midnight
He had no special love of midnight assassination , and until landing on this planet had always believed that killing a sleeping man was a cowardly way to terminate another 's existence . But special conditions demand special solutions , and he was no match for the heavily armored man in open combat , therefore the assassin 's knife . Or rather sharpened horn . He managed to doze fitfully until some time after midnight , then slipped silently from under his skin coverings . Silently he skirted the sleepers and crept into the darkness between the dunes . Finding Ch ` aka in the wilderness of the desert night was not easy , yet Jason persisted . He made careful sweeps in wider and wider arcs , working his way out from the sleeping slaves .