No Phule Like an Old Phule

5

Journal #669

When a system is set up to deal with misfits and incompetents, the addition to the mix of someone actually capable may cause a greater disturbance than the addition of a weak cog to a functioning organization. This is certainly the case in most formations of the Space Legion, where incompetence and malfeasance have become a way of life.

Thus, the arrival at the Legion's central training base on Mussina's World of a new recruit who actually had a few qualifications for a military career was almost inevitably a recipe for disaster.

"I don't understand what I did wrong," said Thumper, sullenly. He sat on the edge of his bunk, illuminated by a single handlight in Sharky's hand. The light was shining directly in his face, which made it hard to see the others standing all around him. It wasn't hard to guess who was there, though-everybody else in Recruit Squad Gamma.

"You're acting like an eager beaver, is what you did wrong," said Sharky, exasperated. "It's what you keep doing wrong. Why you got to set a record for the fastest run of the obstacle course?" The other squad members stood in a circle around Thumper, adding their sullen voices to his argument.

"What's wrong with doing the best you can?" Thumper asked. "That's all I did. I like running and climbing over things. Why can't I do that when I have the chance?"

Sharky groaned. "Because now the sergeants are tryin' to make everybody else run the course faster," he explained.

"IF THAT LI1TLE TWERP CAN DO IT, WHAT THE FARK'S WRONG WITH YOUR LAZY STINKIN' ASS?" he said, pretending to shout without raising his voice to a level that might be heard outside the bunkhouse. There were a couple of chuckles in appreciation of the accuracy of Sharky's imitation of Sergeant Pitbull's habitual bellow, but nobody sounded in particularly good humor.

"Well, it seems to me the question is, can you guys run the course better than you've been doing it, or not?" asked Thumper. He turned his head from side to side, not so much looking at his audience as trying to get away from the persistent glare of the handlight.

"Wrong damn question," rumbled a deep voice. Thumper recognized the speaker as Pingpong, the biggest and slowest recruit in the platoon. "What you oughta ask is, should we stomp the shit out of this so-called sophont for making everybody else look bad to the sarge?"

"Hey, easy there, Pingpong," said Sharky, patting the big recruit on the shoulder. "It ain't come to stompin', yet. We're just havin' a friendly talk with good ol' Thumper here, lettin' him know how all his buddies in the squad feel about stuff."

"Oh, yeah," said Pingpong, scratching the thick fur atop his head. "Well, let me know when it's time for stompin, OK?"

"Sure," said Sharky, with a nod.

"I can't believe you guys are threatening me," said Thumper, indignation all over his face. "Just because I want to do my best..."

"Yeah, yeah, doin' your best is triff," said Sharky. "But do you hafta do it when it makes all your buddies look bad? If you'd just save it for when there's a real enemy..."

"We got a real enemy," said another recruit-Spider, this time. "It's all the farkin' sergeants..."

"Damn straight!" said several of the recruits in chorus.

"No, no, no," said Thumper, holding up his forepaws. "Sure, the sergeants are tough on us, but that's because we have to be tough when the death rays start flashing. Really, guys, it's all for our own good..."

"Ain't no damn death rays flashin'," said Pingpong.

"There ain't been a farkin' war since my granddaddy was in the Regular farkin' Army, forty years ago. Who we gonna , fight, anyhow?"

"There was a civil war someplace out in the New Baltimore sector, wasn't there?" said Spider. "The Legion was sent in to settle that one..."

"That was on Landoor," said Sharky, dripping scorn. "And that wasn't any real war-just a bunch of backward colonials gettin' excited. Only real action was when some Legion officer shot up the peace conference. Hope he got him a couple sergeants..."

"Shhh-Pitbull" came a hoarse whisper, but it was too late. "

"YOU GOT YOU A SERGEANT NOW, YOU STUPID FARKIN' CLOWNS!" roared the drill sergeant, throwing open the door to the recruits' bunkroom. The overhead light came on abruptly, catching the circle of recruits standing around Thumper's bunk like greeblers around a sweetbush. They all snapped to attention as the sergeant stomped over to the group. "WHAT THE FARK'S GOIN' ON HERE, AS IF I DIDN'T KNOW?" he bellowed.

"We was just telling old Legion stories, is all, sarge," said Sharky, stepping to the front of the group. "Tryin' to build up the squad's morale, y'know?"

