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aide—or maybe lover; you never really know with the Kosmos—were seen being escorted by the Frog general to Cerro Mina. I should have a report of where they’re staying by midnight. But I already suspect where it will be, and I don’t have that building infiltrated.” The intel chief shrugged apologetically. “I never thought I’d need it, since the building was never used for the last ten or fifteen years.”
    “I’d like to know whatever you can come up with, Omar,” Carrera agreed. “But I think I wouldn’t do anything if I could. Former High Admiral Robinson is still healthy?” At Fernandez’s nod, he continued, “Then I have a hold over the bitch to use at my convenience. Speaking of which, how’s the shuttle program coming along?”
    “We have five acceptably trained pilots for it,” Fernandez said. “But we ran into a glitch that we really should have anticipated.”
    Carrera raised a quizzical eyebrow.
    “Assuming we can bluff or force our way into a hangar, there’s no frigging air unless the ship we try to board closes the hangar doors and fills the compartment. That, or we find space suits from somebody and outfit a boarding party with them…or develop some ourselves. Even there…”
    “Even there,” Carrera finished, “it doesn’t really give us control of a fleet…or maybe even control of that one ship, since we won’t have a crew to fly or fight it. Okay, let me mull it some. But, for God’s sake, keep Robinson healthy.”

    Training Area C, Academia Militar Sergento Juan Malvegui, west of Puerto Lindo, Balboa, Terra Nova

    In the rest of Balboa it was the dry season. On the Shimmering Sea side of the isthmus, there was never really a dry season. Rather, there was a wet season, a wetter season, and “forty days and forty nights,” which, interestingly enough, usually lasted about forty days and forty nights. Currently, it was the wet season, which meant there would be the occasional dry day.
    Keeping healthy’s not a huge problem, Ham mused, but keeping happy sure as hell is. I never realized before how utterly essential women and girls are to keeping happy.
    The boy sat alone underneath a stretched out rubber poncho. Rain drummed the sheet like a distant barrage before gathering and rolling off the sides. Most of that water splashed up a bit of mud but then rolled downhill and away. From uphill, however, which was behind him, a neat little stream formed and ran under the frame of the rucksack he’d been issued, between his feet, and then off.
    The stream wasn’t a problem, yet, but…
    Serious doubts that I can divert it with a narrow run-off trench. Serious lack of desire to sleep in the middle of a stream. Serious desire to sleep, as soon as they let us.
    Ham’s family was, of course, not poor. Indeed, they were so not poor that his father had given away about seventy-five billion drachma and still could fund whole regiments and schools out of his own remaining wealth. But many of the students at the military academies, of which there were six, were from poor families. Since, unlike the rest of the country’s educational system, the military schools were totally free—in fact, they paid a small stipend—there were more applicants than there were slots. Thus, Ham and several hundred new boys were out in the jungle—the real, deep, dark, wet, stinky, snake-crawling, antaniae -crying, black palm-sticking triple canopy jungle—to drive as many boys who lacked motivation as possible out before wasting a precious school slot on them.
    So far it had all been very efficient and, compared to what Ham had expected, surprisingly gentle. There hadn’t been a lot of screaming—some shouting, yes, but a man had to be heard—and no real brutality, as the boys had been hustled through medical exams, shots, dental checks, the field uniform and equipment issue line, the small caliber rifle issue line, and any of half a hundred other things to prepare them for what came next.
    What