The Red Tape War Part 10

"Actually," said Pierce, when Arro let him have his mind back again, "I don't mind this as much as I thought I would."

"That's because we're squashed together like peas in a piccolo. Be careful, you're flattening my . . . accoutrements. "

"My dear Marshmallow," said Pierce gravely, "I am of the opinion that your accoutrements, as you call them, are unflattenable."

She blushed and then smiled. "Sakes alive," she said, "I do believe that's the most gallant thing anyone's ever said to me." If she hadn't been so much taller than Pierce, they could have made their bondage into one long wonderful kiss.

"There," said Arro, through Frank Poole's mouth, "Inow have you all helpless. Our conquest proceeds as scheduled."

"What about the battle fleet?" asked Pierce.

"I'm getting to that," said Arro. "The lizard's dread-nought is closing on us, too. Let's see.

What would I do if I were Commodore Pierce?"

"I'll tell you what I'd do if I were First Officer Arro," said the Protean-Pierce in a rage. "I'd ask my commanding officer for advice and orders!"

"Ah, yes," said Arro gratefully. "Commodore, would you be so kind-"

He was interrupted by Screen 3 suddenly coming to life in living holovision and multiphonic sound. On it was the image of a human being, tall, well built, his handsome head shaved completely bald. He wore a black suit and a cravat with a huge diamond stickpin. "Greetings,"

said the man. "I am one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the entire galaxy. I understand your situation, and I am prepared to withhold the vast firepower of my fleet until I've made my demands known. Following that, you will have exactly sixty seconds to surrender. Do you under- stand me?"

The lizard general fretted against the tight coils of rope that held him immobile. The human- Pierce gulped and tried to think of an answer: Yes or no. He wished he could work a hand free to flip a coin.

Meanwhile, Honeylou Emmyjane Goldberg's eyes opened wide. "Good grief!" she cried. "It's Daddy!"

Arro was still motivating Frank Poole, the Modular Ident.i.ty Snythecator. He was experiencing a kind of tingling in one of his upper left foresacs. The tingling could be translated into human terms as stark, raving terror. "Commodore Pierce!" he cried in a hoa.r.s.e voice. "You should see what I can see!"

"Well," shouted the gasbag Pierce in frustration, "if you'd only turn your campack on it, I would see it on my monitor!"

"Oh," said Arro in an embarra.s.sed voice. He aimed the camera lens at the viewscreens. One still showed the rapidly approaching battle fleet, the other the imposing head and upper body of Daddy.

"Yipe!" went the gasbag Pierce involuntarily. Every one of his sacs deflated with sharp blatting noises. He took a moment to reinflate himself. Then, in a hushed voice, he said, "It's G.o.d. We're meeting G.o.d."

"He looks just like the mysterious monster on the ceiling of the Cistern Chapel."

"I was ready for the battle fleet," said the Protean Pierce, "but I wasn't prepared to meet my Maker."

"Sir," said Arro thoughtfully.

"Shut up, Number One. I'm looking through the Red Tape Index to see if there are any necessary forms we have to fill out before or after we come face-to-face with the Almighty."

"Sir," said Arro again.

"Maybe we have to send requisitions and permissions forms up through the chaplain's side of the chain of command."

"Sir," demanded Arro, "why would G.o.d appear with a battle fleet?"

Pierce bratted a sac impatiently. "G.o.d can appear however He wants. He's ent.i.tled. Now leave me alone while I-"

"Maybe that's His Heavenly Host in those other s.h.i.+ps, and they always show up in paintings as gasbags with wings-which is redundant, if you ask me, but I'm no theologian-and wings won't work in a vacuum, so I guess-"

"Nope. No forms. No contingency plans for such a situation. We're on our own here, Arro, my friend. We're opening new territory. We're going to live together in pride and splendor through all eternity if we handle this right. Now, listen, here's my plan. I want you to go say h.e.l.lo to G.o.d and wish Him all the best. Give Him my regards and tell Him that we're well on our way to conquering the universe for His greater glory."

"Me?" squeaked Arro. All by myself?"

"You're the first officer, I'm the commodore. I have to stay back here in the Forward Recon Unit and record the history-making event."

Arro let out another squeal from a tightly pinchedsac. "But I haven't been to conception lately. What if G.o.d is still mad at me?"

"I don't know," muttered Pierce. "Wave a white flag or something. Hey, how about a Battlefield Absolution? In the absence of any duly authorized chaplain or chaplain's mate, I'm sure I have the power to give you one."

"Think so?"

"Arro, you're absolved. Go and sin no more."

The first officer wasn't much cheered by that, but he was a good warrior and he always followed his orders. He abandoned the MIS Frank Poole and drifted up close to the viewscreen showing, depending on how you looked at it, the father of Honeylou Emmyjane Goldberg, or the Lord of All Creation. Actually, from Marshmallow's point of view, they were pretty much the same thing.

