“Stupid freakin‘ world,” said Do-Wop, pulling on the chaps. “Hey, you think Beeker’s wearin’ these stupid fuzzy pants? That’d be a laugh.”

“Who knows?” said Sushi. “The sooner we find him, the sooner you’ll find out. And the sooner you finish getting dressed…”

“OK, OK, I get the idea,” said Do-Wop. He put on his vest and hat and stood back. “How stupid do I look?”

“You don’t really want to know,” said Sushi, moving to the door. “Come on, the sooner we find Beeker, the sooner you can lose the fuzzy pants.”

“Best news I’ve heard all week,” said Do-Wop, following.

Buck Short took Phule down the wooden sidewalk outside the saloon to the local Andromatic livery stable to hire a robot horse for their expedition into Injun territory, as the area outside town was known. Far from being the backwater world Phule had been led to expect, Cut ‘N’ Shoot appeared to be a hotbed of economic activity. New buildings were going up on all sides, and there was a steady stream of delivery vehicles-Conestoga wagons pulled by teams of reliable roboxen and robohoss-drawn buckboards- coming down the main street from the spaceport and heading down a road out into the country.

Phule nodded, approvingly. “Looks like a lively town here,” he said. “Business seems to be booming.”

“Yep,” said Buck Short. “I been here two years, goin‘ on three, and the place has jumped up like a hound dog that set down on a cactus. Anybody lookin’ to make a little dinero, he ain’t got no business tryin‘ if he can’t make it on Cut ’N‘ Shoot.”

“That’s the kind of place I like to hear about,” said Phule. “Say-if you knew a fellow with a few dollars to put into an up-and-coming business, where do you think he’d get the biggest bang for his buck?“

“I can promise you one hell of a bang if somebody put a couple thou into my personal entertainment fund,” said Buck Short, deadpan. Then, seeing Phule shake his head, he shrugged. “Can’t blame a feller for tryin‘, can you? But I reckon the main business hereabouts, after the tourist trade, is gonna be the minin’. It was started out more or less for the frontier atmosphere, but I reckon it’s gonna end up being one of the major planetary commodities.”

“I’m not sure I’d want to count on that,” said Phule. “From what I know about mining, most planets have pretty much the same mineral composition. Most of the time, it’s a lot cheaper to mine something locally than to bring it in from off-world. So it’s very unusual for a planet to build its economy on mineral exports-not even precious metals or gemstones are likely to be worth the freight charges.”

“Well, Cap’n, that’s generally the straight-ahead truth,” said Short. “But conditions on Cut ‘N’ Shoot ain’t conditions anywhere else, y’know. What we got here is a mother lode of a u-nique metal you can’t get on no other planet in the sector.”

“A rare metal, eh?” said Phule. “That sounds interesting. What exactly is it?”

“Ah, well, maybe I shouldn’t say too much more,” said Short. “Folks that run the place, they got their trade secrets-and I reckon it might not be too healthy for a feller that stuck his nose in where it don’t belong.”

Phule shrugged. “That’s not the way I see it,” he said. “I don’t need to know their trade secrets-I just need enough to decide whether I want to buy some of their stock. If they’ve put together a solid business plan, I’m willing to bet they can pay me a respectable profit on my investment. But I’m not going to give them my money until I know what they’re going to do with it.”

“Well, I already told you what I’d do with it,” said Short, pouting. “I could put on a right good show if somebody give a piece of change to get myself started…”

“I’m sure you could,” said Phule, with a fixed smile. Then he pointed to the sign facing them. It read, BUDDY’S ROBOT LIVERY STABLE: SALES AND RENTALS. “But isn’t this the place we were going to find a horse for me? Let’s take care of that-I suspect we’ll have plenty of time to talk once we’re on the trail.”

“You’re the boss,” said Buck Short, and he fell in behind Phule, who’d already bustled through the door to the livery stable. The door led to a cramped front room decorated with riding tack and bales of hay; behind an antique steel-and-plastic desk sat a man wearing spurred cowboy boots, chaps, and red suspenders; in the pocket of his denim shirt was an antique ‘puter of the Palm Pilot variety. A battered Stetson and a wisp of straw between his front teeth completed the picture. Buck Short strolled right up to him, and said, “Howdy, Buddy. My off-world friend here got to rent him a hoss. Reckon you better give him a right tame one- don’t believe he’s done much ridin’ before.”

“Oh, I guess I’ve done my share,” said Phule, who’d spent many a long childhood summer at the family’s country estates, where riding to hounds was still a traditional pastime. Not even the most curmudgeonly of the family elders ever complained that the hounds and their quarry were all simulated, and most of the horses mechanical… tradition was tradition, even if it had to be helped along a bit by modern technology.

The man behind the desk wasn’t listening. “City boy, huh?” he muttered, casting a skeptical look at Phule’s Legion uniform and rubbing his chin. “I guess we can find somethin‘,” Buddy said at last. “Worse comes to worst, we can recalibrate one of the spare cayuses so this boy won’t fall off and hurt himself. If’n we modulate the spirit circuits on these bots far enough down, we can make ’em so gentle they won’t wake up a sleepin‘ baby. Not that we get all that many sleepin’ babies askin‘ to ride, har har.“

“Uh, that really won’t be necessary,” Phule began again.

But Buddy had already picked up his communicator. “Hey, Jake,” he said. “Got us a city boy here, needs a hoss he won’t fall off of and get a boo-boo. Can y‘ fix ’im one up? Uh-huh. Yeah, that’s fine. All right then, stranger,” he said turning back to Phule. “It’ll cost you an extra five hundred setup charge. Jake’ll have it in just ‘bout an hour. Go on down to the tenderfoot bar and have a glass of sasparilly and it’ll be ready just about when you’re done. And I sure do ’predate the business.”

“Much obliged, Buddy,” said Buck Short, with a wink.

“But I didn’t…” protested Phule.

“Oh, think nothin‘ of it, stranger,” said Buddy. “Any friend of Buck’s gets the full A-Number-One treatment, and no mistake. You jes’ come on back in an hour’s time and Jake’ll have you the gentlest robohoss you ever laid eyes on, all ready to go.”

His eyes glazed over, Phule allowed Buck to lead him out of the livery stable and down the street.

“What makes you so certain my butler’s been captured by the Indians?” Phule asked the weather-beaten cowpoke on the robohorse next to him.

Buck Short spat into the weeds beside the trail. “That’s purty much the only plot option hereabouts,” he said, soberly. He sported a four-or-five-day growth of beard, a plug of tobacco in one cheek, and crossed eyes that made it hard to tell where he was looking-especially when he was about to spit. He looked more or less at Phule, and said, “Ain’t like there’s anybody ‘cept the Injuns in the capturin’ business on Cut ‘N’ Shoot, ‘less’n you done heard some-thin’ I ain’t.”

“I see,” said Phule, dubiously. “Let me rephrase that, then. What makes you so sure he’s been captured at all?”

“I reckon if he had any selection, he’d be back in the saloon, jes’ like the rest of the boys,” said the cowpoke. “He ain’t got a job, he ain’t in the saloon-you figger it out, pilgrim.”

“In other words, there’s nothing else to do in these parts,” said Phule. “Why is the planet trying to attract tourists, then?”

“Weren’t none of my idea. Alls they do is drive up the prices,” Short said, looking either at Phule’s left ear or somewhere off behind him. “And the stores is full of fancy-pants city stuff, cappychino ‘stead of reg’lar coffee, furrin wines instead of good ol’ country rotgut. Don’t know what the durn place is comin‘ to.”