"Yes, I know all that. Elsner just better hurry up and get back here, that's all
I've got to say."
"He still at the main display looking for a bololin herd for outrider-three?"
"Yeah." Christopher visibly shivered. "Those guys must be nuts. You sure wouldn't catch me chasing bololins around."
"You wouldn't catch me down there at all," York murmured.
Christopher sent him a quick look. "Yeah. I, uh... I understand you were asked to be on the Menssana with Lizabet, Yuri, Marck, and the others."
"That's right," York told him evenly. "I refused."
"Oh." Christopher's eyes strayed to York's new right arm-his new mechanical right arm-then slipped guiltily away.
"You think it's because of this, don't you?" York asked, raising his arm and opening his hand. The fingers twitched once as he did so, mute reminder of the fact that his brain hadn't totally adapted to the neural/electronic interfaces yet. "You think I'm afraid to go down there again?"
"Of course not-"
"Then you're wrong," York told him flatly. "I'm afraid, all right, and for damn good reasons."
Christopher's face was taking on an increasingly uncomfortable expression, and it occurred to York that the other had probably never heard anyone speak quite this way before. "You want to know why Yuri and Marck and the others are down there and I'm up here?" he asked.
"Well... all right, why?"
"Because they're trying to prove they're brave," York said. "Partly to others, but mainly to themselves. They're demonstrating that they can stick their heads in the spine leopard's mouth a second time if they have to, without flinching."
"Whereas you feel no such need?"
"Exactly," York nodded. "I've had my courage tested many times. Both before I came to Aventine and since then. I know I'm brave, and I'm damn well not going to take unnecessary chances to prove it to the universe at large." He waved at his display. "If and when the Qasamans make their move I can assess their military level just as well from up here as I could on the surface. Ergo, here's where I stay."
"I see," Christopher nodded. But his eyes still looked troubled. "Makes sense, certainly. I'm-well, I'm glad that's cleared up."
He turned back to his display, and York suppressed a sigh. Christopher hadn't understood, any more than the rest of them had. They still thought it was all just a complicated way of not saying he was a coward.
The hell with all of them.
Turning back to his own screen, he resumed his watch for military activity. In his lap his mechanical hand curled into a fist.
It was shortly after noon when the Dewdrop finally located a bololin herd within the specified distance of the village, and it was another hour before outrider-three's aircar reached it. The herd had paused among the trees to graze, and as the aircar drifted by overhead Rem Parker whistled under his breath. "Nasty-looking things," he commented.
One of the other three Cobras muttered an agreement. "I think I can see the tarbines-those tan spots behind the heads, inside the quills."
"Yeah. Great place for a summer home." Parker glanced at the tech huddled over his instruments in the next seat. "Well, Dan? Possible?"
Dan Rostin shrugged. "Marginal. We're pretty far south of the direct route here-it'll take a large deviation to get them on track. But if they cooperate as well as the flatfoots on Chata it ought to work okay. Hang on a second and I'll have the details for you."
It turned out not to be quite as bad as Parker had feared. Nowhere would the magnetic field they would be superimposing change the overall field line direction by more than twenty degrees, and the amplitudes necessary were well within their equipment's capabilities.
Of course, they would occasionally need to get within a hundred meters of the herd's center, with the risk to the aircar from the flanks that such a close approach would entail. But then, that was why the Cobras were along in the first place.
"Well, let's get started," Parker told the others. "And let's hope they're as much like their flatfoot cousins as the bio people say they are." Otherwise-he didn't add-the Cobras might just wind up herding them, rancher style, all the way to the village.
And that was a trick he wasn't anxious to try.
It was almost sundown when Winward returned from a tour of his Cobras' positions to the mayoral office building, where Dr. McKinley and the rest of the psych people had set up shop. One of the Qasamans was being escorted out of McKinley's room as Win-ward arrived, and he took the opportunity to take a quick look inside. "Hello," he nodded to the two men as he poked his head around the door.
"How's it going?"
McKinley looked about as tired as Winward had ever seen a man; but his voice was brisk enough. "Pretty good, overall. Even without the computer analysis I can see the stress levels changing pretty much as predicted."
"Good. You about to close down this phase for the evening?"
"Got one more to do. If you'd like, you could stay and watch."
Winward eyed the Cobra guard standing silently against the wall. He, too, looked tired, though just as far from admitting it as McKinley was. "Alek, why don't you go ahead and get some dinner," he told the other. "I'll stay here while Dr.
McKinley finishes up."
"I'd appreciate that," Alek nodded, heading for the door. "Thanks."
McKinley waited until he was gone, then touched a button on his translator pendant. "Okay; send in number forty-two."
A moment later Winward's enhanced hearing picked up two sets of footsteps approaching; and the door opened to admit another Cobra and a tense-looking
Qasaman male. The Cobra left, and McKinley gestured to the low chair facing his appropriated desk. "Sit down, please."
The Qasaman complied, throwing a suspicious glance at Winward. His mojo, Winward noted, was almost calm by comparison, although it seemed to be rippling its feathers rather frequently. "Let's begin with your name and occupation,"
McKinley said. "Just speak clearly toward the recorder here," he added, waving at the rectangular box perched on a corner of the desk.
The man answered, and McKinley moved on to general questions concerning his interests and life in the village. Gradually the tone and direction of the questioning shifted, though, and within a few minutes McKinley was asking about the man's relationships with friends, his frequency of intercourse with his wife, and other highly personal matters. Winward watched the Qasaman closely, but to his untrained eye the other seemed to be taking McKinley's prying with reasonable grace. The stress indicators built into the recorder and the man's chair, of course, would deliver a more scientific assessment.
McKinley was halfway through a question about the man's childhood when he broke off and, as he'd done forty-one times already that day, pretended to listen with annoyance to something coming through his earphone. "I'm sorry," he told the
Qasaman, "but apparently your mojo's flapping noises are interfering with the recording. Uh-" He glanced around the room, pointed to a large cushion in the far corner. "Would you mind putting him over there?"
The other grimaced, glancing again at Winward. Then, body language eloquent with protest, he complied. "Good," McKinley said briskly as the Qasaman seated himself again. "Let's see; I guess I should backtrack a bit."
He launched into a repeat of an earlier question, and Winward shifted his attention to the mojo sitting in its corner. Sitting; but clearly not happy with its banishment. The head movements and feather ruffling Winward had noted earlier had increased dramatically, both in frequency and magnitude. Nervous at being separated from its protector? the Cobra wondered. Or upset because it can't influence things as well at this distance? The whole idea of the mojos having some subliminal power over the Qasamans made Winward feel decidedly twitchy. Alone among all he'd talked to, he still hoped Jonny Moreau's theory was wrong.
"Damn."
Winward turned his attention back to the interrogation to find McKinley scowling into space. "I'm sorry, but the recorder's still picking up too much noise. I guess we're going to have to put your mojo out of the room entirely.