L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 (2 page)

Gear down,
Georgie
ran out the boarding ladder. Didn't personally plan leaving the control deck this time, but from sheer reflexive precaution, I patted my left armpit, making sure that, underneath the overall, the hammer was locked back on my antique Gold Cup .45. The one the Academy and I pretend they don’t know about. Hell, they understand:

I won’t mess history up ’less it tries messin’ me up first. The pistol’s a tad more’n four centuries obsolete, but unlike a laser or even its contemporary .357 Magnum, it’ll stop a man dead without necessarily killing him—and make a sabertooth kitty
real
sick.

The big wraparound viewscreens were full of autumn leaves. Bet that clearing hadn’t twenty centimeters more diameter than
Georgie
herself. Grass, late-blooming flowers, tiny skittering things in the branches. Lotsa birds. “Welcome our sightseers in, kid.”

Heplar unstrapped himself, stepped over a Yamaguchian or two, and left the cabin with another “Very well, Captain” I coulda cheerfully strangled him for. Instead, I kept my eyes glued to the board, fingers hovering over the Emergency Drive button, just in case. It’s a brutally simple mechanism, won’t take you any when back or forth in time, just three or four hundred klicks away, in any old direction,
fast.

Found my cigar in the ashtray and relit it, drawing smoke. Hafta think about transferring Heplar; this relationship of ours just wasn’t working out. My other hand had started setting up a course for home: upward in space, forward in history, all in one clean four-dimensional curve, to where the Ochskahrt Memorial man-in-the-moon’s supposed to show up, ’long about May of 2285. Took some concentration.

A belowdecks monitor in the vicinity of my left elbow gave me a view from back of the boarding hatch downstairs.

I could see the nape of Heplar’s vulture neck as he waited for our EVA party. Seconds later, he was joined by Professors Merwin and Hulbert, two old ducks in yellow academic union-suits I’d plumb near forgotten about. Though too elderly for field work, they weren’t aboard ’cause they were useless. Either one of ’em could flick the back edge of a samurai sword with his fingernail, listen to it ring, and tell you how many laminations in the blade. Ancient weapons experts—(however you wanna interpret that)—from the Academy’s own museum.

Never quite figured out who was Merwin and who was Hulbert.

Naturally, the first one through the pressure-gasketing was Dr. Edna Janof, an extremely tempting little confection, very shapely, the effect spoiled by an oddly cruel expression which flickered across her otherwise kissable features whenever she didn’t think she was being watched—kinda careless for an anthropologist. She shucked off her local disguise, as Heplar and the two professors jostled each other to hand her in, and turned to impress some vital philosophical observation upon her current flame, Dr. Denny Kent, a tall, postboyish sorta gink, neatly and semipermanently wrapped around Edna’s long-nailed little finger.

Kent was in the econometrics biz, a MarxoFriedmanite Neo-Revisionist of the Old School, he’d informed me earlier as we were getting more acquainted than I’d wanted to. A little paunchy around his center of gravity, always grinning like he expected the girls t’swoon at the glimmer of his bicuspids blowin’ in the breeze. None of ’em had for some while, but he was too good a sport to notice. A ne'er-do-well gone to seed, with a face like an overcooked pot roast.

Anyone for tennis?

Janof and Kent were followed by the Boffin-in-Charge, Dr. Ab Cromney (more Ph.D.s around here lately than a compost-heap), inches taller than Kent, but spindly and sparrow-chested, with a hank of hair like a shaving-brush, distinguished gray, but all of it straight up like he was taking high voltage. Political science, to abuse the latter word, was his game, but he had an annoying habit—abetted by Edna and Denny, who seemed to hang on his every phoneme— of making serious pronouncements obviously well outside his field of expertise.

Cromney’d initiated this oriental outing; applying through official channels it takes months—even years, sometimes— to navigate. Temporal, after all, makes up only the thinnest slice of the Qchskahrt Academy’s Memorial interests. Most roads—-and appropriations, it seems—lead to SpaceDiv and the Glorious Frontier they’re out there ruining. Neglected as we are, our little green calendar gets pretty damned crowded.

But there’s a lot more to it: each mission proposal bums up zillions of silicon-hours just making sure in advance that nobody jerks history out from under us like a cheap hallway carpet.

