Free No Phule Like An Old Phule by Robert & Heck Asprin Page B

I think we’d best head back to camp. Inspector Snieff…”
    “Chief Inspector Snieff, thank you,” said the woman.
    “Yes, of course, Chief Inspector,” said Phule. “If there’s anything you need from my people, please let me know. We’ll be happy to cooperate.”
    “I certainly hope so,” said Chief Inspector Snieff. “The law provides very hefty penalties for obstruction of an environmental inspection.”
    “We don’t have anything to hide,” said Phule. “You’ll see when you arrive at our guest quarters…” .
    “Oh, no,” said Snieff. “Regulations prohibit us from accepting accommodations with a suspected violator. We’ll be setting up our own camp, Captain. I think you’ll find it an instructive example of a minimal-impact inhabitation. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to finish unloading.“
    “Of course,” said Phule.
    “Excuse me, ma’am,” came Gears’s voice. “If you’ll just call off your dog…” Snieff ignored him as she plastered a bright orange sticker to the door of the hoverjeep. It said in block letters, “IMPOUNDED FOR POLLUTION.”

    “Woof!” said Barky, the Environmental Dog. “Woof woof, woof woof woof!”
    Legion boot camp was like nothing Thumper (as Zigger now called himself) had ever seen before. For one thing, the population was predominantly made up of humans although there were enough members of other species to keep him from feeling completely outnumbered. He was the only Lepoid on the base, though, at least the only one he’d seen in his bewilderingly rapid trip through the initial processing area.
    That had been an experience he’d just as soon forget.
    Luckily, it had gone quickly enough that it seemed to be over almost before it started. But not before he’d been poked and prodded by doctors, and the autodoc had jabbed his arm with at least a dozen inoculations for diseases the Legion thought his race might be susceptible to on distant planets. (The doctors had spent a good half hour looking him up on the base’s medical expert system before deciding which inoculations he was likely to need and which were likely to be more danger than help. He’d still been woozy most of the next day-maybe a reaction to the shots, maybe something else.) All the humans were given ultrashort regulation haircuts. Being of a short-furred species, Thumper was spared that indignity, at least. But he was issued a black Legion jumpsuit at least three sizes too large, and combat boots that no imaginable breaking-in would ever make comfortable for his elongated feet. He was all ready to protest this treatment, but he realized that none of the other new recruits’ uniforms were the right size, either. Half an hour of searching and trading found him a jumpsuit that fit him better, and his was the almost right size for another recruit… a lanky, bespectacled human who had adopted the Legion name “Spider.” Nobody in the outfit had a pair of boots that fit Thumper. Since appearing without boots was defined as being out of uniform, a serious offense against Legion discipline, that was going to be a problem.
    But Thumper had plenty of other problems to distract him from the boots. Prime among these was his drill instructor, Sergeant Pitbull, who seemed to be of primarily human origin, although there were whispers that he was at least part something else. Exactly what that something else might be, none of the recruits was willing to say-at least not where the sergeant might hear it, which was apparently everywhere in the barracks. At least, the sergeant had an uncanny ability to storm into a room immediately after one of the recruits had said something mildly critical of Legion discipline and to chew out the offender in terms none of them had dreamed of before they had joined the Legion.
    It was on their third night of training that Thumper and his new comrades simultaneously realized that the Legion recruiters had actually told them the truth about one thing: Legion