"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."