"YEAH, HUH? LIKE YOUR MOTHER BUILDS UP THE ARMY'S MORALE," said Sergeant Pitbull. "YOU FARKERS SHOULDA GOT YOURSELF SOME SLEEP BEFORE NOW, BECAUSE I WAS GONNA COME GIVE YOU A FRIENDLY WARNING, LIKE. JUST A LITTLE BIT OF ADVANCE NOTICE OF THE SURPRISE INSPECTION BY THE BIG BRASS."

"Surprise inspection?" said several of the recruits in near unison.

"THAT'S RIGHT, YOU GOT WAX IN YOUR EARS?" explained Pitbull. "GENERAL BLITZKRIEG SET DOWN ON BASE JUST AFTER DARK, AND HE'S GONNA COME INSPECT BARRACKS AT OH-EIGHTHUNDRED HOURS TOMORROW FARKIN' MORNING. MAKE THAT THIS MORNING."

"Oh-eight-hundred?" groaned the recruits. The clock on the wall showed just a bit shy of oh-four-hundred.

"YOU GOT IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME," said Pitbull. "NOW, YOU'RE JUST LUCKY YOU GOT A SERGEANT THAT REALLY CARES FOR YOUR SORRY ASSES, SO I GIVE YOU SOME ADVANCE WARNING SO YOU DON'T ALL GET REAMED OUT BY THE GENERAL. YOU THINK I'M A HARD-ASS, YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHIN'. BLITZKRIEG EATS RECRUITS FOR TAPAS WITH HIS AFTERNOON SHERRY. YOU GOT FOUR HOURS TO MAKE THIS FARKIN' PIGHOLE LOOK LIKE A LEGION BASE. BLITZKRIEG GIVES ANY ONE OF YOU PSEUOOSOPHONTS EVEN ONE DEMERIT, YOU'LL GET IT FROM ME TEN TIMES-EXCEPT I DON'T GIVE DEMERITS, I GIVE PUNISHMENT. YOU GOT THAT, YOU CLOWNS?"

"Got it, Sarge," said the recruits.

"THEN GET YOUR ASSES BUSy," Pitbull shouted.

"AND BE QUIET ABOUT IT. I'M GONNAGET SOME FARKIN' SLEEP!"

"I dunno, man, this is some weird-ass job Rev wants us to do," said Do-Wop. As usual, he was leaning on the back of Sushi's chair, looking over his partner's shoulder at the computer screen. "How does he expect us to find out about this Zenobian guy, Leavis?"

"'L'Viz." Sushi corrected him. "And how we find out about it is our business-we're the recon experts, and he isn't. It's an interesting challenge, don't you think? Find some way to access the Zenobians' archives and see if we can pull out info on this ancient legend of theirs."

"Sure, and how we gonna know it when we do find it?" said Do-Wop. "Even with a translator, that Flight Leftenant Qual don't make sense half the time. I duno how you think we're gonna find one particular story out of all the stuff they must have written down. It's like findin' one special bush in the whole forest."

"Yeah, I know it looks that way," said Sushi. "But we do have a few clues that'll make it easier; Like the name of the main character, for example. And if the story's that well known, we may find it in more than one place. It'd be like searching-human archives for Odysseus..."

"O'Dizzy-us? Never heard of him."

Sushi sighed. "Sometimes I wonder about you," he said, looking up at his partner. "Should I send you out to find a bottle of quarks, so I can get some work done?"

"Better you should send me for a couple quarts of beer," said Do-Wop. "I know-where to find that, anyhow."

"Believe me, I'm tempted," said Sushi. "But I've ,got some tricky work to do before I can kick back, and every now and then I'll need a fresh pair of eyes to look over my shoulder so I can tell whether I'm making any real progress. So you can't have any beer, either. What you can do is run over to Chocolate Harry's and see if you can get us a translator. We'll need it once I find the Zenobians' archives-and we might as well have it before we need it.

If he hassles you any, go get Rev to write out a requisition for it."

Do-Wop smirked. "If he hassles me any, I'll just figure out some way to skank it. Harry thinks he's bad, but his security really stinks. I could slide into his supply depot and walk off with everything in sight, and he'd never look up from his biker magazines."

"Maybe so, but don't try it just yet," said Sushi. "That's the kind of thing we have to save for when we really need it. In fact, go to Rev first-he'll write an order for a translator and sign it over to us, and that's that. We don't have to explain where it came from if somebody sees us using it, and people aren't shooting us the evil eyeball when we really need to do something without being noticed."

