Takeko bowed to leave the room, returned, bowed and commenced playing a tune with the instrument she'd brought in. It was a flute made of bamboo, with a high-pitched, pure sound Hartford found quite pleasant. He frowned, though, after a moment. Takeko took the pipe from her lips. "You do not enjoy my playing?" she asked.
"What is that made of?" Hartford demanded. "Just bamboo, isn't it?"
"Hai, take," Takeko agreed. "It is my name.Take—bamboo. This is only ashakuha-chi, for very simple music."
Hartford smiled and bowed toward Togo-san, the white-bearded carpenter. "Sir," he said, "if we may have your advice, I believe Takeko-chan has helped us find our weapon."
X
The meeting broke up to adjourn to Togo-san's workshop. There was bamboo there in plenty, and young men eager to help the ex-lieutenant of Axenites in testing his device. As the week wore on, young Kansans appeared from other villages, called by blabrigars and messengers on camelopard-back to join the army that was to make brothers and sisters of the troopers of First Regiment.
The blowgun Hartford finally established as his field model was some two yards long, made of bamboo bored through the joints and polished smooth within, of a caliber somewhat less than the diameter of a man's little finger. Though the bamboo-tube was somewhat flexible, Togo-san and his apprentices were able to bind a front sight to the muzzle, allowing somewhat greater accuracy that could be obtained by pointing and hoping.
The dart was about the length of a man's hand. Its point was a sliver of bamboo, sharp as steel, entirely sharp enough to penetrate the tough material of a safety-suit if puffed from the blowgun with enough force.
All the craftsmen of the village became arms-makers. They drilled bamboo, polished the bore with abrasive-coated cord, fitted on the sights and tested their blowguns against the targets. Hundreds of darts were turned out for practice, and the most perfect were saved for the battlefield itself. The blowgunners began their drill, shooting from a prone position at targets as far as ten yards off, as great a range as amateurs could be expected to shoot with accuracy in the short time these had for practice.
To fire the blowgun, the dart was wrapped in a bit of silk of sunflower-stalk-fluff, so that it would fit tightly into the tube. The puff that sent it on its way had to be sharp and hard. Achieving the proper slap of air took more practice even than aiming.
Hartford became every day a better horseman, or rather camelopardist. He in fact rejoiced in opportunities to leap-frog into his saddle, fit his feet and legs into the leather gambadoes, and go hailing off into the hills to recruit men and material. He carried with him the radio he'd salvaged from his safety-suit, and could from time to time pick up First Regiment transmissions. The bitcher from his suit was useful in training large numbers of recruits on the blowgun range, and would be used when the Kansan guerrillas took the field against the troopers. He was picking up the language rapidly, now. He had to use Takeko's services as interpreter less and less. Her usefulness declined not a bit, though, as the girl became his first lieutenant in charge of details.
The band of expert puff-gunners was joined by a company of scouts. These men and women skulked the hills afoot or astride camelopards, spying out the programs of the Regiment. Having no radio to maintain contact with Yamamura, each scout carried a pair of blabrigars, trained to report to a specific person in its home village when given a selected prompt-word.
Yamata-san, the calligrapher, became a cartographer. He drew in jet-blacksumiink the contours of the mountains, greened in the stands of bamboo, drew blue streams and broad brown fields of sunflowers, till at last the map that filled the largest room in Yamamura was almost as real as the Kansan soil it reflected. Walking across this map in histabi-stockinged feet, Hartford and the others of Kansas Intelligence would move toy troopers, made of wood likekokeshi-dolls, into the positions where the blabrigars reported patrols to be.
The plan of battle of the Kansas forces wasyawara-do, the Gentle Way also calledjudo. They would wait till the enemy made a move they could use, then they'd trip him up by re-directing his own strength.
The move they most wanted the troopers to make was into the ravine that led toward the village of Yamamura, the pass under theDaibutsu, the huge bronze Buddha set there by their ancestors. In that ravine, under the gaze of the Lord of Boundless Light, the Kansas forces would either prevail against the invader and make him their brother by darts and sweet reason, or they would all die in the attempt.
