The Chantry Guild

CHAPTER 24

Hal woke at his usual time, something less than an hour before dawn. He had only had some five hours of sleep, but that would be sufficient for the day to come. He rose, showered and dressed, out of the habit ingrained in his boyhood as Donal, in completely clean clothes. Any morning with the chance of battle meant a clean body and clean clothes if that were possible. Many other things besides needle guns could make wounds, and soiled clothing pushed into a wound could carry infection deep into the body. There was little to no chance of his being hurt this day, but old habits had been triggered.

They made him sad and the sadness wrapped around his shoulders like a cloak as he began the day. There was no respite in the time word of his uncle James's death had come to him in Donal's boyhood, until the present moment, the birth of each day had brought a dragon to fight. Long since, now, he had thought he would have found the nest in the human soul from which such dragons came and have destroyed it, ending them all. But still they came. Once again he was at a morning on which he dressed with the possibility in mind of having to fight for the lives of himself and others. It was as if nothing had been accomplished from his youngest years until now.

Perhaps there was no such thing as ending it. Perhaps the best he could settle for was to meet each new dragon each day, do the best he could with it, and count that as victory. At least he would have fought the breed while he could. He would have done his duty. But what was duty, if that was all that was done?

Back into his mind came a book he had read when he was young. He remembered a verbal exchange in Conan Doyle's novel Sir Nigel, written at the beginning of the twentieth century and laid in the fourteenth century. The fourteenth century had been a time when "duty" was a common word among the upper classes, in its French form of "devoir. " The words he had just remembered were part of a passage in which there had been an angry exchange involving Sir Robert Knolles, the leader of the group of English men-at-arms and archers to which Nigel Loring, then still only a squire, belonged. It was a dispute between the experienced Knolles and a hot-headed but inexperienced young knight, Sir James Astley, concerning a skirmish into which Astley had gotten himself and those with him.

"...I have done my devoir as best I might," said Astley. "Alone, I had ten of them at my sword point. I know not how have lived to tell it." "What is your devoir to me? Where are my thirty bowmen cried Knolles in bitter wrath. 'Ten lie dead upon the ground, and twenty are worse than dead in yonder castle... ' "

No, to fight another dragon every day might make a good show, but it made no difference. Because as long as the nest remained, the number of dragons would be endless. To fight a new each day showed responsibility, but nothing else, and yet, responsibility was part of the whole answer he sought. Just as the Law of Jathed was also part of it, if only he could grasp the full depth of its meaning. The Law rang again in his mind now, as it had rung when he had first come to the ledge here and heard it, but still it rang far off and muffled, not with the close, clear message that would signal an understanding of it, within him. Not yet-for that.

Dressed, he left his room and headed on his customary route toward the lip of the ledge and the sunrise to come. Not yet - the understanding. Only a dragon.

It was still full, moonless dark outside and the air was not merely chill, but icy, with that greatest coldness that comes just before dawn. The soldiers would not be leaving Porphyry until after the sun was well up. They would not even be coming into view of the lookouts above them on the mountain for several hours yet and there was nothing more in the way of preparations that could be made. Meanwhile, it would be reassuring for the Guildmembers to see him following his normal pattern of activity, as if the danger now threatening was not all-important. The ledge had originally had its trees cut so as to provide corridors for people to move about, shielded from overhead observation. But there was no need to follow those corridors yet with the sun not yet risen.

Like all the other Guild members, now, Hal had come to know the layout of the ledge in darkness the way he knew his own room with the lighting off. He went toward his usual position near the front edge of the ledge but chose a spot a little way from it, under a tree that would hide him when the sun had risen. He sat down in lotus position.

In a little while the sky began to lighten, and shortly after, like a carven figure emerging out of darkness, he saw Old Man, already there and similarly seated, under a tree a few meters away. They bowed to each other and then directed their attention toward the sunrise that was coming.

The day lightened the landscape around and below them, and Hal's mind once more slipped off into the scene of himself, seated like this in the Guildhouse of the far future, completed of polished stone. He sat beside a pool now rimmed with polished granite, in which fish swam and waterplants floated their white flowers.

Once more he searched out a plant close to him, with its white blossom, on one petal of which was a drop of dew, that might catch the light as the sun rose.

