"Urrr." Corina hadn't thought about that. "Does that system not have a band of debris? Between the fourth and fifth planets, I believe." Medart nodded. "The asteroid belt." "Then instead of going into orbit, we stay there. I will give the defense satellites instructions to call us when Thark lands. The delay between our getting that message and our arrival in orbit, plus the time to land, should take perhaps twenty minutes, from the theory I remember. That will allow him to attack the Palace and provide the evidence His Majesty wishes." "You're assuming Chang's navigator can plot that short a hyperspace flight with a lot of precision." "Yes. I believe it a valid assumption, or he would not be conning a Ranger's chosen ship." "Logical reasoning, and very true. All three of our navigators are every bit that exact. It sounds good; now we just hope it works. One of our ancient poets wrote, `The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a-gley,' and he was right." "That was Robert Burns," Corina said. "One of your early scientists put the same idea another way: `Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.'" She felt Medart's surprise at the identification and quote. "I was not probing; Terran poetry interests me, particularly Burns, Service, and Kipling. Except for ancient war chants, Irschcha has little that can be called poetry." "Nice to know you have interests that don't show up on your records," Medart said. "What do you mean?" "As I said earlier, it's not so much what you know as how your mind works that counts, as long as you have the basics. You can always find out any facts you need. But being interested in a variety of things is essential; you never know what's going to come in handy. Poetry doesn't seem particularly promising, but on the other hand, as I said, you never know." The mess was starting to fill as the senior officers trickled in for breakfast. By the time the two Rangers finished eating, all but Captain Hobison and Commander Jensen were there. Until they stood to leave, nobody paid any particular attention to Corina; it wasn't surprising that Medart's special assistant should join him at a meal. When they did stand, however, Commander Pappas gave an exclamation of surprise, and the room grew silent. That didn't last long; the murmur of conversation resumed, but now, from what Corina could hear, with herself as the subject. The tone was more awed than surprised after that first exclamation, and Corina assumed that word of the previous day's war council was no longer restricted to the Command Crew. Jim must have picked that up, she thought, or possibly he was just anticipating her reaction. "It's impossible to keep rumors from circulating aboard ship," he said, "especially about something as rare as a potential Ranger. The word was probably all over Chang within fifteen minutes after His Majesty dismissed the Command Crew. There's no harm in it."