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Simple Wrong Answers

"I knew Daniello, jeez, must be five years," Seligman said. "He was flying the car. Did you know that?"

"I didn't know any of the civilians," Meyer said without emphasis. She paused to check the diagram on her visor again. A sidebar provided the compartment manifests. "We need the next door, not this one."

Lieutenant Kuznetsov had been all right. Meyer had never served directly under her, but C41 was a small world. Kuznetsov looked out for her people.

"I don't see why the hell they need building supplies anyway," Seligman complained. "They ought to be thinking about getting us where we're supposed to be instead. You know, if they'd carried a couple more aircars, we'd be a damn sight better off!"

Meyer wondered if Top had picked her to guide Seligman because she'd worked with the staffer before. She didn't like being inside the ship, knowing that if it fell she might be trapped in the crumpled hull.

"The First Sergeant said we'd be using rolls of roofing to sleep on at night," she said aloud. The sooner she completed her job, the sooner she'd be able to get out of this metal tomb. "I guess they're afraid that if we lie right on the ground, something might come up out of it while we're sleeping."

She patted the hatch with the flat of her hand. "Try this one."

You'd have thought the support staff would have their own way to navigate around 10-1442. Would have drawn maps, at least, during the voyage. Nope. And Meyer wasn't counting on cargo being stowed where the manifest showed it, either.

Seligman opened the hatch with the electronic key for all the locks on Deck 17. The air had a chemical odor. The compartment had probably been closed since the cargo was stowed.

"It don't make any damn sense all of us having to hike through the jungle," he said. "They ought to, well, send a few of you guys to the right place and bring in aircars in another ship. You guys hike a lot, right?"

"Not a lot, no," Meyer said. "Mostly we ride."

By assault boat. But Seligman wouldn't get the point even if she said that.

Seligman knelt and checked code tags with an electronic reader. "Yeah, this is it," he said. He looked over his shoulder at the striker. "I still think some of you soldiers ought to fetch help. It's what makes sense to me."

Right, divide your force when you know there's a shipload of Kalendru troops in the immediate vicinity. Meyer shrugged. She said, "I just follow orders, buddy. The decisions come from the manager, not me."

She stepped back into the corridor. "I'll leave you to it, then," she said without turning her head. "You can bring the labor crew up when you're ready to."

"Hey, I'm coming!" Seligman said. "I tell you, this damned planet isn't someplace I want to be alone."

You don't know what alone is, buddy, the striker thought, but she didn't say anything aloud.

Patches of forest still smoldered despite the afternoon downpour. The smoke tended to hang on the nearby foliage the way rival groups at a party refuse to mix. At the edge of the clearing Blohm smelled the damp, chalky odor of clay turned by the tracks of the bulldozer as it dragged the aircar free.

Superintendent Rifkind wasn't really examining the wreckage. Technical experts had done that while it was still daylight, even carrying pieces back to study in the ship despite the risk. Rifkind ran her gloved hand over the nacelle. It had warped when the fanblades sheared and let the motor spin ungoverned.

The sky was clear and brilliant with stars. Blohm wondered if the colonists would name the constellations to their children, the way adults on Earth had done. He couldn't guess how many different night skies he'd seen since he enlisted, but he'd never learned what to call those new stars.

"I don't see how it happened," Rifkind said. "We tested it, Daniello did. I watched him test it."

Bonfires burned near the ship. Blohm supposed the fires were for the civilians' mental comfort. Somebody hoped it would help, anyway.

Rifkind fingered the intake housing. The screen was intended to filter incoming air so that chunks of debris wouldn't damage the fan blades.

A flashlight bobbed out of the encampment. Blohm increased his visor's magnification. An older civilian woman was coming up the trail one of the bulldozer's treads had crushed in the soil. The striker didn't recognize her, but there were limits to the detail you could expect from even Strike Force optics at night.

The manager and several civilian specialists carried off the aircar's front screen for examination. A resilient, airtight sheet of cloudy substance filled the meshes.

Their rear intake was the same. When the fans couldn't pull air through the blockage, the car had dropped like a brick.

"Ma'am?" Blohm called. "You're not supposed to be here. Go back to the others, please."

Half the strikers were on watch at intervals all around the perimeter of the clearing. The other half were off-duty unless needed as a reaction force. The major'd ordered that nobody should take his helmet off.

Blohm didn't know about the Spooks, but the forest at least seemed quiescent since the sun had set. The scout no longer had the feeling that something large and hungry was watching him from behind.

