"I wouldn't have expected a decent plot from a pin-striped swabbie!" the pirate growled.
"Great!" Pierce sighed. "Now what do we do?"
"Maybe hunt up some grub," Marshmallow suggested. "Ah'm stahvin'!"
Pierce sighed. "Might as well. It seems we're at a standoff, as always. What a situation! You can't even get captured and hauled away by pirates!" He looked up toward the ceiling. "Hey!
Conqueror! Time to feed the other two prisoners. The first one's got too much, I think."
"They call me Mellow Millard!" the general sang off-key.
"Oh, I suppose we might as well," Pierce-Arro grumped. "I told you, though, that the only thing I can do is the biochemically compatible caloric liquid I distilled from the engine maintenance and lubrication system."
"Anything. My throat's dry, too," Pierce told him.
"Then get your cups and use the washbasin faucet. It's the only one I could reroute without a full mechanical overhaul."
"This be the real pits," the pirate image moaned.
"In a Gadda da vida, honey!" bawled the general.
Pierce took a cup and tried the faucet and a clear liquid that looked just dike water dribbled into it. He waited until it was about half full, then handed it to Marshmallow and did the same with another cup. When done, he shut off the tap, clicked his cup to hers, and said, "Well, I don't know what this is going to taste like, but it's all we've got." He took a drink, and so did she, and suddenly their eyes bulged and they both seemed to be having an attack.
Finally Pierce managed, hoarsely, to ask, "What is this stuff?"
"The process involves over four hundred synthetic products," Pierce-Arrow told him, "but the end result ischemically identical to what the data banks here call grain alcohol. About ten percent of it is water, but it is impossible to separate it further."
Pierce stared at him. "That's a hundred and eighty proof!"
"Whoo-eee!" Marshmallow exclaimed. "That there's the smoothest dern country moonshine ah evah did taste!"
"We can't drink this!" he protested. "Not unless it's way diluted, anyway."
"I told you, it's all there is, and I cannot separate the water out any further without destroying the stability of the compound. Within it is all that you require for survival, which is the best I can do. In other words, it's that or nothing. "
"A few moah sips of this heah lightnin' and we'ah gonna be singin' with that general,"
Marshmallow noted, then drank some more. "Shore beats just sittin' around, though! A few more gulps of this and Ah'm gonna be drunk as a skunk!"
This is the book speaking again. Remember me? We interrupt here to point out that (A) The real Marshmallow, still in lizard-Pierce's body, is also still on the big dreadnought loaded with conquering bureaucrats some-where in space; (B) the one who thinks she's Marshmallow is really human-Pierce; (C) the one who thinks he's human-Pierce is really Sly, the XB-223 navigational computer; (D) we are not advocating the consumption of grain alcohol, unless, of course, you're stuck in a shaky and partly destroyed spaceship with an overcharged lizard-Pierce general in the body of an android overseen by a smashed-together pair of microbial conquerors inhabiting the ship's navigational computer while being under the guns of a pirate spaceship. Clear?
If you have followed everything up to this point with perfect clarity, please place your summary, using words of no more than two syllables, neatly typed or printed out, in an envelope and send it to the authors, care of Tor Books, because we don't understand it at all.
So, as long as everybody is either mellow (including dead •drunk and uninhibited even if not uninhabited), stalled, or totally confused, let us leave this scene for a moment (we'll be coming back, I promise) and see what's been happening to poor Marshmallow—the real one—on the great lizard dreadnought . . .
"Tell me, General, when did you first begin to believe that you were a female ape?"
"Ah ain't no ape and I ain't no general!" she shouted back at them for the nine hundred and ninety-ninth time. "Ah'm Honeylou Emmyjane Goldberg and when mah Daddy heahs 'bout this he's gonna have the biggest dern sale on lizand-skin luggage in the history of the univahse!"
"Fascinating," said the first psychiatrist. "Do you suppose it was formed in childhood and only surfaced under the pressures of a battlefield command?"
