Chapter 8: Campaign

Rondl and Cirl reorganized their group, which despite prior losses was now swelling enormously as increasing numbers of Bands became alarmed about the alien intrusion. Rondl set up a hierarchy of the trainers and staffers, so that each newcomer's skill could be integrated into the effort. He appointed a special corps of record-keepers who kept track of the others, since Bands had no written or computer records. When he needed a good geographer to chart the pattern of magnetic lines in a given region of space, the record-Bands identified one; when he needed a good circle-organizer for a conference, they located one.

The Bands were intrigued by what Rondl was doing. This was their first experience with government; they regarded it as a game or an emotional discipline, and once they mastered the fundamental principles, they cooperated well. A virtual nation of Bands was evolving and gaining in competence. Not again, Rondl hoped, would he lose half his party to disbanding without accomplishing anything.

Tembl, the blue philosopher, became more valuable. She was always near by, and willing to perform any minor task. It occurred to Rondl that she might be angling for -- but no, he interrupted himself, that was his alien information putting unfortunate notions into his consciousness. Cirl was his love. Now, how did things rest? He had, with Cirl's marvelous help, conquered his nightmares, but he had yet to conquer the actual Monsters. The liability of his effort was in the nature of the Bands: they disbanded too readily at the mere suggestion of violence, then lost discipline when finally worked up to some semblance of combat fervor. Clearly it was an unsane state for them, leading to awkward instability.

He needed to give them direct combat experience against a lesser foe than the Monsters, to sift out and toughen his most effective troops. He had to do this soon, because the Monsters would not sit back politely and wait for him to get ready.

What offered? He needed a real enemy, not another mock-up. A real challenge, but not too great to be overcome. Something like the water monster, or -- The Kratch! There was a suitable challenge! The Bands saw evil in very few things, but the evil of the Kratch they conceded. The spaceways would be well rid of such a monster.

Rondl put it to them fairly. "We aren't ready to tackle the interstellar Monsters yet. But I will form my complement from those who prove they can handle the necessary rigors by performing satisfactorily in an interim mission. This will not be easy, but I think it is easier than dealing with the Solarians."

"But what is it?" Tembl inquired eagerly.

"We are going to eliminate the Kratch from the zone of debris nearest the home planet, to make this region safe for Bands."

Suddenly there was nervousness. This was real! Bands wavered and dimmed and spun erratically.

"This is volunteer," Rondl clarified. "I want only those who choose to join me, knowing the danger. Because I deem the Kratch to be a lesser threat than the Solarians, and anyone who is unable to face the Kratch will not be able to oppose the real Monsters. This is a selective process; I want no more Bands getting into situations beyond their endurance and disbanding at critical moments. Those who do not wish to tackle the Kratch do not have to give up the overall effort; there will be other tasks, such as marking the progress of the Monsters and conveying messages -- tasks that are less stressful, but just as important. So consider carefully what type of participation you prefer. This particular mission is for the most aggressive of you."

They considered carefully. The Kratch was not theoretical; the Kratch was dire and direct. No Band could approach a Kratch and be ignored. The Kratch was involuntary disbanding incarnate.

In the end about thirty Bands volunteered for the Kratch mission. Rondl had hoped for more, but was not about to force the issue; that would be counterproductive.

"I was pursued by a Kratch," Rondl flashed to this more select group.

"It caught me, but I managed to collect a load of dust, and jettisoned the dust into the monster, giving it indigestion. I feel that way is too dangerous; we need safer alternatives. But it does indicate that the Kratch is not extremely intelligent, and can be balked by fairly obvious means. Do any of you have suggestions?"

Tentatively, they closed with the problem. "We could lead it into a dangerous place," a yellow Band suggested. "One with many rocks."

"I tried that before," Rondl said. "It gained on me, and caught me before I found a suitable place. Who would like to lead the Kratch that way?"

The Bands were daunted. None of them were eager to assume this type of chore."Actually, if we had a region of sure peril to the Kratch, and knew precisely where it was, we could safely lead the monster there, provided we had a sufficient lead," Rondl said. "It is a matter of margin. If it thinks it can catch one of us, and we know it cannot, the task becomes feasible.

