“Nope. Tell Drusus I’m here. He’ll see me.”
That bullshit smile came back, but the primus wasn’t looking at me. Not anymore. He was glancing to my left and right.
I was surprised by the two hog veterans that approached. They were relatively quiet on their feet, which wasn’t something hogs were known for.
The primus sniffed. “Remove this man, please.”
The first hog stepped forward and reached for my bicep. That was a weak-sister move. I figured he must not have known who I was, or anything about me. That was almost a relief. I rarely encounter men these days who haven’t been forewarned concerning my unruly behavior.
The hog hit the deck with his nose and mouth in the lead. Fortunately, the flooring wasn’t stone or anything, so nothing on his face broke audibly. When he did a push-up and came back up roaring, he only left a smear of blood on the deck where he’d done a facer.
The second man had a truncheon out, and it was doing that sparkler-thing. One touch from that electric fun-stick, and I’d be doing a dance—just like I’d done yesterday when Raash had surprised me.
I didn’t like the idea of going all numb again, so I sent the second hog over my hip onto the floor—where he landed right on top of the first hog.
Somehow—it might have been an accident—the two men both caught a jolt from that activated truncheon. There was a snap and some buzzing. Their bellies were pinning it between them, I guess. It was definitely not their lucky day.
I made a face, feeling their discomfort. “Damn! You hogs should be careful with those things. They can be dangerous.”
The smarmy primus had his sidearm out by now, and he aimed it at me. His hand shook a little, and his sides were heaving with excitement.
“Freeze, Centurion!” he warbled at me. “You’re under arrest!”
Right about then, Drusus threw his office doors wide. He took two steps into the lobby and looked around in open-mouthed shock. Then he caught sight of me, and his jaw snapped shut.
“What’s going on out—McGill?”
I’d put my hands up to make the primus fellow happy, but I took the time to touch my cap to Drusus. “I’m mighty sorry about all this, Praetor, sir. Someone must have issued shock-rods to these hogs without proper training. You shouldn’t have to witness this level of incompetence, especially inside your own headquarters.”
“No, I shouldn’t. I guess you might as well come on in.”
The primus ass-kisser, shocked to his core, opened his mouth to object. Drusus stopped him with an upright hand.
“I’m sorry, Bob. I should have told you about McGill. He has standing permission to pester me—as long as he doesn’t abuse the privilege. Now, could you get us two coffees, please?”
Primus Bob was red-faced, and he looked a little sick. Meanwhile, the two hog fellas had stopped playing twister on the floor. They struggled back to their feet. One of them seemed to have lost control of his bladder, but I, in a rare act of forbearance, didn’t even tease him about it.
“Bob?” I said. “I like three sugars in mine. And cream, too. Lots of cream.”
I followed Drusus into his office after that, and I could almost hear the awful cursing that went on after I’d left.
Once we were inside his palatial office, Drusus crossed his arms and looked a little disgusted. “All right, McGill. I’ve put up with your antics once again, but this had better be good.”
“Well sir, it’s not. It’s actually kind of bad.”
He frowned while I told him, in general terms, how my week had been going. He stopped me when I got to the part about porting out of the Sea Empress to Green World.
“Hold on. Are you telling me that explosion out in the harbor was your fault?”
“What? No, sir! Not in any way, shape or form. I take zero responsibility for what happened, for now and ever more.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he did gesture for me to hurry up and tell the rest of the story.
“Well… you see, sir, after that it gets kind of complicated.”
I kept going, telling him about Green World and Rigel and killing Armel and Raash. I skipped over the part about how I got Raash a ghetto-revive and him being depressed with his blue scales and all. I went right on into the business of Green World being a rebel group stronghold and how they were plotting against us.
“At last I’m beginning to see why you’ve come. This group—whoever they are—has already struck a blow against Earth.”
“That’s exactly right, sir. They plan to do a lot more than blow up one big ship.”
“Hmm…”
He began to pace and think, and I let him do it without interruption. In the meantime coffee and Danishes arrived. I helped myself despite getting an admonishing glance from Primus Bob. By the time Drusus reached for his cup, there was nothing but coffee left on the tray. Fortunately, he was preoccupied, and he didn’t complain.
“This is big news, McGill,” Drusus said. “We can’t let this nest of rebels just sit out there and fester. But I’ve checked on my tapper, and we haven’t located Green World yet.”
“That’s exactly right. The Intel boys have been slacking—but I spent the night working on the problem.”
With a dramatic flourish, I flicked a big folder of data to his desk. He tapped at it, opening star charts and astronavigational material. There was a whole lot more, too, such as chemical analysis of the atmosphere, spectrograms of the local sun—the works.
“This is impressive. You really think you’ve isolated the
