“I see.”
“This will be a first! And, of course, the rest of the case is just dripping with wonderful, unresolved issues. We have criminal misconduct on the part of Captain Ironsides, piracy on the part of the ship from Dennison’s World with no clear !Plixxi* third party left alive enough to join in any action, seizure by the Navy—not to mention an unlawful assumption of command by you. It simply astounds me that all this is wrapped around a perfectly splendid General Average case. Two banks, three insurance policies—why, this could litigate for years! It could go to the Confederation Supreme Court!”
“The Supreme Court. Do you have a railroad on this planet?” I asked, holding my head. “I’d like to go lie down on the tracks for a while and wait for a train.”
He pursed his lips. “I really can’t say for certain. I don’t do ground-transportation cases.”
“Uh, let’s talk about my case some more. If it goes to trial, who wins?” I glanced over at Piper and made circular motions with my finger in close proximity to my temple.
“Oh, the judge will tell us that. That’s what he’s there for, isn’t he?” He reached over and pulled out a reader. “Let’s look in 41 Interstellar Jurisprudence 3rd and see what we have here under Indemnity. I’ll have my secretary type up a representation form. Oh, I can’t wait to file motions!”
“Uh, thanks,” I said, looking at the heel of Piper’s boot, which was delicately poised to grind my toe into the carpet. “I need to think this over. I’ll get back with you.”
We stepped outside into the sunlight. “Aside from you and Catarina, the last forty-eight people I’ve met, worked with, or tried to pick up have uniformly had difficulty navigating through doors and around corners. Is it me?”
“You probably attract them. Birds of a feather and that sort of thing.” She left me to hang for a second or two and then asked demurely, “You were expecting sympathy?”
“Class of Thirty-Four, huh?”
She dropped me off at Dr. Denis’s just in time for my dental appointment. The receptionist was buffing her nails when I walked in. She had her hair cut shorter than mine and wore a stone like the rock of Gibraltar on her left hand.
“I’m Ken MacKay. I’m here for my appointment.”
She tapped the mouse on her computer. “You’re a spacer? Please fill out this form, and write your Guild number in at the top. If there are copayments involved, we’ll have to ask you to give us a check made out on an account at a local bank or pay in cash. Is that okay?”
“Uh, sure. Cash, then.”
“That’ll be fine, and if you’ll please have a seat, Dr. Denis will see you in a few minutes.”
I sat down, completed the form, and pawed through a stack of six-year-old magazines. At the exact moment I found one worth reading, Dr. Denis’s assistant, a tired-eyed woman with red hair, called me back.
“Mr. MacKay? I’m Janis. Dr. Denis is ready for you.”
“Call me Ken. Pleased to meet you. You look like you’re ready to go home. Am I your last appointment?”
“You sure are. Then it’s heavy Heineken time for me.” She looked at me sympathetically. “Relax. I can see your pulse jumping from here.”
“I’m just nervous because people have been trying to kill me,” I lied.
She lifted her head as she sat me in the chair. “Have you been here before?”
“No. Why do you ask?”
“Your face looks familiar. Oh, I remember. You were the one on the newscast.” She giggled. “Should I call you Captain Teach?”
“Who?”
“You know, the pirate!”
“What?”
“I always watch Lydia’s newscasts. She’s demanding a full and open investigation into your acts of piracy. She sure has a temper! I’m glad she’s not mad at me. You look better in person. Should I ask you for your autograph?”
“What? No!” I shut my eyes. “Swell.”
“Usually there isn’t any news, so Lydia has to make some up. Things would get pretty dull around here otherwise.” She giggled. “Well, if you’ll just sit back, I’ll let you down and we’ll get started. Oh, does this mean you’re going to make your copayment in pirate treasure?”
“No,” I mumbled. I looked over at her tray and pointed. “What’s that?”
“That? That’s a needle. It’s for anaesthesia.”
“Don’t you have an anaesthesia machine?”
She shook her head. “There’s nobody in Schenectady who can do the maintenance.”
“Swell. I’m back in the Dark Ages.”
