They dropped their heads, turning their eyes away from him as he stepped through the door and began to approach the table; but the caution was useless. To anyone trained by life as he had been, the fire in those seated there could be felt as plainly as the radiation from a metal stove with a roaring blaze in its belly.
"The question is," said the man in the knitted jacket to Hal, as Hal retook his seat, "whether we've got anything like the number of people you've planned for to do something this big. How many men and women do you think you'll have to have?"
"For which part of the operation?" asked Hal. "To go into the prison section of the Center and bring Rukh out won't take more than a dozen people - and half of those are there only to be dropped off at points along the route, to give us warning if any force is sent against us from the front part of the Center. Any more than six people in on the actual rescue - that's five, including me - would get in each other's way in any small rooms or corridors. Our real protection's going to be in getting in fast and getting out again before the Center's officers realize what's happened."
"Only twelve?" said the tall man who had gotten up to leave, earlier. "But who's to back you up outside, once you've brought Rukh Tamani out?"
"Maybe a dozen more," said Hal, "but those don't need to have combat experience, like those I'll take inside; and in fact, the only really trained help I'll need are going to be the five with me. Give me five former Command members and the others can be anyone you trust to have courage and keep their heads under fire."
- Or give me just two Dorsai like Malachi or Amanda, the back of his mind added. He put the thought from him. Nothing was as useless as wishing for what was not available.
"But you want us meanwhile to staff a full-scale assault on the front of the Center - " began the man in the knitted jacket.
"Thirty people who can actually hit most of what they shoot at," said Hal. "Plus as many more as you've got weapons for and can be trusted not to kill themselves or their friends. But by the time the assault starts, you ought to be able to use those you put to work to stir up the riots and fights, earlier. I'll say it again - the attack on the Center from its front is only for the purpose of occupying the attention of the Militia in the building, for the twenty minutes or so it takes us to get Rukh out. Don't tell me a city area this size can't come up with a hundred hard-core resistance people."
He stopped speaking and looked down the table at all of them. For a moment none of them answered. They were all looking at the tabletop and elsewhere to hide their satisfaction with his answers.
"All right," said Athalia, once more from the far end of the table where she had reseated herself. "We'll have to talk over the details, of course. Why don't you wait in your room until I bring you our answer?"
Hal nodded, getting to his feet. He left the room and all of them to what he was fairly certain was already a foregone conclusion. But instead of going to his room, he stepped out the front door of Athalia's establishment into the darkness and the cool night air of the yard. Three low shapes, heads down and tails wagging solemnly, moved in on him. He squatted on the dirt of the yard and held his arms out to them.
Above them, the cloud cover of the night sky was torn here and there to show the pinpoints of stars. The dogs pressed hard against him, licking at his face and hands…
The next day fighting broke out in the city, here and there, at first between individuals and then between the congregations of various churches. A few fires erupted. The day after there were more fires, fighting was more common and mothers did not send their children to school. By afternoon of the second day, the only people seen on the streets in Ahruma were adults armed with clubs, at the least, and squads of Militia, who ordered them back inside whatever buildings belonged to them, then went on to help the overburdened firemen of the city deal with the conflagrations that seemed to be erupting everywhere. The tempers of the Militiamen had shortened with exhaustion; and the reactiveness of the civilians had risen to match.
"It's out of hand," said Morelly Walden, coming into Athalia's front room late on that afternoon. The slack skin of his aging face was pulled into a shape of sad anger. "We're not controlling it any longer. It's happening on its own."
"As it should," said Hal.
Athalia's front room had been made into a command headquarters; but she and Hal were the only people other than Morelly there at the moment. Morelly looked from Hal to her.
"The city doesn't have a single district left that doesn't have at least two or three fires," he said. "It could end with the whole area burnt down."
"No," said Hal. "The firebugs who've been tempted to go to work on their own are getting tired, just like the Militia and the rest of us. Dawn tomorrow, things will begin to slack off. There's a pattern to riots in cities that's existed since there were cities to riot in."
"I believe you," said Morelly, and sighed, "since I know you from the days in the Command with Rukh. But I can't help worrying, anyway. I think we ought to make our move on Center now."
"No," said Hal. "We need darkness - for psychological as well as tactical reasons. If you want to worry about something, Morelly, worry about whether both the rescue teams and the ones who'll be attacking the front of the Center are getting some rest so as to be ready for tonight. Go check on them. The attackers shouldn't move into position until full dark; and the rescuers mustn't move until the fighting's been going on up front for at least a couple of hours; long enough to draw as many of the Militia in the building as possible up to the front of it."
"All right," said Morelly.
He went across the room and through the door leading back into the warehouse where the cots had been set up for those not presently needed on the streets.
As the door closed behind him, Athalia looked directly across the room at Hal.
"Still," she said, "isn't it about time you were waking those who're going in with you?"
"They already know all I know about what we'll run into," answered Hal, nodding at the plans on the table, plans drawn from the information they had been able to gather from Athalia's contacts with the Center, of the corridors and passageways leading to Rukh's cell. "From here on, it'll be a matter of making decisions, and their following the orders I give. Let them rest as much as they can - if they can."
Shortly after sunset, word came back to Athalia's front room that sniping at the front of the Center building had begun. Hal went into the warehouse to gather his two teams; the one that would penetrate the building and the one that would guard the service courtyard where deliveries were normally made, at the back of the building, where the first team would go in through the barracks kitchen entrance. Of the twenty-five men and women he sought, he found all but one of them awake, sitting up for the most part on the edge of their cots and talking in low voices. The exception was a slim, dark-skinned man dressed in the rough bush clothing that was the informal uniform of those in the Commands - a last minute replacement for one of the interior team whom Hal had not met yet, slumbering face-down.
Hal shook a shoulder and the other sat up. It was Jason Rowe, who had led Hal originally to the Commands and to Rukh Tamani.
"Jase!" said Hal.
"I just made the last truck in," Jason said, yawning hugely. "Greetings, Brother. Forgive me, I've been a little short on sleep lately."
"And I was giving you credit for being the one person here with no nerves." Hal laughed. "How much sleep have you had?"
"Don't worry about me, Howard - Hal, I should say - I've had six - " Jason glanced at the chronometer on his wrist - "no, seven hours since I got here. I heard about you being here and thought you'd need me."