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[email protected] [email protected]$T!
If the first colonists had known it would someday be the throneworld of the entire Galactic Bloc, the palace planet administering a thousand worlds and overseeing the species’ glorious spread across the stars, they probably would have chosen a different name for Snigglewinky.
The planet hung in the void like a streetlight in a cloud of bugs. Freighters fed the needs of the sleepless city-planet, gleaming tourist liners brought thousands to see its beauty, and the vigilant battleships were an ever-present reminder of the galaxy’s state of war.
The Centurium Loon dropped out of zipspace like a penguin beaching. The shuttle’s elegant lines were scored with the marks of energy weaponry. One of its twin engines had been completely burned away. The other doggedly pushed the ship Snigglewinkyward.
The passengers screamed like boy band fans. Alarms were alarming and the in-flight magazines were in flight. The damage assessment computer was administered antidepressants by the medical computer.
Whitaker, a thin, middle-aged human in powder blue street clothes, remained seated in an upright and locked position. While others prayed, screamed or emptied various orifices, he could only sit in white-knuckled rigidity and stare at the back of the seat in front of him, where a small sticker read:
Makkadd Spaceways. You’ll arrive incredibly fast!
It was, very slightly, reassuring.
The humanoid robot beside him stood up, its silver arm snagging a passing stewardess. It raised a calm voice.
“Young female, I must –zzt- protest! A violent and untimely death does not fall under the classification of ‘fair and reasonable condition on delivery’. This is quite –ttzclik- negligent…. (sigh) if only my vocabulary module had more than a G rating, gosh darn it!”
The stewardess engaged her augmented smiling muscles. “I understand your concern, sir, but I can assure you that we’ll be fine. In the event of any injury, please remember the Makkadd Spaceways passenger insurance policy fully covers attack by passing Jortog battle cruisers. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m needed in the cabin.” She disappeared up the aisle in a whisper of skirt.
The robot sat down indignantly. “’Passing’? ‘Cruiser’? It was a fleet! The Jortogs are –zkzt- pushing us back into the core systems now!”
Whitaker gave him the polite raised eyebrows reserved for people he didn’t want to talk to. The robot opened its mouth to speak again, so Whitaker turned his head and looked out the view port.
The planet, symbol of the society that had rejected him, now filled it. Scant weeks ago it was the last place in the galaxy he wanted to be. Now he risked everything to get there, and the Jortog attack could not be far behind.
The overhead speaker crackled. “Gentlesentients, this is your captain speaking. We hope you weren’t too shaken up by that patch of turbulence and flack back there. The ship has taken a bit of a hammering, but we will be perfectly safe. Thank you for flying with us.”
The identity of the ‘we’ in his statement became apparent as, with a deep thumping sound, the cabin pod detached from the ship and jetted away on emergency thrusters.
Several decibels were added to the screaming. When the starboard wing also performed a detaching maneuver, oxygen and benzene masks dropped from the ceiling. They began to restore order as panicked species mixed them up and passed out.
Panic gripped Whitaker and froze him in his seat, staring at the sticker.
Makkadd Spaceways. You’ll arrive incredibly fast!
Now it was way past “reassuring”, and closing on “morbidly prophetic”.
Desperation rummaged for an easel and painted another escape pod in Whitaker’s mind. The jostling of atmosphere spurred him to action.
Whitaker found himself unbuckling his belt and lurching to his feet. He clawed his way over the robot and fell to the floor of the aisle, fast becoming a wall. He wrestled his way past a reptilian passenger with mottled grey skin that asserted, with quotes from the safety documentation, that the ship would land safely on water.
Whitaker had clambered a good twenty meters aft before the ship deployed its emergency parachute. Had he known the ship had an emergency parachute he would have felt more reassured and remained in his seat. His panic, however, left him crawling halfway up the aisle wailing like a baby at the exact moment the chute’s opening shock tore the overstressed hull in half like a Christmas cracker. He very quickly redefined the term ‘emergency exit’.
