"Well, 1 thought I'd seen everything in the Legion," said Slayer. "But when 1 drove up and saw Spartacus halfway up a tree, 1 about busted open laughing. If the captain hadn't been. there, 1 bet 1 would have. 1 didn't know Sythians could climb trees."
"More like, he flew up there on his glide-board," said Street. "You're right, though-if I'd seen that, I'd have bust open laughing, too."
"I don't think is funny," said Tusk-anini. "Barky try to hurt legionnaires. Captain must stop Barky."
"You Voltons must not have any pets," said Super-Gnat, sitting on a bench next to her huge partner. She grinned, then went on, "The thing is, Barky is kind of cute. 1 mean, kids allover the Galaxy have his holo in their rooms, and they send money to save the trees because of Barky. When 1 was a kid, 1 used to think it was really blurgin' how he could sniff out pollutants..."
"When you was a kid?" said Do-Wop. "Man, that's one long-lived dog... OW!" he yelled, as Super-Gnat punched him.
"Barky's genetically engineered," said Sushi, laughing at his partner. "They didn't want to have to replace him every few years, so while they were giving him the genes to let him sniff out methane and fluorocarbons and so on, they made him long-lived, too. If 1 remember right, he'd be going on eighty years old even if he'd never started space-traveling."
"Eighty or eight, don't give him no right to bite folks," said Double-X, slapping a fist into his open hand. "I was the captain, I'd be tellin' those AEIOU suckers to lift their ship before the sun sets on 'em."
"I bet he would like to do that," said Sushi, swirling the ice cubes in his rum and Neocoke. "Problem is, the captain can't just order another government agency off the planet except under martial law, which doesn't apply here. If he could get the Zenobians to ask them to leave, that'd be another story. But so far, the Zenobians don't seem interested in them one way or another."
"Hey, maybe 1 can get Barky to chase Leftenant Qual up a tree," suggested Do- Wop, pointing toward the ceiling to illustrate the idea.
"That'd get 'em interested, all right."
"You ever get a good look at Qual's teeth?" asked Super-Gnat. "He's got about twice as many as any dog you ever saw, and mostly twice as big-plus, he runs even faster than a Gambolt. If Barky has enough sense to find the meat in a hamburger-and at least, his bio says he does-he'll steer clear of that fight for all he's worth."
"Bio? The farkin' dog's got a bio?" said Double-X.
"Hey, watch your mouth," said Super-Gnat. "Barky, the Environmental Dog, was my favorite icon when 1 was a kid. 1 cried for a week when we moved to a new town and my mom forgot to bring along my Barky doll. You talk bad about Barky, I'll whap you." She flexed her right arm to show him she meant business.
"All right, all right," said Double-X trying to smooth things over. He probably outweighed Super-Gnat by fifty kilos, but everybody in the company knew that what the little legionnaire started, she finished---with Tusk-anini ready to step in if he thought she wasn't getting a fair shake.
He rubbed his chin, and mused, "I guess all those big media stars got bios; so why not Bark?"
"Barky's bio says he's the most intelligent dog ever, too," said Super-Gnat, somewhat 'placated. "I read the whole thing when 1 was a kid. And watched his show every week. It was really triff, watching him chase the polluters."
"Yeah, except now he seems to think that we're polluters," said Sushi. "I don't know how he got that idea-the camp's about as green as you can get-I think we recycle everything we can, certainly anything likely to be useful if we ever had to fight somebody. Of course, the AEIOU probably doesn't take that point into consideration."
"War not healthy for ecologies," said Tusk-anini. "Best reason to prevent war, I thinking."
"Maybe that dog do be smarter than he looks." said Street, nodding. "Course, I knowed he was right smart all along when he went bitin' on Double-X." That set off another round of good-natured insults and arguments that went on until closing time. The legionnaires went to bed without figuring out what to do about Barky, or how to deal with the AEIOU mission to Zenobia, although they talked enough about those problems to solve them half a dozen times.
It probably would not have made them any happier to know that their superior officers were having no better luck.
Victor Phule popped a token into the slot of the machine facing him and pulled the lever. There was something gratifying about the activity; just enough mechanical resistance, a sound of gears engaging and wheels spinning-even though he'd been told that the sounds were actually synthesized effects, and the gears and wheels were simulations that had nothing to do with the choice of which symbols the machine would display. Instead, an elaborately sealed Heisenberg circuit determined the winning (or more often, losing) combination. Whoever had designed the machines had done her job well, Phule grudgingly admitted. It felt as if you could actually use the handle to control which symbols appeared, even when your brain knew the facts to 'be otherwise.
The "wheels" spun to a halt, and Victor Phule inspected the three symbols in front of him: a bell, a cherry, and a lemon. No payout; this time. Phule picked up his Slate-omat and entered the result. On the whole, he was fortyseven thousand dollars in the red at this point. Considering that the bank of machines he was playing took nothing less than five-thousand-dollar tokens, that was a pittance. One decent payout, and he'd be ahead of the game. One significant jackpot, and he'd rake in more for one play than any but the top casino executives made in a year. And if he hit the big one... He chuckled. It was only a matter of time.
He was mildly surprised that nobody else seemed interested in these particular machines. Yes, the price of a play was high, but the payouts were proportionate1y richer than anything else in the Fat Chance Casino. Even thirty-five to one, the odds for playing a single number at the roulette table, was a paltry reward compared to the million-to-one superjackpot the casino had posted for these machines.
Well, if no one else played, no one else had a chance to win, did they? Determinedly, Victor Phule fished in his pocket and took out another token.
He was about to feed it into the machine when someone close behind him said, "Having any luck today?"
He turned to see a woman's face-youngish, darkhaired, and rather pretty, though not on the vidstar level. Almost inevitably, she knew who he was and how much money he had; Victor Phule was not without ego, but he had no reason to believe he was the type of man who would appeal to many women if his wealth were suddenly to disappear. On the other hand, he had an excellent notion of just how attractive that-wealth was to almost everyone else he met. After all, the galaxy has room for only a limited number of multibillionaires--which meant that the vast majority of those around him at any given time had far less money than he, and had at least some interest in altering what they perceived as. an unnatural imbalance. From Victor Phule's point of view, of course, that imbalance was very much the natural state of affairs, and he saw no reason to give anyone a chance to change it to his disadvantage.
So his first response to the question was to verify, out of the comer of his eye, that his bodyguard was nearby, paying due attention to the situation. Sure enough, Eddie Grossman was only a step or two away, pretending to play the slots while looking in his direction. The guard lifted a forefinger to his left ear, signaling that he had already scanned the woman for weapons and found nothing to set off his alarms. Good-that eliminated one source of worry, although there were of course plenty of ways to damage or kill someone without carrying a detectable weapon.