Preparation is the key." Now more of the Bands became positive, but still no one had a suggestion.

After a pause, Rondl continued. "I do have two notions relating to this problem, which you can consider and judge. First, we must thoroughly scout the region so we know exactly where to find the proper formation, so there need be no dangerous guesswork when the Kratch is roused. I repeat: planning is fundamental."

"But suppose the Kratch comes upon us while we search?" a dark blue Band inquired.

"Now you're thinking ahead," Rondl said approvingly. "This is where my second notion comes in. I'm going to teach you the art of cross-tag."

They spun uncertainly, not knowing what he meant. Small wonder; it was another alien notion. "It is a game in which one person pursues another,"

Rondl explained. "Then a third party cuts in between them, and the pursuer must follow the new one until a fourth cuts between, and so on."

"But wouldn't the pursuer grow tired?" a red Band asked. Bands did get tired when exerting themselves; it was difficult to process energy at maximum rate for very long. Some Bands worked hard to build up sustained high-energy processing so that they could travel between stars, but most were not in that condition.

"That should be the case," Rondl agreed.

"Then the game could not go on," the Band protested. "The pursuer would not be able to compete."

"It could not go on longer than the players wanted it to," Rondl agreed.

"Then what is the reason?"

"The Kratch will in due course be the pursuer, in the game I contemplate."

"But the Kratch will grow tired, and decline to play anymore!"

Rondl let them ponder that. In a moment the Bands began catching on. "To the Kratch, it's no game!" one exclaimed. "The Kratch could not catch -- "

another began. Then all began shimmering with relieved mirth.

"If we are proficient in this game, we should not have to fear the Kratch," Rondl concluded. "We could escape it at will. If we have not yet located a suitable place to dispose of it, we can simply flee it when it becomes too tired to follow."

"Then it will be easy!" a green Band flashed.

Overconfidence was dangerous! "Not necessarily," Rondl cautioned. "There is always the unexpected."

"Unexpected?" the green Band flashed blankly. "What would happen?"

This was the naïveté of inexperience! "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong," Rondl informed them. And wondered how he knew. Rondl himself had very little experience he could remember.

"How can we prepare for what is to go wrong when we don't know what to expect?" a white Band asked.

"That's difficult," Rondl admitted. "I think we should organize a plan of escape and develop an alternate way to destroy the Kratch. So we need a new set of notions."

The Bands, being sociable and helpful, humored him. They formed two circles and sought for new answers. Soon they had some good ones. One group worked out a way that a number of Bands could line up and so finely concentrate a ray of sun that a great deal of heat would be generated at its focus. If another line of Bands concentrated a beam similarly from the other sun and focused that beam on the same point, the combination might be strong enough to begin to vaporize the material of the Kratch.

"Let's try it!" Rondl flashed, pleased. They did, aligning and focusing on a fragment of rock. In moments it heated and cracked apart. Rondl encouraged them to practice this maneuver. One problem was that the magnetic lines on which the Bands had to congregate were not necessarily aligned with the light of the suns, so that the formations had to be carefully located. It could be difficult to focus on a moving target. So they needed to scout the positioning of magnetic lines as well as of rocks.

The other group wanted to locate metallic fragments that they could use to bombard the Kratch. The problem was that they needed time to locate and collect the stones and would be in danger from the Kratch while doing so. In addition, they were uncertain that the small chunks they could handle with individual magnetism would have mass enough to do the monster harm. Perhaps they could group in twos and threes to handle larger pieces. But they would be in danger from the Kratch while locating such items and maneuvering them into place. The beam-focusers could practice out in clear space, but the fragment-hurlers would have to go into the zone of debris, where the Kratch lurked.

They agreed to rehearse the safer techniques first, then go for the stones. If at that point the Kratch should appear, the engagement would be on.

If it did not appear, they would collect a huge arsenal of stones and locate several suitable trap sites, preparing for the time when the enemy did appear.

