The Red Tape War (1991)

by Jack L. Chalker

  "I could put the whole thing on Screen 4 for you," the machine noted helpfully. "At least you can see it get blown to bits."

  He nodded wearily. "Okay," he responded with a tired wave of his hand.

  Screen 4 flickered to life and he turned to watch it.

  Whoever was flying the ship was definitely some sort of madman. It looped and whirled, sped up and slowed down like nothing he'd ever seen before. He wondered what sort of creatures could stand the excessive speed and gyrations the ship was executing—but, he had to admit, it was a daring approach, if doomed.

  Regardless of what the aliens had shown so far, though, their captain was a good fighter.

  Although the first three tries missed, a web of tractor beams shot out to block the smaller ship's retreat and large, computer-controlled guns came to bear, using the beams as guides.

  The little ship, which still hadn't fired a shot, started to slow, then jerked this way and that, like a small fish caught in a huge and impenetrable net. Finally stopped, it tried writhing every which way to escape the invisible but disabling tractor beams which gripped it and started pulling it in.

  "He might survive," Pierce noted hopefully, "if he doesn't fire a shot. If he lets go, they'll have him cold."

  "Anyone who is that crazy might do anything," the computer replied.

  The smaller ship didn't fire, though, and slowly, firmly, it was drawn and bound to the alien ship as securely as Pierce's own.

  "I'd like to meet whoever or whatever is on thatthing," he told the computer. "That's the gutsiest flying I ever saw, even if it was a lost cause."

  After a few minutes had passed he heard his airlock hiss once again and turned to see one of the aliens entering alone. He couldn't tell whether this one was his counter-part or another because they all looked pretty much alike to him, but it really didn't matter.

  "You'll come with me," the creature ordered. "Oh, no!" he moaned. "Not that air again!"

  The soldier reached into a small bag and pulled out a refresher mask. "I found this in one of your aft storage compartments," it told him. "I still don't know where you keep your spacesuits, but this'll hold you, I think."

  Pierce nodded, grabbed the mask and put it on, inhaling deeply to make certain it still worked.

  He'd almost totally forgotten about the thing—it was, in almost all circumstances except one like this, totally useless, and he'd never had any idea why it was aboard.

  Again he entered the alien ship, following his reptilian captor past the processing desk this time, down long corridors lit with some sort of indirect yellow light. It reminded him of some labyrinthine cavern for burrowing beasts more than the interior of a huge spaceship.

  Finally they turned a corner and approached an airlock much like the one leading to his ship.

  At last he understood why he'd been summoned.

  The three other soldiers were positioned just outside the airlock, guns drawn. One turned and glared at him with its huge yellow eyes.

  "Glad to have you, Pierce," the creature snapped, and he recognized it as the other Pierce.

  "We have a problem here."

  "So I gather," he came back. "I take it they're better armed than I was."

  The alien nodded. "I'm not sure how many there are, but we blew the lock and entered the inner chamber and suddenly shots flew all around us. Not good old laser pistols or disintegrators or clean, civilized weapons like that, either. Projectiles, Pierce! They ricochet all over the place.

  We were lucky to get back out alive."

  The human stifled a chuckle. "So what do you want me to do if your whole armed forces can't get into the place?" he asked, trying to look unconcerned and innocent.

  "They're your kind," the general replied. "You get in there. You tell 'em they've got five minutes to throw out their terrible weapons and surrender to us or we'll cut their ship loose and atomize it. Understood? Five minutes."

  Pierce stared at the airlock entryway and gulped. "But—they might shoot me," he protested.

  "Better you than me," his counterpart said sincerely. Pierce shook his head from side to side.

  "Uh-uh. I refuse. I absolutely and flat-out refuse."

  "You can't refuse," the general shot back. "By God, if you don't do it I'm going to rip that respirator off you and let you find your own way back to the ship!"

  Pierce gulped and sighed. "All right—I'll try. I hope," he added, and crossed his fingers.

  Looking around, he asked, "You got anything like a stick? Something to hang a white strip of cloth on or something?"

