"Good, then," said Phule. "I'll talk to my local contact and see if he can connect you up with a guide or-two. And if you want to practice, just let me know, and I'll arrange for you' to use our facilities. Thank you for your understanding, gentlemen. And now, I'm afraid Lieutenant Armstrong and I need to get back to base."
"All right, then," said Tay-Shun. "Just get us that native guide, and we'll be out of your hair right quick."
"Can't be any too soon for me," muttered Armstrong, as the two officers turned. Phule shot him a warning glance, but he'd spoken too quietly for the hunters to hear. Together, they began jogging back to camp.
Willard Phule was back at his desk, eating a late breakfast and reading the daily performance summary of his investment portfolio, when his wrist communicator buzzed. That in itself was enough to alert him that something unusual was going on. The routine at Zenobia Base was sufficiently settled, by now, that Mother was unlikely to put a call through to him at mealtime for anything short of a genuine crisis.
On the other hand, the last few days had been characterized by a series of minicrises, involving Barky, the AEIOU team, the training exercise that had gone haywire, the "guests" that State had sent for him to entertain... Warily, Phule lifted his wrist close to his mouth, and said, "What is it, Mother?"
"I've got Tullie Bascomb on the line, sweetie," came the saucy voice. "I told the old goniff to call back when you're awake, but he just says it can't wait. Shall I tell him to go away?"
"Oh, Tullie's all right," said Phule, idly wondering where Mother had picked up Yiddish insults. "If he says it's important, I'm not going to make him wait."
"All right, but if he spoils your digestion, you know who to blame," said Mother. Phule nodded, silently, waiting. Something told him that Tullie's call arose from the fact that his father was on Lorelei Station, sticking his nose
into the casino business. He hoped Victor Phule wasn't being too tough on the staff...
Abruptly, Bascomb' s voice came through the speaker of the wrist communicator. "Captain, everything's hit the fan," he growled.
"Hit the fan?" Phule was nonplussed. "What's going on there, 'tullie?"
"I'll tell you what's going on," said Bascomb. "Between your know-it-all father and some third-rate con artist we never should have let into the joint..." Phule could hear shouting in the background, and Bascomb said, "Excuse me a second, Captain," and the line went quiet; evidently Tullie had pressed the mute button. Then, after a pause, Bascomb returned and began speaking again. "All right, Captain, this whole screw up was my idea, and I've got to take the heat for it. You've got my resignation as of right now, if you want it..."
"Wait a minute," said Phule. "Con artist? Screwup? Resignation? 'tullie, I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about. Will you go back to the start and tell me the whole story?"
"All right," said Bascomb. "It all started with your father..."
"I'm not surprised," said Phule. "Go ahead, Tullie."
"You remember we set up the thousand-dollar slots to get him to play, and you authorized a really big prize to lead him on? We all figured the odds were so long there wouldn't be a bug's chance on a hot griddle of our actually having to give the prize..."
"Yes, 1 remember," said Phule. He suddenly sat bolt upright. "Don't tell me..."
"I am telling you, Captain," said Bascomb. "But that's not the worst of it. Your damn-fool father wasn't satisfied with playing the slots himself, he had to go and give his chips to other people to play for him. Now I've got some smirking greaseball sitting in my office..."
"Hey, buddy, show a li'l respect," Phule could hear a muffled voice say in the background.
"All right, all right," said Bascomb, resignedly. "Captain, the long and short of it is this: this guy sitting in my office is named Ernie Erkeep, and I'm sorry to tell you that, thanks to your old man, the bum now owns a controlling share-what used to be your share, in fact-in the Fat Chance Casino. Here, I'm tired of looking at the sleazy bastard. Why don't you talk to him while I go get myself a couple of stiff drinks?" And the speaker again went silent while Phule sat looking stupidly at his wrist, waiting for someone on the other end to say something.
Thumper and the group of legionnaires he'd eaten breakfast with arrived in the center of the parade ground just before Sergeant Brandy emerged from the modular structure that was the main building on Zenobia Base. The Top Sergeant of Omega Company was one of the largest humans Thumper had ever seen, although she was a good bit shorter than the Volton legionnaire named Tusk-anini.
"All right, people, this is the Legion. Let's see something I could mistake for a formation," said Brandy, resignedly. She flipped through papers on a clipboard as the squad lined up, with only a minimum of grumbling.
Thumper took a -place in the middle of three rows, toward one end, waiting to see what would happen. He'd been in formations before, and had learned not to be either too eager to catch the leader's attention or too obviously trying to escape it.
When everyone was more or less in place, Brandy looked up, and said, "We don't usually do roll call-I know all of you by now. But we've got a new guy today, and I think it'd be a good idea to call roll until he gets an idea who everybody else is, and you get to know who he is. So sound off when I call your names-you've all done this before, so don't make things any -harder than they've gotta be."
"Sergeant, I have a question," said Mahatma, raising his !mid in the front row.
Brandy rolled her eyes. "Gimme a break, Mahatma! Can't it wait until after roll call? I'd like to get through at least that much before the philosophical seminar for the day."
"But I just want to know how hard things have got to x," said Mahatma. "Do Legion regulations specify the degree of difficulty of roll call?"
"As a matter of fact, they do," growled Brandy. "They Say you're supposed to answer when I call your name, unless you aren't here, in which case I mark you absent. Is ;hat hard enough for you?"
"Maybe not for him, but it's a real challenge for some of these grunts," came a voice from the back of the formation.
Brandy glared. "Shut up; Roadkill," she barked. Then, after a pause, she added, "Haven't you feebs figured out I know your voices by now? OK, come on, let's hear a nice clear answer when I call your names. Brick?"
"Here, Sergeant," said a thin human female just in front of Thumper. Brandy put a mark on her pad and continued. "Cheap-sho?"
"Yo!" said another voice from the ranks.
Brandy dropped the hand with the clipboard to her side and glowered. "Look here, Cheapshot, we're trying to show Thumper how we do things in Omega Company.
How many times have I told you not to answer 'Yo' when I call the roll?"
"Bunch of times, Sarge," said Cheapshot. "Never convinced me, though. You wanna show the new guy how we do things in Omega, you gotta include the bad with the good, right?"
"Cheapshot makin' sense," said another voice, and Thumper could hear still others murmuring their agreement.
Then Brandy said, "Shut up!" and the murmurs stopped.
"OK," she said, "maybe you've got a point, Cheap shot. I'll agree that there's a lot of good things about the Omega way, but this is one of those times when I just want the good old Legion way. Believe me, there'll come a time when you'll thank me for this."
"If we thank you now, will you stop?" said another voice from the ranks.
"SHUT UP!" said Brandy, before the murmurs could get started. "If you just want to screw things up, I can make you stand here all day and never get to the fun stuff. I was gonna take you out to the obstacle course today, so Thumper can get a look at how Omega runs it." Suddenly the entire formation fell silent, and Thumper could see the spines of his fellow legionnaires straighten as they came to attention in a way they'd only hinted at before. Even Cheapshot stood up straighter, and said, "I meant, Here, Sergeant!"