No Phule Like an Old Phule

by Robert Asprin

  "Yeah, I saw him pretty near knock down two white haired little old ladies who tried to horn in on a machine he'd been priming," said Doc. "He's got the Fever, all right."

  "Well, he's a grown man," said Bascomb. "And 1 guess he can afford to lose a few bucks. Hell, I doubt we could put a serious dent in his bankroll if we set up a row of thousand-dollar-a-'pull machines. That doesn't mean I'm not tempted, though..."

  "Nab, what's the point? At that price, nobody but Victor Phule could ever afford to play 'em," said Doc. "And what would the payouts have to be...?"

  "High enough to make a billionaire's palms sweaty," said Bascomb. "Right now, I think he's just playing on principle-he thinks the payouts are too generous, and he's trying to prove the point. To really get him hooked, we'd need to offer something big-even a million bucks is probably small potatoes, when you're talking about someone who's used to supplying armaments to entire planets." Doc rubbed his chin and leaned forward to point at Victor Phule's image on the security monitor. "What if we did set up a bank of machines for nobody but Pop Phule to play? Offer him a jackpot that'll make even his mouth water-title to the whole darn casino, for example-but at impossibly long odds. Once he's thrown enough tokens down the slot, then he'll have to admit that we aren't giving away money."

  "You've got an evil mind," said Bascomb, chuckling.

  "Only one problem I can see with it. We don't own the casino-Omega Company does, and we can't offer a prize we aren't able to deliver if somebody does win it. Not even on Lorelei, where the house rules and the laws of the land are pretty damn close to one and the same."

  "So we make the odds so impossible that he can't possibly win, is all," Doc insisted. "Let's say he's got to get five simultaneous jackpots on five different machines... or some other combination that only comes up once in a trillion times."

  Bascomb shook his head. "It's tempting, you know, Doc? But we can't do anything as screwy as that without getting the captain to sign off on it. I don't care if we would be setting those crooked slots to teach his father a lesson-bad business is bad business, even when you keep it in the family."

  "I guess you're right," said Doc.

  "In fact, has anybody gotten in touch with Captain Jester? He'd want us to tell him that his father's here, I'm pretty sure of that."

  "I got his OK before showing the old man the books," said Bascomb, snapping his fingers. "But this is a new wrinkle, and I'm not sure whether he'd go along with it. Guess the only thing to do is get him on the horn and ask."

  "Right," said Doc. He pressed one of the studs on his wrist chronometer and nodded. "It's midafternoon at Zenobia Base, so he's likely to be in reach of a vidphone. Do you want to call him, or shall I? Or shall we just send a priority message and let him get back to us?"

  "Seeing that it's during his business hours, I think we better tell him this in person," said Bascomb. "And since I'm in charge of the gambling end of the business, I guess I ought to be the one to make the call. You want to talk to him, too? He might have a few questions you can answer as well as I can."

  "Sure, why not?" said Doc. He waved a hand in the direction of the monitor. "One good thing-our main problem's not going anywhere. Except maybe to the cashier's window for another batch of tokens."

  "Let's hope he makes that particular trip a lot of times," said Bascomb, with a thin smile. He gestured toward a door, and the two men went to the office to place a call to Captain Jester.

  "YOU FARKING SLUGS DISGUST ME!" roared a voice that seemed far too loud for an ordinary human's vocal apparatus. Thumper jerked his eyes open, awaking from the utterly exhausted sleep he'd been in a fraction of a second before. He automatically checked the time: Five in the morning. The drill instructor, Sergeant Pitbull, was right on time, fully dressed and ready to eat raw recruits for breakfast. Thumper had last seen him only six hours before, when he'd put the squad of new legionnaires to bed with threats and curses.

  Thumper still hadn't figured out how the drill instructor managed to stay alert and fit on what must be even less rest than the recruits were getting, but he'd come to take it for granted. Every task he demanded of the recruits-including some that at first had seemed impossible-Sergeant Pitbull could perform better than any of them, despite being at least ten years older. Even Thumper, who had already learned that he was in better physical condition than almost all his fellow recruits, couldn't beat the sergeant in any direct competition-especially in hand-to-hand combat where the sergeant seemed to have a bottomless repertory of dirty tricks. Even in an outright sprint where Thumper was sure he had the advantage, Sergeant Pitbull had somehow managed to make him trip and fall before he got three steps from the start.