She giggled, then she stuck her head down the hallway. “Dr. Denis, we’re ready here.”
A few minutes passed. “Dr. Denis, I said we’re ready!” she called again. A minute or so later, she cupped her hands and yelled, “Menace! Will you get in here!”
“Swell,” I said.
Doctor Denis appeared. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. MacKay.” He shook my hand. “Now, you’re here—”
“Just for a checkup,” I said hastily.
“All right, then. We’ll do an ultrasound to see if you have any decay, and then we’ll do some cleaning and scaling. Open your mouth wide and bite down on these so we get a good clear picture.”
I bit down on the pieces of plastic that he stuffed into my mouth, and they bit back.
“This will only take a moment.” He giggled, which sounded better coming from his hygienist.
I started counting to sixty.
“Ah,” he said, looking at his screen, “your teeth are lovely. No sign of decay, and not a trace of inflammation around your gums. It appears all we need is a little light cleaning and scaling. Oh, may I take another picture? I collect teeth of interesting people, and yours have such nice, long roots.”
“I exercise them by biting people who want to take pictures of me,” I told him, trying to whisper with my mouth full of plastic.
“No?” Dr. Denis sounded disappointed. “Oh, well. You know, that picture of you on the news looked exactly like you. Just relax, now, and remember this won’t hurt a bit. Janis, would you please turn the music out there up?”
The song was “Why Do Fools Fall in Love, and Why Do Dentists Lie?”
At six, I found Catarina sitting in the hotel lobby. “Hi, how do you feel?”
“Better. Better than you look. You depressed?”
“The press has me depressed. Is that the line I’m being set up for?”
“You’re getting better at this. Did you notice the pickets outside?”
“Oh, no!” I rushed over to the window and pressed my face against the glass. Five people were marching around in a circle carrying signs. “Who are they?”
“The Animal Rights Support League,” Catarina explained. “Did you see the signs?”
“ ‘Rats are Man’s Best Friends,’ and ‘Rodents Need Love Too—Shoot People, Not Rats.’ I’d give them an A for effort and a C for content.”
“I talked with them on the way in. They’re very well-meaning and very confused. Also, all three members of the local chapter of the Associated Civil Liberties Union held a press conference to announce they’re filing a lawsuit against you.”
“What! For what?”
“They’re still working on that, but they’re sure you must have violated somebody’s civil rights.”
“Why me? Why not Davie Lloyd? He’s the one who smuggled drugs and knifed Frido.”
“Ken, Davie Lloyd is a criminal defendant—he’s got rights.” She chuckled. “Seriously, Beam tells me that you’ve gotten caught up in the local politics. There’s a bill in the legislature to allow importation of Rodent agricultural labour. Since every action in politics that doesn’t involve giving away free money has an equal and opposite reaction, the local unions and the local bigots have formed a coalition to ‘Keep Schuyler’s World White, Black, and Yellow.’ The other side is gunning for you.”
I sighed. “I don’t suppose it would help if I made a public statement that some of my best friends a
re Rats when they’re not shooting at me.”
“Trust me. It wouldn’t help.” Catarina parked her elbow and put her chin up. “Complicated?”
“I could have some safe, dull job, like wrestling alligators or defusing live ordnance.”
She nodded. “Some people are just lucky.”
“How about we dodge the press and the pickets and go do something?”
“Look, Ken, I’ve lost most of the day being sick. I need to spend some time on the computer running down leads. Maybe we could get together tomorrow.”
“Okay, that’s fine.”
She left, and I took a walk out to the Prancing Pony. Harry had a new sign: PLEASE DON’T SHOOT THE PIANIST. HE’S DOING THE BEST HE CAN. He had made Rosalee his new night bartender, which left him time to supervise his clientele and avert the more obvious forms of mayhem.
Schenectady’s men liked their women—well—hefty, and I could tell from the shiner one guy was sporting that Rosalee had already caught on to the finer points of her job. I waved to her and then spotted a couple of familiar shapeless shapes hunched over a table. The taller one waved back at me.
“Friend Ken, it is indeed a pleasure. Fortune has blessed us and paved the roadway beneath our feet! Come, join us!”
