No rest for the weary

In the original long-form version of Rome's Revolution, there a sizable gap in time from when Rei and Rome were taken to the secret Ibbrassati base and when they went back to the Ark to retrieve the Essessoni. Here is that passage:

     “We will help you thaw your people. We will do it tonight when the sun goes down. I think this is our best option and the only humane one.”
     “Thank you, sir,” Rei said.
     Trabunel nodded. “Until then, why don’t you and Rome rest?”
     All the tension went out of Rome’s shoulders. “I thought you would never say that,” she said with some relief.
     Rei spoke up in English. “Hey, wait a minute!” He switched to Vuduri, “I thought Vuduri had infrared vision. Darkness would not matter to them. Why do we need to wait until night? Will they not see us just as well in the dark?”
     “Yes and no. Our infrared vision is not quite as keen as our visible light optics. You do not want to make it easy for them, do you?” asked Fridone kindly.
     “No,” Rei said.
     “So rest,” said Fridone.
     “All right,” Rei replied.
     Rei took one coarse blanket and balled it up into a pillow. He helped Rome lay down on her side so that she was facing the fire. He stretched out behind her in the spooning position and put his arm around her. He had no clue what time it was in terms of their body but the stress of the day had been unbelievable. Within minutes, they both fell sound asleep.

Unfortunately, when I had to compress the three original novels down to a single omnibus, this scene had to go and Rei had no break from crash-landing to making the trek back to Ark to begin the retrieval process. Sorry, Rei but you know we have to have action, action, action.

However, it's a good thing I did remove that section. Look at the part in bold. I screwed up. Fridone is a 23-chromosome mandasurte. The special heat sensitive iRods are only built into the 24-chromosome Vuduri. He should have said, “Their infrared vision is not quite as keen as their visible light optics.”

Phew.