  Worst of all, it seemed as if the sergeant was always angry. One night, after lights out, the whispered conversation in the bunkhouse got to the subject of whether anyone could remember hearing a friendly remark pass Pitbull's lips. The closest anyone could come was, "THAT'S RIGHT, WAY TO STOMP HIS WORTHLESS CIVY ASS!" when a hulking recruit named Crunch put Spider in the infirmary with a dislocated shoulder during judo practice. And while Crunch was probably right that the sergeant meant-it as a compliment on his judo technique, most of the other recruits agreed with Spider's heated protestation that congratulating one of the recruits for injuring another wasn't his idea of a "friendly word." Then Sergeant Pitbull slammed the door open and bellowed, "SHUT UP, YOU STINKING BUGS!" (He seemed never to have learned to speak softly.) In the utter silence that followed this remark, he continued, "WHEN I TURN THE LIGHTS OUT, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO FARKING SLEEP, NOT YAMMER LIKE A BUNCH OF SCHOOLGIRLS! THERE'LL BE PUNISHMENT DETAIL FOR THE WHOLE FARKING SQUAD!" After that, even Crunch conceded the point. Pitbull had been as good as his word-next morning, there were a hundred extra push-ups for everyone.

  But this was another morning, which meant another chance for Pitbull to deal out arbitrary punishment.

  Thumper and all his buddies scrambled out of their bunks and came to attention. There was just a glimmer of a chance that today they might manage to avoid extra pushups or some other equally unpleasant task. Not much of a chance, but Thumper had gotten in the habit of grasping at even minuscule chances. Along the way, he'd gotten much better at push-ups than he'd ever imagined being. It wasn't what he'd seen himself doing when he'd dreamed of joining the Legion, but if his experience so far was any indication, push-ups were a significant component of Legion life.

  "LISTEN UP, YOU FILTHY SKIME-EATERS," roared Sergeant Pitbull. Thumper wasn't sure what a skime was, but after hearing the sergeant, he knew he didn't want to eat one. Or maybe it was a filthy one he didn't want to eat... He had only a brief moment to meditate on that question, as the sergeant continued with his high-volume harangue. "TODAY WE'RE GOING OUT TO THE OBSTACLE COURSE," the sergeant boomed. "THAT'S WHERE WE SEPARATE THE REAL LEGIONNAIRES ..

  FROM THE FARKING WEAK-SIBLING CIVVIES. DO YOU BUGS WANT TO BE REAL LEGIONNAIRES?"

  "YES, SERGEANT PITBULL!" the squad shouted in chorus. They'd long since learned that any less enthusiastic response would be greeted with scorn. Privately Thumper wondered whether Sergeant Pitbull might have stood too close to an explosion at some point in his earlier career, damaging his ears in the process. If he were partly deaf, that would explain a lot... but no, the autodocs could fix that...

  "FOLLOW ME, YOU BUGS!" said the sergeant, and he set off at a flat-out run--the only speed at which a Legion recruit was allowed to move. Luckily for Thumper, he could outrun everyone in the squad without particularly trying. It was one of the minor advantages of being a Lepoid. He hadn't found very many of them here in the Legion, so he had acquired a finer appreciation for the ones he'd found.

  Running easily, he stayed just behind the sergeant until the squad arrived-many of them huffing and puffing despite several weeks of rigorous exercise-at the obstacle course.

  In front of him, Thumper saw a tract of land that would probably feel flattered to be described as "ruined." Or even "devastated." It was a mud-filled morass with c
raters and chunks of broken stone wall or the jagged stumps of trees at seemingly random intervals. The few open stretches were strewn with skeins of ugly-looking barbed wire laid parallel to the ground. Here and there were wide waterfilled ditches and eight-foot wooden walls. At the far side Thumper could make out sandbagged bunkers, from which the muzzles of machine guns protruded.

  "LISTEN UP, YOU BUGS," explained Sergeant Pitbull.

  "THIS HERE IS WHAT WE CALL A STIMULATED BATTLEFIELD, WHICH IF YOU'RE EVER IN A FARKING SHOOTING WAR YOU'RE GONNA SEE A SHITLOAD OF 'EM. THE DRILL IS, WHEN I BLOW MY WHISTLE, YOU GET TO THE OTHER SIDE AS FAST AS YOU FARKIN' CAN. BUT CHECK THIS OUT THEM SKIME-EATERS WITH THE MACHINE GUNS GONNA SHOOT LIVE FARKIN' AMMO OVER YOUR HEADS, SO YOU BETTER KEEP 'EM THE HELL DOWN. WE LOSE A COUPLE-THREE STUPID-ASS RECRUITS EVERY MONTH ON ACCOUNT OF THEY JUMPED UP AND TRIED TO RUN AWAY"

  Thumper nodded as the sergeant explained the drill. Looking at the course, he could see that the machine guns were limited to a narrow field of fire. Outside that area, the main problem was dodging around the craters and rubble, but if one didn't mind a bit of mud, there was no reason to go at less than full speed. After all, the sergeant had said that the point of the exercise was to get to the other side as quickly as possible.

  So when the sergeant blew his whistle, Thumper was off and running...

  Phule stared blankly at the sheaf of papers that had just landed on his desk. "What's all this?" he asked in an annoyed voice. It was obviously not the promotion papers he'd been expecting from Legion Headquarters.

  "Environmental impact forms from those AEIOU guys," said Roadkill, one of the two legionnaires who'd carried in the mountain of paperwork.