The camelopards were stabled, ready as the steeds of any march-patrolling cavalry troop. The dartsmen, and those of the women who'd shown skill in handling the blowgun, were trained and eager. The path through the pass had been memorized in infinite detail by every one of the guerrillas. The squad of sappers responsible for check-mating the troopers had prepared their levers, their blocks and skids. Nothing remained now but to coax the enemy into the battlefield of the Kansans' choosing.
"Take out what's left of the safety-suit," Hartford ordered one of his men. "Leave it here—" He stabbed a toe at the map they both stood on.
"Would it be well for me to leave beside the torn and broken suit signs of a fight?" asked the boy, Ito Jiro, son of Old Ito-san, the knife-maker. "If the troopers are angry, they will be careless."
"If only you believed in war, Jiro-chan, you'd make a fine warrior," Hartford grinned. "Do it your way, and hurry back."
Jiro placed the bait under the Regiment's nose early in the day, and returned to Yamamura. It was midday when a blabrigar flew in from one of the scouts posted to watch First Regiment's reaction. The bird prated its message into the ear of its receiver. Troopers, a band of fifty-odd, were scouring the hills to the west, following the camelopard-hoofprints left by Jiro. Aiding them in their search was the Regiment's veeto-platform, skimming, hovering, pouncing to pick up clues. "They're on the scent," Hartford said. He turned again to Ito Jiro, fleetest of the camelopard-riders. "Jiro-chan, lead them a chase that will bring them to the ravine no sooner than the Hour of the Dog. Be very cautious of the flying-thing; it can surprise you."
"Hai," Jiro said, bowing. "The Hour of the Dog they will call upon you near theDaibutsu." Ito-san the knife-maker watched his son run toward the stables, the boy as excited as though he were going to a festival rather than to face alone half a company of full-armed Axenites. The blabrigars that would ride out with Jiro were trained to report to the father. It would be a long afternoon for the old man, Hartford thought.
There was much to do before the scarlet bird came winging in from Jiro's shoulder with the message that the trap was sprung. At the Hour of the Monkey, four hours before the troopers were to be in ambush, the first blabrigar flew in to report to Ito-san that the boy's mount was winded, the enemy was drawing nearer the ravine, and that Jiro was approaching the point of rendezvous where he would find a fresh camelopard. Hartford ordered out two youths to join Jiro there in his harassment of the foot-soldiers from Regiment.
"It is time we take up our positions," he told his band of dartsmen. "Let us go in hope."
Kiwa-san, Takeko's father, stepped forward to pronounce a benediction upon the little company. "The Enlightened One, speaking at Rajagriha, spake, saying: 'Remember one thing, O beloved disciples, that hatred cannot be silenced by lies but by truth.'"
The irregulars, heads bowed, replied, "Namu Amida Butsu," Glory to the Amida Buddha! Hartford, though his training as an Axenite trooper had left him as untouched by religions as by microbes, joined the prayer, feeling that a degree of celestial interest in their stratagem would not be unwelcome.
The camelopardists vaulted into their saddles, adjusted their legs in the boot-like gambadoes, and slapped the reins to head theirgiraffutoward the ravine where the endgame would be played. Hartford rode at the head of the band, Takeko beside him. The others were dispersed at wide interval, a precaution against the veeto-platform's swooping over the horizon to surprise them en route. As they left Yamamura, the women and children of the village were leaving from the other side, together with the men too old to go out with the guerrillas. Yamamura was being abandoned until the outcome of battle made itself known.
The canyon that led up the mountain's groin had once been the deep-cut bed of a stream. Collapse of over-beetling rock had formed a vault over the stream, which was consequently underground. Soil had filtered into the rocks, and bamboo had taken root. In result the lower ravine was a green enfilade hardly wider than a hallway, the walls on either side rising squarely from its floor. Well within the pass, set into the left-hand wall as one rode down from Yamamura, was a niche very like thetokonomaor honored alcove of a Kansan home. In this alcove, some fifty feet from the bottom of the pass, was set the great bronze image of Buddha, theDaibutsuof Kansas.
