[adamu]

"Yup, Al Guthrie: half man, half amazin'. That's what they call me." He said it without a trace of irony.

"But got no doubt y'all're endowed with more'n yer fair share o' talents. Done seen plenny so far, an' somethin' tells me that's the tip 'o the proverbial iceberg, what with the twenny years ya got on me. Heh heh. Ain't never done got myself entangled with no older woman afore, yet I got me a distinct impression I'm tradin' up."

[adamu]

Alyce leans into Al and softly says, "From my standpoint, you are all man and all amazing.  I am very glad that you think you are trading up because I know I am."  She does not want to say more than that just now as it would risk her saying something wrong again, and she is tired of sounding stupid or confusing or........................or anything that might have this man of her dreams decide to go away.

[adamu]

Al's nostrils flared at the scent of her. He reached out and tangled his fingers in her ponytail. Tugged her closer. Her nose brushed his. He felt her breath on his face. But he knew if their lips touched, the price would be the rest of the night, at a time when the whole job was hanging by a thread. Besides, he'd shared smokes with Kang, and the man deserved at least one night of mourning. He relinquished his grip on her hair and rose smoothly to his feet. Offered her a hand up. "Things ta do, toots, an' the night ain't gittin' no younger."

[Mercy Merchant]

Alyce can feel an almost insurmountable need building within her and everything about Al’s posture, heart rate, and breathing indicate he is feeling it as well.  But now is not the time for this on more than one level and she knows Al senses that.  Still, it is almost impossible to resist placing her lips on his.  Just once, she tells herself.  But then the moment is gone and Al lets her hair go.  God, how can she tell him that his grip on her hair really turns her on without saying something else wrong.  His presence just seems to make her brain revert back to her teenage years before she learned anything about boys.  He rocks her world and she cannot tell him that without saying something stupid.

She lets him pull her to her feet and they return to the cave.  She checks on her patients and is happy to see that there is an improvement in both.  She turns to go away when her medkit starts going ballistic.  Whipping about, she sinks to the ground to see what is happening.  Suddenly Milo’s mountain of a body spasms, disconnecting the machine.  Alyce calls out, “Jiahui, I need you here, right now."  She grabs the small gun from her side and plunges the barrel against Milo's neck and presses the trigger twice and then a third time when the first does do not put the man out.  His body settles down after the third shot of Slab and she reconnects the medkit and sets it up for a diagnostic, although she is already sure in her mind what has happened.  She has seen this before and realizes that the man is in dire danger of expiring on her.  By this time everyone else is awake and she has to shoo them all away.  She grabs Jiahui and tells the young woman what to grab from the mule while she works with what she can from her kit.  Xander tries to stay near and Alyce has to yell at him to leave so she can do her job and save his brother’s life.  Alyce takes what Jiahui brings over and sends her back for more things.  Cleaning her scalpel with DI water from a squeeze bottle, she begins cutting the Troll open.  The man screams in agony that he can barely feel and Alyce gives him a fourth dose of the powerful sedative, afraid to give him more.  Blood is flowing from her incision as she widens it and sets to work.  She directs Jiahui as an operating assistant and the two of them are soon covered in Milo’s blood.  Alyce works calmly, keeping Jiahui from running away several times.  The massive Troll is as close to death as he has ever been before as Alyce begins to put him back together from the inside out.  Her shirt and pants are soon covered in blood, but she smiles grimly as she recognizes that she is making progress. 

She is nearly done when she recognizes that Jiahui is going to lose it and sends her away.  The girl stumbles to the cave entrance and throws up, heaving away any food that she has consumed today.  Shaking her head, the woman proves her worth by moving back to help Alyce, who simply nods and asks for a clean scalpel.  Finally, Alyce sits back and analyzes her work, nodding as she determines that it is safe to sew the Troll back up.  She finishes that task then directs Jiahui on how to place the instruments in the sterilizer for the next time they might be needed.  She has used a good bit of her precious store of blood and quietly prays that she has enough.  Done, she sits back and checks the monitors, seeing that Milo is again out of danger.  Rising, she looks around and says, “Both of us need to bathe the blood from us.  There is a stream nearby.  Can two of you escort us there and watch over us?”

Al was already raising his hand when Ling Tse Tau says, “But that will leave the camp weakly defended, we are alre…….”

