The Chantry Guild

CHAPTER 23

"I'm sorry to interrupt you, as I told you I might have to-" Amid was beginning, with relentless Exotic courtesy, when Hal cut him off. "It's quite all right, as I said it would be. Don't be concerned," said Hal.

The sun was just disappearing behind their own cliffs, and the mountains he watched at sunrise were now lost in night's shadow. Below them, the jungle was losing itself in twilight, and the ledge itself, to its outer edge, was in the last rosy light of the sunset. "What is it?" asked Hal. "A search party from the garrison will start combing through the jungle below, tomorrow," said Amid. "Elian visited Onete again this afternoon to tell her, while she was visiting with Cee. Cee, naturally, disappeared just before Elian showed up, and since Onete knew the news was important, she didn't wait around to see if Cee would be back, but came directly up to the ledge and me. I've had them dig up the barrier stone to block the way in under the boulder, and it's set ready to be put into position at a moment's notice. Onete, Artur and Calas - you know Calas, of course?" "Of course," said Hal. Calas was a wiry little man who had been one of the original Guild Members with Artur, back when Jathed was still alive.

"We're gathered in my reception building, making plans. I'm afraid we need your advice." "Anything I can do... " said Hal. Amid was already leading him at what, for the small and aged man, was almost a trot toward the reception building, which now, like the two dormitories, had blackout curtains over its windows.

Within the building, an evening fire had just been lit in the fireplace and the people Amid had mentioned were seated in three chairs on one side of it. Overhead, the ordinary artificial lighting that was powered by stored sunlight from collectors on the mountainside above them in the day, was on a setting so low that its radiants, shaped like upside-down cones, glowed no brighter than candles. There was an empty chair between that of Onete and the chair Amid always occupied. Amid led Hal to it and all but pushed him into it before the Guildmaster seated himself.

Whatever the other three had been discussing, they had broken off. They sat silent as Hal and Amid came in and found their chairs. "Here's Hal," said Amid to Onete, unnecessarily. "Tell him what Elian told you." "He said... " began Onete. A product of Exotic schools, she had naturally been taught what the people of Mara and Kultis called Perfect Memory. In effect, this was a mnemonic system that, when learned, gave virtually total recall of information gained through any of the senses - the equivalent in ear, nose and sense of touch of an eidetic memory for anything visual." "I just found out at lunchtime that the garrison's definitely sending out a search party for the Guild, tomorrow. My cousin heard Sanderson, the corporal who's quartered on her and her husband, talking to the private he uses as an orderly. They were outside the house, but just outside the front door. She heard them through the door a little muffled, but clear enough.' That's the first thing Elian said when he reached me. He was out of breath. He'd barely made it outside the town before the guards would have looked suspiciously on anyone that late in the afternoon, and he'd come as fast as he could once he got out of sight of the walls."

She paused and looked at Hal. "Did he say how many soldiers were corning?" Hal asked.

"No. He probably didn't know." "Did he say at what time they were leaving town in the morning, so we can make an estimate of when they'll get into this area?" "Well, no," said Onete. "Actually we talked about how terrible it was they'd search for us after all this time, and I thanked him for coming to tell us, and then I came right back up here to tell Amid." "Did he say anything," asked Hal, "this time or at any time earlier, about how the soldiers might be armed, what rank of officer would be leading them, whether they knew their way around in the jungle up here or had maps of any kind? Did he mention that any of the soldiers would be ones who'd searched this area before?" "No. As I said," said Onete, "we just talked" She looked unhappy.

"I made a mess of it, didn't I?" she said. "I should have asked him useful questions like that, or at least anything I could think of that would let us know what we were up against. I'm sorry. My first thought was to thank him for taking the risk to come and warn us. That's us Exotics, polite and considerate before anything else! I might just as well have chatted with him about the weather!"