It occurred to Rondl that they might be able to employ magnetic circuitry to make a bomb: a rock that would fly violently apart when magnetically stimulated. But that would be complex, perhaps requiring a prolonged period of research; he would have to follow it up later.

They got to work. The Bands were naturally cautious in this vicinity, nervous about the cover the planetoid belt provided for the monster. They were not at all sure, despite their expressed confidence, that this exploration was feasible.

Promising locations showed up. Rondl checked each as the news was flashed to him of its discovery. One was a large irregular fragment of rock, partly split along a fault so that there was a notch that a Band might slide through, too small for the Kratch. But it was too shallow and slanting to be properly effective; the pursuing Kratch would probably glance off and be cautious thereafter. Another prospect consisted of two boulders joined by an isthmus, the whole slowly rotating. At the proper angle, there was a tight passage between the two masses. This might do. A brown Band was designated to be the final member of the tag team; he would lead the monster through the center.

The brown Band began practicing immediately, timing his approach so that he seemed to be heading for a flat face of rock, arriving as the rotation brought the cleft into place. Since the gap was too narrow to pass the mass of the Kratch, this could be devastating. But if the monster saw it coming --

But where was the Kratch? Rondl had expected it to show up by this time.

Was the monster chasing around the other side of the ring of rock, so that all their preparations would be wasted?

"Now let's collect metallic rocks," Rondl flashed, concealing his misgiving. This exercise would not be much good unless they flushed the Kratch.

The cross-tag Bands had been practicing their game with much glee, augmented by a number of those who at first had been too timid to volunteer.

It seemed that this positive approach had spread confidence, and now more of the Bands were ready to tackle the task. That was fine; Rondl was sure the ones who joined after due consideration would be at least as sturdy as those who joined without thinking. All these Bands were becoming skillful in the interception maneuver; they enjoyed precision flying, and Rondl thought they were good enough to accomplish the mission. He made quite sure they knew where the terminus was, though they did not approach it; no point in giving their scheme away to the Kratch, who just might be lurking and watching. It was not that Rondl feared the monster might be more intelligent than estimated, but that the number of Bands in the area might make it cautious; that might indeed be the reason it had not appeared. The safety of numbers could be interfering with the project.

"Those who are not actively prospecting, withdraw some distance," he directed. "We want the group to seem small enough to be vulnerable."

Now the stone-group discovered a rich lode of stones, and began moving them to a convenient deposit area, forming a small artificial meteor. The ring of debris was layered, with bands of larger rocks, fine sand, and metallic fragments. Rondl wondered how it had been formed, and an odd concept came to him: "Roche's Limit." A moon was unable to orbit a planet within a certain radius, because the tidal forces broke it up. But he was sure this was not generally known among Bands; why did he know it? That was the kind of question that had bothered him from the outset.

"You're internalizing again," Cirl reproved him.

"A creature must be permitted some faults," he grumbled, privately satisfied by her attention. He liked having her here with him, despite the danger to her. For one thing, Tembl tended to keep slightly more distance.

"Next time, internalize externally, so I can share," she flashed.

It was of course a humor concept. But what might have developed into a pleasant interchange was cut off by an alarm flash: "Monster! Monster!"

Suddenly everything was serious. "Tag team, you know what to do!" Rondl flashed, flying toward the action. "Engage the monster, keep it moving, tire it!"

They had already engaged the Kratch, and it was moving. It was a great gray-metal hulk, gleaming in the light of the suns, and it was horribly fast.

The Bands were cutting across, and the system was working; the Kratch swerved to pursue each new Band, because the new one seemed closer.

But Rondl worried. He knew, from the anonymous depths of experience, that things seldom worked out perfectly -- and if anything went wrong, they would lose a Band. They could lose several to disbanding, even if successful.

If unsuccessful, it could be horrible. Already some Bands were leaving the game, apprehension having conquered their prior enthusiasm. Some of these were the newest enlistees -- but some were the original ones. So the stress of action turned out to be a different type of selection process than anticipation. Fortunately most of the group remained, so the Bands remained rested and fresh.

