"Five in stock," Joe answered.
"Settled, then?" Art asked.
"Here, it is," Ramos answered, and Nelsen nodded.
It would have been rough going for them to try to sleep in beds. They had lost the habit. They slept inside their new Archer Fives.
Afterwards they painted their armor a dark grey, like chunks of mesoderm stone. They did likewise to the two bundles in which they wrapped their relics.
They were as careful as possible to get away from the post without being observed, visually or by radar. But of course you could never be sure.
Huddled up to resemble stray fragments, they curved out of the Belt—toward the Pole Star, north of its orbital plane. Moving in a parallel course, they proceeded toward Pallastown. The only thing that would seem odd was that they were moving contrary to the general orbital rotation of most of the permanent bodies of the solar system. Of course they and their bundles might have been stray meteors from deep in space.
Four watchful, armored figures seemed to notice the peculiarity of their direction, and to become suspicious. These figures seemed too wary for honesty as they approached. They got within twenty-five miles.
Even without the memory that Tiflin might make guesses about what they meant to do, Nelsen and Ramos would have [p. 99] taken no chances. They had to be brutal. Homing darts pierced armor. The four went to sleep.