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jailer's schedule, he exercised when they told him to, ate what they brought him, and slept during a portion of the time after they turned the lights out on him.

    He did have his porta-comp, which meant some communication, after all, and he had received a few visitors, though he'd had more visitors in some lock-ups than he had here. Then, too, most often his jail cells hadn't had the luxury of his very own green plant.

    It turned out that the "alien plant" was under every bit as much scrutiny as he was—in fact it appeared that many of the sensors he wore or was watched by were duplicated for the tree.

    Perhaps the most frustrating thing was that though he could see the tree—and was under orders to observe it and report any anomalies—he could not to touch it, or talk to it, or comfort it in what must be new and terrifying circumstances.

    Shortly after the commander's visit, he gained an amusing rotation of warders to replace the solitary med-tech and his curious warnings—or, perhaps, threats.

    What was amusing about the new set of keepers was that they each seemed guided by a printed sheet. They neither saluted nor acknowledged him other than directing him for exercise or tests. They also wore medical gowns without emblem, name, rank, or number.

    What they did not wear were masks—thus baring the all-too-silly tattoos that were becoming the rage—and making each as identifiable in the long run as if they'd shouted out name, rank, birth creche, and gene units . . .

    For in fact, every one of the new keepers were of the accelerated, the vat-born, the selected, the so-called "X Strain"—able to work harder and longer on less food than even the efficient Ms. Too, they had for the most part had similar training, similar instructors, similar lives. They spoke amongst themselves a truncated and canted artificial dialect, and appeared to lump any soldier but those of the latest vat runs into a social class of lesser outsiders.

    Despite the disdain, and the tendency to seek only the company of their own kind, what had so far eluded the designers of soldiers was the sought-after interchangeability that would have made them—the Y Strains and the X—in the image of some committee-envisioned super-fighter: Physically perfect, identical, and above all amenable to command. It was the downfall of the M Series, so he had heard it said—they were too independent, too individual, much too prone to use their own judgement. And much too often, Jela might have added—right.

    So, he found himself in the care of the proud yet still-flawed X Strains, and he'd been annoyed in the night to wake as some one of the guardians attempted to enter the room without disturbing him: They were all of the blood, dammit! Would he have assumed them so lax . . . well, yes. He might have.

    "You of Versten's Flight have no regard for the sleep of your brethren, eh?" He called out in the assumed dark of the infirmary's night. His reward was a not unexpected flash of light as the woman with a red lance crossing a blue blade tattooed on her right cheek reacted, alas, predictably.

    "Wingleader," she gasped.

    He'd startled her—and if he'd been of a mind he might just as easily have killed her—been though the transparent enclosure and had his hands around her throat before she'd known he was awake.

    "Wingleader," she said again, recovering her voice, if not her dignity. "The monitors must be checked manually from time to time, and the calibrations . . . ."

    "The calibrations may be made just as conveniently from a remote station," he said, allowing his voice to display an edge. "It would be well if these things were done during ship's day, for who knows what one who has been abandoned on a near lifeless world might do in the midst of being startled awake?"

    "Wingleader, I . . . "

    "Enough. Calibrate. I will sleep again tonight, and some of tomorrow day as well . . . "

    Which was unlikely, so he owned to himself, but