Bill, The Galactic Hero 6 - on the Planet Of The Hippies From Hell (2 page)

Bill shivered and grimaced, but managed to squelch an embarrassing shriek.

“Ha! Ha!” said the Director, pointing a stubby forefinger at the Trooper. “I saw that!”

“Uhm, uh, well —”

“No need to apologize, soldier. I myself get a petite frisson when I think of performing a special task for our glorious Emperor!” Overwhelmed by patriotism, the Director of the GBI swiveled and snapped a snappy straight-armed salute to the Illustrious Emperor, whose three-dee chinless and adenoidal picture hung prominently on the wall behind him. The Emperor's computerized image (the same Emperor whom Bill had very nearly almost met or at least perhaps got close to a stand-in in his youth) responded reflexively with a salute as well. Remarkable, thought Bill, gazing at the picture. They haven't fixed his strabismic eyes. It was nice to know that even an emperor had physical problems. Even as Bill regarded the stereoscopic image, the Emperor's right eye seemed to drift over of its own accord to spot Bill staring at him. But, of course, it was only a picture. Wasn't it? Of course it was. The Emperor was far too busy to spy on a lowly Trooper. Right? Paranoia was okay in its place, Bill thought. But really!

“Yeah, uh, right.” Bill of course had no idea what frisson meant, but he never argued with, or attempted to understand, officers. “About the secret mission, sir.” He didn't want to stay here too long, now that he'd dumped his liquor supply.

“The mission? Oh yeah. Right. The mission.” J. Edgar Insufledor took a laser-pistol from a drawer and relit his monstrous cigar, boring a hole in the ceiling in the process. Bill could see many such holes in the ceiling, so he presumed that the upper office was either empty or a place used for private GBI executions. “Real simple, Bill. Barworld. Chingers.” He spat the words out like he was expectorating cigar tips. “Time Continuum Vortex Nexus Locus Chasm!”

Bill's jaw dropped. “Barworld,” he gasped. “D—d—did you say? Barworld?” He didn't hear anything else, just those beautiful, incredibly lovely words.

“I didn't say Bearworld and I didn't say Jarworld, Trooper. You heard me right. Barworld. That's where I'm sending you. That's where some trouble seems to be. There's rumors of some kind of Time/Space disturbances there on the Transgalactic Seismo-Grundger, and our agents say the Chingers could well be at the bottom of the problem. And if they aren't, they're going to be! The Chingers have been looking for the secret key to Time for years, and do you know why, Bill?”

“Barworld?” Bill could only repeat like a litany. “Barworld!” Barworld, of course, was tantamount to a legend among Galactic Troopers! Perhaps it was a legend. But no Trooper ever got to discover the truth, since it was a resort world, and Troopers never got leave.

“I'll tell you why, Bill. Because those Chingers, they want to sneak up on us not only behind our backs — but the vermin want to sneak up yesterday! That's why.”

“I volunteer!” said Bill, waving his black arm enthusiastically. “I'll go! I'll go.”

“Those Chingers!” said J. Edgar Insufledor, foaming emphatically. “My duty in life is to rid this world of those God-damned infernal Galactic-grabbing Chingers!”

Abruptly, the door to one side of Bill crashed open. There, lumbering toward the Deputy Director, multiple arms thrashing and gigantic saurian face snapping snaggle-fanged jaws, was nothing less than a perfect representation of the Chinger in the poster! Minus, of course, the human arm in its mouth. Apparently that had long since been digested, and the Chinger was in need of fresh human meat.

Wait a moment, thought Bill in the back of his mind. Chingers don't get this big. His eternal adversary Bgr the Chinger (who had come into his life as the lackeyish recruit Eager Beager) was only a fraction over seven inches tall!

Still it was difficult to argue with a roaring lizard alien, hands full of knives and guns, and eyes full of the promise of nothing but hard, hot death.

Fortunately, though, the giant Chinger was headed straight for J. Edgar Insufledor, not giving Bill a moment's pause. The Deputy Director was ready for him, though. “C'mon you piece of deep space sludge. Come and get it, planet grunge!” The Deputy Director pulled out a duplicate of an antique prehistoric vintage G-man style submachine gun and aimed at the charging beastie.

“Grrrumargggggggggg!” roared the savage space beast. Bill had never heard a Chinger utter this particular outcry before. He'd heard Chingers curse in Greek, Swahili, Russian and of course their own hissing and eructing language. Still and all, this particular specimen uttered the cry with such complete conviction that Bill took its word for it. Never one to question the wisdom of the hasty retreat in such brutal matters as these, Bill nonetheless immediately saw that an exit, albeit hasty, would put him in the path of submachine bullets. Instead, he jumped behind the overstuffed couch.

