Phule Me Twice

He closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose again. "Let's go see these jiggered pictures you're talking about," he said. He already had a very good idea what he was going to find when he got there.

But he was wrong.

Chapter 3

"I told you these files had been jiggered with," said the policeman disgustedly. "No such thing as identical eleventuplets, not when they're from eight or nine different planets. That's the face of the guy that robbed this citizen's place and beat him up. I've seen the vids, and they're pretty clear. Somebody's put the same face on all those files. So which one of 'em's the original?" He pointed at the holofiles, showing the faces of the company's converts to the Church of the King.

"It's not that easy," said Phule. "I think the original owner of that face has been dead for several centuries."

Mr. Takamine leapt up and threw his hands in the air. "What, you're tellin' me a dead man robbed me? That's the biggest load of-"

"I said no such thing," said Phule, making shushing motions in hopes of calming the man down. "What I said was-"

"It was just a trick to make me give up," the man shouted. "You're go

"Sir, my employer has no intention of cheating you of your satisfaction," said Beeker. "The fact is, these legio

"Well, I wouldn't exac'ly call it bizarre, so

"That's the man!" shouted Takamine, turning to point to Reverend Jordan Ayres. "He's the thug that robbed me! Arrest him!"

The policemen moved menacingly toward the chaplain, who raised his hands and said, "Hey, easy there, gen'lemen. I ain't done a thing to this little fellow, and I reckon I can prove it. Just when and where is all this supposed to have happened?"

"Four days ago, in my restaurant over on Hastings Street," the man said, still pointing at Rev. He stopped and frowned, then said, "You put on a hell of a lot of weight since then."

"Ain't put on a gram," said Rev, striking a pose. "I've been workin' out with the fellows, gettin' in shape with a little bit of karate, jes' like the King-"

"King?" said the complainant. "To hell with your king. We don't have no kings here on Landoor and ain't about to start-"

"Son, you're makin' a mistake," said Rev, warming to his favorite subject. "The King's comin' to Landoor, no doubt about it. Why, he's already here, if you look around you. Every true follower-"

"I'll warn you, that sounds a lot like sedition to me," said one cop. "Landoor's got its own government, and we aren't about to change."

"That's right, sedition!" said Takamine, his face lighting up. "I knew this man was a troublemaker when I first laid eyes on him. That greasy hair, that sneer-"

"But it weren't me, I tell you," said Rev.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you, too," said Phule. "There are at least eleven legio

"Dozens," said Rev confidently. "Before long, hundreds of thousands will want to follow the King."

"I've heard just about enough of that," said the cop who'd accused Rev of sedition. "Mister, I don't know whether you robbed this man or not, but I'm go

"One moment, officer," said Phule, whose checkered history in relation to Legion brass had made him a pretty good barracks-room lawyer. He stepped forward between Rev and the policemen. "The Legion will always cooperate with civilian authorities, but I can't stand by and see my company's chaplain hauled away on an unfounded charge. If you file a formal complaint, a Legion board of justice will determine whether or not there's been a breach of local law-"

"What did I tell ya?" screamed Takamine. "The minute you pin one of these occupying goons down for some offense, the rest of them close ranks to protect him. I'm go

"Well, ain't that somethin'?" said the cop, raising an eyebrow. "Look here, Mr. Takamine, the captain here thinks we're trying to railroad his man, and even you seem to have some doubt it's the right guy. What we gotta do-"

The policeman was interrupted by a legio

"Howdy, son," said Rev, and the thought crossed Phule's mind, He can't tell the converts apart, either. Rev walked over to the legio

The two policeman and the civilian complainant stood openmouthed, staring at Rev and Roadkill, their eyes shifting back and forth between the two. This is going to be more trouble than I expected, thought Phule. This time, he was right-but not quite in the way he anticipated.

Journal #500

The attempt to capture the robotic duplicate of my employer should have alerted the Fat Chance Casino's security teams to the danger of a repeat attempt. Considering the value of the robot and the information that close examination of it would give to any of the underworld groups that still lusted to take over the casino, the failure of anyone to realize that such an attempt had taken place was inexcusable.

Looking backward, the main reason for the failure was simple: The attempt had been such an abject failure that the robot itself had no inkling that anyone had even attempted to capture it.

As for the would-be abductors, they were apparently just as clueless as the robot itself.

"He didn't react at all," said the dark-haired young woman with a noticeable pout. "I tried every trick in the book, Ernie. It was as if he was a damned robot or something."

"Well, Lola, maybe you ain't as hot as you think," said her partner with a sneer. He ducked under the roundhouse punch she threw at him and backed up a half pace, holding up his hands in mock-serious defense. It was an old game; the two of them had been trading insults and half-playful punches ever since they'd become partners. "What if he is a robot?" he asked after a moment's reflection.

"Well, of course he could be one," she said, nodding. "That's not impossible. But think about it. If Phule's got somebody-or something-impersonating him, is the real Phule going to be ru

"I know how much I've sunk into it," said Ernie, scowling. "I've lost enough to feed him and half his soldiers for a couple of days."

"He gets that from you and the same from a couple of thousand other suckers every day of the year," said Lola, pacing the hotel room floor. "So the real Phule's got to be right here, keeping an eye on his money. But I never thought he'd have the discipline to resist me when I put the moves on him. I guess that's what it takes to run a casino and not gamble away the profits."

"His butler's on that other planet, you know," Ernie pointed out. He lowered himself into an armchair facing the holovision and picked up the remote control from a nearby table. "The reports claim he's the brains behind Phule. So why's he there instead of here?"