The VMR Theory (v1.1) (3 page)

Rosalee, a journeyman spacer, is a large woman who reads Kant and Hegel for pleasure and wrestles cops and medium-sized crocodilians for fun. Clyde and Wyma Jean are still apprentices. Clyde is a former navy criminal investigation undercover agent with an undercover agent’s taste in clothing, while Wyma Jean, blond and buxom, has been making up for an underloved and unhappy childhood with a vengeance.

As we watched Brasilia Nuevo fade into the distance, Wyma Jean observed, “If ships like ours stopped operating, planets like this would be cut off from civilization. Of course, it might be a while before people here noticed.”

Catarina had the second watch, and I had the third. Minnie and Mickey were still fairly new on board. As we approached our black hole for the run to Alt Bauemhof, Catarina and I introduced the two of them to the joys of high-speed maneuvering in a lumbering old freighter, just in case.’

Mickey proved an apt pupil. “Friend Ken, Minnie and I greatly appreciate the honor you have done us by consenting to make us part of your crew,” he commented as he practiced cutting power in to the side impellers.

“Uh, sure.” The fact that his uncle Bucky was footing his salary out of the Royal Privy Purse may have influenced my decision just a little. “How did you guys pick the names Minnie and Mickey anyway?”

“After careful consideration, we concluded that the names ‘Florence Nightingale’ and ‘Horatio Nelson’ were a trifle pretentious. As Bucky says, ‘When the humble and lowly cry out for bread, give them cake to eat.’ “ “Uh, right. Uh, how is the cabin working out?”

“We are very happy with our accommodations. You should not worry so, friend Ken.”

The
Scupper’s
eight cabins are laid out in pairs separated by a central living area. Rosalee Dykstra had installed them in the cabin opposite hers, which left the other six cabins for me and Catarina, Harry and Wyma Jean, and Bunkie and Clyde. Two humans cooped up together like that would have killed each other in about a week, but Minnie and Mickey seemed to be doing fine.

“You two spot any new surprises from the rebuild team?” The Rodent engineers who fixed up the
Scupper,
bless their furry little hearts, thought of spaceships as big toys that people let them play with.

“No, friend Ken. The gold-plated shower heads seem to be the last such extravagance, although admittedly they have a pleasing aspect which helps to assuage the monotony of space. Do you know, friend Ken,” he said, looking straight at me, “when I was a mere pouchling looking up at the stars at night, I would often dream of traveling among them. I find that actually fulfilling this dream intoxicates me with joy.”

“Uh, right.”

Mickey’s delicate muzzle quivered. “Perhaps I should not say this, but it has always been a goal of our species to prove ourselves worthy junior partners of humanity in its quest to bring enlightenment to the universe. I earnestly hope that Minnie and I will meet with your full approbation in this endeavor.”

“Uh, right.”

When the Contact/Survey Corps reached IPlixxi*, Mickey’s great-grandfather was the semi-hereditary ruler of a medium-sized principality. A budding John Rockefeller, he quickly learned enough English to flimflam the Contact boys out of a “small” industrial development loan which enabled him to unify the planet by buying out the competition. The rest, as they say, was history. Since then, the brighter members of the family have gone into politics, while their less gifted brethren have mostly stuck to ordinary piracy.

Harry and Wyma Jean materialized on the bridge, arm in arm, and Wyma Jean leaned over the back of my chair. “Ah, Ken—stop tickling, Harry!—Ken, can I, ah—”

“No, I’m not going to trade watches with you. See if Rosalee is willing to switch. She’s probably in the galley.”

“Okay.” She kissed Harry with a loud smacking sound. “While we’re in the galley, do you want a piece of cake, sweet pea?”

“Only if you feed it to me, snookums.”

I coughed politely. “We’re having dinner in about an hour, so don’t spoil your appetites.”

Harry and Wyma Jean giggled and headed aft.

I looked at Mickey. “Why am I saying that? Either one could eat a horse in one sitting and come back for the saddle.”

“Actually, friend Ken, I am not quite sure why you are saying that.” Mickey twitched his whiskers. “Oh, I see, you are asking me a rhetorical question! But actually I thought that horses were quite large, and I understand that they use a great deal of wood and metal in making saddles. Perhaps Mr. Harry could, but I doubt Miss Wyma Jean’s abilities in that regard.”

“Look up ‘hyperbole.’”

