Gabe laughed without humor. "Not as ready as you are. But yeah, let's do it. You lead?"
C41 was marshalling near the ship. The major and Sergeant Daye made sure the strikers knew their placements in the column. Sergeant Kristal saw the scouts standing apart and walked toward them.
"Hey, you two," she called. "You've still got your converters. Bring them over to the cit woman at the trailers. The president. She'll take care of them from here out."
"Who died and made you God, Kristal?" Blohm said. He and 2-1's sergeant had rubbed each other wrong since she transferred to C41 from a line battalion.
"It happens that Top tasked me to help with administration since we're short of officers," Kristal said in a hard, pale voice. "But for a pissant like you, Blohm, all that matters is I'm a sergeant and you're a striker."
"Major Farrell wants us to check something magnetic out in the jungle, Sue," Sergeant Gabrilovitch said. "We need the converters. We're headed out right now."
"Come on, Gabe," Blohm said. He wasn't going to give up his converter. Not if the major himself ordered it.
"Well, hell, nobody told me," Kristal muttered. She knew she'd stepped on her dick by trying to pull rank. She turned to go back to the main body. Over her shoulder she added, "When you get back, then. The cits are taking care of catering."
"No," Blohm said. "I need my converter. I might be out there—"
He nodded.
"—any time."
So long as Caius Blohm had a converter and a knife, he was independent of every other human being on Bezant. He could pretend, believe, he was completely alone.
Both sergeants looked at Blohm with carefully blank-faced concern. They'd seen redliners plenty of times before. There wasn't a psych wing to bundle people off to here; and besides, even Kristal would have admitted the expedition needed Blohm just now.
"Look, Sue," Gabrilovitch said, speaking more to Blohm than to Kristal. "When we're in camp, Blohm'll run his converter for any cits that need it, right? He'll do it himself. Top can't complain about that, right?"
Kristal shrugged. "Yeah, sure," she said, watching Blohm the way she'd have watched a cobra; only she knew the scout was faster than a cobra. "Have a nice hike through the park, why don't you?"
"Come on, snake," Gabrilovitch said in an urgent whisper. "We got a job to do, right?"
"Right," Blohm growled. He twitched his whole body to settle his pack, then strode toward the edge of the unbroken forest.
Kristal watched the scouts disappear. Blohm entered the jungle like a fish diving home in the sea.
The civilians' faces were sullen over layers of fear, anger, and uncertainty; but mostly fear. Abbado walked down the line of the two deckloads who'd start at the head of the column and were therefore 3-3's primary responsibility. He reminded himself that they were civilians; and he tried to remember to smile.
The civilians had been told to prepare to colonize a planet, not for route marching. They didn't have load-bearing equipment. Many of them carried bundles in their arms. Others had travel cases with handles and sophisticated support devices on the underside, a dead weight over the bulldozed terrain between here and the proper site.
Strikers were talking to the civilians about their baggage, helping them sort and toss items aside. Abbado noticed Glasebrook was checking everybody's neck patch. Flea seemed to have made that a crusade, which was fine with his sergeant. Abbado's wrist still ached where the crazy Spook had bitten him.
A few civilians had tried to manufacture their own packs. Lack of proper materials handicapped them, but Abbado nodded approval at the initiative. Half a dozen adults carried their loads balanced on lengths of plastic pipe. That was probably the most efficient technique, though it'd be awkward in tight places.
Abbado didn't worry about the marchers crowding together. This mob was going to straggle from the first step, and he only hoped nobody thought it was the job of his strikers to close them up. Trying to protect the poor bastards was going to be problem enough.
Dr. Ciler bobbed his head silently to Abbado. The sergeant lifted a hand in response. He recognized a number of the faces, though he couldn't have put names to them. People from the batch he'd guided aboard the ship. "Hey, it's homecoming, right, folks?" he said.
Jeez, these poor bastards are meat on the table unless we stay razor sharp, Abbado thought as his lips smiled.
The tractors were turning over as staffers checked the prime mover and ancillary motors. The drives were electric, generated by fusion-heated steam in a light-metal working fluid.
The tractor cabs were covered on the top and three sides. The staffers driving would wear hard suits from C41's stores, most of which had to be abandoned at the ship. The major had decided to put a striker in full armor on the platform behind the cab for additional protection. They couldn't afford to lose the tractors.