Robert Asprin - No Phule Like an Old Phule

"That's the kind of stuff I like," said Asho. "What do y'all play?"

"Dealer's choice," said Harry. "Mostly pretty tame stuff like Anaconda or Hold 'Em. Every now and then something a bit funkier, like Aldebaran, or Texas Chainsaw..."

"So if a fella came in with a different game he didn't mind explainin' the rules, you wouldn't have a problem with that?"

"Oh, no, not at all," said Chocolate Harry, grinning. "Why don't I see how many of the boys I can scare up. Would tomorrow night be cool?"

"Very cool," said L. P. Asho, with a predatory grin.

Chocolate Harry grinned right back at him then revved the hover cycle and roared back toward the Legion base.

After a few moments, Euston O'Better came out of one of the tents. "What the hell was that noise?" he asked.

"Legion sergeant invitin' us to play poker," said Asho.

"Poker?" O'Better frowned. "Hey, I came here for the hunting, not cards."

"Sonny, this is the best kind of hunting there is," said Asho. "Sucker hunting-and I think I just found me a big one." He rubbed his hands together and smiled-a very nasty smile.

First Sergeant Brandy hadn't seen the AEIOU team arrive, nor had she watched the hunters' shuttle landing, out in the desert. She'd been too busy with her squad of new legionnaires-none of them raw recruits anymore, but most of them still unseasoned, by her lights. This morning's training exercise had gone all haywire, and now she had to figure out how to make it- work tomorrow morning. It had started out simply enough: she'd broken the squad into two groups, then sent one of them into the desert to prepare an ambush and, after a decent interval, sent the other to try to find them without falling into the ambush. The spirit of competition should have spurred them to do their best, and in the process, both groups should have learned a good bit about the terrain around the camp and how to operate in it. Except the first group had gotten lost right away, in spite of its maps and instruments. That wouldn't have been all that bad, if they'd just chosen a more or less suitable site, set up some kind of position, and waited to ambush the second team when it came to find them. No such chance. Instead, Roadkill had gotten into a discussion with Brick about which way they were originally supposed to go, and most of the rest of the squad had taken sides with one or the other. Meanwhile, the other squad, which admittedly had the somewhat tougher job of finding the first, got itself lost even more thoroughly than the first. When Brandy had finally gotten annoyed and sent out a search party, she'd found the second team trudging through the desert-in an almost perfect circle around the first party.

In fact, the only thing both squads had done according to orders was to maintain comm silence so as not to alert the "opponents" of their position. And, since nobody had kept an eye on the emergency comm frequency, both groups were utterly unaware that Brandy had been trying to recall them for several hours before she'd given up and sent out the search party. Which, to her utter annoyance, had promptly gotten itself lost. It had taken most of the afternoon to finally get everybody found and back on base-luckily with no injuries worse than sunburn. And all this while the captain was entertaining the AEIOU team; which was snooping around the base looking for reasons to find Omega Company guilty of environmental offenses (with Barky ready to attack suspected polluters), and while trying to keep the AEIOU team from noticing the party of bigwig big-game hunters that had landed just south of camp and apparently insisted on instant VIP treatment. All this was enough to turn Brandy's mind, yet again, toward the prospect of an early retirement... and maybe, this time, Captain Jester wouldn't manage to sweet-talk her out of it. So Brandy wasn't really paying attention when an unfamiliar sophont in a Legion uniform came up to her, dropped a duffel bag, came to attention, and saluted. "Legionnaire Thumper reporting for duty, Sergeant!" it said.

Brandy looked up from the Training Progress Report she'd been in the process of deciding how to fill out. The new arrival was about a meter and, a half tall, dressed in regulation Legion black (although a good bit less stylish than the standard Omega Mob version of the uniform), and had long ears, big eyes, and a ridiculously cute wiggly pink nose. She stared for a moment, then blurted out, "Where the hell did you come from?" The legionnaire looked puzzled.

"Uh, do you mean originally, Sergeant, or just now?" Its voice was high and squeaky, though not unpleasant. And it didn't use a translator.

Brandy shook her head. "Radicate that," she said. She thought back a second and retrieved the new " legionnaire's name from memory. "Thumper, what I mean is, what are you doing here? Nobody told us there were any new troops coming."

"Sergeant, as far as I know I'm the only new member sent to this company," said Thumper. "I came with the hunting party that just landed. I understand they owed someone important a favor..."

"Huh," said Brandy. "And that meant giving you a ride. What makes you important enough to get a trip on a civilian space yacht?"

"Uh, I think it's because I got in trouble with a general," I said Thumper. He went on to tell a complex, but predictable story of showing up his buddies in basic training and being made the scapegoat for a practical joke on General Blitzkrieg. At the end, he said, "But I think maybe somebody thinks I'm all right, after all-my drill instructor said Omega Company is really one of the best in the Legion."

"The best, Legionnaire," said Brandy, proudly. She set her paperwork aside and stood up. "You are now a member of the best company in the Space Legion, and you better not forget it. But why don't you pick up that bag and follow me? I know where there's a vacant bunk. Then we can start showing you how things work in Omega. We do things a little differently around here. .." She stalked off toward an entrance to the modular base, with the new recruit close behind her. Hope sprang eternal. Maybe this one would be able to go out in the desert without getting lost...

Sushi toyed with his drink, then said, "Have you ever seen written Chinese?"

"Can't say that I have, son," said Rev. "Thought that was some kind of food, to tell you the truth."

Sushi managed not to roll his eyes. "The Chinese were an Old Earth people who spoke like seven or eight different languages," he said. "Mandarin, Cantonese, a bunch of others you don't need to know the names of..."

"Why not?" said Do-Wop, with an evil grin. "I bet you don't even know'em all" Sushi shot Do-Wop a withering glance. "Will you give a guy a break when he's trying to explain something? I think you've been hanging out with Mahatma."

"Hey, you know me, Soosh," said Do-Wop. "Ever eager for knowledge..."

"Yeah, because you've got none of it to spare," answered Sushi.

"All right, fellas, you're strayin' from the point," said Rev, raising his palm to stop them. "What were you sayin', Sushi ?"

"Anyhow, they spoke all these languages, and speaking one didn't give you more than a guess at understanding the others. But they were all written the same way. The written symbols represented the meaning of the words, not their sound, so a Mandarin speaker could pretty much read a document written by a Cantonese speaker, even if he couldn't understand the spoken language. It's sort of the opposite of the old-time European languages, where a reader could get a rough idea how a message in another language would sound, even if he didn't know what it means."

"Weird," said Do-Wop. "Why'd they do a stupid thing like that, Soosh?"

"Actually, it's not that stupid if you have a big empire with several different spoken languages," said Sushi, shrugging. "That gives you two choices-either make everybody learn one common spoken language, the way the Romans did, or have one common written language, the Chinese way."