“But they are disturbed,” the woman pointed out. “You’re worrying people by being here. Mothers are too nervous to let their children play outside!”
“I apologize, ma’am,” Daivid said politely, “but we are on a mission. And, I have to point out, our ship has left us behind. We can’t depart at present, so I regret to say you’ll have to put up with us.”
“The most important problem,” the florid-faced man burst out, “is that you are not permitted to camp in unauthorized locations. Such as the refuse area behind Wingle World. It is illegal. It is not allowed.”
“I see,” Daivid said, with an agreeable smile. “Very well, we don’t want to break the law. Direct me to an authorized campground. Nearby is preferable. We have orders to remain close to … Wingle World.”
The dark-eyebrowed man waffled. “Er, no can do, Lieutenant. They’re all closed for the season.”
“Then where can we go? I am afraid we must stay within the town limits.”
“I’m sorry, sir. We really don’t have provisions for out-of-season guests. You could try one of the wilderness areas outside of the province,” the woman suggested hopefully.
“No can do,” Wolfe echoed. “I’ve got to keep within view of the park, at least within reach of it, for the duration. My orders. I can’t say more than that. We are here for the common defense. Can’t something be worked out?”
The red-faced man sputtered, “I’m afraid not, lieutenant. This is a peace-loving world. We have no standing army. If it were known we let a military unit camp on the very doorstep of our most important landmark … well, it would invite repercussions. Other military groups might demand a presence. Our peaceful ambience would be ruined!”
This was true. Borden had reminded him that they didn’t have a standing army of any kind. Once in a great while a Dudleyite would join up in the space service to serve the Confederation, but they had no force of their own. Don’t have an army, don’t invite invasion. That was their philosophy.
“I am very sorry to inform you that if you don’t move your force from the refuse area, which is on city property, we will have to …” His voice died away on a mumble.
“What?” Daivid asked, leaning closer.
“Arrest you.”
For the first time Daivid noticed that though the temperature was below freezing, no vapor was coming from the councillors’ mouths. He no longer felt cold, and he was sure they could see steam starting to come out of his ears.
“Arrest us? We are members of the TWC armed forces, whose duty it is to protect you and your townsfolk,” Daivid said, sternly. “I could have you arrested, and tried by a military court! I could demand under Section 7C, subsection 49PWN of the Confederation constitution that you give us such aid and assistance that we require, and that might include housing and feeding for twenty-three for an indefinite period. You’re not human beings, or rather, what is here in front of me isn’t. You don’t even have the courage to come and evict us in person. Did you think that I would attack galactic citizens for giving me an honest quotation of the local laws? I must tell you I am very unimpressed by Welcome hospitality. You wouldn’t want me to give my opinion to a public poll on courtesy and hospitality on one of the galaxy’s most famous vacation spots, would you?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow at them.
The puppets did not react. He didn’t expect them to. After a moment, during which he estimated that the operators were conferring together, probably in their little room under the floor or wherever, the black-eyebrowed man spoke.
“We can let you have three days to find another accommodation, then we must act. Our people are demanding it, lieutenant. Please understand we have to have their best interests in mind. This is not a personal attack on you. Welcomers are not accustomed to seeing billeted soldiers under their noses. It unnerves them.”
Daivid was beginning to feel desperate himself. “I sympathize with you, councillors, but we have to live somewhere.”
“You have a ship,” the big man pointed out. “Can’t you stay in orbit until you have to do what you came to do?”
“It’s a short-hop transport, sir,” Wolfe said. “See here, if there are no campgrounds available, can you give me the addresses of hostels, guest houses, or hotels in town that are open this month?
The woman smiled with relief. “Yes, of course.” She produced an infopad, called up a list, and held it out to him. He touched the dataport of his pad to hers, and noted the transfer. It was very rapid transfer, indicating that the list was short.
“We’ll do our best,” Wolfe assured the puppets.
