At last he approached a hulking fellow who leaned against the corner of a building, hands stuffed in his pockets and a fearsome scowl on his face. “Excuse me,” he said. “I’m looking for 45 Via Poco Lente-I thought it was near here, but I can’t seem to find it.”
“Aha!” The man’s voice was a basso rumble, but unlike most of the street Italians in the area, he spoke Standard almost without an accent. “You looking for Pitti da Phule, no?”
“That’s right, how’d you know?”
“He gave you that address, he wants to see you,” said the man, with a shrug. “Good thing you find Hugo, I know just where to take you. Most people around here-they don’t want nothing to do with da Phule.”
“Well then, Hugo, I’m glad I met you,” said Phule. “How do I get to Via Poco Lente?”
“You don’t,” said Hugo. “Most people don’t want nothing to do with da Phule, and he don’t want nothing to do with them, either. That’s a password, not an address. You ask the right guy-which today happens to be me-and I take you to da Phule.”
“I guess I’ve already found out what happens if you ask the wrong guy,” said Phule. “What if you don’t find the right guy?”
“Then you don’t want to see Pitti da Phule bad enough.” said Hugo, spreading his arms wide, with palms upward. “Come on, I take you there.”
Phule followed his guide down a series of narrow, winding streets, turning seemingly at random; indeed, at least twice he thought they’d passed a house he’d seen a few turns previously. But after perhaps twenty minutes, they came to a graffiti-covered stretch of stone wall, nine or ten feet high, at one end of which was a wooden gate with peeling green paint. Hugo pushed it open and waved Phule forward. “This is the place,” he said, grinning broadly. “You go in, I wait for you here.”
The circuitous route and his guide’s mysterious behavior had put Phule on his guard. “Why don’t you go first?” he said, taking the other man firmly by the elbow. He added, as Hugo showed signs of balking, “Really, I insist.”
“Smart of you,” said a smooth baritone voice from just inside the door. A slim middle-aged man stepped forward, holding a wineglass in one hand. Around his neck were several thick gold chains. “Smart, but not necessary this time around. Hugo’s a condottieri at heart, but he knows not to fool with anybody who has my password. You must be Cousin Victor’s boy-last I heard, you were the only family member in any kind of uniform.”
“Uncle Pitti?” said Phule, stepping forward to shake the older man’s hand. “I remember meeting you years ago, at somebody’s wedding…”
“That must have been Stella Phule,” said Pitti da Phule, nodding. “She married Juan Feryou, out on Tau Ceti Four. A really big affair. I think they’re still talking about the Phule-Feryou wedding out there…”
Phule grinned. “Right, I spent the afternoon hanging out with the groom’s younger brother…”
“Right, Nomarr Feryou,” said Pitti. “He was a little hell-raiser, back then. So were you, if memory serves me right. That doesn’t look as if it’s held you back, Captain?‘ Pitti punched Phule in the arm, playfully, then raised a finger to his lips. “But I’m not being much of a host, am I? We’ll get you a glass of vino and something to eat with it, and then we can talk business.”
Pitti da Phule took his nephew through a side door into a garden, where a marble fountain bubbled musically. An ancient-looking wall served as the backdrop for a row of fruit trees, and the walk was lined with flowers. Small birds darted between the branches, watched by a lazy orange cat. Pitti gestured to a pair of benches, with a small marble table in between. The top of the table, Phule noted, had an inlaid chessboard.
They talked for a few minutes, until Pitti’s robutler brought them a plate of anchovies, peppers, cheese, and olives, a crusty loaf of bread, and a bottle of a full-bodied Tuscan red. After they’d put a satisfactory dent in the hors d’ouvres, Pitti steepled his fingers and said, “Now, it can’t be just coincidence that you’ve come looking for me. In fact, there’s talk going around about the Space Legion. Is there anything to the rumor that your outfit is doing a job for the IRS?”
Phule practically burst out laughing. “That’s about the last governmental organization I’d do a job for,” he said. “I guess it would explain the funny looks I’ve gotten on the street. But you may not know about some of my troubles with them…” He described his previous run-in with the tax agency, and finally Pitti nodded.
“It didn’t sound like anything one of our family would be involved in, but you can’t ignore something everybody’s talking about. I wonder who started that rumor?” Pitti studied his nephew for a moment, then said, “But you came here to ask something. What can Uncle Pitti do for you?”
Phule outlined his situation, for what felt like the hundredth time since he’d left Zenobia in search of his errant butler and Nightingale. This time, at least, he could tell about the Port-a-Brain-although he decided to leave out the hibernation problem. No reason to spread that information any farther than strictly necessary, even within the family. Pitti da Phule listened in silence for a while, taking an occasional sip of wine. At last he held up a hand. “Good enough,” he said. “I see what the problem is. Let me find out what I can do for you. I’ll get in touch-where are you staying?”
Phule gave him the address of his hotel. “Not a bad place, for what you’re probably paying,” said Pitti. “Try Trattoria Alfonso, on the next block, for lunch. I think you’ll like it—tell the waiter I sent you. Now, go do some sightseeing, relax, eat-and let me handle things for a while. Ciao!”
And with that, he pushed Phule out the door onto the streets. A moment later, he beckoned to a servant. “Get the prints and DNA on this analyzed,” he said in Italian, pointing to Phule’s wineglass. “The kid looks and talks like Willard, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him. And call his old man, too-yes, I know how much it costs to call intersystem. But this kid’s claiming to be family, and with all the rumors going around, I’d like to be sure that’s really who I’m dealing with.”
Brandy found the robot in the gym. It wasn’t all that hard to find, actually. She could hear it all the way down the hall. She opened the door to discover that it had a squad of frightened legionnaires lined up for a roasting that many old-time drill sergeants might have gotten pointers from. Several veteran smart-mouths and goof-offs were among the roastees, and their shocked expressions were all the evidence Brandy needed that the robot had caught them completely off guard.
She stepped forward, trying her best not to draw attention, but the robot picked her up in its peripheral vision, and barked, “Sergeant! Come forward.”
“Yes, Captain Jester,” she said, putting on her best military manner. She marched briskly to the front of the formation, stood at attention, and snapped off her best salute. “What are your orders, sir?” she barked.
“Well, at least one person here knows how to show proper respect for an officer,” the robot drawled. “What I don’t understand is why none of these so-called legionnaires seem to have learned it. This is the squad you’ve supposedly been training, isn’t it, Sergeant?”
“Yes, sir, no excuse, sir,” she said, keeping the surprise out of her voice as best she could. Clearly, the errant golf ball had done even more damage than they’d realized. Not only was the robot playing superhuman golf, it had turned into a by-the-books officer of the worst sort. Unless they could get the damage fixed-and quickly!-Omega Company was in for a shock of tectonic proportions.
Meanwhile, her mind was racing at top speed. How was she going to defuse the immediate confrontation? The question was more delicate than it first appeared. After all, the robot nominally outranked everyone on the base except for General Blitzkrieg and his adjutant, neither of whom was likely to intervene. Just telling the legionnaires to ignore the robot was the most obvious method; the robot had no way to enforce its orders, after all. But the rank and file had no idea this Captain Jester was a robot. Only the command cadre were in on the secret, and she wasn’t going to change that without orders from the real captain. Besides, what if some future crisis required the real Captain Jester to issue unpopular orders? She didn’t want to do something now that would give some wise guy an excuse, no matter how phony, to claim he didn’t believe it was the real captain giving the orders…