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"Expelled."
"Yes." Flinge Iblik watched Grakker closely. It was his private view that Grakker didn't really need a berserk module on a bad day, but his expression just looked blank.
"I should have seen this coming," Flinge said warily. "We never had a smoking gun." (Of course, this is not what he actually said; but the language program used to translate this narrative from Standard Galactic is, as always, approximate.) "If you want to get angry, you should get angry at me."
Grakker said nothing.
"And actually," Flinge continued, warming to his theme, "it was illogical for both of us to risk our careers. Even now, being kicked out of the GP will probably only raise my status, should I return to the Mentat. We should have had me--"
"Oh, shut up, you long-snouted sissy," said Grakker, bringing his head down on the table with a solid thump.
Flinge felt his mouth quirking into a smile. "Here we go. Unleash your rage. I think it's unhealthy to keep it inside."
"No. No. You don't understand. I never told you this, but--I didn't want to join the Patrol. I was conscripted. I wanted to stay a... I wanted to stay."
Flinge Iblik never let a half-finished sentence lapse. "Wanted to stay a what?"
"A...worm farmer."
Flinge summoned all his Mental Master training to keep a straight face--well, straight for him. "I see."
Grakker's heavy brow creased further. "What's wrong with you?"
"Mmm?"
"You sound like you swallowed a marmek."
"Murh?"
"Are you trying not to laugh?" Grakker burst forth intensely.
Flinge let out a high-pitched keening.
"What in the known galaxy, Flinge Iblik, could possibly be so amusing about worm farming?" Grakker bellowed.
"Oh, only my fate," Flinge choked out. Grakker looked at him, uncomprehending. "The cosmic fate that has led me here, a long-snouted sissy, to use your words--led me here to be a worm farmer."
Grakker leaned forward and opened his mouth, but said nothing.
"It is a sign," Flinge said. "We'll go back to Friskalama. You'll grow the worms. I'll do whatever else there is to do on a worm farm. Is there marketing? I will write slogans. Because I am never, never going back to the Mentat!"
Grakker sputtered, "You insane--infuriating--snout--"
"That's it!" Flinge cried. "Snout and Grakker: Finest Worms Available. Because Flinge Iblik will never fit on the sign, you know."
Grakker grasped his nose between his fingers. He was beginning to smile a little. "I wasn't aware we were even friends. Snout."
Flinge sat down, leaned towards Grakker. "I'm not offended. Your first real friend was the cruelest being I have ever met. You don't have very good taste; I'm glad you didn't choose me. But we are friends. Furthermore, I'd already started thinking of you as my captain. I was looking forward to a long career of having orders barked at me. I don't mind if the orders are about worms instead of criminals."
Grakker looked away for a moment, then smiled. He reached over and grasped Snout's shoulder. "All right," he said, gruffly. "Enough."
In the end, BKR was caught committing some outrage against decency, and despite his uncanny escape from official custody, the event tended to vindicate the two disgraced former students of the GP academy. They were allowed back without prejudice, and graduated in due course, and never became worm farmers, whatever else they eventually became to each other.
When a case looked hopeless, Grakker would sometimes say, after he and Snout retired to their room, that they could still buy the worm farm. "You never lose the knack, fortunately," he grumbled.
Snout would usually say nothing and hold Grakker's large head in his spindly hands.
Once, he said, "It wasn't really about the worms." And Grakker smiled.