“Dr. Beaver. I’m surprised you’re still talking to me,” I exclaimed.
“Oh, tush! Ken, you know I would never allow mere politics, particularly sibling politics, to interfere with my friendships. As Bucky says, ‘Friendship, once gained, is greater than gold or bills of credit.’ “
Cheeves chimed in, “What His Rotundity is attempting to imply is that his demi-brothers have a distressing propensity to shorten each other’s life spans, and this situation is not precisely unique.”
“Indeed, I sometimes ask what’s one demi-brother, more or less. The succession quarrel seems to be heating up this year, eh, Cheeves? What does this make, three brothers and a couple of cousins?”
“More or less,” Cheeves agreed. “Friend Ken, His Grace believes that his demi-brother Genghis contrived to place demi-brother Adolf in an embarrassing position, so he does not see any need to blame you at all.”
“Oh, indeed. I’m sure that you were merely doing your duty as you saw it, and, as Bucky says, ‘Right thinking sometimes requires forceful action.’ Since Father announced his imminent retirement a few years ago, it seems as though every month there’s another funeral to attend. Such a beastly bother! Friend Ken, I forget—just how long is a month? Is it thirty days or thirty-one?”
“Yes,” I said.
He twitched his nose. “I understand from friend Catarina that you disarmed two armed ruffians in succession on board your ship. I am most impressed by your fortitude in handling dangerous situations so deftly.”
“If I were any defter, I’d merely be clumsy,” I said ruefully, and gave them an edited version of the day’s events.
“Well,” Beaver commented, “I must say it sounds like you have had a very trying day. Still, as Bucky says, ‘Tomorrow is always better because it means you lived through today.’ “
I spent a few idle seconds puzzling this one through and changed the subject. “Dr. Beaver—”
“Oh, please, friend Ken, call me Bucky!”
“Uh, Bucky, I’ve been meaning to ask why the original Bucky Beaver is so popular on your world.”
“Ah, friend Ken! An insightful question! I believe that it is the crystal clarity of Bucky’s moral philosophy that is so appealing. The intellectuals find it all the rage.”
“But the Bucky Beaver stories are kind of... simple stories, aren’t they?” I said, trying to find a polite way to say they were simpleminded.
“Oh, tush, Friend Ken. Tush! Their depth is incredible. I myself don’t fathom half of it. Why, take the incident in ‘Bucky Beaver Meets Bun Rabbit’ where Bucky takes a respite from his labours to do good in order to mail a postcard to his friend Woody Chuck. The deceptively simple act of mailing a postcard obviously symbolises Bucky’s internal struggle over whether to lay down his burden, as Su-jen points out in his commentary. Bucky’s triumph over his own doubts assured by that one apparently insignificant act, he strives on.”
Cheeves dipped his nose in his honey.
I was obviously out of my depth. “I always sort of thought that maybe he just wanted to say hello.”
“Friend Ken!” Beaver observed sadly, waggling a digit in the air. “You’ve obviously grasped the inconsistency, in a fumbling way, of course, but you fail to take it to its logical conclusions—you really should read Su-jen. Hypothetically, why would the author inject such a transparently trivial irrelevancy into such a profound work. On the surface, it in no way advances the plot. It is the deeper, psychological meaning which stands out. I am saddened, because unless you strive to plumb the hidden depths of these majestic tales with the wellsprings of your soul, you will not grasp the full richness that Bucky represents. Time will bring you to a fuller understanding. Don’t you think, Cheeves?”
“I, myself, sometimes find the commentaries inspiring,” Cheeves admitted.
I thought for a minute. “Ah, Bucky, if Bucky Beaver stories are such a hot thing on your planet, how is it that you were allowed to pick the name?”
Beaver looked somewhat crestfallen—which is to say the feather on his hat drooped. “I tell you in confidence, friend Ken, I owe it to my father’s influence. It would not have been decorous to allow a commoner, however exalted, to bear the name, but I am still troubled that it was I, admittedly unworthy, who was selected.”