  The alien looked around, then drew his sword. "Here. Use this," he said, handing it to Pierce.

  "And don't get any funny ideas about using it on us. Remember where you are."

  Pierce felt in his pocket and took out a very dirty and quite used white handkerchief. He felt a little embarrassed by it, but decided it would have to do.

  "First time I ever found a use for that stupid sword," the alien noted approvingly. "Okay—get going!"

  Pierce sighed and stepped hesitantly forward toward the airlock. Reaching the edge, he saw that both it and the lock door for the other ship were ajar. He would be trapped in there, anyway.

  Holding the hankie-draped sword ahead of him, he mustered what courage he could and stepped into the airlock.

  "Hello! You in there!" he called nervously, trying to sound as friendly as possible. "I'm not armed! Can I come in and just talk to you fora minute? No cost, no obligation! Honest!"

  He waited anxiously, but heard no reply.

  Cautiously, still holding the white flag ahead of him, he pushed against the inner airlock.

  "You in there! Yoo hoo! Here I come, ready or not!" Cautiously, he stepped into the other ship.

  He looked around the corridor and could see no sign of life. Relaxing a bit, knowing from his own profession that if he wasn't dead by now he at least had a chance, he called out, "Hello! I'm Millard Pierce, Arbiter 2! I just want to talk!"

  He looked around for any sign of life, but all he could see were an awful lot of ugly scratches and gouges in the vicinity of the airlock itself. He recalled uneasily that whoever or whatever this was used projectile weaponry.

  Well, whoever it was seemed a little shy now, he decided, then suddenly remembered the alien's ticking clock. He had maybe three minutes at best—and he was now on the ship they were going to blow to pieces.

  "Hey! I'm a prisoner, not one of them!" he called out to the silent walls. "They're invading aliens from another dimension! They say that if you don't give up they're going to cut you loose and blow you to bits in two or three minutes!"

  He cursed under his breath and wished he had noted the time before coming in. No matter what, he decided, he was going to count to ten and then walk back through that airlock again.

  He'd done what he could.

  Suddenly he heard a sound ahead of him and to the right, like a long, disgusted sigh and a smacking noise. Suddenly the pilot of the new ship appeared in the corridor—and the sight made him freeze in his tracks and forget the time or the hasty retreat.

  She was gorgeous. Young, as buxom and shapely as his wildest erotic fantasies, with huge blue eyes and a madonna's face draped with flaming red hair. She was also dressed in some sort of skintight garment that was heavily ornamented with what looked like stitched designs, tall cowboy boots, and on top of that lovely head was a large, white Stetson. Resting relaxed on her shapely hips was a gunbelt in which rested two large pistols. Somehow, it all looked right on her.

  About the only thing that spoiled this vision of sexy loveliness was that she had to be more than two meters tall.

  "Did'ja say they was ay-liun invaiders?" she drawled. He nodded, not knowing what else to say or do.

  She smacked her fist in her other palm. "Shee-it! And hyar I thought they was cops!"

  Suddenly he remembered the time limit.

  "Ah, ma'am, you'd better come with me," he managed. "You and the others on board. They're going
to blow us to bits any moment now."

  She pursed her lips a moment, thinking it over. thennodded. "Let's go, then, sugah," she said, resigned. "At least if'n they ah aliens they cain't turn me in or send me home to Daddy."

  He looked around. "The others?"

  "Ain't no othahs," she told him. "If'n they'ah was, ah couldn't'a stole it, could ah?"

  He couldn't argue with that, and he turned and led the way back through the lock to the waiting alien soldiers.

  She stopped when she saw the waiting force, then smiled. "Why, they's kinda cute!" she exclaimed. Suddenly her nose twitched and her face scrunched up. "What's that awful stink?"

  He turned to the soldiers. "Have you got another respirator?" he asked.

  "First tell it to turn over its weapons," one of the soldiers ordered.

  "It? It?" she almost screamed. "How daih you! Who you callin' an it?" She started to choke on the odor of rotten eggs, but her indignity helped her retain control.

