Werehunter (anthology)

Bachman’s World was entitled to a Reserve force; it was their right under the law to have an on-planet defense force supplied by the regular military. Just because Bachman’s World was back-of- beyond of nowhere, and even the most conservative of military planners thought their insistence on having such a force in place to be paranoid in the extreme, that did not negate their right to have it. Their charter was clear. The law was on their side.

Sending them a Reserve battalion would be expensive in the extreme, in terms of maintaining that battalion. The soldiers would be full-timers, on full pay. There was no base—it would have to be built. There was no equipment—that would all have to be imported.

That was when one solitary bean-counting accountant at High Command came up with the answer that would satisfy the letter of the law, yet save the military considerable expense.

The law had been written stipulating, not numbers of personnel and equipment, but a monetary amount. That unknown accountant had determined that the amount so stipulated, meant to be the equivalent value of an infantry battalion, exactly equaled the worth of one Bolo and its operator.

The records-search was on.

Enter one Reserve officer, searching for a Bolo in good condition, about to be “retired,” with no current operator-partner—

—and someone to match him, familiar with at least the rudiments of mech-warfare, the insides of a Bolo, and willing to be exiled for the rest of his life.

Finding RML-1138, called “Rommel,” and Siegfried O’Harrigan, hobbyist military historian.

The government of Bachman’s World was less than pleased with the response to their demand, but there was little they could do besides protest. Rommel was shipped to Bachman’s World first; Siegfried was given a crash-course in Bolo operation. He followed on the first regularly-scheduled freighter as soon as his training was over. If, for whatever reason, the pairing did not work, he would leave on the same freighter that brought him.

Now, came the moment of truth.

“Guten tag, Herr Rommel,” he said, in careful Ger­man, the antique German he had learned in order to be able to read first-hand chronicles in the original language. “Ich bin Siegfried O’Harrigan.”

A moment of silence—and then, surprisingly, a sound much like a dry chuckle.

“Wie geht’s, Herr O’Harrigan. I’ve been expecting you. Aren’t you a little dark to be a Storm Trooper?”

The voice was deep, pleasant, and came from a point somewhere above Siegfried’s head. And Siegfried knew the question was a trap, of sorts. Or a test, to see just how much he really did know, as opposed to what he claimed to know. A good many pre-Atomic historians could be caught by that question themselves.

“Hardly a Storm Trooper,” he countered. “Field-Marshall Erwin Rommel would not have had one of those under his command. And no Nazis, either. Don’t think to trap me that easily.”

The Bolo uttered that same dry chuckle. “Good for you, Siegfried O’Harrigan. Willkommen.”

The hatch opened, silently; a ladder descended just as silently, inviting Siegfried to come out of the hot, desert sun and into Rommel’s controlled interior. Rommel had replied to Siegfried’s response, but had done so with nothing unnecessary in the way of words, in the tradition of his namesake.

Siegfried had passed the test.

Once again, Siegfried stood in the blindingly hot sun, this time at strict attention, watching the departing back of the mayor of Port City. The interview had not been pleasant, although both parties had been strictly polite; the mayor’s back was stiff with anger. He had not cared for what Siegfried had told him.

“They do not much care for us, do they, Siegfried?” Rommel sounded resigned, and Siegfried sighed. It was impossible to hide anything from the Bolo; Rommel had already proven himself to be an adept reader of human body-language, and of course, anything that was broad­cast over the airwaves, scrambled or not, Rommel could access and read. Rommel was right; he and his partner were not the most popular of residents at the moment.

What amazed Siegfried, and continued to amaze him, was how human the Bolo was. He was used to AIs of course, but Rommel was something special. Rommel cared about what people did and thought; most AIs really didn’t take a great interest in the doings and opinions of mere humans.

“No, Rommel, they don’t,” he replied. “You really can’t blame them; they thought they were going to get a battalion of conventional troops, not one very expensive piece of equipment and one single human.”