Further down, below theDaibutsu-niche, the canyon became irregular. Along either side, some ten feet from the floor, were ledges marking the fracture planes along which ancient avalanches had calved. It was from these shelves that the Kansans hoped to ambush the men from First Regiment. The narrowness of the ravine, and the overhang of willow trees—these growing in clefts of rock, fingering their roots down to the subterranean stream—were enough, Hartford prayed, to prevent the veeto-platform's pilot from spotting the Kansans lying in wait with their blowguns.
Hartford disposed his troops on the shelves, checking to see that each man had a good field of fire and adequate cover. He glanced at the sun, the Kansan timepiece. It was between six and eight in the evening, he judged, the Hour of the Clock. He pressed his ear to the radio-receiver. Short-range, the safety-suit radio picked up only occasional orders from Axenite officers and non-coms. Twice Hartford caught the name, "Lieutenant Felix." He smiled, feeling mixed emotions. Felix had been his old Platoon Sergeant, and they would face each other in an hour or so as enemies. Very likely the fifty troopers chasing Ito Juro and his fellows toward the canyon included men of the Terrible Third Platoon, his old command. Hartford checked to see his bitcher worked and waited the arrival of the message-blabrigars with fresh news.
XI
The first bird arrived a few moments before the radio began coming in clear.
"Sakura," Hartford said, this being the prompt-word to which the blabrigar was trained to reply.
"Fifty men, sir; fifty men, sir; on the way, sir; on the way, sir," the bird chanted into Hartford's ear. He let the bird rest on his shoulder; it would have to fly back to the scout who'd sent it soon, to tell him to join the rest of them at the ambush-point.
The sun was low in the sky. H-hour was near. The signals began coming closer-together. "Saw one Stinker off your left flank, Miller.... Left flank-guard reporting, sir. That Gook took off due east. Blabrigar on his shoulder.... Lieutenant Felix here. Anything on the right flank?... Nothing, sir.... Keep moving, Lieutenant." This last voice was the colonel's.
Hartford frowned. If Nasty Nef had come out in person, the game would have to be played fast and dirty.
Hartford set his bitcher low. "Abunai yo!" he said to his guerrillas, sprawled out all along the ledge like figurines on a mantlepiece. "Be cautious. Shoot your dart and get behind something. From now on, be silent. The enemy is near."
Takeko spoke: "You mean, Lee-chan, that our brothers draw near." The other Kansans smiled. Some saluted, a gesture they'd observed among the Axenites they'd been spying upon for the past few days.
The first of the scouts came galloping up the gullet of the canyon. Without a sound he signaled his watching comrades, invisible above him. He made a circle with his hand, pointing up. That meant the Regiment's veeto-platform was scouting ahead of the approaching Axenites. The first man slapped hisgiraffuto hasten it up the pass, past the Daibutsu. Two other scouts, the foxes urging on the hounds, came shouting into the canyon. Neither of them was Ito Jiro. As his name signified, Jiro was the youngest son of Ito-san, the knife-maker. He was the darling of the family. Where was he? Hartford worried.
The radio, no longer masked by the rocks, was filled with information. Hartford heard the veeto-pilot reporting: "They're headed up the gulch past the big idol, sir," he said. "There's a village up there. That's where they're probably headed. What do you want me to do, sir?" The platform hovered over the canyon, unwilling to work its way into the jagged, bamboo-and-pine-prickly fissure.
"Keep in touch, Sky-Eye," Nef ordered. "We're coming right up."
"Felix here, sir," the lieutenant reported. "We've got one of the Gooks prisoner. He's just a kid. Doesn't seem to know a thing."
"Hold him till we get someone who talks Stinker," Nef said.
They got Jiro, Hartford thought. Damn.
