Wingle must have had exactly the favored status he claimed, because Captain Harawe’s face replaced the Space Service logo in under a minute.
“Yes, Mr. Wingle?”
“Now, you look like an intelligent being,” Wingle began, settling back in his chair and fixing the captain’s face with a gimlet eye, “so maybe you can tell me what part of ‘it’s not ready yet’ your high-ups cannot understand? I’ve got this house party full of armored soldiers here to take it away, and I just told your superior officers not two days ago that I would let them know when they could come. And here you are, circling around this planet like a vulture ready for one of us to drop dead and scaring hell out of the locals, and sending in a whole fighting force when all it would take is one single solitary messenger on an unpowered bicycle to pick this up?”
Harawe’s dark complexion deepened further. If Daivid and X-Ray platoon could see him, he could see Daivid and X-Ray. The goofy expressions on the faces of most of the Cockroaches except for Borden indicated that they were listening with deep and abiding pleasure to their stern captain getting a dressing-down, the likes of which none of them would ever in their careers be in a position to deliver or even to listen to under most circumstances. After a brief moment in which Daivid knew their eyes met, Harawe focused on Wingle, absorbing the diatribe without changing expression at all. They were going to catch hell for the liberty, Wolfe didn’t know where or when, but Harawe was going to inflict some kind of punishment on them for getting to overhear.
At considerable length, Wingle ran down. “Maria!” he barked. The silver automaton was at his elbow in a moment with a cut crystal glass containing an inch of amber liquid. He took a sip. “Well, Captain, what are you going to do about this band of unwelcome visitors, eh?”
Harawe’s face softened into an ingratiating but not obsequious smile. “Sir, I extend the apologies of the Thousand Worlds Confederation Space Service for inconveniencing you. I trust that you know how much we value your input …”
“Hah! Costs you enough,” Wingle agreed.
“… Monetary compensation is only a small part of the appreciation and esteem which we owe you,” Harawe purred. “The galaxy is that much safer because you choose to put your considerable talents to work in its service. I know I never forget that. I am equally certain that my superiors also know it. If you would put down the premature arrival of my troopers as overconfidence on the part of CenCom I would be in your debt.” Wingle’s face started to soften visibly under the rain of endless praise. Daivid listened with growing admiration to the captain’s smooth patter. He had only seen the hardassed side of the Eastwood’s captain. No wonder Carmen Ti-Ya worshiped him. He was good.
“Well, there’s no harm in thinking that might be the case,” Wingle began, in a calmer voice.
“There is also the matter that my ship is on its way to another mission. Space is vast, and our route brought us here to Dudley at this moment in our journey. I am sorry that it was inconvenient to you to appear now, before you were ready. Do you think that you could give us a better estimate on when the device might be available?”
Now Wingle was almost purring. “Well … the tests are beginning to show some promise. I’d have to think about it.” In the tridimensional screen, Harawe looked patient but hopeful, not pushing the inventor a micron. “Hmm.… Get a few more of the tests finished, run the stats up, knock out another prototype … three weeks. No sooner. But I’ll put my reputation on an outside limit of three weeks.”
“My ship is expected at our final destination within nine days,” Harawe said. “This is a tricky time, sir. We know that other parties are interested in this technology.”
“Darned right they are,” Wingle said with pride.
“With that in mind, I would like to leave my troopers on site, to receive the item from you when you are satisfied as to its completion.”
“Do what you want. No one is going to bother me while I’m working.”
“Very well, sir. I appreciate your forbearance and your consideration. May I speak to my officer?”
“Suit yourself, captain.” Wingle slid away from the console. “You heard the man.”
Uneasily, Daivid sat down in the chair, facing the captain. “You heard all of that, didn’t you? Enjoyed hearing The Old Man handed a rocket?”
“No, sir!” Daivid exclaimed.
“Don’t lie to me. I never trust a liar. You enjoyed it, didn’t you?” The olive green eyes bored into his. Daivid hesitated. The captain thundered out, “I asked you a question, trooper! Answer me.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Harawe’s eyes narrowed, but one corner of his mouth went up. “Let’s hear it from the rest of your platoon.”
