But where to begin? Qual had implied that Zenobians were not comfortable speaking of such things to outsiders. That meant that Rev would need to take some sort of indirect approach. Did the little reptiles have sacred texts he might access somehow? Their libraries must have the information he wanted-but so, far they had not linked their data to the Alliance's interplanetary UniNet. Doubtless there were technicians who could make the connection unilaterally and find what Rev wanted. But where was he going to get a tech wizard with that level of expertise, and how was he going to pay him?"

Rev stood up from his desk. He paced over to his office window and stared out onto the Legion camp's parade ground, thinking. The King had always said that no problem was too difficult to tackle-if the highest mountain stood between him and his goal, he would just climb it. All Rev needed to do was put his mind to it. There had to be a way. There had to be a way...

Zigger had never been aboard a space liner before. In fact, as far as he knew, nobody in his whole family had ever left their home world-not before he had decided to realize his ambition to join the Space Legion. The experience was considerably less dramatic than he had expected.

For one thing, the spaceport had apparently been designed with the idea of giving travelers as forgettable an experience as possible. The furniture, the decor, the sights and sounds and smells, everything might as well have been designed to linger just below the threshold of annoyance, without ever breaking out into anything that evoked a specific response.

And the ship itself-it might as well have been a crosstown hoverbus, for all the passengers' awareness of being in deep space. Zigger found himself in one of a row of identical seats in the main cabin, unless he preferred to stay in his spartan bunk in the dormitory-like sleeping area. The Space Legion, for all its attempt to woo its new recruits, had made it perfectly clear that it was not going to pay for anything more than the basic intersystem fare from the Lepoid's home world to the nearest Legion training camp. That meant a steerage-class ticket, with a very strict weight allowance for personal belongings. "Don't you worry about extra clothes," the recruiting sergeant had told him when he handed him the ticket. "You'll be wearing Legion black before long."

Zigger would have liked to have at least a view screen in the cabin so he could watch the stars outside, even though he knew that hyperspace travel wildly distorted the appearance of everything outside the ship. Supposedly there was a view screen in the first-class lounge. Zigger was tempted to sneak up and take a look for himself, but he couldn't figure out how to get past the heavy plasteel doors firmly protecting the People Who Mattered from curious Legion recruits and other such rabble. The population in steerage did seem to have a particularly high proportion of nonhuman sophonts, Zigger thought. Well, where he was going, that would be different.

Meanwhile, there was nothing else to do but sit in the main cabin and view his Poot-Poot Brothers tri-vees. They were almost the only reminders of his youth that he hadn't been prepared to leave behind as he embarked on his new life. His broad-jump medals, his talking ukelele, the lucky eighter he'd found on the street the day he'd won the math contest-even the favorite winter hat he'd worn until his mother had to mend the earholes three times: All were left behind. Even if he'd been sentimental about those artifacts, the exorbitant charges for overweight luggage would have changed his mind quickly enough.

But the spaceline provided cheap tri-vee viewers for its passengers, and a reasonable library of current hits and all time favorites, knowing full well that it offered little enough else to keep them from going slowly nuts in the long stretches between stars. And tri-vees took up almost no weight or space. So Zigger's old friends, the Poot-Poot brothers, came along-and so did Oncle Poot-Poot and Mam'selle Toni and all the other series regulars.

Zigger was scrolling through one of the early episodes, "Oncle Poot-Poot Meets Barky," when he became aware of someone looking over his shoulder. He turned around to see a human-a young-one, he thought, although he wasn't familiar enough with the species to be entirely be sure of his judgment. "Hey, I hope I'm not bothering you." said the human. "It's just been a long while since I saw a Poot-Poot tri-vee-that stuff's really sly. I loved it when I was a kid.

Especially that one with Barky, the Environmental Dog."

"I still like it," said Zigger. "Are you from Teloon?"

"No, I got on back at Fiano," said the human. "I'm on my way to Mussina's World to join the Space Legion."

"No goofing!" said Zigger. "That's where I'm bound, as well. I guess we're going to be comrades in arms. What's your name?"

"Well, they say that legionnaires don't tell anybody their real names," said the human. "They only go by their Legion names. The only problem is, I haven't decided on mine yet. Have you got one picked out?"

"Sure," said Zigger. He'd been thinking about his Legion name ever since his first decision to enlist. He'd looked into several books about Old Earth, hunting for something with just the right feeling. The answer, when he'd found it, seemed just right. "You can call me 'Thumper,' " he said.

"Thumper. That's pretty sly," said the human. He wrinkled his brow, then confided. "I've been thinking about calling myself 'Sharley' -you think that fits?" Zigger looked the human up and down, then nodded.

"It's you," he said, not quite sure what made him say so.

But it was obviously the right thing to say. "All right!" said Sharley. "Thumper, you and me gotta stick together.

They say the Legion drill sergeants eat recruits for breakfast. Between the two of us, I bet we can keep each other one step ahead of the game. Is it a deal?"

"Sure," said Zigger-no, his name was Thumper now.

Thumper grinned, and said, "I've got a whole bunch of Poot-Poot tri-vees. Come sit next to me and we can watch 'em while we figure out what we want to do now that we're Legion buddies."

"All right," said Sharley again. "Look out, sergeants here we come!"

"Yo, Soosh, c'mere," said Do-Wop, grinning evilly. "I got a swindle that can't lose."

"Right," said Sushi, raising an eyebrow. He'd been listening to Do-Wop' s harebrained schemes ever since Captain Jester had made the two of them partners. Almost without exception, he'd ended up having to talk Do-Wop out of his grandiose plans-most of which had some loophole big enough to drive a space liner through. "What's the plan this time?"

"This one's as solid as neutronium," confided Do-Wop.

"You know how Chocolate Harry runs a big-ass poker game every time he wants some spare cash, which is like every couple-three days?"

"Sure," said Sushi, leaning back on the fender of a cargo carrier. He folded his arms over his chest and looked Do-Wop in the eye. "Don't tell me you're going to fry to cheat the sarge at his own game. It'll never work."

"Nab, this is even sleener," said Do-'Wop. "I'm gonna get up my own game and swindle everybody else."

"Not very likely," said Sushi. "I know you. You lose every time you play poker with C. H., and every other time I've ever seen you play. What makes you think it'll be any different just because you're the one running the game?"

"Because I've been watching the sarge, and I finally figured out how he cheats," said Do-Wop. "It's so evil, I don't know why I didn't think of it myself."

"Really?" Sushi was impressed in spite of himself. If Do-Wop had actually caught the Supply sergeant cheating, he'd done something that had defied the best efforts of the entire company for as long as anyone remembered. "How does he do it?"