There was no sign of a problem. The Kratch was too stupid to realize what was happening. It followed each new Band that seemed so close, but by the time the monster achieved the new vector it was no closer than it had been to the old prey. Energy was required to change direction even slightly. If the monster finally caught on, and declined to be distracted from the original Band it was following --

It did not. Now it was visibly tiring as the constant course corrections demanded energy. It had a lot of mass, and had to use a lot of power to move itself about. In the short term it could outperform a Band, which was why it was so deadly, but on an extended chase the advantage went the other way. That was good to know; probably a chain of as few as three Bands could tire the thing, enabling them to escape it.

Even if the Kratch got belatedly smart and clung to one Band, now it would not be able to catch up. It had expended too much of its resource. "Lead it into the trap!" Rondl flashed.

They led it toward the cracked rock. The brown Band hovered, ready to do his part on the final link.

There was a new flash of alarm. "Another Kratch!"

Another Kratch? Rondl had not anticipated this! Yet of course there was more than one. Why hadn't he reasoned it out before? There had to be a breeding population. There could be hundreds. The mission had abruptly become considerably more complicated. Maybe the first Kratch had been late arriving because it was informing its friends of the rich harvest here.

"Tag team -- lead the new monster!" Rondl flashed. "Same way! You can do it."

They could do it -- but their confidence had been shaken by this development. They were no longer fresh, though they were hardly tired.

Nervousness weakened them. Thus they fumbled the chain, and failed to make the connection with the brown Band at the trap. Some of the Bands led the first monster; others went after the second.

No Bands had disbanded, at least. But suppose more monsters appeared?

How long could the cross-tag game continue if there was always another monster, a fresh one replacing the tired one? This could become another form of tag, with the Kratches making the rules.

"It's only one new challenge!" Rondl flashed, desperately trying to improve their resolve. Inaction was disaster! "Lead it! Lead it!"

They led it. There was nothing else they could do, for once a Kratch began pursuit, it never relinquished the chase. But now there was confusion: who should intercept which Kratch? Sometimes two Bands swooped together; sometimes there was a dangerously long pause between interceptions. There was bound to be trouble.

"Lead the second away from the first," Rondl flashed. "Separate the groups so there can be no confusion. There are enough of you to handle two monsters. Any Bands who are tired can join the group with the tired Kratch; as soon as we get reorganized, we'll feed it to the trap, as we were about to before we got confused." He hoped his evinced confidence would encourage them.

Hesitancy and disorganization were greater threats than the two Kratches.

They obliged, and the situation improved. Two tag teams were operating smoothly now: a fast one and a slow one.

"Conduct the first monster to the finale," Rondl directed. "After that has been handled, lead the second monster in."

Then there was a third alarm. Another Kratch had appeared.

The Bands, already shaken, lost control entirely. Both tag teams flew apart, leaving two monsters pursuing two hapless Bands.

Disaster! Rondl spent one moment absorbed in horror, then reacted with the dispatch of desperation. Two Bands were near him: Cirl and Tembl. Both were fresh and competent. He flashed orders to them.

"Tembl, go intercept the first Kratch and lead it directly to the trap.

Let the brown Band finish it. Cirl, find a Band you know well and make him join you in intercepting the second Kratch. I will handle the third."

"But -- " both protested, concerned for him.

"Now!" he flashed imperatively. They departed.

When the others Bands saw the game continuing, he hoped, they would repent their foolishness and reorganize. Band pacifism was more than just a theory; these people lacked the stamina for sustained effort in adversity.

They would respond to the proper example, surely. But if they did not, or if more monsters appeared --

He needed something more immediate than cross-tagging to deal with the Kratch. Something obvious and devastating, to rout the monsters and give the Bands instant courage. Something like the burning lens --

But that was impossible to organize in this disarray. He had to put together something simple, that required no fine-tuning in the midst of confusion.

He saw Tembl leading the first, tired Kratch into the zone of rocks.