Daivid threw a wide-eyed look of exasperation over his shoulder at the others. “You heard the captain!”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Harawe widened his field of view, staring at each of the Cockroaches in turn. “And you laughed, didn’t you? Let’s hear you laugh at The Old Man.”
“Heh heh heh,” was all Daivid could muster.
“Do you call yourself a Space Service trooper?” Harawe bellowed. “Let’s hear some real laughter. Now!”
“Hah! Hah! Hah!” Daivid exclaimed, pushing every syllable up from his gut. The others joined in, every bit as insincerely, but the captain had them where he wanted them. He was all too keenly aware of Wingle’s sharp eyes on him. Harawe’s mouth quirked again, and he nodded, his eyes hooded with amusement.
“That’s better. I’d have laughed myself if I’d heard my captain chewed out like a schoolboy who blew up the chem lab. But as of now the conversation I had with Mr. Wingle is classified at the highest level. You are not to discuss it with anyone outside of the platoon except for me. Understood?”
“Aye, sir!” Daivid said, snapping his hand up in a salute.
“Good. You are to wait for Mr. Wingle to complete his work, then secure the item and hold it for our return. Your objective is to prevent it from falling into anyone else’s hands.”
“As you say, sir.”
“Good. Ask Mr. Wingle if I may have another moment of his time.”
“I’m right here, captain,” the inventor said. “I see we have the same ideas about keeping our emotions honest. What can I do for you?”
“My troopers will remain on Dudley while we complete our other mission. They are at your service in the meantime.”
“Well, that’s very nice of you, captain,” Wingle said. “All I want is peace and quiet to finish my work. Not another thing. Oh, except for my remuneration. That, of course.”
“Of course,” Harawe agreed, politely. “Then I will wish you a good afternoon. Thank you very much, sir.”
“Fine, fine,” Wingle said, clearly bored with the conversation. “Have a nice war. See you later.”
Harawe opened his mouth slightly as though searching for the correct reply, and decided none was necessary. The screen returned to its blue and gray graphic.
“Off!” Wingle ordered. The unit shut down, all its colored lights dying. “Well, that’s that.”
Daivid cleared his throat. “As our captain said, we’d be happy to help you in any way we can.”
“Good,” the inventor said, turning to face him. “Push off.”
“What, sir?”
“Push off. Leave. Vamoose. I don’t like people underfoot while I’m working. They ask questions, they get in the way, and they touch things. Sparky!”
The freckled youth snatched a small box out from under Thielind’s curious hand. He shook a finger in the ensign’s face. “Naughty, naughty.”
“That’s exactly what I meant,” Wingle said, his brows drawn right down over his eyes. “Take a walk. All of you. I’ll call you when I want you.”
“Er, well, sir, you heard our captain.”
Wingle turned to him, raising the shaggy brows high. “Yes, I did, but it’s not a gift if I can’t turn it down. I don’t need your help, I don’t want your help
and I would not like your help. Go away.”
Daivid fumbled for words. “But what are we to do in the meantime?”
“Whatever the hell comes to your feeble little minds,” Wingle said, waving a hand. “So long as it isn’t around here. Sparky, show them out.”
“Follow me,” the young man said, with a saucy wink. “I’ll show you the short cut. Not the short-short one you took in. That’s only one way.”
With a final glance at the beautiful Maria, Daivid turned to go. Wingle sat down at a worktable lit by blazing blue-white lights at each corner, pulled a micromagnifier over his head, and bent over a silver-blue apparatus the size of his palm. The silver automaton brought his crystal glass to his side.
“These tunnels run all over the park,” Sparky said, gesturing at the echoing square metal tube in which the group found itself. “Oh, too bad, your sensors won’t work in here,” he said, as Borden consulted his infopad. “The shielding won’t let you use global positioning.”
“How about proportional benchmarking?” Borden inquired.
Sparky gave her a brilliant smile not unlike Thielind’s. “Smart lady. So you’ll be able to figure out where one of the tunnels is. Or was. They move, you know.”
