A Phule and His Money

"How's he go

"Well, that's what I'm here to tell y'all," said Rev, gri

"That sounds too good to be true," came the same voice from the back-of the room. The speaker rose to his feet, and everybody turned to see Do-Wop standing there, a suspicious look on his face. "Ain't no free rides, not where I come from. So what's the catch, Rev? I'm in far enough over my head to grab anything that floats. But I wasn't born yesterday. I want to hear the whole swindle-what do I have to do if the King pays off my tab?"

"Why, I'd think that's understood, son," said Rev. "You would be promisin' to become one of his faithful followers. To do like he said, and bring the message to other folks, too."

"I figured that much out by myself," said Do-Wop, his arms folded across his chest. "So what's the scam? Lay it on me, Rev, so I figure out whether to bite or not." He stood there expectantly, and the assembled legio

"You've got to be a true follower," said Rev. "That means you have to make a pilgrimage to Graceland, back on old Earth-you can't be a full believer till you've done that. And it means making yourself in his image. His faithful often have plastic surgery to be more perfect, although it's not required right away. And..."

"Hold on, Rev," said Do-Wop. "Plastic surgery? I gotta change the way I look?"

"That's right, son, changing the way you look is a way to change the way you act, so you won't be cruel. After everything the King is go

Do-Wop looked at the chaplain, his face an unreadable mask. The room was dead silent, as everyone waited for him to speak.

Finally, he looked at Rev and said, "Man, I can't do it. Count me out-I owe Sushi enough to send him on that trip to Greaseland, but I guess I gotta pay it off myself."

"What?" said Rev, his jaw dropping. "Why? What could possibly be wrong with my offer?"

Do-Wop looked him squarely in the eye and said, "Rev, the way I see it, you're offering me a face worse than debt."

The crowd dissolved in laughter.

6

Journal #307

My employer was confident that a focus on the company's military priorities would allow his people to forget about the external problems, which would then more or less resolve themselves. As I had feared, this belief turned out to be over-optimistic. In fact, the problems remained on the edge of everyone's awareness, putting the entire command cadre into a constant state of anxiety that something would boil over into an outright crisis.

The only two who seemed unaffected by the ongoing crises were Flight Leftenant Qual, who went around the hotel observing and making enigmatic comments; and Chaplain Rev, who despite Do-Wop's public refusal of his offer to pay off gambling debts, seemed to be wi

"OK, rookies, fall in," shouted Brandy. The new recruits hastily assembled themselves into a formation-most with a helter-skelter clumsiness she hoped they'd soon outgrow, but the Gambolts flowed into position like water ru

Standing on the thick gymnastics mat next to Brandy, whose physical bulk more than matched her parade-ground vocal equipment, the mess sergeant looked for all the world like a miniature statue of a human being. That was highly misleading, as the new troops were about to learn.

"OK, I'm going to demonstrate a basic move, and then you'll get a chance to try it for yourselves. Can I have a volunteer?"

The rookies looked at one another nervously-they'd already had occasion to find out how strong Brandy was. A couple of hands went up, tentatively. Brandy ignored them, and pointed to Mahatma. "Here, this isn't hard-why don't you try it first?"

The little round-faced man-his belly had already begun to lose its roundness-came forward onto the mat and Brandy stood facing him. "I'm going to show this to you in slow motion," she said to the troops. "This is a very basic move, one that lots of others are built on. Watch." She stepped closer to Mahatma.

"Now, watch what happens first," she said. Brandy reached out her hand and pushed Mahatma in the center of his chest. He stepped backward, keeping his balance. "OK, Mahatma, tell me what I did and what you did."

"You pushed me, and I stepped away," he said, smiling as always. "Would a battlefield opponent let you push him like that?" It had become almost a joke: Whatever you did to him, Mahatma took it with a smile-and followed up with a question that threatened to undercut the whole exercise.

Brandy temporized. "I'll get to that. For now, the idea is, when I push you, you start to lose your balance. You're falling backward, so you step back to catch your balance again. Sounds easy, when you explain it. But let's try that again, with a little difference."

She stepped up to Mahatma, and again pushed him in the center of the chest. But this time, her foot had snaked out to ensnare his leg before he could catch his balance, and he fell backward onto the mat.

"You see it?" she asked the other recruits. "Keep the opponent from stepping backward, and he's got no place to go. All he can do is fall." She reached down and helped Mahatma to his feet. "Now, you try it on me."

"All right, sarge," said Mahatma. He reached up and pushed Brandy, putting his foot behind her. She fell down, twisting as she fell, and rolled back up to her feet almost as soon as she was down.

"That's the second part of the lesson," she said. "If your opponent knows how to recover, you won't have the advantage for long. So you have to be ready to follow up right away. Now, who else would like to try it?"

This was the point at which she usually got somebody who'd had a little martial arts training as a civilian. One of the new troops-the one who'd had his hand up before, she noticed-had a smirk on his face. "OK, Slammer, your turn."

Stammer swaggered out of the lineup, and took a stance opposite Brandy, his weight evenly balanced on the balls of his feet. He had obviously had training, and he looked to be in better than average physical condition for a recruit. Brandy suppressed a smile, then said, "Aw, let's make it a little bit more of an even contest. I must outweigh you twenty pounds." (It was more like fifty, but nobody had ever called her on that-not to her face.) "Here, Sergeant Escrima is more your size."

Escrima stepped forward to take Brandy's place, his face impassive. Now the recruit had the weight advantage-probably thirty pounds, and several inches in reach. "OK, Stammer, let's see you try the move on Escrima."

As Brandy had anticipated, Slammer gri