction, and placed an arrow to the right on the map in their visors. With a flourish of his makeshift baton Thielind steered the parade around the next corner. The shuttle continued to float along behind them a meter off the ground, never getting a millimeter closer than it had been to start with. Daivid felt deep respect for the junior lieutenant’s talent. Everything Borden did, she did with precision. He wondered what sin she had committed that would compel some commander to transfer that kind of talent out of a command. And he knew he wasn’t going to find out until he won her marker. She was also a precise and careful poker player, who never bet more than she could afford to lose.
Word had spread of the impromptu parade. People were waiting for them on the approach road to Wingle World, crowding the curbs, standing on the roofs of houses and personal flitters, perched on fence posts and hanging from tree branches. One had to know they were used to spectacles of every kind, living next to one of the most famous amusement parks in the galaxy, yet they seemed to enjoy themselves as much as if they had one special event a year. Daivid wondered if this mood of innocence persisted at the other Wingle parks. He knew there were Wingle World outlets with a hundred rides or so on other worlds, but this was the original, the biggest, the most impressive of them all. A thousand rides! A dozen theaters! A live zoo! Three petting zoos! Restaurants that could serve a hundred thousand meals a day! Oscar Wingle VII had added to the wonder of the heritage left him by his eponymous ancestors by improving the cinema production facility here to the state of the art. Live threedeeo broadcast from here often made the Infonet entertainment channels. And yet the people who lived there were happy to show up to watch a parade consisting of one marching company and one float. Hundreds filled both sides of the road before the Cockroaches reached the gates of Wingle World. Which were shut.
Thielind caught his baton and waited for Daivid at the entrance. Intricately curled ironwork barriers ten meters tall and twenty meters wide filled a drive that was meant to accommodate dozens of vehicles at a time through the pink-painted walls embossed with the medallions featuring the face of Bunny Hug, Wingle World’s most famous denizen. Daivid peered through the steel lace. Beyond it was a parking lot large enough to set down the Eastwood with room around it for every spacecraft parked at Treadmill. And unlike the town, Wingle World really was deserted.
“Halt!” Daivid called.
The crowd melted away as swiftly as it had gathered.
“Now, what?” Wolfe asked.
“Ring the bell?” suggested Thielind. He pointed to an oversized button mounted in an ornate brass plate to the left of the gates.
Daivid examined it with the scopes in his helmet. “I don’t see any current running to it, but give it a try.”
“Ewanowski,” Lin ordered. The semicat, huge in his armor, glided forward. He stretched up on his extended hind feet and pushed the button with one hand. They waited. And waited. Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty.
“Hail them, Borden.”
Over the helmet pickup, Daivid listened to the pilot attempting to communicate on every frequency except the emergency channels. He stared through the gray lace over the vast pastel plascrete field to a distant fringe of color at the far end of unmagnified vision. No signs of life.
“Nothing,” Ewanowski said. “No one’s home.”
Chief D-45 examined the big doors. “Has anyone tried them to see if they’re actually locked?” Before Daivid could respond, the Egalitarian pulled at the right gate. Silently, it swung open.
“How about that?” Daivid said. “They must really trust the locals.” Streb leaped forward to take the left gate. As they neared the walls the gates seemed to swing slower until they halted in place a meter away from the twinned faces of Bunny Hug.
“Magnetic clamps,” Jones said. “Don’t run your computers over those two zones.”
“Or telemetry equipment,” Lin added. “Those’d screw it blue.”
“And plasma gun shielding,” Boland added, cradling his big gun protectively. “If that magnet’s strong enough it could rupture the protective envelope.
Ka-boom!”
“Like the doctor said, then don’t do it,” Daivid said reasonably. “Deploy point. Keep an eye out for anything unusual. Platoon, forward!”
Daivid almost laughed at his own order. What was an amusement park but a collection of unusual artifacts and activities? Keeping well away from the outer doors, the Cockroaches shouldered their way in. Chief D-45 and the other sharpshooters fanned out in front of the marching troopers.
