No Phule Like An Old Phule (35 page)

“Fair or not, I’m ready to roll,” said Asho. “When do we go, and what do we need to take.”

“Tomorrow we go,” said Qual, in what sounded like a doleful tone. “Bring your most powerful weapons. Get a good sleep-we leave at dawn. And if you have any business to settle, do it now. We seek the most dangerous beasts on Zenobia, and there is no promising that we will prevail.”

“Yee-hah!” hollered Asho, tossing his hat in the air. The other two hunters managed a smile, too, although they were a good bit less exuberant. As for Qual, he flashed his teeth-an expression that might mean almost any thing and vanished into the dark.

Journal #748

Having spent as much time as I have in the employment of those who have acquired their fortunes in one form or another of commerce, I have learned at least  this much about how these somewhat enigmatic persons think: The average person looks at a deal, and asks, “What’s in it for me?” The successful businessman asks, “What’s in it for everybody?”

It is the ability consistently to find a satisfactory answer to the latter question upon which the greatest fortunes are built. And that particular ability is one that Mr. Willard Phule, known to the Legion as Captain Jester, possessed in full measure.

Doc ushered Lola and Ernie through the Fat Chance Casino’s lobby, up the elevators to the executive office level, and into a conference room where Tullie Bascomb and Victor Phule sat waiting. “Good, good, glad you’re here,” said Tullie, indicating two chairs drawn up opposite his desk. “Thanks, Doc.”

“You’re not the only one who’s glad,” said Lola, sinking into one of the chairs. “Your security chief got there just in time to save us from a fairly nasty experience. Which, by the way, is very much related to our problems with your buyout offer…”

“Well, I suggest you wait until you hear what we’re offering,” said Bascomb. “Drinks?” He waved toward a nearby cart bearing several ornate bottles, an ice bucket, and assorted glassware.

Ernie’s mouth opened, then snapped shut as he saw the look on Lola’s face. The elbow she dug into his rib made her meaning plain, just in case he’d missed it. “Uh, no thanks,” he said.

“All right, then, we’ll get straight to business,” said Bascomb, with a twinkle in his eye. He’d noticed the elbow. “I think the captain’s come up with a plan that addresses your problems fairly directly,” he continued.

“He has?” Lola’s brow furrowed. “What does he know about our problems, anyway?”

“Well, you’ll probably want to ask him that,” said Bascomb. “All he told me is that he figured out what was going on when he debriefed a robot that used to work here.”

“A robot.” Lola opened her mouth, then shut it again. After a moment’s thought, she continued, “Well, that’s certainly interesting. But maybe we should save that subject for later and find out what the captain’s offering.”

“Good idea,” said Bascomb. “As a matter of fact, he’s decided to improve the original offer a good deal. We’ll buyout your ‘share’ in the casino for $7.5 million. But instead of the annual royalty, he’s offering the two of you full-time paid executive positions with the Fat Chance; The salary is pretty generous, but not outrageous-and the job description ought to be right up your alley. Basically, the captain wants you two to supervise our cheat-detecting operation. He figures you know the scams as well as anybody-and we’d rather have you on our side than working against us.”

“I suppose we ought to take that as a compliment,” said Lola. “If I were looking for a regular job, I guess it’d be as good as anything…”

Bascomb smiled. “There’s more, in case you hadn’t guessed. Figure in complimentary lodgings and meals in the casino hotel, and-I think this might be of particular interest to you-complete access to all of our facilities and services, including security.”

“Security,” mused Lola. “Now, that just might be something we can talk about. I was certainly impressed by the way Doc and his people took care of a little problem we ran into back at the hotel.”

“Nothing to it, Miss,” said Doc, smiling broadly. “Just doing our job.” He poured himself a glass of cold water from a pitcher on the bar cart and settled down to drink it in a soft chair facing Bascomb’s desk.

“The offer would also include access to some of the best plastic surgeons and uh, image consultants, in the business-just in case you want to be a little bit harder to spot. And you might also like to know, we’ve managed to recall the photos that PR had sent out, before the stories were distributed-at least most of them. And we managed to tweak the few stories that did run to imply you were off to parts unknown to enjoy your winnings. The long and the short of it is, the captain thinks you’re good at what you do, and he wants you on the Fat Chance team,” said Tullie.