"Ah, you take the fun out of everything, Soosh," said Do-Wop. "You wanna sneak into the Zenobians' archives because it's a challenge, and that's supposed to be triff. But when I want to skank a translator from Supply, that ain't triff, on account of I might get caught. I don't see no difference."

"You don't?" Sushi turned around in his chair and looked his partner straight in the eye. "The difference is, there's no problem getting a translator the legit way, and no awkward consequences if somebody sees us using it. But getting into the Zenobian archives is something Rev's asked us to do--and he's a Legion officer, so he's the one who takes the heat if we get caught. We're just doing a job' for a superior officer, get it?"

"Maybe," said Do-Wop. "But remember back when that Major Botchup was CO when the captain was gone? There was a whole big mess about whether or not we should follow illegal orders, and who was authorized to give legal orders, and what happened if you weren't sure. I never did find out just what was OK and what wasn't, except I figured I don't follow orders enough to get in trouble, anyway."

"Well, that's one way to look at it," said Sushi. "But I think I know what you're getting at. We don't know for sure that Rev has any business spying on the Zenobians after all, they are supposed to be our allies. But how much do you want to bet that Alliance headquarters isn't already spying on them, on a much wider level than we're planning to do?"

Do-Wop's eyebrows rose the better part of an inch. "Whoa, man, that's right! I never thought about that-but it makes sense. Maybe there's even somebody in our outfit doin' it, if we knew everything that was goin' on!"

Now it was Sushi's turn to raise his eyebrows. "You know, Do-wop, if I ever act as if I think you're stupid, remind me of this. Of course there's somebody in our company gathering intelligence on the Zenobians there's got to be! We're the only Alliance military outfit on Zenobia. I mean, why would the government pass up a chance like this? The question is, who is it? It must be somebody who's been with us a while-we haven't had anybody new join the company since before we got the Zenobia assignment."

Do-Wop shrugged. "Well, it ain't us--unless this job for Rev is part of it. Hey, you don't think...."

"Nothing would surprise me," said Sushi. "But we're not going to figure it out just standing around jawing. Why ...don't you go over and get Rev to sign a chit for that translator and see if you spot anything to make you think he's the spy. I suppose it's none of our business, but I must admit you've piqued my curiosity."

"I'll keep my eyes open," said Do-Wop, showing what for him was an unusual degree of enthusiasm; He winked, and slipped out the door, and Sushi returned to his attempts to penetrate the Zenobians' computer network. Maybe that weird oscillation in the 1000khz range was a carrier wave of some kind...

"Hey, we just got here," protested Ernie, sprawling full length on the bed. There was no other place in the room to sit, unless he wanted to perch on a windowsill-which was currently occupied by Lola. "What's the point of turning around and going right back out again?"

Lola shrugged. "Phule's most likely to be at the Fat Chance, so that's where we go."

"Oh, sure," groaned Ernie. "That's halfway around the wheel. On a stinkin' bus, no less."

"If you have a problem with a bus, think about what happens if we don't get the job done this time," said Lola. "Or did you enjoy our last meeting with Mr. V?"

"Screw Mr. V," said Ernie, but he looked nervously over his shoulder as he said it. Here on Lorelei, the mob was as likely as not to have ears even in the shabby rented room where he and Lola had landed after their unenthusiastic return to the space station where their previous attempt to kidnap Willard Phule had gone spectacularly awry.

Despite taking the cheapest liner they could find passage on, the two freelance kidnappers had arrived at Lorelei low on funds-low enough to make finding someplace to stay a real chore. After several hours of working the spaceport's bank of pay phones, Lola had managed to find them a room in a small apartment building that normally catered not to off-station tourists but to the lowest paid casino workers-a major comedown from the suite they'd occupied in the Fat Chance on their previous trip.

The only workers who lived this far from the casinos were the least skilled and most easily replaced. The powers that ran Lorelei Station saw no reason to waste much effort making their living quarters attractive or convenient.

"There's a bus stop about half a kilometer away," said Lola, looking over the battered Public Transit handout their landlord had condescended to lend them. "Come on, get your tourist duds on. Now's as good a time as any to scope the place out and make some plans. Besides, if we look and act like players, there's free food in the casinos.

Unless you've been holding out on me, we sure can't afford to eat in any of the restaurants here."

"Holding out?" Ernie protested. "After the way you searched my baggage on the ship, you think I'm holding out on you? What, do you think I keep my fortune in antique microchips built into my back teeth?"