The woman reached them and stood diffidently. "I'm Seraphina Suares," she said. "My husband was killed in the crash. I came to see him one last time. His grave."

Suares had kept the flashlight aimed down so that it wouldn't overload the image intensifier in Blohm's visor. When she was within ten feet and sure of the track before her, she switched it off entirely.

"Ah," said Blohm. "They're on the other side of the car, ma'am."

"Yes," said Suares. She added softly, "His real monument was his work, of course. We never had children of our own."

They'd recovered the bodies, but there was nothing to do then except bury them in a trench the bulldozer gouged for the purpose. Bastien was buried close to the ship. He'd bled out internally by the time his strikers had gotten him to doctors. Jagged fragments of the sergeant's pelvis had severed two of the arteries in his groin.

"It shouldn't have gotten into the air with the ducts plugged," Rifkind said. "I don't see how it happened."

The widow traced her husband's name with her finger. They'd used a rocker panel for a marker because the plastic wouldn't decay like wood or the site's coarse limy shale. It was the major's idea.

Mrs. Suares turned. "The screens were covered by a bacterium," she said. "It's common in the air here." She waved her hand.

"Yeah, but how could they take off?" Rifkind demanded. "There's more to it than that."

"The bacterium multiplies explosively in a high-velocity airstream," Suares said. She spoke with the dispassion of an engineer discussing structural failure. Maybe she was. "It coated the tractor's heat exchanger when the cooling fan ran for a few minutes also. There the immediate consequences were merely a loss of efficiency in the working fluid rather than catastrophic failure."

Suares touched the grave marker again. "A low-level electrical charge prevents the bacteria from forming," she added. "A very simple protection. Now that we recognize the problem. Joao always said that recognizing a problem was far more difficult than solving one."

"Shit," Rifkind said. She rubbed a fist into the opposite palm. "I'm going to go get some sleep."

"Yes, I'll go back also," Suares said. Her lips smiled. "I'm not sure how much sleep I'll get."

The two civilians started toward the bonfires. Blohm heard Rifkind say, "This damned planet."

"I'm not sure that it's the planet that is damned," Mrs. Suares replied in the starlit darkness.

The command group gathered fifty feet from the nearest bonfire. A tiny glowlamp burned in the center of the circle in consideration of Reitz and Lock who didn't wear image intensifiers. Colonists spoke and sang to crying babies, but the crackle of burning wood was generally the loudest sound in the background.

"We'll set out at mid-morning," al-Ibrahimi said. "I'd like to leave at dawn, but it'll be very difficult to get the civilians moving at all for the first few days."

"How will we limit the amount of baggage?" Tamara Lundie asked. "They'll almost certainly want to bring more than they can carry."

The manager's aide wore a bandage of plastic film to protect the antiseptic sealant sprayed over her wound. Her face looked drawn, but she spoke in the even tones that Farrell had come to associate with her.

"Major Farrell, do you have suggestions?" al-Ibrahimi asked.

Farrell shrugged. "Warn people but let them bring what they want," he said. "They'll throw it away themselves after an hour or two."

"I'm worried about food," President Reitz said. She snorted a tiny laugh as she thought about what she'd just said. "Among other things. But I don't see how we can carry enough supplies to last until the relief ship arrives, even with both bulldozers pulling trailers."

Farrell wondered if he should speak. He looked at al-Ibrahimi.

The project manager nodded awareness. To Reitz he said, "We won't be carrying any food or water, madam. Our Strike Force guards are equipped with field converters which process any form of carbohydrate into edible rations. Pure water is one of the waste products. The colonists will operate the converters throughout the day as we march. That should provide a more than adequate volume."

Farrell felt his fingers checking the magazine of his stinger. He forced himself to stop. "People won't eat as much as you think, ma'am," he said.

They wouldn't eat as much as they ought to. Field rations when you're exhausted were as attractive as wet sawdust. Swallowing them down was one more job for a body already overloaded by effort.

"Both tractors will retain their clearing blades," Lundie said, correcting a false implication in Reitz's question. "The tractor in operation at the head of the column won't be able pull a load at the same time. The tractor out of service will pull two trailers with munitions for the Strike Force and ground sheets. Nothing more."