Her voice ended on a bitter, self-accusatory note. "Don't let it bother you," said Hal. "Exotics aren't the only ones who wouldn't know what to ask in such a situation. Just about anyone without the proper experience or training wouldn't," "I'll bet Cee would have asked him some of the right questions, if she'd talk, and if she'd trusted him enough to stick around!" said Onete, still bitterly. "Never mind," said Amid, "we'll all make mistakes like that before this thing is over, probably. Our Exotic training is exactly the wrong sort of training for handling situations like this Occupation." "Don't devalue yourselves," said Hal. "Remember, that same Exotic training of yours centers around making life more comfortable for those who have to deal with you. Just having to live with you has brought these same soldiers more peace of mind and comfort than most of them have ever had in their lives before. Whether they admit it to themselves or not, it's hard for them to deprive themselves of that comfort by killing you all off, in spite of the fact they're aware that's essentially what they've been sent here to do. Almost unconsciously, you've been countering the directives under which they operate. So don't blame yourself for not asking questions only a professional soldier might think to ask. To each his own way of fighting." "Well, in any case," said Amid to Hal, "as far as the number and equipment and so forth of the soldiers in Porphyry is concerned, Calas here can answer some of the questions for you. That's why I have him here-"

The door to the reception building suddenly banged open and there strode in - there was no other proper word for the way she moved - a Guild member whose name, Hal remembered, was R'shan. She was no taller than Onete and slim enough to look as if she was barely more than a girl. But as Hal had seen, she was incredibly strong for her size. He had seen her tossing fifty-kilo sacks of variform sweet potatoes around in the Guild storehouse, apparently without effort. At the moment she was in work trousers and a somewhat ragged shirt. Her short-cropped blond hair had dust and woodshavings clinging to it. Underneath the hair two bright blue eyes sparkled out of an attractive, sharp-featured face. "Sorry to be late," she said, coming on in and throwing herself into the empty chair just beyond Calas. "I was up in the crawl space just beneath the roof of Dormitory Two and over the third floor ceiling. Amid, I found that leak up there. All that repairing they did around the kitchen chimney didn't do a bit of good. The crack in the roof's a good half-meter off from the chimney's flashing. I could see sunlight coming through-" "Forgive me, R'shan," said Amid, "but we can talk about the leak in the Dormitory Two roof later. We've just gotten word the soldiers from Porphyry are sending out a search party to try and find us in the jungle below here. We've got to make plans." "Oh? Of course! " R'shan sat up in her chair. "You'll want to know how we're supplied-" "Yes," said Amid, "but in a moment. Hal's the only one here who knows anything about the military and how they might go about searching. He's asking the questions."

"Ah. Friend, here, you mean?" "Of course. Friend. Forgive me," said Amid, looking apologetically at Hal under R'shan's correction. "My name doesn't matter either," said Hal. "Let's stick to the situation under discussion. You, first, Calas. How do you happen to know more about the Occupation Troops than these others?" "I was one of them," said Calas. His voice was slightly hoarse, and it struck Hal suddenly that he had never heard the man speak before. "I was caught in a rock slide one day when half a dozen of us were out chasing an escaped prisoner. The slide buried me and those other bastards just pawed around a little and then went off and left me. Wrote me off. Some Guild members were out foraging and saw what happened. After my so-called mates were gone, the Guild people came, dug me out and carried me back here to get well, I had a broken arm and leg, as well as other things wrong with me. The Guild saved my life. So I stayed here. I'll help you fight those sons of bitches any day-" "Fighting them's the last thing we want to do," said Hal. "Whether the Guild lives or dies depends on the soldiers never finding out it still exists. You say the soldiers with you gave up digging for you after just a little effort to find you?" "Yes. It was a hot day, but that's no excuse. Excuse enough for them, though." "You're a Cetan, aren't you?" "Yes." Calas stared at him. "How did you know?" "It's too complicated to explain at the moment," said Hal. "Basically, the way you talk rules out your having grown up on any of the other worlds. Tell me about the garrison. How many are there in it?" "When I was there, counting officers, a little over two hundred. Only about thirty of them women and most of those worked at inside jobs like administration." "How large a search party do you guess'll be sent out tomorrow?"

