Vanire smiles as Arkady leaves.
"May success attend your quest," he says.
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The drive back home is largely uneventful. Exactly how long it takes is probably a very good question; to those doing the travelling, it
seems to take two days, but previous experience suggests that this may not be as reliable a measure as it might appear. The most interesting thing to happen in those two days is when one of the trucks gets stuck in some mud, is is only extracted with difficulty and after moving most of the weight onto the other truck.
Vanire's idea of military rations, as it turns out, consists mainly of heavy, solid food that can fuel a long march. It doesn't actually taste bad, (though, as Arkady pointed out, it tastes a lot better than hunger) but it's easy to see that a man who gets nothing else to eat might very quickly get rather sick of it. Piper alone refuses to eat the military rations, though she will not say why.
You arrive back at the camp to find Captain Argent and one of the colonists whom you haven't seen (since waking up from cryosleep, you may know him from before) talking with an elderly Styric man.