"I wouldn't put it past you to try," said Lola. "Only reason you wouldn't do it is you're too impatient to keep your' money where you couldn't get right at it if you got the itch for something expensive. And too lazy to go to' the dentist, come to think of it. Which is why I want to get started now. Come on, Ernie, let's go see if we can finish this job before the big guys get upset at us again."

Muttering darkly, Ernie pulled himself upright. At Lola's insistence, he changed into a sportier-looking shirt and ran a comb through his thinning locks. A pair of outsized sunglasses completed the costume. Then, with Lola similarly disguised as a tourist, together they made their way to the nearby bus stop, hopped the Clockwise Local, and soon found themselves at the entrance of the Fat Chance Hotel and Casino.

"All right, put on a big smile," whispered Lola, as they got off the bus. "And remember, we only have fifty bucks apiece to gamble with. Better try to win-it's the only way" we're going to eat anything better than the free lunch."

"I always win," said Ernie.

"Sure," said Lola, straightening her hat. "So tell me again-why are you taking contract jobs from the likes of Mr. V?" Fixed smiles "in place, they strolled arm in arm through the main entrance of the Fat Chance. The black uniformed guards, actually actors impersonating legionnaires, didn't give them even a first glance.

Inside, they swept through the entrance lobby, ignoring the hotel registration desk, and headed straight for the gambling floors. During the working day, Phule was most likely to be within easy view of the floor, watching his investment growing before his eyes. Assuming, of course, that Phule was in the casino at all. Lola and Ernie had found out on their previous trip just how risky that supposition was...

"Do you see him anywhere?" asked Lola, as they sauntened through the bar area.

Ernie peered around the glaringly lit bar area. "Not a sign of the guy... Hey! Check it out! 1 always wondered where she'd gone-didn't know she was into gambling!"

"Who?" said Lola, looking at the woman Ernie had indicated, a small woman leafing through a racing magazine and sipping on some tall clear drink. "I see who you mean, but 1 don't recognize the face. Is she a vid star or something?"

"Nah," said Ernie, scoffing. "That's Maria Della Fanatico-hottest race driver on the Formula-Ultra circuit, in her time. Broke all the course records for the Tour di Zappi when she first came up. Shocked the hell out of everybody when she retired all of a sudden, maybe fifteen years ago. People figured she got a rich boyfriend who didn't want her to keep racing, or something like that. I thought she was the hottest thing in the world, when I was a kid. Never expected to see her someplace like here, though."

"Well, if she's got a rich boyfriend, that explains how she can afford Lorelei," said Lola. "Which we can't, unless we hit a jackpot or two. Come on, let's check out the free lunch in the game rooms. Maybe our boy will be there, and we can finish what we came here to do."

"Sure, sure," muttered Ernie. "More likely it'll be that damn robot again." He glanced again at Della Fanatico, then followed Lola into the next room.

"All right, Tusk-anini, it's time for your break," said Lieutenant Armstrong, who was OD tonight. "Get up and get out of here-l don't want to see you for half an hour." Tusk-anini put down his book-Black's Dictionary of Interspecies Law, Twenty-first Edition-and looked at the clock. Oh-three-hundred hours, the middle of the night, and of his shift in the comm center. He stood and placed the book on the seat of the chair he'd been occupying. "I be back," he said gruffly, and headed out the door, ducking his head on the way through. He didn't understand why the Legion insisted on having him get up and leave the comm center, when he could relax even more effectively just by continuing to read. But Armstrong, in particular, was a stickler for regulations, and Thsk-anini had learned that arguing with the lieutenant was a waste of time. It was easier to get up, take a little while to enjoy the clear night air of the desert, and come back when it was time to resume his shift.

Being of a nocturnal species had in fact worked to his advantage in the Legion, once he got a commanding officer who didn't try to make pegs of different shapes fit into identical holes. Humans seemed to think it was a hardship to stay up all night. Sergeants in particular were in awe of any sophont who actually enjoyed being awake during the wee hours of the morning, at least unless there was a party going on. Captain Jester had almost immediately rearranged Tusk-anini's schedule so that he could work during his preferred hours. And, since most humans were sound asleep during the night, there was little reason for the Volton to waste his duty hours doing anything more strenuous than catching up with his wide-ranging reading of human literature. As long as he was there, and awake, in case something did happen, that, that was enough for them. It was just one of the curious facts he had gathered about this strange race.

The comm center was a short distance from an exit onto the parade ground. Phule had required that the modular unit he had purchased for Omega Company's base on Zenobia should have easy access to the outside from every point, in case of an attack or other emergency. That was smart planning, Tusk-anini thought. In a real emergency it could save not only time but lives.