Yao Lung interrupts the corporate boss, “Al and I will do that, Doctor Krait.”  He looks sternly at the Wuxing man, almost daring him to say something more, but Tau wisely backs down.  He bends over to pick up Alyce’s pack.  “Is this got enough?” 

Alyce shakes her head and points to one of the compartments on the mule.  “Some more there, thank you.”  She walks to where Xander is sitting next to his brother and puts a hand on his huge shoulder.  “Milo will be fine now.  It was close but I am sure that he will pull through.  He will have a nasty scar, though.  Might make him look tougher.”  Xander gives her an odd look then nods and bursts out laughing.  “It might indeed, Doc.  He might score better with the women with it.”  Alyce turn and leaves the cave with Jiahui, Yao Lung, and Al.

[adamu]

Watching Alyce work on Milo Gaxxin, he congratulated himself on saving the troll's life through mastery of his carnal instincts. Of course, they'd probably all think it was Alyce that had saved him, but that was okay. Like it said in the Good Book, you can have your reward of angels or of men, and Al had always found the angels more reliable.

Of course, mastering one's carnal desires did not mean ignoring them altogether, and when they solicited volunteers to guard naked girls having a bath, his hand was first in the air. Next thing he knew, he and Yao were standing watch as the shapely Russian elf and willowy Chinese human were undressing in the starlight. Alyce, as usual, had not an ounce of modesty. In fact, Al figured she kind of enjoyed showing stripping off in front of not only himself, but also Yao and Jiahui. The missionary girl was somewhat more hesitant, but Alyce's grooming had definitely loosened her up and she was soon also standing knee-deep in the stream with nothing on at all. She needn't have worried, though, because Yao was all pro - he gave the women their privacy, never glancing away from the jungle on his side of the water.

Al was not quite so circumspect - since Alyce was nude much more quickly, he took the opportunity to openly savor the moment as best he could in the dim light. Then, however, as Jiahui got her kit off he concentrated on guard duty - at this point, he was pretty sure the Chinese girl didn't mind, but it wasn't his call to make. He was a gentleman, resisting the urge to look even when the sounds made it clear the two women were helping each other get clean.

The whole exercise was over quickly enough, though, since the night was warm but the water was definitely not.

As they were packing up the wet things for the short hike back, Al felt something. Clouds had moved in and it had gotten quite dark. Alyce was unimpaired and took care of Jiahui, and Yao's eyes were clearly low-light enhanced. Al's own cybereyes were strictly no-frills medical replacement, but he made his way along without asking for help. So he only felt the small broken branch as he brushed by it. Someone had been here, and no one he knew of had been out this way since they'd moved to the cave.

There was nothing for it in the dark - he couldn't lean on anyone else's senses to track. It was only a couple hours now until first light, and he'd check it out then.

He knew he should report it to Yao, but a gut feeling warned him to keep it to himself. Once they were back at the cave, he sat down and kept a protective eye on Alyce as he waited for the sun to come up.

[Mercy Merchant]

Alyce enjoys bathing in the stream, but the temperature certainly encourages the two women to hurry along.  After stripping, they wash themselves down, even dipping their heads into the water to get blood off.  That part takes Alyce a bit longer as her hair is very long compared to that of Jiahui.  After cleaning their bodies, they remain in the water to rinse the blood from their clothes before clamoring out and dressing in dry, warm clothes. 

Back in the cave, Alyce first goes to check on the monitors for her two patients.  Satisfied that all is well, she and Jiahui hang their wet things on the side of the mule and lie down to try to get some sleep.  It takes Alyce all of about 3.5 seconds to fall into a deep sleep.

[adamu]

Al was up with the sun. He told Yao he was going scouting and was not questioned. Approaching the cave mouth, he spotted Lok in the lookout tree, and waited for the right moment to slip past him unnoticed. He made his way quickly to where he'd found the broken branch. From there he picked up the trail.

It was harder than he'd expected. Whoever it was had known how to minimize the sign he left, and had done it as a matter of habit. He hadn't been actively trying to cover his tracks - there was no sign of that, and it would have made travelling too slow to be worthwhile. There was only one person in the group Al had seen move that way. But whoever it was may have been hiding their ability.

