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Shortly afterward, he felt the surge of tractor beam lock-on and the ship grew more quickly fast enough he would have worried, if anyone but a Sandeman had been at the controls. With their reflex speed double that of the human standard norm, though, the speed of his approach was perfectly safe; as his ship was brought into the docking bay and landed, he double-checked his appearance.
That would frighten some people if they ever found out about it, Medart thought, but he found it reassuring especially since the prospective agent was a Sandeman warrior. "Would you like me to brief you on the training?" Nevan thought for a moment, then shook his head.
"Thakur what am I supposed to do?" Jason shrugged. "That's up to you. Whatever a Sandeman 'na does when @'s no use any more, I suppose. Mentally you've always been more Sandeman than Terran anyway . . . yes, that would be best. Imitate your Sandeman idols again." He started to turn away. "Yes, Thakur."
He'd never met Owajima, though he'd wanted to, and when Nevan had left IntelDiv on swearing fealty to Ranger Losinj, Owajima had taken over the top field agent rating. Owajima was no Sandeman, but IntelDiv rumor had him close; he was supposed to have been a Kai-school ninja before joining the Corps, and his exploits since hadn't done anything to contradict the rumor.
"Since you name it both honorable and the best way to prepare for the service I hope to give Ranger Losinj, I will do my best to become such an agent." He paused, went on less formally. "If what you just told me about field agents having a position of special trust was known in Subsector Sandeman, any whose identity we knew would be honored, not scorned."
And the ship's largest contingent was from Leras. Knowing both Sandemans and the unconditional nature of the personal fealty oath, he found it hard to believe his pursuer's identity. What had gone wrong, to turn a Sandeman warrior from thakur-na to renegade assassin? Or . . . had anything?
But then the Emperor-class cruisers did have elite crews, and three of the four were Command level that must be significant, somehow. But this was no time to worry about theory. She had been almost right about her opponents' formation; two were coming down secondary passages, the fifth the shielded one, and she learned from Dawson that he was the Sandeman was coming down the main corridor.
Then he looked up. "I am afraid I was a bit previous," he said quietly. "The Royal Stickybacks have lost the Kidney Bean, and we are detailed to go up and retake it. Great compliment to the regiment, but a trifle mistimed! You young fellows had better go to bed. Parade at 4 A.M., sharp! Good-night! Come along to the Orderly Room, Sandeman."
I'll just have to hope she doesn't accept another 'na before I'm able to give her the kind of service she needs." Medart studied the young Sandeman for several moments. "I can do that," he said at last. "But it's a type of work I think you'd find distasteful, given your honesty, and given some of your cultural conditioning, you could find the training for it intolerable.
For either we should all be 'hereticks' or there would be no 'heresy' among us.... Heresy does not consist in opinion or sentiments: it is not an error of head but of will." Foster, A Defense of Religious Liberty, p. 47. John Glass of Scotland. Sandeman published their doctrines about 1757.
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