The iciness remained on Curry's face and he did not reply at once. "Perhaps you are right. You will order your men to observe a truce for the rest of the night."
He turned back to his camp.
Thane made the rounds where his guards patrolled with their searchlights probing out into the darkness. All of Curry's men but two had been added to reinforce the guard ring around the Outlander camp; most of the crewmen along the east and south lines, leaving the more experienced Guardsmen to patrol the two lines facing the forest.
Guardsmen and crewmen patrolled in silence, watching one another with the calculating regard of men who knew they might soon be ordered to kill one another. Apparently it was obvious to all of them that two officers of equal rank was a situation that could not for long exist.
His return to his camp took him through the scattered camp fires of the Outlanders. There were not many men to be seen; most of the survivors were women and children whom the Outlander leader had ordered into the safer inner compartments when the ship began breaking up.
Thane met him at the second fire; a gaunt old man with a jutting gray beard and sharp blue eyes under bristling gray brows. He stepped out from the fire and spoke:
"Captain Thane—I'd like to ask a question."
Thane stopped. "What is it?"
"My name is Paul Kennedy and I speak for all of us," the old man said. "Captain Curry has locked up all arms from us—he's already starting the regimentation for a permanent Technograte colony here and making sure we can't object. For two hundred years Technogration has failed on Earth except to turn men into robots. Here we could have a new chance and live like humans again."
"The question," Thane reminded him.