AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, yeah,” Johnson agreed. “Their eye turrets drive me nuts.” He sighed, as if in longing. The tech snickered.
After boarding the scooter, he ran through the checklist. The technician had already cleared everything. Johnson did it anyhow. The technician wasn’t going to take the scooter out into hard vacuum, and he was. Everything checked green. He passed the word to the tech, who opened the outer door to the air lock.
Johnson used the scooter’s attitude jets to ease the little rocketship away from the Admiral Peary. Before firing up the main engine, he called the Horned Akiss to make sure he was expected. Healey hadn’t said word one about that.
But the answer came back in the language of the Race: “Yes, scooter from the Tosevite starship. We await your arrival. Stop well away from the ship, so that we may inspect you before you enter the air lock.”
“It shall be done,” Johnson said. That inspection wouldn’t be for ginger. The Lizards would be making sure he wasn’t bringing them a bomb. The Admiral Peary did the same thing when Lizard scooters approached. Nobody really expected trouble now, but nobody took any chances, either.
He aimed the scooter at the Horned Akiss, then fired the rear motor. Away the little rocket went. He liked nothing better than flying by the seat of his pants, even if he did have radar to help. A burn from the front motor killed the scooter’s velocity and left it hanging in space a couple of miles from the Lizards’ ship. One of their scooters came out to inspect it. “All appears to be in order,” a spacesuited member of the Race radioed to him when they were done. “You may proceed to the Horned Akiss. ”
“I thank you,” Johnson answered. “Can you tell me what this is all about?”
“Not I,” the Lizard replied. “The commandant will attend to it when you have gone aboard.”
“Have it your way,” Johnson said. They would anyhow.
Once in the Horned Akiss’ air lock, he had to get out of his spacesuit. With the heat the Lizards preferred, T-shirt and shorts had a good deal going for them as a uniform. Males and females of the Race went over the spacesuit and the scooter. He showed them Healey’s pledge. One of them said, “Very nice. We will continue the examination even so.” Not worth the paper it’s written on, he thought. If Healey had lied, though, (maybe) they wouldn’t blame the mere pilot so much.
“Everything appears to be as it should,” a different Lizard said after more than an hour. “We will escort you to Medium Spaceship Commander Henrep’s office.”
“I thank you,” Johnson said once more. For someone his size, the corridors were narrow, the handholds small and set at awkward intervals. He managed even so.
When he got to the skipper’s office, he found another Lizard in there with Henrep. The captain said, “Inspector, this is the Tosevite called Glen Johnson. Colonel Johnson, here we have Police Inspector Second Grade Garanpo.”
“I greet you,” Johnson said, thinking unkind thoughts about Lieutenant General Healey. Healey hadn’t lied to him-oh, no. But even if the scooter didn’t have any ginger aboard it this time, he was still in trouble.
“And I greet you,” Garanpo said. “I am very glad to make your acquaintance-I certainly am.” He took out a recorder, which escaped from him and floated around till he caught it again. Johnson watched with interest. A clumsy Lizard was out of the ordinary. Having snagged the little gadget, Garanpo went on, “You have flown your scooter to this ship before, is that not a truth?”
“Yes, that is a truth.” Johnson wished he could deny it.
“Well, well. So you admit it, then?” the male said.
“Why should I not? I have done nothing wrong,” Johnson said.
“Did I say you had?” Inspector Garanpo asked archly. “Now, then-did you ever bring ginger-this herb you Tosevites have-to this ship?”
“No, and I can prove it,” Johnson answered. I never knew I was bringing it, anyway. He didn’t get into that. As far as he was concerned, the best defense was a good offense: “The proof is, your males and females always inspected the scooter, and you never found any ginger.”
“Well, that is a truth, just as you say it is,” Garanpo said. “But is it a proof? That may be a different question. If the inspectors were corrupt, they would say they found nothing even if they lied. And did they not find traces of ginger on the scooter from this ship after it was returned from its exchange?”