"No," said Councillor Lock. "No. With all due respect, Manager al-Ibrahimi, this is absurd. When the citizens understand what's involved, they'll refuse to go, and they'll be right to refuse. The fact that a half dozen diseased aliens wandered toward the ship—it needn't have been an attack, you know—"

"It was an attack," Farrell said. "I know an attack."

His voice was a harsh buzz, more like a bee's wings than human speech. He stood, then turned away from the gathering. His muscles were trembling.

"Sit down, Major Farrell," al-Ibrahimi said.

"Yessir, sorry," Farrell whispered. He nodded an apology to Councillor Lock, though the civilian didn't understand what had almost happened.

Christ, they should have redlined me. If I'm going to come that close to killing a civilian who can't be expected to know what's going on, what am I going to do the next time I hear a rear-echelon colonel spouting bullshit? 

"Councillor Lock," the manager said in a tone with no more anger than the blade of a guillotine, "you are not a stupid man. Do not permit your concern for your wife's neurotic behavior to cause you to say stupid things. Our margin for survival is very slight."

Lock nodded. "Major Farrell," he said, "I apologize for intruding on an area outside my competence. It won't happen again."

Indeed, he wasn't stupid. It'd only taken Lock thirty seconds to put the pieces together.

"I'm wound too tight," Farrell said. He forced a smile to make a joke of what was the truth if it had ever been spoken. "Sorry."

"Apart from the probability that 10-1442 will fall over within the next thirty days, sooner if the rain we experienced is a daily occurrence," Lundie said, looking at Lock, "the danger from the Kalendru is incalculable. We have to assume that whatever forces they have in the area will be drawn to the ship."

"I'm also concerned about the natural environment," al-Ibrahimi added. "While BZ 459 was clearly going to be a difficult location for a colony, the biota we've encountered in this crater is far more dangerous than survey data suggested for the planet as a whole. I believe the risk of waiting here until a rescue vessel arrives is greater than the risk of cutting our way out of the crater as quickly as possible."

"Better to stay a moving target," Farrell said before he remembered that he wasn't talking to other strikers. He cleared his throat and went on, "My lead scout says the whole jungle's alive and gunning for us."

"Of course it's—" Reitz said. "Oh. Consciously alive."

Farrell shrugged, wishing that he'd kept his mouth shut. "Blohm's been pretty close to the edge since the last operation. He's, I mean, I trust him, but I don't say his head's in a good place."

"There are twenty-seven colonists who refuse to leave the ship," Lundie said, looking unblinkingly at Lock.

"I'm going to talk to Margaret," Lock said abruptly. He stood and walked away from the group. "This is my problem to solve."

"Sir?" Farrell said to the project manager. "Do you have any idea what the Spooks are doing here? I never heard of them planting a base this far inside the human sphere."

There were a lot of things the Unity command didn't tell strikers. Spook soldiers in places the Unity couldn't afford Spooks to be, though—that was something the Strike Force was going to hear about pretty damn quick.

Lundie and al-Ibrahimi exchanged glances. "That isn't information which would be available to the Population Authority," the aide said. "I don't believe that the highest levels of the Unity administration would have authorized this colony had there been any knowledge of Kalendru penetration of this region."

Manager al-Ibrahimi nodded. "President Reitz," he said. "Councillor Lock is right that there will be objections to leaving. Please gather your deck monitors tonight and emphasize to them that no one will be permitted to remain behind. Our only chance of survival is to march to safety."

"I'll tell them," Reitz said. "We understand this isn't a democracy. But there'll be a lot of anger. And perhaps some rebellion."

"Rebellion will be ended by force if necessary," Lundie said. "They must understand that."

"They should be angry," al-Ibrahimi said. "They've been treated very unjustly. The citizens and your personnel both, Major Farrell. But we are going to act in the fashion that gives us the best chance of survival in the situation where we find ourselves."

"It's no use arguing with facts," Farrell said. "Sir, do you need me further just now? I'd like to check with my first sergeant on the munitions we're loading. I want to be ready to go in the morning."

"Of course," al-Ibrahimi said. "And see to it that you get some sleep yourself. We'll need you as alert as possible if we're to survive."

"I'll go with you, Major," Lundie said. She stood, then wobbled before catching her balance. "I want to discuss the alert system with you and Sergeant Daye, since I'll be monitoring the sensors of your personnel."

They walked toward the tandem-hitched trailers near the ship. Too near the ship, Farrell thought, because the hull might kick back if the ship fell. Still, it eased loading the heavy cases of ammo and explosives.

