"Don't put yourself in a binder, Rawfish," said Qual. "The sklern is not a secret project, or we doubtlessly never would have come to your base to set it up."
"Not a secret?" Phule looked puzzled. "Your crew acted really evasive every time I or one of my people tried to ask what it was and why you were testing it here."
"Oh, I see what the problem was," said Sushi. "It's what I've been telling you about the Zenobian language, Captain. No two Zenobians speak exactly the same way, so our translators -don't work the way they're designed to. With most other sophonts, the differences between one speaker and another are pretty minimal, but if I've understood what Qual says, Zenobians vary all over the chart."
"And if the Zenobian gentleman is so hard to understand, how do you know that you do understand him?" asked Beeker. Everyone ignored him.
Armstrong wrinkled his brow. "You know-this could have security implications, Captain," he said.
"You're right, Armstrong," said Phule. He was grinning, now. "And I think I've got just the way to make use of that phenomenon."
"Make use of it?" Armstrong's eyes opened wide. "How in the world can we make use of an inability to communicate?"
"You're not thinking big enough," said Phule. "Modern industry and business need secure communication. Every businessman in the galaxy would give his eyeteeth for a really secure code. But as Sushi has shown us more than once, modem computers-in the right hands, and with a little bit of time-can break any code that's been devised."
"Well, maybe not everything," said Sushi, shrugging. "But I'd be willing to promise a pretty good success rate against most of the commercial stuff I've run across."
"From what I've seen, I'd rate you a lot better than pretty good," said Phule.
"Yes, Rawfish is a most intelligent human," agreed Qual, wagging his tail.
Phule grinned. "I'm sure he appreciates the endorsement. But here's my point, Sushi-how well would you do with an encrypted signal when the clear text was two Zenobians speaking in their own language?" Sushi looked at Phule a long moment, then said, "It'd slow me down a lot. I mean, in most communication you assume the two sides are speaking the same language, and with two Zenobians that's only mostly true. If you run it through an encryption circuit, on top of all that-I can't say my equipment would never figure it out, but it could sure make things tougher."
"Exactly what I thought," said Phule. He turned to Beeker. "I think we're sitting on a dilithium mine here, Beeks. Remind me to look into it-I've been looking for another high-yield investment, and this just might be it. I'm sure we can figure out ways to structure it to benefit the company, as well."
"Yes, sir," said the butler. "I've already thought of a few useful directions to explore."
"And do I correctly speculate that there will be benefits for the local sophonts, as well?" asked Qual, showing his teeth in a fearsome reptilian grin.
"Absolutely," said Phule. "We can't neglect the people that make the whole thing possible. Besides; I owe you a real debt of thanks-getting those hunters off-planet is going to save me all kinds of headaches."
"It is but a smallness, Captain Clown," said Qual. "When Famous Barky and I learned from Thumper the true purpose behind their excursion, it was much to my pleasure to frighten them away. They scare very easy. I use image of my own egg-mother, exploded fifty diameters and made uglier. She glad to help, but thinks it makes her look fat. Best of all, it provided muchly useful training with the sklern for my subordinates."
Phule chuckled. "I'll bet it did," he said. "And thank your mom for me. Now if we could just figure out some excuse to send a few scary critters over to the AEIOU inspectors' camp..." He was interrupted by the buzz of his communicator.
"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, lifting his wrist to speak. "Yes, Mother, what's the story?"
"Another visitor, sweetie," said Mother. "One of those AEIOU snoops. Shall I have him sit here for a couple of hours?"
"No, as it happens, we were just talking about the inspectors," said Phule. "Why don't you send him in?"
"OK, silly boy," said the saucy voice from his wrist speaker. "But it's your funeral," she concluded, and cut the connection.
"Hello, Captain," said the AEIOU inspector. Phule looked up in surprise. Chief Inspector Snieff had -been the spokesperson for the AEIOU team in all their meetings. But now Inspector Gardner had come to visit. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he said.
"Your whole team's been interrupting things ever since you arrived," muttered Armstrong.
Phule ignored him. "Not really," he said. "What can we do for you, Inspector?"
"Actually, I just came to tell you that we've finished our investigation," said Gardner. "We'll be packing up and leaving as soon as we can get a launch window."
"Finished?" said Beeker. "Excuse me, sir, but you've hardly had enough time to build any kind of case against us."
"Yes," said Phule. "In fact, I was under the distinct feeling that Chief Inspector Snieff was under orders to uncover as many violations as she could."
"Well, given the info we had coming in here, she was ready to shut down the whole camp and sic Barky on anybody who didn't like it," said Gardner. "But when we got a close look at things, it was pretty clear that we weren't going to find anything beyond token violations. You've basically got a clean report, Captain-I'd call that pretty impressive, considering the business you're in. Military bases and good environmental practices aren't often found under the same roof, but I have to admit you've done it."
"Hmff," said Beeker. "Exactly how did you arrive at that conclusion, if I may ask? I must say, it appeared as the chief inspector was determined to see everything in the worst possible light."
"I guess she was," said Gardner. "But she got overruled, and that's that."
"Overruled?" Phule frowned. "I thought she was the leader of the mission."
"Well, Snieff has the title, sure enough," said Gardner, looking a bit embarrassed. "And she can get pretty literal minded about the rules, sometimes. That's not always bad-if we need to shut down a real environmental threat, we need every tool in. the box. When we first arrived here, we were all expecting a major environmental impact case, and the chief had us all fired up about stopping polluters. Like I said, she gets literal-minded. So Barky came here ready to beat up on the bad guys, and that probably had a lot to do with his hostile attitude when he first met everybody. And when one of your guys showed him there wasn't really any problem, it took him a while to adjust... But when push came to shove, it was Barky that called the shots. He can't be wasting his time someplace where there's nothing to be found. He's got his career to think about, after all."
"Career? That pooch?" Armstrong looked at Gardner as if he'd been speaking a particularly obscure dialect of Zenobian. "What career- does he have besides biting legionnaires and chasing anybody who doesn't look sufficiently human?" Inspector Gardner shook his head, wearily.. "Doesn't look sufficiently human? Listen to yourself, Lieutenant. Yes, Barky's genetically a dog; but don't forget-he's a trivee star,- too. And it's not just training-his intelligence measures just above human-average."
Armstrong snorted. "Above average? On what scale?"
"The same one the Legion uses to assign recruits to various specialties," said Gardner. "With the right training, Barky could probably do your job. In fact, he told me he'd like to give the Legion a try some time..."
"Told you?" Armstrong's jaw fell. "You mean that pooch can talk?"
"Sure," said Gardner, grinning. "That's one of the modifications. Except it's in a much higher register than our ears normally hear in-we have special implants so we can understand him. But some races can hear him just fine-your Lepoid legionnaire, for one. The little guy came out and tipped Barky off as to what those- hunters were planning. Of course, he'd already learned that Barky could talk during that food fight in your cafeteria. They had quite a time of it, then."