Phule Me Twice by Robert Asprin, Peter J. Heck Page A

to make it sound sincere. "I'll just stay right behind you, if you don't mind."
    "That's probably best," he said, and he turned to peer down the corridor again. Lola tensed; somewhere not far away, Ernie should be waiting, ready to play his part in their little charade. The captain edged forward, quietly; he was being careful. Would Ernie be able to bring it off?
    The captain stopped and peered down a side corridor leading to an emergency exit. He nodded, took a step forward, and then...
    Lola let out a piercing shriek. "Over there!" she cried, and as the captain turned to look, Ernie struck.
    They'd chosen their weapon to incapacitate their victim as quickly as possible without undue risk of injury, particularly to themselves. The Zenobian stun ray wasn't in the civilian arsenal yet, but the goo gun was a good second best. Firing a huge gob of incredibly sticky material, it enveloped its victim in a viscous mass of goo and trapped him as surely as a fly on flypaper. Police departments throughout the settled worlds used it for riot control. It wasn't foolproof; inexperienced users sometimes got themselves stuck in the goo when they tried to secure their victim or got a sound thrashing from an incompletely immobilized victim.
    But Ernie had practiced. As soon as the goo had enveloped Phule, he flipped a lever on the gun and fired a burst of a clear liquid, setting the goo so that someone attempting to grasp the victim could do so without getting caught.
    "Hey, what are you doing?" said the captain-but too late. A moment later, Lola whipped out a gag and threw it over the captain's mouth, while Ernie darted down the hall a few paces and grabbed a laundry cart just outside the gym. They tipped their victim into it, threw a layer of dirty towels over him, and quickly wheeled him into a service elevator and away.
     
     

Chapter 5
    Journal #514
    Even the most punctual worker is sometimes late. Some are more punctual than others; but even they can sometimes be thrown off schedule by the vagaries of weather, transportation, and sheer chance. Bosses and coworkers will fidget, sigh, look out the window, and (depending on factors too various to enumerate) go about their business without the tardy person or await his arrival with some mixture of anxiety and annoyance. If the worker does not appear by some reasonable time, attempts will be made to get in touch, with greater or lesser degree of urgency.
     
    But when a robot is late, that is in itself an occasion for urgency. When the robot is a custom-built facsimile of one's employer, bought at an exorbitant price and put on duty for reasons of utmost security, panic is likely to ensue. It is to the credit of the staff of the Fat Chance Casino that the panic was kept to a minimum on this occasion.
     
    "Disappeared?" Gunther Rafael Jr.'s jaw couldn't have dropped farther if there'd been a 100G gravity field underneath it. "Why, that's impossible."
    "I keep hearing about things being impossible, usually right after they happen," said Doc, who had become the Fat Chance Casino's security chief after the departure of Phule's Company. His black Space Legion staff sergeant's uniform was a perfect fit. Only someone with an insider's familiarity with the Legion's insignia and badges would have been able to tell that it was a complete fraud, as were the "Legion" guards Doc commanded. "If it's impossible for the android to disappear, maybe you can tell me what it's done instead of disappearing?"
    "OK, Doc, you've made your point," said Rex, who headed up the Casino's entertainment division. "If you're done with the sarcasm, maybe I can interest you in our current problem, which is that the Andromatic Phule has disappeared. The most likely explanation is, the thing's been abducted-or maybe that should be stolen. "
    "Who could've done it?" wailed Rafael. "How? Why?" He began to pace nervously around the table.
    "Those are all good questions," said Doc. "A better one is, what are we going to do