Life was a series of tradeoffs. Until you died.

Lundie stumbled again. "Are you going to be all right, ma'am?" Farrell asked. "That's a pretty bad wound, and . . ."

"The wound itself isn't serious, except that it handicaps me when using a keyboard," Lundie said. "Unfortunately the vine was covered with fine hairs, some of which broke off in the skin all over my arm. They're too small to remove. As they dissolve they release psychoactive chemicals."

She looked at Farrell and went on, "Generally this is a low-order problem, but I'm concerned that I might have a psychotic episode at any time. It gives you and me something in common, I suppose."

Farrell blinked at what she'd just said. Then he laughed harder than he remembered doing in years.

"Ma'am," he said at last. "You know, you're screwy enough to be a striker? But I think you're too fucking smart."

A civilian walked toward the plastic sheet on which 3-3 sat in darkness. Horgen hissed a warning. Abbado took the bladder of whiskey from Glasebrook and put it under the tunic lying beside him. If there was a problem, it was his squad and his problem.

"Excuse me?" said Dr. Ciler's familiar voice. "I'm looking for Striker Methie in the Third Squad?"

"Hey Doc," Abbado said. "Come sit down. What do you need with the Methman?"

"Aw, I was supposed to come by so he could look at my leg," Methie said. "I'm okay, Doc. Really."

"If you are," the doctor said, "then ligaments have miraculously healed themselves in the past twenty-four hours."

"I just need to watch how quick I turn, is all," Methie muttered, but he pulled up his left trouser leg. The strikers still wore their boots, but they'd released the closure clamps for comfort.

Ciler squatted down on the sheet. Thirty feet away a gas pocket in a burning log ruptured. It shot blue flame with a banshee shriek for several seconds. The doctor tensed, then steadied. "Might I turn on a light, please?" he asked.

"Oh, sure," Abbado said. "We didn't want to get too much attention, you know. There's some cargo we thought we'd use up since it don't look like we'll be back here any time soon."

Ciler switched on the minilight clipped to his collar. He bent so that it bore on Methie's knee as he probed with the blunt fingers of both hands. "You think anything we abandon will be lost forever, then?" he said while keeping his eyes on his work.

"Usually it's just REMFs in base camps who steal your shit," Horgen said. "The way this jungle grows, there'll be a big green hill in no time. And I'm thirsty now."

"Ah, would you like a drink, Doc?" the sergeant offered. "It's whiskey from Earth, not something run through a heat exchanger while the tractor was shut down."

"We wouldn't be drinking it right now," Matushek said, "except it's that or leave it behind, you know?"

Ciler turned off the light. "I'd like a drink, yes," he said. "Though I think you men and women need it worse than I do."

Abbado handed him the bladder. "All told we got three gallons, Doc," he said. "More than we'll need if we're going to march in the morning. I'd offer it around pretty generally, but that'd mean Top hears and comes down with both boots."

The doctor drank deeply from the mouthpiece and lowered the bladder. Caldwell took it from him and drank in turn.

"Mr. Methie," Ciler said, "the swelling hasn't increased. I'm afraid that a pressure bandage would do more harm by cutting circulation than the support will benefit you, so I'm going to leave you as you are. I want you to come to me tomorrow after you've been walking on it. Do you understand?"

"Sure, Doc," Methie said in embarrassment. "Sorry."

"How long are we on point tomorrow, sarge?" Horgen asked. "All day?"

Abbado shook his head. "Till the major shifts us, I guess," he said. "Anyway, we're not really point, the bulldozer is. With luck it'll just be a walk through the woods, not even much exercise."

"With luck I'll wake up and find I'm in bed with my girlfriend on Verdant," Matushek said. "But I'm not holding my breath."

The bladder came around to him. He finished it and added, "Time to open the next one, Foley."

Dr. Ciler put his face in his hands. "This isn't right," he said hoarsely. "All these children . . . And half of you, you should be in hospital yourselves. You know that. Methie, you should have had surgery on that knee."

"Aw, Doc, they'd have held me on Stalleybrass or some pisspot like that," Methie muttered. "And then reassigned me God knows where. I'd never have got back to C41."

"It's not right," the doctor repeated. Caldwell handed him the fresh bladder of whiskey.

"No, it's not, Doc," Abbado said softly. "But that doesn't matter. It's never right, and it never matters."

Another log shrilled in the night. Ciler froze, then sucked in more liquor.