Cheeves pulled out his pocket watch and opened it. As Beaver opened his mouth to continue, I saw one of Cheeves’s eyes shoot open.
Bucky took the hint. “Oh, dear me. Friend Ken, I enjoyed our discourse immensely, but I fear the press of time must draw me away. As Cheeves has reminded me, your little encounter has created some work for us back at the embassy. I sincerely hope to continue our discussion under less adverse circumstances. Until then, as Bucky says, ‘A ray of sunshine should guide your way.’ “
As he and Cheeves waddled out the door, Harry came over to fill the void. “Hey, Admiral! How’s business? I heard all about your little shoot-out in space. Anything you want is on the house.”
“No, thanks. I’m fine. How much did McHugh and Dykstra tell you?”
“Most of it. You going to tell me about the battle? God, I wish I’d been there!”
“I wish you’d been there, too.” I thought for a moment. “Maybe another night, if you don’t mind. I’d just as soon not talk about it.”
“No problem, Ken. I understand. Say, did you hear the joke about the cart horse named Absence that kept getting lost?”
“ ‘Absence makes the cart go wander’?”
“You heard it.”
“Sorry, Harry. Somebody got to me first.”
“Well, then, did you hear the one about—”
“ ‘Old whine in new bottles’?”
Harry’s brows knitted. “How did you guess?”
“I think I’m getting psychic in my old age,” I said with a straight face. “Have you seen Catarina?”
“She was here a little earlier. She told me you might not want to talk about the battle just yet. Well, I understand. Keep giving them hell, Ken!” He punched me lightly on the shoulder and headed off.
I rubbed the sore spot and wandered over to the bar. Rosalee poured me out a limewater and tried spinning the glass so it stopped in front of me. I caught it before it went off the end.
“Hi, Rosalee, how’re things?”
Somebody down at the other end of the bar yelled for a beer, which she sort of slung at him as a graceful way of suggesting it wasn’t polite to interrupt a conversation. “Things here are okay. Bed, board, salary, and tips—I guess I can’t complain. Whenever Harry yells, I just tell him to go stuff it. He likes that.” She picked up a static cloth and began wiping glasses. “If you’re wondering whether I’m mad at you, I’m not,” she added after a minute or two. “Thin
gs could have worked out better, but you know how that goes. You know, I even sort of miss that slimeball Frido.”
“Let’s not get too carried away with nostalgia,” I cautioned. “Has Lydia Dare been by here to interview you?”
Rosalee nodded. “She’s been by. I said I’d give her an enema with her camera if she came back.”
“Lydia seems to be having trouble putting together a story.”
I noticed a couple of dejected-looking customers trying to work up enough courage to order drinks. Rosalee flipped her static cloth up on her shoulder. “Ken, I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Thanks, Rosalee. Enjoy your evening.” I polished off my limewater and decided to call it a night. About three blocks from the hotel, it started raining, which meant that my luck was holding. When I got back, I finally remembered the question I wanted to ask Rosalee, which was how often you had to water the mushrooms in the baskets behind the bar.
Before I went to sleep I called the local library on impulse and scrolled up some poetry books on the monitor—some Yeats, some A. E. Housman, a little John Donne. It’s amazing how much you forget if you get away from it.
Piper phoned the next morning, and I went down to wait for her in the lobby. My buddy the hardworking desk clerk was scanning the newspaper in slow motion. “Are the pickets gone?” I asked.
“Sure, they knocked off when the cameras left and haven’t been back.” He reluctantly began sorting through the mail. “Did I tell you my brother-in-law got interviewed once?”
“You must have,” I said, looking for the bathroom or some other place to hide.
His brother-in-law made the nightly news for raising miniature pigs and dressing them up. Bubbles assured me that pigs were actually very intelligent animals—much smarter than dogs. That made sense; I even knew a dog that liked reporters.
I almost kissed Piper when she walked through the door five minutes later.
“Hi, Beam. Where’s Catarina?” I asked, dropping Bubbles in the middle of a long sentence.
Piper pulled off her navy cap and brushed back her short hair. “I let her off at the installation before I swung by to collect you.”
“How is she?”
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