“Sir,” said Tamara Lundie to her superior. She nodded to Farrell and the doctor, deliberately keeping them in the conversation. “I believe there’s a system in the humanoid attacks.”
Farrell’s visor displayed a pattern of lines branching downward like a scheme of perspective. Al-Ibrahimi must have been seeing something similar, because his eyes changed focus to a point in what seemed to be empty air.
“Yesterday the humanoids attacked over a narrow front at effectively the same time,” Lundie said. Twelve lines, too close to separate at the scale on Farrell’s visor, glowed purple for an instant. “If the humanoids came from a common point, it would be in this region, approximately point nine three miles from where the attack occurred.”
The wobbling line at the bottom of the display was the column’s path through the jungle. A circle glowed around the indicated common point because Lundie was allowing for error. Farrell wondered how she controlled the imagery; her hands were empty.
People were lining up to be fed. The scouts and all strikers in the detached squad had their converters with them so feeding took longer than usual, but the process was entirely orderly. Even the hungriest folks weren’t going to fight one another for cups of gray sludge.
Dr. Ciler was excluded from the discussion by his inability to see the display. He nodded and walked to where the wounded lay.
“The second attack was spread over a wider front,” Lundie continued. The much larger skein of vectors glowed in turn. “There was a noticeable lag between when the humanoids initially attacked just ahead of the column’s center and the attacks continuing in sequence forward along the line.”
“Or trying to,” Farrell remarked with a smile of grim satisfaction. “Meyer did a hell of a job on the w-w . . . the humanoids. With the dozer. I’ll make her a sergeant for that. If we ever get to a place I can put in the paperwork.”
Nearby, Mrs. Suares talked soothingly to the train of orphans she’d gathered to fill her own loss. The little dark-haired girl was crying; she refused to take the widow’s hand.
Farrell shook his head, thinking about the Spook tank exploding on Active Cloak. “Meyer’s got quite a talent for heavy equipment,” he added.
“The time lag would be explained if the humanoids all left a common point in close sequence,” Lundie said, “making a straight line through the forest toward the predicted location of the column. Our progress and the consequently changed angle spread the attack over a slightly greater length of time.”
The vectors from the two attacks led back to the same point. Because of what she considered to be sufficient data, Lundie didn’t bother to circle it this time.
“A village . . .” Farrell said.
“Our information isn’t sufficient to judge,” Lundie said, answering a question that was really just Farrell thinking aloud. Al-Ibrahimi smiled slightly but gestured his aide to silence while Farrell considered.
From what Ciler said, it was more likely to be a hive. Whatever. Farrell had to do something. Best to deal with a problem at the source.
“Right,” Farrell said. “Three-three’s more than halfway to the target anyway. I’d like to have more troops. Well, I’d like a lot of things.”
He nodded curtly to the administrators and began transmitting his orders to Sergeant Abbado.
The hull of the Kalendru transport was proof against the jungle. Blohm had the first guard shift outside. A single minilight turned the tilted compartment into a volume, not a trap. The smell of dead flesh was the sort of thing you got used to.
The major’s transmission ended. “Six, roger,” Abbado said. “Three-three out.”
“Shit, that’s not what I wanted to hear,” Matushek muttered. “How big is this wog village, does anybody know?”
Abbado shook his head. “There’s about a hundred fewer warriors in it than there was a couple days ago,” he said. “Hell, maybe there won’t be anything for us to do but console the grieving widows, you think?”
“If the females look like the males . . .” Caldwell said as she took out her converter to make dinner. “I’d just as soon fight them, all right?”