“If those are your opinions-“
“Those are my orders!”
She rose to leave.
“If there are no further questions-“
“There are! Would you list your weapons in your personal possession at this time?”
“Certainly. I have a half dozen spring-javelins, an acid spray belt, two wedge-swords, a long knife, and, of course, dueling sticks.”
“What, if any, weapons are you willing to place at the disposal of the team?”
“Neither Mahz’s nor my weapons are to be used by another team member. We selected our weapons for ourselves. I trust the other team members had the sense to do the same. We withhold our weapons for personal use.”
“That is your prerogative if you choose to exercise it. That answers all my questions. If you have no additional questions, pass the word for Zur. I would speak with him next.”
She started to turn away, then turned once again to face me.
“Commander, there is one weapon I neglected to list with my arsenal.”
She met my eyes coldly and levelly.
“I also have a fully charged hand-burner, identical to the one you loaned Zur to burn a tunnel with.”
So here we were. Ssah with her fully charged hand-burner, backed by Mahz, was guarding the cave and the flyers, while I clung to a tree trunk covering the balance of the team with my meager quarter charge.
Suddenly there was a flicker of movement a hundred meters into the meadow. A Leaper! It moved out of the brush into the open, hesitated for a few moments, then made a twelve-foot leap in our direction and hesitated again.
I studied it narrowly. It was relatively small, scarcely six feet long. This probably meant it was still young. Good. If our guesses were correct, its exoskeleton would be softer than that of a full adult.