“Yeah, once Jefferson figured out what he was doing,” Lee said. “Martina and Vasily Ivanovich. In the absence of any other evidence to the contrary, I’ve nominated them as the two who ran the computers here. I’m having the teams check the other bodies for ID chips, too.”

“Anything else but their names?” Wilson asked.

“The usual biometric data,” Lee said. “I pinged the Tub to see if there was anything in its databases, but there wasn’t anything. I wasn’t expecting there to be, unless they happened to be ex-CDF.”

“Just two more idiots on a spectacularly ill-advised colonization attempt,” Wilson said.

“With about a hundred and fifty other idiots,” Lee said.

“And thus the Colonial Union is infinitesimally smarter,” Wilson said. Lee snorted.

In the distance came the sound of someone retching. Lee craned back to look. “Oh, look, it’s Jefferson,” she said. “He’s popped.”

Wilson got up to look. “That took a little bit longer than I expected,” he said.

“He’s been driving us all a little crazy with the gung ho thing,” Lee said.

“He’s new,” Wilson said.

“Hopefully it wears off,” Lee said, “before the rest of us kill him.”

Wilson smiled at this and then threaded back through the mess to Jefferson.

“Sorry, sir,” he said. He was kneeling by the body of the late Vasily Ivanovich, a puddle of sick off to his side. His other two fire team members had found some other place to be.

“You’re hanging out near two partially decomposed, partially eaten bodies,” Wilson said. “Being sick is a perfectly rational response.”

“If you say so,” Jefferson said.

“I do say so,” Wilson said. “My first mission, I almost wet myself. Throwing up is fine.”

“Thank you, sir,” Jefferson said.

Wilson patted Jefferson on the back and glanced over at Vasily Ivanovich. The man was a mess, bloated and with a significant amount of his abdomen chewed away by scavengers. From his vantage point, Wilson could see into the gnawed-on remains of Ivanovich’s digestive system.

Inside of which something glinted.

Wilson frowned. “What is that?” he said.

“What is what, sir?” Jefferson asked.

Wilson ignored him and looked closer and then, after a minute, thrust his glove into what remained of Ivanovich’s stomach.

Jefferson gagged but didn’t have anything else to throw up, so instead he stared openly at the small, glittery thing in Wilson’s gore-coated hand. Wilson delicately picked out the thing with his other hand and held it up in the light.

“What is that?” Jefferson asked.

“It’s a data card,” Wilson said.

“What was it doing in his stomach?” Jefferson asked.

“I have no idea,” Wilson said, and then turned his head. “Lee!” he shouted.

“What?” Lee shouted back from the other side of the hut.

“Have your people look for a functioning PDA and bring it to me immediately,” he said. “One that takes data cards.”