He followed the trail a lot further than he'd expected to. This guy was faster in the bush than he'd let on. It took Al two hours - so say one hour of walking for this guy, if he had vision enhancement, and they all did - to get to the end of the trail. And once he got there what he initially found nothing. But there had to be something, so he kept looking. It was getting hot. He sat down and tried to just feel the place, or feel what was out of place, but soon decided that was a load of hooey. If he wanted to do any finding, he'd better do some looking. Besides, the bugs bit more if he sat still, and he hadn't brought the old lady's hippie insect repellant. It was noon and he was nowhere. He checked his commlink, but there was no signal out here without Alyce's toys - he wasn't sure if she could reach the piece of junk he was carrying. But he wasn't giving up. He continued to meticulously search every possible space and surface in an slowly expanding circle. He felt like whoever had done this was laughing at him...what if they were? They knew he was a tracker. What if they took him into account personally when...he started looking well above his five-foot-three sightline - there it was, about seven feet up a Nepalese mango tree - there was a square unobtrusively cut into the bark. He reached up and peeled it off to find Chinese characters carved into the raw wood beneath. He recorded the image with his eyes, then collected some of the shavings. The Nepalese mango had a distinctive scent.

He couldn't read the symbols, nor access a translation program. But whatever it was, it had been intended for someone. So how would they have been expected to find it? Al knew what he'd have done, so he started climbing, choosing not the offending tree, but rather the tallest on in the vicinity, shimmying his way up into the branches, and then moving precariously up as high as he dared until the remaining limbs were too weak to support him. He looked out over the canopy and there it was, a bit of red paint at the top of the carved tree. He was pretty sure he knew what it was, and Alyce would know for sure. Not so high up that a climber couldn't have reached it. He climbed that tree and stripped off all the marked leaves, pocketing them. Then decimated the carving and replaced the bark.

He started backtracking. The guy had worked to retrace his steps, and done a good job. Al was looking for bootprints, but the guy wasn't that stupid. There was one muddy area around a small, almost stagnant creek where he'd had to make some, but here he had carefully rubbed them out. Tricky work in the dark, even enhanced, so Al poked around. There, at the water's edge. The water was lower now in the heat of midday - the print had been submerged slightly when the guy made it, and the lack of water flow had meant it was still there. More images recorded.

He had what he wanted, and made better time going back than he had going out. Yao looked a question, but Al just shrugged. "Nothin' movin', boss." Alyce was tending to Po and he waited. He smelled food and knew she'd have saved him some, so he just sat at his bedroll. It was between Xander's and Cheung's. Xander was over by Milo. Cheung was asleep after his night shift, boots on the floor. One lay on its side, the other was upright with a survival knife affixed.

When Alyce came over Al thanked her and started eating. He'd meant to be discreet at first, but having seen the boot, he no longer cared. He saw where Cheung's rifle leaned against the limestone wall, and knew he could reach it first. He opened up the wifi on his eyes, and spoke casually as he enjoyed her excellent cooking. "Check out today's recorded images." He watched her face as she realized the implications, and knew she was accessing Chinese translation databases. As she did so, he looked pointedly at the exposed sole of Cheung's boot. "What's it say?" Cheung didn't stir, but he imagined her fancy senses were picking up an increase in the Chinese scout's heart rate about now. She answered, "It gives the coordinates of the cave, and mentions the loss of Kang and Milo." Al pulled the red-dyed leaves from his pocket. "What's that?" She reached out and felt the sample, smelled it. "It's a marker with a radioactive isotope, readily visible in small amounts from high altitude drones. I'd have left it in a treetop." She smiled when his shrug confirmed that was where he'd found it. Al reached over and pulled Cheung's knife from its sheath. Cheung sat up. He looked at Al's grin and did not go for his rifle. Al sniffed at the knife.

"Nepalese mango, kemo sabe."

[Mercy Merchant]

Alyce is awake when Al leaves the cave and she overhears his explanation to Yao Lung.  She spends most of the morning with her patients, checking and double checking her monitors and, looking for anything that might indicate that a reoccurrence of earlier was on the way.  Happily, her instruments were giving her only good news.  She lets Xander know that his brother ought to make a full recovery after she feels all along the incision she had made in the Troll’s chest, seeking anything out of the ordinary.  Xander looks grateful for the information and leans over to whisper, “Thanks, Doc.  I guess this makes us all even now for you grabbing our guns back at the barracks.  Maybe we even owe you one.”  Alyce smiles and nods then goes to check on Po’s progress.  His arm is well on the way to healing.  She adds some more sedative to his med dose to keep him asleep while the meds and the kit work a bit of scientific mojo on the man.  Alyce cooks a good breakfast for those in the cave, letting Jiahui help as much as she can.  Yao Lung takes the young missionary aside and tells her that she has proven to be an excellent part of the expedition.  She nods acceptance, but it is clear that she values Alyce’s comments more. 