“Take this, you foul creature!” cried J. Edgar Insufledor. When the beast was just a yard away, the Director fired. The submachine chattered and bullets chunk-a-chunked into the lizard's green hide, kicking up divots of flesh. The Chinger sprayed blood like a lawn-watering device. It was pushed back a full foot, its guns knocked spinning from ruined claws. A single knife remained in its possession as it screeched sanguinely and leaped for the director again, slashing his weapon like molten lightning.

Bill cringed helplessly behind the couch. He didn't know what was going on here, but it was certainly a great deal deadlier than Denubian tiddlywinks.

“Aha! You enjoy eating hot lead!” the Deputy Director said calmly through gritted teeth, his still-fuming cigar sticking up like an exclamation point. “Then have some more, Chinger!”

J. Edgar Insufledor shot off the knife hand and then put another clip of bullets in the Chinger's chest. The creature went down like a sack of bloody potatoes, spasming and slashing still at its prey. Jaws snapping, it pulled itself toward the Director.

J. Edgar Insufledor threw aside his Thompson. “This is a job for Deathdealer,” he said, a smile crinkling the corners of his mouth and eyes. From behind his desk he pulled out a two-handed claymore sword. “Okay Chinger. Let me show you how a real man deals with a bowby alien.”

J. Edgar stepped forward and proceeded to hack open the Chinger's skull with untrammeled ferocity. Green blood geysered everywhere, splattering on the walls and, when he ventured a peek, into Bill's eyes. By the time he cleared his vision the Chinger was literally chopped into nuggets on the carpet, oozing and stone-cold dead. Only the tip of its tail flickered about like a snake whose head has been lopped off.

“Bill!” cried J. Edgar Insufledor. Somehow in the struggle, the top of his shirt had unbuttoned, revealing a clump of manly chest hair. He put a possessive foot on the largest chunk of the creature and seemed to pose like a big game hunter. “Some tussle, eh? Wise of you to take cover! These varmints are mean mothers!”

Hesitantly, Bill rose up from his hiding place. “You wouldn't have a shot of whiskey hiding anywhere about, would you?”

“Nope. Don't touch the stuff. Harms my precious Puritan bodily fluids. But your taste for it and your unusual record of service is why the GBI wants you!”

Skimmilquetoast stuck his head into the office. “Oh dear. Thank Mithra, sir! You got it. The assassin Chinger just charged through, slapped me aside and headed straight in for YOU!” The man turned to Bill and gave him a broad wink. Bill, nonplussed, could only gape. “Yet, once again, you have saved yourself and the day, to say nothing of the welfare of the Galaxy!”

The Director grunted. “All in a day's work. Just get a crew in to clean this mess up. And oh — mount the usual trophy with its head, eh Skimmilquetoast? Makes for a wonderful dinner conversation piece!”

“Yes, sir!”

“Now then, Bill. You will be dispatched to Barworld with complete instructions surgically subcutaneously planted in your left earlobe. However, although you certainly enjoy your drink, it has been determined that you are not sufficiently — er — alcoholic, not to mince words, for the full cover we need.” Insufledor sucked on his cigar, then scooped up a folder drenched in lizard blood and handed it to Bill. “This contains the information on the most alcoholic Trooper still serving in the Galactic Troopers. He shall be your companion. The first part of your mission shall be to find this man, sober him up long enough to brief him, then bring him back. We will then send you off to Barworld to see into this very important matter.”

“Yes, sir!” he snapped ecstatically, visions of countless bottles dancing in his head.

He didn't want to louse up a chance to go to Barworld! It was a Trooper's fantasy, and one of Bill's few heartfelt ambitions.

“Skimmilquetoast. Show this fine Trooper out. Oh, and get a move on getting those janitors in to clean this up. Tell security to be a little more on their toes, eh? Can't do their work for them all the time, now, can I?”

“Yes, sir! Trooper, would you please be so kind as to aid me in hauling this disgusting thing from the Director's office so as not to disgust him any further?” The assistant picked up one of the feet and nodded toward the other. Bill shrugged and did so, bringing his ample strength to bear. Outside the office, the Director's door slammed shut. The Chinger's arm got stuck in a fishhook-coated modernist wire sculpture. Bill tugged harder and the Chinger's leg, half-ripped off with bullet wounds anyway, came off trailing hunks of lizard flesh, veins and wires.