Arro slowly but thoroughly squeezed his psychosac until his consciousness shot out through cold, empty s.p.a.ce to the flags.h.i.+p of the great s.p.a.ce armada. He arrived on the s.h.i.+p's bridge, and then he reached out toward the looming presence of the most powerful Being in the universe. Arro expected a barrier of some sort between his puny Protean intellect and the unknowable mind of G.o.d, and he was shocked when he touched and found-nothing.

"Commodore," said the first officer in a low voice, "He's not here."

"Of course He's there," said the gasbag Pierce, wobbling a bulging sac impatiently. "G.o.d is immanent in all things. He's here, He's there, He's everywhere."

"I don't mean like that," whispered Arro. "I mean He's not here in any but the usual way. I don't think we actually saw G.o.d. I think it was one of those humanoid creatures-not the scaly ones but the soft pink ones. I think it was one of those creatures pretending to be G.o.d."

"Don't be sacrilegious."

"I'm not being sacrilegious," said Arro forcefully. "It was that humanoid who was being sacrilegious."

"The campack on your body is still pointed at the viewscreen, and I still see Him or him or whoever it is." The gasbag Pierce stopped to think for a moment.

Slowly, the great bald head of Daddy smiled, then grinned, then broke into a disparaging laugh. "I can tell that you've worked your mental magic or whatever," he said contemptuously.

"As you can see, I am not an easy man to put your hands on-if you've even got hands. In fact, Mr. Energy Being, you're not so much in command of the situation aboard that small craft as you thought, are you? You hold all those cards there, but I have the trump. I have you. I have you alone in an empty sh.e.l.l of a s.p.a.cecraft which, because of its huge size, you naturally took for the major s.h.i.+p in the fleet." Daddy grinned. "Sorta demeaning somehow to find you can be suckered just like everybody else, ain't it?"

Arro was caught for a moment in frozen confusion. He sent his mind to see what the still very solid-looking man in front of him was talking about, and he found that it was true. The entire flags.h.i.+p, or what looked like one, was one huge, empty hulk.

Well, not completely empty. There was, for example, an elaborate remote computer control for what functions were necessary, including main batteries and propulsion. There were no provisions for life-support.

And now, for the first time, the first officer of the Pel Torro realized that "Daddy," too, was a remote handled by that computer. A holographic image so real, so perfect, that even now it was impossible to think of him as not really there at all.

In a way, it was demeaning. Arro was the one who dealt in energy creatures, not these gross humanoid monsters.

The big man continued to stare at him, and Arro realized that he was, in fact, looking at the great man himself-but relayed from who knew where else? Probably, from one of the other s.h.i.+ps, or maybe from even farther away if these beings had such technology. "Commodore Pierce," Arro reported, "this blasphemous-looking monster controls scientific wonders far superior to our own."

Arro found himself relieved that he was not, after all, confronting G.o.d. Still, the coincidence of the appearance of Daddy would be something the greatest Protean minds would puzzle over, perhaps for centuries.

"Now then," the bald man prodded, "let's continue our little chat, eh? Which one of you was sayin' something about three million eggs set to hatch in strategic places?"

"He's not talking to us, is he?" asked Arro.

"I don't think so," said Pierce. "We don't have three million unhatched eggs. Whatever eggs are. We've got billions of battle-hungry gasbags. Why don't you wait there while I get your Permission for Scout to Return to Front Lines Form 15183/a forms filled out and beamed to Headquarters. It'll just take a few minutes. You've been very courageous, Arro, and your actions will certainly redound to the credit of the Pel Torro and its commander, me."

"Yes, sir, Commodore."

"As soon as clearance comes through, I want you to leave that phony flags.h.i.+p and return to your body, and then get back inside that Frank Poole android."

"And I want my little darlin' back immediately!" cried Daddy, making a fist and striking some metal surface beyond camera range. He turned and addressed someone else. "What kinda critter we dealin' with, Herb? Got anything yet?"

A tinny, off-mike voice responded. "The thing in front's a robot or android, standard issue."

Daddy frowned. "Remote?"

"No, it's turned off now . . . but there's a life-form inside. Something unknown to exobiology as I understand it. It's so tiny it wouldn't be visible to us."

Arro had returned to his body, and was again motivating the synthetic form of Frank Poole.

He said nothing, following the flesh-creatures' conversation with a curiosity that outweighed any sense of threat. What, after all, could they do? They possessed superior technology, but the gasbags could control their minds for short periods. It seemed like a standoff to the first officer.

Eventually the different species would get around to bargaining and compromising, which Commodore Pierce would gladly partic.i.p.ate in-as long as it suited him.

"Herb," said Daddy with a growl, "next thing you'll be tellin' me is that c.o.c.kroaches are plotting on the other s.h.i.+p."

"No, I'm getting something else. I'm trying to measure the energy of that infinitesimal speck-it's off the scale. Wonder how it holds together."

