A Phule and His Money

by Robert Asprin

  Journal #387

  My employer's attitude toward the current government of Landoor had taken on a degree of skepticism. Despite his professed desire to help rebuild the planet, they were clearly reluctant to provide him with much useful information concerning their plans to develop a tourist industry-in which they claimed to put great stock. And they told him they did not want him investing his money in the Landoor Park project.

  His suspicion of the government was only heightened by Boris Eastman's clumsy attempt to portray the shots fired at him at the spaceport as grounds to undertake operations against the rebels. However, I suspect that being balked in his desire to invest in the project made him decide to find out exactly what was going on in Landoor Park. When the usual interplanetary databases turned up no useful information, he decided to do his own research-right on the ground.

  "What are we looking for, anyway, Soosh?" Do-Wop asked. He and his partner were in a former industrial quarter of Landoor City, dressed in civilian clothes. Except for the two legionnaires, the trash-filled streets were almost deserted. The few pedestrians they did encounter crossed the street or ducked into alleyways, seeking to avoid notice. It seemed clear that few honest citizens had business here, nowadays.

  "The captain isn't sure," said Sushi, peering through the links of a rusting fence that bore a sign reading, FUTURE SITE OF LANDOOR PARK. The factory wall inside bore enigmatic graffiti, above a small pile of broken liquor bottles. A tall plant bearing bright blue flowers sprang from a patch of weeds. Nothing of apparent value was visible.

  "Oh, great," said Do-Wop. "So he sends us out to the ugliest chunk of landscape I've seen since the swamps back on Haskin's Planet, and tells us to look around for somethin' he ain't sure about. How do we know when we find it.

  "Use your brains," said Sushi. "I know you've got some. The captain says the government here has some sort of secret project going on-he isn't sure what, but apparently they've put a lot of their resources into it. Something like that ought to be big enough to notice. Especially in this part of town-I don't think anybody could build a hotdog stand here without it sticking out like a sore thumb."

  Do-Wop frowned. "If it's that easy to spot, you'd think he could see it from the hotel roof as well as we can down here. Maybe better, with those high-powered glasses of his."

  Sushi shrugged. "I know for a fact he's been up there looking, but it's not really high enough. I'd be surprised if he hasn't sent out a few spy-bots, as well. I guess he wants to get the grunt's-eye view. If he thinks we can give him something useful, I say we do our best to come up with something."

  "OK, I guess you got a point, there," said Do-Wop. He kicked a fragment of shattered brick that must have fallen from a nearby building. "All I know is, whatever the captain's after, it ain't out here."

  "Well, not anywhere we've been so far, anyway," Sushi agreed. "We've got plenty of time left, though. Let's go see what's down the street. Maybe there'll be a bar open, and a few local pigeons we can lure into a little game of chance, and ask them to tell us about secret government projects while we take their money."

  "Dream on, dude," said Do-Wop. "We've got about as much chance of that as we do of finding a couple kilos of loose diamonds on the corner...Hey, what's that noise?"

  Sushi stopped and listened. A muffled rhythmic pounding was coming from somewhere in the distance; the timbre of the sound suggested a heavy hammer striking a thick wooden block. He grinned and said, "I don't know what it is, but I think we just found something worth a closer look. Which way do you think it is?"

  "Ahead and to the right," said Do-Wop. "Let's go check it out, then."

  They walked along the street between rubble-strewn vacant lots and decaying buildings, the sound gradually becoming louder. "It's a mechanical sound-maybe a pile driver," said Sushi.

  "Or a really big guy with a sledgehammer," said Do-Wop, feigning worry. "Don't wanna mess with him."

  "Hey, he'd better not mess with us," said Sushi, laughing. "Not only are we the best company in the Legion, I'm the number one man in the local Yakuza family."

  "Oh, yeah, I almost forgot," said Do-Wop. "In that case, you go first."

  Sushi punched him in the biceps. "Right, tiger. Odds are, we're going to find some local kids building a clubhouse. The only thing to worry about is them mobbing us for candy and handouts."

