"I couldn't believe I was hearing them. I felt… betrayed. Killed. Stabbed in the heart. Then Jael… " He described what she'd said, and what Lieutenant Zenawi had said. "And Lieutenant Bremer just sort of… caved in. Then I realized he'd lost his mind, and that he knew it. But I still felt… dirty, from what he'd said."

Hawkins nodded soberly. "Lieutenant Bremer's body wasn't wounded. His soul was, by all the killing. It was more than he could deal with. That's how some people are. He's in convalescence now. Major Ranavati is his doctor-a psychiatrist and Gopal Singh healer. The rumor is, when the lieutenant returns to duty, he'll be assigned to General Pak's staff, as assistant to Major Pelletier. Where he won't have responsibility for men in combat."

He grinned then, taking both Jerries by surprise. "As for you two-you did very well out there. Lieutenant Zenawi said in his debrief that you saved a lot of lives. If that tower had been in operation when our floaters came, it would have cost us dearly."

Esau nodded. "We could see that, Jael and me. No ride home probably."

Hawkins got casually to his feet, as if nothing heavier had been talked about than 2nd Platoon's fishing trip. "Well, I've got more wounded to visit. You two get well quick. Especially you, Esau, because a platoon leader's nothing without a good platoon sergeant to pass all the hard work to."

Then he was gone. Jael got up from her inflatable chair, knelt beside her husband and kissed him. "I'm proud of you, Esau," she said. Then she too grinned. "We've got to get well quick, so's we can slip off together behind a thicket."

He half grinned back at her. "You sure know what to say to a man. That'll about cut my healing time in half."

Before supper, Isaiah Vernon stopped to visit. He was wearing a new servo. The old one's cooling system had needed work, and they'd decided to install his bottle in an improved model.

"Division got hundreds of them before we left Luneburger's," he said. "In case enough people signed agreements and were injured badly enough to qualify. And for replacements like mine.

"From the beginning my old one hadn't worked as well as it should," he went on. "The robotics tech said I should have complained then, but I didn't know. I thought that's just the way they were. Then, when we ambushed the Wyzhnyny patrol, I took some slammer hits, and coming back in, I started to heat up pretty badly. Lieutenant Koshi told me to lie down, and radioed for an AG sled to come get me. Me and two others with damage.

"It made it more real to us-to me, anyway-that bot or not, you can get hurt or killed in those fights. But none of us did. We killed one hundred nineteen Wyzhnyny, by count, but none of us died. These servos are really good."

Briefly then they talked of other things, mainly things that had happened on Luneburger's World. They said nothing at all about their families or where they'd grown up. Maybe later. Meanwhile, those places, those people, didn't exist anymore.

In adjacent cots after lights out, Esau whispered to his wife. "I've been thinking."

"What about?" she murmured sleepily

"About Isaiah, and what Tom Clark said to the medic on the medivac. I think maybe I will sign a bot agreement. If it's all right with you."

She didn't answer at once. Then, "That's up to you, not me," she said.

But she didn't sound as if she really meant it. More as if she thought it was what she should say. And at any rate, in the morning he had other things on his mind.

Petition to Kulikov

It was late afternoon. General Pak was reading staff reports when his Intelligence chief rang. "General, the buoys have something you need to see. Corporal Chen has it framed for you."

Frowning, Pak looked at his screen and touched a key. He recognized at once what he was looking at: a column of tanks, or perhaps artillery, moving out of a forested, hilly area. Limestone hills. Magnification was set low, allowing him to see the column's full length. He zoomed in to examine a single vehicle-an armored, self-propelled howitzer-then backed off a bit. A whole unit of howitzers. Judging by Wyzhnyny standing in open hatches, they were heavy stuff-perhaps eight-inchers.

Zooming back, he counted. A battalion of three batteries, each battery with sixteen howitzers, three squad APCs, an armored battery command wagon, a heavy salvage vehicle, and two ugly-looking flakwagons. He whistled silently. Forty-eight heavy howitzers in all! There was also a battalion command and support company with, among other vehicles, six flakwagons, and four of what could only be large, heavily armored caissons to replenish the ammunition carried by the howitzers themselves.

All of it loaded with bad intentions.

A total of twelve flakwagons! To send attack squadrons… He shook his head, thinking of the floaters lost against the flak towers.

He also thought of the Dragon parked 300 miles overhead, unavailable to him.

"Thank you, Captain," Pak said, and disconnected.

Request the Dragon, he told himself. The worst they can do is say no. He touched another switch, and in a second had Commodore Kereenyaga's yeoman on the radio, some hundred thousand miles out. "This is General Pak. I need to speak with the commodore at once."

In twenty seconds the commodore was on.

"Commodore, I'm afraid you have all the heavy ground bombardment capacity in the system. Except for the heavy artillery the Wyzhnyny commander down here is moving against us. I need a visit from a friendly Dragon."

He listened to the commodore's reply, then answered, "I'm aware of that. I was on the planning group. But our assumption was that forces like I face now would be destroyed before we landed…

"I understand. But the planning group didn't allow for the caves. If we had, your rules of engagement would read differently…

"Thank you. Tell them to call me if they have questions. And keep in mind that the clock is running on us down here."

He disconnected, glowering. War House wasn't going to like this, and they'd probably say no. But damned if he'd let the possibility pass without trying.

The artillery that had shelled his line in the Battle of the First Days had been organic to the Wyzhnyny infantry units. This appeared to be additional. It was hard to imagine the Wyzhnyny leaving so much artillery on a world whose land surface was 99.9 percent wilderness and had no military at all, or any weapons beyond single-shot hunting arms.

He called the column's speed onto the screen. If it kept on that road, it could deploy for firing in under three hours. And surely they'd have tanks and infantry on hand to protect it, more than his forces could deal with in the open.

He touched a key that would boom his voice into every headquarters and orderly room in the base. "Urgent! Urgent! All units," he said. "This is your general. Evacuate base on Plan C. Evacuate base on Plan C. Beginning now!" Then he keyed Air Ops. "You're aware of the Wyzhnyny artillery on the road?… Good. I don't want any enemy in our airspace for the rest of the day. None! We're going to have a lot of people and equipment moving outside the concealment field soon, with only the trees to hide them. Questions?… Good."

He disconnected and allowed himself a gusty, "Whew!" The order was given. If this was a false alarm, he'd look like a complete and utter ass. He grunted. Better that than destruction, heavy casualties and regret. At best his force couldn't all be moved out in time. But Plan C's priorities were set partly in order of replaceability, and partly for movement to a backup area that had only first-order infrastructure in place-little more than wells and unactivated biosumps.