Calas shrugged. "Who knows? There's five Action Groups of twenty bodies each. The rest of the garrison people are officers or have regular jobs. The five Groups rotate on duty so that there's always one on active duty - it's like guard duty, except you don't do anything but sit there and wait for something to come up, like chasing an escaped prisoner from the Interrogation Section cells. Then there's another Group on backup, which means you have to be able to report for duty within five minutes - and they come on duty if the duty Group goes out on some job. The rest are off duty, until their own duty turn comes up. Duty's twenty-six hours. A day and a night." "Correct me if I'm wrong on this," said Hal. "Effectively they've got a hundred active-duty soldiers, and the rest are support only?" "That's about it," said Calas. "All right, give me your best estimate of how many bodies might be in the search party we'll see tomorrow, how the party'd be officered, whether they'll have maps and how they'll be armed and equipped."

Calas frowned. "No telling how many there'll be. If they're really serious, they'd use two full Groups, but that's only if they weren't searching anyplace else at the time or had anything else going on. More likely one Group." "What would two Groups add up to in numbers, rank and so forth?" asked Hal. "Two Groups," answered Calas. "That'd mean forty privates, four team-leaders, two groupmen and maybe two forceleaders - but probably just one of those, in command. They'd be Groups that were off duty to begin with, and they'd have the usual needle guns - just a few power rifles - and field equipment - helmets instead of caps and so on. The non-coms and officers carry power-pistols instead of long guns. And that's about it. " "No power slings for casting explosives? How about portable explosives? No power cannon that might be able to blast holes in the ledge here, if they found it?"

Calas shook his head. "Hell, I don't know anyone in that whole outfit who'd know how to load, direct, or fire a power sling or power cannon," he said. "As for portable explosives, I don't think they've got anything like that, except for grenades and fixed charges that they can slap on the wall of a house to blow it down - and there's only one groupman I know of who'd know how to use that without blowing himself up. Besides, they wouldn't bring explosives up this way. There's nothing they know of here to blow up, but jungle, and no profit in blowing up that." "Good," said Hal. "Anyone in the outfit know how to track?" "Track, Friend?" "Read sign. Follow people through the jungle by seeing where they'd stepped or the undergrowth they'd broken through. "

Calas shook his head. "Not that I ever knew of," he said. "Even better," said Hal. "Any technological equipment - sniffers, for example?" "I don't know what sniffers are," said Calas. "Neither do any of the rest of us," said Amid. "What's a sniffer, Hal-Friend?" "Equipment that can be set to sense particular odors at a distance. Body odors, cooking odors." "Not that I ever heard of, and I'd have heard about anything like that," said Calas. "They'd have scopes?" "Scopes?" "Viewing scopes - for getting a close-up picture of what's distant. You might have called them telescopic viewers, on Ceta. " "Oh, those," said Calas. "Every non-com and officer'll have one, and there might be some issued to a party of the bodies if they're going off someplace to look at things by themselves." "Good. That ties right into what I was going to ask you next. Any searching that's done is likely to be either with individuals strung out in a skirmish line, or with small units of something like two to a dozen individuals, setting up a center point and working out from there, until the specific area assigned that unit for search has been gone over. In light forest like that below us. where ferns and scrub brush fill the spaces between trees at times, two men could lose track of each other easily within a short distance, they'll probably figure to use a group working out of a center point. If so, what's your guess as to the size of the units the search party'll be broken up into?"