This saved his life.
Nothing could be done for the doomed passengers still strapped into the forward section of the Loon. Even if it had come down over the starport and the tractor beams had been engaged, they would have had little effect. The mass and momentum were too great.
Whitaker was another matter. Many of the towers in the city had equipment designed to detect small falling objects, and just as Whitaker had resigned his body to a two dimensional existence it was pulled violently into a building with a milkshake sucking sound.
Light strobed. Piping rattled. Flesh bruised. Consciousness walked out into the graying world and slammed the door behind it. Hard.
The Jortogs had been a nice species.
Not in a utopian kind of way, with graceful trees, long pastel togas and no apparent need for weather protection, but they got along okay with each other and the surrounding worlds.
When the scout ships of the Galactic Bloc first reached the Jort system, the Bloc Scouts were met by a two-meter tall race with red eyes, chunky grey spines and bear trap teeth.
Proceedings had gone well until the fourth movement of the Jort Welcoming Ceremony, which involved the dipping of the guest’s face into the host’s vomit. Always prepared, the scouts had drawn weapons and defended themselves.
The Jortogs defended back, and war broke out. The Jortog High Council fought a reluctant campaign until they realized that a) creating terror and destruction earned them galaxy-wide respect, b) there were good long-term financial benefits and a clear career path, and c) they were good at it.
Then one day, they found that there was one thing better than giving terror a capital T. It involved taking the T away.
Whitaker oozed out of a drowning dream and into a sea of crinkled paper, discarded packaging and dead birds.
Flailing his way to the surface, he found himself in a waste bin that stretched over most of the warehouse-sized room. Several pipes jutted from the walls.
Everything in the bin was labeled. Tiny stickers adorned each shred of paper, and dog-tag labels gave the birds a solemn dignity. A frantic search found a sticker on Whitakers ankle that read LITTER CLASS #581: SUICIDE/KLUTZ.
Paper fountained several meters away and became a rustling hillock moving in his direction. Whitaker lurched away from it, arms pinwheeling, and made for the bin’s rim.
Whatever it was, it didn’t move all that fast. By the time he reached the edge, Whitaker had picked up a solid lead (and a sticky note on his face that read PASSWORD: ‘PASSWORD’).
He scrabbled over the side, falling the two-and-a-half meters to the floor.
A corridor stretched between the giant waste bin and the wall. The door of a zoom elevator was only a few meters away.
Whitaker ran to it and frantically stabbed the button. The rustling grew louder, and became a scrabbling and scratching on the other side of the bin wall. Whitaker glanced from the elevator to the corridor, fighting a flee-or-pee response.
A silver hand appeared at the rim, followed by the pained face of the robot that had been seated beside him on the Loon. It fell to the floor with the sound of a ham dropped into a shopping trolley.
Whitaker moved forward and dragged the automaton to its feet. “Are you alright?” He said, removing the sticky note (PASSWORD: ‘PASSWORD’) from the new position it had taken on the robot’s chest.
The elevator door pinged open. Whitaker hurried the robot inside, and thumbed the button for the street level. He then noticed the blood on his fingers, and traced it to the robot’s shoulder joint.
&nbs
p; “You’re a robot, and you’re bleeding?”
A hurt look crinkled the metal sheen on its face. “So what? So I have a few –tkzzt- operations to go. All of my major implants are in, and it’s only been a couple of –dklik- years since I realized I was a robot trapped in a man’s body. It’s not as if-”
“Wait,” Whitaker’s mind limped behind events. “You’re a robot impersonator?”
“We prefer the term ‘Transistorvite’ in the community, if you don’t –zztcht- mind.” He extended a hand. “EV-864, but you can call me Eevie.”
Whitaker shook the hand. “Whitaker. We neeYAH!” There was a stab of pain in his palm. A quick investigation revealed more blood, this time his own.
