Robert Asprin: A Phule and His Money

Phule pulled himself up straight and said, "As you can see, I'm speaking to this young lady. I'll be glad to listen to you people as soon as I'm done with her." He turned back to Dee Dee, who had fallen silent upon seeing the three newcomers.

"Tryin' to get it on with the fox, huh?" The big man sneered. "That jive can wait-we got serious business. You know a cheap punk name of Chocolate Harry?"

"Chocolate Harry no cheap punk," growled Tusk-anini, moving in to stand at Phule's side. "And you talk polite to captain, or you not like what happens next."

The three newcomers laughed. "Listen to the warthog," said the woman-her voice was deep and rough, but unquestionably female. "He thinks he can tell the Renegades how to talk, he got another think comin'."

"So-you're the Renegades," Phule said. He'd heard C.H.'s tale of how a rival biker gang had vowed vengeance for some long-ago injury, but had never taken seriously the likelihood that they would actually track down his supply sergeant. Apparently he'd miscalculated.

"Damn straight, soldier boy," said the big man. "Us and a few hundred others is the Renegades, and we're looking for Chocolate Harry. Sounds to me like you and the warthog just might know where he is."

"If we do, it's none of your business," said Phule. "He's a legionnaire, and you'd be better advised to forget whatever disagreement you have with him. We protect our own."

"Your own?" The woman spat on the floor, then grinned crookedly; Phule could see that she was missing several teeth. "You can call him your own, but his fat ass is ours, soldier boy. And you know what we gonna do when we get it?"

"We gonna slice it three ways," said the big man, leering evilly.

The third man spoke for the first time, in a rasping low voice made even more sinister by his absolute deadpan delivery. "We gonna cut it deep, wide, and often." He patted a sheath on the belt of his jeans, where the handle of a vibroblade could be seen.

"You not getting close enough to do that," said Tuskanini, and as he spoke, a loud whistle came from behind the three Renegades. They whirled to see Moustache standing there, backed by half a dozen legionnaires brandishing Rolling Thunder belt-fed shotguns. "You go now before we getting mad," said the Volton.

"Shit," said the big man, half under his breath. Then he turned to Phule and said, "We got no fight with you, soldier boy. Tell your kids to put away the toys-we're not gonna start nothin' now. But make sure Chocolate Harry knows we've got him spotted, and he can't hide no more."

The three Renegades turned as one, and strode out past the assembled troops, managing to keep up an impressive front in the face of so much firepower. When they had gone, Phule let out the deep breath he'd been holding. If the bikers had decided to grab him and Dee Dee as hostages, the shotguns would have been of little use. But for now, the threat was defused.

"Captain! Now, about this costume!" Dee Dee's voice snapped him back to reality. It was beginning to look like a very long afternoon.

Journal #285

Command of a military unit is no sinecure, even in the notoriously lax Space Legion. Put in command of a unit that had become a dumping ground for malcontents and incompetents, my employer knew he faced a formidable task in making anything of it-let alone an elite company. That he had accomplished as much as he had spoke highly of his determination. It goes without saying that the accomplishment was achieved at no small personal cost-especially considering that much of what he had accomplished had been opposed at every step by his superior officers.

As became apparent, his successes on Lorelei only gave his enemies more reason to hate him.

General Blitzkrieg stomped into his office. It was shaping up as another rotten day. There had been a lot of those lately-it was almost enough to make him opt for early retirement and accept the lower pension as fair trade for the aggravation. But he wasn't about to be eased out of the saddle. Not while his purpose remained unfulfilled.

"Here are your news printouts, sir," said his aide, a tired-looking major who'd held the position for three years. Being aide-de-camp to one of the three top generals in the Space Legion had looked like a brilliant career move a few years earlier: an ideal shortcut to promotion for an ambitious officer with neither political connections, personal wealth, nor military talent. But Major Sparrowhawk had been second-guessing her decision to take the assignment ever since. She handed the sheaf of customized, automatically-edited flimsies to the general. Most senior officers got their intelligence straight off the Net, but Blitzkrieg was a stickler for the ancient print technology-"good old hard copy," as he called it.

The general riffled through the printouts, and threw them into the trash. "Nothing worth a damn," he growled, and turned to go into his inner office.

Sparrowhawk cleared her throat. "Begging your pardon, sir, but I've been sorting your news printouts for you for the entire time I've been here. For the last year or so, you hardly glance at them before you throw them away. Perhaps I need to redefine the sort, or expand the coverage. What are you looking for that isn't showing up?"

Blitzkrieg stopped and scowled at his aide, who began to regret asking. "Don't you know by now? I'm waiting to see if that damned Captain Jester has finally done something I can cashier him for. You won't have to expand your coverage to find that-sooner or later, the idiot is bound to commit a blunder that'll put him in the headlines galaxywide, and I'll give him what he deserves. And then I can retire, knowing I've done the Legion a service for which my successors will be forever grateful."

"I thought as much, sir," said Sparrowhawk. Her brows knitted for a moment, then she said, "I think you might want to take another look through those flimsies, then. There's an article there I had to look at twice myself-it wasn't immediately obvious why your search parameters turned it up. But I think you'll find it very interesting indeed."

"Really?" Blitzkrieg bent over and retrieved the printouts from the trash. He flipped through them again, this time more slowly. His expression became more and more puzzled. Finally he looked up at Sparrowhawk and said, "Major, if you think I enjoy guessing games, you don't know me very well. What's the story, and why would I be interested?"

"The third one down, sir," she said, secretly pleased that the general had overlooked it twice. "The one about the new government on Landoor."

"Hmmm..." The general scanned the article, but his perplexity grew, and at last he held it up accusingly. "There's nothing about Jester here, Major."

"No, sir," said Major Sparrowhawk, patiently. She knew she'd have to explain it to him-Blitzkrieg's rise to the top of the Space Legion had nothing to do with intellectual eminence. "Do you remember the episode that first brought Jester-he went by the name `Scaramouche' then-to your attention?"

"Damned right I remember it, Major," growled Blitzkrieg. "The ignorant pup talked a pilot into strafing the signing of a peace treaty. Luckily there was enough warning for everyone on the ground to get to cover-or maybe not so luckily. A few casualties and we'd have put Jester behind bars."

"Exactly, sir," said Sparrowhawk. "It may have slipped your memory that Landoor is the world where that incident occurred."

"Yes, of course I knew that," said Blitzkrieg. "So, life goes on, and they've got a new government. Nothing to concern us, eh, Major?"

"Perhaps not," Sparrowhawk doggedly continued. "Nothing directly, of course. There was some information down in the fifth paragraph I thought you could turn to use, but perhaps I misunderstood its implications."