“Oh! Certainly.” Mickey pointed his nose at me inquisitively. “Friend Ken, I have been meaning to ask you a question. I have been watching Harry and Wyma Jean for several weeks now without coming to a firm conclusion. Is behavior like that normal for humans?”

“Humans in love sometimes act like that. Of course, I’d be hard-pressed to say that Harry is completely human. Come to think of it, she and Harry have been cooing nonstop for four months now, which is amazing when you consider that Harry thinks an overnight relationship is long-term.”

“Oh.” Mickey paused to consider the implications of this. “What is love, friend Ken? I have read the definition in the dictionary, but it does not seem to apply.”

“That’s a tough one.” I thought for a minute. “When you do stupid things for someone you care about, and you do them anyway, knowing that they’re stupid— then you’re in love.”

“That does not make a great deal of sense.”

I nodded vigorously. “That’s the point.”

Mickey paused to digest this. “Is this more hyperbole, friend Ken?”

“No. Definitely not.”

Mickey let it ride. “Friend Ken, I have been meaning to ask why you humans originally decided to move out into space.”

“That’s another tough one. Some people wanted to rekindle the pioneer spirit by exploring strange new worlds—you know, to boldly go where no man has gone before—while other folks wanted to free themselves of the exactions of organized government without moving to a place like Arkansas. The Uniform Ancient Burial Sites Preservation Act probably had as much to do with it as anything.”

“What was this?”

“Well, the World Congress passed it to keep people from accidentally digging up old grave sites, but it’s pretty hard to find a spot on Earth where someone isn’t buried. After folks began filing lawsuits to keep anyone from building anything anywhere, most people said, ‘To hell with paying off Indians, let’s mess up some other planet.’ “

“Is this anything like being in love?”

“It’s similar.”

Mickey’s whiskers twitched. “Friend Ken, what is it like being a vampire?”

I thought hard for a moment. “It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s a strange feeling really—-to think that if you play your cards right, you might be humming along fifty years after most of the people you know are dead, and to know that half the people you run into think that you sleep in a coffin and suck blood out of people’s arteries. You’re constantly aware of a vast gulf that separates you from the rest of humanity.”

“It must be like being admitted to law school,” Mickey observed thoughtfully. “Friend Ken, I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

“As you know, humans brought the priceless boon of civilization to IPlixxi*.” He paused. “After seeing several human worlds now, I was wondering if perhaps we could return the gift by bringing the priceless boon of civilization back to humanity.”

“Let me think about that awhile.”

Clyde Witherspoon showed up a few seconds later to take over the board, so Mickey and I toddled off to Sunday dinner.

Sunday dinner is one of the few times we all get together, so after grace and the obligatory toast to the navy, I rapped the table for silence. “Okay, everybody. In a couple of days we’re due to arrive on Alt Bauemhof. I know there’s an element of danger here, but I also know that you all are dedicated professionals. I just wanted to say—”

“Ken, sir? Food’s getting cold.” Harry rubbed his hands together. “We’re having pasta!”

“But we have pasta every Sunday.” Catarina and I are allergic to nearly everything, and Minnie and Mickey get stewed on sucrose, so it isn’t as though we have a lot of choices.

Harry blinked twice.

I shrugged. “Skip it. Dig in.”

We did. Things went smoothly until I made the mistake of asking Wyma Jean, “I hear you taught Minnie, Mickey, and Bunkie how to play that stock market game of yours. How did it go?”

Wyma Jean stiffened in the act of helping herself to more salad. It dawned on me that the three short people had begun taking her to the cleaners. “Maybe I don’t win, but at least
I
don’t look like a schnauzer,” she sniffed.

Minnie, Mickey, and Bunkie all turned their heads and looked at me expectantly.

Catarina winked. I dabbed at my chin with a napkin and thought for a second. “Well, only if you clean up afterward.”

The three short people nodded in unison. A few seconds later Wyma Jean was wearing three plates of pasta carbonara.

Catarina and I disappeared into the galley as the food fight began in earnest, with Harry and Wyma Jean unloading on the little people and Rosalee cheerfully taking on all comers.

“Wyma Jean got a little saucy in there,” Catarina commented.

I shuddered. “I just hope this bunch frightens the Macdonalds half as much as they frighten me.”

A moment later the noises stopped and Rosalee appeared, tastefully decked out in spaghetti like Medusa with yellow snakes in her hair. “We’re finished.”

