Strong Arm Tactics (29 page)

Wolfe beamed at him. In spite of feeling guilty about making use of his father’s gift, he was relieved how easily it had taken care of all of their problems. They had rooms, spacious, individual rooms. The shuttle, which had made the neighbors so nervous, was out of the recycling area and bestowed in the vast indoor parking hangar at one side of the enormous hotel, off the streets at last. They were going to have a comfortable place to wait out their enforced idleness. They were responsible for maintenance on any facilities they used, but they were accustomed to that. If Codwall had any plumbing problems, they were at his service.

“Excuse me one more time,” he said, tapping his implant. “Now hear this. Meeting in thirty minutes in the fitness center. All hands report at that time, in person, to set some rules and make up an agenda for the upcoming week. That will be 1700 local time. That is all.”

Daivid looked around at the ornately carved, gold-leafed lintels above every door, the thick carpet that reduced every footstep to an inaudible whisper, the wooden paneled walls, and hanging crystal globe lights, like a gaudier version of his family mansion. He felt inexplicably at home.

“Yes,” he told Mr. Codwall. “This is a very nice place.”

O O O

“Nice place,” said Ayala, as he stepped into the foyer of the Wingle mansion. The elderly human male who had admitted them lay dead behind the fancy black door. The Insurgency colonel put his hands on his hips and turned in a full circle. He looked up at the swaying crystal drops of the lighting fixture that had been slightly damaged when they burst into the house. “Yes, indeed. That chandelier could pay for a single-being fighter. Mr. Wingle’s inventions have made him a great deal of money. All of these furnishings are worth a fortune.”

“Should we take them down?” a human private asked him. “They could be sold to support the Insurgency.”

Ayala swept out an imperious hand. “No. Not yet. Not until we have the chip. This is the one invention for which he will not be paid in cash. If he gives it up to us without a fight, I will not kill him. If he refuses,
sllllcht!”
He drew a sharp forefinger across his bearded throat. “How many life forms in the house?”

“Twenty,” Van Yarrow replied, checking the much-repaired infopad. He smacked it with a claw, and the screen resolved. “Twenty-one. No, that must be a pet. It is too small to be one of the known sentient races.”

“It could be lunch,” grinned one of the human soldiers, showing cracked teeth.

“Then we are evenly matched in numbers,” Ayala laughed. “Not that they are any match for us.”

“Voices! Who’s here?” A plump woman with soft gray curls emerged from an upstairs room and came gliding down the stairs. She stopped short when she saw the intruders. “Who are you?” she cried.

Ayala doffed his hat and swept it in a deep bow. “Colonel Inigo Ayala. We are here to see Mr. Wingle. Will you bring us to him?”

“I … er … is he expecting you?” she asked, backing away up the stairs.

“Do not stall, madam,” Ayala said, signing to two of his guards to advance and take the woman by the arms. They lifted her up and carried her down to the main landing. “Take us to him. Madam,” he continued, as he approached her and gazed down into her eyes. She squirmed in the guards’ grasp, whimpering with fear. “I have just arranged for the assassination of one of my own spies. Do not think I will spare you if you trifle with me. Take us to Oscar Wingle.”

“I can’t!” she wailed.

“You will,” Ayala insisted. “I have two hundred soldiers surrounding this house. Three more of my ships are on the way to this planet. In a very short time we will begin destroying things to get what we came for, and I will start with this house and everyone in it, including you.”

“I can’t do that! You must not disturb Mr. Wingle. He is
inventing.
Please let me go. Please! Don’t hurt me.”

Ayala signalled impatiently for the soldiers to take her away. He turned to the remaining eighteen who had followed him in. “Find Wingle. Tear the place apart if you have to.”

O O O

The Wingle Deluxe’s fitness center would have made a good landing bay, Daivid mused. His tiny platoon was almost swallowed up in its magnificence. Over five hundred cardio-fitness machines, that became treadmills, stairclimbers, rower, recumbent cycle, cross-country ski simulators, or any of a host of other configurations, were ranged in front of a full-sized crystal amphitheater screen. A receiver band hung jauntily on the handlebars of each machine. Every other kind of fitness machine, weight machine, floor-exercise equipment Wolfe had ever heard of or seen in a catalog was set up in a station of its own around the walls. Rings, ropes, and trapezes hung from the ceiling. Beyond those lay two lap pools, empty (Wolfe meant to ask Codwall to fill one of them later), and on the other side a virtual field of robotic exermassage therapy tables. Drapes for privacy hung on filaments had been hauled up to within two meters of the ceiling during off-season. The pleasure lagoon water park was on the floor above under a gigantic skylight, out of sight of the serious exercisers who considered merely playing in water to be frivolous.

