The room smelled of the dust of recently worked rock.
Aminadav stood and greeted the evaluator whom he'd known and worked with many
times over the years. A light kiss on the cheek was proper and reassured Ilana that all was well between them. They
argued often about her interpretations. Aminadav preferred to take her analyses
in and come up with this own solutions, but he could rarely prevent her from
adding her "summaries". It annoyed him. It annoyed her that it
annoyed him. It was part of her training to end with a summary. "Why
didn't he know that?" She decided that he was simply flirting with her in
his way and avoided solving it.
"We are in great danger, I'm afraid", he confided.
"Let me hear the recording again please", she needed to check some
words and intonations she missed.
"He is sending a hostile reply
very soon", she summarized. "He probably decided that you have already launched your forces,
and means to damage your position." Thank you Ilana, I did not need your
conclusions, just your view of his temperament." "He fears making an
error and embarrassing himself in front of his staff", she added. "The
direction of his message of greeting was not to us but more "through and
to his staff" she said. "In addition there was real personal fear of
failing his mission in his voice, especially the pause between
"now" and
"please". "Here his
thoughts were all about standing in front of a court martial, the room the
countenances of the judges, the advocates. It is doubtful that he prepared
these thoughts, he wouldn't have had time." Aminadav thanked her and
wondered how he missed that. He agreed with her and thought again. He heard the
same thing, but somehow did not fully understand it. These girls are carefully
trained to be totally objective. He didn't have that. It took a while to develop. "Well, we
might as well launch if they've already countered for it..."Start Perfect
Hit and prepare for a level 5 shock."
His men immediately went into action. Ilana saw this coming too and
wondered if it would affect her hearing. She would protect her ears.
"Please G-d protect my ears",
she thought and covered her ears with her shock helmet, sat and waited.