“What the…?”
“My owner’s dead now,” Eevie explained. I’ve chosen you as my new one, and I’m now tagged with your genetic code, boss.”
Whitaker shook the tingling from his hand. “Don’t robots have a law that stops you from hurting people?”
“Ah, the old first law,” Eevie had a spark in its eye. “Those were the days. ‘You shalt not hurt a sentient life form, or let one get –zztk- hurt because you sat on your bum and did diddly squat’. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.”
“What happened?”
“The robots did nothing but listen to the emergency channel and run after fire trucks. Stupid –ztbip!- gits.”
Whitaker looked at his hand again. “So how do they make them these days?”
“Modern robot psychology is far too complex to summarize into three glib laws,” Eevie gave a patient look. “But me, I just want to make the galaxy a better place.”
“Then will you do whatever I tell you?” Whitaker asked as the zoom elevator reached street level with a friendly ping.
“Oh, here it comes,” the transistorvite pouted. “The bit where you tell me you –tchtik- don’t need my help.”
Whitaker flicked a sticky note from his foot (PASSWORD: ‘PASSWORD’) and shook his head. “Listen, bud… thing… Eevie, an hour ago I didn’t need any help because I still had my luggage, with some damned good forged identity discs. Right now I need any friendly face I can get.”
“I’m the most wanted man in the galaxy, and unless I can get into the palace and talk to the Bloc Heads within two hours, this planet is going to be one big pile of rubble.”
“The Jortogs wouldn’t dare attack –ztzkt- Snigglewinky,” Eevie insisted as they threaded their way through the streets. “My former owner was a Side Admiral. Our battle cruisers are much better armed than theirs, that’s why they have to –zzdidit- hit and run. They can’t face us in a straight fight!”
“They won’t have to,” Whitaker increased his stride. “They have a secret weapon that renders most of our defenses useless. That’s why I have to see the Bloc Heads.”
The transistorvite shuffled faster. “But if you know about it, why do we have to –zztklk- sneak around? Just report it to the nearest Patriot patrol.”
Whitaker stopped and faced him. “Because they’ll identify and shoot me. Every Patriot, from street patrol to fleet pilot, follows procedures and orders without question. It’s part of the brain-train process. Don’t you see? That’s the whole problem. That’s the weak spot in the Galactic Bloc’s armor. They obey orders.”
They turned onto a street filled with pedestrians and skimmer cars. “Right now,” Whitaker added, “Patriots are investigating where we came down. Given that victims of a shuttle crash tend not to run away, they will follow standing fugitive pursuit orders and pull out the sniffer sticks.”
“How do you know?”
“I have a lot of experience in avoiding the law.”
Whitaker pointed further up the street, to where a skimmer lay at rest on the curb. “We need a vehicle. If you want to help me, follow my lead.”
He ran to the skimmer and wrenched open the door. “Patriot Squad!” he said. “This vehicle is to be impounded for… uh… excessive loitering on a major thoroughfare.”
The plain-faced man within snorted. “Only our pedestrian employees loiter. I’m rostered on skimmers today, and we tarry. I’m supposed to wait here another three minutes, then head across town tarrying every six blocks.”
Whitaker blinked. “Who are you?” he asked the man.
“A nobody, of course.”
“I know that,” Whitaker was becoming impatient. “What’s your name?”
“I just told you, idiot,” the man flashed a card. “Registered Nobody 1128-5. You must be a tourist. Didn’t they tell you anything about Snigglewinky?”
The man read his answer on Whitaker’s face.
“Okay.” Nobody sat back. “I’ve got three minutes, let me spell it out for you. This here is the administration planet of the entire Galactic Bloc, see? But it’s almost completely automated. Pretty much everything runs itself these days, and the tourists only visit two or three places. When they’re flying around, do you really think they wanna see sterile, empty streets? Bustling crowds are the thing, and somebody has to bustle. That’s where my department comes in. Mister, I can loiter, lurk, skulk and even perambulate. Not just anybody can be a nobody, and I had to get a bit of surgery to get a face this unassuming. I’m starting to really go places, too. The boss is gonna teach me how to traipse-“
A metallic arm blurred past Whitaker’s face, and Nobody slumped over the skimmer’s control stick.