The first of the troopers, an officer in the blue safety-suit, spearheaded the column. "Nothing in sight yet," Felix's voice reported. The officer signaled "Come on" with the sweep of his arm, and the first squad of Axenites, dispersed as skirmishers, formed themselves into a file to enter the canyon. The veeto-platform above kept the foliage pressed down with its jet of air, stirring dust that both improved concealment and threatened to trigger a sneeze from one of the ambushers.
Hartford peered cautiously over the edge of the shelf. He'd set his forces far enough back in the canyon that the entire Axenite column would be encased. "Sir, this is Felix," the radio said. "Do you agree, sir, that I should place one squad in reserve till the rest get through the gully?"
"Peel off one squad and stay with it, Felix," Nef said.
Felix's voice again: "Sir, it was our Lieutenant Hartford that the Gooks got. I'd like to go in early."
"Very well, Felix. Miller, hold your squad where it is. Disperse them well, and wait my order before bringing them into the ditch. Confirm."
"Done and done, sir," Miller snapped.
The first two dozen troopers were in the canyon now, half the Axenite force. Colonel Nef had shown the good sense to don an ordinary blue safety-suit; his scarlet command-suit would have made him a splendid target. Another squad entered, their Dardick-rifles held at the ready. This would have to be quick, Hartford thought, or he'd lose his entire corps at their first volley. He raised his hand, a signal visible only to Takeko. She cupped her hands around her mouth and whistled the call of the nightingale, "Ho-o-kekyo ... kekyo!"
Before the echoed notes had died, the darts had found their targets.
The radio was a clutter of undisciplined Damn's, cries of "I've been hit!" One trooper, quicker than the rest, caught sight of a Kansan. He raised his rifle and purred out a stream of Dardick-pellets. Yoritomo, apprentice to the paper-maker, tumbled over the lip of the ledge, his blowpipe falling with him like a jack-straw. There was a babble on the radio. Nef overrode all other circuits to command: "At ease! Rake the ledges with sustained fire."
The canyon was blasted with a confetti of metal and spalled rock as the troopers hosed the shelves with bullets.
The angle made aiming impossible. But by luck and the intensity of the barrage another man, the carpenter's son, had toppled to his death.
"Sky-Eye! Get your butt down here!" Nef bellowed. "Decontamination Team! Bring the vehicle to the mouth of the canyon. We've got men septic." He tongued-on his bitcher and bellowed at the troopers. "On the double, through the ditch."
"Yuke!" Hartford shouted to the men far up the wall, in the niche that held the Daibutsu. "Go!"
The sappers at the back of the giant bronze statue bent to their levers. The tons of metal scooted slowly forward, hit the fat-smeared edge of the shelf. As quietly as a man rocking forward in prayer, the Daibutsu dropped head-down into the ravine. It struck the bottom with the sound of a great gong, and rocked, unshattered, plugging the throat of the canyon, standing as a dam. The hands of the Enlightened One were held in the positions of Protection and of Giving; His face bore still a quiet smile. About the head of the image a fountain of water burst, squeezed up from the stream below. "Namu Amida Butsu!" Takeko said, cuddled against Hartford, staring down.
"Keep down," he said. He lifted his suit-radio and flicked on the transmission-switch. "This is Lee Hartford, late of the First Regiment," he announced. "The safety-suits of most of you have been breached. There is not room for more than three of you in the Decontamination Vehicle. You are not septic. I repeat: you have not been contaminated. Kansas is as safe for you as the Barracks, or Titan, or the M'Bwene planets, or in the cells at Luna. You do not need your safety-suits on Kansas."
"Find that man and gun the traitor down," Nef's voice demanded from the speaker on his suit.
"I am coming out unarmed," Hartford radioed.
"Fire the moment you see him," Nef said. One of the officers had his Dardick-pistol drawn, his eyes traversing the canyon walls.
"No, sir!" Felix's voice snapped from his bitcher. "You can't shoot the man till he's had a chance to speak."
"Go to the rear at once, Private Felix," Nef bellowed.
Felix pointed his handgun toward Nef. "No, sir," he replied. "Hartford was my C.O., and an honest man. I'll hear him before I see him killed. Or by my life, sir, I'll kill you after him."
