Colonel Ko-Dan and Captain Ibang walked into the reception room outside Undsvin's office. Both of them saw the guard standing beside his door, and knew him at once. He knew them, too, and knew he'd been recognized. They saw it in his aura, though he never twitched.
Twenty minutes later they'd finished their business, and started back to their billet in the GPV assigned to them by the general. "You noticed Undsvin's guard," Ibang said.
"Yes. Major Carrmak. I must say I was surprised."
"The Iryalans are remarkably resourceful. I take it you don't intend to tell the general who his guard is."
"We are contracted in a military role, not as a counterespionage service. If his cousin was a different kind of man, and I thought better of their cause . . . As it is, we will give Engwar his money's worth of fighting—show him the value of a T'swa regiment—but provide him no bonuses." Ko-Dan chuckled. "Whatever Carrmak is doing, it's nothing he learned in the lodge. His commander had a reputation for imagination."
Ibang laughed aloud. "Imagination or not, none of us could masquerade as a local, here or on any world but Tyss."
The general's elite guard, now only a section with two ten-man squads, had been moved to a single large two-story house. Though twenty-two men shared it, Carrmak, as commanding officer, had a small, second-story room for himself.
He'd put together items that would be useful, when the time came, for escaping to Smoleni territory. They were in a pack which hung in his closet, with his greatcoat hanging over it. Tonight his web belt, with its holstered pistol, was also in the pack.
He hadn't known what to expect when the two T'swa walked past him into Undsvin's office. But he'd decided to stay, see what happened. By the time they'd walked out, twenty minutes later, he'd become optimistic. When his shift ended, twenty minutes after that, and nothing had happened, it seemed clear that they hadn't said anything. And if they hadn't then, they weren't likely to later.
Nonetheless he was prepared to go out the window, jump into the back yard, and run for it if anything seemed to threaten. For a while he waited ready. After an hour, he undressed and went to bed with his pistol in easy reach.