That would finish one. Cirl would lead the next the same way. Rondl found a mild irony in the fact that of all his bold Bands, two of the gentlest females were the ones he was depending on in this really dangerous pass.

Two Kratch accounted for, for the moment. But the third -- and possibly fourth, fifth, sixth -- what was fast and sure, even against infinite odds?

Suddenly it came to him. Defense -- ideally suited to the Band temperament. Defense was the best offense. But this new tactic would take nerve, initially. Did these shaken Bands have enough?

"All free Bands orient on me!" he flashed in spirals. "I have a new formation that should be secure from attack!"

That got their attention. Embracing that hope, they clustered about him.

"We shall make a tube," he flashed. "Dual purpose: it will focus the light to burn the monster -- but it will also secure us from harm. This is to be a body-contact tube held together by our fibers, not by alignment from a distance. Just as one Band carries another during emergency -- only in this case we shall have a dozen Bands together. The Kratch cannot digest what it cannot take inside itself -- and this formation will be far too large for it.

All this requires is the courage to hold position -- no matter what occurs."

They hovered doubtfully. Rondl gave them no time to think about it.

Thinking was hazardous to courage. "You, blue Band -- adhere to me!" he flashed.

The blue Band took the course of least resistance and obeyed. Now there were two of them together. "You, orange Band -- adhere to the blue," Rondl flashed through their doubled lens. In a moment there were three -- a formation virtually unknown to the Bands.

They continued until they were twelve, and the resulting tube was as long as a Kratch. Obviously this mass could not be assimilated by the monster!

"Now form a second tube -- and a third!" Rondl flashed down the length of it. Maneuverability had suffered; this structure was clumsy. But it could be moved, with care. "Practice focusing the beams of the suns, as you did before. Try to burn up stones. When the Kratch comes, burn it." He wasn't sure how much of his message was getting through to the other tubes, or how feasible it would be to burn the Kratch, but at least this was a positive program of action, and the members of his own tube would understand.

Rondl led his tube toward the Kratch that Cirl was leading. Though clumsy, the tube could generate considerable forward velocity, for the motive power of the Bands was accretive. They cruised up beside Cirl. "Adhere to us!"

Rondl flashed. "You will be secure as long as you do not separate from the tube!"Cirl could hardly have picked up much of that clumsy flash, but she saw the formation. She trusted him, and she was now tiring. She had to take what offered. With a final flair of effort, she angled forward and sidewise, and fastened herself to the end of the tube. The monster was close behind.

Cirl could not flash to Rondl; the communication was one-way. But he knew how she was reacting, for he had been this close to a Kratch himself. He sent down a constant flash of reassurance. "You are the end of the tube, Cirl; the Kratch will come up to you. But though its spike penetrates your lens, the creature cannot consume you, because you are part of a structure too large for it. And we are going to make things ever harder for it."

For he had thought of a new approach. Under Rondl's direction, the tube oriented on Eclat, flying straight toward the sun on the most convenient line.

With all thirteen Bands exerting themselves together, their forward velocity became greater than what the Kratch could maintain. "We can outfly the monster now!" Rondl exulted. "But we aren't going to! We're going to show off our captive to the other Bands, then dispose of it. Everyone must know that Bands have nothing further to fear from monsters!"

They made a slow loop, changing lines carefully, and the Kratch followed. They showed the other Bands how well this formation worked, and Rondl knew the encouragement was tremendous. It no longer mattered how many monsters there were; only one at a time could approach a tube. A dozen Bands could pass through a crowd of a thousand Kratches this way! Rondl had truly devised the perfect defense.

Then he remembered: he had forgotten the third Kratch, the one he himself had promised to handle. That one was chasing down a red Band, and getting close. The poor Band was on the verge of forced disbanding. Rondl had to help!

Keeping his tube intact, he shifted magnetic lines and cut across to parallel the red Band. Then he drew ahead. "Form a tube! Form a tube!" he flashed. He oriented toward other Bands and sent the same message.

They understood. A purple Band flew up and adhered to the red Band. Then a yellow one joined them. Soon there were too many for that Kratch to handle; they were safe.