As the hours pass, Alyce begins to wonder where Al has got to and walks over to the cave entrance to sit near the small satellite dish she has placed there.  She reaches out mentally to flick her tracking devices on.  She had planted a tracking bug on every member of the team in case someone was separated.  Three small antennae rise from the side of her head and add their power to her already heavy noise cancelling ability and she finds Al’s device on the move and places it on her internal topo map of the area.  He is a good bit away from the camp, which does surprise her a bit, but does not worry her.  What also surprises her and does worry her a bit is that the other tag is also lit up and transmitting something somewhere.  And then, almost as soon as she detects it, the signal stops and the tag goes back to silent mode, almost as if it had been burst-transmitting something.  She files that away, resolving to look into it more later.  She also takes the opportunity to access Sasha’s feed of Senor’s progress.  She rolls the feed back a few hours and watches as the camp erupts at what she supposes is the disturbance in the decker’s tent.  As people converge on one of the tents, a man emerges from inside, backing away and crossing himself.  Senor thrusts him aside and looks in before standing to let another man go inside.  A few minutes later the same man emerges, dragging a body with him and shaking his head.  Another man comes running into view, holding his commlink up and yelling something, which causes the rest of the people in the camp to reach for their own ‘links.  Senor looks at his and seems to be concentrating on it then he draws a sidearm and fires several rounds into the body on the ground.  Soon, he has everyone looking at their commlinks and several put theirs in a pile on the ground where Senor stomps on them.  He does the same with the weapons of his team, apparently telling the men to fire into the ground near the body.  Ten of the weapons do not fire and are tossed into a pile off to one side.  Senor disperses the working firearms to some of the men and disappears back into his tent, motioning for Mai Lin and two of the men to follow him. 

Alyce notes that Al is making his way back to the cave and stores the rest of Sasha’s feed to review later.  For about the millionth time, she pats herself on the back for getting the upgrades for these drones that allows them to recharge from small solar batteries and panels.  When Al comes back, she takes him some food and sits near him.  She takes the 'link feed that Al sends her and has to read it twice to believe what she is seeing.  She keeps her face impassive and sends the feed to Yao Lung to look at.  She confirms for Al what he already believes about the writing he had found under the tree bark.  "The radioactive paint is a surprise and I salute whoever had the idea.  It is not a new use of the paint, but such material is expensive.  Still, it would allow them find the hidden messages easily enough.  The death of the decker will slow that down, but not for long.  It would be easier with him working the drones, but almost anyone can get one in the air and let it do its thing.  Frag, even I could do that.  The bad news of this is that we should believe that Senor knows which direction we took when we left the original path.  The good news is that Al found and erased the message of our exact location before it was found.  I just checked after Al got back and they are still in their camp.  I have dealt decisively with his decker and he will bother us no more.  I also bricked up much of his communications gear and about half of anything larger than a sidearm.  He could repair them in time with a good armorer and the right tools, but it appears he might not have either at the moment, which is another indicator that he was plucked from somewhere and given limited resources to pull this off."

She stops talking as Yao Lung thanks her and moves to stand over the unfortunate traitor.  "You have been in Wuxing service and know the penalty for this sort of betrayal.  Tell me everything and I will make the punishment swift and painless.  Keep silent and the punishment will be just as final but far slower and much more painful."

The hapless guard blanches and begins talking.  His gambling debts had grown more than he had thought possible, threatening to spill over into his professional life.  Senor had sent Mai Lin to approach him, offering enough money to square his debts and then some if he became a spy for them.  The man already knew and was going to tell, which would mean his death anyway.  So he had become a spy and traitor.  He had been justifiably concerned about the abilities of the Wuxing team decker and they had worked out a way to keep Senor informed."  Cheung lowers his head and Yao Lung looks at Al.  "Do you have any questions before I deal with him, Al?"