I looked to Catarina for support. “Thanks. We’ll be in in a minute.”

As Rosalee shut the door I shuddered again.

Catarina patted me on the arm. “Look at the bright side, Ken.”

“And that is?”

“I’ll let you know when I figure it out.”

“When you were talking with Lydia, did she let slip any helpful hints?”

“Yes. She said that the local beer is red and the natives call it ‘beer of the angels.’ Try and say nice things about it.”

“How bad is it?”

“They flavor it with calcium cyanimide, so no one’s quite sure.”

“Ah, right.”

The latest remake of
Casablanca
turned out to be the worst one yet. Sam was an android, the Nazis looked Oriental, and the actress playing Ilsa had a monster set of breast implants and swayed from side to side when she walked.

I keep hoping that somebody’ll dig up Ingrid Bergman and clone her.

As we made our final approach to Alt Bauernhof’s main space station, I eyed the warships orbiting the Macdonald capital city of Klo’klotixa and told Catarina, “If this works out the way I expect, all I want is a simple headstone, no viewing.”

She punched me lightly on the shoulder. “Ken, the Macdonalds know that if they do anything to us, they’ll have major diplomatic problems—”

“Be sure and chisel that on the headstone.”

“—so they have every reason to treat us politely, at least until they catch us at something overt.”

Rosalee and Wyma Jean ignored the exchange and eased us into our assigned berth until the magnetic field brought us to a stop.

As soon as we had a tight seal on the boarding ramp, Catarina, Bunkie, and I put on breathing masks and stepped briskly through the ozone bath to the station’s quarantine area, where a big sign in English and Sklo’kotax read
HAPPY STAY KLO’KLOTIXA. FOR THE TWELFTH FIVE-YEAR PLAN, YOU MUST MAINTAIN GOOD SPEED AND RHYTHMS!

“Catchy jingle,” Catarina observed.

I nodded. “It sounds like something my ex-wife would dream up to sell toothpaste. Dam! They sure like it warm here.”

“Sir, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity,” Bunkie explained.

Barefoot customs inspectors were waiting for us, dressed in the tight leather collars that symbolized their service to the state and reminded me of Christmas in San Francisco. Around the galaxy, creatures designed to fill the same environmental niches end up looking similar, and through a quirk of nature, the Macdonalds came out looking more like human beings than they probably wanted to.

They had four-fingered hands, plantigrade feet, bottleshaped lower abdomens, and cartilaginous internal bracing, which allowed them a reasonably upright stance. Their goggle eyes were pushed together for good stereoscopic vision, and they had fleshy nasal bulbs for Jacobson’s organs on their faces, ranging in size from a cute, pug one on the young female scrubbing the floor to dipsomaniacal monstrosities on the males.

I was immediately struck by the way their jug ears artistically framed their low-slung foreheads. Protective oil gave their grayish skin a glossy sheen, while modified gill slits in the folds of skin over the throat allowed them to breathe, although I noticed they kept their mouths open for maximum respiratory efficiency. In short, it appeared that nature had conspired to make Macdonalds the butt of every Polish joke known to humankind.

As we stepped up to the desk, the two officials wearing the fanciest outfits moved forward together and almost bumped into each other. Body language among bipeds being something of a universal constant, it was readily apparent which of the two handled customs on a regular basis, and which of the two outranked the other.

While they were sorting it out I whispered to Catarina, “Secret police?”

“Maybe. The Macdonalds have a Navy Intelligence Service, an Army Intelligence Agency, a Joint Army-Navy Intelligence Board, a Bureau of Planetary Security, a Central Security Service, the Secret Police, and the Special Secret Police, so it’s sometimes difficult to tell the players without a scorecard.”

The flashier of the two interrupted in singsong English, “Please present your papers. Do you have anyt’ing to declare?”

Macdonald palates can’t accommodate a “th” sound. “We have nothing to declare,” I announced cheerfully. Bunkie handed over our papers, and the two Macdonalds spent a few minutes with their tongues hanging out scanning our documents for flaws. Finally, the little one opened and closed his eyes rapidly three or four times, which was the equivalent of a shake of the head, and fancy-pants reluctantly said, “Your papers are in order. Tee atmosphere on t’is space station is hazardous to your well-being. Breat’ing masks are available in tee gift shop.”