Part 15 (1/2)

Justin eyed him suspiciously. ”Are you leading up to the suggestion that someone take a little midnight stroll in a day or two?”

”I don't know how else to find out their true threat potential,” Pyre shrugged.

”And if we're caught at it?”

”Trouble, of course. Which is why the operation would have to be handled by someone who knew what he was doing.”

”In other words, one of the Cobras or Decker. And since we're in plain view and

Decker is both watched and unarmed, not getting caught starts sounding a bit unlikely.”

Pyre shrugged. ”At the moment, you're right. But maybe something will change.”

He gave Justin a long look. ”And in that event... you weren't supposed to know this, but Decker isn't unarmed. He's carrying a breakapart palm-mate dart gun with him.”

”He's what? Almo, they said no weapons. If they catch him with that-”

”He'll be in serious trouble,” Pyre finished for him. ”I know. But Decker didn't want the party completely helpless, and the gun did make it through the big inspection okay.”

”As far as you know.”

”He's still got it.”

Justin sighed. ”Great. I hope the Marines taught him patience as well as marksmans.h.i.+p.”

”I'm sure they did,” Pyre grunted, pus.h.i.+ng himself to his feet with an ease that was probably due solely to his implanted servos. ”I'm going to crash for a few hours-if you're smart you'll do likewise after your exercises.”

”Yeah,” Justin said with a yawn. ”Before you do, though, has the governor said when she's going to call Joshua back in for our switch?”

Pyre paused halfway to the door, a look of chagrin flicking across his face.

”Actually... her current plan is to go ahead and leave Joshua out there for the foreseeable future.”

”What?” Justin stared at him. ”That's not what we planned.”

”I know,” Pyre shrugged helplessly. ”I pointed that out to her-rather strongly, in fact. But the situation seems pretty stable at the moment and....”

”And she likes having Joshua's visual transmission too much to give it up. Is that it?”

Pyre sighed. ”You can hardly blame her. She'd wanted the whole contact team implanted with those optical sensors, I understand, and been turned down on grounds of cost-split-frequency transmitters that small are expensive to make.

And now with all our other eyes taken away, Joshua's all we've got left if we want to see what's going on.” He held up a hand soothingly. ”Look, I know how you feel, but try not to worry about him. The Qasamans are hardly going to attack them now without a good reason.”

”I suppose you're right.” Justin thought for a moment, but there didn't seem anything else to be said. ”Well... good night.”

” 'Night.”

Pyre left, and Justin flexed his arms experimentally. Thirteen hours in the couch had indeed left the muscles stiff, but he hardly noticed the twinges as his thoughts latched onto Pyre's last comment. Without a good reason... but what would const.i.tute such a reason in the Qasamans' minds? An aggressive act or comment on Cerenkov's part? Discovery that the ostensibly voice-only radio link to the s.h.i.+p also had a split-freq channel that was carrying the visual images they'd obviously tried to suppress? Violent use of York's illegal gun? Or perhaps even the outside reconnaissance Pyre had clearly already decided on?

Eyes on the darkened display, Justin settled into his exercises, pus.h.i.+ng his body harder than he'd originally intended to.