"No. I think you've been here more than a week. Could be longer."

So. Guess at least ten days since my capture. Give the boys the benefit of the doubt, have them moving light and hard, and they had maybe covered four hundred miles. Just one giant step out of many. Crap.

Stalling was pointless now. The Lady knew everything I did. I wondered if any of it had been of any use. Or much of a surprise.

"How is my friend?" I asked, suffering a sudden guilt.

"I don't know. He was moved north because his connection with his spirit was becoming attenuated. I'm sure the subject will arise when next you visit the Lady. I'm finished. Have a nice stay."

"Sarky bastard."

He grinned as he left.

Must run in the profession.

The Colonel stepped in a few minutes later. "I hear you want to go to the roof."

"Yeah."

"Inform the sentry when you would like to go." He had something else on his mind. After a pause he asked, "Isn't there any military discipline in your outfit?"

He was irked because I had not been sirring him. Various smart remarks occurred. I stifled them. My status might not remain enigmatic. "Yes. Though not so much as in earlier days. Not enough of us left since Juniper to make that stuff worth the trouble."

Sly shot, Croaker. Put them on the defensive. Tell them the Company fell to its current pitiful state laboring for the Lady. Remind them that it was the empire's satraps who turned first. That must be common knowledge by now, among the officer corps. Something they should think about occasionally.

"Pity, that," the Colonel said.

"You my personal watchdog?"

"Yes. She sets great store by you for some reason."

"I wrote her a poem once," I lied. "I also got the goods on her."

He frowned, decided I was bullshitting.

"Thanks," I said, by way of extending an olive branch. "I'll write for a while before I go." I was way behind. Except for a bit at Blue Willy I had done nothing but jot an occasional note since leaving the Plain.

I wrote till cramps compelled me to stop. Then I ate, for a guard brought a meal as I sanded my last sheet. Done gobbling, I went to the door, told the lad there I was ready to go topside. When he opened up I discovered I was not locked in.

But where the hell could I go if I got out? Silly even thinking of escape.

I had a feeling I was about to take on the official historian job. Like it or no, it would be the least of many evils.

Some tough decisions stared me in the eye. I wanted time to think them over. The Lady understood. Certainly she had the power and talent to be more foresighted than a physician who had spent six years out of touch.