One of the swamp creatures snaked a tentacle to the nearest of the packs, touched it, decided it was not food and sank back into the ooze. They live in the water, I told myself. They won’t come out of the swamp and up onto dry land. I fervently hoped so.

Then I wondered, If the planetary survey did not detect that this clearing was a swamp, if the scouts did not know that there are dangerous carnivores down here, how accurate is Intelligence’s estimate of the enemy’s strength and capabilities? It was not a pleasant rumination.

Sergeant Manfred rotated the perimeter guard every twenty minutes, giving each trooper about forty minutes’ rest. He did not seem to sleep much. I had been built to need hardly any sleep at all. Had he been given the same strength? Could he control every part of his body consciously, even the involuntary nervous system, as I can? Could he slow down his perception of time when the adrenaline flowed, so that in battle his enemies seemed to move in slow motion? Could any of them?

I wondered about that until I saw him finally grab a catnap after the third set of guards relieved the second shift. No, Manfred needs sleep as much as the rest of them. He does not have my talents. None of them do. They are simply ordinary men and women, bred from cloned cells and trained to be nothing but soldiers.

After an hour the whole squad assembled and we glided through the forest toward the rendezvous point I had selected, the bulky equipment packs bobbing behind us. The trek was pure hell. It was hot and sweaty inside our suits, but when some of the troopers took off their armor, biting insects swarmed all over them. They put the armor back on, but the insects stayed inside their clothing, feasting on their flesh. It would have been funny, watching them trying to scratch themselves inside their armor, if they had not been so miserable.