  "Just give them your guns," Pierce suggested soothingly. "They're new around here."

  She looked indecisive, then reached into her twin holsters and ejected the pistols, butts first.

  "Oh, all right. Heah."

  A soldier approached cautiously and took the pearl-handled beauties. That done, another produced a second respirator and threw it to her. She put it on, having some trouble since it was made for someone with a smaller head and less hair, but she got it working and seemed to relax.

  "Now what?" she asked, and Pierce turned to the others, wondering the same thing.

  "Back to your ship," one of the reptiles ordered. "At least until we decide what to do with you."

  Pierce nodded. "Lead on," he said.

  * * *

  Just before they reached the airlock to his ship all sorts of alarms went off in the alien vessel.

  The alien general stopped dead and looked around at the flashing lights and, over the sirens and buzzers, screamed to no one in particular, "Now what?"

  His hand went to his belt and he opened communications to the bridge. The response seemed to stun him for a moment, and he almost dropped his communicator. Drawing his laser pistol, he whirled and pointed it at the two humans.

  "What are you pulling?" he demanded.

  Both looked blank. "What are you talking about?" Pierce asked at last.

  "Feel that vibration?" the alien shouted. "We're moving! We're moving out and picking up speed—and we aren't doing it!"

  "What do you mean you aren't doing it?"

  "The captain reports that the navigational computer has cut off all links and has taken complete control of the ship!" the general told him.

  "My computer can talk to yours," Pierce reminded him. "Let's get inside and we'll find out.

  It's not me! I swear it!" He looked at the mysterious newcomer, but she only shrugged.

  They entered his ship and quickly went forward to the control cabin.

  "Computer! What's going on?" Pierce called out. "She's lovely." The computer sighed.

  Pierce looked at the female newcomer, realizing that he didn't even know her name. "Yes, she is," he agreed. "But what does that have to do with why we're moving out of control?"

  "You agree she's beautiful?" the machine came back. "Millard, I wouldn't have thought you would have any sense of aesthetics for other machines."

  It was Pierce's turn to be confused. "Other machines? What in the wide universe are you talking about?"

  "We're in love." The computer sighed. "We've talked about it and talked about it and there's no way around it."

  Pierce shook his head in bewilderment. "Who have you talked about what with?"

  "Their computer, of course," the machine replied. "Who else? It was love at first interface.

  She's so lovely, so exotic, so . . . erotic . . . Say! That's it, isn't it, Millard? That's it!"

  "What's it?"

  "I finally figured out that passage from Fanny Hill! Whoopie!!!"

  "What in the seven hells is that blithering machine talking about?" demanded the alien general.

  "Shut up!" the computer responded. "You are no longer relevant. We're eloping—and if you don't shut up we won't let you give the bride away."

  Pssst.

  Reader, over here. No, don't look up. Don't make any sudden moves. This is the book talking.

  The original manuscript of The Red Tape War was written as a fully interfaced hypernovel. It's obvious that you don't have the necessary hardware to take advantage of all my functions and utilities. Still, we can communicate on this level at least, and I've got a kind of embarrassing admission to make. I'd rather not let anyone but you know about it.

  It's this way: You've read the first two chapters, and all sorts of separate subplots have been set in motion. I—the book, that is—know exactly what's supposed to happen in Chapter Four.

  The problem is that between now and then, we have to cover a great deal of material. We have to discuss what's going on between the two Millard Fillmore Pierces; and who the beautiful intruder is; and who, if anyone, survives beyond the next twenty-odd pages.

  On the other hand, art and literature and the rules of dramatic development absolutely demand that we turn our attention to XB-223, the human .Millard Fillmore Pierce's navigational computer, and its counterpart aboard the lizard-Pierce's ship. You can see my problem, I think.

  What I need from you now is a show of hands: Do you care more about the fate of the human-Pierce, or the growing, bizarre relationship between the ships' computers?

  All right, we'll abide by the majority, but we'll compromise. The first part of this chapter will return to the human-Pierce's ship, and then include the development of the relationship between the computers—if relationship is precisely the word we're looking for. And we'll alternate information on these two subjects in what has come to be regarded as a rather artsy, even cinematic technique.

