No Phule Like An Old Phule (4 page)

“I’ll be the judge of that, thank you,” said Victor Phule, displaying no emotion. “From what I’ve seen so far, the boy hasn’t entirely lost his head for business. But the devil is in the details, as you gentlemen know. And I’m going to withhold judgment until I’ve had a look at your books and your operations.”

“Can he do that?” asked Gunther Rafael, turning to Bascomb. He had a perpetually nervous look, as if he expected to be called on the carpet.

“Technically, probably not,” said Bascomb. He held up a hand to forestall Phule’s protest “But I’d be a damned fool if I didn’t let him satisfy himself that the place is on a sound footing. Unless the captain explicitly forbids it, that is. Mr. Phule carries a lot of weight around here, but as far as I’m concerned, the captain carries more. No offense, Mr. Phule, but he’s the man who put me in this job.”

“I appreciate your loyalty to my son,” said Victor Phule.

“But loyalty only goes so far, Bascomb. I’ve done business with the military long enough to know how much it values loyalty. That’s all well and good but where I disagree with it is when it elevates loyalty over competence. If a man can’t do the job, I want another man in that job before the first one costs me more money than his loyalty is worth. Do you understand me?”

“I understand you, Mr. Phule,” said Bascomb, with a shrug. “Maybe I wouldn’t be so quick to put a price on loyalty, but I agree with you on competence. I don’t think I’m flattering myself to say that your son hired me because I’ve shown a fair bit of competence in the casino business. Now, would it be convenient for you to look over those books after lunch? While you’re eating—on the house, of course, we can set up one of the executive offices for you to use.”

“Bring me the books now,” said Phule, brusquely. “I want to see both sets-the real ones, and the phony ones you use for the tax auditors. And I’ll work at the desk my son uses when he’s here. I don’t expect there’s anybody else who needs that particular space.”

“I’ll need you to excuse me a minute for that,” said Bascomb, standing up. “I’ll send in a waiter to take your drink order…”

“Forget the waiter,” snapped Phule. “Just bring me the books. And it better not be too long.”

“It’ll take as long as it takes,” growled Bascomb. He turned on his heel and marched out of the room.

Twenty minutes later Bascomb returned, with a determined expression on his face. Without saying a word, he unlocked a file drawer, removed a pair of memory modules, and handed them to Victor Phule.

“These have both sets of books on them,” he said. “I guess you’ll want to use your own computer, but we can give you one to use if you’d like.”

“I’ll let you know,” said the elder Phule, brusquely. “Now, have that impostor clear off the desk and get out of my way. I want to get to work.”

“Aw right, smarty, so what’s the plan now?” Ernie grumbled. Their unwanted visitors had left, but he’d had to wait until Lola managed to find a tool strong enough to cut the plasteel tape Mr. V’s muscle man had used to confine him before he could get out of the chair they'd put him in. He still had sticky patches on his arms from where the tape had held them. Touching them made him shudder. He didn’t even want to think about what might have happened.

She shrugged. “We go back to Lorelei, of course,” she said. “That’s our only choice.”

“And when we get there?” She shrugged again. “I’ll figure something out”

“You’ll figure something out?” Ernie’s voice rose an octave. “You bet you will! You’re the one who got us in this whole farkin‘ mess to begin with!”

“I seem to remember you agreeing to taking the job way back when it was first offered,” said Lola. “In fact, you were pretty gung ho about it”

Ernie scoffed. “Yeah, that’s before we tried snatching that damn robot, which had us both fooled into thinking it was Phule. Then, when we try to smuggle it off-planet, it manages to steal a lifeboat off a space liner and bail out right in the middle of hyperspace. I don’t think I’ll ever figure that one out. We might as well forget about snatching that punk.”

“Great idea,” said Lola. “Except that Mr. V and his clients aren’t going to let us forget it. At least, not until we show them enough of an effort to convince them we’re playing the game their way. If there’s some way for us to bail out when things get sticky, I’ll find it Don’t you worry.”

Ernie’s eyes bulged out. “Don’t me worry?” he growled. “Next time, see how you like sitting there with ten yards of plasteel tape holding you to tile chair, and an ugly guy with a beamer aimed up your nostrils. I’ve been there, and I don’t like it worth an unplugged virt.”

