"Not really," Farrell explained. "We can only use high gain in a virtually sterile environment. The signatures of an aircar in operation swamp the signal from, say, a Spook laser's cooling mechanism."
"I can discriminate," Lundie said flatly. "My headset, cued to the helmets, can discriminate. The guards can filter their inputs as they desire. I'll use their passive sensors at maximum sensitivity."
She looked at the project manager. There was steel in her expression and flint in his.
Al-Ibrahimi smiled minusculy. "Yes," he said. "The initial flight to the grid will involve minimal personnel—my aide, the pilot, and however many personnel you choose to attach, Major."
"I'll go also," Suares said. He seemed surprised when everyone stared at him.
"For site planning," he explained, as if it should have been obvious. "As an architect, not because I'm a . . ." He waggled his hands to indicate the slight significance of his position as building councillor.
"We won't be able to ferry the heavy equipment and materials on the vehicle available," Suares added. "I need to plan housing construction as quickly as possible. Do we have an inventory of hand tools?"
"Yes," said Lundie.
"I'll ride along, sir," Kuznetsov said. "I've used commo capsules before."
"Who do you want to take with you?" Farrell asked.
Kuznetsov shrugged. "If we can really dodge the Spooks," she said, "I'm fine by myself. You need all the strikers here."
Farrell grimaced. "You got that right," he agreed. This balls-up could be straightened out inside of a week; but keeping the civilians alive for that week wasn't a job Art Farrell looked forward to.
"All right, Mr. Suares," al-Ibrahimi said. "I take your point. And as the sooner we start, the better, I—"
"Contact!" Farrell's helmet warned. "Contact!"
Flashes and explosions in series wracked the northern treeline.
"Don't touch that," Blohm warned. "It's sticky and I think the sap'll burn you."
Gabrilovitch turned with a sour expression toward the tree an inch or two from his elbow. The bark had the sheen of wet rubber. Now that the sergeant looked carefully, he noticed that bits of leaves and other detritus of the sort that falls from the canopy stuck out of the bole here and there. Not only were pieces being absorbed into the tree, the visible portions had a seared, shrivelled texture.
"Shit," he muttered. "Let's get back into the clearing. Those guys—"
He nodded toward the pair of Kalendru frozen in their death throes.
"—aren't going to tell us much."
"Yeah, all right," Blohm said. "You're the boss."
He hadn't called Gabe through the forest wall in the first place. Having the sergeant present was one more thing for Blohm to worry about in an environment that had plenty along those lines to begin with. Gabe wasn't careless, but he didn't understand yet that this forest was as dangerous as the jaws of a shark.
The major had attached Blohm and Gabrilovitch to Squad 2-1 to watch the northern perimeter, but Sergeant Kristal hadn't expected them to stick close. Her squad was used to working as a unit, just as the scouts were used to working with each other or alone. It made sense for Gabe to position himself and Blohm a hundred feet east of the nearest member of 2-1. That way the intervening vegetation would stop anything which reflex aimed before the shooter's consciousness worried about who else might be standing in that direction.
Gabrilovitch started under a sapling. Since he'd passed by it to join Blohm, the slender bole had kinked. Sprays of leaves now dangled where they would inevitably brush his helmet and back.
"Wait," said Blohm. He reached past the sergeant and severed the sapling near the ground with his powerknife. The foliage writhed as it fell.
"Fuck this fucking place!" Gabrilovitch whispered.
"Look, why don't I lead?" Blohm said. He stepped around the sergeant, choosing a course at an angle to the one he'd taken on the way in. Gabe nodded agreement, but he ground his boot heel onto the sapling before he followed.
Blohm wasn't echoing information from the helmet of any other striker. He needed to concentrate entirely on what he was doing. The hell with what was happening to somebody else.
The scouts would pass near the bole of a tree large even in this forest of giants, an emergent whose peak lifted a good fifty feet above the canopy. There was movement in the topmost branches. The helmet AI thought it was caused by a breeze that didn't reach the forest floor, but Blohm shifted his line on instinct. The tension squeezing his ribs eased, though nothing he could have pointed to had changed.