"Six to ten bodies," said Calas. "Giving us two or three units from each group?" "That's right." "Good... and bad," said Hal. "Now-" "Why do you say both 'good' and 'bad,' Friend?" asked Amid. "Good, because it adds to the evidence that they're not expert trackers or searchers. It also means they're either lazy, or don't expect to find anyone, so for their own greater comfort and pleasure, they'll stick together in large units to have company and make easier work of the searching. It's bad, because they'll be taking longer to search over the same amount of ground, and that means they'll be around here longer. I covered most of the area that concerns us in about six hours, earlier today. They could take almost as many days to do it if they stay in large groups and loaf on the job." "That's exactly what they'll do, too," said Calas. "Right," said Hal, glancing out the window at the deepening gloom of the night. He turned to Amid. "Do you have someone who could climb high enough on the mountain behind us to see the road past the madman's place, using a scope? Whoever it is would have to be in a position where they could not only see the road, but also where they could be seen from down here. I want someone ready to signal us below here when the troops come in sight. That way we can leave the block out of place at the entrance under the boulder until the last minute." "Of course," said Amid. "There's a number of us who could do that. If I were twenty years younger-" "They'll have to climb in the dark. I want whoever goes up to be in place by dawn." "Hmm," said Amid. "Yes, I think we can even do that. There are some fairly easy routes up, ways some of us already know about. Even in the dark they should be safe to climb." "Fine." Hal looked at R'shan. "How about supplies? We've got water from the stream. How long can we live up here on stored food alone?" "Six months," said R'shan, staring levelly at him. "You see," said Amid, "we've always considered the possibility of being kept from leaving the ledge for an extended time."

"Six months!" Hal smiled and shook his head. "You've done well in that department. Now-" He looked at Amid steadily. "Did you talk to your pharmacist, and to Artur and Onete here, about bringing Cee in the way I suggested?" "We can't do it," said Artur. "Really, we can't," said Onete. "She'd go wild once she woke up here and found herself locked in, even if I was with her. From what little I can gather from her, my guess is that the soldiers that destroyed her family home must have caught her parents outside and deliberately put them inside before blowing the house apart, and Cee saw that. She trusts me a lot now, I think, but anything that held or enclosed her... she'd go wild and hurt herself trying to get out!" "You see," said Amid to Hal, "otherwise, the pharmacist says it'd be perfectly possible to make such a tranquilizer dart." "That's good," said Hal, "because they may turn out to be useful in other ways. Would you have him make up about a dozen of them and find me people who can shoot a bow or use a sling with enough accuracy to deliver them?" "I can do that, yes," said Amid. "How were you planning on using them? Because that may make a difference in how he makes them." "I don't know, yet. It's just that such darts would give us a silent, nonlethal weapon. Maybe, on second thought, you and I had better go over and talk with him or her, now-" "You stay here!" R'shan was already on her feet. "I'll go get him. People are supposed to come to the Guildmaster, not he to them - remember, Guildmaster?"

She looked sternly at Amid, who in turn looked slightly embarrassed. "Sometimes it's quicker - but you're right, you're right," said Amid. "I think he's still in the pharmacy, R'shan." "Since you're going to get him, then," said Hal hastily, "would you get whoever's going to climb the mountain with the viewscope and watch for the soldiers on the road?" "Missy and Hadnah," said Amid. "Bring them both, R'shan. " "Right." The door slammed behind her, giving a brief glimpse of the new darkness outside. "We'll also want to cover or camouflage the circle and anything else that's evidence of people here on the ledge from an overhead view, just in case they do take a look from above at this area," said Hal. "I really don't think they can," said Amid, smiling a little. "I'd forgotten when you first mentioned it, but of course, when all the wealth of our two worlds went at your request to Old Earth, we couldn't afford to keep on the payroll all the technicians and experts from other worlds we'd been used to employing. Most of the staff on the satellite system, which was primarily a weather-control system for whatever world the satellite was orbiting, were other-world meteorologists. When they left, the few Exotics who were there in the station left too, but before leaving they made a point of effectively sabotaging the equipment aboard." "Good!" muttered Calas. "Those the Occupation Forces sent in," continued Amid evenly, "were soldiers only. They might have had a few people among them who could use the equipment on the satellites, but they hadn't any who could repair it. The satellite system's gone unrepaired ever since, as the weather patterns show. I really don't think anyone can get an overhead view of us without actually flying a space-and-atmosphere ship over, and it'd be prohibitive in cost to do that for every little group like us they're trying to search out on both Kultis, here, and Mara." "There's still the possibility of the searchers sending up a float-kite, or balloon with a scope aboard, to relay images back to the ground," said Hal. "We should cover up, anyway, and keep everyone out of sight from above, particularly in the daytime." "Oh, we'll do that, of course. I didn't mean to say we wouldn't," said Amid. "It's just that it's amusing that they can't use the satellites because of a situation they helped bring about, themselves. "

There was a moment's pause in the conversation, broken by Artur. "I don't know what to do about Cee," he said.

