"All right, people, this is the Legion. Let's see something I could mistake for a formation," said Brandy, resignedly. She flipped through papers on a clipboard as the squad lined up, with only a minimum of grumbling.

Thumper took a -place in the middle of three rows, toward one end, waiting to see what would happen. He'd been in formations before, and had learned not to be either too eager to catch the leader's attention or too obviously trying to escape it.

When everyone was more or less in place, Brandy looked up, and said, "We don't usually do roll call-I know all of you by now. But we've got a new guy today, and I think it'd be a good idea to call roll until he gets an idea who everybody else is, and you get to know who he is. So sound off when I call your names-you've all done this before, so don't make things any -harder than they've gotta be."

"Sergeant, I have a question," said Mahatma, raising his !mid in the front row.

Brandy rolled her eyes. "Gimme a break, Mahatma! Can't it wait until after roll call? I'd like to get through at least that much before the philosophical seminar for the day."

"But I just want to know how hard things have got to x," said Mahatma. "Do Legion regulations specify the degree of difficulty of roll call?"

"As a matter of fact, they do," growled Brandy. "They Say you're supposed to answer when I call your name, unless you aren't here, in which case I mark you absent. Is ;hat hard enough for you?"

"Maybe not for him, but it's a real challenge for some of these grunts," came a voice from the back of the formation.

Brandy glared. "Shut up; Roadkill," she barked. Then, after a pause, she added, "Haven't you feebs figured out I know your voices by now? OK, come on, let's hear a nice clear answer when I call your names. Brick?"

"Here, Sergeant," said a thin human female just in front of Thumper. Brandy put a mark on her pad and continued. "Cheap-sho?"

"Yo!" said another voice from the ranks.

Brandy dropped the hand with the clipboard to her side and glowered. "Look here, Cheapshot, we're trying to show Thumper how we do things in Omega Company.

How many times have I told you not to answer 'Yo' when I call the roll?"

"Bunch of times, Sarge," said Cheapshot. "Never convinced me, though. You wanna show the new guy how we do things in Omega, you gotta include the bad with the good, right?"

"Cheapshot makin' sense," said another voice, and Thumper could hear still others murmuring their agreement.

Then Brandy said, "Shut up!" and the murmurs stopped.

"OK," she said, "maybe you've got a point, Cheap shot. I'll agree that there's a lot of good things about the Omega way, but this is one of those times when I just want the good old Legion way. Believe me, there'll come a time when you'll thank me for this."

"If we thank you now, will you stop?" said another voice from the ranks.

"SHUT UP!" said Brandy, before the murmurs could get started. "If you just want to screw things up, I can make you stand here all day and never get to the fun stuff. I was gonna take you out to the obstacle course today, so Thumper can get a look at how Omega runs it." Suddenly the entire formation fell silent, and Thumper could see the spines of his fellow legionnaires straighten as they came to attention in a way they'd only hinted at before. Even Cheapshot stood up straighter, and said, "I meant, Here, Sergeant!"

"That's a lot better," said Brandy, bringing up the clipboard and checking off the legionnaire's name. "Dukes?" The rest of the roll call went so smoothly that even Thumper was impressed. What was it about the obstacle course that had such influence over Omega Company?

Whatever it was, he was about to find out...

Qual and his squad of Zenobians were out in the central compound of Zenobia Base again, busy at work as Sushi walked up to them. "Hey, what's new, Qual?" he said, waving to the Zenobian Flight Leftenant.

Qual looked up from the piece of equipment he and his crew were working on. It was apparently called the Sklern. At least, that was what Qual had told Sushi it was. But after hearing Qual explain how no two Zenobians spoke their language in exactly the same way, Sushi wasn't sure he could assume that the words Qual told him for local objects had any universal validity for other Zenobians. The explanation still didn't quite make sense to him. But today, he had other things to think about, in particular Rev's quest for the mysterious 'L'VlZ.

"Oh ho, welcome, Rawfish!" said Qual. "All goes rippingly with us today, our alignments are exemplary!"

"Uh... triff," said Sushi. Then, recognizing an apparent opening, he went on, "Really interesting machine you guys have here. What does it do?"

Qual's face assumed what Sushi took to be a serious expression. "Much of what it does is organized," the Zenobian officer said.

It took Sushi a moment to make the mental connection between the translator's wording and Qual's probable meaning. "Oh, I didn't mean to pry into military secrets," he said. "Just curious about the apparatus, y'know."

"Oh, no offense received," said Qual, calmly. "In fact, I will tell you as much as I am permitted. The sklem-the meaning of the name is of course obvious-is in essence merely a triaxial projector of nonrandomized heebijeebis. As you can undoubtedly see, it is of considerably higher power than such units produced for the consumer market."

"Right," said Sushi, little wiser than before. He thought he grasped at least one point, though. "So this is basically the latest milspec version of one of your standard bits of hardware."

"Outstanding, Rawfish!" said Qual, slapping Sushi on the lower back. "Your intellectual capacity is, as usual, of the highest grade."

"Er,.thanks, Qual," said Sushi. He didn't think he knew much more than before he'd asked, but maybe if he mulled over Qual's answer he'd come up with something. Meanwhile. .. "I've got a favor to ask you guys;" he said.

"We're still trying to figure out how to adjust these translators to give the best results so you guys can understand us and vice versa."

"That is hardly mandatory," said Qual. "Misunderstanding is a fact of life. If you were a Zenobian, you would accept it as it is."

"Maybe," said Sushi. "But as it happens, I'm a human, and an inquisitive one at that. So I can't help tinkering with stuff that doesn't work quite the way it ought to. Here's what I'd like to do." He pulled a small rectangular black object out of his pocket. "This is a minirecorder I'd like you guys to turn on while you're talking about things. It'll give us a good sample of your normal conversation, with three or four of you talking at once, and then we can analyze it for common patterns. Is that OK?" Qual looked at the minirecorder with lidded eyes, then turned to his crew and spoke a few sentences. They replied, and a brief conversation ensued.

"We will do it," said Qual. "But only if you show me how to turn it off. I hope you understand me, Rawfish, my friend-sometimes we need to talk about things we do not want others to hear." Sushi nodded. "Sure, I know what you mean. Even friends need privacy once in a while. See this red switch? Slide it to the left-toward this red LED-and it's off, back to the right, and it's on." Qual took the device and slid the switch back and forth, then asked, "There should also. be some way we can resolve what it has recorded, and remove it if by mischance we have forgotten it was working while we talked."

"Yeah," said Sushi. "This is the playback switch, and this is the erase button. Let me show you..." A few minutes later, with Qual and his crew satisfied they knew the workings of the recorder, Sushi said his good-byes to the Zenobians and walked back to report to Rev. Rev and Do- Wop looked up at him as he entered the room. "They took it," he said.