Sitting on the edge of the platform that Daivid recalled was used for exercise classes led by a live fitness instructor (this was a luxury facility, after all), were all twenty-two Cockroaches. The group looked so small amid the forest of equipment he had to count them twice to realize they were all there. As he approached, Thielind snapped upright.

“Tenn---hutt!” he barked out. The others bounded to their feet. “Three cheers for the looey!”

“Wurra! Wurra! Wurra!” the Cockroaches howled. They were all grinning, including the taciturn Borden.

“What’s this about?” Wolfe asked.

“You’re great, sir,” Thielind said. “Boland told us all about what happened. I mean, you could have ordered us to lift the shuttle and camp out in the trees somewhere, or commandeered the ship for yourself and let us sleep in the snow—it’s happened to us, believe me—”

Daivid interrupted. “What in hell
hasn’t
happened to you?”

They all looked at one another. “We’ve never been drowned in hot marshmallow cream,” the ensign said, “but that’s probably because the situation never came up. But you can be sure the brass would dump us in it if it would keep one lousy captain from getting dust on his shoes. I mean, we’ve had some good officers, but you are the best! You got us into a
luxury hotel.
For free!”

Daivid turned to glare at Boland. “You told them.”

“Aye, sir,” the hefty chief said, unperturbed. “You had four other witnesses. Don’t worry about the safety of your little card, sir. We wouldn’t think of telling anyone else. Or boosting it. You’re one of us, and your secret is our secret.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Daivid sighed. “Thank you for the tribute. Any good officer would do whatever he or she could for the sake of the troops. Now, since you’re so appreciative, let’s line out a program of keeping our temporary domicile in the best possible condition. As of this moment we are in garrison for the duration. PT: everyone gets up at the same time every morning unless you were on late sentry shift. Sentry rotation: Borden will give you your assignments. We’ll carry out exercises right here in this amazing room. Cleaning: I haven’t seen cleanerbots around yet, but whatever they don’t clean you do. You make your beds, just as if we were back on Treadmill. You clean up after meals.”

“Speaking of which, sir,” Lin asked. “We were beginning to wonder. What are we going to eat?”

O O O

“Absolutely not,” Codwall said, crossing his arms.

Wolfe gave him a disapproving look. “Mr. Codwall, we have an arrangement. Can’t the kitchen cook food for us?”

The little man was adamant. “Meals you can have, but I refuse to start up the whole catering system. In season my restaurants produce over twenty thousand meals and snacks a day, not to mention drinks, pastries, and coffee. This system does not work on a small scale. There would be too much waste. You can’t get
twenty
dinners out of it. The smallest number it could make is two hundred. That is, unless you would like to have ten nights all the same?”

“No, thanks,” Wolfe told him, with an uncomfortable glance towards the Cockroaches, whose shoulders slumped at the idea of the same food day after day. “We’ve already done that. But what do you eat?”

“I cook for myself,” Codwall said. “The storehouses and freezers are full. I have thousands of ingredients of every kind, kilos of every spice in existence. You can go through them if you want. There are eight six-burner stoves, and twenty-five ovens. Help yourself.”

“All right,” Wolfe said, turning to the platoon. “Who can make dinner for us?”

“Uh, we don’t cook,” Boland said, uneasily. “I mean, what comes out when I try has been compared to criminal assault. I don’t want sixty days in the brig for poisoning my comrades.”

“Don’t look at me,” Gire said, apologetically. “I eat anything. I’m not sure I know good food from bad.”

“He doesn’t,” Thielind said. “Good doctor, but better with live tissue than dead.”

“I can cook a little,” Adri’Leta admitted, “but I burn anyding on a big scale. I try dinner for more dan four, bang. Carbon.”

“I can try, sir,” Borden offered.

“No!” the rest of the Cockroaches protested at once. Borden reddened.

“Sorry, sir,” Jones said, hastily. “She’s an officer. She shouldn’t have to cook for grunts like us.”