"Well, I've been researching the literature for a true example of neo-Freudian transversals with suggestions of Mommism and a totally Jungian counterpoint and the nearest I can come up with is some ancient writings from a controversial and not wholly appreciated minor figure that might explain a few things while still leaving us room for our inevitable thirty-six technical papers and two or three pop self-psychoanalysis best-sellers that will make us rich and famous."
"Really? Two or three? Who is the figure? Hubbard?"
"No, Leary."
"Ah, yes, that would explain a lot. But both he andHubbard were true examples of McLuhanesque figures, recall."
"I recall that they all died filthy rich, which is why we both got into psychiatry in the first place, wasn't it?"
"That's the fuhst damn' thing I heahrd from either of you so fah that's made any sense at all,"
she grumped.
But by now they'd returned to so much psychobabble, sometimes mixed with economics, that they no longer paid any attention to her at all. It had been this way almost from the start and she was feeling pretty damned depressed and frustrated by this point.
She got up and lumbered back to the ward, where, as far as she could tell, the only sane people on this entire ship stayed.
About the only thing good about her situation, she decided, was that the air didn't stink.
One fellow, who called himself Pokey, had been a particular friend since she'd been stuck here. He wasn't very old and he was quite pleasant; supposedly some kind of computer whiz who could work out almost any technological problem in his head. That was part of his problem.
First of all, you weren't supposed to solve problems in the system, not unless you at the same time created ten new ones for others to work on. And he was very good at solving things. They'd let him pretty well alone, since, it seemed, he was the only one on the ship who could repair anything that broke, but one day he'd gone too far. He'd used the ship's main computers to run a problem and discovered a neat, simple table of operations that totally eliminated all need forever for lawyers. The moment the High Command had seen it and realized its truth and simplicity they'd had no choice but to commit him to the psychiatric wards, with occasional furloughs to fix broken things now and again.
Most of the people committed to the psych ward were like that. Bright, normal, even likeable people—for lizards. Their problems were mostly that they had been caught beating the system or not wholeheartedly supporting it. And, of course, there were the real nuts, off in their own bay, who'd gone bananas dealing with the same system.
He saw her coming and his saurian face twisted in an evil-looking grin. "Nothing much again, huh?"
"You said it," she sighed. "It's a good thing Ah'm not really sick, 'cause them guys wouldn't know how to really cuah nobody."
"Oh, it's not their jobs to cure anybody," he pointed out. "If they did that, they'd soon be out of a job. They were going on this mission in the hopes of getting enough material so that when they got back they'd be able to open practices for the incredibly rich hypochondriacs and make even more money appearing as guests on countless talk shows."
"Ain't theah no real shrinks in yoah neck o' the woods?"
"Sure. Plenty. But most of 'em either turn into those types or quit and take up some other kind of medicine. See, they already know how to cure most real mental illnesses, and they cure lots of folks and send them back into this crazy locked-up system well adjusted so they no longer rock the boat. Do that enough to otherwise nice people and you either sell out or quit or go nuts yourself from guilt."
"Ah see what you mean. But bein' one of theah patients ain't no fun."
&n
bsp; "Oh, I dunno. It's allowed me to work totally unfettered. Ever since I rewired the electroshock machine to create a neural network path that merges me with the master computer systems I've been able to do wonders in research and development. Just today I ran your ownproblem through my augmented head and figured out how your minds got switched around. It's a fascinating concept. I've been thinking of rerouting some circuitry aboard here and swapping a few folks out now and then. Child's play, really."
She was suddenly struck by the enormity of his statement. "You mean—you know how Ah could be put back in mah body? Mah real one? And ev'rybody else, too?"
"Sure. No real problem. Your mind doesn't really fit a different body, it just copes. There's a natural electrochemical will that wants to be back and right again, but it's stopped. Create a proper electromagnetic field that can permeate all concerned and, if all are relaxed and just let things go, the minds will go back to their own bodies of their own accord."
"Sheeit! Heah you go and tell me it can be done, and Ah'm stuck heah away from mah body and the general, and we'ah speedin' away from 'em at some ungodly speed.'"Well, yeah, that is the problem," he agreed. "I'd like to help, but I can't figure out how. The only way you could alter things at this point would be to be cured and resume your post."