Daivid put on his helmet to see if the young man was telling the truth. Sparky was right about sensors not being able to penetrate the walls. All he could detect was the section of corridor in which they were presently walking, along with twenty-two organisms, now that the heavy-duty blast doors had closed between him and Wingle’s laboratory. Daivid did a double-take and counted again. Twenty-two?
He consulted the infrared scan, and confirmed the count. Of red bodies in blue armor aura, twenty-two. Of one blond, freckled youth with a cracked-coconut grin, none. He took the helmet off again.
Sparky was as quick in his movements as he was on the uptake. He sprang to Daivid and put his arm around his shoulder. “Don’t tell anyone my secret,” he said in a stage whisper. “My mother would be so distraught.”
“What?” Lin asked, missing the point of the interchange.
“He’s an android or something,” Daivid said, gently peeling Sparky’s arm off his shoulders. “Not a living being at all.”
“Really?” the senior chief said, eyeing their guide. “He looks so real.”
“So do you, sugar,” Sparky said, insouciantly, plastering himself on the petite chief’s arm. “Supernova hot, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t,” Lin said, extricating herself and putting her own helmet on to check Daivid’s statement. “Not an android, sir. No onboard brain or motivator.”
“Of course I’m not an android,” Sparky insisted, showing all his teeth. “Androids are dull. Did you see Maria? Brain the size of a planet, and she’s fetching drinks for the old man? How boring is that?”
“Well,” Daivid admitted, “pretty boring, I suppose. Then what are you?”
“Puppet. The Old Man told you himself. In a long and honored line of Wingle puppets. I belonged to Oscar 7’s grandfather. There’s the way out.”
The corridor ended at a flat, featureless wall. Instead of opening a door in it, Sparky turned to the right and pressed both hands against a panel. A section slid away, revealing another tunnel that sloped upwards to the bleak sunshine.
“There you go,” Sparky said. “See you guys in three weeks.” He put an arm around Daivid and led him toward the top. Daivid tried to free himself, but the puppet was astonishingly strong. Probably made of some of the same polymer as the cutesy cottage upstairs. He let himself be guided up and found himself five meters from the ticket kiosks outside the park.
“And you’d better take your shuttle with you. The parking droid has already figured out you came in without paying. Bye!” Sparky waved to them from the ramp. A panel of the parking lot closed over the tunnel and set seamlessly into place. Wolfe admired the precise construction. If he hadn’t known the door was there, he would never have seen it.
“Well, sir,” Borden began. “What do we do now?”
Wolfe glanced around. He fastened on helmet for warmth. The sun had retreated behind stratus clouds, leaving the sky a sheet of dull silver. Somewhere far beyond that the Eastwood was on its way to the Benarli cluster and a glorious pitched battle. The shuttle was surrounded by a cluster of blue and pink parking droids, all shouting unintelligibly at it.
“Well, first, we move the ship.”
***
Chapter 14
Harawe’s orders had been very specific: they were not to let Oscar Wingle out of their sight. They had failed in that first objective.
“Then we need to stay within sight of the park,” Daivid reasoned. “If Mr. Wingle needs us, we’ll be able to respond within moments.”
The map Daivid had been provided in Harawe’s brochure showed only the interior of the park, with every ride indicated as an interactive touch spot for further information (and appropriate sound effects). As for the perimeter of the park itself, information was provided only as it pertained to entering and leaving a vehicle. It omitted dead areas like the narrow side paths through thick shrubbery to nondescript doors the employees used, and the recycling center at the rear of the thousand-acre enclosure. Access was provided by a wide road and a very utilitarian-looking gate. All the rest of the walls were separated from the surrounding residential neighborhoods by a broad moat ten meters deep.
“And the top of the walls are electrified,” Injaru pointed out, sharing a reading from his scopes on their heads-up displays.
“Nice,” Daivid said, admiring the safety measures, as aboveground security kiosks lit up in red along the perimeter and in several places within the park. “I think Adri’Leta’s friend was right about the Wingles not wanting any nonpaying guests.”
