Hal smiled a little sadly, remembering what Amid had told him about children on the Younger Worlds being taught to spit after saying his name. "I already am," he said-
A hand had caught Hal by the arm, and at the touch his attention returned suddenly to the circle, the ledge and the outside situation. It was Amid.
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."