"Look, Jackson. I know how to get around in this jungle; you don't. If I hadn't spotted you and given some orders, you'd have been gunned down before you'd gone ten feet past the ballroom door."
"Why'd you let me in? I might've been gunning for you."
"You wanted to see the Baron alone. That suited me, too. If word got out—" He broke off, cleared his throat. "Let's stop wrangling, Jackson. We can't move until the Bolo guarding the site has been neutralized. There's only one way to do that: knock it out! And the only thing that can knock out a Bolo is another Bolo."
"So?"
"I've got another Bolo, Jackson. It's been covered, maintained. It can go up against the Troll—" he broke off, laughed shortly. "That's what the mob called it."
"You could have done that years ago. Where do I come in?"
"You're checked out on a Bolo, Jackson. You know something about this kind of equipment."
"Sure. So do you."
"I never learned," he said shortly.
"Who's kidding who, Mallon? We all took the same orientation course less than a month ago—"