A jerk on the line connecting him with Rukh eventually stopped him. He rotated blindly to face her.
"We'll stop now," her voice came strongly to him. "It's light enough to see by."
He was aware that the available illumination had increased. He had been able to tell this from the lightening of the shades of gray he saw, the absence of blackness. But for a moment, looking across little more than a meter of distance, caught up still in the concentration of his long navigation, he could not see her. His mind registered her only as one more abstract in varying shades of gray, reflected illumination. Similarly, what she said made no sense to him. His mind registered and identified the words, but could not relate them to the universe in which he was still continuing to feel the way for all of them.
Then sight and understanding flooded back in on him at once. He saw the forest floor, the trees and the bushes about them in the stoic, lean light of pre-dawn; and it finally registered on him that the night, and his task, were over.
He was conscious of falling; but he did not feel the ground when he struck it.
He came slowly back to awareness. Someone was shaking him. With a great effort he opened his eyes and saw it was Rukh.
"Sit up," she said.
He struggled into a sitting position, discovering that, somehow, a tarp had materialized under him and blankets over him. When he was up he felt something—it was a filled packsack, he saw, on looking—pushed into place behind him, so that he had something to support his back. Rukh put a bowl of undefined hot food—stew, apparently—in his hands.
"Get this inside you," she told him.
He looked about at trees lit by a late morning light.
"What time is it?" he asked, and was startled to hear his voice come out as a croak.
"One hour until noon. Eat."
She rose and left him. Still numb in body and brain, he began to eat the stew, using the spoon she had left in the bowl. He could not remember ever tasting anything so delicious; and with each hot bite, life woke more fully in him. The bowl was suddenly empty. He put it aside, got up, folded the blankets and tarp—they were his own, he discovered, as the packsack was his—and stowed them in the pack. But the bowl and spoon were not his. He took them down to the stream by which they had set up camp and washed both items. Around him the rest of the Command was striking their tents or rolling bedsacks, preparatory to getting on their way. He brought the bowl and spoon to Tallan.
"Not the kitchen's," Tallan said, irritably, over her shoulder as she hurried just-packed equipment onto the backs of the kitchen donkeys. "Those're Rukh's."
He took them to Rukh.
"Thank you," he said, handing them back.
"You're welcome. How are you?"
"I'm awake," he said.
"How do you feel?"
"A little stiff—all right, though."
"I'm sending the wounded off with a separate party," Rukh told him, "with as much of the equipment as we can spare, so as to lighten our load as far as we can. They'll leave us by ones and twos along the line of march today; and hopefully the Militia won't notice their trails in their hot pursuit of ours. Morelly's going leaves us one team leader short. I've talked it over with James and decided it's time we started to use that training of yours on an official basis. I want to appoint you a group leader."
He nodded.
"There's more to it than that," she said. "The other leaders are all senior to you and normally the Command'd have to lose James and myself and all the others before you'd find yourself responsible for the Command. But I'd like to tell the rest of the group leaders something of your special training—with your permission—so that I can also tell them that if you had the experience, James and I would consider you as first in line to be his replacement, as Lieutenant, if anything happened to him. Will you agree to that?"
It took his still-fatigued and sleep-numbed brain a few moments to consider the implications of what she had just asked.
"Since it's an open secret that the Militia want me more than ordinarily," he said at last, "there's no reason not to tell them I had special training, and what kinds of training it was. But I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell them the names of my tutors, or anything more than they actually need to know."
"Of course."
There was, for a moment, almost a gentle note in her voice; but it was gone before he could do any more than register it; and in fact if it had not been for his memory's ability to replay anything he had just heard, he would have been unsure that he had heard it at all. Standing this close to her, he could feel the outflow of a dark and vibrant living power from her, like a solid pressure.
"You're a sub-officer from now on, then," she said, "and I'll expect you to come looking for James and myself, whenever we halt, so that we can make use of what you can offer to our planning. For right now, you might note that the Militia are roughly eight kilometers behind us and they're making a kilometer an hour over our best pace. Also, what's chasing us now is the first and second units you saw, combined."
She proceeded to brief him on other details:
Jason and two of the others had been sent off as soon as they had stopped, to climb the side of the mountain they were currently skirting and get enough altitude to check behind them with field viewers for their pursuers.
They had been early enough to witness the smoke plumes rising above the trees from the cooking of a morning meal, barely within viewer range; and make the estimate of the marching time that the Militia would require to catch up with the Command, if it simply stayed where it was. However, the smoke also indicated a force at least double the size of one of the units Hal had seen and described; and later observation, as the Militia broke camp and began to move, had confirmed this fact.
Once the troops were again on the move, it became possible for Jason and the others to make a firm estimate of their rate of march. It was clear that their progress amounted to a strong four kilometers an hour through the open forest. The Command, with its donkeys, was lucky to make three kilometers an hour under the same conditions. In the three hours in which the Militia units had been on the move while the Command was resting, the troops had gained twelve hours of travel time upon them and were now no more than six hours behind them. By twilight, they would catch up—that is if they continued their pursuit at that speed.
