A Psychlo sign: “Ordnance” on a door. Jonnie went in. Blast mortars! Even a pile of shells for them, contrary to interior-storage-of-ammunition regulations. Well!

He came out and grabbed Angus. “Get two of those big flatbed trucks, get a flying mine platform on each of them. Put a mortar and ammunition on each of the flying platforms. Pile those tarps in wads on the front of the flatbeds for armor. Put one of the rigs outside, put the other one just inside the door of the hangar.” Yes, there was fuel.

He told Sir Robert to get him four men and a driver for each of the rigs. And to dispatch one of the rigs as soon as made up to tail the convoy.

“That rig?” said Sir Robert.

“They can fly the mine platform off the truck and lay a mortar barrage down. They can block the road by blasting trees across it. Get the convoy tailed, not too close, and if they turn back, block their way.”

“And if it doesn't work and they get chased back here?” said Sir Robert.

“The other rig inside the hangar door can be taken out to help defend the place. Put another four men and a driver with it. I’ll be taking it when we return here from a visit to the Brigantes."

“You'll be chasing the convoy too!” said Sir Robert, adding with sarcasm: “Ranked among the best-planned and most carefully drilled operations of history, this one is undoubtedly the very finest!” He went off to get it handled, muttering about a flatbed handling tanks.

A Scot came racing up. "Jonnie sir, I think you'd better come down to the third level.” He looked ashen.

Jonnie limped with difficulty down the next stairway. He was not at all prepared for what they had found.

It was a big room they apparently used for shooting practice, a sort of indoor range. Some Russians were standing around something on the floor, looking at it with varied expressions of distaste and disapproval. The Scot directing him stopped, mutely pointing down.

In the middle of a veritable lake of congealed blood lay what must have been two old women. It was hard to tell from the scraps. But strands of gray hair, brown skin, and ripped clothing lay, with scattered bone chips in two mounds. The mangled messes and some spent blast gun cases told their story.

Several Psychlos had stood here and bit by bit, inch by inch, with hundreds of carefully non lethal shots, had carved two women apart.

What a hellish bedlam of shots and screams and laughter this place must have been just a few hours ago!

Dr. MacKendrick, summoned by someone else, came in. He stopped, avoiding standing in the blood. "Impossible to tell from temperature. Not enough left to check. Maybe four hours from the coagulation. Women...forty, fifty years old...worn out by hard work.... They carved their limbs off inch by inch and shot by shot!” He stood up and confronted Jonnie. “Why do Psychlos do that?”

“It gives them pleasure. They think it's delicious. The pain and agony.”

Jonnie looked at MacKendrick. “It’s about the only time they feel joy.”

The doctor's face set. “I feel much better about autopsies on Psychlos!"

A Russian had been moving something with a stick he had found.

“Hold it,” said Jonnie. He stepped around the blood pool and picked the object up.

Robert the Fox had come in. He halted in shock.

The object that was being held up was a tam-o'-shanter, the bonnet of a Scot!

No body of a Scot. Just a tam-o'-shanter, fairly new. The kind the Coordinators wore.

Jonnie stood in the drenching rain and looked at the platform of the ancient, wrecked flatbed.

Here within the last two or three days or perhaps only hours ago stood three bound human beings: two old Brigante women and one young Scot, waiting for the Psychlos to come out and seize them, helpless to move or escape, probably covered from behind by poison arrows and grenades. How many Bantu and Pygmies had stood in this place the same way, captured and sold by the Brigantes?

And the Psychlos had come and taken them, bought them from the one-time mercenaries with the articles now lying there. The two old women had died in agony. The fate of the Scot was unknown.

A Russian lance had gingerly tested the flatbed and barter goods for booby traps. If Jonnie knew Psychlos, and if they felt this trade ended future relations, it would have been rigged to explode. It wasn't. The Psychlo employees must think that when they retook the planet they'd be back.

Jonnie examined the goods. Sealed metal containers: a hundred pounds of sulfur, another hundred of niter. Under the tarpaulin lay a big coil of mine fuse. Articles that could be used, adding only charcoal, to make grenades. In a smaller wrapped pack: mine radio power cartridges. Such was the price of three human beings.

Jonnie turned his back on it and walked to where a Russian officer and men were holding the captured Brigantes. There were seventeen of them left alive. They sat with their hands gripped back of their heads, looking down at the ground, very still under the ring of assault rifle muzzles. Seven wounded Brigantes lay about, groaning and moving in the thick humus. Twelve dead Brigantes had been hauled in and lay in a heap.

One of the seventeen sensed a new presence and looked up. He was a barrel-chested brute: teeth broken long ago, face scarred and pitted, a huge jaw, short-cut hair. He was dressed in monkey skins cut in a military pattern. Two bandoliers slotted with poisoned arrows crossed his chest. His eyes looked like scummed pools.

“Why did you fire on us?” he demanded. It came out as "W'y ja fur awn oos?" English if you could unscramble it.

“I think,” said Jonnie, “it was the other way around. What were you doing here?”

“By conventions and articles of war you can only get my name-rank-and-serial-number." Mush, but understandable.

“All right,” said Jonnie, leaning on his cane. “What is that you said?”

"Arf Moiphy, captunk, fit'commando, occpaychun fierces, Yarmy of Hauter Zairey. Are you the relief fierce or united-nationsh?"

Jonnie turned to David Fawkes, the Coordinator, with a raised eyebrow.

“They have a myth, a legend, that someday the international bank will send a relief force. I think the United Nations was some political organization that looked after small countries and interfered when they were attacked. It 's remarkable that they could keep a myth going that long....”

“Where is your main body?” said Jonnie.

"Doan hefta answer nuppin bot name rank-and-serial-number," said the Brigante captain.

“Well, now,” said Jonnie, “if we were this relief force we'd have to know, wouldn't we?” "If yur purt of the relief fierce yu'd know where was,” challenged the Brigante. “The relief fierce is alroddy dere, or gung be dere any day.”

“I think we had better talk to your commander,” said Jonnie.

“General Snith? He's inna main basecamp. Too far.”

Jonnie shrugged and waved a hand at the Russian officer as though to go ahead. The Russians nosed up their assault rifles.

“Tup day's march ober dere!" said the Brigante captain, trying to point with tied hands and then making do frantically with his chin.

“How long ago did you put the captives over on that platform?” asked Jonnie.

"Pla'furm?" said the Brigante playing it dumb.

Jonnie turned to the Russian officer again.

"Yes'day afnoon!” said the Brigante swiftly.

The fate of the Scot was important, if he were alive. Jonnie cast around as to what he could do. He had a makeshift tail on the convoy. He had an ambush in front of it. There was no flanking in these woods: indeed, a ground car (much less a truck) would almost run into itself trying to get around these trees, or even be able to make headway over this soaking wet humus. No wonder the Psychlos had their own arrangements with the Brigantes. He decided he'd have to wait for the battle.