“It looks as though there are only six ways in or out of the park, except for by air,” Borden concluded. “Only two of those entrances are obvious, and this is the other one. It seems like the best alternative to staying on site, and the old bastard won’t let us.”
“Garbage again,” D-45 grumbled. “Just when I was getting used to the fresh air.”
The air became fresher still as they set up camp. Three of the Cockroaches stayed in their armor to patrol the perimeter, but the others changed into fatigues to pitch shelters and set up the entertainment center, and noticed the change in temperature.
“Brrr!” Thielind said, emerging from the shuttle bay in his string vest and swim fins. He looked up at the steadily graying sky. “I smell snow.”
“That would suck,” Boland said.
“I noticed a bar about three blocks from here,” Jones said hopefully, unrolling another personal shelter. He kicked the valve, and the tent inflated in seconds, creating a double-walled hut two meters high. “We could get warm, have a nice drink, and get to know the locals.”
“No,” Wolfe said, picturing the platoon let loose upon a world that was accustomed only to clueless tourists and endless children. He dreaded to think what kind of trouble the Cockroaches could get into. “We’re on deployment. It’s only three weeks, people. We can entertain ourselves for that short a time.”
“I should have brought more booze,” Boland muttered.
As if on cue, the wind whipped up. No one could deny that it had the sting of ice crystals in it.
“You’re not going to make us sit out in that, sir?” Parviz asked. “Do we have to set up the field disposer or the sonic shower out here? I’m not crazy about baring my ass in this wind.”
“No,” Daivid decided. “The shuttle has plenty of capacity and power. We’ll sleep out here, but use the facilities inside. Let’s move the stuff around in the cargo bay. If we pile up the supply boxes two deep we can make a pretty good table. After we eat, we can play cards and watch threedeeo. If we can secure the unit to the wall in the seating area of the shuttle, it’ll make a very comfortable theater.”
“I can do that,” Thielind spoke up at once. “I need two volunteers to help me.”
“I wi
ll,” Ambering said. “First dibs on picking the movie.”
“I’ll help, too,” Nuu Myi grinned, showing her big square teeth. “Second dibs.”
O O O
“We’ll take care of this, lieutenant,” Boland offered, as they surveyed the heaps and stacks of code-stamped military-issue containers full of food.
“No, we’ll all help,” Daivid said. Noises coming from the forward compartment told him Thielind and his assistants were having a hard time maneuvering the heavy crystal amphitheater box onto their makeshift brackets. He scanned the room, picking out the two Dragon armed scout vehicles, the heavy artillery weapons, and other things he couldn’t recognize under tarpaulins. He thought that there was a fair amount of dead space, if they pushed most of it together toward the back of the bay. “Won’t we, Borden? The sooner we get this place rearranged, the sooner we can eat.”
“It’s okay, sir, really,” the noncom insisted. “Officers don’t have to haul ass like the grunts. It’s our job.”
“We all have to pull together, Boland,” Daivid said. He pulled one of the handlifts off the wall and shoved the lip under the edge of a stack of black crates each containing 12 boxes of caseless ammunition for the direct-fire infantry machine guns. Borden took down the other on that wall. Boland stood in the middle, looking a little helpless. “Well, don’t just stand there. Snap to it!”
“Aye, aye, sir,” the chief said. He clicked a control on the side of a tripod-mounted grenade launcher. The weapon heaved itself up five centimeters onto wheels that would allow it to be steered with a fingertip. He did the same with the slightly larger artillery weapon known as the ‘twinkie gun’ because it shot yellow brass-cased cartridges that burned off, sending a white core of depleted uranium at its target. Daivid shifted his load of boxes all the way to the wall. Boland steered the guns into the gap where the boxes had been.
“Chief, what are you doing?” Daivid asked. After two evasions and a direct road block, he definitely smelled a deceased rodent. He tried to see around the chief, who dodged the same way he did. Daivid finally feinted to the right and ducked under the big man’s arm.
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