"Of course." For a moment the driver was silent as he fought the car over a particularly bumpy section of the road. "Most of the searching's still north of here, I understand," he said as the car settled down. "You shouldn't have any trouble."

Jensen stiffened. "What's that supposed to mean?" he growled.

The other kept his gaze on the road, a half-smile etched tightly across his face. "Cutter Waldemar at your service, Commando Jensen. Our people have been looking for you for a week now. I'm glad we got to you before Security did."

Jensen had more or less resigned himself to being identified sometime during the ride, but he hadn't expected it to happen quite so soon. But he recovered fast. "What the hell are you talking about?" he snapped.

Waldemar glanced over. "Good try, Commando, but you're wasting your time. We had you identified as far back as Split, and a spot 'twenty kilometers down the road' would more likely be said as being 'near Noma.' And no one knows a blackcollar's loose in the Rumelian Mountains except Security and our organization of Radix. A real Security man would have jumped all over me for that question."

"All right. I concede." Jensen kept his attention on the other. "Now you prove who you are."

"Absolute proof I can't give you, but I can give you some points in my favor. Number one: if I were a quizler this conversation wouldn't be taking place. I'd have triggered a quiet alarm and talked about the weather while the car filled up with sleep gas. After what your rads did in Calarand yesterday morning there isn't a Security man on Argent who'd confront you alone like this."

"You seem more courageous."

"Not really; I just know you aren't an automatic killing machine, that you'll hear me out. Point two's along that same line: I'm unarmed." He raised his elbows from his sides, inviting inspection.

Jensen shook his head. "I'll take your word for it. You wouldn't be carrying weapons I could identify as such, anyway."

"Point," the other admitted. "Okay, then, here's my final card. Underneath your seat is a paral-dart pistol. Get it out."

Jensen considered. Then, slipping on his flexarmor gloves, he reached under the seat. No booby traps went off as he drew the gun out and examined it. An old compressed-air weapon, it bore the marks of heavy use, as well as those of careful maintenance. "Okay. And?"

"Underneath my seat is a set of maps covering everything between here and Calarand, with the most likely places to get through the Security cordon marked. In the trunk are edibles and clothing." Waldemar's voice was steady. "If you don't want to trust me, those darts will keep me out for five or six hours. You can drop me here, take the car, and try to get away on your own. I'll walk home when the drug wears off."

"Your group—Radix—doesn't want to talk to me?"

"Not especially." He sent Jensen a lopsided smile. "Matter of fact, the prevailing opinion down here is that you're all going to get yourselves killed or captured, and the less we're involved with you the better."

Jensen nodded. "Hospitable types, aren't you?"

"It's called self-preservation. Very popular in these parts."

For a long moment no one spoke. Jensen studied Waldemar's face, looking for clues, but in fact he had pretty well made up his mind. The whole thing could be an elaborate sucker-trap, but Security was unlikely to go to that much trouble, especially with simpler traps available. And Radix's less than enthusiastic attitude rang uncomfortably true. "All right," he said slowly. "I'm convinced. Where are we going?"

"Millaire." Waldemar's relief was unmistakable; clearly, he hadn't looked forward to taking a long walk in the rain. "That's where the southern HQ is. It's about six hundred kilometers from here, so we should be there tonight. Barring quizler trouble, of course."

"Sounds good." Jensen took a deep breath, feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders as he did so. He hadn't realized how tired he was of being on the defensive. "I'd like to see those maps of yours, too."

"Sure." Reaching under his seat, Waldemar produced a thick sheaf of paper. "Anything you'd like to know about Radix or Argent in general?"

"Sure—everything," Jensen said agreeably. Sorting through the maps he found the one marked "Calarand" and opened it. "Why don't you start by telling me what exactly my friends did to Calarand yesterday?"

The nunchaku was a silent blur wrapping itself like half a cocoon around him. Lathe kept his gaze focused beyond the flail, controlling its motion solely through the feel in his muscles. The weapon changed hands once, twice, three times; interrupted its defensive pattern to snap out and back in whiplike motions that could crack skulls; folded itself back along the blackcollar's arm and shoulder, where it could block even a Ryqril-wielded short sword; and resumed its pattern as Lathe snatched and threw three shuriken into the targets at the far end of the shooting range.

From the door at his left came a knock. "Come in," Lathe called, breathing a little heavily as he sheathed the nunchaku.

The door opened and Bakshi looked in. "Am I interrupting?"

Lathe shook his head. "Come on in."

The Argentian did so, closing the door behind him. "Skyler said I'd find you here. How's the shoulder?"

"Good as new." Lathe stretched his arms forward experimentally. "Just a little tightness where the burn line was. I'd forgotten what good stuff that salve is—we ran out of it on Plinry ages ago." He gestured toward the mats behind them. "If you came to work out I can prove how fit I am."

Bakshi smiled and shook his head. "Perhaps later." He paused. "Speaking of workouts, I've been talking to Fuess about your little foray yesterday. I get the impression you weren't entirely satisfied with his performance."

"Umph." Turning, Lathe set off down the range to retrieve his shuriken. "He said that?"

"Not in so many words." Bakshi fell into step beside him. "I'd like to hear your evaluation of him."

"All right. Yes, I was disappointed. His fighting skills aren't up to what I would consider blackcollar level. More importantly, he was a rotten soldier. He wanted to debate every other order, and even when he obeyed me it was only grudgingly. I presume I don't have to explain the need for a smooth command structure to you, do I?"

"No." They'd reached the targets now, heavy wooden boards pockmarked with hundreds of tiny pits that almost obliterated the traditional human-figure outlines painted there. Each of Lathe's shuriken had hit one of the outlines directly in the throat. Extracting one of the stars, Bakshi turned it idly in his hand. "You're a good marksman."

Lathe grunted as he retrieved the other two stars. "Not really. Most of my men are at least as good as I am."

"Then your men are extraordinary," Bakshi said, "or else Plinry was lucky. The Ryqril must not have used nerve gases on you."

Lathe gave him a hard look. "No, they didn't do much of that. Most of us didn't arrive until the ground war had begun, when they had too many of their own people down for indiscriminate use of gases. But don't ever suggest again that Plinry was lucky because of it."

Bakshi ducked his head briefly. "The groundfire attack; yes. I apologize. I guess they learned their lesson on you; here they pounded us into submission from space so they wouldn't have to use it again. My point was that many of our blackcollars were permanently affected by one of the gases. We don't talk about it much; it's still too painful a memory."

"Affected how? Slowed reflexes?"

"Yes, from light neural damage. You've seen it before?"

"One or two cases." Someone might have mentioned Dodds. "Is that why none of you can fight?"

Bakshi smiled bitterly. "Oh, we can fight, all right. We didn't get your thirty-year vacation, you know. But, yes, that's why Fuess and the others aren't as good at hand-to-hand combat anymore. And as for the other problem—" He hesitated. "I think maybe they resent the fact that you're still as good as you always were. As they were once."