Robert Asprin: Phule's Errand

“But there are new sophonts discovered all the time,” said Thumper. “There are two races of them, both living right on this planet, that nobody knew about until the captain discovered them. What if the Zenobians had been building robots before we met them? Wouldn’t their laws be different? What about the Nanoids?”

Harry glowered. “Look a-here. Point you’re missin‘ is, they didn’t build no robots before we met ’em,” he said. “So it don’t matter, see?”

“But what about the next new race we discover?” asked Thumper, doing his best to preserve a calm demeanor. “Can we be sure they’ll build the same laws into their robots? And even if they do, will their robots recognize us as sophonts?”

“Damn it, there ain’t no alien robots,” growled Chocolate Harry. “If you gonna come around bustin‘ chops, I just might decide not to sell you any freakin’ purple cammy- and then when the renegade robots come bubblin‘ out of the underbrush with their eyes shootin’ sparks and their grasping mechanisms reachin‘ out for your little furry tail, you’ll be sorry. You bet your ass is gonna be sorry!”

Thumper decided he had time to make one more point. “But if the Three Laws are correct, then the only robots I need to be afraid of are alien robots…”

“Take your freakin‘ alien robots and put ’em where the sun don’t shine, bunny!” Harry’s voice was a full-throated roar, now. He stood up from his chair, looming over Thumper.

Wisely deciding not to finish his argument, Thumper made a rapid exit, quickly scurrying out the door and back to where Mahatma awaited him.

Mahatma pointed to the Supply depot, from which Harry’s voice could still be heard, using language that certainly qualified as flamboyant. He grinned broadly as he said, “Congratulations, Thumper. I believe you have succeeded in being a pain in the ass.”

“Mother, have you seen Beeker?” Phule said into the office intercom.

“That depends, sweetie. Do you mean have I seen him today?” said Mother. “Or recently today? Or just have I seen him?”

Phule rolled his eyes. In any other Legion unit, Mother’s ongoing impertinence to her commanding officer would’ve been grounds for a reprimand-possibly some even harder disciplinary measure. But when Phule first came to Omega Company, she’d been a different person. So different that her name among her fellow legionnaires was “Shrinking Violet.” Only when he’d put her behind a microphone and let her communicate to the company without showing her face did her assertiveness become apparent. That simple step had turned a cringing liability into one of the company’s main assets-and if a bit of smart-mouthed repartee was the price for it, it was one he was willing to pay.

Of course, at times like now, when he was in a hurry, the price seemed a bit stiff.

“Recently today would be good,” he said. “And if not recently, just tell me the last time you did see him.”

“Oh, let me see… it must have been just after eleven hundred hours,” she said. “That’d be a little before lunchtime, hon,” she added helpfully.

“Eleven hundred…” Phule looked at the time readout on his wrist communicator. “That’s nearly three hours ago. Where was he when you saw him, Mother?”

“Headed out toward the perimeter,” said Mother. She paused a beat, then added, “with Nightingale. They make a really cute couple, don’t you think, sweetie?”

Phule sputtered for a few moments, trying to figure out how to fit his mental image of his butler into the same lobe of his brain as the words cute couple. After several unconvincing tries, he asked the first reasonable question that came to mind. “Which way were they headed, Mother?”

He could almost hear the smirk that accompanied her reply. “Now, dearie, that’d be telling, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, er, yes,” said Phule, dully. “That’s what I was asking you to do, I thought.”

“You should think again, silly boy,” said Mother. “Or maybe that’s your problem. Using your head when it’s the totally wrong thing to do. Don’t worry, they’ll be back, and then you can ask poor old Beekie whatever it was you wanted to ask. I’m sure it can wait until then.”

“Poor old Beekie?” said Phule, even more confused than before.

“You heard me the first time, sweetie,” said Mother, and she broke the connection before Phule could ask her anything else.

In the hot midday sun at the edge of Zenobia Base, Flight Leftenant Qual and three members of his team worked to adjust the sklern, their long-range holographic image projector. One of the triumphs of Zenobian technology, the sklern had already proved its value as a means to spread terror to an unsuspecting enemy. Now, Qual and his troops were working on means of using the sklern to deceive an enemy into misallocating forces, defending against nonexistent threats, or other tactical and strategic errors growing out of mistaking illusion for reality.

A short distance away, a pudgy figure in a modified Legion uniform stood watching the Zenobians. Rev’s interest in the saurian natives of this planet had been piqued with the discovery that, somewhere in the distant past, Zenobia had been exposed to the charismatic presence of the King-the guiding figure on whose inspiring career his church rested its teachings. Some among Omega Company dismissed the event as a random electronic signal traveling across the limitless space between Zenobia and Old Earth. Others… well, Rev was one of those others. And he had long since decided that, when it came to the King, there was very little that could be called random.

And so he listened to the Zenobians’ chatter, hoping that a stray word might give him a deeper insight into the meaning of their experience. In his business, a stray word or gesture could mean worlds upon worlds…

“Did you witness Hrap’s presentation last twilight?” one of the Zenobians asked another. Their translators were always on, so an eavesdropping human could easily follow their conversations-well, at least more easily than if their conversation was left untranslated. The idiosyncratic character of the Zenobian language had been one of the oddball discoveries the members of Omega Company had made in the year or so its forces had been present on the planet. In fact, the Zenobian language was quirky enough that Alliance military intelligence had developed a strong interest in its potential as an unbreakable code.

“Hrap is well-known as an open cloaca,” said the second Zenobian. “It would be redundant to witness his giving extended proof thereof.”

The first riposted, “I will not contest his cloacahood, but balanced judgment would consider his favor with the masses.”

“The masses are themselves cloacae,” interjected a third voice. Curiously, as Rev had previously noted, even machine translations of Zenobian voices carried a strong hint of the individuality of the speakers. Rev would likely have had trouble telling the three Zenobians apart visually, but their voices were as distinctive as holos of three different landscapes.

“Take care not to swerve from your settings,” said Qual, who listened to the previous discussion without comment. “We approach the activation potential…”

“Amplitude settings in perfect alignment,” said the Zenobian who had begun the discussion. Rev thought he detected a note of condescension in the reply.

“Yo, Rev, you got a minute?” came a voice from the other direction. Rev turned to see Roadkill, one of the newer group of legionnaires, standing a short distance away. Roadkill was an occasional attendee at Rev’s services, though he hadn’t yet responded to Rev’s efforts to persuade the legionnaires of Omega Company to become full members of the Church of the King.