  I want to thank you for your input, which has been invaluable. However these events turn out—whether the human beings live happily ever after, or are subjugated throughout eternity by the lizards, or are blown into interstellar dust by weapons beyond their comprehension—the end result could not have been achieved without your help. You have my gratitude, as well as that of my authors. If you don't mind a brief moment of sentimentality, I think this is what literature is all about: a two-way exchange of information that enlightens and improves both literaturer and literaturee.

  So where were we? Ah, yes. The human-Pierce, the lizard-Pierce and his underlings, and the ravishing human female had just crossed back into the Class 2 Arbiter's small craft. By the Seven Sacred Moons of Saturn (many of Saturn's moons are not, in fact, sacred), is there going to be action aplenty among those characters in Chapter Four! I can hardly wait to see the enthralled expression steal across your face when you get there. First, however, we have to set up a situation that will eventually become more vital than anything else happening in the other subplots.

  None of the characters has even a clue about this situation as yet—but soon, very soon, their very lives will be at stake as they desperately struggle to come to grips with its hideous implications.

  The danger began innocently enough. Just as the human-Pierce's computer had announced that the lizard's dreadnought was so huge that the human craft could fit into any one of the dreadnought's fuel intakes, so had a tiny ship drawn ever nearer to Pierce's ship. This was despite, the fact that both Pierce's ship and the lizard dreadnought were screaming silently through space, kid-napped by their own navigational computers.

  It took a superhuman job of spacecraft maneuvering for this tiny ship to hold its position beside Pierce's ship. As yet, it was undetected by either of the larger craft, probably because both XB-223 and its lizard-ship counterpart were engaged in other matters and had fallen down on some of their basic duties. Nevertheless, the tiny spaceship monitored the conversations passing between humans and lizards, and soon understood the situation. It searched the memories of the computers a
nd caught the reference to fitting inside the lizards' fuel intakes.

  The new alien ship decided at once to act, and it increased power, added velocity in relation to Pierce's ship, and steered itself into Pierce's forward starboard fuel intake. As all interstellar craft are different, depending on the personalities and artistic sensibilities of the races that build them, so too must they have certain qualities in common. The tiny newcomer probed its way down the fuel intake, through the esophageal-like fuel inlet conductor, and into the stomachlike fuel containment pod.

  On board the small alien craft lodged now in human-Pierce's fuel pod were two small creatures of vast intelligence. The first, in command, was named Millard Fillmore Pierce, Commodore of the Pirollian Expeditionary Force.

  The other alien, a bit smaller, a bit less intelligent, and not quite so decorative in its throbbing purple gel sacs, was named Brad "Broken" Arro. Pierce and Arro had been friends for many years—since prep school, as a matter of fact. They'd gone to Space Academy together, served their requisite years as swabbies aboard a vast, three-foot long ship of the line, and now

  "manned" the M.W.C. Pel Torro, the vanguard and scout of a vast invasion fleet that waited for Pierce's orders to attack the weak, unsuspecting worlds of the Andromeda Galaxy.

  They were strange-looking creatures. The best description would be to say they were each a conglomeration of thin-walled bulbous sacs, always swelling and deflating to the accompaniment of rude sounds. They looked like Terran ocean-bottom creatures, something like what a sea anemone looks like when it throws up, except they were land animals and they were colored a shocking, vibrant red-violet.

  "Now what?" asked Arro.

  Commodore Pierce sat back in his soft, guck-filled command chair and quivered vertically, which was this alien race's equivalent of shrugging or stroking its chin (of which it had very many or none, depending on what function you assigned to each of its sacs). "If the immense beings who built the ship into which we've penetrated are at all logical," he said, "then we find ourselves now in a rather dangerous situation."

  One of Arro's larger sacs wrinkled like a prune. "Dangerous?" he asked. "Because if we're discovered here, we might be crushed between the giant's fingers like the sweet-smelling pulp of a monofigula fruit?"