 

[adamu]

Al did not savor being face to face with a man whom his actions had doomed to death. He'd never killed a man in cold blood before. He wouldn't have to now either, but even as the man sat on his bedroll across from him, he felt as though he already had.

He wondered what it felt like, knowing you were going to die in a few minutes. Sitting and talking to the men that were going to kill you. Knowing they had gone from respecting to hating you in quick flash of information. And knowing you'd brought it all on yourself.

Not planning on ever dying himself, Al couldn't get his head around it.

He felt bad for the guy. But then he thought of Kang. And Kang's kids who would never see him again. After that, he didn't feel a damned thing for Cheung.

"Ya tip 'em to our little magic word?"

The man nodded slowly. "I told them you have it. But I had no way of transmitting audio, and I could not write it." Made sense - Al couldn't imagine a way to transliterate that mouthful of gobbledy-gook in any language other than Chong. He could barely write that, and it wasn't on any database. No audio, no go.

One more thing he didn't want to even imagine at this point, but they'd already been stung twice. "Ya workin' with anyone else here?" This was the tricky one. The condemned man had no reason to lie about anything else, but if he had a confederate, he might be motivated to protect them. Still, when he answered in the negative, it sounded like the truth, and the others agreed.

So Al shrugged and laid himself down in his space, shotgun by his side, boots still on. Closed his eyes. Yao and Lok led the man outside. He didn't resist.

Al sensed Alyce still near him. "How long ya reckon till we can adios this here hole inna ground?"

[Mercy Merchant]

Alyce listens to Cheung's story, realizing that she had not taken steps to deal with the possibility of betrayal from within the team.  She sits quietly as Yao Lung and Lok take their companion out of the cave, knowing that they will kill him.  Shaking her head, she contemplates what she can do to minimize such activity in the future.  Al's voice interrupts her and she turns to face him.  "I would not recommend leaving here today.  We could arrange the mule to carry both men, but it would not be a good thing and we would certainly be slowed down.  Even tomorrow is iffy.  Based on their current condition, I would say the day after tomorrow at the earliest.  And our travel may be slower than normal for a day or so.  Fortunately, Senor seems in no real hurry to be moving, either.  I could only get to a handful of sidearms and about half the rifles in his team, but he is certainly weaker than he was and seems to be trying to decide what to do."

Xander nods, but Jiahui asks, "What do you mean when you say you got to his weapons?"

"I damaged them, Jiahui.  I went into them and did things to the electronics and now they will not shoot.  He can repair the damage and I expect that is what he will try.  After all, it makes no real sense to take that many men into this environment with weapons and the men will know that.  But repairing them will slow him down.  My feed from my drone shows that he has a man doing the repair work, but he just started a bit ago and it will take him a while unless he is a whiz at it.  A side effect of what I have done is that I would think he will set his weapons to wireless to prevent me from doing that again, which reduces his effectiveness by quite a bit."

[adamu]

Al never opened his eyes as Alyce explained the medical situation, just listened and nodded. Sounded like they had some time to kill. He figured he'd best get some shut-eye if he could though - the guard roster was getting thinner all the time. At this point, they'd have to settle for one man on watch, or else go to six-and-sixes, which could wear a man down. Still, it was better than waking up dead, and he hoped Yao would go for the latter.

The girls' talk about bricking eased him right off to dreamland, where he had a nice conversation with the shaman. Who happened to speak English.

"You're in great danger here, Al." And with some sort of Easter European accent, to boot.

"Tell me about it. Jungle's bad enough, but then there's this Senor asshole doggin' us, plus you all with yer unholy witchery."

"Oh come now, my friend, none of those perils is a match for your supernatural wit and wile. Though you are correct to be wary of witches." Sort of like the vampire that taught kids to count.

"Aw, they ain't so bad once ya git acquainted some." It was so funny that the shaman was a woman.

"I hope you'll get acquainted with me, Al. I'd like that very much," the she-shaman said, tossing her ponytail over her shoulder with a twist of her neck, exposing the bare breast it had concealed.

"Well, ain't no danger in a simple acquaintance, I'll allow."

"I hope we'll be acquainted for a long time, Al. A very very long time. I want to be acquainted with you for five minutes, Al. Are you hearing me?" she asked, her gigantic hand grabbing his shoulder and shaking it.

"Wakey wakey, pal. We relieve Lok and Yao in five minutes."

