Cobra Strike

"Okay. Keep me posted."

Winward tapped the mike once to break the private co

"Perfectly," Telek's voice said in his ear. "Got some good baseline readings on the mayor while he was heading through the building, and the high-stress ones there in the office look even better."

"Good. We'll get things started here as soon as we can. Any word yet from the outrider teams?"

"Just routine check-ins. Dewdrop's not reporting any obvious troop movements, either. Looks like we sneaked in undetected."

Which should mean they'd have a few hours or even a day or two before the rest of the planet realized they'd been invaded. After which things could get sticky.

"Okay. Dorjay says the tech assessors are already pulling things apart, so you'll get some data coming in on that front soon. Out."

The mayor leaned back from his console to look up balefully at Winward. "They will comply with your demands," he said. "For now, at any rate."

Getting his courage back? That was fine with Winward-the more mood swings the

Qasamans went through, the more useful the data the hidden sensors would get.

Provided the mayor didn't get too courageous. "Fine," the Cobra nodded. "Then let's go out and join them while our people get things organized. After you give me your gun, of course."

The Qasaman hesitated a split second before sliding the weapon out of its holster and laying it atop the console. "Okay; let's go," Winward said, leaving the gun where it was. If Telek's theory was right, chances were he could pick up the weapon without drawing a mojo attack... but he wasn't ready to make a test case out of it, not yet.

Silently the Qasaman rose to his feet, and together the two men left the office.

The section of forest the outrider-two team had put their aircar down into was reasonably sparse, as such things went, reminding Rey Banyon more of the woods they'd seen on Chata than the denser forests of Aventine's far west region where he'd grown up. The good news was that the ope

But for the moment the forest's denizens, large and small, were keeping their distance. Eyes sweeping the vicinity of the aircar, he listened with half an ear to the conversation between Dr. Hanford and the Dewdrop in orbit above them.

"Well, we didn't spot anything when we swept the area," Hanford was saying. "Are you still showing something nearby?"

"Negative," the voice came Back. "I think it went back under the trees and we lost it."

Hanford exhaled loudly. Banyon understood his irritation perfectly: this was the third time in the six hours they'd been on Qasama that they'd made a mad dash to the possible location of a krisjaw, only to come up empty.

And to make it worse, they weren't even sure that a krisjaw was what they needed to find.

"Any idea even which way it went?" the zoologist asked at last.

"Dr. Hanford, you have to understand the Dewdrop's infrareds weren't designed for such pin-point work, at least not from this distance. Let me see... if I had to guess, I'd say to try northwest."

"Thanks," Hanford said dryly. "Call if you spot another target."

"Northwest," one of the other two zoologists muttered as Hanford broke the co

"I doubt the predators do." Hanford sighed. "Well, Rey? On foot or by air?"

"By air, I suppose," Banyon said. "We'll try spotting on our own for awhile. See if we can do any better."

"Can't possibly do any worse. Well, let's go."

The three zoologists climbed back into the aircar, followed by Banyon and his three Cobra teammates. Rising to just over treetop level, they headed slowly northwest.

Christopher flipped off the mike with a snort and settled back to glaring at the infrared display, muttering under his breath. Eyeing him over his own screen,

York chuckled. "Having trouble, Bil?"

"This isn't even my job," Christopher growled without looking up. "How am I supposed to find krisjaw hot spots when I don't even know what they're supposed to look like?"

"You find a large hot spot that's moving-"

"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 u

"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.