like Willard, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. And call his old man, too-yes, I know how much it costs to call intersystem. But this kid’s claiming to be family, and with all the rumors going around, I’d like to be sure that’s really who I’m dealing with.”
Brandy found the robot in the gym. It wasn’t all that hard to find, actually. She could hear it all the way down the hall. She opened the door to discover that it had a squad of frightened legionnaires lined up for a roasting that many old-time drill sergeants might have gotten pointers from. Several veteran smart-mouths and goof-offs were among the roastees, and their shocked expressions were all the evidence Brandy needed that the robot had caught them completely off guard.
She stepped forward, trying her best not to draw attention, but the robot picked her up in its peripheral vision, and barked, “Sergeant! Come forward.”
“Yes, Captain Jester,” she said, putting on her best military manner. She marched briskly to the front of the formation, stood at attention, and snapped off her best salute. “What are your orders, sir?” she barked.
“Well, at least one person here knows how to show proper respect for an officer,” the robot drawled. “What I don’t understand is why none of these so-called legionnaires seem to have learned it. This
“Yes, sir, no excuse, sir,” she said, keeping the surprise out of her voice as best she could. Clearly, the errant golf ball had done even more damage than they’d realized. Not only was the robot playing superhuman golf, it had turned into a by-the-books officer of the worst sort. Unless they could get the damage fixed-and quickly!- Omega Company was in for a shock of tectonic proportions.
Meanwhile, her mind was racing at top speed. How was she going to defuse the immediate confrontation? The question was more delicate than it first appeared. After all, the robot nominally outranked everyone on the base except for General Blitzkrieg and his adjutant, neither of whom was likely to intervene. Just telling the legionnaires to ignore the robot was the most obvious method; the robot had no way to enforce its orders, after all. But the rank and file had no idea this Captain Jester was a robot. Only the command cadre were in on the secret, and she wasn’t going to change that without orders from the real captain. Besides, what if some future crisis required the real Captain Jester to issue unpopular orders? She didn’t want to do something now that would give some wise guy an excuse, no matter how phony, to claim he didn’t believe it was the real captain giving the orders…
The robot captain rubbed its chin, as the real Phule would have while thinking about some point. Brandy was impressed by how well the robot’s manufacturers had captured Phule’s body language and casual gestures, in addition to giving it a near-perfect physical resemblance to its protoplasmic prototype. Then it spoke again. “Sergeant, I am appalled by these legionnaires’ discipline-or nearly total lack of discipline, I should say. It’s past time that somebody got them to shape up-and I’m beginning to wonder whether you’re the woman for the job or not.“
“Yes, sir,” said Brandy. “Permission to ask a question, sir.” It was uncanny how much it resembled Captain Jester, even though it was acting in a way that threatened to undercut everything he’d accomplished so far.
“Permission granted, Sergeant,” said the robot.
Out of the corner of her eye, Brandy could see Ma-hatma’s eyes bulging out in anticipation. He would undoubtedly be taking mental notes on her performance-and giving postmortem analysis to his fellow legionnaires. In spite of having been his target so many times, Brandy felt a rush of inspiration.
“Sir, any failures of discipline in this training squad are my responsibility,” she began, making it up as she went along. “But may I remind the captain that I was given orders to train this group to pass as civilians in enemy territory. Their apparent lack of military polish is designed to lull the enemy into overlooking their specialized skills, which meet and surpass Legion standard, sir. May I give the captain a demonstration?”
The robot looked at her for a long moment, then said, “Very well, Sergeant-I can hardly deny you the opportunity to let your troops show me their capabilities. For your sake, I hope the demonstration is convincing.”
“Yes, Captain! Thank you, Captain,” said Brandy, still thinking fast. She turned to face the puzzled-looking group of legionnaires. “Mahatma! Step forward.” Perhaps the little legionnaire’s habit of asking impossible questions would hold the robot’s attention long enough for her to discover a way out of the situation
“Yes, Sergeant Brandy,” said Mahatma, striding briskly out of the formation. As usual, his face betrayed nothing of his inner thoughts.
But before she could say anything, another voice broke the silence. “Well, well, Captain-what the devil’s going on here?”
Brandy turned her head to see none other than General Blitzkrieg, with an expression that might have made a full-grown
Phule’s trip back to his hotel was somewhat more of an adventure than he’d planned on. He’d been warned about Old Earth’s ubiquitous pickpockets, con artists, and identity thieves, as well as Pitti’s news about rumors connecting the Space Legion with the IRS-guaranteed to make the black uniform unpopular. Still, nothing he’d heard matched the experience of walking through the streets of Rome. In fact, the only thing that came close was spending an equivalent amount of time with some of the enlisted legionnaires of the Omega Mob.
Phule knew enough not to carry anything valuable when he went out on the streets. He knew more than enough not to fall for the myriad sob stories and come-ons that someone on every street corner seemed ready to offer to prosperous-looking passersby. And his personal information had been specially encrypted in the experimental Zenobian-based code that Sushi was developing. Sushi had assured him that only a native speaker of Zenobian was going to have any chance to crack the code. Earth’s hackers and crackers might be the best in the galaxy, but Agent Fox’s ignorance about Zenobia was a pretty good indication that nobody on Old Earth was likely to have the necessary knowledge to make use of his information, even if they did manage to steal it.
Meanwhile, he was enjoying the energy and the color of the bustling Roman streets, which had become far safer for pedestrians with the arrival of hovercars, which the Romans drove with the same recklessness they’d driven ground cars-but well above street level, and with better automatic safety devices. It might be fun to walk around the city with Samantha Beliveau, the pretty redhead he’d met going to the landing shuttle. He’d been meaning to call her and make a lunch date, possibly at the restaurant Uncle Pitti had mentioned-Trattoria something or another. They’d probably know at the hotel…
He was still trying to remember the name of the restaurant when he heard a woman scream. The sound came from an alley he’d just walked past. He turned and looked carefully down the narrow passageway-no sense sticking his neck out unless he knew what he was getting into.
Just as he looked, a weasel-faced man in a shiny dark suit struck a young woman across the face with a
