“I feel it, too,” said Sushi. “And I heard one of them muttering about spies. I don’t know what it means, but I think we need to find out before we get in some kind of trouble.”
“Hey, I ain’t gonna ran away from-OW!” said Do-Wop, as Sushi grabbed him by the ear and hustled him away from the open Forum. A short distance away, the crowd thinned out and the two legionnaires found themselves in the shadow of a dilapidated building. Do-Wop glared at Sushi. “What the hell was that for?”
“Something fishy’s going on here, and I don’t mean anchovy pizza,” said Sushi, in a voice just above a whisper. “Those people are mad at the Legion for some reason. I think we need to get some civilian outfits before we get in real trouble. For now, a couple of T-shirts will probably do the job.”
They found a tourist trap, not half a block away, with a full display of garish overpriced T-shirts. If the sophont behind the counter had anything against their Legion uniforms, he kept it to himself and pocketed their money with a smile and a very credible “Grazie, signori!” His Italian was good enough that he could have passed for a native Roman, if he hadn’t been seven and a half feet tall with bluish green skin, bright pink hair, and eyes on stalks. As they left the shop, Sushi wondered briefly whether the salesbeing was a genetically altered human or a member of some nonhuman species he hadn’t met before.
Back on the street, the two of them passed almost unnoticed in the crowd. “I guess that just goes to show the value of camouflage,” said Sushi, in an exasperated tone. After a moment he added, “I think it’s the locals, not the tourists, who’re staring at us-which is weird. If that customs agent is right, they don’t see very many legionnaires on Old Earth. There’s no reason they’d be mad…”
Do-Wop stopped in his tracks. “Y‘ know what I think? Somebody’s been goin’ around bad-mouthin‘ the Legion. That’s the only thing makes sense. Question is, who? And why?”
“Partner, you just asked the gigabuck question,” said Sushi. “I don’t know the answer-but I bet when we find it out, it’ll have something to do with the captain.”
“I don’t think I’m gonna take that bet,” said Do-Wop.
Late that night, behind closed doors, the leaders of Omega Company assembled. In the wake of the Andromatic robot’s golf accident, Rembrandt had called the command cadre to an emergency meeting. Ironically, nobody was quite sure what the emergency was, although they all agreed it had to be tackled at once.
“The robot’s damaged, that’s the main problem,” said Armstrong, who’d been on hand to witness the event. “A hard shot smack in the middle of the forehead-I don’t know what kinds of circuits are up there, but they must be important.“
“Well, I’m sure not a roboticist,” said Rembrandt. “But from what you tell me, the main problem was that the robot captain started to play much better than before. I wouldn’t take that as automatic evidence of damage.”
“How much do you know about golf?” said Armstrong. “What if I told you the robot shot a twenty-four on the back nine?”
“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” Rembrandt asked.
Chocolate Harry answered her. “Shee-it, that ain’t just good, it’s scary. Machine that can do that can do anything. I don’t even want’t‘think about it.” There was genuine awe in the Supply sergeant’s voice.
“I think the general’s in total shock,” said Armstrong. “It’s the only explanation for why he didn’t instantly smell a rat when the robot started driving the ball four hundred yards and knocking in putts as if the green was a big funnel.”
“But he’s going to figure out something’s wrong,” said Brandy. “That man’s not so dumb he won’t notice a complete SNAFU, and that’s what this sounds like to me.”
Armstrong nodded. “That’s the problem. Maybe we can pass today off as an aberration, but if the robot starts playing killer golf again tomorrow, the general’s going to have us all on the carpet.“
Escrima was not impressed. “Ahh, what’s he gonna do, send us to Omega Company? I’m not afraid of him.”
“There are now a lot of things worse than Omega Company,” said Rembrandt. “Captain Jester’s done right by us, you know. Do you want to find out what a Legion detention barracks is like?”
Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Chocolate Harry broke the silence. “OK, here’s an idea,” he said. “We lock the ‘bot up someplace, tell the general the captain’s had a delayed reaction to bein’ hit on the head. Somebody else can show the general around, maybe Armstrong can play golf with him, and meanwhile maybe Gears can try to fix the problem.”
“Yeah, that might work for a couple of days,” said Brandy. “But do you think Gears can fix the robot? It’s a whole lot more complicated than a hoverjeep…”
“If we had Sushi here, I’d be a lot happier,” said Rembrandt. “He might not be a roboticist, but he could probably figure something out just on general knowledge. As it is, we’ll have to let Gears give it his best shot.”
“I don’t know,” said Armstrong. He took a couple of paces, then spun around to face the group. “The thing is, the general really did come here looking for trouble. When he got into the golf matches with the robot, that distracted him from looking at everything else that’s going on around here. I’m afraid that if he isn’t playing the captain, and winning just often enough to give him the satisfaction of beating a hated rival, he’s going to go looking for trouble again. And I guarantee you, he’s going to find it. None of us are going to like that.”
“I don’t like the situation we’ve got now,” said Rembrandt, frowning. “We’ve got to have something ready to go tomorrow morning, though.” She mused a moment, then turned to Armstrong. “All right, you’ve spent as much time with the general as anybody, this time around. Do you think you can jolly him along for at least one day if the official explanation is that the captain’s recovering from a concussion?“
“I can try,” said Armstrong. “As long as he’s willing to stick to golf and doesn’t want to start poking his nose into other stuff…”
“Good,” said Rembrandt. “Harry, you’ll get Gears and anybody else with mechanical know-how to work on the robot-maybe put a call in to the Andromatic factory-and see if we can get it back in shape by the next day. And meanwhile, everybody try to think of alternative plans in case things don’t work out.”
“Got it, Remmie,” said Chocolate Harry. “I’ll have Gears get to work on the ‘bot-say, where is it, anyway?”
Rembrandt and Armstrong looked at each other, their eyes growing wider.
“Did you… ?”
“I thought you were going to-”
“No, didn’t you-?”
“Well, where the…”
“Oh, damnl” they both cried together, leaping to their feet. The room emptied in something like ten seconds as the entire command cadre of Omega Company rushed out into the night to find the missing Andromatic robot.
The crowd on the streets of Rome, one of the major cities of Old Earth, seemed to be made up of two elements: off-worlders gaping at the wonders of the oldest of all human worlds and natives seeking to separate them from their money.
Phule had more urgent business than either group. He’d spent far too much time in his search for Beeker and Nightingale. He had no idea how Omega Company was doing in his absence, although surely he’d have heard before now if any real crisis had arisen. The Omega Mob was an ongoing crisis in and of itself, but that was a different story.
Today he was on his way to visit a local branch of his family, one with access to various unorthodox sources of information. The address he had seemed plain enough, although the streets of Rome were filled with rubble and the house number he had was nowhere to be seen. He stopped half a dozen times to ask directions, but everyone he asked either glared at him, then replied with a rapid-fire burst of Italian, or smiled and said, “Sorry, I’m a tourist, too.”