“Oh, come on,” said Lola grinning mischievously. “You look really cute when you’re helpless, you know?”

“Gee, thanks,” said Ernie. He thought a moment, frowning, before he continued. “Does this mean…”

“Forget about it,” said Lola in a tone that left no room for doubt. “Right now, my main priority is keeping my skin intact. Which means getting a ticket on the next space liner headed back to Lorelei.”

“That’s going to cost us an arm and a leg,” grumbled Ernie.

Lola fixed him with an exasperated stare. “And what do you think it’ll cost us not to go back?”

“I know, I know,” said Ernie. “We’ve gotta look as if we’re gonna try to finish the job. But what if we can’t, anyway? We’ll be out all that money, and running for our lives to boot. If we’re gonna spend the rest of bur lives running, what’s the point of blowing all our money right from the git-go? Worse, what’s the point of spending it to get someplace where the guys who’re trying to do us in are running the show?”

“If they were really running the show on Lorelei, they wouldn’t have to bring us in to snatch Phule.” said Lola.

“Hey, they might even have figured out that Phule’s got a robot there to impersonate him. That little fact could be worth a nice bundle, all by itself.” Ernie frowned again. “Why didn’t you think of that when those bastards were getting ready to work me over?”

“It wasn’t the right time to play that card,” said Lola, calmly. “Those guys didn’t come here looking for information, so why should we give it to them? We have to hang on to it until we can trade it for something we want.”

“Yeah, huh?” said Ernie. “Next time the big guys have you tied up with plasteel, ready to slice and dice and barbecue, I can guarantee you, you’ll have a damn good idea what you want.”

“Ernie, Ernie,” said Lola, shaking her head. “I got us out of that little fix, didn’t I? If we keep obsessing about every little setback, we’ll never make any progress toward our long-range goals. You understand that, don’t you?”

“My longest-range goal is to keep on breathing,” said Ernie. “It ain’t such a bad idea to avoid unnecessary pain, either. Come to think of it, there’s no such thing as necessary pain, in my book.”

“Well, we’ll do what we can to avoid pain,” said Lola.

“But the best way to ensure that, right about now, is to get ourselves on a starship headed for Lorelei. So give me your credit chip, and I’ll get busy on that-and once we’re on the way, we’ll have plenty of time to work out the next steps.”

“All right,” said Ernie, reaching for his wallet. “But this better be good.”

“Don’t worry,” said Lola, brightly. “I expect everything to work out perfectly this time.” Her smile as she took his credit chip was almost sincere enough to convince him.

Sergeant Mayhem’s eyes bulged out in disbelief. He’d been assigned as the Space Legion recruiting officer on Teloon for close to fifteen years ever since he’d managed to pyramid a minor injury sustained during the Stoddard’s World police action into a cushy desk job far from any chance of action. Little had he realized just how far he was going to be from the action. In his entire time on Teloon, he’d averaged less than one recruit a year-on a planet with a population pushing the three billion mark!

He still didn’t understand how the Legion could afford to keep him here. Probably some clerk had figured out that letting him retire, paying his pension (a hefty sum considering his years in service), giving him passage to a world of his choice, and shipping a replacement out to Teloon would cost the Legion more than keeping him on the rolls. Assuming they were ever going to replace him-given his results over the years, it hardly seemed worth the Legion’s while.

But sure enough, here sat one of the planet’s natives on the other side of his desk, practically begging to enlist! It took all his will power to keep from drooling at the prospect. “Well, sonny, do you think you have what it takes to be a legionnaire?” he asked. The question blithely skimmed over the fact that all it really took to be a legionnaire was the ability to walk, stumble, or crawl into a recruiting station and do something-almost anything that could reasonably be interpreted as an effort to enlist.

The Legion was far from picky.

“I honestly don’t know, sir,” said the native. “All I can say is that I’ve been doing everything I possibly can to prepare myself. I’ve got excellent grades in school…”

“Good, very good,” said Sergeant Mayhem, nodding enthusiastically. He himself had left school as early as the law on his home planet allowed-at roughly age fourteen, if he remembered correctly. It had been a good while back.

His lack of education hadn’t hampered his Legion career, as far as he could tell. How smart did a guy have to be to carry a gun and dig ditches?