He found a dewdrop, and again this morning, it did. Once more, as the light was suddenly reflected from the speck of water, for a fraction of a second he felt the closeness of the understanding he sought here, but had not yet grasped. It was all but within his reach....

But he could not close upon it. As the sun pushed more of itself into visibility above the far mountains, and regretfully, he returned to the needs of the moment. He exchanged bows again with Old Man and, like the other, rose. They went their separate Ways under the shelters of the corridors of trees.

Hal's way led him by force of habit toward the kitchen of his dormitory-building number two. He was a good third of the way toward it, his mind full of how close he had come to some sort of understanding, back during the sunrise, when older habit caught up with him again and he turned away.

It was old Dorsai training. Clean body and clean clothes the morning of a battle - and no breakfast. To miss one meal was unimportant. But to have the stomach empty might be helpful, in case of body wounds. Also there was the feeling - possibly an illusion, but he like others had felt it nonetheless - that the mind was keener and more awake on an empty stomach, just as he would not have thought of eating just before watching a sunrise or walking in the circle.

He went instead to Amid's reception building, sure that in spite of the early hour, he would find the older man there. There, Amid was indeed, sitting at a table surface between the fireplace and the front door, set up in the space vacated by a number of the chairs that had been pushed back against the wall. Spread out on the table surface was a map of the immediate jungle area, from directly below the cliffs holding the ledge to where the road past the former madman's place turned into a trail.

The map had evidently been printed up from data records in sections, and fused together into one large sheet, overnight. On it, at Amid's right elbow, sat a table-model scope with a permanently exposed, 30-millimeter-square screen. The sight of it made Hal automatically reach to his waist to check that he had his own, 10-millimeter-square field scope folded up and hooked on there. It was. "Hal!" said Amid, looking up as Hal came toward the table. "I'm glad you came directly here from watching the sun come up - but, wait, you haven't had breakfast yet?" " I'll have something later," said Hal. "Don't forget to eat - that's what they're always telling me, and at your age you need the fuel for your energies more than I do," said Amid. "Hal, look at this map. Will you show me the way you think the soldiers will do their searching?"

Hal came up to the table surface beside him. "As I told you yesterday," said Hal, "they'll come up the road, here, to the end of the trail. There, they'll drop off a couple of soldiers to set up a post, unless the officer in charge of the search is lazy or for other reasons decides to set up his own headquarters there. Either way, there'll be some of them there, in direct phone contact with their headquarters back in Porphyry. "The rest ." His right index finger traced routes on the map. "... will probably continue on as two separate, equal units, to the two center points of equal halves of the area to be searched. Once at those center points each unit will set up secondary headquarters, under the command of sub-officers, keeping at least a couple each of the soldiers with them. My guess is that one alternative then is that the soldiers of each unit will be sent out to form a skirmish line at the farthest extent of their part of the territory, and make a sweep through it until they meet the skirmish line of the other unit coming from the farthest extent of their territory. If by the time they meet they've found nothing, they'll travel back together to the head of the trail and withdraw to Porphyry. That's unless their plan is to break up into smaller units." "Yes. I see," said Amid, nodding. "Now what about them breaking up into even smaller units?" "It's equally possible," said Hal. "An alternative, once the secondary posts have been set up, is that they'll divide the soldiers not kept at the secondary headquarters into, say, five-person units. These units will then be sent out to search a specific piece of the territory that's to be examined by that particular sub-group. In short, the original search party will still divide into two equal units, but then the two units will each divide again into a number of smaller units, each with the responsibility of examining a small part of the total territory to be searched. Those small parts will probably be defined for them by specific coordinates on their maps, which we can learn by watching how they move." "And which way do you think they'll do it?" "I've no way of knowing," Hal said. "The choice'll be made on the basis of what kind of soldiers they are and what kind of officers they've got over them. For example, if the officer in command is afraid his sub-officers are going to lie down on the job once they're out from under his eye, he or she may prefer the skirmish line. On the other hand, if the commander's in good control and/or the sub-officers are responsible and have good control of the soldiers under them, the commander may prefer the individual group method as being more likely to make a close and careful examination of the area they're assigned to search." "How long should it take them to get into position to search?" Amid asked. "Probably, judging from what I've seen and what I've heard about them, they'll take ail of today just to set themselves up," said Hal. "Yes..." Amid rubbed his hands together worriedly. "I suppose we've nothing to fear, really, until tomorrow. I was wondering whether to send word to block the entrance yet." "Any time. I'm a little surprised you haven't done it before now," Hal said. "There's none of the Guild people off the ledge, are there?" "No, no Guild people," said Amid. He looked up at Hal. "But Artur hates to see that block go into place. You understand."

