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flesh.
    "I'll see you after the shuttle touches down," I said, then set the phone down when she didn't answer.
    Better finish getting dressed.
    I limped over to the side of the wall for my shoes, and then stooped to pick up the khaki shirt with the star on each epaulet.
    There were far too few campaign ribbons above the left pocket for such hardware on the shoulders. One thing about being inspector-general is that you are, officially, a noncombatant, and noncombatants don't earn campaign ribbons. The four ribbons are reminders of the days when I was a real soldier. The time when I was pretending to be something I wasn't, instead of pretending not to be what I am.
    Whatever that is. A shochet, minus the ritual, at best.
    I shrugged into the shirt and buttoned it before picking up my cane and heading for the door. I hung the cane on a hook by the door.
    Eventually, you have to give up crutches, of all kinds.
    Out in the waiting room, at the end of the row of four patients waiting for their turn with P'nina, Zev Aroni sat, waiting patiently, a briefcase on his lap, going through some paperwork. We have to actually do some IG things, to keep up appearances.
    "I'm done, Sergeant," I said. "Let's go."
    Zev's dark face was expressionless, as usual. Wordless, he accompanied me into the corridor as I limped toward the nearest tube entrance. Sergeant Zev Aroni was officially my aide—but as with most things in Section, appearances are true, but only part of the truth; Zev was my partner. Junior partner, usually. Not always.
    I never really liked Zev, which wasn't a problem. You're not supposed to like your partner. I mentioned that once, to a new Section draftee I was training. He asked why. "Because it doesn't hurt so much when you have to shoot him for going lame on you," I said. He thought that was a figure of speech, until the first time he went offplanet on a Section assignment—and one cold, wet night in a forest in Thuringia, broke his leg.
    "I heard your signal," Zev finally said, when there was nobody around to overhear us. "Rivka?"
    "She wants to see me. Us." I nodded. "But we're going to meet Ari, first."
    He frowned at that. "Not a good idea to buck the deputy, Tetsuo."
    "You want to do something about it?"
    "Not me." He smiled, a gap-toothed whiteness that seemed overly bright in a face the color of bitter coffee that's been lightened with only a hint of milk. "Not me. I'm your partner ."
    "Right."
    Zev at my side, I limped my way out into the corridor and the warrens, toward the tube.

CHAPTER TWO

    The Bear and the Lion

    Metzada, Port
    Personnel shuttle elevator
    12/20/43, 1228 local time

    There aren't any real surprises when the first troop skipshuttle lands on Metzada. It lands; it's taxied to the elevator; it's lowered into Metzada; a group of men, some of them short a few pieces, all of them bone-tired, get off.
    Simple.
    Straightforward.
    We've been in contact since the transport cleared the Gate, and appropriate notices have already been distributed to clan and family of the dead and wounded; widows and orphans are entitled to know, as soon as is possible, that they are widows and orphans. Clan elders have been alerted to station seniors near tube entrances to turn back family members whose understandable want to see wounded loved ones would, if acted upon, interfere with what has to be done.
    At least, there aren't supposed to be surprises—even minor ones.
    Emptying an orbiting troop transport is primarily a problem in logistics. When I was a boy I was fascinated by logistics, and thought I might like to specialize in it. The science and art of matching materiel to needs has always enchanted me. I was tapped—too early, in my opinion—for Section, and I never had the chance to study it formally, but the fascination remains, and maybe some of the orientation.
    My uncle Shimon, for example, has always talked of Patton's Third Army's relief of Bastogne as the greatest cavalry maneuver of all times. He's right,