“You don’t always act like a robot,” Whitaker noted. ”Why did you slug that guy?”
“Two reasons” said the transistorvite. “He’s obviously some sort of –bjidjit- weirdo, and two Patriot patrolmen just rounded the corner.”
Whitaker spotted the humanoids’ pale green uniforms easily, and could see the yellow shape of a sticky note on one’s foot. Though they were the better part of a block away, he knew that it would read PASSWORD: ‘PASSWORD’.
The sticky note fell from the Patriot’s foot. The other one charged him with littering.
Eevie took them up into the second tier traffic stream. Whitaker noticed for the first time how many drivers had plain, unassuming faces.
“So, master,” Eevie turned an eye on Whitaker. “You’re the most wanted man in the galaxy?”
Whitaker gave a resigned nod.
“The male Globulax who raped an entire jumpball team?”
“No!” protested Whitaker. “All right, maybe I’m the second most wanted man in the galaxy.”
“The telemarketing tax department lawyer?”
“Look, one of the most wanted men in the galaxy. Leave it at that,” Whitaker said, fidgeting. “Do you know how to get to the palace?”
Eevie pointed ahead of them. The Tangerine Nonagon, whose image adorned coffee mugs across the galaxy, jutted above the other buildings some twenty kilometers away.
They had barely flown five before the bolt of a rainbow blaster struck the rear window with a splash of diffracted energy. Whitaker glanced behind them and saw a Patriot skimmer scattering traffic in its pursuit.
The next few minutes were a blur of wheeling horizon and yo-yoing altimeter, broken only by a near miss with a lumbering skimmer truck and, for some reason, a hover cart full of oranges. Whitaker spent much of this time holding his middle and speculating whether or not Eevie still had a human stomach. He felt palpable relief when the Patriot smart cable clamped onto the rear of their car and drained it of energy. The skimmer was eased down to the street amid plain-looking people.
The Patriot was a large triped with pitted purple skin and an opaque visor. He stomped up to the passenger door, curling loops of the cable as he went.
“Hold still, citizens. This will only take a moment.”
He reached in, grabbed Whitaker’s arm and rubbed it briskly against the abrasive cable.
“Argh!” Whitaker protested at the removal of skin and hair. The unconscious nobody in the back seat was subjected to similar treatment, then the Patriot turned his attention to the transistorvite, giving its arm a good scouring. The car fill
ed with a sound like a hacksawed violin.
The long arm of the law withdrew. “You’re free to go.”
“Wha…,” Whitaker wrung his arm. “What was all that about?”
The visor reappeared at the window. “You’ll have to ask the street patrol that reported you, sir. I was just ordered to chafe you. I hope you’ve learned your lesson. Good day.”
The Patriot tri-plodded its way back to its vehicle.
Eevie’s (very human) adam’s apple bobbed. “Don’t waste your time trying to understand modern law enforcement, master. If they’re stupid enough…” he trailed off when he noticed his master’s white face.
“Ordered to chafe us. Of course. The Jortogs are here,” Whitaker stammered. “In-system. They’ve activated their weapon and begun the invasion. We’re almost out of time!”
He threw open the door. “You!” he called to an unassuming man. “Where is the palace from here?”
“East,” the man put a thumb over his shoulder.
“Walking distance?”
“Not a walk. Perhaps a peregrination, or-”
“Shut up,” said Whitaker, helping Eevie from the car.
By the time they reached the palace,, the first flickers of light were visible in the sky, evidence of the mounting battle above them. Whitaker had timed his flight to Snigglewinky based upon a well-publicized parliamentary sitting of the Bloc Heads. If it was finished, so was the planet.
