Google had never heard of it, either. Rufus Q. Shupilluliumash wondered whether he was accessing the Chinese system. But no. It was—cue the portentous music again—Something New.
Though his electronic aids failed him, the dedicated space cadet persevered. He had one major advantage over the others whom Erasmus Z. Utnapishtim (remember him?) might have chosen to save the Galaxy . . . or at least its throne rooms and antechambers. Not only was he a hamster, he was a punster as well, as he had proved to the dismay and discomfiture of ammonia/ice blobs and shamrock-green saurian humanoids alike.
And as he neared Galactic Central, he suddenly slowed on the wheel in astonishment—and almost pitched the P.S.
What he did do was cry out, “Eureka!” Why the name of a not very large city in northern California should have become the cry for discovering something, Rufus Q. Shupilluliumash did not know, but it had. The Patrol could be a tradition-bound—even a tradition-gagged—outfit sometimes.
He spun the wheel up to an almost blistering pace. Then, when his feet and little front paws started to hurt, he slowed down again—but not so much, this time, as to endanger his speedster. He thought furiously, which was odd, because he wasn’t particularly furious.
“It must work that way,” he said. “This story won’t run long enough for a lot of wrong guesses.” If he’d guessed wrong there, he might have found himself trapped in a novel, but the speedster wasn’t a Fforde, so he escaped that fate, anyhow. He shook his head and snuffled his whiskers at the iniquity of the throne-room (and antechamber) thieves. “I must foil them,” he declared, and checked his supplies of aluminum, tin, and silver.
He was so transfixed by his fit of analytical brilliance that he almost wheeled right past Galactic Central and back out into the Galactic Boonies. But he didn’t—this story won’t run long enough for a lot of mistakes, either.
Being a space cadet helped him get through the entry formalities in jig time—which, since he didn’t dance, was more than a little challenging. A day and a half later, the freedom of Galactic Central was his, as long as the GPS and radiological tracking devices surgically implanted near his wazoo gave answers the powers that be approved of. Otherwise, the tiny nuke implanted near that very same sensitive place would sadly spoil our upcoming denouement, to say nothing of half a city block. So we won’t.
He hopped on the closest available public transport, discovered it was going the wrong way (see?—we did have room for a mistake after all), hopped off, and got on, this time, as luck (and the necessities of plotting) would have it, going toward the sublime (or something) residence of the beloved (or something) Galactic Emperor and Empress.
No sooner had he arrived—talk about timing! I mean, really!—than a giant chainsaw suddenly appeared in the sky and started carving away at (are you surprised?) the throne room . . . and the antechamber. People screamed. People ran. People coughed from flying sawdust. People of several different flavors got turned into hamburger of several different flavors. People inside the palace, caught by the paralyzer ray that went with the saw, didn’t do much of anything.
Guards outside the palace started shooting at the parts of the chainsaw crunching through the walls. Quick- thinking Rufus Q. Shupilluliumash fired at the power button instead: a dot a centimeter wide three kilometers up in the air. Being a Patrol-trained markshamster and luckier than Lucky Pierre, he hit it dead on, the very first try.
The chainsaw stopped chainsawing. It fell out of the sky and smashed one of the ritziest neighborhoods— actually, several of the ritziest neighborhoods, because that was a big mother of a chainsaw—of Galactic Central to cottage cheese. Our bold space cadet cared nothing for that, though. He was doing his duty, and he was damned if he’d let common sense stand in his way.
Dashing toward the chainsaw’s survival capsule (How did he know where it was? He just knew. This is that kind of story.), he was Rufus Q. Shupilluliumash on the spot when a saurian humanoid, an ammonia/ice blob in a hotsuit, a kumquat, and a Frenchman came staggering out.
“You’re under arrest!” he shouted, covering them with his ever-reliable blaster. “Suspicion of firing a chainsaw without a license and operating an unauthorized space drive within city limits. Don’t nobody move!”
Nobody didn’t move . . . or something like that. “What do you know about the Royal Drive?” the Frenchman sneered. “How do you know it’s unauthorized?”
“It must be unauthorized, because I couldn’t Google it. And I know the Royal Drive uses the hellacious energy output from mixing”—our space cadet paused to build the moment, for he was indeed punster as well as hamster —“chamber and antechamber to propel your spacecraft across the Galaxy in pursuance of your nefarious ends. But now you’re busted, space scum!”
The Frenchman, the kumquat, and the saurian humanoid blanched. Rufus Q. Shupilluliumash presumed the ammonia/ice blob did, too—it is, after all, what self-respecting villains do under such circumstances—but the hotsuit kept him from being sure. Palace guards came up behind him. “What do we do with them, sir?” they asked respectfully.
“Take them away,” the hamster replied grandly. “They will trouble the spaceways no more.”
Your omniscient narrator also has the pleasure to report that, shortly thereafter, Space Cadet Rufus Q. Shupilluliumash became Ensign Rufus Q. Shupilluliumash, with all the rights and privileges appertaining thereto. (Of course, he knew that wouldn’t happen. Didn’t you?) Our space cadet’s actions in this case were deemed to be in the highest tradition of the Space Patrol.
PRISONS KEVIN J. ANDERSON AND DOUG BEASON
I am still called the Warden. The prisoners consider it an ironic jest.
Barely a meter square, the forcewalls form the boundaries of my holographic body. Once this felt like a throne, an isolated position from which I could control the workings of Bastille. Now, though, I must look out and watch my former prisoners laughing at me.
This projection has been an image of authority to them. Since living on this prison world was too great a punishment to inflict upon any real warden or guards, my Artificial Personality was entrusted to watch over this compound. I am based on a real person—a great man, I think—a proud man with many accomplishments. But I have failed here.
Amu led the prisoners in their revolt; he convinced them that Bastille is a self-sufficient planet after all their forced terraforming work for the Federation. They have survived all Federation attempts to reoccupy the world, keeping the invaders out with the same systems once intended to keep the prisoners in. Besides the prisoners, I am the only one left.
Once, I ran the environmental systems here, the production accounting, the resources inventory. I monitored the automated digging and processing machinery outside. I controlled the fleet of tiny piranha interceptors in orbit that would destroy any ship trying to escape. But now I am powerless.
