"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."