Onete put a hand on his thick forearm. "She'll stay out of sight, I'm sure," she said. "It's true she's always curious, but that many people together, and particularly if she remembers the uniforms of the soldiers who killed her parents - and I'm sure she does, even if she won't talk much about it-she'll be frightened and hide from them. If she really wants them not to see her or know she's there, they're about as likely to get a glimpse of her as they are to catch a sunbeam in a box and carry it away."

Artur turned his head to smile at her, but his face was still troubled in the shadows cast by the firelight. He got to his feet. "I'll get busy right now organizing the camouflaging of the ledge," he said. He went out, walking heavily.

Since they had a few moments on their hands in which to do so, Hal had Onete repeat her full conversation with Elian, word for word, but what she had said earlier was correct. There was nothing more Hal could learn from it.

Amid began an explanation to Hal of how at least some weeks' supply of food for those in the Guild was always stored ready in precooked form, or was of such a nature that it could be eaten without cooking. These ready-prepared foods were used up in rotation as part of their regular daily diet, and regularly replaced. Other foods, such as root vegetables, were also used up in rotation, being replaced by more recently acquired supplies of the same food.

The door opened to let in a tall, thin man with white hair and an unusual erectness, considering his obvious age. "Hal, you've met our pharmacist, Tannaheh?" said Amid. "Tanna, this is Friend, an honored visitor among us for a while. " "I think I'm probably the only Guild member you haven't met, Friend," said Tannaheh. "I'm honored, of course. I've heard all about you from the others." "And I've heard about you," said Hal. "Honored, in turn. "Tannaheh is really a research chemist-" began Amid. "Was a research chemist," said the thin old man. "At any rate, he's our pharmacist now. Tanna, we just got word through Onete that a search party from the Porphyry Garrison is on its way here tomorrow." "I've been told," said Tannaheh. "In fact, everyone on the ledge knows it." "I suppose," said Amid, with a faint sigh. "Well, the point is, Friend's original need for a tranquilizing drug to be delivered in the form of a dart isn't going to be used for Cee, as we originally thought we might use it. But he thinks he might have other uses for such drugged darts. Do you want to explain, Friend?"

"It might be possible to use something like that against the soldiers if some of us have to go down to deal with them," said Hal. "What I've got in mind for that purpose, though, isn't just something to put a person to sleep, but something that would leave them physically helpless, but awake and - in particular - susceptible to hypnosis. Do you have the materials to give me something like that?"