  "Yo, man, I grew up in a neighborhood a lot like this," said Do-Wop, his eyes shifting from side to side. "Had me a vibroblade when I was eight years old, and a zapper before I was shavin'. Any kids around here, you and me could be in real trouble if they mob us."

  "Yeah, but we have two advantages on them, Do-Wop."

  "What's that, Soosh?"

  "First, you've learned fifteen years worth of dirty tricks that no kid could possibly know. And second, I've got a whole bag full of tricks you haven't even learned yet."

  Do-Wop nodded. "Hey, that's cool, man. But there's still one thing has me worried."

  "OK, I'll bite. What's that?"

  "What if it ain't kids?"

  Sushi grinned. "In that case, they're the ones who'd better be worried. Come on, let's go." They walked together toward the pounding noise.

  Phule and Brandy sat at a poolside table in the Landoor Plaza, enjoying the sun while reviewing the new recruits' progress. They were by now far enough along in their training to perform most of the company's regular jobs, and Phule wanted to integrate them into the unit as broadly as possible.

  The question was whether to pair some of the new troops with more experienced members of the company, or to leave existing partnerships intact. Brandy argued for keeping things as they were, while Phule favored creative tinkering. By now, the discussion had boiled down to individual cases. Both agreed that certain pairings ought to be considered untouchable: Tusk-anini and Super Gnat were the prime example. But what about Sushi and Do-Wop?

  "I put them together because I thought they'd both learn something," said Phule. "Do-Wop was too impulsive for his own good, or anybody else's-he'd steal anything that wasn't nailed down. And Sushi was way too calculating-a classic cold fish. But I'm afraid they've learned their lessons too well. If we put one of them with Mahatma, maybe that'll give them a better sense of ethics."

  "It'd turn Mahatma into a cynic," said Brandy. "Heaven help us if that happens. Leave 'em alone, I say. They're perfect together, Captain."

  "Too perfect," said Phule, shaking his head. "After that escapade the day we left Lorelei..."

  "Easy, Captain, here they come," said Brandy, looking across the pool. "Grinning from ear to ear, too."

  "Trouble, I bet," said Phule, He turned to look at the two arriving legionnaires. "All right, what have you two been up to?" he said, as they approached the table.

  "Doing our job, Captain," said Sushi. "We've been scouting the government park, and guess what we found?"

  "From the look of you, I'm not sure I want to know," said Phule. "But go ahead and report."

  "Aww, Captain, you really oughta trust us more," said Do-Wop. "We learned our lesson, no foolin'."

  "I don't think he wants to hear what we found," said Sushi, nudging Do-Wop. "He'll find out in a few months, anyway."

  "Yeah, I guess you're right. He can always go over and take a look for himself," said Do-Wop, winking.

  "I should have known better," moaned Phule. He looked the two grinning legionnaires in the eye and said, with all the sincerity he could muster, "I apologize for any aspersions cast on your character, and humbly request your report."

  "Does that mean what I think it does?" said Do-Wop, looking at Sushi. "Are we out of the doghouse?"

  "Sounds like it to me," said Sushi. He came to attention. "Sir, we wish to report our observations in the area we were dispatched to scout. We set out from the hotel entrance at thirteen hundred hours, on a bearing of..."

  "OK, you clowns, enough is enough!" Brandy barked. "Now, what did you find?"

  "Top don't want us to have any fun at all," muttered Do-Wop. "
See if I reenlist in this outfit..."

  "Keep it up, and you'll find out what my idea of fun is," said Brandy, in a menacing tone. "Spill it!"

  "Well, if you both insist," said Sushi, with an offended expression that might have been convincing if he hadn't then broken into a grin and said. "We found roller coasters."

  "A roller coaster?" said Brandy and Phule, almost in unison.

  "Roller coasters," Sushi corrected. "At least three of 'em, all different designs."

  Phule's jaw hung open. "Are you sure?"

  "Sure as a rigged election," said Do-Wop.