The bald-headed man nodded to himself, and turned back to the viewscreen. "So-a creature of pure energy, or nearly so, and you can inhabit bodies at will. I begin to see your plot, sir, and it's a rather good one. But you overlooked a few things."

"Oh?" murmured gasbag-Pierce.

"What does he mean about all that energy?" asked Arro.

"I think Herb's misreading his data deck. He's measuring the energy of our Forward Recon Unit. Let him think that's you if he wants."

"First of all," said Daddy, smiling without humor, "you're obviously spatially limited. You require a body toget anything done on the scale of us human beings. Maybe you can-reproduce.

Take over others. But you still need them."

"Whatcha think, sir?" asked Arro in a series of short sac blats.

The Protean Pierce felt a strange sense engorging his sacs that he'd never really experienced before. It was something he knew about intellectually but had never expected to feel in the flesh.

It was a feeling of total helplessness, even nakedness, mixed with a little . . . fear, perhaps? He fought these strange feelings within himself and forced them back down, reminding himself that he actually had little to worry about overall, that it was poor Arro who was trapped aboard the Pete Rozelle and not him, and that any sort of strategic compromise with Daddy could only result in the ultimate victory of the gasbags.

"Arco," he said to his number one officer, "I'm going to take over this conversation. I want you to repeat what I tell you through that android's mouth."

"Aye, aye, sir," said Arro. "I admire your technical skill and imagination, flesh-creature," said Frank Poole. "But tell me, what else did I overlook?"

Daddy smiled again. It was a chilling sight. "How you gonna defeat the might of my a.s.sembled fleet of s.h.i.+ps, my marines, and my fighter pods?"

Gasbag-Pierce only bratted to himself in satisfaction. Daddy knew nothing of the vast, invincible Protean armada that would be on its way Real Soon Now, whenever all the necessary paperwork was finished. "Anything more?" he asked.

"Well," said Daddy slyly, "we have weapons systems aboard the s.h.i.+ps of this fleet that can target an area as small as a cubic millimeter. That means we can explode a tiny nova bomb behind your android's forehead. Now it would destroy the android for sure, but maybe it wouldn't destroy you. I don't know. I do know that you'd have tc take over one of the others you'-re holdin'

hostage there-and they're all tied up! You'd be hoist by your own pet farm or whatever the sayin' is. So now you're as stuck as I'd be in your shoes, aren't you, boy?"

"Arro!" shouted Protean Pierce. "Get out of that android now! Move it! Get back to the Pel Tort-a!"

"Thanking you in advance, Commodore," said Arro, bratting relief. "I'll take care of the paperwork when I get there. "

"d.a.m.n, this is uncomfortable!" the human Pierce growled.

"Hog-tied and trussed fer market! d.a.m.n is right!" Marshmallow echoed. "And you, lizard- brain, you watch where you're stickin' that tail of your'n."

"I was merely trying to see if I could work us loose," the general snapped. "But it's no good."

They were silent for a moment, thinking and writhing in the thick, cablelike ropes.

"Millard?" came a plaintive voice from the computer console. It sounded hesitant, fearful, even childlike. "Computer? That you?" Pierce called out.

"Yes, Millard."

"Finally emerging from your suicidal funk?"

The computer hesitated. "Well, I want even more to end it all, this time in shame and ignominy, if that's what you mean. But I'm stopped by an irrefutable logic chain."

"Which is?"

"That-thing. It's not anything I've ever known before. It can control energy, Millard. Pure energy-it must, to get inside my circuits. It's been playing games with all of us, you, me, everybody included. Making us say things we didn't want to say and do things we didn'twant to do. You realize what that means, don't you, Millard?"

"Yeah. We're in a lot of trouble," Pierce grumbled.

"No, no! It means she still loves me, Millard! I see it all now! Oh, what a fool I was! This thing wanted to sow discord, cause our destruction! It got in the circuits, cut us apart, made us hear and say what it wanted us to! Therefore, I share the shame of having been taken in by it, but with the hope that once again my beloved and I can share our bliss and perhaps, yes, perhaps even undergo electromagnetic coupling-Oops! Pardon me. I didn't mean to talk that way in front of guests.

Marshmallow, offended that the computer should be reticent in front of her, told the computer in explicit terms what it could do with itself and its ladylove.

"Why, thank you," the computer responded thought-fully. "I'll certainly file that for eventual experimentation, although I'm not certain exactly how that's possible. Still, with a little modification it might work. Besides, I'm just a Model XB-223 navigational computer. Hmm . . .

that's why I was so easily led astray. Oh yes, I see it all now!"

"Unless you see a way to cut these ropes, that thing's gonna come back and wipe out the lot of us," Pierce reminded the computer acidly. "Remember, it almost shorted you out of existence."

"But Mills! You know I can't cut ropes. Why don't you just use that knife you've been carrying with you since the start of all this?"

Pierce froze. The general turned his head slightly and put one eye on his human counterpart.