But there was nothing to be gained by bringing that up now. For the first time in the six months since Galway and Judas had first arrived on Khala, Haberdae had completely lost his condescending smugness. Now, finally, he truly understood what it was the blackcollars represented.
And he was angry. Deeply and bitterly angry.
"At least they don't have the car anymore," Galway commented, searching for some bright spot in all this. "With those onboard transponders that let the cars into the government center—"
"Into the inner garage areas," Haberdae cut him off tartly. "And you know perfectly well they're as secure as the wall itself."
"Of course," Galway said quickly, not believing it for a minute. Unlike the Security men on the wall and outer gates, the guards in the garages wouldn't be expecting anyone but high government officials to be driving into their areas. It was exactly the sort of mental blind spot that blackcollars loved to play with.
"Never mind the car anyway," Haberdae went on grimly. "You know Taakh better than I do. When's he going to pick out a few of my men to kill over this?"
"Actually, I don't think he will," Galway said. "Don't forget, he personally signed off on—" your plan
"—on tonight's plan. He can't start passing out responsibility for the defeat without taking some of it for himself, and he has way too much pride for that. I'm guessing he'll stay as quiet as possible and wait for it to go away."
Haberdae let his gaze sweep slowly over the area. "You're the one who brought these men here, Galway," he said. His voice was controlled, almost calm, but there was the odor of death beneath it.
"You're the one who turned them loose on my city and my world."
"They're not loose, Prefect," Galway said, an icy shiver running through him. Haberdae was looking for someone to kill ... and Galway was the closest likely target. "Judas is with them. They are under control."
"Eight of my men just died," Haberdae reminded him, the death-odor growing stronger. "You call that being under control?"
"We pushed them too hard, and we paid the price," Galway said, again fighting against the urge to remind Haberdae that it was his rashness that had brought this disaster down on them. "There's nothing we can do about it now except make sure those deaths ultimately serve some purpose."
Haberdae snorted. "Like proving to the blackcollars how infallible they are?"
"Like making this work," Galway countered, some anger of his own starting to stir inside him. He'd had just about enough of Haberdae's attitude. All of his attitudes. "We've made an attempt to capture them, which Lathe probably would have expected somewhere along the line anyway. So now we pull back as if we're licking our wounds and let him have a free hand to plan the Khorstron attack."
"Unless Shaw still insists on running the show," Haberdae pointed out. "In which case we're right back where we started."
"We'll find out soon enough," Galway said. "But even if Shaw still wants overall command authority, he has to be smart enough to realize now that he's in a real war. And war is no place for petty rivalries."
Haberdae looked sideways at him. "Like ours?"
Galway grimaced. "That's not what I meant."
"No, of course not." Haberdae looked back at the parking lot. "You can call it petty if you want, Galway.
But I'm the one responsible for what happens on Khala. Not the Ryqril; certainly not you. It was my men who died here tonight ... and someone's going to pay for that."
Galway shivered. "You're welcome to hold that thought," he said. "Just be careful to keep it within the guidelines of the plan."
"Oh, don't worry," Haberdae said tartly. "I would never do anything to upset the plan. Are you finished here?"
"Yes," Galway said. In fact, he'd been finished several minutes ago. "We should get to the hospital and start debriefing any of the injured who are ready to talk."
"You go ahead," Haberdae said. "I've got some other business to attend to first." Turning, he strode off toward the handful of vehicles parked behind them.
"Fine," Galway murmured softly to himself as he watched the other go. "I guess I'll see you later."
Caine's breakfast delivery had come early, despite his late-night arrival at his new quarters. Unlike the silent midnight raid, though, this one had come with all the casual noise and bustle that one would expect from a normal operating prison.
It was only after he'd finished the meal bars and tea and was able to surreptitiously check the cameras that he realized he'd underestimated the opposition. Instead of simply and obviously removing the moistened bits of paper Caine had used to blind them, they'd replaced the paper with something that looked almost exactly the same but was presumably treated to actually be transparent.
He'd spent the day again listening at the door while pretending to fiddle with the lock, all the while trying to decide how he should respond to their little reverse sabotage gambit. Now, as evening began to fade toward night, he still didn't have an answer.
But there were other answers he did have, at least preliminary ones. The building's power generator appeared to be on this level, somewhere at the far end of the corridor from the elevator they'd brought him in on. There were always two guards on duty outside his cell, that number doubling whenever his door was going to be opened for meal delivery. There were also at least six other guards quartered in other rooms on this level, with duty shifts changing three times a day. His watch, like his clothes, had gone with Galway's imported replacement, but Caine had a good time sense and was pretty sure the shift changes were at more or less the standard eight/four/midnight hours.
Occasionally, the pitch of the generator hum would change, and shortly thereafter he would hear one or two men arrive and head down the corridor at a more casual civilian gait than the crisper step of the guards. Either the generator required periodic care and feeding, or else it was old and cranky enough that it had to be occasionally persuaded to keep working.
Those, at least, were the basics of what he had to work with, though he would need another day or two of observation before he would feel confident enough of the prison's routine to make any sort of overt move. Hopefully, he would have that time.
In the distance, he heard the elevator doors open, and the footsteps of three Security men heading his way.
Quickly, he slid his paper probe out of sight inside the collar of his jumpsuit and hopped up from the comfort chair. Grabbing the arms, he lugged it back across the floor to where it usually sat near the center of the room and picked up the top few sheets of paper from his reading stack on the floor.
He was settled again in the chair, pretending to be engrossed in the book, when the lock clicked and the door swung open.
But it wasn't the evening meal he'd been expecting. Instead, a big man he'd never seen before strode into the room, his eyes hard as he gazed at Caine. "So you're Caine," he said without preamble.
"Unless Galway got the two of us mixed up," Caine said. "You my new roommate?"
The other's eyes hardened even more. "You think you're cute, don't you?" he said softly. "You think you're like all those other blackcollars, ready to take on the world and beat it to a pulp."
"Actually, people in orange jumpsuits usually aren't the ones doing the beating," Caine reminded him.
"Mr.—ah ...?"
"Prefect," the other corrected him darkly. "Prefect Daov Haberdae, commanding all Security forces on Khala."
"Ah," Caine said, nodding. "Except for the ones Prefect Galway's commandeered, I assume."
Haberdae hissed out a breath. "I don't know what it is with you backwater Plinry rats," he ground out, taking a step forward. As he did so, a pair of guards stepped hastily into the room behind him, their paraldart guns leveled warningly at Caine's chest. "What is it that makes you think you're better than the rest of us?"
"You got me," Caine said, wondering if he should mention that, strictly speaking, he was actually from Earth, not Plinry. "What's the matter? Isn't Galway saluting or sirring you properly?"