"But I think we can shake them about mid-afternoon," said Rukh.
She explained that they were no more than three hours now from the border of another district.
"And they don't pursue into another district?" Hal asked.
"Legally, only when they're in hot pursuit—which these could consider they were," she answered, dryly. "In practice, there's a lot of rivalry between different districts. It goes back to the old sect differences that made us almost into separate countries, once. The Militia of one district don't like the Militia from another coming on their territory. These after us now could keep coming; but the chances are they'll break off and message the Militia of the other district to take up pursuit."
"If they message ahead before we get there, or if they've messaged ahead already," said Hal, "we could be caught between two fires."
"I said there was a lot of rivalry. If they can't catch us themselves, they aren't usually too enthusiastic about the next district doing it and getting all the credit. The odds are they'll follow us over the border, but only as far as they dare before breaking off pursuit. It's only then they'll message the local Militia; and it'll take the locals two or three hours to get a pursuit going."
"I see," said Hal.
"With ordinary luck, we ought to gain eight or nine hours lead time while they're changing pursuit units." Rukh smiled slightly. "And by that time we ought to be well on our way to the border of the next district south, where the same thing'll happen and we'll pick up that much more of a lead. This is the way the Commands usually lose pursuit by the Militia forces."
Her gaze went past his shoulder, into the camp.
"But
we're almost ready to go," she said. "For the moment, you don't have to do anything but travel with the rest of the Command. I'll check with you later in the day to see how your strength's holding up after yesterday. If you're in shape for it, later on, I might have a special duty for you. Meanwhile, be thinking of who you might want in your team. You'll be taking Morelly's people to begin with, but later on there'll be a chance to have the people you want trade off of the other teams on to yours, if everyone concerned agrees."
Hal went to get his pack.
Chapter Twenty-six
The rest of the Command, like Hal, had had a long twenty-four hours before settling down to sleep most of the seven hours just past. At the beginning of this new day's march, they moved doggedly and silently, rather than with their usual accustomed easiness. But, like Hal making the walk from the cabin to the rendezvous the day before, they warmed to the travel as they moved along. They were in good condition from their continual trekking; and they had been eating and sleeping much better than they were used to, these last few weeks among the farm families on their way to Masenvale.
So it happened that they picked up speed as they went along; while the Militia units, for all their full night of rest, began to lag in the heat of the afternoon. Reports from scouts sent up tall trees or nearby observation points, with field viewers, reported evidence that their pursuers had taken to stopping for a ten minute break every hour. At mid-afternoon Rukh sent a runner to call Hal up to the front of the Command to speak with her. He came, and they walked along side by side, a few meters in front of the others for the sake of privacy, Child walking silent on her other side.
"How're you feeling now?" she asked Hal.
"Fine," he said.
Generally speaking, it was the truth. There was a core of fatigue buried in him; but other than that he felt as well as he would have normally, if not a trifle better. A corner of his mind recognized the fact that he was in overdrive once more; but this was nothing like the extreme state of effort he had worked himself into during the night's travel.
"Then I've got a job for you," she said.
He nodded.
"According to the best estimate James and I can make," she said, "we've just crossed the border into the next district. The Militia behind us'll come at least this far. It'd help in our assessment of the situation if we had any idea of what kind of shape they're in, what kind of attitude they've got toward their officers, and how they're feeling about the prospects of catching us. It's a job for you, because you might be able to get close enough to find out those things without being caught."
"I ought to be able to," he said. "It'd be easier if they were stopped; but then their being on the march gives me advantages too."
He checked himself on the verge of saying something more, about the general amateurishness of the Militia, since many of the things he had been about to mention would be equally applicable to the Commands. But it was a fact that, by the standards he had acquired from Malachi, both organizations acted in some ways more like children's clubs out on a hike than military or paramilitary outfits.
"Good," Rukh was saying briskly. "Take whoever you need, but I'd suggest no more than four or five, for the sake of moving swiftly."
"Two," Hal said, "as fail-safe in case I don't get back. One to carry the word if I don't; and one more, in case the one backing me up has some kind of accident. I'll take Jason and Joralmon, if that's all right."
For a moment a faint frown line marked the perfect skin between Rukh's dark eyes.
"They ought, probably, to be from your own team," she said. "But considering this is a tricky business…tell their group leaders I said it was all right."
He nodded.
"Wait here while we go on and keep the Militia under observation," she went on. "That'll let you rest as much as possible; and when they get this far, you can take your chances of getting close enough to observe them then, or follow along until your chances improve."
He nodded again.
With Jason and Joralmon he set up an observation post some three hundred meters off the estimated line of march of the Militia, and they took turns observing from a treetop the approach of their pursuers, while the Command went on ahead. The troops were now only a couple of kilometers behind them; and they came on steadily.