Hal shook his head. "Cee's not going to come through that entrance of her own accord," said Hal. "Even if she knows - and I'd bet she does - that it's where all the Guild members vanish to. She's undoubtedly followed Artur, Onete, or some foragers back to the boulder and seen them go under it and not come back out, before this. I'll even bet she's actually come in through the entrance when no one was around, and possibly explored the way beyond, even as far as the ledge." "Well, there you are," said Amid. "Artur feels the way you do. That she knows. And he hates to give up on the thought that if she's really frightened by the soldiers she might prefer us to them and come in. But once that block's in place no single adult, let alone a child, is going to be able to budge it particularly from the outside. It weighs as much as three men your size." "I'd close the entrance now, if I were you," said Hal. "Your first responsibility's to all the people up here, and Artur's feelings are only Artur's feelings." " Yes. "

Amid was clearly unhappy. He pointed to the desk scope. "Did they tell you - Missy and Hadnah - they were going to try to set up a tight-beam link between their observation post and a repeater down here on the ledge?"

Hal nodded. He had a great deal of confidence in Missy and Hadnah, although he had not known that they made a hobby of rock climbing until the present problem had come up. They looked enough alike to be brother and sister, although evidently they were not related. Both were short, well-muscled, blondhaired and young, and they even acted alike-being, as far as their Guild duties and the circle-walking allowed, always in each other's company. "Well, they did it." Amid touched a stud on the desk repeater and it chimed as its screen lit up to show a bulging mass of cliff-face. A second later Missy's face blocked out most of the view of the rock. "Yes, Amid?" her voice said. "There's no sign of soldiers yet. "

Amid moved aside to let Hal look into the screen and be seen above. "I just wanted Friend to see you'd made the connection." "Right. Good morning, Friend. I hope you slept well." "Very well," answered Hal. There was nothing to be done with Exotic manners but live with them. A polite inquiry about his last night's sleep was as out of place in her situation and his in the present moment as a tea party in the midst of an earthquake. "I had five hours. How much did you two have?" "Hadnah's taking a small nap now," said Missy. "After that he can keep watch for a while and I'll take one. Thank you for asking. We're not tired at all, really." "I'm glad to hear that," said Hal. They two must have climbed the better part of a kilometer, vertically, during the night. "Focus your scope on the end of the road for me, now, will you?" "Right." Missy vanished from the screen, and the view of the overswelling rock face above her was replaced by a view from what appeared to be only a dozen meters above the point where the road gave way to a trail. "Pull back your focus," Hal said. "I want to see that spot in relation to the ground around it." "Right. Say when," replied the voice of the now invisible Missy. The scene on the screen seemed to move away from Hal and Amid, taking in more and more ground area as it went, until it showed not only the connection of road-end and trailbeginning but an area of a size that could have been occupied by four city blocks on a side. "Stop," said Hal.

The withdrawal of focus halted. "Let it sit with that view," said Hal. "I'm going out to the edge of the ledge now and I'll be keying my belt scope into the circuit from your repeater down here. You've got up to half a day before any soldiers show up. Take another nap, yourself. If we really need you, we can call you with the chime on your scope." "I'm really quite all right," said Missy, still invisible. "You may not be five days from now, up there," said Hal. "Rest while you can. We'll call you if we need you." "All right, Friend. Thank you." "Don't thank me," said Hal. "I'm just protecting myself against having two overtired observers sometime later on." "Right."

The last word was followed by silence from the scope on the table surface. Hal looked at Amid. "Where's Calas?" he asked. "I can have him found," said Amid. "Do that. Have him come and join me out at the edge of the ledge," said Hal. "Send out Old Man, too." "But Old Man never was a soldier," said Amid, frowning. "I didn't suppose so," said Hal. "But he's a very insightful sort. Tell him I'd like him to join me, if he would."