“By the way,” the florid-faced man said, with a hint of a smile. “There is no subsection 49PWN. I just looked it up. You’re right: we should be more understanding of your situation. Sergeant Rivera brought me up to date. But we have to uphold the law. This month of the year it doesn’t matter as much, since no one comes here, but during season if we made an exception and let anyone camp in an unauthorized location, and word got out, very soon the streets would be littered with campers. It would become nightmarish for the park and the town.”
“That’s true,” Daivid agreed. “However, we’re not merely an exception. We are your armed forces.” But the simulacra were finished listening. They turned and began to walk away.
“Three days,” the black-eyebrowed man said imperturbably, over his shoulder, not letting Daivid get a last word in.
Daivid had to hand it to the Welcomers: they made their simulacra move exactly like human beings. Very impressive. It would fool a lot of people. Small wonder they were reluctant to meet him in person. They had left him with a knotty problem he didn’t really know how to solve. He didn’t know if he would feel comfortable having a wild group of troopers on his front doorstep, if he didn’t know them.
The troopers! He turned back to the melee in progress.
“Hey, lieutenant!” Boland yelled. He was sitting on top of four other people, as Streb climbed over his head to claim the now empty platform. “Are you ever going to blow that whistle?”
***
Chapter 16
The communications officer routed the cheerful soprano voice so that it could be heard all through the Dilestro’s bridge. A sweet-faced human woman with large brown eyes and long, soft sable hair piled on her head in a complicated hairstyle looked out at them from the screen. Behind her was the image of a vast complex of oddly shaped buildings, with a huge pink rabbit superimposed over it, waving happily.
“We are so sorry to have missed you!” she said warmly. “Wingle World is closed for the season. We look forward to welcoming you in only …” A perceptible pause followed, as the woman’s face froze in a smile. “… Sixteen days! Please come back then. Here is an upload of all the attractions that will be waiting for you here at Wingle World!” A small icon shaped like a star appeared in the upper right hand corner of the screen, and the rabbit pointed to it.
“That’s Bunny Hug,” one of the human crew members whispered to the itterim next to him.
“I know,” the green crewbeing chittered back. “I have loved him since I was a hatchling.”
Ayala ignored them. “Where is he?” he demanded of the cheerful woman. “I need Oscar Wingle. I want to speak with him. Put me through!”
The woman’s mouth opened, and her eyes looked kindly into Ayala’s. “We are so sorry to have missed you! Wingle World is closed.…”
“She is a recording,” Oostern commented.
“I guessed that! Find me a living being who can lead us to Oscar Wingle!” Ayala slammed his hand down on the rail that separated his seat from the navigation bay. “Find him! Send a shuttle to Wingle World and get him. I want that chip!”
O O O
Though it was still mid-afternoon, the sky had darkened to smoky gray, and snow started falling in heavy clumps. The sentries were coming in crusted with snow to a depth of five centimeters or more. Meyers trudged in behind Vacarole, who had just been relieved by Haalten.
“I’m s
orry, sir,” she said, as she took off her clear helmet and brushed the snow off of it. “I’ve been to every single hostelry on the list, and a few I found on my own on the local communication channels, and not one of them is willing to host us.”
“You told them we’re here on official business,” Wolfe said. It wasn’t really a question. Meyers was intelligent, and would have used every means to reason with the owners. He was becoming worried. So much for Harawe’s insistence that he keep a low profile and not attract notice. Everyone in Dudley must know by now that they were there.
She nodded. “I told all of them we could get by on thirteen rooms, or even eight in a pinch, but I guess word has spread. Most of them are short on staff: everyone is on vacation, either off-planet or taking it easy. The ones that are open don’t want troopers. What are we going to do?”
Full of nervous energy Daivid flung himself up out of his chair and went over to change from his fatigues into his dark blue light armor.
“I’m going to talk to them myself,” he said, as he shoved one leg into the trousers. “No offense to you, Meyers. I have to try. I just want to see if a second time asking makes any difference.”
