Perhaps that was all humanity itself had left. With a sigh, he touched the key that would send the scrubbed photo into the hopper with the rest of the shift's work. The analysts would spend their next shift poring over all of it, trying yet again to find a way through the damper field that protected the fortress from attack. A subtle pattern in Sjonntae personnel movements, perhaps, or some clue in animal activity that might indicate where the vulnerable whorl in the field might be located. Something that would help break the desperate war of attrition Earth found itself in.

Behind him, the door slid open. "Shift change, Ensign Harking," Jorm Tsu gave the official greeting as he stepped into the room. "I relieve you from your station."

"Shift change, aye," Harking gave the official response, pushing back his chair and standing up. "I give you my station."

Tsu stepped past him and sat down. "So," he said, the formalities concluded. "Anything new?"

"Is there ever?" Harking countered. "I saw what looked like a confrontation between an overseer and a group of slaves, and I saw a couple of Sjonntae outside the fortress who were probably giving us a one-finger salute. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet."

"Mm," Tsu said. "What happened with the slaves?"

Harking shrugged. "I don't know. By the time I finished the pattern and got back to that area, they were all gone."

"At least they weren't all lying there dead."

"Unless the survivors took the bodies away with them," Harking pointed out.

"Maybe," Tsu agreed. "But that would at least indicate the Sjonntae hadn't killed more than a third of them. It takes two live bodies to carry one dead one, right?"

Harking grimaced. The logic of survival. "Right," he conceded. "I didn't notice any drag marks either."

"Must not have been a really serious confrontation, then," Tsu concluded. "Either that, or the overseer was feeling generous today."