“Man, you really look stupid,” said Do-Wop, pointing at Sushi’s furry chaps, fringed vest, and ten-gallon hat.
“Yeah, well, you’ll look even stupider trying to ride a robosteed wearing a Legion uniform,” said Sushi. “In fact, you look…”
“Don’t say it,” warned Do-Wop, cocking a fist threateningly. He looked mournfully at the bed, where his own Western outfit was laid out. Like Sushi’s, it had been provided-supposedly at no extra charge-by the stable that rented them the robosteeds they were going to ride west in search of the captain.
Sushi grinned. “I’ll just think it, then. Come on, bucka-roo. Get your duds on, and let’s go ridin‘.”
“You ever been on a robosteed before?” asked Do-Wop, picking up the hat. “I don’t like the looks of ‘em.”
“Just another kind of machine,” said Sushi. “Think of it as a hovercycle with hair. Chocolate Harry would understand.”
“Harry wouldn’t wear this crap,” said Do-Wop. He looked at himself in the mirror, then flung the hat back on the bed.
“I doubt they make it his size,” said Sushi; then he shook his head. “Cancel that-this is a tourist world. They’ve probably got it in all the sizes, patterns, and colors you ever thought of, and a few you wish you hadn’t.”
“I wish I hadn’t thought of coming here,” said Do-Wop, rolling his eyes.
“At least this once, it wasn’t your dumb idea,” said Sushi. “Blame it on Remmie and Armstrong. Or maybe on the captain, since it was his idea to come after Beeker.”
“Yeah,” griped Do-Wop. “How come he didn’t just call in some of his family connections? I mean, that’s what any Italian would do.”
“In case you didn’t notice, the captain’s not Italian,” said Sushi. “But I wondered about that, too. Seems like a waste of his time to come looking for Beeker when he could hire a whole team of detectives to do the job for him.”
“Well, maybe he just wanted to get away from the base for a while,” said Do-Wop, dismissing the question from his mind nearly as quickly as he’d asked it. “The real kicker is why he decided to come to this joint. I can only think of about nine hundred more interesting planets to come to…”
“Well, this place was Beeker’s choice, not the captain’s,” said Sushi. “Or maybe it was Nightingale’s-who knows? When we catch them, we can ask them why they came here.”
“Sure,” said Do-Wop. “Tell me again why we gotta wear these stupid outfits to catch ‘em.”
“These are special riding outfits,” Sushi explained. “We’re going to wear them so we don’t tear up our uniforms riding across the countryside. And we have to ride across the countryside because that’s the only way to get around on this planet-unless you just happen to be going someplace you can reach by stagecoach. Or unless you feel like walking the whole way.”
“Forget about that walking bit, anyway,” said Do-Wop. “I done all the walking I could stomach in Legion Basic, marching here and there and everywhere, as if there wasn’t any such thing as hoverjeeps or space liners. What’s the deal with those stagecoaches? How do we know there ain’t one going where we want to go?”
“We don’t, because we don’t know where we want to go yet,” said Sushi, patiently. “If we have the robosteeds, we can go anywhere, whenever we want to. With the stagecoach, we can only go to other towns on the route, and we have to go on their schedule.“
“Stupid freakin‘ world,” said Do-Wop, pulling on the chaps. “Hey, you think Beeker’s wearin’ these stupid fuzzy pants? That’d be a laugh.”
“Who knows?” said Sushi. “The sooner we find him, the sooner you’ll find out. And the sooner you finish getting dressed…”
“OK, OK, I get the idea,” said Do-Wop. He put on his vest and hat and stood back. “How stupid do I look?”
“You don’t really want to know,” said Sushi, moving to the door. “Come on, the sooner we find Beeker, the sooner you can lose the fuzzy pants.”
“Best news I’ve heard all week,” said Do-Wop, following.
Buck Short took Phule down the wooden sidewalk outside the saloon to the local Andromatic livery stable to hire a robot horse for their expedition into Injun territory, as the area outside town was known. Far from being the backwater world Phule had been led to expect, Cut ‘N’ Shoot appeared to be a hotbed of economic activity. New buildings were going up on all sides, and there was a steady stream of delivery vehicles-Conestoga wagons pulled by teams of reliable roboxen and robohoss-drawn buckboards- coming down the main street from the spaceport and heading down a road out into the country.
Phule nodded, approvingly. “Looks like a lively town here,” he said. “Business seems to be booming.”
“Yep,” said Buck Short. “I been here two years, goin‘ on three, and the place has jumped up like a hound dog that set down on a cactus. Anybody lookin’ to make a little dinero, he ain’t got no business tryin‘ if he can’t make it on Cut ’N‘ Shoot.”
“That’s the kind of place I like to hear about,” said Phule. “Say-if you knew a fellow with a few dollars to put into an up-and-coming business, where do you think he’d get the biggest bang for his buck?“
“I can promise you one hell of a bang if somebody put a couple thou into my personal entertainment fund,” said Buck Short, deadpan. Then, seeing Phule shake his head, he shrugged. “Can’t blame a feller for tryin‘, can you? But I reckon the main business hereabouts, after the tourist trade, is gonna be the minin’. It was started out more or less for the frontier atmosphere, but I reckon it’s gonna end up being one of the major planetary commodities.”
“I’m not sure I’d want to count on that,” said Phule. “From what I know about mining, most planets have pretty much the same mineral composition. Most of the time, it’s a lot cheaper to mine something locally than to bring it in from off-world. So it’s very unusual for a planet to build its economy on mineral exports-not even precious metals or gemstones are likely to be worth the freight charges.”
“Well, Cap’n, that’s generally the straight-ahead truth,” said Short. “But conditions on Cut ‘N’ Shoot ain’t conditions anywhere else, y’know. What we got here is a mother lode of a u-nique metal you can’t get on no other planet in the sector.”
“A rare metal, eh?” said Phule. “That sounds interesting. What exactly is it?”
“Ah, well, maybe I shouldn’t say too much more,” said Short. “Folks that run the place, they got their trade secrets-and I reckon it might not be too healthy for a feller that stuck his nose in where it don’t belong.”
Phule shrugged. “That’s not the way I see it,” he said. “I don’t need to know their trade secrets-I just need enough to decide whether I want to buy some of their stock. If they’ve put together a solid business plan, I’m willing to bet they can pay me a respectable profit on my investment. But I’m not going to give them my money until I know what they’re going to do with it.”
“Well, I already told you what I’d do with it,” said Short, pouting. “I could put on a right good show if somebody give a piece of change to get myself started…”
“I’m sure you could,” said Phule, with a fixed smile. Then he pointed to the sign facing them. It read, BUDDY’S ROBOT LIVERY STABLE: SALES AND RENTALS. “But isn’t this the place we were going to find a horse for me? Let’s take care of that-I suspect we’ll have plenty of time to talk once we’re on the trail.”
“You’re the boss,” said Buck Short, and he fell in behind Phule, who’d already bustled through the door to the livery stable. The door led to a cramped front room decorated with riding tack and bales of hay; behind an antique steel-and-plastic desk sat a man wearing spurred cowboy boots, chaps, and red suspenders; in the pocket of his denim shirt was an antique ‘puter of the Palm Pilot variety. A battered Stetson and a wisp of straw between his front teeth completed the picture. Buck Short strolled right up to him, and said, “Howdy, Buddy. My off-world friend here got to rent him a hoss. Reckon you better give him a right tame one- don’t believe he’s done much ridin’ before.”