At sunrise he called roll and Farnsworth wasn't on the line. They found him in his tent. His throat was slit all the way to the bone. Damon set Mickelson to guard Farnsworth's quarters and commanded Samuelson and Blain to consult with him in his.

He had three green tree stumps as furniture. He sat on his and when Blain came in and saluted Damon told him to make himself comfortable. They sat in silence for a few minutes. When Samuelson came in, Damon directed him to sit on the stump that was weeping sap.

"You two are EIS. You are the only people I can trust completely. Samuelson, I don't like you; you don't like me, but you had every opportunity to kill me when we were alone in the jungle, you didn't."

Damon turned to his other officer. "Blain, these men have been under your command for three days, did anyone have problems with Farnsworth?"

"Farnsworth got here the day before yesterday. He was a freighter. He couldn't have had much history with any of these men, they were all selected from across the empire. What are the odds that he slept with one of their wives? That this could be personal? It's more likely that this is sabotage. We had four men who could handle an Angel's Wing. Now we're left with three. "

Samuelson spoke out the side of his mouth. "There's something else. The snipes you and Farnsworth brought back last night. They've been cut in half."

Damon let out a long breath. Despite what he'd just said, he didn't trust either one of these men, especially because they were EIS. That just meant they were good at lying.

"All right Samuelson, we postpone Angel training until tomorrow. Tonight, I'll collect more snipes. You, Faber and Stanton will sleep in here. When this mission is over then you and your freighters can get killed anytime you want, but until then you're not leaving my sight. Any questions?"

"No, sir."

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"Get some chow, we'll run some simulations for loading and unloading from the Angel's then we'll come back here. After lunch, we'll go back out and run through some more fundamentals, then work on advanced maneuvers, but first, I'm going to look over Farnsworth's tent, see if anyone left anything behind."

Damon watched his officers for any sign of discomfort for some tell, but that would be too easy these men were professionals, just like him.

Farnsworth lay in his hammock his mesh bug net cut down the line of his body. His head was cocked back at an unnatural angle, a narrow strip of skin and muscle the only thing tethering him to his body. Damon examined the net. It was cut neatly, like each string was snipped with scissors. The hammock was strung between two vertical poles. Farnsworth was up pretty high, but he probably could look into the face of his killer. Damon lifted Farnsworth's eyelid to see if there was an imprint of the murderer. It was stupid but people were superstitious he'd gotten a punk in the capitol to confess after explaining the concept. All he could see was his own reflection.

The tent was spare but Farnsworth had it all to himself. In Galleria six people would be happily crammed between these canvas walls. Sometimes military service had its advantages, although Farnsworth paid dearly for them. Damon reached under the bug net and pulled out a wooden figurine that lay near Farnsworth's cold hand. It was an Angel's Wing. The infamous wings gathered up beside its scaled body its fierce horned head and its long snout pulled back to reveal long sharp teeth. Its six eyes seeing all. Totems were common among the men, every soldier had something, this was Farnsworth's, his lucky Angel's Wing. He probably carried it in an inner pocket, probably he'd tapped it three times before he ran across the meadow last night, it worked, it granted him the luck to make it back to his quarters, but then it stopped granting favors.

Under the hammock there was a dark brown stain in the dirt from here Farnsworth bled out. Damon tip toed around the room and made out his prints and three others. He stepped out of the tent and had Schroeder fetch Doc McKinley.

When McKinley showed up he was still wiping bits of his chow from his face. He was a sloppy bastard but he had a hell of a gift for stitching. "Wrap Farnsworth up, tonight we'll burn him."

"Yes sir."

Damon turned to Shroeder and asked in a whisper. "Did they eat?"

Shroeder shook his head.

"Neither of them?"

"Neither of them, sir."