"Huh? Well, that shore ain't possible!"
Pokey's saurian head tilted in thought. "Oh, I dunno. Suppose you got certified as cured? A few odd manner-isms, like your accent and such, but if you said you were General Pierce and the records all said you were fit for duty, you'd get back."
"But—that's impossible. Isn't it? Besides, even if it were possible, they'd just have me up on chahges as a traitah or blame me for all that went wrong with theah plans."
"Oh, I don't think so. For one thing, those charges, while filed, can be bounced back again and again. Nobody ever fills out a form a hundred percent correctly. The forms are designed for errors. That's so at any point in any process the whole thing can be thrown out if it goes wrong.
And nobody's filed any charges against you—I checked. They can't until you've completed your psychiatric evaluation. -So, if the records were cleared and you were returned to duty, it would be to full duty. See?"
"No. But Ah'll take yoah wurd foah it. But if Ah go back on duty, as it werh, they'll know in a minute it ain't me. Hell, they really know that now!"
"Sure they do, but the reports on the attack on the ship have been filed and are working their way through the mill and they state categorically that you are General Pierce. They committed you to psychiatric because you insisted you weren't. If you say you are, then their original reports and their original commitment would have been wrong, and knowingly so. That's a crime. Not only could Roosevelt and the others be brought up on charges, but, much worse, they'd all have to redo their reports. They might risk a trial, but they'd do most anything to keep from having to write those reports over!"
She sat down hard, balanced on her tail. "Good loand! And what, pray tell, would Ah have to do as a general heah?"
"Well, generals as a rule don't do much. They order other people to do everything. That's the fun of it. But, for four hours every day, at your rank and position, you would be the Watch Officer in charge of the ship—essentially the embodiment of the High Command."
"Ordahs? What kind of ordahs?"
"Anything you want. That's what generals do."
"And nobody would question nothin'?"
"You don't question generals. Do that and you wind up here."
"You mean—I could ordah us back to mah body and ship?"
"Sure."
"But it's moah than foah hoahs back. Somebody'll tuhn us 'round again."
"You are crediting your fellow generals with far too much intelligence and initiative."
She wanted to kiss him but it was tough with a snout.
"Uh—Pokey? Why are you doin' this foah me?"
"Because it's fun, of course. In a sense, you're the monkey and I'm the wrench."
"You don't care 'bout the invasion?"
"I know how old I'll be when any of those eggs reach a point where they can hatch, and how big a place this is to conquer. Besides, they really don't want to conquer you. They just want somebody to fight with."
She stood tall and tried to look military and saluted. "Gen'rul Pieahce, fit and ready foah duty, suh!"
Wait a minute, Effinger! This is the book again. You weren't supposed to leave them like this at the end of Chapter Ten. They were supposed to get back in their own bodies again!
Why . . . What . . . ? You're not Effinger!!! You're—
Sunrise on a planet called Uncharted.
A swollen red sun crept over the horizon, blotting out the pale light of the world's twin moons. The dawn's first glimmers revealed tall blue-black fern trees and a dense underbrush of drab violet thornbushes. Wisps of greenish vapors floated by, and now and then a gliding reptile sailed close to the repaired windshield of the Pete Rozelle. Uncharted was a planet that had been colored with those crayons you never wanted to use for anything else, and populated by the kinds of animals you didn't want to see when you went to the zoo.
Unknown to the scattered cast members, the Pete Rozelle had crashed in a jungle on a desolate and uninhabited island continent in the southern hemisphere. Thousands of miles away to the north there was a larger continent, one with great and teeming cities. The people of that continent, though alien, were moderately human in their ways, enough so that they would have been deeply interested in their visitors from space. At least up until the moment the Unchartedians killed them all.
So the three Pierces, Arro, and the XB-223—not to mention Paddy de Faux Grais in his flagship, the Bon Homme McClusky—turned toward the south (did we mention that Uncharted rotates from north to south?) and felt a sudden resurgence of hope as they greeted the strange, otherworldly daybreak.