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Framed

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Simple Wrong Answers

"I knew Daniello, jeez, must be five years," Seligman said. "He was flying the car. Did you know that?"

"I didn't know any of the civilians," Meyer said without emphasis. She paused to check the diagram on her visor again. A sidebar provided the compartment manifests. "We need the next door, not this one."

Lieutenant Kuznetsov had been all right. Meyer had never served directly under her, but C41 was a small world. Kuznetsov looked out for her people.

"I don't see why the hell they need building supplies anyway," Seligman complained. "They ought to be thinking about getting us where we're supposed to be instead. You know, if they'd carried a couple more aircars, we'd be a damn sight better off!"

Meyer wondered if Top had picked her to guide Seligman because she'd worked with the staffer before. She didn't like being inside the ship, knowing that if it fell she might be trapped in the crumpled hull.

"The First Sergeant said we'd be using rolls of roofing to sleep on at night," she said aloud. The sooner she completed her job, the sooner she'd be able to get out of this metal tomb. "I guess they're afraid that if we lie right on the ground, something might come up out of it while we're sleeping."

She patted the hatch with the flat of her hand. "Try this one."

You'd have thought the support staff would have their own way to navigate around 10-1442. Would have drawn maps, at least, during the voyage. Nope. And Meyer wasn't counting on cargo being stowed where the manifest showed it, either.

Seligman opened the hatch with the electronic key for all the locks on Deck 17. The air had a chemical odor. The compartment had probably been closed since the cargo was stowed.

"It don't make any damn sense all of us having to hike through the jungle," he said. "They ought to, well, send a few of you guys to the right place and bring in aircars in another ship. You guys hike a lot, right?"

"Not a lot, no," Meyer said. "Mostly we ride."

By assault boat. But Seligman wouldn't get the point even if she said that.

Seligman knelt and checked code tags with an electronic reader. "Yeah, this is it," he said. He looked over his shoulder at the striker. "I still think some of you soldiers ought to fetch help. It's what makes sense to me."

Right, divide your force when you know there's a shipload of Kalendru troops in the immediate vicinity. Meyer shrugged. She said, "I just follow orders, buddy. The decisions come from the manager, not me."

She stepped back into the corridor. "I'll leave you to it, then," she said without turning her head. "You can bring the labor crew up when you're ready to."

"Hey, I'm coming!" Seligman said. "I tell you, this damned planet isn't someplace I want to be alone."

You don't know what alone is, buddy, the striker thought, but she didn't say anything aloud.

Patches of forest still smoldered despite the afternoon downpour. The smoke tended to hang on the nearby foliage the way rival groups at a party refuse to mix. At the edge of the clearing Blohm smelled the damp, chalky odor of clay turned by the tracks of the bulldozer as it dragged the aircar free.

Superintendent Rifkind wasn't really examining the wreckage. Technical experts had done that while it was still daylight, even carrying pieces back to study in the ship despite the risk. Rifkind ran her gloved hand over the nacelle. It had warped when the fanblades sheared and let the motor spin ungoverned.

The sky was clear and brilliant with stars. Blohm wondered if the colonists would name the constellations to their children, the way adults on Earth had done. He couldn't guess how many different night skies he'd seen since he enlisted, but he'd never learned what to call those new stars.

"I don't see how it happened," Rifkind said. "We tested it, Daniello did. I watched him test it."

Bonfires burned near the ship. Blohm supposed the fires were for the civilians' mental comfort. Somebody hoped it would help, anyway.

Rifkind fingered the intake housing. The screen was intended to filter incoming air so that chunks of debris wouldn't damage the fan blades.

A flashlight bobbed out of the encampment. Blohm increased his visor's magnification. An older civilian woman was coming up the trail one of the bulldozer's treads had crushed in the soil. The striker didn't recognize her, but there were limits to the detail you could expect from even Strike Force optics at night.

The manager and several civilian specialists carried off the aircar's front screen for examination. A resilient, airtight sheet of cloudy substance filled the meshes.

Their rear intake was the same. When the fans couldn't pull air through the blockage, the car had dropped like a brick.

"Ma'am?" Blohm called. "You're not supposed to be here. Go back to the others, please."

Half the strikers were on watch at intervals all around the perimeter of the clearing. The other half were off-duty unless needed as a reaction force. The major'd ordered that nobody should take his helmet off.