“I do not know anything about that, Inspector, so you may claim whatever you please,” Johnson answered. Oh, my, would I have been set up with that one. “If you check your records, you will see I did not bring this ship’s scooter back here.”
“That is also a truth,” Henrep said. “It is unusual, in that this Tosevite does most of their scooter flying, but it is a truth.”
“Why did you not fly the scooter that time?” Garanpo asked.
“Because my commandant ordered someone else to do it,” Johnson answered. Garanpo was welcome to make what he wanted of that.
“Would your commandant-Healey is the name, is it not? — speak to me about this business?” Garanpo asked. He might act like a clumsy buffoon, but that didn’t mean he was one. Oh, no-it didn’t mean that at all.
“I cannot say, Inspector,” Johnson replied. “How can I speak for my superior? You would have to ask him.”
“I have seen that you Tosevites are good at hiding behind one another,” Garanpo observed.
“Lieutenant General Healey could not hide behind me,” Johnson said, which was literally true-Healey was twice as wide as he was.
“Most unsatisfactory. Most unsatisfactory. I will get to the root of this.” Inspector Garanpo used an emphatic cough.
“I wish you luck. Whatever your problems with ginger are, I had nothing to do with them.” The first part of that was truth. The second part should have been. As far as Johnson was concerned, that made it effectively true, too. Somehow, he suspected Inspector Garanpo would have a different opinion.
The imperial laver scrubbed off Ttomalss’ old body paint. The imperial limner painted on the new. The psychologist absentmindedly made the correct responses to what the two old females said, and to the guards who made as if to bar his path as he approached the Emperor’s throne. He hadn’t expected this summons to an audience, which made it all the more welcome.
He bent into the special posture of respect before the 37th Emperor Risson, whose gold body paint gleamed in the spotlights that shone on the throne. “Arise, Senior Researcher Ttomalss,” the Emperor said.
Ttomalss stayed hunched over. “I thank your Majesty for his kindness and generosity in summoning me into his presence when I am unworthy of the honor.” He probably sounded more sincere than most males and females who came before the Emperor, if only because he’d given up hope of ever gaining an audience until the order to come to Preffilo dashed out from behind a sand dune.
“Arise, I say again,” Risson told him. This time, Ttomalss did. The Emperor said, “The Race owes you a debt of gratitude for bringing Senior Researcher Felless’ alert to the attention of our physicists. We would be much further behind the Big Uglies than we are-and we would not know where to begin to catch up-if you had not. I thank you.”
“Your Majesty, I thought Felless had come upon something important. I turned out to be right, when it might have been better for the Empire had I turned out to be wrong. Felless deserves more credit than I do. She was the one who noticed what the Tosevites were saying-and then, suddenly, what they were not.” He didn’t much like Felless. He never had, even before her ginger habit made her a whole different sort of nuisance. But he couldn’t try to rob her of credit here, not when anyone with an eye turret half turned toward things could tell she deserved it.
“She will have what she deserves,” the Emperor said. “Unfortunately, the speed of light still imposes delays for us, so she will not have it right away. I hope she is still living when our signal of congratulations reaches Tosev 3. You being here on Home, I can congratulate you on the spot.”
“I
thank you for the kindness, your Majesty,” Ttomalss said.
“Why thank me for what you have earned and richly deserve?” Risson straightened on the throne, signaling the end of the audience. Ttomalss made a retreat as formal as his advance had been.
Herrep, the protocol master, waited for him in the bend in the corridor just outside the audience chamber proper. “You did pretty well, Senior Researcher, especially on such short notice,” Herrep said.
“I thank you, superior sir,” Ttomalss said. “This was my first audience with an Emperor. I have long hoped for the honor, and now it is here.”
“His Majesty spoke highly of your work, and of what it means for the Race,” Herrep said. “You will, of course, be lodged at his expense this evening, and our budget naturally covers the shuttlecraft fare back to Sitneff.”
