The officer commanding the other raft was a squat, middle-aged man with a dull, phlegmatic nature. A born soldier who loved to live by the book. As the raft landed, he jumped out, saluting.

"Lieutenant Hamshard reporting, sir. As ordered, I dropped half my men to the west of the action and continued to the east. Those first dropped reported they were establishing contact."

"And?"

"One message, and then silence, sir. My guess is they ran into friendly fire, returned it, and then got wiped out The others, under my command, remained in position."

"No contact established?"

"No, sir."

"Why not!"

"To be frank, sir, it seemed that all hell had broken loose. I didn't want to throw my men away if the enemy had overwhelmed the position; still less did I want them to get shot by our own men. I held them back until I could get information from a scout. He didn't come back. I was about to mount another reconnaissance when your message was received. I pulled out, and my men with me." He jerked his head to where they waited in the raft. "Was the action in order, sir?"

"Yes, captain."

Hamshard frowned. "A mistake, sir. I am a lieutenant."

"As from this moment, you are a captain. A battlefield promotion. Lieutenant Paran, make a note and inform headquarters of my decision." Dumarest looked at the sky. "How long until dawn?"

"Less than an hour, sir. Orders?"

"Get up and stay up until full light. We can do nothing in the dark. If the enemy were here, they are gone. If they weren't, there is little we can do but wait."

Hamshard said shrewdly, "Sir, do you think the action we spotted, the shooting and noise, was the result of hysteria? That they were firing at the air and at each other?"

"You think it possible, captain?"

"Well, sir, they were a pretty high-strung bunch. If they thought they saw something, landed, got confused with shadows, and then my men coming toward them-yes, sir, I think it possible."

"Well." said Dumarest, "We'll soon find out."

Chapter Nine

"Gas!" Colonel Paran thinned his lips, his eyes hard. "Are you sure, Earl? There can be no mistake?"

Dumarest shook his head, leaning back in his chair as he fought the numbing weight of fatigue. From across the table around which sat the council of war a man said, "Examination of the bodies supports the marshal's theory. The toxic substances used must have been of short duration; no residue was found, but I fail to see how any other cause could have achieved the same result."

Lem Vandet, a hard-faced, sharp-eyed man who spoke with determined precision. A chemical scientist before he had donned the uniform and insignia of a major.

Colonel Oaken said, "Can you be certain of that? Without definite proof?"

"We must work on the basis of available evidence, colonel. As the marshal pointed out, the clues were there all along. The villages without any Ayutha bodies-they couldn't have made a physical attack without suffering some casualties. Examination of the weapons used also proves that they were used against each other-blood and tissue samples leave no doubt. And the initial messages, which are all the same. Clear evidence of some form of hallucination that distorted reality so that the villagers imagined they were being attacked by monsters. In fact, they were the victims of their own minds."

From where he had sat in brooding silence, Colonel Stone said, "The Ayutha are primitive. The manufacture of nerve gas requires a relatively high technology. They lack both the knowledge and the means."

"As far as we are aware," admitted Vandet. "But they could buy what they cannot make."

Dumarest watched their faces as they realized the implication of the comment. It was frightening. A band of marauding primitives was one thing; armed with nerve gas, they were something else, and if they had a source of supply, the economy of Chard was doomed.

He said, "This is speculation. We have no proof that the Ayutha are involved. But I am fairly certain that the nerve gas is derived from lofios oil. I assume that it would be relatively easy for an unscrupulous man to contact them and to buy oil direct But why should they have wanted gas in the first place? That implies not only a savage hate but a calculated plan. Is it possible that you have commercial rivals who would gain by creating discord?"

Oaken shook his head. He wasted no time now in bluster; the plump lines of his face had settled into determined hardness. He was not a fool, thought Dumarest, watching him. Neither he nor Stone. Merchants, perhaps, rich men both, but never fools.

"We've thought of that," said Stone. "Lofios oil is rare and cannot be synthesized, so we own the entire supply. To destroy it would benefit no one-not even the Ayutha. That's what makes this whole thing so incredible. Now we have no choice but to send strong punitive expeditions into the hills, find their supplies of gas if possible, destroy what we can in order to teach them a lesson."

"No."

Oaken frowned. "Marshal?"

"You don't put out a fire by throwing oil into the flames. You tried it once, and the second time achieved a total loss of all your men. As I explained at the beginning, wars of this nature tend to escalate. There will be no punitive expeditions."

"You mean we must do nothing?"

"I didn't say that. As yet no real attempt has been made to contact the Ayutha. Until an attempt has been tried, it would be stupid to waste men and aggravate the situation. We could create havoc, perhaps, but it would take only one man with one container of gas to destroy a village."

Colonel Paran said, "The marshal has a point, gentlemen. The attacks are escalating. Two other villages destroyed since Verital." To Dumarest he explained, "The word came while you were in the field. They were far to the west, and there was nothing you could have done."

"I should have been informed." A map lay on the table and Dumarest studied it, noting the positions of the red dots, widely spaced, villages destroyed at apparent random. Primitive savagery might account for it, but why should they have passed villages close to the hills to attack others much farther away?

"I want a computer analysis made of these attacks," he said. "The times, the distances, the weather conditions, everything. Colonel Paran, I asked for rafts equipped with infrared detectors to maintain constant patrol. Did they spot anything?"

"No, but that isn't conclusive. The lofios holds warmth and baffles the scanners."

"I was thinking of much closer to the hills."

"Still nothing."

Which meant little; any attacking force could have remained under cover, living on carried stores and moving under the protection of the leaves.

"Is there nothing we can do, marshal?" Stone was anxious. "Aside from punitive expeditions and constant surveillance, I can't see how we are going to resolve this conflict."

"Three things," said Dumarest. "Major Vandet, from your examination, would you say the gas was one which had to be inhaled?"

"Yes. There are no marks of burning on the skin, and in any case, that would assume sprays were used. From your own experience, I would say that it is a relatively simple vapor-natural enough if we remember their limited sources of manufacture." He added, "Unless, of course, they are actually buying more sophisticated material."

"We can discount that," said Colonel Paran. "Every ship reaching this planet is checked and cargoes verified. The gas they use must be locally produced."

"Then respirators and air tanks would give total protection," said Dumarest. "See to their manufacture. Every man in the field must be equipped, and half of them must wear the masks at all times. The second thing-in order to protect the villages, all lofios plants to the extent of a mile must be cut down."