“Down here, Commander!” His voice came up to me from the armory.
I descended the ramp and found him bent over, unbolting a hatch in the floor.
“I see the Scientists didn’t waste any time discovering we were out of level,” he said, not looking up from his work.
“You heard?”
“It wasn’t necessary to hear them. I saw the Q-Box on the floor.”
“The what?”
“The Q-Box. The instrument they were using to check level. The Technicians built it for them, so of course they use it to criticize our work.”
“Do you find the Scientists difficult to work with?”
“No worse than the Warriors.” He paused in his labors to look at me directly. “You see, Commander, as a Warrior, you’ve been relatively isolated from the other castes. The Technicians, on the other hand, have to deal with both Scientists and Warriors as part of their normal work. Had I been asked, I would have said a Technician should head this mission if for no other reason than his ability to deal with the other castes.”
He abruptly returned to his work. I was beginning to find the Technicians’ habit of ending conversations before rebuttal vaguely annoying.
He lifted the hatch and set it aside. He stuck his head into the inky hole as his hand went to a mechanical box attached to his belt at the small of his back. The hiss and blinding light of a cold-beam filled the armory, startling me with its suddenness.
Horc grunted and pulled his head out of the hatch as the beam died.
“I was afraid of that. The number six beam is malfunctioning.”
As he spoke, he detached the box from his belt and began adjusting dials and setting slides.