It took thirty minutes to march all the way from the gates to the entrance. Almost four kilometers, and the parking lot stretched more than double that in width. Once you calculated in the mass-transit arrivals and charter vehicles, you were talking about a significant number of beings arriving to take advantage of Wingle’s legendary hospitality. A major hassle that none of it was in evidence at the moment.
Ten meters from the scarlet-roofed open-air building sheltering the turnstyles Wolfe signaled with the flat of his hand to Borden to halt the shuttle. The hover drives shut down with a windy sigh, and the white craft extended landing feet and settled down on the pavement. Borden and Adri’Leta emerged and joined the others.
D-45’s voice erupted in his ear. “We don’t see anything, sir. No heat signatures, no movement, no nothing. Whoa!”
Daivid drew his weapon and spun. All of them found themselves covering a bright blue vehicle with the pink bunny logo on the side that appeared almost in their midst. It rolled up to the shuttle and threw a yellow-enameled hook around the landing gear. From old-fashioned looking conical loudspeakers on top of the car, a nasal voice blared.
“Attention, please, occupants of this vehicle. You cannot park here. It is designated for differently-abled beings only. Please show your DA license or move the vehicle. Repeat. Only differently-abled beings may place their vehicles in this location. It would be a grave discourtesy to leave it here. Please comply. Wingle World appreciates your cooperation. Attention, please, occupants of this vehicle.…” The message continued to repeat, in full, growing slightly louder with each repetition, and the little car attempted in vain to tug the shuttle with its hook arm.
D-45 peered inside the dark glass of the windshield. “It’s a drone, sir.”
“Where the hell did it come from? This parking lot’s empty!”
The Egalitarian pointed to a hatch that Ambering was covering. “It rose out of the ground, sir. There’s a dozen more trap doors like that one. They’re pretty well camouflaged and very well shielded. Sorry, sir. We’ll be more careful.”
“Attention, please, occupants…!”
Wolfe rapped on the top. “Listen, we just want to leave our craft here for a short time. We have an appointment with Mr. Wingle. I’m Lieutenant Wolfe with the Confederation Space Service. He’s expecting us. Hey!” He pounded on the top. “Listen to me!”
“It doesn’t have the facility for interaction, sir,” Borden informed him. “Limited function only. We need to do something, or we’ll have park security on our hands in a moment. That will be even less cooperative.”
Daivid took his hand off the holster of his laser pistol. “Oh. True. I suppose those will be mechanized, like this drone.”
“Robotic and efficient. It won’t hurt you, but we’d probably have to blow them up to get them to let go of us, and that wouldn’t fit in with Commander Iry’s version of inconspicuous.”
Daivid grinned. “What about the Cockroach version?”
“We’d strip it and sell it for parts,” Boland said. “I could make a hell of a go-cart out of this baby.”
“Attention, please, occupants…” The voice had reached rock concert volume.
“All right!” Daivid shouted. “Borden, move the damned thing. If this little noisebox has been sending a signal to the central office we may finally find someone to talk to.”
Snapping off a salute, Borden stalked up the ramp. In a moment the engines started up again. The shuttle, robot drone clinging to it, floated backwards until the automatic announcement ceased. The resulting silence was such an abrupt contrast that Daivid had to shake his head to clear the ringing in his ears. As soon as it set down again, the blue car dropped off like a sated tick, rolled back to the hatch, and sank rapidly out of sight.
“Hi, there!” Daivid literally jumped. He looked down in amazement as a little girl appeared at his side. The platoon wheeled to cover her. She looked at all the heavily-armed shapes and smiled politely. “D-45, I thought you were watching for intruders!”
The squad leader sounded chagrined. “Sorry, sir. My telemetry doesn’t even pick up movement from underground. We’d have to punch holes in the shielding just to get an echo.”
“Uncle Oscar wouldn’t like that,” the little girl opined. About eight years of age, she had fluffy pigtails of dark, rusty red hair and freckles across her nose. Her eyes were large, brown, and twinkling with mischief. Her red dress was very old-fashioned, even antique, in design, with a round, little white collar and a big sash around her middle and petticoats to hold out the circle skirt. She reached up and took his hand. “You’re here to see Uncle Oscar. I know. Come in and meet him. He’s waiting for us.”