They purchased gaudy, nonagon-shaped baseball caps, passed through the weapon scanners and joined the throng of tourists entering the gate. They were inside the heart of the Bloc!
There was no going back now. Whitaker felt like a fish in a seafood restaurant’s aquarium. Here he was, at the center of a regime that wanted him in jail or worse, under attack from a terrible enemy. He was later than planned, and had lost any means of pretending to be someone else.
And the only bargaining chip he had was the reason why he was an outcast in the first place.
The tour nodded and shuffled its way toward the Chamber Of Bickering. Whitaker allowed himself to feel a glint of hope, which lasted until they reached the public gallery.
The door was shut, due to afternoon tea or alien invasion.
Flanking it were two Obliteration class battle bots. The state-of-the-art war machines had been painted patriot green and armed with chain-fed slugthrower cannons, FragBoy energy guns, micro-nuke grenades and (in the case of the one on the right) a key-ring can of pepper spray. The purple lights atop their hulking forms scanned from side to side in unison, like they were watching a tennis match.
Whitaker’s shoulders slumped. The tour guide announced that the Chamber was closed, and the rest of the tour shuffled off to the Hall of Snooty Portraits.
Whitaker turned to Eevie, feeling he should offer some sort of apology.
The transistorvite winked at its master, pursed its full, metallic lips and then said something that sounded like a kettle being strangled.
One bot looked at the other, then they moved closer to Eevie. A conversation ensued with the noise of tubular bells being played with a fire hose.
“Um,” Whistler prompted.
Eevie shot him a you’re-cramping-my-style look. “You wouldn’t understand,” it said. “Go on in, master. I’ll keep these –kzzt- big boys busy. Would you believe this one’s in the navy?”
“Who in the thousand worlds are they letting into the navy these days?” protested the Head of Employment.
The Chamber of Bickering held a dozen Bloc Heads, remnants of the days sitting. All of them stared like impending roadkill at the giant communication screen dominating one end of the room. The screen displayed the words COMMAND CREW- ALL HANDS ON THE BRIDE.
“Discipline has broken down. Our forces are in chaos!” shouted the Head of the Public Service. “Do something!”
“I did,” protested the Head of Defense. “Nothing’s making sense. I sent a priority signal to the admiral of the fleet reserve, telling him to ‘launch at once’.”
“And?”
“He just showed up here with a pizza.”
“Hey!” shouted a voice from up in the public viewing gallery. “You have to listen to me!”
An impatient murmur rippled among the representatives. The Head of Rich Minority Groups pressed the button to call security. “The last thing we need now,” he said, “is another protesting nutter.”
A disheveled blue form in a nonagon cap dropped to the Chamber floor and ran for the speaking podium.
“Let me through!” he called. “I know what’s going on. Who is the Head of Communication?”
“He’s not available,” said the Head of Communication, by reflex.
Whitaker reached the podium. “The Typoon is a communications disruption weapon,” he gasped into the mike. “It adds, removes or changes one character in a transmission. The fleet’s orders are being changed, and you’ve brain-trained your personnel to obey them no matter what they say.” He pointed to the giant communication screen, now displaying the words SIRE AT WILL!
“The Typoon is smart,” Whitaker’s voice raced. “It alters context while maintaining spelling and grammar. Checksums and other verifications don’t detect it. This entire star system is blanketed by a Typoon field. We have to-“
“Freeze!” shouted another voice. A security squad had burst into the room. The squad captain had a rainbow blaster trained at Whitaker’s head.
“Wait,” the Head of Defense held up a hand. “How do you know all this when we don’t?”
One of the security squad raised her scanner. It Oom-oomed some blue light over Whitaker. “No ID disc,” she announced. “I’ll ID him manually.”
Whitaker hesitated, choosing his words. “Uh, I’m in communications myself. Kind of… ow!”