Wires?

Still, Bill half expected as much. There was something fishy about that lizard.

“Best idea the Director ever had — and Bureaupsych concurs. He deals every day with the threats to the welfare of the Empire from his desk but he never gets to actually kill anything. So, every once in awhile, we throw in a cyborg Commupop or Chinger to keep him on his toes. Old man loves it! He'll have a smile on his face for at least a week — and will maybe leave off the ritual staff whipping for a while!”

Bill tossed the leg down and wiped his hands on his pants. “You got to give me the details on this Trooper I'm supposed to go get, and then point me to the nearest MacRotgut's. I feel like a nice MacDTs for a liquid lunch.”

“Sure, Sarge.” He handed Bill a folder and a watch with a complicated gadget on it. “Quantum subspace radio for top-secret communications if you got any problems or questions. Oh, and by the way. Best to keep that foot out of your mouth, eh?”

Bill was tempted to put the foot somewhere else a good deal more satisfactory than his mouth, but he decided that since he was going to have to rely on this bowb-brain for information for a long time, he'd better not do anything quite so enthusiastic.

He went for that drink he'd been promising himself, hoping to encounter no cyborg Chingers or Commupops along the way.

Bill was in complete total and utter bliss.

Well, not precisely complete. Or utter. What little that remained unobliterated in the way of deep human emotions in Bill twinged ever so slightly, lifted their heads feebly from the abyssal depths of depression and, like frail shoots in April lured on by the siren promise of spring, began to flower with weensy buds of hope.

Barworld!

For all the years — it seemed like centuries — that he had served in the Troopers, in the grueling grapple of combat and the even worse conditions in boot camp on both sides of the boot, stationed on pustulating planets and in stagnant starships that made him want to flip his cookies just thinking about them, doomed to a dark bleak existence of hard beds, hard heads and no hard creds ... for all those years, the concept of R&R was strictly verboten in the Service; leave had long since left. A Trooper's duty was to serve his Emperor twenty-four and a half hours a day, three hundred and sixty-six days a year — and that under the shrunken Galactic Disgustan Calendar, only half as long as the Augustan. The only joys in a Trooper's life were two-credit/two-minute ladies of the morning (the ladies of the evening were far too expensive), and in smoking de-tarred and de-nicotinized cigarettes (in the hopes that they would shorten their miserable, wasted lives in this dubiously pleasurable fashion), Comix (albeit jam-packed with subliminal loyalty reinforcement, like Chingers and Commupops generally being the bad guys) and, of course, booze. However, even the simple joys of Trooper life tended to be watered-down and tepid. The doxies were old and bored and tended to use their creds as down payments on powered wheelchairs. The cigarettes were made of dried tobacco stems, since the real stuff was reserved for the officer classes. Comix doubled for toilet paper; the ultimate literary criticism.

And the booze...

To say that the booze was the pits was to insult underarms and coal mines all over the known universe. It tended to be repulsively flavored, cheaply manufactured ethanol, rumored to be from Undertakerworld, so that in lieu of alcohol embalming fluid was often used.

Bill hadn't known the difference for a long time, but whenever during his various adventures he'd actually tasted some real beer, some real wine, and most of all genuine unsynthetic whiskey, gin and rum, he knew that he wanted to dedicate his life to finding a world where he could sample again the fruits of this delicious alcoholic vine.

Such a world, it was whispered in the darkness, was Barworld.

And the Galactic Feds were actually sending him there!

That was if he could only find this guy whose dossier had been given him in that vanilla folder. (He knew it was vanilla and not manila because he'd gotten drunk at his liquid lunch and eaten it.)

As it happened, the Trooper that Bill had been dispatched to find — Lieutenant Hardtack Brandox, Jr. — was at this moment right here on the same planet as Bill, the main location of Galactic bureaucratic matters and center for the manufacture of women's underwear, Drawerworld.

A good deal of red tape, filing of requests and crossed communications later (to say nothing of stop-offs at bars and latrines to research Brandox's famous drinking habits and, perhaps, maybe a snort or two for himself), Bill found Lieutenant Brandox's squadron to be on jinx Ether Force Base.

“Make it fast,” snarled Captain Quarterpounder, looking up suspiciously at Bill from a mountain of paperwork. “Lieutenant Brandy? What a boozer. Sweats pure ethyl. But you're too late, bowb-brains. Should have been here a day earlier. He's just been reassigned to Some Godforsaken Planet.”