Jim Baen, page 43
I took the time for a quaff of beer. Then—as I feared, it was American beer, as thin as a politician's virtue—I sneered at Youthful Vigor. "Idiot. The great threat to the environment is people. We're breeding like rabbits, multiplying with wild abandon, overflowing the globe."
"Filling every ecological zone and niche," added Sheila. "No, say better—wrecking and ruining every ecological zone and niche."
"Absolutely correct," I said. "We are the ultimate alien invasive species. Destroying all life forms in our path. And why?"
Sheila picked it up perfectly. "No natural enemies."
"Exactly," I said. "But nature is crafty and cunning. So, in self-defense, she created tobacco—and thus, the cure from within: the disease."
As one, Sheila and I blew smoke over the hideous shapes. "Think of us as thinning the herd," I said.
"A newly evolved top predator," Sheila agreed, along with a smoke ring. "A boon and a blessing, from the standpoint of the overall ecology, however gory and gruesome be the immediate effects."
With a despairing wail, the Harpies vanished.
Jori stared after them. For once, the scowl on his face was gone, replaced by astonishment.
"You did it!" he cried. "I didn't think it was possible."
Spivey, Watters and the redhead were pulling out their earplugs. "Impressive, I admit," said Dryck.
The redhead chuckled. "I think that calls for a round of drinks on the house, Mario."
"Sure does." He was already headed back to the bar, pulling out a hidden cigarette on his way.
The intervention of the Harpies had diverted us momentarily, but Sheila and I were both lawyers. Minds like steel traps. So we returned immediately to the important issue at hand.
"Ancient order be damned," I announced. "I don't care if you've got mystic symbols and insignia, secret handshake, the lot. I'm not volunteering for anything."
"Me neither," said Sheila.
Spivey smiled. Watters and the big redhead grinned.
"Chumps," sneered Jori, around his cigarette butt. The bartender had finished pouring the steins and brought over the beers. Then he went back and rummaged behind the bar, emerging with a large ashtray. When he placed it on the table I saw that a large label was wrapped all around the side.
SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING. The traces of second-hand smoke emanating from this device may ruin your home team's chance of winning the pennant race and encourage the rise of false messiahs.
Jori dragged a chair from a nearby table over to our own. For some reason, the movement caused me to notice for the first time that the bar was empty except for us.
"Ha!" I sneered back. "Your idiot English theme pub décor doesn't exactly pull in the customers, I take it."
"Don't be stupid. We're in Venice, California."
"I thought you said this was Los Angeles," protested Sheila.
The sneer now seemed as permanently fixed on Mario's face as the scowl had been earlier. "It is Los Angeles. Stupid Brit tourist. Never been here before, I take it? Los Angeles is a mystic entity. A virtual city, as it were. It's got a name, true enough—even got elected politicians—but no actual existence in the material world."
"Certainly not!" chuckled Spivey. "I have never met a person yet who was from Los Angeles. No, they are from Venice or Chatsworth or Hollywood or West Los Angeles or South Central—anywhere but 'Los Angeles.'"
"Well, sure," said the redhead. "Even Southern Californians have a sense of shame. Only a trace, of course. The climate saps shame the way a desert saps water."
Mario chimed in, still sneering. "Any other time of the day or night this joint is jumping." He hauled the cigarette out of his mouth and used it to point at the redhead. "The bikers left the moment he came in. They're scared of him."
The redhead's grin widened. "Don't know why."
Mario grunted. "Ask the EMTs, they'll tell you." His cigarette was now waved in Spivey's direction. "And the druggies split the minute I told them he was coming."
Sheila peered at Dryck. "Why are they afraid of him? Is it something about the turban? They think he's a terrorist?"
Spivey got a pained look on his face. Mario barked a laugh.
"No, it ain't that," he said, shaking his head. "I told you, lady. You're in Los Angeles, not some hick town in the Midwest. Any druggie here can parse the difference between a Hindoo and any variety of Moslem in a heartbeat, especially Sufis. God help you if they get started on Christians."
He jabbed the cigarette toward Spivey. "It's that he drives them nuts. Starts reciting the Upanishads to show them why they're a bunch of ignorant airheads."
"Letter perfect," agreed Dryck. "Being, first, as I have a fluency in Sanskrit and they do not. Being, second, as I have a brain and they do not."
Sheila shook her head. "Recite from the Upanishads all you want. I'm still not volunteering for anything."
"Me neither," I echoed. Rowen and I have never been a romantic item—not even close—but on some matters we are like man and wife. A horror of pro bono work being one of them.
Mario barked another laugh. A series of them, rather. The sneer never wavered throughout. "Don't get it, do you?"
The redhead cleared his throat. "I'm afraid the issue of 'volunteering' is a moot one. The Brotherhood of the Angle doesn't accept volunteers, anyway."
