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There was nothing he could do but trust that no humans would come along and bump into it before he returned.
    Hell, and that raised another problem. If E’Var was here, and if Tagen did take him into custody, how exactly was he supposed to find E’Var’s stolen ship and tow it back through the Gate to Jota? He couldn’t just leave the fool thing on Earth, if for no other reason than because it was Fleet property and they’d want it back. And there was no way Tagen’s star cruiser could drag a second ship up through Earth’s gravitational pull, even assuming that E’Var were amiable enough to simply tell him where it was. What did that leave? Well, he could blow it up. That would go over well back at Fleet Headquarters.
    Ah, the glamorous life of a
sek’ta
. Just knowing that any decision he made would be the wrong one and everyone back home expected him to die anyway made his whole life worthwhile. He didn’t even need the extra sixty
crona
increase in pay. His work was its own reward.
    Tagen strapped his pack to his waist, holstered his stunner and his plasma gun, took one last look around the ship’s interior, and then stepped out the airlock and onto an alien world.
    He stopped right there, his hand still on the locking panel, and drew in a slow breath as though he could physically taste the temperature.
    A cool planet, the Far-Reacher’s notes had said. Widely-divergent eco-systems, but generally quite cool.
    Without moving from the airlock, Tagen pulled his pack off and looked closely at the contents. A full medical pack,
vey
Venekus had promised, and thank the gods, he had delivered. There were eighteen suppressants in a pouch strapped right to the lid of the pack. Eighteen. Surely the same overcompensation that had inspired the scientist to pack five doses of a sedative Tagen should not, in all likelihood, need to use. But it was nice to see it all the same. Tagen chewed one and then took a swallow from his canteen to wash the bitter taste from his mouth.
    He hit the lock at last, and shut the ship away from any curious eyes. The sound of the door locking into place was the last indelible cue. He was on duty. It was time to represent.
    A plan. That was what the name of Pahnee was famed for, after all, meticulous planning. And, gods knew, if Tagen could devise a plan to enable him to locate E’Var somewhere on all this Earth, he would earn a little of that reputation instead of borrowing it from his father. So. A plan.
    First, the facts. A straight course along the ion trail would put whatever had left it somewhere in the area of Tagen’s own ship, give or take thirty kilometers. A Jotan could comfortably cross overland at a speed of eight kilometers an hour. Kanetus E’Var had a lead of five Jotan days, which translated roughly into three of Earth’s.
    And now the assumptions. Tagen would assume first that E’Var was, in fact, on Earth. That would make his mission here slightly more bearable. Secondly, he would assume that Kane was on foot, and perhaps expecting pursuit. He would assume Kane could travel for an even hundred kilometers a day, forgoing sleep in favor of distance. It would be an extraordinary feat considering the current temperature, but it was remotely possible and so it gave Tagen a solid outside number on which to pin his expectations. So, beginning within thirty kilometers of Tagen’s position, and making phenomenal use of his three-day head start, the prisoner could be anywhere in a search area of two thousand seventy-two square kilometers.
    Hm. All right, step back and try again.
    At the outside, E’Var could be six hundred and sixty kilometers away, and he was probably not wandering aimlessly. In Tagen’s experience, men in the wild had a tendency to follow the sun. If E’Var had landed at night, he might be traveling east, pursuing the rising star he had first seen. If he had come during the later day, he might be headed west.
    Tagen scowled as he hunkered down to sketch his