“And as it happens, Mr. Phule agrees with his son.”

“That’s right,” said Victor Phule. “I must admit I’m not quite certain what it is old Ernie does, but he’s clearly very good‘ at it. And Miss Lola is very sharp.”

“Thank you,” said Lola, looking at Tullie Bascomb. “But you must realize, gentlemen, this is all very sudden. Could my client and I have some time to discuss it in private?”

“Why, of course,” said Bascomb. “If you’d like, we can arrange for a private dining room so you can discuss it over a meal. On the house, of course.”

“Thank you very much, but! think we’ll be able to come to an answer with just a little walk around the block,” said Lola. “We can celebrate with a meal if we decide to accept.”

“Sure,” said Bascomb, nodding. “If you’d like, we can have a couple of security people keep‘ an eye on you-at a distance, of course.”

“Again, thanks but no thanks,” said Lola. “We won’t stray that far outside the casino. And unless I’m mistaken, the only people who had anything against us are already out of the game-at least, for the time. being.”

“All right, then,” said Bascomb. “I’ll be here when you’re ready to talk.”

Lola and Ernie said nothing until they were all the way down to the bottom floor in the elevator and out the doors. There, Lola set off at a brisk pace, with Ernie struggling to catch up despite his longer legs.

Finally, after they’d turned a comer and put the casino’s front entrance out of sight, he said, “All right, what’s the problem? Are we gonna take the bait or not?”

“I don’t know what other choice we have,” said Lola. “Unless you want to head off for no place in particular and hope to stay one jump ahead of Mr. V and his boys. They’re really going to be mad at us, now.”

“Yeah,” said Ernie. “I don’t want to be anywhere they can find me. Unless I’ve got more guns on my side than they do on theirs.”

“Which is exactly what’s attractive about Phule’s offer,” said Lola. “We’d be stuck on a space station, where the company isn’t necessarily my kind of people, and where we’d pretty much have to give up hustling and play by the books. And that could get dull after a few months. But with the Legion in charge of security, the Fat Chance has got more muscle than some small planets I’ve been on. The syndicate originally hired us to try to snatch Phule because they knew a direct attack wasn’t going to work. Now, it looks as if an indirect attack’s not going anywhere, either. So odds are we’d be safer here than anywhere else we can afford to get to, even if Mr. V and his boys know exactly where we are.”

Ernie walked silently for a few paces, then stopped, and said, “That all makes sense to me. So what are we waiting for?”

“For one thing, to make sure it’s what we really want,” said Lola. “Are you ready to take a job, even a really good one with better pay than you’d ever make hustling? Are you ready to stay in one place for the rest of your life, even if it is a first-class resort hotel and casino?”

Ernie grunted. “You make it sound pretty good.” he said. “But is that the whole deal?”

“What do you mean?” asked Lola.

Ernie’s expression was, for once in his life, dead serious. “I mean, are you gonna take the deal? Are you gonna stay here? Because if you’re not, it don’t appeal to me.”

Lola’s eyes grew wide. “Good Ghu,” she said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think that meant…”

“Don’t think,” said Ernie. “Just let me know. Are you gonna take Phule’s offer?” Lola reached out and took Ernie’s hand. “You know, in spite of all the downsides to it, I think I just might.” She smiled, and Ernie smiled back at her. Together they turned and walked to the Fat Chance Casino.

Qual had guided the three hunters’ all-terrain hovervan across a long stretch of semiarid country to the spot where the Zenobian claimed the most dangerous creatures of his planet could be found. In addition to the four passengers, the van was loaded down with weapons and ammunition, as well as various other supplies, purchased at Chocolate Harry’s backdoor commissary.

Finally, near midday, Qual pulled the van to a halt in the shade of a stand of Zenobian “trees” that, except for their orange coloration, bore a disturbingly close resemblance to giant stalks of asparagus-at least to the hunters, who had previous experience with asparagus. A native of the planet, like Qual, undoubtedly considered them just ordinary trees.

“Here is our destination,” said Qual. “There is a water hole just beyond that hill. The beasts we are hunting arouse themselves from slumber in the later afternoon and visit the water hole, then go hunting. Our notion is to set up an asylum near the water. From there the brave hunters can likely snipe at the unwitting beasts for quite some time before the inevitable raging counterattack.”