"He'll be glad to, I'm sure," said Amid. "I will. And you're right. He's a very insightful individual." "And get some rest yourself, when you can," said Hal. "Remember what I just told Missy. This could last five days or more, and we may need to be in the best possible shape at the very end of it. "

He went out, and followed the closest corridor of trees to as close to the lip of the ledge as he could get and still be hidden by tree branches overhead. There, he seated himself in the tree's shade, unfolded his scope and keyed it into the view he had asked Missy to set up from above. The end of the road - and as far down as he could see it before it vanished under the foliage of the treetops that intervened because of the angle of the view - lay alien, intrusive and empty in the jungle, beneath the rapidly warming rays of the brilliant, white pinpoint of sun rising ever higher in the sky overhead.

He looked away from the scope and at the scene as his unaided vision saw it. It would be some time yet, as he had reminded Missy and Amid. He decided to follow Cletus's advice and let his conscious mind run freely over the terrain while waiting for his unconscious mind to produce some process for using it to the advantage of the people of the Guild.

In this case, that meant his remembering the ground as he had covered it during the first part of the previous day. He stared at the greenery below and the ground, together with the growth he had passed on it, began to unreel in the eye of his memory, stride by stride. He was on his third survey of the pattern he had covered when someone dropped down beside him, breathing a little heavily from the hurry in which he had come.

It was Calas. "You wanted me?" said the small, wiry ex-soldier. His black hair was disordered on his head. "How much sleep did you have?" Hal asked. "I didn't fold up until about an hour after you did. But I've slept until now," said Calas. "That's where they found me with the word you wanted me."

Hal considered him. "You're from Ceta," he said. "Where, on Ceta?" "Monroe - I don't guess you ever heard of it," Calas said. Hal shook his head. "It's a tiny state, out in Czardisland Territory. " "Were you in any kind of military outfit there?" "Local militia," said Calas. "Hell, all we did was shoot at targets, parade and get drunk together. We had uniforms, though. "

"And you got picked up for military under the Others and sent here, because of that experience?" "Yes," said Calas. "I should have said I was a rancher - variform sheep. I was that more than I was a soldier. Born and raised on a sheep farm." "Have you any idea which officers and sub-officers might be sent out?" "No," said Calas. "it could be any one of the five force-leaders, any of the groupmen and team-leaders of the active forces. Well now, wait, if the Commandant really wants results, he's most likely to send Force-leader Liu Hu Shen. Liu's the one Force there who really gets a job done. That means at least one of the forces would be his, and two of the groupmen and four team-leaders - ail of them pretty strong on getting things done right, simply because Liu won't have anyone who won't do what he tells them. But the other force-leader and his sub-officers could be anyone - if there is another forceleader. Commandant Essley might just add someone else's force to Liu's. Not that it matters. Any other force-leader sent out is going to be second-in-command to Liu."

"Is Liu just a better soldier than the others," Hal asked, "or does he happen to like hunting down and killing Exotics?" "Likes it, I think," said Calas. "But he's a good officer, too. Probably the best in the garrison - though nobody likes him. With him, it's always done by the numbers. Everything in line of duty, that's Liu."

A faint sound on Hal's other side made them both look and see Old Man now sitting there. He smiled at them, and Hal smiled back. It was a contrast, he thought with approval. Here was Calas, wound up to the tightness of a piano string, while Old Man was his usual self. In fact, a sort of relaxed, almost grandfatherly, warmth seemed to radiate from him as he sat there, and Calas was already perceptibly less tense. "Thank you for joining us," said Hal, and suddenly realized he was talking like an Exotic.

Old Man smiled and bowed slightly from his sitting position. "I didn't ask you to join us," said Hal, "for any specific reason. I'd just like the benefit of your opinion on anything about the situation that you think might help. If you don't mind staying here with us, we'll watch the soldiers as they move in and perhaps you'll have some suggestions to make after you've seen them and the way they act."

Old Man nodded and smiled, He looked out over the jungle below in the direction from which the soldiers would come. Hal turned back to Calas. "You don't have to stay with us now, if you'd like to get breakfast, or some such thing," he said. "In fact, if you came directly here after they woke you and haven't eaten, I'd suggest you get some food into you. It may be a long day's watch. I won't need you back here until after the soldiers are in view on the scope, close enough so that you can tell me who the important ones are and how they might act - or react."

