of them looked like sleeping quarters for the soldiers, with the other two probably serving as mess tent and storage facility. To the west, downslope from the rest of the camp, was the distinctive narrow tent of a latrine.
Further out, to the north and south of the camp, Jack spotted two small defensive positions. They weren't much, little more than foxholes with a couple of long gun muzzles poking out. Still, it was nice to know that the enemy couldn't overrun the place without the Edge at least being able to put up a fight.
The sun was down by the time they left the Lynx. The mercenaries set to work immediately, unloading their gear and taking it to their assigned tents. Jommy and the rest of Tango Five Zulu were also busy, lugging their computers and other equipment to the headquarters building.
Jack, to his complete lack of surprise, found himself assigned to night sentry duty.
His post was about sixty yards south of the camp, perhaps forty yards beyond the defensive foxhole on that side. All sixty yards of it were downhill. 'Here's your cage,' Grisko said, stopping beside a tree that looked rather like an elm with a bad skin condition.
'Cage?'
'Your sentry post,' Grisko said with exaggerated patience. 'Didn't you read the manual?'
'I must have missed that part,' Jack murmured. He had read the manual, thank you, and there had been no mention of the term 'cage' being used for a sentry post.
But there was nothing to gain by pointing that out. He'd apparently been put on sentry duty for waking up Grisko aboard the transport. He didn't really want to see what would happen if he added to his crimes by arguing with the man.
'Well, then, pay attention now,' Grisko growled. He pointed to a group of four small round monitors that had been nailed to the tree trunk. Each of the monitors showed a slightly fuzzy image, and each had a control stick embedded in the trunk beneath it. 'There's your Argus system. You do remember Argus systems, don't you?'
'Yes, sir,' Jack said, more confidently this time. Argus was a passive observation system for sending images from one area to another. The far end, called the eye, could be up to five hundred feet away, with a fiber-optic cable linking it to one of the monitors here at the sentry post. The direction each viewer was pointing could be shifted by means of a wire control system. The control line ran through its own cable alongside the fiber-optic one, connecting to the lever beneath the monitor.
Jack could remember thinking when he first read about it that Argus had to be the most ridiculously primitive system in the known universe. It was only later, as he read about electronics and power-source detectors, that he had realized there was actually a good reason for the system. Out here in the middle of a forest, the electronics of a normal sensor system would stand out like a nightlight in a dark room. Argus, on the other hand, would never even be noticed unless the enemy happened to trip over one of the cables.
'Yeah, I'll bet you do,' Grisko grunted. Reaching to a small rectangular plate beneath the monitors, he flipped up its protective cover. Underneath was a glow-in-the-dark schematic of the area, with Jack's outpost in the middle and the edge of the main camp behind him along the bottom. 'Here's where your eyes are located,' he said, tapping the map in four places. 'You'll be relieved at midnight. Don't fall asleep.'
He turned back toward the camp. 'What if there's trouble?' Jack asked.
Grisko frowned. 'Like what?'
'Like the enemy shows up,' Jack said. 'Do I get a comm clip or something to call in an alarm?'
Grisko was looking at him as if he was crazy. 'Don't be absurd,' he said. 'The enemy doesn't even know we're here.'
'But—'
'Tell you what,' Grisko cut him off. 'If they come this way, you haul out your Gompers and start shooting. We'll notice. Trust me.'
With that he stalked off into the growing darkness, the matting of dead leaves crunching under his feet. He disappeared from sight, leaving only the sound of his footsteps to mark where he was. A dozen seconds later, even those had faded into silence.
And Jack and Draycos were alone.
Chapter 15
Jack had never liked the woods. He'd never much liked the outdoors in general, for that matter. Nearly all of his life had been spent in cities or spaceports, or in spaceships like the Essenay. Places with bright lights, and people, and no strange noises.
Occasionally when he and Uncle Virgil had been running a scam, they'd had to spend time in someone's country estate or mountain retreat. But at least there they'd mostly been inside at night. Nature had been something beyond the walls, safely out of view.
His last brush with nature had been on Iota Klestis a month and a half ago. He'd taken a few short trips outside the ship, mostly during the day but once or twice at night. That was how bored and restless he'd been.
But at least there he'd had the comforting bulk of the Es-senay at his back, and Uncle Virge's watchful eye on the surrounding terrain.
Uncle Virge.
He stared out into the woods, an all-too-familiar pang of uncertainty and loss and fear whispering through him. The first time he'd felt it was back when he was three years old and finally realized that his parents weren't coming back to him. He'd felt it again a year ago at Uncle Virgil's death, when he'd suddenly found himself alone in the universe with nothing but a computerized personality to look after him.
Now, here in the darkness of the night, he was feeling it for a third time. Because whatever happened with Draycos, he knew down deep that his relationship with Uncle Virge had been changed forever.
The thought was as frightening and alien as the dark woods around him. Up to the time when he'd met Draycos, Jack's life had been fairly simple and more or less comfortable. For all the annoyances inherent in Uncle Virge's personality, the computer really was mostly easy to get along with.
More to the point, he was the only friend Jack had.
The strange noises of nature were beginning to whisper through the darkness around him. Mostly insects and small animals, he guessed, with an occasional
