Tom Clark, one of 4th Squad's replacements, was aboard with a bullet wound through the belly. He'd been doped for the pain, but not too doped to accost a medic. "How about some of that stuff you give the bot cases?" he said. He fumbled for his dog tags. "I signed the agreement."

"Sorry, soldier," the Terran medic said, "but you're going to live and be good as new in the body you've got."

"Don't matter. With so many worlds to run the Wyzhnyny off, this war's going to last a long time. So I'm bound to get killed sooner or later. I might better get my iron suit now. The more bots we have, the sooner we'll get it over with. And that way, who knows: I just might come through it all alive." His chuckle was a weak, dry sound. "Spend my old age rusting in the sun."

"Take it up with the doc," the medic told him, then patted his shoulder and went on.

Esau had watched, listening. The painkiller had taken hold; things seemed a bit remote and disjointed. But one thing was clear: there was a lot of hurting going on. All of it because some Wyzhnyny decided to take away other folks' worlds. He'd known that much all along. He just hadn't realized everything that went with it.

Speaker Farnham had it right, he thought, or the book did. A lot of the time Esau hadn't been sure when a speaker was speaking his own words, and when they were the Lord's, or some prophet's, or Elder Hofer's. But what it amounted to was, when we have a task, we need to carry it through the best we can, and trust in the Lord. And it seemed to Esau that was the situation the army was in.

Shortly he felt the medivac settling downward. A minute later they were on the ground, and the rear doors opened. More medics came aboard, and within a few minutes, all the wounded had been unloaded. Esau and Jael were among the last-the least wounded-and walked to reception.

Brigadier Consuela Hagopian clicked her video control, and the wall screen went blank. Despite her salt-and-pepper hair and the lines in her face, to Chang Lung-Chi she looked more than smart and confident. She looked combat-trained and fit.

"As you see," she said, "it was an informative night. We are very pleased with the performance of our Jerrie troops, their auxiliaries, corps command… all of them. Less happily, we're also impressed with the toughness of the Wyzhnyny troops. But General Pak suspects our experience has been very largely with the Wyzhnyny main force, their regulars, and he's probably right. I hope so, because they have lots of soldiers. Most of them second string, we think. Call them reserves. We suspect their entire adult population is armed and trained."

What she says matches what Olausson says, Chang thought. And Kulikov had spoken well of her. But what impressed Chang as much as anything was the way she pointed out errors and uncertainties without being slippery.

"After the Battle of the First Days," she went on, "both sides have used their armor and air squadrons cautiously. We seem to have an advantage in the air, so we've been a little bolder with our air units. The Wyzhnyny have been bolder with their tanks, but with the destruction of the battalion in the tank park, that may change.

"Meanwhile they have a large advantage in troop numbers. And a lot of artillery, while we… had to make difficult resource decisions in preparing for the ground war. And decided to rely on airpower as our main bombardment force. We intended our initial softening-up phase to largely destroy the Wyzhnyny armor and air units, but we'd overlooked something. Our principal colonized region on New Jerusalem, now the Wyzhnyny colonized region, has areas of karst terrain. With caves-something we'd overlooked. Wyzhnyny command was foresighted; they modified some of them to shelter armor and air squadrons, and for backup base installations."

She gestured a shrug, a graceful movement. "One might wonder that they felt the need to, but unfortunately they did."

"So," said Foster Peixoto, "what is the upshot of all this?"

"I'm getting to that, sir. But first I want to point out our advantages there. Our surveillance buoys above all-no pun intended. And our concealment screen seems to be quite effective against Wyzhnyny aerial observation. Thus we know a lot about what they're doing, and they know rather less about what we're doing. In fact, in our own domain, our troops have the forest to cover their movements, while Wyzhnyny aerial reconnaissance is harassed, hurried, and costly.

"The Wyzhnyny have penetrated our concealment area with what appear to have been two-man ground recon teams, that in the forest tend to be missed by our buoys. But that hasn't seriously compromised our concealment.

"Another long-term Wyzhnyny disadvantage is supplies. They've been depending on supplies they brought with them, of course, and seemingly had been using the supply ships for storage. Though we don't know how much they may have transferred into cave storage. The two supply ships we caught on or near the ground, we destroyed. Others escaped into warpspace."

"Are you suggesting we can starve them out?"

"I doubt it will come to that. We believe the Wyzhnyny will take desperate measures to avoid it."

"Suicide attacks?"

"In time, perhaps. But we expect the Wyzhnyny force in warpspace to make efforts to supply their people on the ground. Though the odds of their succeeding aren't good. Our offplanet flotilla is alert to possible emergences by Wyzhnyny ships. Also we have Dragons and a marine mother ship standing by in near-space, for critical onworld emergencies."

She stopped expectantly. For long seconds the prime minister gazed thoughtfully at her before speaking. "I take it, then, that we need feel no concern about events on New Jerusalem, at least for the time being."

"I wouldn't go that far. The Wyzhnyny remain a potent force there, but our successes so far are encouraging."

Now the president spoke. "Brigadier, you said nothing about Wyzhnyny prisoners."

"Marshal Kulikov brought that up with General Pak this morning, when they discussed Pak's report. Pak had hoped to capture some live Wyzhnyny prisoners in conjunction with other missions, but Wyzhnyny do not surrender. Threatened with capture, their wounded suicide, preferably with a grenade, taking some of our people with them. Seemingly unconscious Wyzhnyny are apt to be shamming, hoping to entice someone close enough. These things were learned in the first days of fighting. General Pak is now preparing a mission tailored specifically to capture and transport prisoners."

The prime minister sighed audibly. "Tell General Kulikov that both the president and I put a high priority on this."

They ended their meeting then, and the brigadier left. Pak's capture mission! she thought. God, to be young again! She'd have bucked for airborne training and an assignment on New Jerusalem. Ah well, she mused, I'm lucky just to be in the military at a time like this. Interesting that I chose the military in this life, instead of business or music or child rearing. This life, when the military has meaning.

Some personnel didn't like living and working underground, but Gosthodar Jilchuk was comfortable with it. He'd grown up in a cool damp region, and was not claustrophobic. And his quarters were comfortable, luxurious even. His walls, where not occupied with video windows, were hung with expensive tapestries from his old home world, and luxurious furs from the subpolar regions of this new home world.

Just now, though, none of that impinged on him. He was busy digesting and assimilating what had happened the night before. He'd absorbed the available information and opinions, then dismissed his staff. Now he lay at a low writing table, torso upright, jotting and doodling as he thought, using a stylus on a jotting glass. Sometimes he used them to make notes. Tonight he used them mainly to bleed off pressure.