Sushi’s eyes lit up. “Not only do you believe me, you know just who we’re looking for, don’t you? He must have come through here…”
“Now, don’t be hasty,” said Fox, wagging his finger. “I may or may not have seen a Legion officer come through-they’re not common hereabouts, you know.”
“That means that if you did see our captain, you’d probably remember him,” said Sushi. He reached in his pocket and extracted a ten-dollar piece. He put it on the counter near his passport. “Does this help your memory?”
“Maybe…” Fox looked at the passport for a moment, then looked back at the coin, before adding, “Two of ‘em might make my memory even better.”
Sushi sighed, then turned to Do-Wop, who had recovered his balance and stood glaring at the two of them. “OK, buddy, your turn to chip in. Let’s see what the man knows.”
“How come I gotta chip in?” said Do-Wop.
“You want to chip in, or you want to see the guys with long fingers?” said Sushi.
Do-Wop dug into his pocket. A moment later, Agent Fox was filling them in on a few-but by no means all-of the things he’d learned from Phule upon his arrival on Old Earth. They didn’t notice that, at the same time, he was skillfully getting them to tell him far more than he was telling them. “Give a little, get a lot,” was Fox’s motto. He was really very good at it.
Do-Wop gaped at the Roman cityscape, amazement written plainly on his face. “Jeez!” he said, after a moment. “Here I am in Italy-I never thought I’d see the place!”
“Yeah, it’s pretty quaint,” said Sushi, eyeing the odd juxtaposition of hypermodern tourist traps and ruins dating to an age before space travel. “Could use a bit of maintenance, if you want my opinion.”
“Ahh, you wouldn’t understand class if it bit you in the ass,” said Do-Wop, scoffing.
“Y’know, I don’t think anybody with real class would be interested in that,” said Sushi. “Don’t go quoting me, though-I don’t want people to think I’m provincial or anything.”
It would have been hard for either of the two legionnaires to look much more provincial than the tourists thronging the streets around them. The dress code appeared to require some sort of garish locally purchased T-shirt. They were visible everywhere, with cryptic slogans ranging from vini, vidi, vici, and illegitimate non carborundum, to straight advertisements, one of the most popular being singh’s pizza-you’ve tried the rest, now try the best! In contrast, the two black-uniformed legionnaires were practically the definition of class.
On the other hand, to judge from the looks some of the passersby shot at them, the class they represented was not in particular favor locally. Even Do-Wop sensed the undercurrent as they walked through the Forum. When the stares continued, he eventually turned to Sushi, and said, “What’s up, Soosh? Some of these civvies are lookin‘ at us like we’re farting in their lifeboat.”
“I feel it, too,” said Sushi. “And I heard one of them muttering about spies. I don’t know what it means, but I think we need to find out before we get in some kind of trouble.”
“Hey, I ain’t gonna ran away from-OW!” said Do-Wop, as Sushi grabbed him by the ear and hustled him away from the open Forum. A short distance away, the crowd thinned out and the two legionnaires found themselves in the shadow of a dilapidated building. Do-Wop glared at Sushi. “What the hell was that for?”
“Something fishy’s going on here, and I don’t mean anchovy pizza,” said Sushi, in a voice just above a whisper. “Those people are mad at the Legion for some reason. I think we need to get some civilian outfits before we get in real trouble. For now, a couple of T-shirts will probably do the job.”
They found a tourist trap, not half a block away, with a full display of garish overpriced T-shirts. If the sophont behind the counter had anything against their Legion uniforms, he kept it to himself and pocketed their money with a smile and a very credible “Grazie, signori!” His Italian was good enough that he could have passed for a native Roman, if he hadn’t been seven and a half feet tall with bluish green skin, bright pink hair, and eyes on stalks. As they left the shop, Sushi wondered briefly whether the salesbeing was a genetically altered human or a member of some nonhuman species he hadn’t met before.
Back on the street, the two of them passed almost unnoticed in the crowd. “I guess that just goes to show the value of camouflage,” said Sushi, in an exasperated tone. After a moment he added, “I think it’s the locals, not the tourists, who’re staring at us-which is weird. If that customs agent is right, they don’t see very many legionnaires on Old Earth. There’s no reason they’d be mad…”
Do-Wop stopped in his tracks. “Y‘ know what I think? Somebody’s been goin’ around bad-mouthin‘ the Legion. That’s the only thing makes sense. Question is, who? And why?”
“Partner, you just asked the gigabuck question,” said Sushi. “I don’t know the answer-but I bet when we find it out, it’ll have something to do with the captain.”
“I don’t think I’m gonna take that bet,” said Do-Wop.
Late that night, behind closed doors, the leaders of Omega Company assembled. In the wake of the Andromatic robot’s golf accident, Rembrandt had called the command cadre to an emergency meeting. Ironically, nobody was quite sure what the emergency was, although they all agreed it had to be tackled at once.
“The robot’s damaged, that’s the main problem,” said Armstrong, who’d been on hand to witness the event. “A hard shot smack in the middle of the forehead-I don’t know what kinds of circuits are up there, but they must be important.“
“Well, I’m sure not a roboticist,” said Rembrandt. “But from what you tell me, the main problem was that the robot captain started to play much better than before. I wouldn’t take that as automatic evidence of damage.”
“How much do you know about golf?” said Armstrong. “What if I told you the robot shot a twenty-four on the back nine?”
“That’s pretty good, isn’t it?” Rembrandt asked.
Chocolate Harry answered her. “Shee-it, that ain’t just good, it’s scary. Machine that can do that can do anything. I don’t even want’t‘think about it.” There was genuine awe in the Supply sergeant’s voice.
“I think the general’s in total shock,” said Armstrong. “It’s the only explanation for why he didn’t instantly smell a rat when the robot started driving the ball four hundred yards and knocking in putts as if the green was a big funnel.”
“But he’s going to figure out something’s wrong,” said Brandy. “That man’s not so dumb he won’t notice a complete SNAFU, and that’s what this sounds like to me.”
Armstrong nodded. “That’s the problem. Maybe we can pass today off as an aberration, but if the robot starts playing killer golf again tomorrow, the general’s going to have us all on the carpet.“
Escrima was not impressed. “Ahh, what’s he gonna do, send us to Omega Company? I’m not afraid of him.”
“There are now a lot of things worse than Omega Company,” said Rembrandt. “Captain Jester’s done right by us, you know. Do you want to find out what a Legion detention barracks is like?”
Nobody said anything for a moment. Then Chocolate Harry broke the silence. “OK, here’s an idea,” he said. “We lock the ‘bot up someplace, tell the general the captain’s had a delayed reaction to bein’ hit on the head. Somebody else can show the general around, maybe Armstrong can play golf with him, and meanwhile maybe Gears can try to fix the problem.”
“Yeah, that might work for a couple of days,” said Brandy. “But do you think Gears can fix the robot? It’s a whole lot more complicated than a hoverjeep…”
“If we had Sushi here, I’d be a lot happier,” said Rembrandt. “He might not be a roboticist, but he could probably figure something out just on general knowledge. As it is, we’ll have to let Gears give it his best shot.”