"Certainly not!" exclaimed Dryck. "A most untrustworthy lot, volunteers. First, because what is freely offered can also be freely withdrawn. Second, because they are patently mad. No, no, my dear friends. You've been drafted."
Sheila and I stared at him.
"We're conscripts?" she asked.
"Exactly so."
She and I now stared at each other. After a few seconds, she shrugged. "Well, I suppose that's all right, then. Since my ethical principles haven't been violated. I warn you, though. Conscript or not, I bill by the hour."
I was no longer exactly drunk, since one of the churnel's side effects is the peculiar ability to leech alcohol from a human body. So it seemed, at any rate. But I was certainly not what you'd call sober. So, though I wracked my brain trying to find a coherent argument against allowing ourselves to be conscripted, I was unable to come up with anything.
Except "it's not just," of course. But no British lawyer will speak those words aloud, fearing the instant public ridicule. In the United States, I've been told, the phrase is sufficient cause for being disbarred from the profession.
"Drafted for what?" I asked. "And why us?"
"As to the second question," said Spivey, "you fit the three principle criteria for inclusion in membership in the Ancient Order. First, you are drunkards."
"Hey, wait a min—" began Sheila.
"Plain as the nose in front of your face," stated Watters. "Second, you trail behind you—radiate before you—the miasma of Those Who Have Known Fish."
The redhead belched. "And finally, you've got a particular skill the Order has need of, at the moment." He waggled his still half-full beer mug in a manner that was vaguely apologetic. "Bad luck for you, of course, that last bit. But there it is. The Brotherhood's not a charitable organization, after all."
"What skill?" I demanded. The cigarette was back in the corner of my mouth. The smoke was causing my eyes to water but my soul to feel cleansed. It's a horrid business, this grubby scrabbling to gain an extra month of two of life. Compared to it, simple greed is practically a virtue.
"You're lawyers, what else?" snorted Watters. "You think we normally consort with attorneys?"
Dryck, Mario and the redhead all got pained looks. So did Sheila and I, for that matter.
"It's a living," Sheila muttered.
"It's a disgrace," said Watters.
"Well, yes, of course. That's why we make up for it by smoking."
"A point," averred Dryck, "a veritable point."
But I wasn't letting my attention get diverted. This had the sulfurous reek of pro bono work.
"We're not licensed to practice in California," I pointed out. "Sorry, lads, but—"
"Oh, twaddle," said James. "No one's asking you to plead before a court or file papers or whatever such. A simple matter of interrogation. Squeezing the truth from a recalcitrant witness."
"Witness to what?" asked Sheila.
"Exactly what we're trying to find out." The redhead waved a big hand at Jori. "Bring the critter forward, Mario."
"Why me?" demanded the bartender. "That damn aquarium's heavy. You're the muscle man. You're the—"
The redhead growled. Mario practically sprang from the table.
He headed off toward a corner of the pub. For the first time, I noticed that there was an aquarium sitting on a table there. A rather large one, at that. It fit quite badly with the fake English décor, fortunately.
"I'll need a hand with all the gadgetry," Mario said, over his shoulder. Watters rose and went over.
Within a minute, they were hauling the aquarium and its appended air filters—water filters? whatever—back to the center of the pub where the rest of us were waiting. With a heavy thump, Mario set it down on the table next to ours, then headed for a door at the back of the pub.
"I'll need to get an extension cord. I had to unplug everything. Give it five minutes and the bastard will accuse us of trying to suffocate him."
I stared at the aquarium. The bottom was covered with sand, rocks, the usual, with the inevitable garish faux shipwreck at the very center. A bigger plastic piece of crap than the usual, but not otherwise interesting. "There's no fish in it."
"Well, sure. Not any more." The redhead rapped a big knuckle on the glass. "The little fucker eats everything he can gets his mouth on. And it's a big mouth. Come out, you wretch. Come out, I say!"
My eyes went to the plastic shipwreck, that being the only object in the aquarium large enough for a fish—or whatever—to be hiding within.
Nothing. No movement at all.
The redhead wrapped the glass again. "Come out, I say. Or I'll put on my belt and squeeze you good, I will."
That did the trick. The faux shipwreck began wobbling back and forth. A moment later, a very blunt fish head began to squeeze its way out of the hatch. Within a few seconds, the entire body had emerged.
Weird fish. Completely white—bone white—and I'd never seen a fish with that shape. There was also the oddity that a goodly portion of its body seemed wound about with some sort of thread.
Then I saw the tail. Flukes, rather.
"That's not a fish!" I exclaimed. "That's a whale!"
"So he claims," said Watters grimly. "But that's what you're here to find out."
The redhead rose, held up his T-shirt sleeve with one hand while he thrust the other into the water, seized the miniature albino whale and hauled it out of the tank. Then, none too gently, he plopped it onto the table top. When the miniwhale landed, the meaty impact sent a little spray of water over the rest of the table, with a few drops landing on those of us sitting about. From the smell, it was seawater.
"Brute!" yelped the whale.