"Holy mother of bastard saints, trog man, yer gon' paw a feller at least make it worth my while," Al said, one hand cupping his crotch in the sort of crude humor only men could appreciate. It was dark outside the cave, and there was a plate of food beside him. He ate what he could in four minutes. Normally he'd have just made the bastards wait, but today the Chinamen didn't need the grief. Hefting his shotgun and heading past the injured, he saw Alyce and Jiahui spooning on a bedroll, apparently fast asleep.

[Mercy Merchant]

Yao Lung and Lok return in thirty minutes and silently nod to Ling Tse Tau, indicating the deed is done.  Yao Lung gather the others together and lays out a new watch rotation and it is obvious that the loss of Kang, Milo, and now Cheung will have an effect.  Yao Lung takes Lok as a partner and assigns Al to be with Xander and the watches will be six and six.  Alyce's drones will assist the watches and Alyce nods, explaining that the drones are programmed to ping her if they spot something odd.  Those off watch are encouraged to get some rest and Al immediately drops off.  Alyce checks on the patients one more time then curls up on her bag.  Jiahui comes over and says, "I do not wish to be alone.  May I share?"  Alyce nods without speaking and slips over to give the young missionary room to lie down next to her.  The girl feels nice and Alyce places her arm around her waist, pulling her in closer.  At first the girl goes a bit stiff, but soon relaxes and both fall asleep for a bit.

Alyce and Jiahui get up and check on Po and Milo before starting dinner.  Everyone seems a bit subdued and Alyce does not break the silence much, only giving instructions to her assistant in a low voice.  Once those awake in the cave are fed, the women place dishes beside the men of the second watch, both of whom are still asleep, as well as setting up dishes for the two men on the first shift.  Done and most of the things cleaned up, the two women curl up and go back to sleep.

[adamu]

Sentry duty was boring as always, and not being able to smoke made it a living hell. Not that he had any cigarettes anyway after the flood, but it was the principle of the thing.

It was a dark night, and without vision enhancements, Al's performed his duty with his ears and his gut. And by keeping the feed from Alyce's drone in a window of his field of vision - just a tiny little two-dee image, not enough to make him too dizzy - but it gave him eyes in the back of his head. And unless the Pearics had suddenly gotten matrix-savvy, he doubted he needed to fret about a little wifi exposure, now that Alyce had cacked Senor's hacker.

Now that would be handy. He wondered how Alyce perceived things exactly. He'd have to quiz her on it more closely, but he figured whatever she had was likey configured to 360 degrees. And could she actually "see" her drone feeds in her head? Whatever, she was damned well effective enough. Hell, she should be out here on a dark night like this. But between cooking, hacking, and doctoring, he reckoned she was doing enough.

Lok mercifully came to take his place in the wee hours. Xander was pretty much of a night person, and did not return right away to the cave, so when Al reentered it was pretty quiet. There were a couple of glow-sticks scattered around, and together with the faint glimmer from the medical monitors there was just enough light to see by. His only duty being to act as noble leader, Ling was asleep somewhere in the very back of the place, as were the injured men. Jiahui was slumbering on Alyce's bedroll, so the only person up was Alyce herself, apparently just having checked on Milo and Po.

[Mercy Merchant]

Alyce wakes early to check on the patients and to get a start on breakfast.  Both men are showing clear signs of improvement and Doctor Alyce smiles.  She adjusts some of the meds and moves over to the mule, quietly putting on her Cook Alyce hat and firing up the camp stove to heat some water for coffee.  While waiting, Decker Alyce checks her feed from Sasha to see what progress Senor is making and then the feeds from the other two drones she has on sentry duty here.  Most of the people in the Azzie camp are still asleep at this time so she reviews the data from the sentry drones, looking for anything out of the ordinary that might have not fit her search parameters.  She makes a quick trip out of the cave to take a piss and returns to continue the prep work for breakfast.

She has coffee ready when Yao Lung and Lok wake up to take their guard shift and they nod appreciatively.  Likewise, she has two steaming mugs ready when Xander and Al return.  She tells them that breakfast will be ready in about an hour if they want to catch a bit of rest.  Supply Clerk Alyce hands Al a pack of cigarettes from the stash she keeps on the mule and nods to him.

