"Sergeant, I sympathize entirely with your viewpoint," said Phule, doing his best to calm down the mess sergeant. "In fact, I'm trying to find out the same thing, not just for food stocks but for the whole company. What I can tell you is, we're going to a planet without any previous human settlement. A lot of things we've taken for granted won't be available. You'll have to make do-at least at first-with what we can bring in ourselves. Of course, there are bound to be a fair number of local items you can use..."
"Water and what else?" demanded Escrima. "Can we eat the local meat? I can't do anything without fresh meat, or fresh vegetables, either. What about power? I can't even cook without power."
"Power's not going to be a problem," said Phule.
"Hallelujah, I can boil water." Escrima sneered. "Lots of nice hot tea and reconstituted soups, hah?" He pantomimed spitting out something foul-tasting. "You got to do better than that, Captain."
Phule stood up. "Escrima, I know for a fact that the natives of this world can eat some of our food, so I'm sure we can eat some of theirs, too. I think you should look on it as a stimulating challenge to find out which of their things our people can use, and ways to prepare them-"
"A challenge?" Escrima's eyes widened. "You don't want to challenge me, Captain. No, not unless-"
"Maybe challenge is the wrong word," Phule cut in quickly. "A chance to prove how good you really are. We've all tasted what you can do when you've got a cordon bleu-quality kitchen to work with. I'll guarantee you, there's not a chef on the planet who could top you." This was true; Phule occasionally had reason to eat a meal off-base, and he knew that Landoor's best restaurants served as good a meal as he'd find anywhere in the Galaxy. But the food Escrima put out daily for the legionnaires of Omega Company was even better.
Escrima wasn't in a mood to be flattered. "I make the finest food in the Legion, and now you tell me I got to rough it, cook over a campfire for all I know. How long you think it'll be before everybody starts cracking wise about the food? Captain, you gonna drive me crazy!"
"No, no," said Phule, raising both hands in protest. "We'll have an up-to-date kitchen for you, don't worry about that. As long as I'm in charge of this outfit, you'll never have to settle for anything less than the newest, finest equipment. You have my word on that, Sergeant."
Escrima raised his eyebrows, and for the first time since he'd entered the office, he lowered his voice to something like a civil tone. "I got to give you credit for that, Captain," he said after a moment's thought. "You said you were going to do just that, and did it, no fooling around. OK, then, I'll take your word on the equipment. But that's not the whole game. You give me rotten eggs to cook, and I don't care what kind of stove I got."
"No rotten eggs, Escrima. I promise," said Phule, smiling. "Not even powdered eggs, which as far as I'm concerned are even worse."
"At least a rotten egg used to be an egg," agreed Escrima, wrinkling his nose. "That powdered stuff, maybe it came out of a vat in some chemical plant. About all it's good for, is you can use it to kill bugs, if you got bugs."
"Kill bugs?" Phule's brow wrinkled. "How do you kill bugs with powdered eggs? I didn't think even bugs would eat the stuff."
"No," said Escrima, a sly grin now on his face. "The way you kill bugs, you take a whole big box of the crap and drop it right on top of the bug. Kills him real good, you bet."
Phule laughed. "I promise, Escrima, you get the best ingredients," he said. "If you ever get anything that isn't good enough for you to feed the troops, feed it to me first."
"What?" said Escrima, mortally offended. "You want me to feed you trash?"
Phule nodded. "Yes, absolutely," he said. "That way I know when we're being cheated, and I'll get mad enough to do something about it. You know I'm behind you all the way, Escrima. Look here: On this new assignment, if you want something, let me know and I'll figure out a way to get it. If I have to put a fleet of private transports on the job, I'll get it. But believe me, we should be able to use the local stuff, too. Just wait and see."
Escrima nodded. "If you tell me that, I believe you. All right, then, Captain. We got a deal."
"Good," said Phule. "Now, I told you I'd get you the best equipment available. I've got a new field kitchen ordered-a prototype, designed to allow you to prepare anything you could do in a five-star restaurant under field conditions. We're going to give it a test here on Landoor before we get out somewhere where we can't get it replaced. It arrives day after tomorrow, if everything goes right. I want you to give it a full test and let me know anything it needs to meet your specifications. OK?"
"Yes, sir!" said Escrima. Like half the men in the legion, he loved the chance to play with new toys. Now he was going to get his hands on a brand-new one. It would keep him busy for a while, Phule knew, figuring out ways to get the most out of it. The results would be well worth the effort.
"All right, so I was wrong," said Lola, not sounding in the least contrite. She turned off the hotel room's built-in computer screen, which had been displaying Do-It-Yourself Turing Test, by Minsky & Hofstadter Enterprises. "We've gone and stolen the damned robot dupe instead of kidnapping Willard Phule. Now what?"
They'd realized something wasn't right almost as soon as they'd dissolved the goo gun bonds they'd used to capture their prey. The captive's response to the situation had been thoroughly inappropriate, unless one assumed that a total idiot had been running a Legion company and a major Casino Hotel-not only running them, but running them successfully. Their suspicions aroused, they'd called up the Turing test, and the robot had failed it miserably.
Ernie shook his head, miserably. "We've blown it, for sure," he said. "The bosses send us here to snatch a guy and all we get's a stupid bot. They're gonna wale on our butts for this."
Lola paced back and forth in short steps, thinking furiously. "I think it's time we stopped thinking about the bosses and start looking after ourselves," she said. "We can still make something out of this if we don't panic."
"Panic?" said Ernie, his voice squeaking. "You ever seen what the bosses do to guys who stiff 'em?"
"That's the ones they catch," said Lola. She stopped and pointed at Ernie, and continued, "If we play our cards right, who says they're going to catch us? Especially if we can get Phule to pay to get his robot back. These things can't be cheap. It ought to be worth enough to him to give us enough of a nest egg to run off and hide someplace safe."
"Yeah, I guess the boys gotta be worth somethin' to him," Ernie said, scratching his head. "I wonder what he'll pay to get it back."
"We need to know the going price for an Andromatic dupe, for starters," said Lola. She flopped onto the bed and stared at the ceiling a moment before continuing, "I guess. he'll pay that much just to avoid waiting for the factory to turn out a new one for him. This thing's gotta be a custom model-nobody else would want one that looked like him."
"Yeah, I guess we can get replacement value, whatever that is," said Ernie. He looked once more at the replica of Phule sitting, with an expression of seeming unconcern, cross-legged in a chair by the window. It might have been waiting for a dinner date.
Or, more likely, looking for a chance to escape. But the two kidnappers weren't betting that their captive would remain docile. The robot's left leg was shackled to the heavy chair, and even with its superhuman strength, it wouldn't make much progress dragging such an awkward impediment. Still, if it managed to escape the building, it was a good bet that it would find its way back to the Fat Chance, and that shortly thereafter, the two botnappers would be in the hands of unsympathetic security guards, learning firsthand about the penal system of Lorelei Station.