This time, however, the Academy shocked everybody by expediting Cromney’s crackpot proposal in a scant five weeks, bumping worthier applicants and upsetting scheduling for years to come. I’d learned that Cromney took this as some kind of sign, but I knew the truth.

It was all for Little Old Me—or rather for my faithful worshippers, the Yamaguchians. Cromney and his people didn’t figure in it at all.

One by one they divested themselves of pseudo-Nipponese habiliment, trotting off down the companionway and out of camera range. Professors Merwin and Hulbert were beside themselves (and each other) gathering up all the factory-fresh antique weaponry their colleagues had collected for them. Pushing half a ton of high-grade steel and low-grade technology on an antigravitic handcart, they made themselves scarce in the direction of the messroom. Heplar, being a good boy, dogged down the door when he and his little playmates were through with it; his mother woulda been proud of him.

Back upstairs where I keep the steering wheel, the Ambassador or one of his facsimiles, was making more nuisance of himself than usual, figure-eighting in and out between my feet like a housecat, as I continued with my temporagational arithmetic. He gave out high-pitched bleating noises at the upper limit of my hearing and temperament, swiveling his eyestalk around and around like a lawn sprinkler.

He stopped abruptly in his multilegged tracks, and I followed his stare to the after bulkhead where another of his kind was mountaineering clumsily over the doorsill. They met in the center of the cabin between a pair of jump-seats, skiddling into each other like a pair of friendly miniature Sherman tanks.

More rubbernecking and squealing. Thought I was gonna witness some impromptu alien illicitude—not that I’m interested in that sort of thing—but I had work to do. Instead, I turned back to the console, dialing another sack of beer to replace the one that’d gotten warm, and peered into the plotting tank, punching knobs and twisting buttons.

This business of finding the one-and-only correct line across
both
time and space can be tricky as all get-out.

I felt a tug: down between my Academy-green pantlegs, where they hang out over my old-fashioned lace-up parachute boots, were not just one, not merely two, but all
three
aliens, doing the Sonja Henie bit in and around my feet. I scored them a well-deserved 8.3 and generously resisted the urge to add a steel-lined toe-tip for artistic endeavor. “What’s got into you little buggers, anyway?”

Another noise behind me, a scuff and shuffle of human feet. Keeping both eyes on the engine-status indicators as they hotted up, I reached for my beer-baggie. “Well, kid, our passengers all tucked away nice an’ neat?”

A yellow light flickered on the board; the Yamaguchians seemed to be going crazy; I nudged a vernier microscopically, bringing
Georgie
's highly-critical field-densities back into alignment, talking over my shoulder. “Take a gander at our VIPs here, kid. Don’tcha think they’re acting kinda—”

WHAAAACKM

They’re right, y’know, about seeing stars. Whatever it was collided with the side of my head just then, it started little teensy supernovas flashing on and off behind my eyes. And I couldn’t find the right knob to adjust ’em.

It wasn’t that I minded so much, but the pain. And I remember thinking: I’m never gonna get a beer this afternoon, am I?

2 Grounds for Complaint

“Gruenblum, this could be your Most Important Mission Ever!” His fat face swam in and out of focus, changing colors every now and again.

Funny, I didn’t remember it doing that the first time I’d had this conversation.

I did remember how much I'd always hated being addressed by my
“naked patronymic”—almost as much as being called
“
Captain"—and the situation wasn’t much improved by the fact that this hypercaloric moron
was
sullying his own name whenever he sullied mine.

Just to prove he knew what he was doing—and was doing it on purpose—he turned chartreuse, and posies blossomed from his ears.

Green-bloom, get it?

Things steadied down a little.

I’d thought about flicking half an inch of cheap cigar ash on his hand-imported carpet just to give him an idea of what was really what and who was really who. Unfortunately, I wasn’t too sure about that myself, right now. “Cuthbert, I hate to spoil your fun just when you’re getting warmed up, but this ‘Most Important Mission’ batbarf—that’s what you
always
tell me!”

“Batbarf?” He blinked stupidly, then made an effort to regain his sense of inflated self-importance. “I’ll trouble you to remember that it’s
Colonel,
Gruenblum!”