"This is treason," Nef said.
"Drop your pistol, sir, or I'll have to try to shoot it from your hand. Excuse me, sir," Felix said.
Nef's gun dropped.
"You all hear me?" Felix bitched. "Hear me out there, Miller?" There was a chorus of "Roger!" Felix went on: "I'm going to unclamp my helmet, troopers. I'm going to take off my safety-suit. That's how much I trust Lee Hartford, troopers. The man who tries to stop Hartford better begin with me." Felix opened his helmet, removed it, and placed it on the rocks beside him. He went up to drink from the fountain that sparkled about the head of the Daibutsu, cupping his hands. "It's good water, men," he said. "Come on down, Hartford," he shouted through the clear night air.
Lee Hartford twisted over the edge of the shelf, held himself by his finger-tips, and dropped. He stood before his old comrades in arms dressed as a country Kansan. His head bore only a stubble of hair, and a scarlet blabrigar came down to settle familiarly on his shoulder. "I caused your suits to be breached for good reason," he said, speaking into the bitcher he'd recovered from his safety-suit. "If any of you has a sore backside because of the darts my men sent at you, please accept my apologies." Two more Axenites removed their helmets, and stood grinning uncertainly at Hartford. "I have lived on Kansas for two weeks, living like a native. I've breathed Kansan air, eaten their wonderful food and even kissed one of their girls." There was a murmur of laughter. "I'm as healthy as ever I was inside the Barracks," Hartford said. "And I'm a good deal happier."
There was louder laughter among the Axenites, and more helmets opened. Hartford turned to look behind him. Takeko was hanging by her finger-tips off the shelf, trying to work up the courage to drop. He went over to stand below her. "Fall to me, darling," he said. "Fall into my arms."
"I hear,shujin, and obey," Takeko squeaked, and dropped.
When Hartford released Takeko and turned to face the troopers, every helmet but Nef's was opened. Half a dozen of the men had already stripped to their Class B's. They had their faces tilted into the wind that was sweeping up the gullet of the canyon, smelling for the first time in their lives the scents of open nature, the spice of green life in the air. They were seeing the Kansas sky; a mosaic of stars, unfiltered by helmets. They were breathing air not humid with their own perspiration. Holding Takeko's hand in his, Hartford walked up to Felix. "You saved the day, old buddy," he said.
There was the cough of a tapped-off Dardick-round.
Felix fell. Colonel Nef, his pistol held at the hip, tilted it toward Hartford. He looked startled for a moment, then dropped the pistol. In his wrist were three blowgun-darts. Clustered across his chest were half a dozen more. Hartford waved at the Kansans on the ledge. "Arigato!" he shouted, and told them to come down.
Two men had died in the engagement: Yoritomo the paper-maker and Sannosuke the carpenter's son. Felix's thigh-bone had been broken by Nef's shot; and Colonel Nef's right wrist would require attention. A medical officer had been sent for from the Barracks to set Felix's leg. The dead men were carried on litters up to the shelves and around the fallen Daibutsu to the village. Hartford splinted his friend's broken leg. "What now, Hartford?" Felix asked.
"I suggest that you all become guests in Yamamura."
"Done and done," Felix said.
Takeko came up to lay a bunch of flowers on his chest. "They smell sweet," she said. "Courage such as yours smells sweet in the nostrils of heaven."
"Thank you, Ma'am," Felix said. He turned his head to follow the girl as she took a second handful of flowers to place it beside the fountain that jetted about the head-standing Daibutsu. "I can see where this will be a popular planet to do duty on, Lieutenant," he said. "What you discovered here will pretty well wipe out the Brotherhood."
"You're right," Hartford said. "The Brotherhood is doomed."
They watched as Takeko knelt before the inverted image. "Namu Amida Butsu," she said. "All men are the same in the sight of Amida, the Lord of Boundless Light."
"Maybe I'm wrong, Lieutenant," Felix said. "Maybe the Brotherhood just got started."