It's moments like these, all too rare in the history of galaxy-smashing scientific adventure literature, that re-fresh fictional characters, authors, and readers alike. There is a definite need for the occasional reflective pause, when we can all catch our breath and shove a thick phone book under our sagging suspension of disbelief. Perhaps, by this stage of a novel, a few readers may begin to have problems with some of the more awesome and spectacular ideas. For instance, even we were brought up short by the concept of a sheep fondue in the last chapter. We could easily imagine an immense fondue pot big enough to contain a ton and a half of melted cheese; it was the whole sheep on pointed sticks that gave us trouble.
So before we dive back into the frantic events surrounding our perplexed crew, let's take the opportunity to stretch our legs and look around. If you examine the setting closely, you'll notice strange maroon-colored creatures skittering through the blue-black foliage. There are fantastically shaped dull brown flowers, too, crawling with tiny, intelligent, starshaped blobs of blue flesh.
There is a bloody revolution going on in one of their mulch colonies that's nearly as dramatic as the tangled mess Millard Fillmore Pierce has gotten himself into. In fact, someday someone will write an entire novel about these sentient beings. It won't get published, though.
Pierce might have been reassured if he'd known the truth about the environment into which his ship hadcrashed. Perhaps if there'd been an exobiologist aboard, the scientist might have examined the busy blue stars and determined that their body chemistry was very similar to that of Earth animals. That would have led to several interesting speculations. The first is that there was probably a larger continent in the northern hemisphere with great and teeming cities, and the second is that Uncharted's atmosphere, though faintly green and roiling, was near enough to Earth's to be breathable.
No one—neither Daddy nor the lizards aboard their battle cruisers nor Pierce-Arro within the Pete Rozelle's computer system—had taken the time to make such an analysis. They'd all been too busy scheming and swapping bodies and yelling at each other. Yet keep the truth about the planet's atmosphere in mi
nd: It will become important in a couple of thousand words.
In the meantime, a former immense and terrifying lizard, now housed in the blatiing bodies of two minuscule gasbags aboard the Protean scout ship M.W.C. Pel Torro, General Millard Fillmore Pierce held up a tumbler of food. It looked like water and tasted like fire, but Pierce-Arro called it food. The general was in no mood to argue. He raised the food, gave a little shudder, and took a long gulp.
"That's it, Gen'ral Sugah," said the human Pierce craftily. He still thought he was Marshmallow, but even Marshmallow would be able to see the value of a leader of the invading lizard forces disabling himself with liquor.
"Urk," replied the general solemnly. Somehow, he managed to give the impression that the Frank Poole android's features had begun to blur.
Marshmallow-Pierce had consumed a quantity of food, too, but that had been the night before, and now he was perfectly sober. He had only a queasy stomach and a throbbing headache that felt like someone was breaking big rocks into small rocks with a pickax somewhere behind his forehead. He decided not to have any more food for a while, despite how rich and flavorful Pierce-Arro's product was. Thinking like Marshmallow, Pierce planned to be ready as soon as Daddy made his move to rescue her.
The XB-223, no longer calling himself Sly because he believed he was the human Pierce, also decided to remain sober and watchful. "I'll protect you, Marshmallow," he murmured into her ear.
"Ah doan' really need pertectin' as such," she said, giving him a sweet smile. "Ah am, as you may have noticed, a big gal now, an' Ah kin take care of mahself. But it sho' is gallant of you to offah."
The computer put Pierce's arm around Marshmallow's shoulders and drew her nearer. "I don't know what it is, honey. You just bring out the protective side in me."
Marshmallow shook her head. "Heah Ah am, standin' heah buck naked, an' all you want to do is pertect me. Ah must be losin' mah touch!"
They looked at each other, gazing deep into each other's eyes. Then slowly they drew closer, and at last, passionately, Class 2 Arbiter Millard Fillmore Pierce was kissed deeply by his own computer.
The Red Tape War (1991) Page 18