Blohm switched his stinger on and circled carefully to the opening by which the Spooks had entered the passage between the thicket and the fallen tree. He’d been sure of getting one of them, hoped to bag several. In the event, he heard none of them escape.
They were waiting for him, though only three could turn their heads in Blohm’s direction. They’d attempted to climb to safety on the other side of the tree when the grenade landed among them. They stuck like six long-legged flies on a honey-coated rod.
Blohm reached down and dropped the grenade back into a trouser pocket. He hadn’t armed it. The Kalendru didn’t wear rank insignia any more than strikers did in the field, but one of the silent captives had the prominent facial veins that were signs of nobility among the species.
“You’ll do,” Blohm said to the officer. He’d switched on his helmet. Its voice synthesizer chittered a translation.
The Spook’s torso and both arms were stuck to the log. He held a laser in his right hand, but it was glued in the fungus also. Blohm bent, aimed carefully, and chiseled away the log’s surface with a long burst from his stinger.
The Spook hooted as splinters whacked his belly at fire-hose velocity. The chunk of bark holding him pulled loose at the bottom. Blohm grabbed the neck scarf and tugged hard, half-choking his captive but freeing him the rest of the way from the tree. The Kalender’s arms were still pinioned like those of a yoked slave.
Blohm fired a single pellet into the laser. Plastic disintegrated with a fat purple spark. The captive flinched away, but he wasn’t badly hurt.
“Let’s go back to the column, Spook,” Blohm said. He gestured the captive forward with a crook of his finger. “You know the way. You just came from there. The major’s going to want to talk with you.”
They started down the corridor between log and thicket, the prisoner preceding. Behind them the remaining Kalendru hooted desperately. The brambles were easing closer.
Blohm didn’t look around.
Abbado’s squad had joined Blohm in the jungle, but they took their positions with most of C41 on the perimeter and let the scout bring his prisoner the last of the way to Farrell by himself. At least half the civilians waited to see what was going to happen, though only a few dozen at the front of the crowd would have anything to watch but the backs of their fellows.
An electronic interrogation was about as boring as waiting for paint to dry anyway. Unless the interrogator screwed up, got too deep, and went psychotic, of course. Art Farrell hoped he was too experienced and too careful to let that happen.
“That was a slick a piece of work, Blohm,” Farrell said. The interrogation gear was laid out and waiting. He gestured to it and said, “You want to control on the spare set? You’ve earned it.”
Blohm looked more like a corpse than a man; except for his eyes. He shook his head minusculy. “I’ll check in with Mirica,” he said. “But I did my job first.”
“Right,” Farrell said. He figured Blohm had to know the score about the kid already. If the scout wanted to hope for a miracle, well, didn’t they all? “Kristal, you take—”
“Major Farrell?” said Tamara Lundie. “It might be more efficient if I carried out the interrogation. My equipment includes expert systems for the purpose.”
Farrell wondered if he ever in his life had been so earnest. He didn’t actually see Manager al-Ibrahimi smile, but he had a feeling God was having similar thoughts.
“Thank you, Administrator,” Farrell said, preserving the public formality, “but however expert your systems are, they’re not soldiers. I’ll handle this one myself.”
Kristal and Nessman had laid the prisoner flat on the sheet and taped his ankles. Occasionally the interrogation subject flailed around. The slab of sticky wood pinioned the Kalender’s arms so well that they left it. Farrell wasn’t sure that the glue could be removed without killing the subject anyway.
“With your permission, Major,” al-Ibrahimi said. “I could be of service on the control panel. Not to direct the interrogation, of course; but to support you.”