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-black sumi ink 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 his tabi-stockinged feet, Hartford and the others of Kansas Intelligence would move toy troopers, made of wood like kokeshi-dolls, into the positions where the blabrigars reported patrols to be.

The plan of battle of the Kansas forces was yawara-do, the Gentle Way also called judo. 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 the Daibutsu, 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, 

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