O O O
“No!” snapped the rosy-cheeked little old woman who answered the door of the Friendly Welcome Inn. She punched the control to close it in Wolfe’s face. He jumped back just before it slid shut on his foot. Not that it would have hurt him, but if he broke the mechanism it would be one more point against them in the eyes of the city council. This was the fifth refusal out of five. Some of them had not even bothered to open the door. He tilted his head to Borden, Meyers, and Adri’Leta, who followed him down the walk to Harawe’s flitter, where Boland sat at the controls.
“I told you it’d come in handy,” he had informed Wolfe unabashedly, when it had become obvious that the only other vehicles they had were scout tanks. Against his better judgement, the lieutenant had realized that they needed to use the white car to avoid enraging the townsfolk further.
“Sorry, can’t help you,” said the cheerful-looking man who met them outside the Wonder Inn Fly-In-Fly-Out Motel. “Would you excuse me? I was just going to, er … I was just going!” As Daivid and Borden watched in amazement, he dashed down the walk, heedless of the snow, and ran across the way into the heavily wooded yard opposite.
“That leaves only Wingle Deluxe,” Daivid said, checking off Wonder Inn on the meager list.
“That’s the grand hotel adjacent to the park,” Meyers said. “It would be the ideal choice, sir, but I bet it’s hundreds of credits a night per person, even if the proprietor hadn’t hustled me out the door so fast I just barely had time to grab a brochure.”
She offered the chip to Wolfe, who applied it to his infopad. “It’s got everything: water park, game room, casino, entertainment, petting zoo, holosuite, all closed during off-season, of course, but it’s a lovely place.”
“We can’t get our hopes up,” Wolfe said, glumly. “Most likely we’re going to end up in the mountains, spying on Wingle through distance scopes.”
O O O
Nuthang Codwall III agreed to see Wolfe and his party, but made it clear his time was precious, and he resented the small amount he had earmarked for them.
“You can see that the hotel is closed, Lieutenant Wolfe,” Codwall said, tapping his fingertips together behind his desk. It was made of a gorgeous, exotic red wood banded with gold and black that went perfectly with the rest of the décor in the lushly appointed office. He gestured Wolfe to a gold-leafed, upholstered armchair that only appeared to be an antique. When Wolfe sat down in it, the foam molded itself around his back, seat, and thighs for maximum comfort. His escort seated itself at the hotelier’s insistence on a pair of priceless matching couches of rich, dark wood and gold damask cushioning that didn’t even squeak under the weight of the troopers’ light armor. “I am sorry, but I really can’t help you. No one is here to help me. They are all on hiatus until just before the park reopens. You have to allow us our brief period of rest. We deal with tourists all the year round.”
“Why didn’t you go on vacation, then, Mr. Codwall?” Boland asked, curiously.
Codwall pursed his lips. He was a small man with a very round head, across which two finger-thick strands of gray hair stretched from ear to ear. “When you do deal with tourists, chief, the very best vacation you can have is not to have to face other people. I often go wilderness camping this year, but even I could not get a reservation. Me! Nuthang Codwall! But,” he sighed, “first come, first served. That’s Wingle World’s motto, too, you know.”
“This hotel sleeps over six thousand people,” Wolfe offered persuasively, though he was beginning to feel hopeless. “All we wish to do is occupy a very tiny percentage of these rooms. We’ll keep them clean on our own. We will take care of our own meals.”
He heard Adri’Leta and Meyers groan behind him.
“Three hundred credits a night per person in season,” Codwall said, matter-of-factly. “This is the finest hotel in Welcome. You can actually enter the park from our rear door! Can you pay that much? I might consider it for our usual rates. Minus ten percent for the military, of course.”
“We could pay that for about two nights each,” Adri’Leta said. “Mr. Codwall, dey want us off de street. We have nowhere we can go. We’ve been sleeping in de snow. Right now we’re jammed into a shuttle dat is inadequate as living quarters for dis many people.”