Tannaheh put the tips of his long, thin fingers together and pursed his lips, frowning slightly, above them. "You want them more or less incapable physically," he said, "but awake enough to be put into a hypnotic state? I assume you're able to put someone in such a state yourself, and that's what you plan to do after the medication's taken effect?" "That's right," said Hal. "Hmm," said Tannaheh. "It's a bit of a problem. You're really asking for two things, A muscle relaxant that would simply leave them too limp to stand up would give you the physical state you want them in. But you also want something that would leave them receptive to hypnosis but - I assume - not in a condition to be alarmed by you or give the alarm. I suppose the idea is that if you have to knock one of them down with a dart, you want to use hypnosis to make that person forget what happened to them?" "That's it," said Hal. "Forgive me for interfering in the tactical area, where I'm not experienced," said Tannaheh, "but if you're able to hypnotize, you ought to be aware that a post-hypnotic command to forget something isn't likely to be effective for very long after the subject comes out of the state you've put him in." "I know it," said Hal, "that's why there's one more requirement. The drugs used have to be compatible with alcohol. I take it for granted you've got alcohol among your supplies?" "Yes. Actually, I pick up the local homemade rotgut the soldiers themselves drink, and redistill it for my own purposes. I've got a connection with one of the Porphyry people. I meet her down in the jungle on certain days and trade mineral supplement pills for the drink." "Mineral supplement pills?" echoed Hal. "Why, yes. I make a powder that can be mixed right into the food for us up here, but the people down below find it easier to distribute and take their mineral supplements in pill form. Also, they seem to feel there's something special about such pills made by a professional chemist. It's needed in their diet, as it is in ours. You do know that these worlds of Mara and Kultis are naturally deficient in the heavier metals, being progeny, so to speak, of an F5 star like Procyon?" "I'm sorry," said Hal. "I did know. I'd forgotten." "We used to make our supplements in central manufactories, using metal imported from worlds like Coby," said Tannaheh. "But naturally there's no importation now and the Occupation trashed the factories. Of course, there's still plenty of the metals scattered around these worlds. It wouldn't be hard for anyone to find a piece of iron, say, and reduce it by practical methods to a form that could be ingested, although they'd need to know the proper amount to take... anyway, I do have alcohol." "Have you got some of the original rotgut, as you call it, still in its original containers?" Hal asked. "Certainly." "That may be particularly handy," said Hal. "My idea was to dart them, then, under hypnosis, get them to drink a certain amount of alcohol, and leave them unconscious with another drug and the post-hypnotic idea, that they'd drunk themselves insensible. " "Very good. I can handle the drug and syringe part of it for you - a syringe that drives the needle in and makes its injection with the force of impact, I suppose?" "That'd be fine." "Very good indeed. I'll take care of that as soon as I close up the pharmacy, which I was about to do for the night, anyway. I'll take some of the bottles of local drink up to your room. You're in Dormitory Two, aren't you? How much rotgut?" "Do you have as much as a dozen half-liters?" "If I haven't, I can make some up. You see, as I say, I normally distill the stuff to get something I can use in the pharmacy. I can dilute some of the high-proof alcohol I've already distilled out and mix it back in with the original to get the amount you need."

Tannaheh got to his feet. "So, if either of you want me, I'll be either at the pharmacy or in my room. If I'm asleep, don't worry about waking me. I wake easily, but I can go right back to sleep again without trouble."

He went out. "Forgive me if there's some reason it's not a good idea," Amid said, "but shouldn't your Dorsai with the spaceship be signaled so that he can take you off in case we do get found and taken, up here? Old Earth and all good people can't afford to lose you." "The signal to Simon is the laying out of a cloth," Hal answered. "We don't want to do that now, just when we're trying to make this ledge look uninhabited from the air. There's no need to worry. He was to shift in for a quick look once every twenty-four hours, in daytime. He's got sense enough to know something's up if he sees the ledge suddenly looking as if there's no one here and never has been. I'd guess he'll land in the mountains tomorrow night like he did once before, and climb down to us the morning after to see if he's needed." "You can be sure of that?" "Reasonably sure," said Hal with a grin. "Just as I'm reasonably sure that word is bound to leak to Amanda, wherever she is, and she'll know whether and when to come back here, herself. " "I'm pleased," said Amid. "I feel a responsibility, having you here." "You shouldn't," said Hal. "I came of my own free will, on my own decision." "It's a great advantage to us, having you with us when something like this happens," said Amid. "We'll be deeply indebted to you." "Nonsense!" said Hal. "I'm indebted to you, and I'll be more so when I've got what I want out of Jathed's Law." "Jathed's Law is available to anyone who can use it. In no way could you be considered to be indebted to us for that... however," said Amid, clearing his throat, "as far as Amanda Morgan's concerned, you're quite right that she'll hear about the search very shortly. There aren't enough soldiers to keep our people from going to and fro with word of anything interesting, between our small towns."