Chang was confident it would work with the public. Peixoto, on the other hand, could visualize it backfiring if it wasn't done well. Franck assured them it would work beautifully, and that she knew just the producer for the job. Al-Kathad and Kumoyama hadn't volunteered their opinions; they'd been there to discuss the security problem, and how the source might be found. But Al-Kathad's face suggested skepticism. He was skeptical by nature, of course; it went with his profession.

With some misgivings, the prime minister had given the go-ahead on the project. They'd know soon enough how successful it was.

Airborne!

The sweat shed had had only the body heat of the trainees, initially twelve platoons, to warm it above the frosty morning. Twelve platoons, one selected from each company in the regiment. Captain Mulvaney had chosen 2nd Platoon.

The shed was large and strange, as well as cold, with no lecture platform and no "pulpit"-the Jerrie term for lectern. But Esau had gotten used to strangeness. By now he felt at home in the army, though it was a lot different from his favorite army in Scripture: Gideon's, whose warriors had lapped water like a dog.

He smiled inwardly, imagining Gideon's Hebrew warriors sitting crowded on benches, with parachutes strapped on their backs. A strange thought, even though Sergeant Hawkins had said their airborne trainers were themselves Hebrews, from a world called Masada. A world whose people still spoke the Hebrew tongue; now that was strange.

It was also strange to have their Sikh cadre-even Captain Mulvaney!-training with them, with Masadans as instructors. The division's Sikhs had all been airborne trained, Hawkins had told them, but War House had decided they'd retake the training.

Esau's eyes focused on Hawkins a couple of benches ahead, and he wondered what his sergeant was thinking about.

Hawkins wasn't thinking; that is, he wasn't processing data. He was meditating. He'd begun by focusing on his breathing cadence, which from long experience produced a deepening calm. And a viewpoint exterior not only to events, but largely to his own personality. Nonetheless, he was aware of his surroundings. He saw a door open-the benches faced it-and a Masadan sergeant stepped in. Heard the man call for C and D Companies' platoons, and watched some eighty men get to their feet. Burdened with chute packs and hampered by harness, they sidled to the aisle and filed out. Most of the benches had already been empty; the Masadans had begun with K and L Companies' contingents, and were working their way toward A and B.

Despite his calm exterior, Hawkins could flip out of trance and into action instantly. In more profound trances, a meditator might be oblivious to physical events, but Sikhs didn't court oblivion or bliss. Gopal Singh had advocated meditation to enhance living, not avoid it.

Isaiah Vernon often sought to enhance his life by silent prayer. For the most part he'd lived life cautiously, and stepping out of floaters far above the ground was seriously out of character for him. But dedication and duty were very much in character, and he was determined to be a strong and effective soldier for God and humankind. To calm his fear of jumping into what he thought of as nothingness, he sat praying and reciting Scripture in the privacy of his mind. At the moment he was repeating: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters; he restores my soul…"

Jael Wesley dealt quite differently with her nerves. In her mind's eye, she'd been jumping from a floater-without a chute-and watching the ground rush up at her. At the last moment she snatched herself away, back inside the floater, then jumped again, and again, until she was bored with it. The technique was nothing she'd been taught; it had simply occurred to her.

Beside her, Esau sat calmly unconcerned. He thought about the briefing Captain Mulvaney had given them, on why they were being trained as paragliders. Paragliding was an ancient technique, something the Wyzhnyny were unlikely to expect. So on New Jerusalem, paraglider platoons would come silently down into Wyzhnyny positions at night, and with luck, wouldn't be detected till they were on the ground raising Cain.

He was glad that 2nd Platoon had been chosen. In his mind, paragliders were special.

Paraglider raids would be particularly dangerous, of course, but Division didn't intend they do a lot of them. The main reason for doing them at all was that War House wanted Wyzhnyny prisoners. The Wyzhnyny had rejected human surrenders, so they probably wouldn't surrender themselves. Getting prisoners would take special measures, and paragliders seemed the best bet.

The danger was something Esau knew mentally, but not yet viscerally. He couldn't recall ever being afraid for more than a moment; not in his entire life. His most intense emotion in life had been anger, and for whatever reason, during the course of military training his temper had grown more moderate and less frequent. Which pleased him. He'd wondered if daily contact with Sikhs had anything to do with it.

The shed door opened again, and a burly Masadan called in. "A and B Companies on your feet and file out!"

2nd Platoon, along with Captain Mulvaney and Lieutenant Bremer, shuffled to the nearest aisle and out into the autumn sunlight. There'd been a shower the day before, and this morning the ground was frozen. Only thinly though, Esau thought as they walked to the floater. No more than a crust. It hadn't been cold enough to freeze solid.

The transport floater was ten feet wide but low, a semi-cylinder flattened on the bottom, with a wide entry/exit at the rear, where a ramp was extruded for boarding. The troop compartment was a more solid version of the roughly-made stationary mock-ups they'd practiced in. There were two long benches, one down each side. When all the trainees were seated, the Masadan jump master murmured to the pilot via the microphone strapped to his wrist. A moment later, the seventy-foot armored floater lifted on its silent AG drive and they were on their way. Esau wished there were windows to look out of.

He ran through the jump drill in his mind. It was simple enough; no one was likely to screw up. Refuse to jump maybe, but not screw up. Captain Mulvaney had said that anyone who couldn't do it should stay in their seat and not interfere with the flow to the doors. Esau glanced at Jael beside him. It occurred to him that being a woman, this might be too much for her, and that if she couldn't jump, she might be transferred to a different platoon. But he reminded himself that when she decided to do something, she wasn't one to back down.

It was a ten-minute flight to the drop area. The word was, it had been plowed, then harrowed, to provide softer landings. Also, for safety, the trainees wore no equipment except their chutes. They'd been told that with the parachutes they wore today, they'd fall faster than with parasails-about twenty feet per second in Luneburger's gravity. That seemed awfully fast, but they'd been assured that on mass jumps, these chutes were safer than parasails. There was less risk of tangling in each other's lines.

A buzzer sounded. "Stand up!" called the jump master. On both sides of Esau and across the aisle, trainees got to their feet-but to his dismay, his own legs failed to obey the order! For a horrified second, Esau couldn't move. Then Jael's hand was on his sleeve, pulling, and somehow he managed to stand, his mind a fog of utter shock and confusion. Upright, his knees felt watery, as if he might sink to the floor.

"Hook up."

It was all well-drilled. On its own, his hand unhooked the static-line snap from its D-ring, hooked it onto the jump cable overhead, and tugged sharply. His mind, however, was frozen. "Sound off for equipment check." Each jumper, including Esau, checked the chute pack of the man ahead of him, and reported. "Twelve okay!" he called hoarsely.