“Oh, my, yes,” the apprentice said a moment later.

“Go report it to Warmaster Slevon, and ask him if his devices have picked up any hyperdrive vibrations except for the fleet’s.” As Olgren hurried away, Ransisc beckoned Togram over. “See for yourself.”

The captain of foot bent over the eyepiece. Against the black of space, the world in the spyglass field looked achingly like Roxolan: deep ocean blue, covered with swirls of white cloud. A good-sized moon hung nearby. Both were in approximately half-phase, being nearer their star than was the Indomitable.

“Did you spy any land?” Togram asked.

“Look near the top of the image, below the icecap,” Ransisc said. “Those browns and greens aren’t colors water usually takes. If we want any world in this system, you’re looking at it now.”

They took turns examining the distant planet and trying to sketch its features until Olgren came back. “Well?” Togram said, though he saw the apprenice’s ears were high and cheerful.

“Not a hyperdrive emanation but ours in the whole system!” Olgren grinned. Ransisc and Togram both pounded him on the back, as if he were the cause of the good news and not just its bearer.

The captain’s smile was even wider than Olgren’s. This was going to be an easy one, which, as a professional soldier, he thoroughly approved of. If no one hereabouts could build a hyperdrive, either the system had no intelligent life at all or its inhabitants were still primitives, ignorant of gunpowder, fliers, and other aspects of warfare as it was practiced among the stars.

He rubbed his hands. He could hardly wait for landfall.

Buck Herzog was bored. After four months in space, with five and a half more staring him in the face, it was hardly surprising. Earth was a bright star behind the Ares III, with Luna a dimmer companion; Mars glowed ahead.