“No, it’s
Captain
Gruenblum. Cuthbert, and I oughta know—I’m him. I mean, he. Least I was last time I looked at the labels in my underwear.”

I love to see a stuffed shirt splutter incoherently, especially when I’m the cause of it.

“Look, Cuthbert, do us both a favor and cut the crap. I’m overdue for a date with this redhead over in Von-braunsville, see? An’ she’s got the most terrific set of...” I raised both hands by way of illustration. My cigar ash was at least three-quarters of an inch long by now and none too firmly attached. I looked around for an ashtray.

“Grandfather, will you
please
stick to the subject at hand? This could be... well, it really
could
be your Most Important—”

I glared at him, and he shut up—a modest talent I cultivate, which has its uses on occasion. More than anything else, more than “Gruenblum,” even more than “Captain,” I
loathe
being called “Grandfather.”

But, I sighed inwardly, it Was true enough: this pompous, cetacean-sized subsimian parked on the fifty yard line of the desk in front of me—come on,
spit
it out, Bemie!— was my very own darling grandson. One of them, anyway; it’s a cast of thousands.

What made it downright unconscionable was that Cuthbert was also my immediate superior: Lieutenant Colonel Cuthbert M. Gruenblum, AdminTempDiv, OchsMemAcad, SPCA, SPQR, and LS/MFT. Had the little family beauty-spot on his blubbery jaw, and everything.

Shoulda had one of those vasectomies back when they were offering two for the price of one.

Now he sat there, feeling hurt and pouting, something he’d practiced faithfully since he was three but which looked silly as a propeller beanie on a Lieutenant Colonel.

“Okay, Cuthbert, didn’t mean to piss in your little red wagon. Give it to me straight:
where
you gonna send me this time, an’
what
am I supposed to do when I get there.

Low gravity’s too good for some folks; seems to encourage subcutaneous superfluity. He rose from behind that pretentious block of mahogany like the B. F. Goodrich blimp, ran the back of a flabby hand under several of his chins, and tried to pace back and forth. Doesn’t work too well in one-sixth gee, lacks dignity somehow, and the sound of velcro shoesoles on the carpet gets on your nerves.

Rip, rip, rip!

“Well, you see, Grandfath—Cap—Gruen—”

Rip, RIP, rip, rip!

“Siddown, for Ochskahrt’s sake, Cuthbert! An’ try ‘Ber-nie,’ since you seem t’be havin’ identity problems this morning.”

I took another drag off my cigar and this time let the ash fall—entirely accidentally, of course. There was a sudden glitter at the baseboard; a tiny, rodent-shaped bundle of chromium-plated machinery bulleted across the floor, scooped up my oxidized detritus, chittered at me reprovingly, and vanished into the wall again.

This seemed to throw poor Cuthbert off somehow. He gazed at the bald, bespectacled portrait of Ochskahrt on the wall behind his desk in prayerful appeal. “Where was I? Oh, yes—it isn’t so much the
particular
mission, er, Ber-nie...”

Rip, rip, rip.

.. it might have been almost any old mission at all...”
Rip, rip, rip, rip.

Was he
ever
gonna sit down again?

“... so long as
you
are the pilot!”

He smiled brightly at this and plunked his behind into the office-swiveler. Never felt so grateful for anything in my life. Well,
practically
anything.

“How’d I get so lucky, Cuthbert?”

Curious now, I let a few more ashes dribble floorward; they drifted slowly under the mild acceleration, and before they lighted on the carpet, the electronic mouse was there again, waiting for them.

“And
why
am I so lucky all of a sudden?”

“Because you’re going to have some
company
on this trip, Bemie. Besides your new A/O and whatever scientific personnel it happens to involve, I mean.” He gave me a leer like an IRS agent writing up a seizure order for Tiny Tim’s crutches on Christmas Eve. “You see, the Yama-guchian Legation, here in—”

“Entropy and eggrolls!
Pylon take you, Cuthbert, I won’t have
any
of those dagblasted little... just becausc I once...and anyway, it
isn’t
‘Yamaguchian.’ How many times do I have to
tell
you people, that’s just some Earthie astronomer’s monicker for their late,
un
lamented former star-system? If anything, they’re Ganymedeans now, and...”

For the first time, almost in centuries, I couldn’t think of anything else to say.