  "That Chief Inspector Snieff brought it over in some kind of wheelbarrow.

  Street and I just happened to be the first legionnaires she saw, and she took that as a license to order us around."

  "Order you around?" Lieutenant Armstrong looked up from the adjacent desk, where he was filling out work assignment forms. "I think I'm going to have to talk to her myself. I've been trying to get some of you rascals to follow orders ever since I became an officer in this outfit, with little or no sign that I'm getting anywhere."

  "Jeez, some thanks we get for being good legionnaires," grumbled Street. "I'd have given her a piece of my mind, if she hadn't had that stupid dog with her. That ugly mutt looked at me as if it was gonna take a bite out of my tail end."

  "Barky, the Environmental Dog?" asked Phule. "He seemed pretty harmless to me."

  "I think he thought Street was a polluter," said Roadkill, deadpan. "Or maybe a litterer-it's hard to tell what that dog thinks when all he'll say is 'woof!'"

  "Stupid mutt can't prove nothing on me:" said Street, scowling.

  "Are you saying that because you haven't done anything, or because you think you've covered up your tracks?" said Armstrong, raising one eyebrow just a fraction. He pointed at the two legionnaires, and added, "Don't be too sure Barky can't sniff you out, if you've been polluting."

  "I already told ya, I ain't done nothin'." said Street. He stared at the floor, squirming as if one of his schoolteachers had called on him to recite a lesson he hadn't studied.

  "It's all right, Street, nobody suspects you of anything." said Phule. Then, remembering to whom he was speaking, he hastily added, "Not this time, anyway."

  "Yeah, I was just joking," said Roadkill, punching his buddy on the biceps. "But we'd better get back to that job we were doing, before somebody notices we're gone then we might really get in trouble."

  "Just tell them you were bringing me something," said Phule. "And thanks-I think." He looked at the pile of papers, and his expression was anything but thankful. But Roadkill and Street were already out the door.

  Phule picked up the top sheet of one of the piles of papers and began to read it, but before he'd gotten more than a couple of lines, his wrist communicator buzzed.

  "Yes, what is it, Mother?" he said, holding the device closer to his mouth and ear.

  "Priority call from Lorelei, you silly thing," said Mother's teasing voice. "You must be an even bigger man than you look."

  "Lorelei? Put them right through," said Phule. He wondered what was urgent enough for the team he'd left to run the place to call him about. Among them, there weren't many things he didn't think they could handle. He wouldn't have left the place in their hands if he'd believed otherwise.

  "Tullie Bascomb here, Captain." came the familiar voice. "We've got-well, not really a problem, but a situation Doc and I think you need to know about."

  "Go ahead, Tullie," said Phule. "Is it my father again?"

  "Yeah, he's still being a pain in the butt," said Bascomb. "It was bad enough that he wanted to go over the casino's books...".

  "You showed them to him, didn't you?" asked Phule.

  "Sure, after you told me it was all right," said Bascomb.

  "For a while I was worried he might really find something to raise a stink about, but I guess he didn't. But then he decided to stick his nose into the gambling operation."

  "That's hardly in character," said Phule, rubbing his chin speculatively. "I never knew him to have any interest in gambling. Where is he now?"

  "Playing quantum slots," said Bascomb. "Somehow, he got the idea our jackpots were too big. We tried to tell him about the odds, but he didn't want to listen. So now he's trying to win a big one to prove we're wrong."

  Phule chuckled. "Tullie, if my father's determined to throwaway his ill-gotten fortune one token at a time, I'm not about to do anything to stop him. It's just that much more for the Company's retirement fund."

  "Well, I'm glad you feel that way about it, Captain," said Tollie. There was a definite note of relief in his voice. "In that case, would you have any problem if we cooked up a way to get even more of his money out of his pockets?"

  "Not in principle, I guess," said Phule. "What exactly did you have in mind?"

  "Doc came up with the idea of adjusting some of the slots to take really big bets-up to a thousand bucks a pull," said Bascomb. "We'd advertise a monster jackpot, but set the odds so long nobody'd have the ghost of a chance to collect on it. What do you think?"

  "I don't see why not," said Phule. He chuckled, then continued, "At a thousand dollars a pull, I doubt anyone but Papa will ever be able to afford to play. And 1 have no compunction whatsoever about taking his money for my troops. Go ahead, and let me know how much he loses before he gives up."

  "You got it, Captain," said Bascomb, and closed the connection.

  Phule stared for a moment at the wall across from his desk. His father's antics shouldn't really have surprised him, he supposed-it was typical of the old fellow to show up unannounced and try to take charge. But, as usual, he seemed to have come up with a new twist He shook his head. There weren't many people in the galaxy who seemed more out of place in a casino than the old man not that his father would ever let something like that stop him. Well, it was about time somebody taught Victor Phule a lesson. And he couldn't think of anyone who could better afford to pay the tuition. He sighed, then picked up the top sheet on the pile the two legionnaires had brought in, and began reading.

  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..."