Calas nodded. It was an abrupt, rather ungraceful movement after the nod Old Man had given. He got to his feet. "I'll go eat," he said, "then I'll come back." "Take your time," said Hal. "It'll be three hours yet, anyway, before I expect to see the soldiers - and that's even if they left their garrison at dawn. They wouldn't be Iikely to leave before that, would they?"

Calas gave a grunt of laughter. "No," he said. "Under anyone but Liu, they wouldn't leave even then. They might not get off until noon."

He turned and went. Hal and Old Man sat together in a silence that held no need to be broken. The sun moved up into the sky. The hours passed. After a while Calas came back. It was nearly noon by the time a line of four combat vehicles made their way up the road to the end of the trail and stopped there, letting the search party out. "Liu," said Calas. Hal saw the one he meant. "Porphyry itself hasn't any atmosphere-to-space ships, or any other above-surface vehicle they could use overhead?" Hal asked Calas. "Not Porphyry," said Calas. "They could call some in from Omanton. " "Perhaps that's what they'll do, then," said Hal. He turned to the scope, on which the soldiers were now visible at close range, and pressed the chime stud. The voice of Hadnah spoke to him. "Yes, Friend?" "If Missy's not awake, wake her," said Hal. "Both of you forget the scope for now and watch for the approach of any kind of atmosphere ship. Each of you take half the visible sky to watch. It ought to be coming here in no particular hurry, but as soon as you see anything in the air, even if you're not sure it's headed this way, let us know below here. Amid, are you listening?" "I'm Iistening for Amid. He's lying down for a bit," said the voice of Artur. "Good. Make him rest as much as you can. Have everybody make sure they're undercover, starting now. We may have aerial observation at any moment from now on. Calas says they may get air assistance from Omanton. I don't know where that is, but it's got to be close as above-surface travel goes." "I'll have someone check to see everyone's hidden, right away, Friend. " "Good," said Hal. "I'll let you go now."

Artur sounded as if he was in control of himself, Cee or no Cee, Hal thought as he turned back to closely examining the soldiers shown in the scope. He touched the controls to move his own picture to a closer view of the soldiers who had just got out of their vehicles and were forming up in units. "All right," he said to Calas, "Liu is obvious, with that force-leader's insignia on his lapels. Tell me about the subofficers." "Right. See that thin groupman in the tailored uniform, with the black, black eyebrows, right by Liu, there?" said Calas. "That's the Urk, Sam Durkeley. He's Liu's pet. That groupman just getting out of the cab of the second vehicle, and the one forming up the first unit of men, are new since I was there. I don't know them. The other groupman just beyond the Urk is Ali Diwan. The only team-leader I know is the one backing the first vehicle off the road to turn it around, so it's ready to head back. That's Jakob... can't remember his last name. He's pretty decent, compared to most of them. There's more I don't know than I thought. I forget how long it's been since I joined the Guild." "It looks as if Liu is setting up a command post just off the end of the road there," said Hal. "They're putting up a shelter. Do you suppose Durkeley'll stay with him?" "He wouldn't be wearing that tailored uniform if he'd expected to go slogging through the jungle," said Calas. "No, the Urk'll be where Liu is, you can count on it." "And Liu is obviously staying at the end of the road," said Hal. "That ought to mean he's got enough confidence in his sub-officers to let them make the search out of his sight, since you said he was the most capable of the garrison's force-leaders. he wouldn't be letting them do it on their own simply because he was lazy or unsure of himself." "Right," said Calas. "He's either got them scared, like old Jakob there, or trained like the Urk. That doesn't mean he won't come on in, himself, if they find anything, or run into any trouble. Or he might show up when they don't expect him just to keep them wound up. That's the way he is."

The search party continued to get out of their vehicles, form up and move off into the jungle. "Calas," Hal said abruptly, "have you any idea how many more scopes we have that aren't in use at the moment?" "No," said Calas, "I don't."

He scrambled to his feet. "I'll go find out," he said. "If there's three more that can be spared, will you bring them out here to me?" said Hal. "From the way they're deploying I'd guess they're going to follow the plan of dividing up the area and putting a team in each section. We may need to keep track of several different parties simultaneously." "I'll be back as quick as I can," said Calas, and went off at a run down the corridor of trees. Hal's eyes met those of Old Man and Old Man smiled gently at him. The scope before Hal chimed. "Craft approaching by air at three o'clock," said the voice of Missy, off screen.