"It will be," Cale said, obviously trying to reassure himself as well as Zant. There was little more to report, and Zant quickly disconnected. He knew that you signed off from headquarters as soon as you'd made your report, and before the brains had a chance to come up with some wild ideas.
Well, okay, Zant thought, Cale wasn't headquarters, but he might as well have been. In another minute or two Cale would have been spouting ideas left and right. And right now he was too busy to deal with that. He returned to his conversation with the head of the snipers. "Okay," he said, "Run through it for me again."
The man shrugged. "I hope your mountain men are good in the forest. We have a two-day march to get far enough out to bypass the farms and reach the area the star men claim for 'future development'."
"We'll keep up," he assured the man. "Okay, so we leave the forest and cross the perimeter road."
The man nodded. "The road is covered by the star men's 'capacitance alarms,' but we have found ways to bypass them. Do not think it will be easy; one slip and we are undone."
Zant nodded. "Understood. Don't worry, my ridgerunners are very good sneakers. So, we get across the road. Then what?"
The man shrugged. "The patrol. They vary the schedule and the route to make the patrols more difficult to ambush. We have a runner watching for the patrol to leave the compound, and others to see which route they will take. We should have about an hour to get into position. But your hillrunners will be slow, with the loads they're carrying. We'll try to guess which route they'll use; if we're wrong we might have to come back and try again tomorrow night."
Zant opened his mouth to protest, but the man bulled on. "They have four routes they use, and they're pretty close together. In some places, we might be able to move to one or the other of two. But as you said, these people are not stupid. We have lost four of our people already, all skilled hunters. They react quickly and viciously. I will not have my people risk themselves unnecessarily."
Zant's mouth snapped shut. He decided it didn't really matter whether they attacked one night or the next. The man was right. This was the best they could do.
He nodded. "Got it. Okay, the patrol comes around. If we can avoid being detected, as soon as they pass, we'll sneak across behind them. Your people begin following them, while we work our way past the farms to the militia area."
"And if we are detected?"
Zant shook his head grimly. "Then we kill them. Your people make a run for the forest, and we'll try to sneak past before the reinforcements arrive. With any luck, they'll think it's just another sniper ambush, and chase you."
The man nodded. "But they will be alerted, and you will still have to pass the sentries."
Zant nodded. "I know. If that happens, there's a good chance this will turn into a suicide mission. But it's really important that we destroy these things; if we don't, they'll slaughter the Four Kings' troops, and the star men will rule Jumbo."
He left the sniper and returned to the fire, where his trappers and a handful of hunters awaited him. "Okay," he said, "Where were we?"
A small, weasely hunter with a large gap in his teeth grinned widely. "We was gettin' to kill more star men," he replied. The butt of his rifle displayed four carefully carved notches, each symbolizing a star man he claimed to have killed in the box canyon shootout.
Zant grinned. "Yeah. Okay." He paused with an annoyed expression, and then firmed his chin. He was about to do something risky, and was desperately hoping it would work. He dug into his pack, and came out with a marker.
He took a deep breath. "All right," he said. "There's something we have to do first. You know me, I know you. But I know you as that 'ugly guy with the bad teeth' or something." The men dissolved into laughter and mutual accusations. Zant waited until they quieted down. "Now," he continued, "you know that I would never want to allow you to be hexed. But we're about to get into a big fight, and I have to have a way for both of us to know who I'm talking to.
"So," he continued, "I'm going to put a mark on your forehead, and I'll call you by what is on that mark. That way I don't have to know your name, and you won't have to be afraid of magic."
"Will it hurt?" a big man asked doubtfully.
"What about you?" another asked.
Zant grinned. "No, you big baby, it won't hurt, and you can rub it off as soon as we're done here." He shrugged. "As for me, my name is Zant, and you can feel free to use it."
Several of the men looked shocked at Zant's mention of his name, and a couple made signs in the air to ward off evil spirits. Zant moved toward the weasely man. The man's eyes widened, and he swallowed noisily, but he stood defiantly as Zant scrawled a two-inch "A" on his forehead.
"You are Ay," he said, stepping back from the man. He looked around. "All of you remember that he is Ay, and you will have something to call him without risking magical problems." When the small man realized that Zant was finished, he breathed a mighty sigh of relief. He straightened proudly and proclaimed, "I am Ay!"
Zant moved to the next man, standing by nervously. He scrawled a letter on the man's forehead, and said, "You are Bee." He continued around the circle "You are Cee," "You are Dee." He skipped "I"; he didn't want to create even more confusion. By the time he'd finished, at 'Kay,' the men were strutting around showing off their forehead marks proudly and announcing their new nicknames. Zant didn't stop them; They all needed to be familiar with each others' nicknames. Finally the novelty wore off, and the men gathered around Zant once again.
"Okay," he said. "Here's the plan again. We all sneak up and set an ambush for the patrol." He turned to the sniper leader. "We'll try to let them pass and sneak across behind them," he said. "But if they detect us, it'll be up to the local boys to take 'em out and head back here." He shrugged. "It would be a lot better if we don't have to kill them, at least at first."
He turned back to his own men, several of whom were frowning. "What do we need these guys for?" Ay demanded. "We can take care of them ourselves!" Several of the others grumbled their agreement.
Zant sighed and suppressed an urge to shake his head in disgust. "Like I told you before," he said patiently, "there's two reasons. First, it's their territory. They'll know the best place for an ambush, and the best way to make sure they get them all at once.
"Second, each of us will be carrying about 25 kilos of explosives, as well as our own crossbows and bolts. One hit from a laser and we're all gone. Let them do their jobs; they're good at them, and we've got our own jobs to do."
Ay was still frowning. "Yeah, but I still don't like it. We can't even start to do our jobs until they do theirs. If they screw up . . . "
The leader of the snipers began to cloud up, and Zant hurried to reply. "Don't you worry about them," he said. "While you've been partying at Gathering up north, they've been killing star men down here." The sniper relaxed, and Zant breathed a silent sigh of relief. "You just worry about how fast you can jump up and run carrying thirty kilos of gear.
"Remember, if the snipers have to attack the patrol, we have to get inside the colony and find places to hide before the star men can send help. That means you might have to take out one of those sentry posts on the way; and those sentry posts will be alerted by the attack on the patrol.
"And that means we won't have a moment to waste. If one of those guard posts goes offline, alarms will be triggered within seconds. So, we're a lot better off if we can sneak past the patrol and those guard posts, instead of taking them out."
Ay subsided, but he was still frowning.
"Now," Zant continued, "Once we get inside the ring of guard posts, we break into our three-man teams and head for our targets. You've all seen the overhead pictures that show the layout of the colony, and where the star men are keeping the things we must destroy.