Wolfe’s eyebrows went up. From the junior lieutenant’s expression, something else was going on, something none of them wanted to talk about, especially Borden. He’d have to win her poker chip and get the story from her.

“I could do it, looey,” Thielind offered. “Look, either we get something out of a can, like beans—anything’s better than chop suey again—or whatever one of us throws into a reconstituor. I mean, I could figure out how to put together a meal, but how late do we want to eat?”

“I’m hungry now,” Parviz said, rolling his large eyes.

“So am I,” admitted D-45. “It’s already past when we’d have eaten in the shuttle.”

“All right!” Wolfe shouted over the protests. “Just so we don’t go on arguing about it until midnight,
I’ll
cook, but I will do it tonight only. Tomorrow we work out something else, even if I have to teach every one of you myself. And if there’s any complaints the complainer will make meals for the next six days straight. Consider this a logging camp. Moose-turd-pie rules apply.”

“You, sir?” Injaru asked, astonished. “You can cook?”

“Yes, me,” Wolfe said, almost as embarrassed as Borden had been. “All Wolfes can cook. But don’t you apes get the idea I’m going to serve you. I will put it together, you help, you serve, and you clean up. Got it?”

“Got it?” Mose echoed. “If it’s edible, we’ll kiss you after dinner.”

“Save it for Streb,” Wolfe said. “Mr. Codwall, show us the storehouse.”

O O O

The storerooms were as extensive as the health club, which lay directly above, according to Borden’s chart of the hotel. Daivid designated Vacarole and Ewanowski to push hovercarts along the aisles as he chose ingredients. The racks of containers, cans, boxes and envelopes stretched up to the ten-meter ceiling. Thielind, agile as a lizard, and Haalten, who could climb with four limbs and gather items with two, eschewed the ladders and clambered along the shelves overhead. Daivid felt as though he had gone back to his early teens, when his father had sent him and his eldest sister to start learning the family’s most famous business. They had started at the ground level, bussing tables, and moved up to waiting on them, managing the floor of a restaurant, ordering, hiring (and firing), designing logos, menus, and the restaurants themselves. Daivid had opened his first restaurant before he was sixteen. It was still running, a merchant-friendly diner specializing in comfort foods on board a space station along one of the minor shipping routes.

“We’re looking for speed, here,” Daivid said, searching his memory for dishes he could throw together off the top of his head. “So there really isn’t time to make dumplings for chicken, but a good stew and quick biscuits will whip up in under an hour. Anyone a vegan? I know Meyers and Nuu Myi are vegetarians. I can substitute bean patties in a portion of the gravy.”

“No vegans,” Lin said. “Scoley was, but we haven’t had one since.”

Daivid stopped beside a case full of aseptic square containers of broth. “Hey, Paxton Products! That’s a good brand. Three of those,” he told Ewanowski.

“That’s our highest grade chicken broth,” Codwall protested.

“That’s good,” Daivid said, then turned to Nuu Myi, “unless you are against using the meat juices as well.”

“One makes many sacrifices for the military,” the coffee-skinned woman said. “I have dispensation from my high priest for such things, as long as I do not consume flesh. I will be making due sacrifice when I return home after my time in the service is over.”

“Broth’s okay with me,” Meyers agreed.

“Good. It tastes better than vegetable. In my opinion.”

Codwall pointed urgently at another shelf. “Why not try that one instead, lieutenant? That’s mulcta broth.”

Daivid wrinkled his nose. “Lizard? No, thanks.”

“Well,” said the manager, with dashed hopes. “It tastes like chicken. And it costs half of the other.”

“How much do you pay?” Daivid asked, out of curiosity.

“Five credits a food-service container. The chicken is ten.”

Daivid lowered his eyebrows. “In case you’re forgetting, Mr. Codwall, I cut my teeth on ordering bulk supplies for food service. Those containers are three and a half credits.”

“But I have to replace them, and they’ll slap me with a surcharge for rush delivery. That comes to more than three and a half!”

“For what customers, Mr. Codwall?” Daivid asked, surprised how cool he felt, but this was negotiation, something that was bred into hundreds of generations of his family. He towered over the hotel proprietor, the light of battle in his eyes. “Isn’t the hotel closed?”

“Er, yes …”

“Didn’t you also tell me that the entire staff is on vacation?”

“Um, yeah …”