Blohm didn't know about the Spooks, but the forest at least seemed quiescent since the sun had set. The scout no longer had the feeling that something large and hungry was watching him from behind.

The woman reached them and stood diffidently. "I'm Seraphina Suares," she said. "My husband was killed in the crash. I came to see him one last time. His grave."

Suares had kept the flashlight aimed down so that it wouldn't overload the image intensifier in Blohm's visor. When she was within ten feet and sure of the track before her, she switched it off entirely.

"Ah," said Blohm. "They're on the other side of the car, ma'am."

"Yes," said Suares. She added softly, "His real monument was his work, of course. We never had children of our own."

They'd recovered the bodies, but there was nothing to do then except bury them in a trench the bulldozer gouged for the purpose. Bastien was buried close to the ship. He'd bled out internally by the time his strikers had gotten him to doctors. Jagged fragments of the sergeant's pelvis had severed two of the arteries in his groin.

"It shouldn't have gotten into the air with the ducts plugged," Rifkind said. "I don't see how it happened."

The widow traced her husband's name with her finger. They'd used a rocker panel for a marker because the plastic wouldn't decay like wood or the site's coarse limy shale. It was the major's idea.

Mrs. Suares turned. "The screens were covered by a bacterium," she said. "It's common in the air here." She waved her hand.

"Yeah, but how could they take off?" Rifkind demanded. "There's more to it than that."

"The bacterium multiplies explosively in a high-velocity airstream," Suares said. She spoke with the dispassion of an engineer discussing structural failure. Maybe she was. "It coated the tractor's heat exchanger when the cooling fan ran for a few minutes also. There the immediate consequences were merely a loss of efficiency in the working fluid rather than catastrophic failure."

Suares touched the grave marker again. "A low-level electrical charge prevents the bacteria from forming," she added. "A very simple protection. Now that we recognize the problem. Joao always said that recognizing a problem was far more difficult than solving one."

"Shit," Rifkind said. She rubbed a fist into the opposite palm. "I'm going to go get some sleep."

"Yes, I'll go back also," Suares said. Her lips smiled. "I'm not sure how much sleep I'll get."

The two civilians started toward the bonfires. Blohm heard Rifkind say, "This damned planet."

"I'm not sure that it's the planet that is damned," Mrs. Suares replied in the starlit darkness.

The command group gathered fifty feet from the nearest bonfire. A tiny glowlamp burned in the center of the circle in consideration of Reitz and Lock who didn't wear image intensifiers. Colonists spoke and sang to crying babies, but the crackle of burning wood was generally the loudest sound in the background.

"We'll set out at mid-morning," al-Ibrahimi said. "I'd like to leave at dawn, but it'll be very difficult to get the civilians moving at all for the first few days."

"How will we limit the amount of baggage?" Tamara Lundie asked. "They'll almost certainly want to bring more than they can carry."

The manager's aide wore a bandage of plastic film to protect the antiseptic sealant sprayed over her wound. Her face looked drawn, but she spoke in the even tones that Farrell had come to associate with her.

"Major Farrell, do you have suggestions?" al-Ibrahimi asked.

Farrell shrugged. "Warn people but let them bring what they want," he said. "They'll throw it away themselves after an hour or two."

"I'm worried about food," President Reitz said. She snorted a tiny laugh as she thought about what she'd just said. "Among other things. But I don't see how we can carry enough supplies to last until the relief ship arrives, even with both bulldozers pulling trailers."

Farrell wondered if he should speak. He looked at al-Ibrahimi.

The project manager nodded awareness. To Reitz he said, "We won't be carrying any food or water, madam. Our Strike Force guards are equipped with field converters which process any form of carbohydrate into edible rations. Pure water is one of the waste products. The colonists will operate the converters throughout the day as we march. That should provide a more than adequate volume."

Farrell felt his fingers checking the magazine of his stinger. He forced himself to stop. "People won't eat as much as you think, ma'am," he said.

They wouldn't eat as much as they ought to. Field rations when you're exhausted were as attractive as wet sawdust. Swallowing them down was one more job for a body already overloaded by effort.

"Both tractors will retain their clearing blades," Lundie said, correcting a false implication in Reitz's question. "The tractor in operation at the head of the column won't be able pull a load at the same time. The tractor out of service will pull two trailers with munitions for the Strike Force and ground sheets. Nothing more."

