need for even minimal training, but I must plan on
less. I am almost positive of another four days, though, which will
help."

"So what are you going to do with the ship in the meantime? Our Terra
ETA is 0330 tomorrow. Chang's too big to land, and we'd be pretty
conspicuous in orbit."

"Urrr." Corina hadn't thought about that. "Does that system not have
a band of debris? Between the fourth and fifth planets, I believe."

Medart nodded. "The asteroid belt."

"Then instead of going into orbit, we stay there. I will give the
defense satellites instructions to call us when Thark lands. The delay
between our getting that message and our arrival in orbit, plus the
time to land, should take perhaps twenty minutes, from the theory I
remember. That will allow him to attack the Palace and provide the
evidence His Majesty wishes."

"You're assuming Chang's navigator can plot that short a hyperspace
flight with a lot of precision."

"Yes. I believe it a valid assumption, or he would not be conning a
Ranger's chosen ship."

"Logical reasoning, and very true. All three of our navigators are
every bit that exact. It sounds good; now we just hope it works. One
of our ancient poets wrote, `The best laid plans of mice and men gang
aft a-gley,' and he was right."

"That was Robert Burns," Corina said. "One of your early scientists
put the same idea another way: `Anything that can go wrong will go
wrong.'" She felt Medart's surprise at the identification and quote.
"I was not probing; Terran poetry interests me, particularly Burns,
Service, and Kipling. Except for ancient war chants, Irschcha has
little that can be called poetry."

"Nice to know you have interests that don't show up on your records,"
Medart said.

"What do you mean?"

"As I said earlier, it's not so much what you know as how your mind
works that counts, as long as you have the basics. You can always find
out any facts you need. But being interested in a variety of things is
essential; you never know what's going to come in handy. Poetry
doesn't seem particularly promising, but on the other hand, as I said,
you never know."

The mess was starting to fill as the senior officers trickled in for
breakfast. By the time the two Rangers finished eating, all but
Captain Hobison and Commander Jensen were there.

Until they stood to leave, nobody paid any particular attention to
Corina; it wasn't surprising that Medart's special assistant shou