The man on Syssokan grinned briefly.
"No one on our side," he said, "although I understand the prisoners were suffering some from exhaustion and dehydration. This Louis Taranto seems to be quite a lad. There is reason to believe that he killed two or three of his guards with his bare hands—at least I saw the burial party carrying bodies with them as they marched the rest of the way back to the city."
Smith laughed.
"I'll have to add a note opposite his name and contact him. I could use a field agent like that! Well, my operator tells me I have another call coming in. Thanks for your work on this."
"A pleasure," said the man on Syssoka. "I really didn't expect to contact you directly; my relative-time atlas must be a little old."
"No, it's just that we never sleep, you know," quipped Smith, and signed off.
He looked around, saw that it was Parrish who had entered, and added, "At least, it looks as if we'll never sleep. I'm getting tired of it myself."
"So is everybody except Joe, here," said Parrish. "A com man isn't normal anyway."
"You gotta learn not to let all this stuff coming through bother you," said Rosenkrantz wisely. "If I soaked up all these crazy calls, I'd have nightmares every day. As it is, I'm as normal as anybody when I leave here."
"You haven't been with us long enough," said Smith. "What else do you have there?"