Cermo-the-Slow nodded, his big eyes amiable and warm. “We need time, do some ’sploring. Might find more servos, even maybe stimjacks.”

Jocelyn laughed. “Cermo, no stimjacks in a fact’ry.”

Cermo shrugged. “Could be. Dunno till you look.”

Something in the middle distance caught Killeen’s eye and at first he did not understand.

Ledroff smiled. “Yeasay you, then? Isay we bed down in the big fac’try, post—”

“Wait. See that?” Killeen pointed.

Jocelyn squinted. “Navvy. So?”

“Ever see one like it?”

Cermo said slowly, “Maybe once. Can’t be sure.”

Jocelyn said, “I ’member one somewhere….”

“Earlier today. And I think it was near where the Mantis hit us, too,” Killeen said.

Ledroff eyed the navvy as it approached on crawler treads. It had crosshatched side panels and, though it veered aside to a factory entrance, its fore-eyes peered at the brassglass pyramid until it vanished. “So?” he said.

“I think it’s a scout,” Killeen said.

Ledroff squinted down from his perch. “Could be different navvy each place.”

Jocelyn said flatly, “Could be not, too.”

“New kind navvy,” Cermo said. “Maybe there’re lots.”

“Scout for what?” Ledroff asked.

Killeen said, “Marauders.”

“Marauders not use scouts, I know of,” Cermo said.

“So what?” Jocelyn asked sarcastically. “Just ’cause you dunno, don’ mean isn’t.”

Cermo bristled. “Fanny knew.”

“Yousay. We got no Fanny Aspect to ask,” Jocelyn said sourly.

“Gotta go by ’perience!” Cermo spat back.

“Gotta use heads!” Jocelyn said.

Ledroff said, “I believe we have to use both.”

Killeen frowned and said, “Listen to Jocelyn, Isay.”

Jocelyn acknowledged this with a curt nod, its energy revealing a contained tension. She had learned Fanny’s ways, too, but had not missed the old woman’s central and hardwon lesson: Anticipate. Savvy the mechthink before it savvys you.

Killeen saw in her slow-smoldering eyes a resentment of Ledroff. Surprised, he saw that Jocelyn had wanted to be Cap’n. He had been too meshed in himself to see that.

“Navvys could be backpackers for a Marauder,” Jocelyn insisted. She had started finger-curling her hair again. Then she smoothed it back carefully, getting the curls set in the right overlapping waves behind her ears.

Cermo shrugged. “That navvy wasn’t carryin’ anything.”

“Not now, no. Could’ve dumped it,” Jocelyn said.

“For what?” Ledroff asked.

“See what we’re doing,” Killeen said.

“Fanny naysay anything about such,” Ledroff said. Then, hearing how lame the words sounded, he added, “Marauders too fast for navvy. They’d clean leave ’em ’way behind.”

“Mantis might be slow,” Killeen said. “We never saw it move much.”

Ledroff frowned. Killeen had seen Ledroff on long marches and in battle and knew him to be a cautious, savvy man. Now suddenly Cap’n, Ledroff was trying to balance the views of the others and find a communal consensus. Maybe that was the right thing to do. But Killeen felt in Jocelyn and even Cermo a slowbuilding irritation. Ledroff would have to defuse that fast. A Family should not march or rest while it brewed an anger.

Ledroff was now beset by the inevitable legacy of any Cap’n: the whines of the Family, swirling about him as a natural vortex. They were a small, steady drain. The pressure of this rain of complaint was always to rest, to allow the older and less hardy a respite. And any Cap’n, seeing the incremental damage that the Family’s constant forced marching exacted, was prone to listen to these well-meaning and in fact almost pitiful voices. It was a kindness to let the Family knit up its soreness and strains. But it was often not smart.

Ledroff said slowly, “I was hoping you’d all be of one mind.”

“Jocelyn and me, we saw that navvy with the Mantis. We’re sure,” Killeen said sharply, half to let out steam and half to signal to Ledroff that he, as Cap’n, had to do something.