  "Go look for yourself," said Sushi, shrugging. "If you can think of anything else those babies could be, I'll be glad to listen, They're still under construction, but if they aren't roller coasters, I've never seen one. Anyhow, here are the map coordinates, best we could figure them out-we had to look over the fence from the roof of a condemned factory building."

  "Roller coasters," repeated Brandy. "I don't get it."

  "I do," said Phule. "Now I know the government's plan to turn around the local economy. It should have been obvious! They're going to build a giant theme park!"

  "If it's so obvious, why the secrecy?" said Brandy, frowning. "You'd think they'd want the whole galaxy to know about it."

  "Yes, you'd think so," said Phule. "The only answer I can think of is fear that somebody will find out about the idea and steal it. The government here is very suspicious of off-planet influences. They aren't used to thinking of outsiders as a source of help. Well, we're going to have to change that."

  "Sure," said Brandy. "But how?"

  "I'll tell you when I figure it out," said Phule.

  13

  Journal #393

  The discovery that the government's secret project was a gigantic theme park answered a number of questions. Now we knew their strategy for bringing in off-world visitors: to make Landoor the amusement park and thrill-ride capital of the galaxy. The idea had its merits; with unmatched beaches, equable climate, and exotic scenery, the planet already had the makings of a tourist mecca. Supplementing these natural assets with the ultimate in technological excitement was a sound strategy, and one suited to the Landooran temperament.

  Unfortunately, the government was laboring under several disadvantages. The recent war, combined with exaggerated reports of rebel activities, had made tourists distinctly leery of making the world a vacation destination. An aggressive publicity campaign could undoubtedly have overcome this, but the government had made almost no efforts in this direction. My employer, who well understood the power of positive publicity, found this inexplicable until a chance conversation put things into perspective.

  "Wake up, honey-bun." Mother's voice came over the comm system, startling Phule. He hadn't been asleep, but he had been in a deep study about what his most recent intelligence reports meant. "We've got a local to see you," she said.

  "Anybody we know?"

  "Says his name is Okidata, and claims to know Super-Gnat and Qual," said Mother. "Just a young kid-I bet he'd like to know Gnat better. Says he's interested in joining the Legion."

  "Suddenly I'm a recruiting officer, on top of everything else," muttered Phule, thinking of Laverna. For a moment he considered passing the kid on to someone with more time. On second thought, it might be refreshing to talk to someone outside the usual circle. Perhaps this local kid could give him insight for the company's mission here. "Send him in," he said.

  Okidata was dressed in what, from Phule's limited contact with local civilians, seemed to be job interview clothes. He shook hands somewhat nervously and sat down in the seat Phule indicated. "I met some of your soldiers at the beach," he said. "I told them jobs were scarce around here, and they suggested I think about joining up. I don't know if they were serious, but jobs aren't getting any easier to find. So I'm here to find out what the Legion's about."

  "Well, I can probably answer some of your questions," said Phule. "But maybe you'd do better by telling me what kind of job you're looking for, and I can tell you whether there's anything like it in the Legion."

  "I used to be a roller coaster mechanic..." Okidata said. "When I lost my job, I applied to the new government park, but they turned me down because my cousin's out with the rebels. I guess I'm open to suggestions."

  "Really?" said Phule, like a hungry dog jumping on an unguarded sirloin. "Suppose I show you a picture and you tell me what you make of it."

  In the next fifteen minutes, Phule learned more about roller coasters and other thrill rides than he'd learned in his entire lifetime, and Okidata was still warming to his subject. Judging from the spy holos, the government park was erecting a sort of culmination of existing roller coaster design-an ultraride. "Unless you're totally wrong about the scale, that's gonna be the best ride on the planet," said Okidata, shaking his head appreciatively. "That first drop has to be ten meters higher than the Kingsnake, over in Dressage Park. Those cars will be hitting some crazy speeds-and look at those corkscrew loops! Everybody's gonna want to ride that baby."

  "There's a problem with that, though," said Phule. "From what you tell me, this planet is close to fanatical about thrill rides and amusement parks. Am I right?"

