Dealer's Choice by George R. R. Martin Read Free Book Online Page B

on his shoulders and that the headlight on his helmet seemed to have come from a 1957 Chevrolet. There was a Lincoln hood ornament screwed to the top of his head.
    “Perhaps you’re long-lost cousins,” suggested Cyclone, “if not twins, separated at birth.”
    For the robot’s sake, Modular Man hoped not.
    Cyclone introduced Modular Man to a young blond woman named Danny Shepherd, who seemed rather small and fragile to be wearing uniform and carrying a gun.
    “Could I speak to you privately?” Zappa asked Modular Man. He led the android out to the pitcher’s mound, where a ghetto blaster on top of a miniature battlement was blaring Middle Eastern music. Vidkunssen followed them.
    “What I’d like to ask you to do,” Zappa said, “is take a flight over Ellis Island, drop some leaflets, and scope out the defenses at the same time. Think you could do that?”
    “I suppose.”
    “There’s supposed to be this kind of mental field around the castle so that people don’t want to get inside. But you’re a robot, right?”
    “An android.”
    “Android. Sorry. Anyway, the mental field shouldn’t be a problem. Will it’?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll try.”
    AIR FARCE ARE WIMPS, said the scoreboard.
    “And you seem to have enough firepower to keep the demons away.” Zappa’s eyes narrowed. “Where’d you get that machine gun, exactly?”
    Modular Man had stolen it, actually, from a National Guard warehouse. “I’d rather not say,” he said.
    Zappa and Vidkunssen exchanged looks. Someone on the organ was trying to play “96 Tears.”
    “You fought with the army during the Swarm invasion,” Zappa said. “You have an idea of the kind of information we’d be interested in, right?”
    “I suppose.”
    Zappa looked down at the huge model. “The problem is that our military reconnaissance satellites aren’t set up to cover the East Coast. NASA has been trying to get a Delta launch ready, but there are storms over Cape Canaveral right now and they’ve scrubbed the mission till Monday at the earliest. We’ve been buying intelligence data from the Russians, and we can overfly the Rox with a reconnaissance plane, but in each case it takes time to get the pictures to my office.
    “We’d also like to know where Governor Bloat is. Where he is physically.”
    “If we can neutralize him,” Vidkunssen said, “most of our problems vanish.” "The others might surrender without him,” Zappa said. “That would be a good thing.”
    Vidkunssen looked up. “Limo coming, Frank.”
    “The draft evader or his emissary. Better change the channel.”
    Vidkunssen grinned. “Makes you want to shoot quail, don’t it?”
    He pressed a button on the boom box and the Arab music was replaced by the sounds of John Philip Sousa. He buttoned up his blouse over the Judas Priest T-shirt, then tossed an army cap to Zappa, who put it on in place of his Arab headdress.
    Modular Man turned to see a black limousine driving slowly from a gate off in left field. Plainclothes security men hung on it or trotted alongside.
    A plump, red-faced civilian was walking toward the limo from the Dodgers dugout.
    “Hey, it’s the man himself!” Zappa had altered his voice to sound like an overeager deejay. “Here with his backup band, it’s the King of the Links, the Sultan of Suave, the Man a Heartbeat Away from the Oval Office Itself — here they are — Danny and the Dynamos!”
    The car came to a halt and one of the security men opened the rear door. The vice president stepped out and smiled. Zappa and Vidkunssen drew themselves up and saluted. Dan Quayle returned the salute and smiled again.
    “Stars and stripes forever,” he said.
    “Yes, sir,” said Zappa. “I agree with your sentiments, actually, but I think it’s ’American Eagle March.’”
    ITS’ THE VEEP, said the scoreboard. The letters, including the misplaced apostrophe, flashed brightly. There was scattered cheering from the bleachers.
    Quayle turned to Modular