"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."