to raid the Varoki observation posts around us. Near as we could tell, the mob had been working itself up to march on Sookagrad before that, but those quick, sharp blows put them back on their heels, made them rethink everything, wait for a while, see what we planned to do next. So the raids bought us at least another day of comparative security, and a fair haul of abandoned weapons, at the cost of two people wounded and no dead. Humans had a reputation for aggression and violence that was overstated, but for a change was useful. Zdravkova’s raids reinforced that reputation, made the Varoki over there start thinking maybe every Human really was as good as two Varoki, or three, or ten. We didn’t know what the odds really were, but they were long and probably getting longer every day. Anything that kept the Varoki mentally on the defensive was money in the bank. It also gave us time to start making reports to the outside world. Our vid tech with the camera had done some promotional work before the troubles—as we were all starting to think of them—and he did interviews with Katranjiev and Stal.