[adamu]

Al accepted the cigarettes like a miracle unlooked for. Tossing the elven beauty a lazy salute, he said, "Some folks think the way to a feller's heart's through his stomach. Well, they ain't never smoked a filterless damned Lucky Strike." While he smoked, Alyce told him about how the tracking device in his ass - which he'd completely forgotten about - had sent a burst transmission while he was out backtracking Cheung's movements the day before.

"Well that sure as hell won't do, whether it's got anything ta do with this job or not. Hell, only reason I didn't kill it back in Andoun Tuek was I didn't want whoever it was ta know we was on to 'em. Pretty much academic now, wouldn't ya say?" When she suggested he lower his trousers so that she could remove it, however, he again took a pass. "Jist loan me that tag eraser again. I know how ta use it. And it'll do it's business through my trousers jist fine."

She could not resist the opportunity to point out the ridiculousness of his apparent modesty, given their recent history, but he answered, "Dammit woman, the one got nothin' ta do with the other. Coat me in honey an' chain me across a fire ant colony before ya git Al bendin' over bare-ass fer anyone." At which point, completely oblivious to any double-standard he might be invoking, he took the eraser and did the job in a few seconds. Dissatisfied with not completely removing the device, Alyce set up a program to monitor the thing for any further transmissions.

The next twenty-four hours were uneventful. For Alyce it was a constant round of cooking, monitoring comms, and caring for patients, with Nurse Jiahui readily helping with the endless work of attending to the bodily needs of incapacitated patients. For the men, it was the crushing boredom of sentry duty punctuated by eating, sleeping, and losing at cards to a chuckling Al. Ling participated in none of these acitivities, but instead brooded restlessly. For hours on end he was the only person up and about in the cave aside from the two attractive and thinly clad women, and Alyce could see him getting increasingly restless.

The four bearers were suffering the least. They were used to scant rations, and were neither required not trusted to perform sentry duty. Since they had been first out of the creekbed, they had no injuries. Al kept them nominally busy hauling water back to the cave, which was  a serious and necessary job, but basically a vacation compared to humping supplies through the jungle from dusk to dawn. They had set themselves up in another small cave they'd found, and generally kept to themselves except when delivering water. Or showing up at mealtime.

They still had another day of planned rest for the injured when the drone tasked with monitoring Senor's progress pinged Alyce's headware, waking her from a fitful nap. Carefully moving Jiahui's arm from across her waist, She got up and informed Yao that Senor was back on the move and proceeding at a well-rested pace. Unwilling to leave any members of the dwindling group out of the discussion, Yao risked calling the sentries in for a few minutes while Alyce sent her drone higher for a wider view of their perimeter.

It was quickly decided that while it would be hard on them, Po and Milo could move under their own power. No one was really worried about Milo - they knew he'd soldier through it. As for Po, everyone knew he could be helped if need be. In any case, they couldn't remain where they were with Senor coming up the side of the mountain after them. All now acknowledged what they'd all known from the start, that the missionary effort was a meaningless charade. At this point, however, there was no turning back for Po or Jiahui - they couldn't survive on their own, nor could an escort back be spared, so they were now part of the team effort, like it or not.

The group quickly packed the surviving gear. Between what was lost in the flood and the fact that they'd taken much more time than they'd projected to get to where they were, supplies were short, even with the people lost. At least the loads were getting lighter. The pace was now even slower than before, but Al was more interested in deviating from their last line of march, assuming Senor would be projecting their trajectory based on the previous trail markers he'd no doubt be finding soon enough. Their progress was just a little more than zero by the time they stopped to camp, but Al planned to do a lot better the next day.

They'd lost tents. The trolls would now be sleeping rough - it was warm enough, but the bugs would be hell. Alyce gave them the rest of the old lady's bug cream. The women would still have a tent, though Lok and Po made some jokes in Chinese that Al guessed were along the lines of "Why bother?" But Yao insisted on it. Al would share with Lok and Po, and even Ling would now have to bunk with Yao. Al went about scouting the perimeter while Alyce checked on everyone's wounds - it wasn't only Milo and Po with cuts and contusions that needed watching, especially in the jungle environment - and Jiahui got some food prep started for Alyce using what few fresh ingredients they had left. Soon it would be protein bars, and those rationed. At least it would give Alyce a break - Al thought she was starting to look tired. But maybe he was just imagining it. Saints knew he still couldn't think about her rationally.