"No," said Councillor Lock. "No. With all due respect, Manager al-Ibrahimi, this is absurd. When the citizens understand what's involved, they'll refuse to go, and they'll be right to refuse. The fact that a half dozen diseased aliens wandered toward the ship—it needn't have been an attack, you know—"

"It was an attack," Farrell said. "I know an attack."

His voice was a harsh buzz, more like a bee's wings than human speech. He stood, then turned away from the gathering. His muscles were trembling.

"Sit down, Major Farrell," al-Ibrahimi said.

"Yessir, sorry," Farrell whispered. He nodded an apology to Councillor Lock, though the civilian didn't understand what had almost happened.

Christ, they should have redlined me. If I'm going to come that close to killing a civilian who can't be expected to know what's going on, what am I going to do the next time I hear a rear-echelon colonel spouting bullshit? 

"Councillor Lock," the manager said in a tone with no more anger than the blade of a guillotine, "you are not a stupid man. Do not permit your concern for your wife's neurotic behavior to cause you to say stupid things. Our margin for survival is very slight."

Lock nodded. "Major Farrell," he said, "I apologize for intruding on an area outside my competence. It won't happen again."

Indeed, he wasn't stupid. It'd only taken Lock thirty seconds to put the pieces together.

"I'm wound too tight," Farrell said. He forced a smile to make a joke of what was the truth if it had ever been spoken. "Sorry."

"Apart from the probability that 10-1442 will fall over within the next thirty days, sooner if the rain we experienced is a daily occurrence," Lundie said, looking at Lock, "the danger from the Kalendru is incalculable. We have to assume that whatever forces they have in the area will be drawn to the ship."

"I'm also concerned about the natural environment," al-Ibrahimi added. "While BZ 459 was clearly going to be a difficult location for a colony, the biota we've encountered in this crater is far more dangerous than survey data suggested for the planet as a whole. I believe the risk of waiting here until a rescue vessel arrives is greater than the risk of cutting our way out of the crater as quickly as possible."

"Better to stay a moving target," Farrell said before he remembered that he wasn't talking to other strikers. He cleared his throat and went on, "My lead scout says the whole jungle's alive and gunning for us."

"Of course it's—" Reitz said. "Oh. Consciously alive."

Farrell shrugged, wishing that he'd kept his mouth shut. "Blohm's been pretty close to the edge since the last operation. He's, I mean, I trust him, but I don't say his head's in a good place."

"There are twenty-seven colonists who refuse to leave the ship," Lundie said, looking unblinkingly at Lock.

"I'm going to talk to Margaret," Lock said abruptly. He stood and walked away from the group. "This is my problem to solve."

"Sir?" Farrell said to the project manager. "Do you have any idea what the Spooks are doing here? I never heard of them planting a base this far inside the human sphere."

There were a lot of things the Unity command didn't tell strikers. Spook soldiers in places the Unity couldn't afford Spooks to be, though—that was something the Strike Force was going to hear about pretty damn quick.

Lundie and al-Ibrahimi exchanged glances. "That isn't information which would be available to the Population Authority," the aide said. "I don't believe that the highest levels of the Unity administration would have authorized this colony had there been any knowledge of Kalendru penetration of this region."

Manager al-Ibrahimi nodded. "President Reitz," he said. "Councillor Lock is right that there will be objections to leaving. Please gather your deck monitors tonight and emphasize to them that no one will be permitted to remain behind. Our only chance of survival is to march to safety."

"I'll tell them," Reitz said. "We understand this isn't a democracy. But there'll be a lot of anger. And perhaps some rebellion."

"Rebellion will be ended by force if necessary," Lundie said. "They must understand that."

"They should be angry," al-Ibrahimi said. "They've been treated very unjustly. The citizens and your personnel both, Major Farrell. But we are going to act in the fashion that gives us the best chance of survival in the situation where we find ourselves."

"It's no use arguing with facts," Farrell said. "Sir, do you need me further just now? I'd like to check with my first sergeant on the munitions we're loading. I want to be ready to go in the morning."

"Of course," al-Ibrahimi said. "And see to it that you get some sleep yourself. We'll need you as alert as possible if we're to survive."

"I'll go with you, Major," Lundie said. She stood, then wobbled before catching her balance. "I want to discuss the alert system with you and Sergeant Daye, since I'll be monitoring the sensors of your personnel."

They walked toward the tandem-hitched trailers near the ship. Too near the ship, Farrell thought, because the hull might kick back if the ship fell. Still, it eased loading the heavy cases of ammo and explosives.

