Remnant-what's he going to do, just throw them to the peledari and let them get eaten alive?"

She felt his sigh against her side. "Jin, as you grow older you're going to run into a surprising number of otherwise intelligent people who get themselves trapped into some single-rail goal or point of view and never get out of it.

Caelian is a perfect example-the people still living there have been fighting that crazy ecology for so long they can't break the habit long enough to back out and accept resettlement somewhere else. Some of the Jects-not all, certainly, but some-are equally single-minded. They wanted to be Cobras-wanted it very badly, most of them-but were deemed unfit, for one reason or another... and the love they had has been twisted into hatred. Hatred that demands revenge."

"No matter what the consequences are for the rest of the Cobra Worlds?"

He shrugged. "Apparently not. I don't know-maybe some of them genuinely think the need for Cobras has passed, that everything the Cobras do can be done more efficiently by ordinary men with machines or enhancement exoskeletons. And I'll even admit that some of Priesly's complaints may not be entirely unreasonable-maybe we have picked up a little too much elitist attitude than is good for us."

A maintenance robot passed them, heading toward another of the target robots.

Jin's eyes followed it, came to rest on the target... and somewhere in the back of her mind a synapse clicked, and for the first time in her life she suddenly realized what those hulking machines she'd been watching all these years really were. "My God," she whispered. "They're Trofts. Those target robots are supposed to be Trofts."

"Don't be silly," Justin said; and his voice made her look sharply up at him. On his face-

The expression was blank. Like someone playing poker... or someone denying all knowledge of a secret he wasn't allowed to divulge. "I just meant-" she began awkwardly.