Basht glanced over their formation, and for a second Jack thought he was going to make some snide comment. But he merely did a crisp military turn and strode off the field.

They followed, automatically falling into step with him. As they walked, Jack tried to puzzle out what was going on.

His analysis didn't get very far. Jommy and Alison were certainly the best of the bunch, which might imply this group had been singled out for special commendation. Problem was, he and Rogan were here, too, and neither of them was exactly near the top of the list. As for Brinkster and Li, Jack had noticed them along the way but neither had struck him as being either particularly good or particularly bad. So ordinary and unnoticeable were they, in fact, that he'd never even heard their first names.

Maybe it was a random sample, then. But with a hundred eighty boys and only twenty girls in the group, it didn't seem likely that a spin of the dart board would end up with three of each.

He was still trying to come up with some explanation when he suddenly realized that Lieutenant Basht was leading them straight toward the headquarters building.

Jack's heart had been starting to quiet down. Now, it picked up its pace again. So that was it. They'd figured out somehow that he was last night's casual visitor, and this whole thing was a smokescreen to get him away from the main group.

Beneath his shirt, he felt Draycos shifting around against his skin. Apparently, the K'da had figured it out, too. "Easy," he muttered a warning. The first rule Uncle Virgil had hammered into him when facing the authorities was not to do their job for them. You're innocent until they absolutely prove otherwise, he had told Jack over and over. And for ten minutes after that, too, he'd usually added.

There didn't seem to be any extra security hanging around the building as Basht opened the door and led the way inside. Jack rather expected him to take them straight upstairs to the records room, or maybe to split Jack off from the others and take him up there. To his mild surprise, Basht led them instead to a first-floor room.

To his even greater surprise, the room was filled with computer stations. The stations were unoccupied, but a thin man wearing colonel's insignia was standing near the front beside a double stack of sealed cartons. From the way he eyed them as they filed in, Jack guessed he'd been waiting specifically for them.

"Parade rest," Basht ordered as they formed into their two-by-three again. "Mbusu. Tell me about Sunright."

Sunright? Frantically, Jack searched his memory. Then he remembered: it was one of the worlds that had been listed in the Current Whinyard's Edge Missions section of their training manual.

And that was about all he remembered. If Basht called on him, he was going to be in serious trouble.

For a second it looked like Rogan was already there. "Uh—" the boy floundered. His voice quavered the way it always did whenever he had to talk to a superior officer, and Jack winced in sympathy.

Then the mental wheels seemed to catch. "Sunright, sir," Rogan said, his voice still trembling a little. "Third planet of the Gamma Lartrin system. Human colonized in 2115; ceded to the Parprins and Agri by the Treaty of Mcdougall in—"

"Lose the sniveling," Basht cut him off. "Kayna? What are the Edge's interests in the place?"

"The Edge has been hired by a Parprin daublite mining colony to protect its interests from a group of Agrist claim-jumpers," Alison said briskly. So she was on top of this, too. That figured. "Troops have been in position on the ground for the past sixteen months."

"Planetary bio stats?"

"Atmosphere is slightly oxygen-heavy, but well within human tolerances," Alison said. "Gravity is three percent less than Earth Standard; temperatures average two degrees cooler."

Basht nodded. "Who are we facing there? Randolph?"

"The Agri have their local military group," Jommy said. "Mostly volunteers. They've also hired units of the Shamshir mercenaries."

"Relative strengths?" Basht asked. "Li?"

Li seemed to shrink behind the smooth skin of her face. "I don't remember, sir," she said in a barely audible voice.

For a long second Basht's eyes burned into her, as if he was trying to set her on fire. Then, the glare flicked over her shoulder. "Brinkster? What's our strength?"

Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw the girl wince. "I think we have eight hundred troops on the ground, sir."

"You think?"

"We have eight hundred troops, sir," she said, more firmly this time.

"And the Shamshir?" Basht asked, his eyes finally focusing on Jack. "Montana?"

Jack braced himself to follow Li down in flames. But even as he opened his mouth to tell Basht he didn't know, there were seven rapid pinpricks on the back of his forearm, the urgent tapping of a K'da claw. "They have seven hundred, sir," he said, hoping he was reading Draycos's signal right.

He held his breath. Basht's eyes flicked again to Li, as if silently pointing out that she was the only one not up to speed here. Then he turned and nodded curdy to the colonel.

tto- "

Sir.

He stepped back as the colonel came forward, and Jack let out a silent sigh of relief. He hadn't realized that during all those hours of study Draycos had actually been reading the manual over his shoulder. Lucky for him.

Over his shoulder. On top of his shoulder. Whatever.

"My name is Colonel Elkor," the other introduced himself. "Late yesterday we received word from Sunright that the Shamshir have made a major blunder. We've been nibbling around the edges of their main InterWorld transmission station, so they've set up a new one. It's in a mountainous area marked as November Six on our maps."

He looked them all over, as if expecting them all to know where November Six was. Jack tried to remember if the Missions section had included a map of the Sunright area, but he couldn't.

"The convenient part about that is that we happen to have a forward observation outpost in that region," Elkor went on. "That means that if we put some specialized computer equipment in there, we'll be able to tap directly into all their off-planet transmissions."

He jerked his head back at the boxes he'd been standing beside when the group came in. "Those are the computers," he said. "You are now the computer operators. Any questions?"

There was a moment of uncertain silence. "Why aren't there any questions?" Elkor demanded. "You all already know everything?"

Jornmy lifted a hesitant hand. "Sir? I don't know anything about communications work."

"That's better," Elkor rumbled. "Fact is, none of you do. That's why you're here. Lieutenant Basht will be running you through three days of training that will include electronic eavesdropping, decoding, and some preliminary analysis techniques."

"Plus giving you all the access codes you'll need to work our systems," Basht added. "By the time you're done, each of you will be a fully qualified Whinyard's Edge systems operator."

"I presume none of you objects to a change in specialties?" Elkor said, lifting his eyebrows. "If you do, say so now. Plenty of other recruits marching back and forth out there for us to choose from."

The implications were obvious: stay here and do inside work, or go back outside and sweat. There was another silence from the group, this one a lot more positive than the last. "Good," Elkor said briskly. "The six of you are now designated as Technical Squad Tango Five Zulu. Carry on, Lieutenant."

He strode from the room. "All right," Basht said, gesturing toward the computer stations. "Everyone pick a station, and let's get started."

They took a short break for lunch, and an even shorter one for dinner. Throughout the day the noise outside rose and fell as the rest of the recruits were drilled and exercised, then taken away for more target practice, then brought back for more drills and exercise.