'What does that mean?' Ginger said, stepping into view.
'I thought you sounded like a kzin. It means by the time I'd accumulated enough procedural complaints to be retired, my pension would have come to more than I get in salary, so they sent me where I couldn't annoy anybody worse than they normally are.'
'What does T.C. stand for?' Perpetua said.
'The name of a classical author. I come from a long line of subversives, and I joined the ARM to stop being inundated with the material. So what do they do but put me in Propaganda. Where can I put this?' He indicated his parcel.
'What is it?' said Ginger.
'My official weaponry. If you want to search it, don't press any switches. Can I use your shower? I've spent the past day suited up and reading the manuals on all this junk.'
'Why'd you do that in a pressure suit?' Perpetua said.
'The display's in the helmet.' He grimaced.
'Through there,' she said.
As he departed, she murmured, 'Wonder what the complaints were for?'
'Throoping!' he called back up the passageway.
'Good ears,' said Ginger. After the refresher had opened and closed, he added, 'What's 'throoping'?'
'No idea.'
The ship's database defined it as Intra-bureaucratic use of sarcasm and absurdity to point out, refute, and if possible punish extreme foolishness. Context invariably implies the sole voice of reason speaking with total lack of concern for consequences. Origin artificial, circa 1950. 'Interesting concept,' Ginger said, opening the parcel. 'But does it work?'
'They must have had some reason for sending him here,' she said. Then she fell silent.
There was a slug gun, a folding multibladed hullmetal knife, a hullwelding laser with a huge battery, a variable stunner, small grenades of assorted types both lethal and nonlethal, interrogation drugs, flare goggles, and impact armor; then there were the concealed weapons, like the dartgun rings, and the watch with its loop of Sinclair filament. 'Interesting,' Ginger said.
'A man arrives equipped for piracy and you call it 'interesting'?'
'No, what's interesting is that it's all newly opened. Still smells of packing foam. Never been used.'
'And he must have brought it all with him eleven years ago,' Perpetua realized.
'Oh?'
'The Belters wouldn't have allowed the ARM to establish an arsenal. They're as touchy about independence as Wunderlanders, and they've actually got it.'
'Urr. Good for them.'
They sorted things out into weapons, probable weapons, probable nonweapons, and who-knows-what. The last category included an elaborately sealed box of what was labeled as ordinary candy, three packages Perpetua thought looked like inflatable boats, a first-aid kit that included a small electric drill, and a sculpting rig that included an amazingly elaborate set of vibratory controls for one standard cutting bit, plus a headband with a heavy cable attaching it to the controls.
They were still puzzling over that one when Smith came out and said, 'That's a touch-sculpting rig. You got some odd controls on your dispenser. What's with the sorting arrangement?' He was wearing clothes he certainly hadn't had under his suit.
'Weapons, possible, likely not, unknown,' said Ginger, pointing.
'Oh, put everything in weapons,' he said. 'The Outfit makes a big deal over being able to kill anybody with anything. Except the candy; I got that from a woman when I said I was leaving…maybe you should just put that out the lock.'
Perpetua and Ginger exchanged a glance, and Perpetua said, 'Um, are you a paranoid?'
'No. But she is.'
'Wish we had a stasis box,' Ginger muttered in Wunderlander.
'Three right there,' Smith replied, with a horrible accent. He pointed at the 'boats' and said, in Flatlander again, 'So what did you want to talk to an ARM for?'
'Ah,' said Perpetua. 'We're engaged in rescuing humans in kzinti custody. A couple of thousand years ago, the Jotoki recruited some Romans as mercenaries, north of Hadrian's Wall-'
'The Ninth Legion was abducted by aliens?' Smith exclaimed, then burst out laughing.
It took him some time to calm down. While he was wiping his eyes, Perpetua said, 'You just happen to know all about the Ninth Legion?'
'Well, I guess I do now,' he said, chuckling.
'Why is that funny?' Ginger said.
'Kind of a personal joke. Fission Era mythology was full of stories of people being abducted by aliens, and I got exposed to a lot of it as a kid. I gather you've found their descendants?'
'Yes…this seems like a funny coincidence. It's kind of obscure,' Perpetua said warily.
'No coincidence at all. I told you, I'm in Propaganda. Most of it's historical work. You have to know what you're lying about.'
'Oh.'
'So where do I come in?'
'Well, there's thousands of them, and the planet they're on has two old kzinti troop carriers in orbit, so we've put together a plan to steal those, load up the humans and Jotoki, and escape. The thing is, they're slow ships. We needed an excuse to get to them, though, so we've gotten the owner to hire us to install hyperdrives in them. So we need phase initiators-everything else can be made there.'
'It takes about a thousand man-hours to shake down a new phase initiator,' Smith said, 'and that's in a drive whose other parts are known to work together. You need two complete hyperdrives. No way I can make those just disappear; what have you got to trade?'
'Gold. You'll do it?' Perpetua said, astonished.
'Oh, absolutely, I love the idea. Gold, huh? Not many people… hm. I may know somebody on Mars.'
'Mars?'
'Mars. Fourth planet. It's on the other side of the sun just now, so it'll be, oh, three days to get there with this rig.'
'More like two,' Ginger said, getting up.
'Not unless you plan to skim the sun.'
'Three,' Ginger agreed.
'How did you decide to believe us so quickly?' Perpetua said at their first meal.
'VSA implant,' Smith replied. 'Voice stress analysis. Lie detector. I don't have the kind of brain chemistry that can be tweaked into continuous heavy-duty intuition, which is what most ARMs rely on.'
'I thought they were paranoid,' she said.
'That's the term for public consumption,' he agreed. 'Keeps 'em nervous. The ARM doesn't have the omnipotence it had before the wars, so we take any advantage we can get. Untrained, unchanneled paranoids did a lot of damage in the past. People remember that.' He grinned. 'We remind them regularly.'
'Oh,' she said uneasily. 'What's Mars like?'
'Cold,' he said. 'Dry. Less of both with each generation, though. The residents are gradually terraforming it. Before the wars it was a real hole. We used it as a dumping ground for troublemakers-writers, roleplayers, history buffs.'
'Who lives there now?'
'Same people. Just not brainwashed. They like it. Don't ask me why. Part of the whole fantasist culture.' He took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and added, 'Not brainwashed by us, anyway.'
He grew gloomy and avoided conversation for a day or so.
In the middle of the third day he suddenly told Ginger, 'There's people on Earth who think the ARM made the
