Then just as they were passing the eastern coast of what had been the United States, two battle planes had shown up, and it turned out to be

Glencannon and three other pilots. “Just finished with our regular ferrying runs, and where are you going, we have enough ammunition and fuel,” on the local command radio channel.

They also had a Coordinator who was an expert on Africa and spoke French.

It was not, Robert the Fox said reprovingly in Jonnie's ear, walking up the wide aisle from the back, the best planned raid he had ever participated in. And where was Jonnie going?

The Coordinator was a young lad called David Fawkes. He had recovered from having a Russian drag him out of bed before dawn, jumble his possessions into a bundle and his reference books into a pack, and spirit him to the plane. Sitting with the copilot and next to Jonnie, the Coordinator was babbling away happily.

“We have an operation going in that part of Africa. I think it used to be called the 'rain forest.' So if this is all hush-hush, you better stay clear of the Federation unit operating there. We didn't know there was a minesite up north of there.”

“You're lucky you didn't get your heads blown off,” said Robert the Fox, leaning over the back of the copilot seat.

“Well, you see,” said David Fawkes, “we're not really a war unit. We don't operate like that. This is the first time we've felt a need for such hardware, as you raiders call it.”

“You mean you were going to fight Psychlos?" said Sir Robert.

“Oh, no, no,” was the quick response. “The Brigantes. Usually tribes are so happy to see us they're delirious but-”

“What's a Brigante?" said Robert the Fox. This certainly wasn't a well-researched, well-planned raid. He didn't even know their target or purpose.

Well, it turned out that the "Brigantes," as they called themselves, were a pretty strange lot. A Coordinator had been dropped into a ruined city in that area to see whether anybody was alive and he'd almost gotten blown to bits with a grenade.

“Grenade?” said Robert the Fox. "Psychlos don't use grenades.”

Well, they knew that. This was a pooler grenade. Smoking powder, bright orange flash. And then the Coordinator was about to do battle with a club while bellowing into his radio for help when a very old man crawled out of a wrecked basement and apologized in French.

He was a very tattered old man, on his last pins. He'd been left to die by his squad because he was old now and couldn't keep up. Turned out he called himself a Brigante. He thought the Coordinator was a Psychlo at first glimpse. Then he saw he was human and now thought the Coordinator was part of a relief team sent by the bank.

“The what?” from both Thor and Sir Robert.

Well, seems like they had some kind of legend that they would be relieved by somebody, and they'd held onto it for over a thousand years. Incredible they could keep a tradition going that long-

“What exactly,” demanded Sir Robert, liking his information a little more crisp, “is a Brigante?"

“Well, that's what's making it so hard to really get in solid contact with them, and right this minute they have three Coordinators in there in hopes of doing that. Oh, what's a Brigante? Well, it seems like at the time of the disaster– this is all according to this abandoned old man, of course– not confirmed– some big international bank wanted to overthrow one of those African countries that had gotten its freedom from some people called colonialists, and then it borrowed a lot of money and had a military coup and wouldn't pay the bank back or something like that.

“What's a Brigante? Well, I’m telling you. So this international bank collected up a lot of what they called mercenaries, soldiers for hire, and put together a thousand-man unit, and they were going to use nerve gas and wipe out this government and all these mercenaries were equipped with gas masks like our air masks only they filter outside air.

“Yes, I’m getting to it. These were also called 'soldiers of fortune' in ancient times. So they were just about to make their attack on the government of this new country and were lying out in some mines in the desert– old salt mines– and the Psychlos hit the planet. Well, they had these gas masks-'

“Salt,” said Jonnie, “neutralizes Psychlo gas.”

“Oh, well, fine. So anyway there they were in Africa, fully armed and ready to go, and their target was wiped out for them! A mixed-up lot: Belgians, French, Senegalese, English, American, all nationalities, anybody the bank could hire. But a full, skilled military unit. They didn't have any other name so sometime, then or later, they started calling themselves Brigantes."

“Well, thank you at last,” said Robert the Fox.

“Wait, that isn't all of it. The natives in that area were mostly dead from the kill-gas, so this unit drifted south. The tall trees and jungles seem to have kept them masked from observation from recons and so on. They picked up women from missions and villages, white and black, and kept going.

“And that isn't all. This is why they're so hard to contact: after a couple of

hundred years, they got into a working arrangement with the Psychlos. First you've heard of that? Well, us too. And it makes them edgy.

“Apparently what they used to do was capture people and deliver them to the Psychlos to shoot or torture or something. They never really went too close to the Psychlos but the Psychlos couldn't operate in those swamps: bodies too heavy to walk, ground too soggy for tanks, trees too tall to fly into. So these Brigantes somehow got into a working arrangement: they'd tie up some people and leave them near a compound and the Psychlos would come out and take the people for whatever-”

“Torture,” said Jonnie. “They enjoy it.”

“-and the Psychlos would leave some knickknacks like cloth or something on a log. A kind of trading arrangement. Well, all that was centuries ago and they ran out of people. But the Psychlos never hunted them down-swampy ground, tall trees and so on, like I told you.”

“Sounds like pretty crazy people for unarmed Coordinators to be fooling around with,” said Robert the Fox.

“Well, not really. We're pretty good on diplomacy and so on. But we got this order from the Council just a few days ago to be sure and contact them and bring them in, and we are just doing our job.

“To tell the truth, the Brigantes are a bit strange. They keep their numbers down to a thousand men, leave their old ones to die, don't marry but just use women. They seem to have a high mortality rate among children. Also probably from hunting elephants with grenades...

“Oh, well yes, the grenades. They know how to make crude black powder– you know, charcoal and saltpeter from dung heaps and sulphur from a mine. And they put it into a baked clay receptacle that is studded with stones and stick a fuse in it and light it with a cigar. They have to get right up to an elephant to use one and I suppose that's part of the reason for the mortality rate.

“Rescue? Oh, yes. Well, it seems their ancestors once had a firm promise from the international bank to 'pull them out,' and they haven't a clue to what's going on in the outside world. Well, yes, of course; the Coordinators in there can use that. We'll get them out.”

“And that's near this minesite?" asked Robert the Fox.

“To the south, to the south,” said David Fawkes. “Just thought you had better know. From what I gather here your target is a branch mine compound with just ordinary Psychlos in it.”

“Ordinary Psychlos,” snorted Thor. “You got a handgun? No? You'll need it. Here's a spare. And don't try to find the tribal history of a Psychlo before you shoot. Got it?”

David Fawkes took the gun like it would bite.

They flew onward to Africa.