He paused to let that sink in. "Bringing him up the steep slope is going to be the real problem. He'll have to be roped to the stretcher, so he doesn't slide off, and his bearers are going to have to be changed frequently. For those of you who've never done this - and I think that's most, if not all, of you - I can tell you that carrying even an ordinary-sized man on a stretcher up a steep slope is a very rough task, indeed. So we'll need at least three teams, so that the stretcher bearers can change off frequently. That's where you other eight come in. You can wait for the rest of us back out of earshot of the camp and help carry once we reach you with Artur and Cee." Will the girl come?" asked one of the men to the left of the door. "I think she'll come if you bring Artur," said Old Man. "You should be careful how you handle him, though. If he cries out or any reason, she may assume you're just more people like the soldiers, as far as your reason for carrying him off goes."
"By the way," put in Tannaheh, "I've made up a medical kit with pain-killers and other first aid supplies for use on Artur, as soon as you reach him." "Good," said Hal, "and thank you. I should have thought to ask you for that myself."
He turned to look at Onete. "I think you better take care of the first aid," he said to Onete. "You may be the one person who can do things to Artur without Cee thinking we're simply harming him more." "I can try," said Onete. "She just might trust me." "Old Man's right, too, I think," said Hal, "in saying she'll follow if we take Artur - even all the way up here, where she's never come before. She won't trust him out of her sight in anyone else's hands."
He turned back to the people who had just come into the office. "We've got until midnight to get ready," he said. "If for any reason some of you don't want to go, speak up now. The rest of us'll start getting ready to go down. I want to move into that camp there as soon as both moons are down, and be back behind the boulder on our way up to the ledge before it starts to get light."
No one moved or spoke up. "Good," said Hal. "Then, you four bow-people go with Old Man and Luke. Onete, you and the other night foragers gather around me, here. I'll explain how your part of it'll work."
CHAPTER 28
Making the nighttime descent of the mountain from the ledge to the boulder beneath which they would exit had been almost like descending in daytime, from Hal's point of view. He had spent most of his life as Hal with Earth's single moon. Here, however, both of Kultis's moons could be in the sky at once - as they were at the moment - and both near the full. The combination of the two made not only for adequate light, but a near elimination of shadows.
The indescribable spicy odor of the alien semi-tropical forest had risen to meet them as they descended, and the clean mountain breezes were left behind, above them. At the boulder barring the entrance to the up trail, they had left the backup team of eight men and women, seven of whom stayed behind the boulder, which had been rolled back in place, and AnnaMist - the eighth - followed them through, but only as far as the other side of the boulder. It was to be her job to keep watch and, if necessary, pass the alarm back to those on the other side not to open up, if she got warning of anything gone wrong with the expedition.
Down in the forest, the moonlight was dimmer but still good, by the standards of Hal's Earth-accustomed eyes. However, the small and bright moons were fast-moving, and the smaller soon set. So the light dimmed, as they made their way toward Liu's camp. Eventually, it shut off completely, leaving them with only the starlight to help them see where to put their feet.
There had been some stumbles, and some who held to the person in front of them to make sure of the way. But Hal had sent Onete and the experienced night foragers ahead to lead. With these up front they made steady progress, until the line halted - so suddenly that Hal almost ran into the last member of the foragers, just before him.
A whisper came back down the line, passed from person to person for him, and he made his way to the head of the line. There he identified Onete by her general outline and body odor, as he had become acquainted with the body odors of most of the Guild members in the last few months. "We've found some new - dug soil that looks like two graves," she said in a whisper so low that no one else could hear it. "You don't suppose... " "No," he whispered back. "It'd make no sense for Liu to get up a couple of hours before dawn to kill the two of them and bury them without the answers he was after - even if he'd had time to do all that since we left the ledge. Wasn't someone carrying one of the scopes? Let's take a look at the camp. " "The light from the screen" began Onete doubtfully. "How close to the camp are we?" "A hundred and fifty meters. But you warned us against any light or sound once we left the boulder-" "I think with a hundred and fifty meters of forest in between we can risk it, in this instance," said Hal. "Can you get it for me? The rest of you make a wall with your bodies between us and the camp."
There were a few minutes delay and then the closed scope was placed in his hands. He opened it and touched the controls. A tiny view of the camp they were headed for appeared in the center of the screen. The figures on it were almost too small to be recognizable, but one was clearly still Cee, seated on the ground, and one was clearly Artur, still wrapped with rope and unmoving.
Hal turned the scope off, closed it and handed it back. "Someone take this," he said. It was removed from his grasp. To Onete he added, "It'll be messy, since we've only got our hands to dig with, but we're going to have to see what's buried here, if anything is. Use the scope light, if you need to.
That camp's got two men on watch, but they're only watching as far as the nearest darkness, and with those bright lights it must be like looking into an endless cave all around them."
Onete stopped him as he bent down to start digging, himself. "Not you," she said, "you may need clean hands later on for some reason. Also, most of us know how to use the plants we pass to find materials to clean ourselves up with."
It was a realistic argument. Even his effectiveness in shooting the bow he carried might be hampered by badly grimed fingers. "All right," he said and stood aside. He watched as shadowy figures labored in the soft earth of both dug-over areas. After some minutes, Onete's outline detached itself from the working group and came back to him. "We've found a body," she said. "We're just finding out if the other grave holds a body, too."
There was a subdued murmur from the working party, a few more motions, and then work ceased. "I'll come take a look," said Hal. "Have you got that scope handy?" "I'll get it." Onete moved away from him. He went to the group, which made way for him, and bent over the two half-excavated openings in the reworked earth. A hand pushed the scope into his grasp. He opened it, turned it on to show a minimum-sized picture, and directed the reflected light of the screen down into the opened holes.
A boot toe, the upper part of a body and the head of a soldier had been roughly cleaned of covering soil in one of them, the upper body and head of a second in the hole alongside.
The white, pale light of the scope, washing over the halfexposed bodies and their still dirt-streaked faces-eyes closed but features staring up at the star-filled sky-was unpleasant enough so that a murmur arose from the group around the two graves. "Quiet!" snapped Onete, with a tone of command Hal had not expected from her. "But look at their faces-," said one protesting voice.
Hal reached down and brushed a little more of the loose dirt off the face and throat of the nearest body. "They strangled to death," he said. His fingers moved down to clear a little more dirt from the throat of the body before him: then pressed lightly on where the man's Adam's apple had been.