Read Online Robot Blues by Margaret Weis, Don Perrin - Free Book Online

the little steel
balls in a pachinko game, bounced around, sometimes hit, most of the time
missed. But he was a damn good pilot, one of the very best.
    Bill Quong. Doctor
of medicine, degree in engineering. He kept them all in good working order,
Xris especially. Terse, pedantic, Quong reduced all of life to its chemical and
mechanical components. He preferred machines to people and his bedside manner
tended to reflect this. He was regarding Xris with professional concern,
probably wondering if his electrolyte count was out of whack.
    Tycho. Tall,
humanoid in appearance, thin to the point of emaciation, he belonged to a race
known in slang terms as “chameleons” for their ability to alter skin color to
blend in with their surroundings—a handy skill for a sniper and a trained
assassin. His people had no facility for any human language, neither
comprehending it nor speaking it. He wore a translator for that purpose.
Unfortunately, the translator tended to miss a lot. The “chameleon” language
was immensely logical, highly structured and consequently had difficulty
handling the idiosyncrasies of human speech. Tycho’s use of cliches and
idiomatic expressions tended to be extremely colorful and possess meanings
never intended. He was clearly perplexed by what was going on. Between “impugned”
and “assiduously” his translator had probably overloaded.
    The Little One,
empath, telepath, was staring at Xris from beneath the brim of the fedora. His
was a mysterious race, unknown to the rest of the universe, given the fact that
they were extraordinarily hideous-looking people (one reason he was muffled to
the eyes in raincoat and to the nose in fedora). To leave their planet was
punishable by death.
    Somehow,
somewhere, the Little One had hooked up with Raoul, Adonian, Loti—slang for
habitual drug user—and one of the most expert chemists and poisoners in the
field. The two were an interesting pair, completely devoted to each other. The
empath was comfortable around the Loti, who functioned—generally—in a
drug-induced haze of pleasant thoughts and emotions. The Little One, as far as
Xris could determine, acted as Raoul’s guide dog, leading the Loti around the
obstacles and pitfalls of life.
    The Little One was
now quivering beneath the rain coat, shivering in the emotional windstorm of
Xris’s anger, guilt, anxiety, and frustration.
    Xris looked up. “There’s
not a damn thing I can do to help Darlene except keep away from her; draw them
off her, maybe draw them out. So that’s the plan. Harry, I gave Darlene all the
options. She chose to go with Raoul. If you want to argue with her, go ahead. I
don’t advise it. She was barely speaking to me when I left.”
    Harry muttered
something unintelligible, shook his head. The others kept silent, so silent
that they could all hear the faint whir and hum of Xris’s machinery.
    “Right,” Xris
said. “I think that’s it. Jamil, how long will it take you to gather everything
we need?”
    Jamil cleared his
throat, sat up straight. “A couple of Army uniforms, standard-issue side arms,
insignia, medals, patches—I’ve got most of those at my place on Esquimalt.
Leaving tonight, I can be there by twelve hundred tomorrow.”
    “Good. Meet me at
seventeen hundred hours the day after. I assume we can take a standard
spaceplane flight to Pandor?”
    “Right. No need to
steal a fighter or anything.” Jamil was on his feet. “I’m a colonel and you’re
my aide, rank of captain, arriving to give the Army personnel on Pandor an
edifying and informative lecture which they’ve had scheduled for months, only
they just haven’t noticed it yet. I’ll need Darlene’s help to slip it into
their computer files. Is that all right?”
    “She’ll be glad to
have something to do. Go on up to her room, tell her what you need. Take Raoul
and the Little One with you. The sooner you three leave”—Xris gave the nod to
Raoul—”the better.”
    “Indeed,” Raoul
said,