"Just be glad I didn't squeeze you," said the redhead. "Now talk, fish."
"I'm not a fish! I'm a whale! Whales are part of the mammal class, you ignoramus."
"I said, talk," hissed the redhead. All of sudden, the jovial fellow seemed a lot meaner than he had theretofore.
Sheila interrupted the proceedings. I'd half-noticed that she seemed to be ogling something on the other side of the whale, that was out of my sight.
She pointed a finger at it. "What the hell! There's a tiny little man strapped to the fish. Whale, whatever. And its no plastic toy, either. He's waving his arms and it looks like he's hollering something."
I half-rose out of my chair to get a better look. A bit gingerly, Sheila took hold of one of the creature's flukes and half-spun it around, so I could see the other side.
Sure enough. There was a miniature man there. I could now see that he was bound to the whale's flank by the thread I'd noticed earlier. One of his legs was half-missing, replaced by a wooden peg, and he was—sure enough—gesticulating like mad and did indeed seem to be yelling something.
I could hear the sound he was making, but couldn't distinguish any words.
"Hold the creature down," I commanded, to no one in particular. I leaned over and turned my head, bringing my ear close to the jabbering homunculus.
Now, I could make out the words. Some of them anyway. The accent was peculiar. Like that of a Bostonian I'd once known, but on steroids.
"—but I shall go stark raving mad— " Here I couldn't make out the words, then:
"Say, why dost thou not go mad? How can'st though endure without being mad? Do the heavens yet hate thee, that thou can'st go mad?"
I sat back down. "Which one is my client? If it's the homunculus, I'm entering a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity."
"That's what I told you!" yelped the miniwhale, glaring at the redhead. "The little bastard's nuts. You can't believe anything he says. It's all ranting, raving nonsense."
The creature wriggled about a bit, to bring one of its eyes to bear on Sheila. After studying the tattoos for a moment, it said: "Will no one rid me of this troublesome captain?"
Sheila smiled coolly. "Don't look at me. I'm a lawyer."
The miniwhale wriggled about again, to level a reproachful look onto the redhead. "That's cruel. That's low. Even for you."
The redhead's smile was even cooler than Sheila's. "I warned you, didn't I? After you made jibes at my threats of a bastinado."
"Well, of course I did!" The miniwhale flapped its flukes against the tabletop. "Got no feet, you idiot."
"Fine, then. So I did as I said I would. Brought in the lawyers."
It was hard to be sure, given that the creature's "face" bore no resemblance to a human's. But I was pretty sure that was a ferocious glare the creature was giving the redhead. Then, wriggling about again, swept it across everyone at the table.
"They're smoking, too! I thought that was illegal in California."
Mario blew smoke on it. "Only in public establishments. And I'm closed for the day."
"You haven't read me my rights!"
"You don't have any," said Watters. "You're a fish."
"A mammal!"
"A mammal that swims," qualified Spivey. "Which therefore automatically makes you an object of suspicion—as you well know."
"That's just natural selection!" yelped the whale. Its eyes seemed to squint a little, examining Dryck. "Funny. You don't look like one of those nitwit Christian fundamentalists."
"Stop playing the innocent," replied Spivey. "You know perfectly well that natural selection is a favored tool of at least three of the piscine cabals. The Magellans have developed it into a fine art."
"So talk, fish," said the redhead.
The miniwhale flopped its head back and forth, studying first me and then Sheila. The motion finally nudged my memory. That big head—proportionately, anyway—that was one-third the total length of the body; the long and narrow jaw, the teeth rather than baleen...
"You're a sperm whale!" I exclaimed. "Sort of. Allowing for shrinkage."
The narrow jaw gaped. "Okay, then. I want this one for my lawyer. At least he can tell the difference between a fish and whale. Or are any of you dumb enough to think there's such a thing as a 'sperm fish'?"
The redhead shrugged heavily. "As you wish. Ishmael, you're now the creature's attorney."
The miniwhale ogled me. "Ishmael? Oh, no thank you, then!" It wriggled and flopped about again, bringing Sheila into its sight. "And this one's got tattoos! You rigged the deck!"
"Don't be stupid," said the redhead. "Just because our agent who brought you in was tattooed? He was also male, and black, and a savage cannibal. Whereas she's female, white, and . . . Well, yes. She's a lawyer."
He rose up, seized the whale by its tail and lifted it off the table. "And enough of this! Start talking!"
He dropped the creature back down. There was the same meaty flop, but less in the way of water strewn about. By now, the thing was half-dry.
"Fine!" snapped the miniwhale. Literally, snapped. That was actually quite an impressive jaw, even if the whole creature wasn't more than thirty centimeters long. I made a note to myself not to lean close again. That jaw could take off an ear, quite easily.
The miniwhale took a deep breath. Then:
"It's like I told you the first time. There I was, looking for—"
"Let's start with my client's name," said Sheila. "What is it, anyway?"