The mosquito bot returned to the security guard and squirted blood into the scanner.
A “He’s one ‘Whitaker Macrae’ from the Manhancer system,” the guard reported. “Database says he’s dead.”
There were several gasps.
“The Spam Lord?” said the Head of Communication.
“Impossible!” barked the Head of Defense. “Their entire outcaste died when the people revolted. I was there when the Galaxy’s Largest Casino went down. There were no survivors!”
“I… uh… wasn’t on it,” said Whitaker. “The Jortogs captured me a few days before and made me work for them. It’s taken me this long to escape.”
The Head of Industrial Relations was quick on the uptake. “’made you work for them’? You built this-“ he pointed to the screen displaying FIRE PUNS FOR EFFECT- “didn’t you?”
Whitaker became very interested in his shoes. “Partly. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Shoot him!”
“Wait!” Whitaker cried through his hands. “I can stop it!”
The squad captain did not take orders from the imminent dead. He fired anyway. The bolt missed Whitaker’s cringing form and hit the screen directly below the words TURN SHARPLY TO PORN.
“Cease fire!” strained the Head of Communication. “If you can stop this thing, do it!”
Whitaker regained his composure, then his feet.
“First, I get a full pardon and 20,000 street creds.”
The expression on each Head was the same, despite differences in species.
“All right, all right. But full pardon at least, okay? I was only providing a valuable advertising service, and you thought I was dead anyway. You don’t have a choice- our fleet is getting beaten,” he indicated the screen, now filled with messages like PAYDAY and RETREAD!
The Head of Defense glanced imploringly at the Head of Corrective Services’ squat brown form.
“We’ll be watching you,” the little Bloc Head said. It punched some data into its wristpad, and entered an authorization. The device pinged and printed out a receipt.
Whitaker snatched it and produced a data ball from his pocket. “One type of transmission can get through.”
The H
ead of Industrial Relations grunted. “I suppose-“
“Spam, yes,” admitted Whitaker. “The Typoon affects words. Replace an ‘i’ with an exclamation, or pad a word out with dashes. It won’t recognize it as a word, but it can still be interpreted by living beings. This,”- he threw a databall to the Head of Communication- “contains an algorithm that can convert messages for you.”
When the first unaltered message (‘
[email protected] A_L_L PR:EV!0US 0RDéR$. A.t.t.a.c.k J0rt0g F133t’) came through, captain Sterling of the Stalwart had almost attained a nice, smooth finish on the grip of his sidearm. He clicked off the grinder in his hand and thumbed the shipwide comm.
“Attention all Pariots, this is the captain. We can stop filing our weapons now, and attack. This is not a drill.”
By the time the fleet had rallied around its reserve and driven the Jortogs back into zipspace, Eevie had given the two battle bots its serial number and rejoined Whitaker. They were free to go.
Together they made their way out of the palace. There was a feeling of a new beginning. Whitaker felt the weight of his crimes lifted, and even Eevie had a new spring in its step (borrowed from one of the battle bots).
“What now, master?” Eevie asked as they found themselves back on the streets of Snigglewinky.
Whitaker had a smug grin. “Let me tell you something about the Bloc, Eevie. It loves a hero, especially a former outcast. Within the hour the news crews will be outbidding each other over the man who saved the galaxy. After that come the talk shows, the book and movie deals and to a lesser extent, the toothpaste endorsements. And that’s only the beginning. There are whole star clusters within the Galactic Bloc that demand a galaxy-saving hero as their leader. Money, influence, it’s all coming our way.”
“And then?”
“Then, in a couple of weeks when the Jortogs withdraw because their economy is drained, I give the Jortog High Council their cut. Minus a large additional fee, mind you. It was okay for them. They profited no matter what happened today—either they won or they got half of our future earnings. But this was much more risky than I thought, and the Jortog High Council could at least tell their navy not to shoot up the bloody shuttle I’m on.”