“That, my dear lady, is not my problem. Codwall has his own problems, but does anyone care? No, I’m afraid you have to leave now.”
Very reluctantly and entirely of its own volition, Wolfe felt his hand reaching into his uniform tunic. Nuthang Codwall was such an unusual name, and yet he thought that he had heard it somewhere before, fairly recently, at least within the last couple of years. He was fairly certain he had never met the man. He was good with faces, and Codwall was a stranger. So, the only source he could conceive of was the little card given him by his father. He detached the small database with a small but painful tug, brought it up to his eye, and touched his thumb to the panel. When he took it down he saw the astonished looks on the faces of his troopers. He ignored them as he scrolled through the list of thousands of names, looking for surnames beginning with C.
“I believe you are wrong, Mr. Codwall,” Wolfe said slowly, with confidence he did not feel comfortable exuding. “We are not leaving. We’ll stay here until we are finished with our mission. We’ll require twenty-three rooms. And meals. Complimentary, of course. We’d appreciate the use of your fitness center during the day. There might be a few other little things, but I’ll think of them later, as soon as I’ve had a chance to confer with my officers. We’re staying.”
“The black hole you are,” Codwall snarled, turning to him, his little round face turning red.
Wolfe sighed. He felt as though he was taking an inexorable step toward a black hole he had managed to avoid all his life, but he had no choice. The town councillors had left him with none, and this recalcitrant man with the strange name had pushed him to do something he had never, ever wanted to do.
“Yes, we are,” Wolfe insisted. He turned the little card so Codwall could see it. “You owe my father a class 5 favor.”
“Wolfe,” Codwall said faintly, falling back in his chair. His face had drained from red to gray in one second flat. “You’re one of those Wolfes? I mean, that one? He’s your father?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Oh.” With both hands pressed against the top of his lovely desk Codwall rose, as if a string was pulling him from the top of his head. His complexion rippled, as though it couldn’t decide whether to be pale or red. His face dropped, bowing to the inexorable. “Then … I suppose you are staying. Er. Welcome to the Wingle Deluxe?”
“Hey!” Boland said heartily, wrapping his arm around the nervous hotelier. “Say it like you mean it! That’s customer service!”
O O O
“Freedom One calling Dilestro,” the sh
uttle pilot called.
“Well?” Ayala asked impatiently.
“We have scanned the entire park twice. There are no signs of life anywhere in the complex, not even vermin. This place is sanitary.”
“I am not doing surgery there, I want to find the inventor. Did you locate his whereabouts?”
“No, sir. The place is empty. I even set down, in case my sensors were being thrown off by stray emissions from the broadcast system or the power complex. The only thing that came to life were the alarms.”
Ayala swore. “Were you seen?”
“Maybe, since we were accosted by a mechanical sentry on wheels, but we took off very swiftly. Nothing pursued us, sir.”
“Come back,” Ayala ordered. He turned away from the screen. “If he is not there, then we must locate where he goes in the off season. There must be something in the news archives. Access them. A man that famous does not disappear like a shadow.”
Ayala waited impatiently as Oostern scrolled through the communications net database.
“All the news reports say that Wingle never goes off planet,” the itterim said. “I have heard this myself.”
“So he must be on Dudley somewhere. Where would he go in the off season?”
The communications officer clacked her mandibles nervously. “His home?” she suggested. Both the senior officers turned to stare at her.
“It has a listed address,” she said, pointing to her screen.
O O O
“Cushy!” Jones said, throwing himself onto the big bed in his room. He hailed Lin as she passed his open door carrying her duffle. He brandished one of the six pillows at her. “And did you look at the baths? Positively senatorial!”
“Mine has yellow marble tubs,” she said, grinning widely. “Two! And the mattresses give pressure-point massages. Boland, I’m in 2366.”
“I’m in 2368,” Boland’s voice came back. “You have got to see the number of channels on the crystal screens!”
Strong Arm Tactics Page 29