“And I think I’m in excellent physical condition,” the native continued. “I’ve played three varsity sports and, I’ve got belts in two different martial… ”

“Great,” said Mayhem. That made it slightly more likely that the recruit would complete basic Legion training which he needed to do if the recruiting officer was going to get his bonus for bringing in a live one.

Mayhem had lost the bonus on about a third of his recruits. He always hated it when that happened. But this one sounded as if he might actually make it through the not-too-rigorous Legion boot camp… as long as he didn’t mind being treated like dirt.

“You have any idea what you’re getting yourself in for?” he asked, somewhat reluctantly. He certainly didn’t want to scare the kid off, but the regulations required him to make it more or less clear that this wasn’t going to be any kind of picnic. “The Legion’s not for softies, you know,” he continued. “If the Alliance winds up in a war, it’s the Legion that’s going to get sent to fight it. You understand what that means, don’t you?”

“I understand, sir, and I’m ready,” said the native. “What do I have to do to join?”

“Read this paper and sign it,” said Mayhem. “You’ll take a copy home, and think about it for twenty-four hours. If you haven’t changed your mind by tomorrow, you’re in.”

“Yes, sir!” said the native. He practically bounced over the desk to grab the stylus out of Mayhem’s hands and quickly put his signature on the enlistment form, then handed the top copy back to the sergeant.

“Zigger,” said Mayhem, looking at the form. “Well, you’ll want to choose a Legion name before you report for training. You might start thinking about what name you want”

“Oh, I’ve thought about it a long time;” said Zigger. “I’ve already made up my mind…”

“Don’t tell me,” said Mayhem. “Once you join, nobody should know your civilian name. The pay computer will keep your records so everything is in order, but I can tell you for a fact that nobody in the Legion will look into it during your actual term of service. That way, you’ll be judged by what you do in the Legion uniform: not what you’ve done before or who your parents were.” The latter was a polite fiction. In fact, a lot of Legion officers were where they were because of who their parents were and how much they’d been willing to spend to put them in an officer’s uniform. But there was no point in telling this kid the hard facts of life. He’d figure them out soon enough, probably at the hand of a snotty Junior officer who’d spent most of his life ordering servants around and considered enlisted legionnaires one more variety of servant. Mayhem didn’t particularly care, as long as he’d cashed the recruitment bonus well before the kid learned what a rotten deal he’d signed up for. Whatever happened to the kid after that was the kid’s own lookout. Mayhem grinned, just thinking about the bonus, and the kid grinned back. Sucker, thought Mayhem. I wish I had a million more like you. But you’ll do. You’ll do just fine, for now.

“Hello, sweetie,” came Mother’s insinuating voice over the intercom in Phule’s office. “That cute Ambassador Gottesman is on the line, asking for you.”

“Great, put him through,” said Phule. He wondered what the Alliance’s ambassador was calling about this time. By now, Phule and his Legion company had established themselves as firm favorites with the Diplomatic branch. Their successful peacekeeping mission on Landoor, then their performance in the delicate position of establishing the first Alliance presence in Zenobia, had given State two comparatively easy victories in situations where a good deal had been at stake. But it was too soon for the authorities to be considering a new mission for the Omega Mob. And it was as sure a bet as anything in the galaxy that Gottesman was not spending State’s money on an interstellar voice call just to chat up his old friend.

Something interesting was undoubtedly on deck.

The light came on, on Phule’s desk, then the ambassador’s voice came through. “Hello, Captain Jester. I hope all’s well out your way,” said the ambassador.

“Coming along very smoothly, sir,” said Phule. “The Zenobians have pretty much accepted us as the logical go betweens in their attempts to establish relations with the Nanoids. And our talks with the Nanoids have progressed to the point where we can begin to address substantive issues.”

“Good, good,” said the ambassador. “State’s hoping to get a xenological team there to handle these negotiations on a more professional basis, but until one of the two native parties makes a formal request we can’t very well stick our nose in. Have you seen any sign that either side is likely to make such a request?”

“Nothing so far, sir,” said Phule. “But the Zenobians are still not convinced that the Nanoids aren’t off-planet intruders, and to be honest with you we can’t prove that, either. We’re moving along as best we can, but I can’t say there’s any sign of a major breakthrough yet.”