He came out into the base's central area and looked up at the Zenobian sky. Out here in the desert it was clear at night, with a panoply of unfamiliar constellations visible above the campsite. Tusk-anini's home star was below the horizon at this time of night, but he knew that it was located in a small constellation the Zenobians called the Gryff's Tail. Tusk-anini could see no resemblance between the group of stars and any kind of tail, but never having seen a gryff, he was willing to reserve judgment for the time being.

As he stood looking at the stars, a voice nearby whispered, "Tusk-anini! Come here quickly." He looked to see Rube, one of the three Gambolts assigned to Omega Company. Catlike aliens with excellent night vision, the Gambolts were also valuable for nocturnal work. Captain Jester liked to have at least one of them on guard duty during the dark hours. Of course, with no hostile forces on this planet, the value of the Gambolts was mostly in helping to train legionnaires of other species to move and work in conditions of low visibility. Still, conditions could change, and the captain liked to be prepared for all possibilities.

"What going on?" said Tusk-anini, keeping his voice low as he moved next to Rube, who crouched along the side of a heavy personnel carrier.

"We don't know, Tusk," said another voice-the human legionnaire Slayer. "Weird stuff out in the desert..."

"Why you not reporting it?" asked Tusk-anini. Having just come from Comm Central, he knew that no reports of suspicious activity had come in. Nor had the base's sophisticated detection systems detected anything suspicious while he had been on duty. He knew that for a fact, because Lieutenant Armstrong was especially meticulous about recording even the faintest blip on his screens.

"We aren't sure it's dangerous," said Rube, whose autotranslator made his speech seem much more idiomatic than the Volton's. But Tusk-anini had made it a point to learn English directly so as to improve his understanding of humans-which had been his main reason for joining the Legion to begin with.

"Perimeter electronics no detect nothing yet," said Tusk-anini, peering out in the direction Slayer had gestured in. "What kind of weird stuff you mean? lights, noises, smells?"

"Faint lights, moving," said Rube. "Slayer can't even see them, most of the time."

"I seen some of 'em," said Slayer, who was wearing Legion-issue night-vision goggles. "They're sorta yellow green, and they move real slow."

"Any chance Nanoids doing this?" said Tusk-anini, thinking of the microscopic silicon-based beings the captain and Beeker had discovered out in the Zenobian desert.

"It could be," said Rube. "But don't the Nanoids show up on the electronics? That's how they were detected in the first place, I think."

"Usually they do," admitted Tusk-anni. "Don't know much about-them, though. Maybe some new form of them. Or maybe some Zenobian life we don't know yet, flying bugs with taillights, maybe, like the books say on Old Earth."

"Ah, that's just a story for kids," said Slayer. "The guys that write those stupid books must take a lot of drugs to think up all that weird stuff. I bet most of 'em never been anywhere near Old Earth."

"There's another one," said Rube, pointing toward the desert. Sure enough, there was a faint but plainly visible light there-plain to Tusk-anini's night-adapted eyes, in any case. It moved slowly left to right, staying a more or less constant distance above the desert floor, then suddenly winked out.

"Well, Tusk, now you seen it. You think we ought to go out and look where it was?" asked Slayer, deferring to Tusk-anini as the most experienced legionnaire present.

"I don't know," said Tusk-anini. "Looks undangerous, but who knowing? I go back to Comm Central soon and see if sensors pick up anything. Armstrong is OD tonight-is the one who ought to decide whether to look closer or not."

"Yeah, I guess so," said Slayer, clearly relieved that he wasn't going to be sent out in the desert to investigate-at least not yet.

Tusk-anini thought a moment more, then said, "Whatever Armstrong say, tomorrow I ask Qual if any animal on Zenobia acts like that. He going to know, if anybody do."

"Good idea," said Rube, nodding. "You want me to come along when you tell Armstrong?"

"Sure, nobody attacking camp," said Tusk-anini. "I go back on duty-you come now." But when the two legionnaires described what they had seen to Lieutenant Armstrong, he emphatically denied that the Comm Center's instruments had detected any activity in the desert.

"I'm glad you spotted this," the lieutenant said. "I'm not sure what to make of it. I'll twiddle with the instruments and see if there's any signal on some energy band I haven't been monitoring. You keep an eye on those lights, Rube, and if you see anything that looks like a threat to the camp, sound the alarm right away. But for now, my gut instinct is to watch it and wait. If anything changes, let me know right away, and I'll decide whether or not to wake up the captain. Until then, keep a sharp lookout and be ready to respond."