  "I guess so," said Okidata. "I've never been off-world, so that's hard to judge. We sure like 'em a lot, though." He turned his eyes longingly back toward the holo of the new government roller coaster.

  Phule put both elbows on his desk and his chin on his folded hands. "OK, so the government has a master plan to build the biggest theme park in the planet's history-maybe the biggest in the galaxy. A circus big enough to make up for the shortage of bread. But they're keeping absolutely mum about it. You never heard of it, even though you applied for a job there. And my men had to go out snooping to figure out what they were doing with that big chunk of vacant land. Why aren't they shouting it from the rooftops?"

  "Well, I sort of understand that," said Okidata. "We've got five or six ride parks, and they're all playing cutthroat against the others. Every time one of 'em has a new ride, they get more customers than the rest, until somebody tops it. So when word gets out they're building something new, all the others have spies, with hidden cameras and everything, trying to learn the secrets even before it opens. How steep is the main drop-off? How many flip-overs does it have? Are they using video enhancements? Sometimes, when a new ride opens, half the people in line are spies from the other parks, trying to figure out what they can steal for their own rides."

  "So the government is acting on the same principles as the private parks," said Phule. "They think in terms of a limited customer pool, when the real game is drawing people from off-planet."

  "I never thought of that," said Okidata, scratching his head. "Makes some sense, though."

  "If you want to get people in from off-world, you need to tell them about it," said Phule, smacking his palm on the desk. "And if you get enough of them, you don't worry as much about the competition, because there's more business for everybody. The government's still playing by the old rules, but the game has changed. And maybe it's about to change some more..."

  "Looks to me like maybe you could use a guy with my background," ventured Okidata. He smiled.

  "I think you're right," said Phule, suddenly standing up. "Ask for an application in the outer office. I've got a job, and you're the man I want for it."

  "Does this mean you want me to join the Legion?" said Okidata, watching Phule, who abruptly began stuffing holos and printouts into a briefcase.

  Phule looked up at him. "Not yet, son-you'll be a civilian consultant. But I do have a job you're perfect for. Now, go fill out that application-things are about to get exciting around here, and we need you on board!"

  Journal #405

  To date, the rebels remained an unknown factor in our picture of Landoor. The legion troops were here, in theory, as much to protect their interests as the government's. But with the possible exception of the shots fired at my employer upon our landing-and there was much
room for doubt about that incident-we had seen nothing of them. This did not sit well with my employer, and I knew that he would eventually decide to remedy the situation by meeting them face to face. Discovering the true nature of Landoor Park gave him the incentive he had lacked.

  Needless to say, I considered this an overoptimistic approach to the problem. Not that I had any reason to believe that my employer would pay any attention to my doubts...

  "So here's what they're building," said Phule. Once he knew exactly what to look for, it had been a simple matter to drop a few handfuls of tiny robot cameras in the proper vicinity. Government counter-bots had hunted them down and eliminated them, but not before they'd returned enough holointelligence to give Phule a clear picture of the government's gigantic roller coaster.

  "It is quite a surprise, sir," said Beeker, looking over his employer's shoulder. "A rather quixotic undertaking, if you want my opinion."

  "But brilliant, in its way," said Phule, leaning back in his chair. "If anything could attract enough money from off-world to revitalize this planet, a theme park is exactly the ticket. Why, it must be the biggest thing of its kind I've ever seen."

  "You would be a better judge of that than I, sir," said Beeker. The butler was obviously not as impressed as his employer. "It strikes me as imprudent in the extreme to invest all their capital in this single project. And as you discovered, they are not interested in off-world investors."

  "Well, at least not if the investor is me," said Phule. "It's too bad-the one lesson they've learned from their history is not to let off-world money control their economy. As a result, they've put all their eggs in one very precarious basket."

  "The time-tested road to ruin," said Beeker, solemnly. "If this project fails..." He let the sentence trail off.

  Phule finished it for him, "If it fails, they're wiped out." He leaned forward and pointed to the pictures. "The devil of it is, this isn't at all a bad idea, in and of itself. It's almost enough to do the job they want it to do. Almost..." A dreamy look came over his face.