"Okay," Robbins said.

"Including the family quarters."

"Oh, okay," Robbins said, the light coming on. "I can already tell you I don't like where this is going."

"You said that Dirac's memory responds most strongly to stress and sensory input," Szilard said. "Taking him to the place where his daughter died—and where all her physical things are likely to be—would qualify as a significant sensory input."

"There is the minor problem that the system is now owned and patrolled by the Obin," Robbins said.

Szilard shrugged. "That's where the stress comes in," he said. He set his utensils into the "done" position on his plate and pushed it away from him.

"The reason General Mattson took over Private Dirac is because he didn't want him to die in combat," Robbins said. "Dropping him into Omagh space seems rather counter to that desire, General."

"Yes, well, the general's desire to keep Dirac out of harm's way has to be tempered by the fact that as of three days ago, four of my ships and more than a thousand of my people have up and disappeared, as if they never even existed," Szilard said. "And at the end of the day, Dirac is still Special Forces. I could force the issue."

"Mattson wouldn't like it," Robbins said.

"Neither would I," Szilard said. "I have a good relationship with the general, despite his patronizing attitude toward Special Forces and me."

"It's not just you," Robbins said. "He's patronizing to everyone."

"Yes, he's an equal opportunity asshole," Szilard said. "And he's aware of it, which he thinks means it's okay. Be that as it may, as much as I don't want to get on his bad side, I will if I have to. But I don't think I will have to."

A waiter came over to take Szilard's plate; Szilard ordered dessert. Robbins waited until the server left. "Why don't you think you'll have to?" he asked.

"What would you say if I told you we already had Special Forces at Omagh, making preparations to take back the system?" Szilard asked.

"I'd be skeptical," Robbins said. "That sort of activity would be noticed sooner or later, and the Obin are ruthless. They wouldn't tolerate their presence if they found out about it."

"You're right about that," Szilard said. "But you'd be wrong to be skeptical. Special Forces have been at Omagh for over a year now. They've even been inside Covell Station. I think we can get Private Dirac in and out without raising too much attention."

"How?" Robbins asked.

"Very carefully," Szilard said. "And by using a few new toys."

The waiter returned with the general's dessert: Two large Toll House cookies. Robbins stared at the plate. He loved Toll House cookies. "You realize that if you're wrong, and you can't sneak Dirac past the Obin, they'll kill him, your secret Omagh reclamation project will be exposed, and any information Dirac has about Boutin will die with him," Robbins said.

Szilard took a cookie. "Risk," he said. "It's always in the equation. If we do this and we botch it, then we are well and truly fucked. But if we don't do it, we risk Dirac never recovering Boutin's memories, and then we're vulnerable to what the Obin have planned next. And then we'll be well and truly fucked then. If we're going to be fucked, Colonel, I prefer to get fucked on my feet instead of on my knees."

"You have a way with mental imagery, General," Robbins said.

"Thank you, Colonel," Szilard said. "I try." He reached over, took the second cookie, and offered it to Robbins. "Here," he said. "I saw you coveting it."

Robbins stared at the cookie, then looked around. "I can't take that," he said.

"Sure you can," Szilard said.

"I'm not supposed to eat anything here," Robbins said.

"So what?" Szilard said. "Screw 'em. It's a ridiculous tradition and you know it. So break it. Take the cookie."

Robbins took the cookie and stared at it glumly.

"Oh, good God," Szilard said. "Do I have to order you to eat the damn thing?"

"It might help," Robbins said.

"Fine," Szilard said. "Colonel, I'm giving you a direct order. Eat the fucking cookie."

Robbins ate it. The waiter was scandalized.

"Behold," Harry Wilson said to Jared, as they walked into the cargo hold of the Shikm. "Your chariot."

The "chariot" in question consisted of a carbon fiber basket seat, two extremely small ion engines of limited power and maneuverability, one on each side of the basket seat, and an office-refrigerator-sized object positioned directly behind the seat.

"This is an ugly chariot," Jared said.

Wilson chuckled. Jared's sense of humor had improved over the last few weeks, or at the very least it had become more to Wilson's liking—it reminded him of the sarcastic Charles Boutin he knew. Wilson felt both pleasure and wariness about this: pleasure that his and Cainen's work was making a difference; wariness because Boutin was, after all, a traitor to humanity. Wilson liked Jared enough not to wish that fate on him.

"It's ugly but it's state-of-the-art," Wilson said. He walked over and slapped the refrigerator-looking object. "This is the smallest Skip Drive ever created," he said. "Hot off the assembly line. And not only is it small, but it's an example of the first real advance we've had in Skip Drive technology in decades."

"Let me guess," Jared said. "It's based on that Consu technology we stole from the Rraey."

"You make it sound like a bad thing," Wilson said.

"Well, you know," Jared said, tapping his head. "I'm in this predicament because of Consu technology. Let's just say I'm not neutral on its uses."

"You make an excellent point," Wilson said. "But this is sweet. A friend of mine worked on this; we'd talk about it. Most Skip Drives require you to get out into flat time-space before you can engage them. You have to get far away from a planet. This one is less picky: it can use a Lagrange point. So long as you've got a planet with a reasonably large moon, you've got five nearby spots in space where it's gravitationally flat enough to engage this drive. If they can work out the kinks, it could revolutionize space travel."

"'Work out the kinks'?" Jared said. "I'm about to use this thing. Kinks are bad."

"The kink is that the drive is touchy about the mass of the object it's attached to," Wilson said. "Too much mass creates too much of a local warp on the time-space. Makes the Skip Drive do weird things."

"Like what?" Jared asked.

"Like explode," Wilson said.

"That's not encouraging," Jared said.

"Well, explode is not quite the accurate word," Wilson said. "The physics for what really goes on are much weirder, I assure you."

"You can stop now," Jared said.

"But you don't have to worry about it," Wilson continued. "It takes about five tons of mass before the drive gets wobbly. That's why this sled looks like a dune buggy. It falls well under the mass threshold, even with you in it. You should be fine."

"Should be," Jared said.

"Oh, stop being a baby," Wilson said.

"I'm not even one year old," Jared said. "I can be a baby if I want. Help me get into this thing, would you."

Jared negotiated his way into the sled's basket seat; Wilson strapped him in, and stowed his Empee in a storage box to the side of the seat. "Do a systems check," Wilson said. Jared activated his BrainPal and connected with the sled, checking the integrity of the Skip Drive and the ion engines; everything was nominal. The sled had no physical controls; Jared would control it with his BrainPal. "The sled's fine," Jared said.

"How's the unitard?" Wilson asked.

"It's fine." The sled had an open cockpit; Jared's unitard was formatted for hard vacuum, including a cowl that would slide down completely over his face, sealing him in. The nanobotic fabric of the unitard was photosensitive and passed visual and other electromagnetic information directly to Jared's BrainPal. As a result Jared would be able to "see" better with his eyes covered by the cowl than he could if he were using them. Around Jared's waist was a rebreather system that could, if necessary, provide breathable air for a week.