::But you can read people’s thoughts,:: Sagan said.
::Yes, but most people are boring,:: Szilard said. ::When I first got the upgrade, after I was put in command of the Special Forces, I spent an entire day listening to people’s thoughts. You know what the vast majority of people are thinking the vast majority of the time? They’re thinking, I’m hungry. Or, I need to take a dump. Or, I want to fuck that guy. And then it’s back to I’m hungry. And then they repeat the sequence until they die. Trust me, Lieutenant. A day with this capability and your opinion of the complexity and wonder of the human mind will suffer an irreversible decline.::
Sagan smiled. ::If you say so,:: she said.
::I do say so,:: Szilard said. ::However, in your case this capability will be of actual use, because you’ll be able to hear Dirac’s thoughts and feel his private emotions without him knowing he’s being observed. If he is thinking of treason, you’ll know it almost before he does. You can react to it before Dirac kills one of your soldiers or compromises your mission. I think that’s a sufficient check to the risk of bringing him along.::
::And what should I do if he turns?:: Sagan asked. ::If he becomes a traitor?::
::Then you kill him, of course,:: Szilard said. ::Don’t hesitate about it. But you be sure, Lieutenant. Now you know that I can get inside your head, so I trust you’ll refrain from blowing his head off just because you’re feeling twitchy.::
::Yes, General,:: Sagan said.
::Good,:: Szilard said. ::Where is Dirac now?::
::He’s with the platoon, getting ready, down there in the bay. I gave him our orders on the way up,:: Sagan said.
::Why don’t you check in on him?:: Szilard asked.
::With the upgrade?:: Sagan asked.
::Yes,:: Szilard said. ::Learn to use it before your mission. You’re not going to have time to fiddle with it later.::
Sagan accessed her new utility, found Dirac, and listened in.
::This is nuts,:: Jared thought to himself.
::You got that right,:: Steven Seaborg said. He’d joined 2nd Platoon while Jared had been away.
::Did I say that out loud?:: Jared said.
::No, I read minds, you jerk,:: Seaborg said, and sent a ping of amusement Jared’s way. Whatever issues Jared and Seaborg had had disappeared after the death of Sarah Pauling; Seaborg’s jealousy of Jared, or whatever it was, was outweighed by their mutual feeling of the loss of Sarah. Jared would hesitate to call him a friend, but the bond they had was more amicable than not, now reinforced by their additional bond of integration.
Jared glanced around the bay, at the two dozen Skip Drive sleds in it—the total fleet of Skip Drive sleds that had been produced to that point. He looked over at Seaborg, who was climbing into one to check it out.
::So this is what we’re going to use to attack an entire planet,:: Seaborg said. ::A couple dozen Special Forces soldiers, each in their own space-traveling gerbil cage.::
::You’ve seen a gerbil cage?:: Jared asked.
::Of course not,:: Seaborg said. ::I’ve never even seen a gerbil. But I’ve seen pictures, and that’s what this looks like to me. What sort of idiot would ride in one of these things.::
::I’ve ridden in one,:: Jared said.
::That answers that,:: Seaborg said. ::And what was it like?::
::I felt exposed,:: Jared said.
::Wonderful,:: Seaborg said, and rolled his eyes.
Jared knew how he felt, but he also saw the logic behind the assault. Nearly all space-faring creatures used ships to get from one point to another in real space; planetary detection and defense grids, by necessity, had the resolution power to detect the large objects that ships tended to be. The Obin defense grid around Arist was no different. A Special Forces ship would be spotted and attacked in an instant; a tiny, wire-frame object barely larger than a man would not.
Special Forces knew this because it had already sent the sleds on six different occasions, sneaking through the defense grid to spy on the communications coming off the moon. It was on the last of these missions that they heard Charles Boutin on a communication beam, broadcasting in the open, sending a voice note toward Obinur asking about the arrival time of a supply ship. The Special Forces soldier who had caught the signal chased it down to its source, a small science outpost on the shore of one of Arist’s many large islands. He’d waited to hear a second transmission from Boutin to confirm his location before he returned.