“Your memory’s alky-fogged,” Ledroff said cuttingly.

“That’s past.” Killeen felt himself redden.

Cermo teased, “Killeen, you should be on our side. We stay here, you slurp some more tonight.”

“I don’t have your honeyroll fat, sop up the alky with, is all,” Killeen said sarcastically. Cermo carried a slight roll at his belt, visible through the silver tightweave. No matter how hard times were for the Family, Cermo’s meager bulge stayed, and was in fact a source of some pride for him.

“Marchin’, this honeyroll’ll leave you eatin’ dust,” Cermo said with a harsh edge.

“Not so long’s you run like your boots are tied together,” Killeen retorted.

“You boys mooded for rankin’?” Ledroff said evenly.

This was a signal that only the Cap’n could give and that no Family ignored. Killeen realized that this was what he had half-wanted. They needed to free the vexings that had mounted since Fanny’s loss.

“Heysay,” Killeen began the ranking. “Smells like you converting that honeyroll to gas.”

Cermo responded, “Then ’least I got some art in my fart.”

“Gas bomb the Marauders, then, let me stay with the old folks,” Killeen said.

Ledroff came in with, “Only thing you blow up is your belly,” directed at Cermo.

“Blow up your mother real good, you watch,” Cermo answered.

“She couldn’t find it, dribblin’ down under that belly,” Ledroff spat out, picking up the rhythm.

“It telescopes out, fella. Way out,” Cermo said. “Next time I’m gonna show it off, you stick ’round, hear the joints pop.”

Jocelyn smiled at this and came in. “I think I can see through that telescope, easy.”

“You can look for free!” Cermo cried with glee. He remembered to cover his mouth, but even such basic politenesses weren’t required in the ranking.

“You mean microscope, it’s so small!”

They went through more rounds, each throwing in a quick dash of cutting humor. The Cap’n could always order a round of ranking to defuse the tensions that perpetually came up and, if carried, would fester. The quick-shot talk could abuse or amuse—ideally, both. As the jibes laced across the group, each person performed and the others responded with answering barbs or releasing hoots of applause.

“Can’t tell Cermo’s fart from his talk.”

“You mean he can talk?”

“His ass knows more words than his mouth does.”

“Pronounces better, too.”

“Don’t drool as much either.”

“It’s your mother can’t talk, when I’m telescopin’ her.”

“Heysay, ’least I’m kind. I give your mother somethin’ nice and fresh to eat.”

“Soundin’, you are!”

“Your wife, she like a doorknob, ever’body gets a turn.”

“Damnsight right!”

“Your father never try. He so ugly, he crawl up to your mother, she think it’s a navvy.”

“Yours, he got so many wrinkles in his head, he has to screw his helmet on.”

“Well, ’least he can screw that.”

“Sad man, screw his helmet.”

“You rankin’ right!”

“Your dad, he so ugly, when he cries tears run down his back.”

“Oooooo!”

“Heysay! Heysay!”

If the rounding did not channel the aggression of a particular pair, the group would force the two to confront each other. By using passing-phrases, or encouraging calls, they could finesse competition onto the pair. This time the anger Killeen felt for Ledroff—suppressed and slowbuilding for days—came out in a few moments of flashing jibes, ending with Killeen’s holding his hands up, palms forward, and shaking his head wisely.

“Let’s get off the subject of mothers, Ledroff… ’cause I just got off yours.”

“Oooo-ee!”

“Rankin’!”

“Drive that nail!”

—and they all got up, chuckling and slapping one another on the shoulder in a bittersweet calm of aired troubles. Family members who had drifted in to witness said nothing. They embraced others in turn, laughing and joshing still, the chatter now aimless and merrily undirected in purpose yet no less effective in healing. The Family could not afford unaired anger. The ranking round, once a pleasant social convention in the Citadel, was as unremarkable and vital in the Family as a handshake.