"Yes, sir," said Rube, and he returned to guard duty. But whatever the lights were, they turned out to be undetectable on the base's electronic sensors-and after an hour or so, even the Gambolt reported that they had gone away.

Several parsecs distant, at the Legion's Hickman Training Center on Mussina's World, four dozen raw recruits waited anxiously in their bunkhouse. Just as some of them had begun to gripe that the threatened inspection was another ploy to cheat them out of a night's sleep, the barracks room door burst open. "TENN-HUT!' bellowed Sergeant Pitbull. "GENERAL BLITZKRIEG WILL NOW INSPECT THE BARRACKS!" he added, unnecessarily, as General Blitzkrieg blustered into the bunkroom. He was followed by a female human major bearing a clipboard and a bored expression. The recruits, forewarned, were all lined up at the foot of their bunks, wearing their best uniforms and trying" (for the most part without success) to conceal their nervousness.

Nothing resembling a senior officer had ever deigned to appear on the post during their brief time as legionnaires. Even the colonel who nominally commanded Hickman Training Center might as well have been on another planet entirely-the recruits weren't even sure whether their post commandant was male, female, or even human.

On the other hand, there was no doubt at all that General Blitzkrieg was human. Thumper had sniffed him out even before he'd entered the barracks. Thumper had grown up on a planet with a high enough human population that he knew the race well, and was even fond of a fair number of the sophonts from Earth. But he also came from a race with a highly developed sense of smell, and he knew the odor of humans well. Especially human males who ate meat, smoked tobacco, drank distilled alcohol, and sloshed their faces and armpits with aromatic concoctions as part of their morning ablutions. No question at all, General Blitzkrieg was one of those humans. He entered with a scowl that had been known to make strong legionnaires quake in their boots. That, in fact, was its main purpose, and on most of the recruits it worked quite well.

But as much as Thumper thought he knew about humans, he had learned very little about human psychology, and so the little Lepoid had no clue that the general might want to scare him. I've done- my job right, so he can't find fault with me, thought Thumper. He stood at perfect attention, his uniform immaculate, his bunk made with exacting care to every detail. In fact, Thumper's bunk was even more perfectly made than the sample illustration of a correctly made bunk in the Legion Drill Instructor's Manual. His trunk was equally a paragon of exactness. Whatever else the general might find wrong with this recruit company-and Sergeant Pitbull had made it clear that he didn't expect much to be right-there wasn't going to be anything for him to criticize about Thumper.

Sergeant Pitbull had his mouth open, ready to issue another order, when someone hissed, "Now!" and all hell broke loose. As Thumper tried to turn his head to see who had spoken, the lights went out, and he heard the sound of several pairs of running feet. There was an incoherent roar from the front of the room, about where General Blitzkrieg stood, then someone rushed up to Thumper and put something into his hand. "Hold this!" they whispered, and before he could say a word, he found. himself holding something. Even as he realized it was some kind of bucket, and that the outside of the bucket was dripping something wet on his uniform pants, the lights came back on.

Even then Thumper didn't quite realize what kind of trouble he was in. Granted, the sight of General Blitzkrieg splattered head to toe with some sort of brownish sludge, foul-smelling brownish sludge, Thumper immediately realized-was the first thing that drew his attention. The next thing was the row of wet footprints and drips leading away from the general-toward where Thumper stood.

Only then did he recognize that the same foul smell that emanated from the general was also coming from the bucket he was holding. And, most curious of all, the sludge, covered footprints stopped right at his feet.

"WHAT THE FARKING HELL IS GOING ON HERE?" roared Sergeant Pitbull, instead of whatever else he had been about to roar when the lights went out. Then he saw the general, and his eyes grew to the size of dinner plates. "Oh, golly," he said, in a voice the recruits had to strain to hear-the first time in Thumper's memory that one of Pitbull's statements hadn't threatened to shatter his highly sensitive eardrums.

By now, every sophont in the room had managed to grasp that something dreadfully wrong had happened that fact was probably within the intellectual grasp of the pea-sized AI that regulated the water level in the toilets.

Likewise, even the dullest-witted recruit's eyes had managed to trace the damning chain of evidence that led from the general's ruined dress uniform to the odoriferous bucket in Thumper's hands. In fact, it slowly dawned on Thumper that every eye in the barracks was staring directly at him.

"I didn't do it," he managed to sputter as Sergeant Pitbull advanced toward him, mayhem in his eyes. But by then it was way too late.