Jack L. Chalker, Effinger, Resnick The Red Tape War

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Pel Torro, General Millard
Fillmore Pierce held up a tumbler of food. It looked like water and tasted
like fire, but Pierce-
Arro called it food. The general was in no mood to argue. He raised the food,
gave a little shudder, and took a long gulp.
"That's it, Gen'ral Sugah," said the human Pierce craftily. He still thought
he was
Marshmallow, but even Marshmallow would be able to see the value of a leader
of the invading
lizard forces disabling himself with liquor.
"Urk," replied the general solemnly. Somehow, he managed to give the
impression that the
Frank Poole android's features had begun to blur.
Marshmallow-Pierce had consumed a quantity of food, too, but that had been the
night before, and now he was perfectly sober. He had only a queasy stomach and
a throbbing headache that felt like someone was breaking big rocks into small
rocks with a pickax somewhere behind his forehead. He decided not to have any
more food for a while, despite how rich and flavorful
Pierce-Arro's product was. Thinking like Marshmallow, Pierce planned to be
ready as soon as
Daddy made his move to rescue her.
The XB-223, no longer calling himself Sly because he believed he was the human
Pierce, also decided to remain sober and watchful. "I'll protect you,
Marshmallow," he murmured into her ear.
"Ah doan' really need pertectin' as such," she said, giving him a sweet smile.
"Ah am, as you may have noticed, a big gal now, an' Ah kin take care of
mahself. But it sho' is gallant of you to offah."
The computer put Pierce's arm around Marshmallow's shoulders and drew her
nearer. "I don't know what it is, honey. You just bring out the protective
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side in me."
Marshmallow shook her head. "Heah Ah am, standin' heah buck naked, an' all you
want to do is pertect me. Ah must be losin' mah touch!"
They looked at each other, gazing deep into each other's eyes. Then slowly
they drew closer, and at last, passionately, Class 2 Arbiter Millard Fillmore
Pierce was kissed deeply by his own computer.
In the meantime, the Pierce-Arro construct within the electronic essence of
the XB-223
navigational computer began to revise its plans. It had learned many things in
the hours that it had been trapped in the nonliving yet sentient device. The
first thing it had learned was that the situation was dangerously seductive.
Pierce-Arro had first become comfortable there, and then it had begun to think
that it truly never wanted to return to its own bodies. That was something to
be fearful of.
The next thing that happened was that Pierce-Arro learned it could
differentiate itself by dividing the inter-related systems of the navigational
computer between its two trapped consciousnesses. Commodore Pierce separated
itself from First Officer Arro, and took up residence in the primary
high-level guidance complex. Arro had to be satisfied with the secondary
systems. Rank, after all, has its privileges.
"Let us review our options," said the Protean Pierce. "I didn't know we had
any, sir," said
Arro.
"We always have options. The one advantage we have now is that, in this form,
we can't be expected to continue filling out the essential paperwork."
"I'll bet there will be a ton of forms that we'll have to wade through if we
ever return to our real bodies. We'll never hear the end of it."
"Don't worry about it, Number One," said Pierce. "We'll be heroes."
Arro gave an electronic shudder. "Do you know how much paperwork a hero has to
deal with? That's why you never have the chance to be a hero twice!"
"We'll worry about that when the time comes. For now, we must decide who among
these gigantic but terribly stupid creatures will be useful to us. None of
them can be friends, because it is their universe we must conquer. Still, I
find myself liking some of them better than others."
Arro tried to blat a sac or two out of habit. "My only hope is that the lizard
general isn't doing anything . . . disgusting in our bodies. If I ever get
back into my dear, sweet gasbag, I'm going to feel defiled for the rest of my
life. "
"That's not our concern now," said the commodore. "Our invasion force will be
arriving momentarily. We must be in a position to guide them. Therefore, we
must maneuver all of them so that we can restore ourselves to our natural
forms."
"Do you know how to accomplish that?" asked Arro.
Pierce wanted to shrug, but he was shrugless. "If we can reverse the
deck-plate procedure, maybe that would work. The entire process was recorded
in the computer's general memory, and
I've cracked the electronic code that protects it. I don't think we'll have
any problems, except that we need all of the original participants, and one of
them the human Marshmallow, in the lizard general's body is no longer on
board."
"Well? What are you going to do?"
The Protean leader paused. "I'm going to see if that `food' will have any
effect on our electronic brains."
While the gasbag leader proceeded with the first-ever experiment to get a
computer drunk, the scruffy and disreputable image of Pirate Paddy reappeared [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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