It was possible to hear their approach well before they became visible as individuals, seen through the leaves of the forest cover, for they were not moving silently. Sitting in the high, swaying fork of the tall tree he had chosen to observe from, Hal silently checked out in his own mind one particular supposition he had been wanting to test. It had been his guess for some time that the Militia—unless they were in some special units organized specifically for pursuit purposes—were composed mainly of the equivalent of garrison soldiers, who were more comfortable with pavement under their feet than the earth of a forest floor.
As those now approaching became more visible, what he saw confirmed that notion. The soldiers he watched looked hot and uncomfortable, like men unaccustomed to this kind of moving over rough country on foot. Their packs were obviously designed to carry gear and supplies for only a short excursion; and at the same time gave the impression that they had been designed at least as much for parade ground looks as for practicality in the field. They were plainly marching under orders of silence for the lower ranks; although the noisily-shouted commands and full-voiced conversations of their officers made a mockery of field-level quiet.
Their column drew close, then stopped, a little more than two hundred meters short of being level with the observation post, for what seemed one of their hourly march breaks. The troops dropped to the ground, loosened their pack straps and lay back with the silence rule apparently relaxed for the moment. Hal slipped down from the tree.
"The two of you stay here," he told Jason and Joralmon. "When they start to move again, keep parallel with them but at least this far out and on this side of them. If I don't get back to you in half an hour, or you see some evidence they've got me, get back to Rukh with the information we've already picked up. If I've just been delayed, I'll still catch up with you. But if they've got me, they'll be watching for anyone else and you won't have a chance to get close safely. Understood?"
"Yes, Howard," Jason said; and Joralmon nodded.
Hal went off toward the Militia's stopping spot. When he got there, he found that it was entirely possible for him to prowl up and down their line close enough to clearly overhear even relatively low-voiced conversation. The column had evidently been marching with no point and no flank guards, and nothing resembling sentries had been set up while they were taking their break. It was an incredible behavior that probably stemmed from the fact that the last thing in the world these domestic troops expected was any kind of counterattack from the Commands they chased—which said nothing complimentary about the Commands, themselves.
He moved up and down the length of the resting column, a handful of meters out from them, hidden by the undergrowth that flanked their line; and, since it was clear he could choose whatever he wished to listen to, he ended up squatting behind some bushes less than five meters from the head of the line, where a sort of officers' council was being held.
There were five men there wearing the better-fitted black uniform of the commissioned ranks, but the argument that was going on seemed to be between two of them, only. Both of these wore the tabs of Militia Captains; and one of them was familiar—it was the officer of the Citadel cells and the ambush in the pass, the one that the driver's information had identified with the name of Barbage.
"… Yes, I say it to thee," Barbage was saying to the other Captain. Barbage was on his feet. The others sat in a row on a log uprooted by some past storm, with the second Commandant at one end of their line. "I have been given commission by authority far above thee, and beyond that by the Great Teacher himself; and if I say to thee, go—thou wilt go!"
The other Captain looked upward and across at Barbage with a tightly-closed jaw.
He was a man perhaps five years younger, no more than mid-way into his thirties; but his face was square and heavy with oncoming middle age, and his neck was thick.
"I've seen your orders," he said. His voice was not hoarse, but thick in his throat—a parade-ground voice. "They don't say anything about pursuing over district borders."
"Thou toy man!" said Barbage; and his voice was harsh with contempt. "What is it to me how such as thee read thy orders? I know the will of those who sent me; and I order thee, that thou pursuest how and where I tell thee to pursue!"
The other Captain had half-risen from the log, his face gone pale.
"You may have orders!" he said, even more thickly. "But you don't outrank me and there's nothing that says I have to take that sort of language from you. So watch what you say or pick yourself a weapon—I don't care either way."
Barbage's thin upper lip curled slightly.
"Weapon? What Baal's pride is this to think that in the Lord's work thou mightest be worthy of affront? Unlike thee, I have no weapons. Only tools which the Lord has given me for my work. So thou hast something called a weapon, then? No doubt that which I see on thy leg there. Make use of it therefore, since thou did not like the name I gave thee!"
The Captain flushed.
"You're unarmed," he said shortly.
And indeed, Hal saw, unlike all the rest of the officers and men here, Barbage was wearing only his uniform.
"Oh, let not that stop thee," said Barbage, ironically. "For the true servants of the Lord, tools are ever ready to hand."
He made one long step while the other still stared at him, to end standing beside the most junior of the officers sitting on the log, laid his hand on the young officer's sidearm buttoned-down holster and flicked up the weather flap with his thumbnail. His hand curled around the exposed butt of the power pistol beneath. A twist of the wrist would be all that would be needed to bring the gun out of its breakaway holster, aim and fire it; while the other would have needed to reach for his own buttoned-down holster before he could fire.
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