Phule joined in their laughter.
“Go on, get some sleep. Both of you. You’re going to need your strength before I get done with you.”
“Seriously, Captain, what’s the rush?” Rembrandt said, propping herself against the wall. “What happened to our relaxed, informal sessions of note comparing?”
“You put your finger on it a minute ago,” the commander told her. “You two know some things about the troops that I don’t. I want to get as much information out of you as I can before we run everybody through the confidence course day after tomorrow-well, tomorrow, actually.”
He glanced up from his watch to find the lieutenants staring at him, all trace of humor gone.
“What’s wrong?”
Armstrong cleared his throat.
“Excuse me, Captain. Did you say we were running the confidence course the day after tomorrow?”
“That’s right. Didn’t I mention it to you?”
Phule tried to focus his mind to separate what he had and hadn’t said during the last several hours.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Sorry. I thought I had. I told the construction crew to give top priority to completing the new confidence course, and the word is that they finished work on it today.”
“You mean you expect our company to run a confidence course?” Rembrandt seemed to be hoping she had heard wrong.
“Of course. We’ve got them looking like soldiers. It’s about time we started working toward getting them to act and feel like soldiers, don’t you agree?”
For the first time that night there was no automatic chorus of assent. Instead, the two lieutenants just stood looking at him as if he had grown another head.