“Inevitable?” Euston O’Better scoffed. “These weapons we’re toting may have something to say about that.”

“They may,” said Qual, opening the van door and getting out He turned, and added, “Then again, the beasts may not be inclined to listen.”

A blast of superhot, desert-dry air greeted the hunters as they tumbled out behind their guide.

“Whoo-eee!” said Austen Tay-Shun. “Whoever told us this was a desert world sure knew what he was talkin‘ about. How do these big critters live in this kind of heat all day?”

“As I told you, they lie in a shady spot and slumber through the worst of the heat,” said Qual. “Your visual organs will not detect one of them, this time of day. Indeed, if you detect one of them at all, this time of day, it will be through the unlucky accident of stumbling over it where it ... sleeps. You may have a brief period in which to regret your misfortune before you are devoured.”

“You’re tryin‘ to scare us off, aren’t you?” said L. P. Asho. He slapped the heavy weapon he had just unloaded from the hovervan’s tailgate, and added, “Well, I guess it’d work with some folks. But here’s somethin’ you better remember-those folks ain’t from Tejas!”

“You’re not in Tejas anymore,” said Qual. “But we expend time to no end. Let us transport our supplies to the vicinity of the water hole.” Each of them shouldered a heavy pack-they’d spent the morning loading them, under Qual’s supervision-and headed toward a well-defined path through the asparagus trees. These gave enough shade to reduce the effect of the afternoon sun for a few moments, but soon the party was out in the open again, headed slightly downhill. Below them, the scrubby alien vegetation grew slightly thicker, betraying the presence of a source of water, although the water itself remained invisible from this distance.

The hunters had worked up a considerable sweat when Qual finally called a halt. “From here we can survey the approaches with elegance,” he said. He pointed to the left “In that patch of tall grasses we will erect our asylum.” The patch of vegetation-which, viewed close-up, had only a faint resemblance to grass-sat atop a low ridge, giving a clear view of everything below. There Qual put the hunters to work, cutting the vegetation from the center of the patch and setting it up in a thicker wall around the perimeter.

In the little clearing thus created, the hunters set up poles to hold a canopy to keep off the sun, and spread blankets over the stubble to allow them to sit comfortably.

Toward the downhill side of the blind, Qual set up a miniature vid-eye and portable screen to give them a view of what went on by the water hole. Then they settled down to wait for the game animals he had promised.

The three hunters watched in fascination until they began to realize that almost nothing worth watching was going on down by the water. The only creatures braving the midday sun were too small to be exciting-at least, to humans who have come across several light-years in search of Really Big Game. A xenobiologist might have found the interaction of various Zenobian species—many of which might never have been observed by anyone from off-planet-sufficiently interesting. But it was just under an hour before L. P. Asho set his weapon aside on the blanket next to him, cracked open a beer, and pulled a deck of cards out of the pocket of his shooting jacket. The three humans ordered Qual to alert them if anything worth their while showed up at the water hole, and got down to some serious poker.

“Come on in and take a look at this,” said Sushi. “It’ll answer a lot of questions.”

Phule, Beeker, Rev, and the two lieutenants stepped into the crowded workshop. Most of the space was filled with equipment that, even if its purpose wasn’t immediately obvious, was at least made up of recognizable components. But in the middle of a bench toward along the back wall sat a piece of equipment that instantly drew attention to itself.

In fact, Armstrong immediately blurted out, “What in me world is that thing?”

It was a good question. To begin with, nobody could have mistaken it for anything of human manufacture. Its most familiar feature was what appeared to be a display screen similar to that of an Alliance computer, but its shape and proportions-a long oval in “portrait” orientation were clearly different from those of human devices. The material of the case enclosing it was of a rough, mottled texture-more like natural rock than the smooth exteriors human designers favored. And what appeared to be its controls were neither knobs, buttons, nor sliders, but stubby bars that projected at different lengths from the top of the unit.

“Well, Lieutenant, this is something we should have gotten a long time ago,” said Sushi. “I’m surprised nobody in Intelligence has been after us to get them some of these.”