Life was a series of tradeoffs. Until you died.

Lundie stumbled again. "Are you going to be all right, ma'am?" Farrell asked. "That's a pretty bad wound, and . . ."

"The wound itself isn't serious, except that it handicaps me when using a keyboard," Lundie said. "Unfortunately the vine was covered with fine hairs, some of which broke off in the skin all over my arm. They're too small to remove. As they dissolve they release psychoactive chemicals."

She looked at Farrell and went on, "Generally this is a low-order problem, but I'm concerned that I might have a psychotic episode at any time. It gives you and me something in common, I suppose."

Farrell blinked at what she'd just said. Then he laughed harder than he remembered doing in years.

"Ma'am," he said at last. "You know, you're screwy enough to be a striker? But I think you're too fucking smart."

A civilian walked toward the plastic sheet on which 3-3 sat in darkness. Horgen hissed a warning. Abbado took the bladder of whiskey from Glasebrook and put it under the tunic lying beside him. If there was a problem, it was his squad and his problem.

"Excuse me?" said Dr. Ciler's familiar voice. "I'm looking for Striker Methie in the Third Squad?"

"Hey Doc," Abbado said. "Come sit down. What do you need with the Methman?"

"Aw, I was supposed to come by so he could look at my leg," Methie said. "I'm okay, Doc. Really."

"If you are," the doctor said, "then ligaments have miraculously healed themselves in the past twenty-four hours."

"I just need to watch how quick I turn, is all," Methie muttered, but he pulled up his left trouser leg. The strikers still wore their boots, but they'd released the closure clamps for comfort.

Ciler squatted down on the sheet. Thirty feet away a gas pocket in a burning log ruptured. It shot blue flame with a banshee shriek for several seconds. The doctor tensed, then steadied. "Might I turn on a light, please?" he asked.

"Oh, sure," Abbado said. "We didn't want to get too much attention, you know. There's some cargo we thought we'd use up since it don't look like we'll be back here any time soon."

Ciler switched on the minilight clipped to his collar. He bent so that it bore on Methie's knee as he probed with the blunt fingers of both hands. "You think anything we abandon will be lost forever, then?" he said while keeping his eyes on his work.

"Usually it's just REMFs in base camps who steal your shit," Horgen said. "The way this jungle grows, there'll be a big green hill in no time. And I'm thirsty now."

"Ah, would you like a drink, Doc?" the sergeant offered. "It's whiskey from Earth, not something run through a heat exchanger while the tractor was shut down."

"We wouldn't be drinking it right now," Matushek said, "except it's that or leave it behind, you know?"

Ciler turned off the light. "I'd like a drink, yes," he said. "Though I think you men and women need it worse than I do."

Abbado handed him the bladder. "All told we got three gallons, Doc," he said. "More than we'll need if we're going to march in the morning. I'd offer it around pretty generally, but that'd mean Top hears and comes down with both boots."

The doctor drank deeply from the mouthpiece and lowered the bladder. Caldwell took it from him and drank in turn.

"Mr. Methie," Ciler said, "the swelling hasn't increased. I'm afraid that a pressure bandage would do more harm by cutting circulation than the support will benefit you, so I'm going to leave you as you are. I want you to come to me tomorrow after you've been walking on it. Do you understand?"

"Sure, Doc," Methie said in embarrassment. "Sorry."

"How long are we on point tomorrow, sarge?" Horgen asked. "All day?"

Abbado shook his head. "Till the major shifts us, I guess," he said. "Anyway, we're not really point, the bulldozer is. With luck it'll just be a walk through the woods, not even much exercise."

"With luck I'll wake up and find I'm in bed with my girlfriend on Verdant," Matushek said. "But I'm not holding my breath."

The bladder came around to him. He finished it and added, "Time to open the next one, Foley."

Dr. Ciler put his face in his hands. "This isn't right," he said hoarsely. "All these children . . . And half of you, you should be in hospital yourselves. You know that. Methie, you should have had surgery on that knee."

"Aw, Doc, they'd have held me on Stalleybrass or some pisspot like that," Methie muttered. "And then reassigned me God knows where. I'd never have got back to C41."

"It's not right," the doctor repeated. Caldwell handed him the fresh bladder of whiskey.

"No, it's not, Doc," Abbado said softly. "But that doesn't matter. It's never right, and it never matters."

Another log shrilled in the night. Ciler froze, then sucked in more liquor.

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