Robert Asprin – Tambu

The viewscreen showed an empty chair, causing Tambu to smile as he leaned toward the mike.

“Tambu here,” he announced in carefully modulated tones.

Blackjack appeared on the screen, hurrying to his chair, shirtless and half-hopping as he tried to pull on a pair of pants.

“Sorry, boss,” he apologized. “I didn’t think you’d answer so fast.”

“It’s been a slow day,” Tambu explained dryly. “What’ve you got?”

Blackjack hedged. “Well, it might be nothing. But when we dropped in on Trepec here, I picked up a bit of information I thought you should have.”

“And that is-” Tambu urged impatiently.

“It seems there’s been a run on guns-big ones like we use on our ships.”

“Interesting.” Tambu frowned. “Any word as to who’s been buying?”

“As near as I can find out, they’ve sold a few each to a lot of planets.”

“Strange.” Tambu pursed his lips. “Which planets?”

“I’ve got a list here. Some of ’em are on our subscription list, but most aren’t.”

“Oh, well,” Tambu sighed. “I guess it was bound to happen sometime.”

“What’s that?”

“The planets are arming themselves,” Tambu explained, “though what good they expect ground-mounted guns to be against ships in orbit is beyond me.”

“Arming themselves? Against what?”

“Maybe against pirates,” Tambu smiled. “But more likely against us. We have hit a few planets in our time, you know.”

“But that’s ridiculous,” Blackjack protested. “Ground-mounted guns wouldn’t stop us if we decided to hit a planet.”

“You know it, and I know it, but apparently the planets don’t know it. Oh well, it’s their money.”