“I know who you are,” Daivid said, memory dawning. “You’re Naughty Emma. You know I shouldn’t do anything you say.”
“Right!” the child laughed. “Welcome to Wingle World.”
“How did she get here?” Borden demanded.
“Same way as the parking drone,” Wolfe said. “Through a secret door in the ground. She’s not real. She’s a robot.”
Naughty Emma wrinkled her nose. “You’re not supposed to say things like that. I’m real. Well, sort of real. Come with me. It’s safe. You’re in Wingle World.”
***
Chapter 13
The company passed through the turnstyles, huge brass wheels that looked ornate and friendly, but were calculated to allow one-way passage only. Daivid tried pausing in the center and nudging his wheel back the other way, but it locked into place. It was in, or nothing. In the ceiling of the pylon square sensor arrays scanned every person entering. They ignored Naughty Emma, but as soon as D-45 tried to enter with his plasma rifle, the turnstyle wheel halted, trapping him and a discreet but urgent bonging began.
The android put her hands on her hips and pouted at the ceiling. “It’s all right!” she scolded it. “Uncle Oscar said they could come!”
The noise died away with a disappointed moan, and the wheel came free. D-45 shoved out of the barrier and stood looking back at it with suspicion.
“Why didn’t it stop me?” Daivid asked.
“Oh, you’ve only got a bullet gun and a knife. I scanned you. You could only shoot or stab one person before the protectors stopped you.”
“Why wouldn’t it want me to get rid of my weapons before entering the park?”
Emma beamed at him. “Well, you might not use them at all. We like to think the best of people. But his gun,” she pointed accusingly at D-45, “is a Richards 203H model shoulder mounted plasma cannon. It could clear a swath a meter wide and a hundred meters long. And the backwash might kill more people right around him. That would make just too much of a mess. Uncle Oscar wouldn’t like that.”
Daivid’s eyebrows went up.
“I think the space service could take some lessons in security from your Uncle Oscar. Take me to him.”
“All right,” Emma said, taking his hand again. “Come with me.”
They followed their little guide up the center street of Anyville. Though seldom featured in the many broadcasts and specials that originated from Wingle World, Anyville was the heart of the park. It had been the first part constructed by Oscar Wingle the first, to give settlers on this world so distant from Terra a taste of home, though it was a home that no one living, even at that time, had ever seen. The cosy, warmly-colored buildings with their gingerbread cutouts lining the gables of the peaked roofs betokened a well-established, warm, peaceful town that stretched far back into humanity’s origins. It seemed to strike a chord with other species a
s well. The sound coming over the open helmet channel from Ewanowski made it sound like the big semicat was purring.
Underfoot, the red-brown cobblestones made for unsteady walking, but Daivid could see how they were calculated to make one stroll leisurely up the lane, instead of striding briskly and going past the attractions and, more importantly, the gift shops too quickly. Hoverchairs were available for small children and the handicapped, obviating the need for personal vehicles that ran on wheels or rollers.
The shop windows were empty, and the showrooms behind them were dark, but the street was exactly as Daivid remembered it. As if he had never left, he recalled every single detail of his previous visit to Wingle World. He looked around, summoning up memories of parades full of colorful floats, loud music, and the faces of rapt children looking up at the familiar characters who waved and joked with the spectators. If he glanced up he could see the big façade on the upper level of City Hall that featured Bunny Hug, the famous spokes … rabbit, looking down at them, the huge blue eyes in the pink and white face. When he was a little boy it made him feel safe and loved. Now, it was …
“Creepy,” stated Meyers, interrupting his thoughts. “Look at that thing looming over you. Makes me think of the CO.”
“Yeah. Same blank expression,” said D-45, with a boyish grin.
“Why aren’t there any people here?” Daivid asked their escort, who towed him along firmly, refusing to let him pause to glance at any of the rides. They passed an interactive map that displayed every attraction in the park, scrolling the list so that every one of the thousand-plus items could be seen. As Daivid drew within a meter of the standard, it called out to him in a comforting female voice. “Hello. What is your name? May I suggest some things you would enjoy seeing, based upon your age and interests?”
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