Now Rondl took his own tube back toward Eclat. "Focus the beam on the Kratch," he directed. Their Kratch had followed obligingly during their maneuvers while communicating with the red Band; it was amazing what control was possible when proper advantage was taken of the monster's stupidity and determination. "Burn its nose. The monster may not be able to approach us at all!" But it was hard to focus from this tight a formation; the Bands had no experience in it. Rondl was sure they could accomplish it with practice -- but right now the beam was diffuse, generating only slight heat. The Kratch was nudging up close.

"We can't burn it this time," Rondl flashed regretfully. "That technique remains to be mastered. But we can still resist it. Cling tightly, now. Cirl -

- trust me. Though the monster comes near, you are secure -- if you only hold firm."The monster came near. Its spike shoved up into the tube. Rondl hoped Cirl's nerve would hold. To a Band, there was nothing more terrible than the approach of the Kratch's horn. It seemed the Kratch did not realize, even now, that it was dealing with an object impossible to consume. It thought it had a single Band.

As it would have, indeed, if Cirl lost nerve and detached. "You're doing well, Cirl!" he flashed. "Hold on, hold on!"

The dread spike came half the length of the tube. Rondl realized that the other Bands would be similarly appalled. "Stay tight, all of you!" Rondl flashed continuously. "Do not lose confidence. Hold the formation, and all is well! All is well!" If any of the Bands lost nerve and let go, the whole tube could break up, and Cirl was already on the horn of the monster. If any Band in the tube disbanded, the effect would be the same. "We are beating the Kratch. We are nullifying its power; no matter how close it nudges, it cannot prevail. Have faith, have courage. There is victory in unity. This is a significant occasion!" How he hoped it was! What would he do, if the formation broke, and Cirl lost her life -- when she had trusted him?

The tube stayed tight. They all trusted him. The Kratch shoved in close, burying its spike the entire length, trying to take in the morsel -- and could not.

Meanwhile, the Bands of the tube continued to work on the focus of the beam, making it finer and hotter. There was nothing like the stimulus of menace to make the effort stronger! Rondl slowed down the column -- and the Kratch shoved forward harder, not comprehending.

"We can tire it rapidly!" Rondl flashed, uncertain how much of his message reached the Bands in the latter portion of the tube, since their lenses were pierced by the spike. They were probably blind for the moment, proceeding on trust alone. "We can make it carry us all!"

They slowed further, and the monster kept laboring to maintain velocity.

But burdened with that intractable mass, it lost strength. Finally the Kratch fell away, exhausted, drifting, now too weak to maintain forward velocity.

"Now we can do with it as we wish," Rondl flashed. "We have conquered it. We have met it in battle and proven ourselves stronger." He was reinforcing the mood: he wanted all these Bands to depart with confidence that Bands could defeat the worst enemies, if they only maintained the correct formation and discipline. "Break formation; form a spread-out focusing tube."

They spread out, and re-formed into a more normal line. Now it was easy to focus the sun. In moments a fine beam touched the drifting body of the Kratch, burning into its side.

The Kratch jumped, struggling to avoid the heat. It was hurting now! The Band formation followed, refocusing the beam, catching the same place. Again the monster moved, but with less vigor; it really had little energy to spare.

A third time the hotspot formed, this time refined to especially narrow dimension, hotter than before. The Kratch wiggled, but could no longer escape.

A hole began to form in its metal hide.

There was an explosion of vapors as the creature's armored flank was perforated. Its internal pressure had been released; it was mortally wounded.

And two Bands, appalled at what they had done, disbanded. They were so set against violence that even the destruction of a monster bent on killing them caused them to react with horror. But the rest had been sufficiently toughened; they survived. Which was, after all, the point of this exercise --

to locate and prepare the survival types.

Even so, Rondl tried to ease the strain. "Perhaps they go to carry news to the Viscous Circle," he flashed -- and then wondered whether he might be right. It was pretty good news, after all.

Now he checked on the other teams. The first had successfully trapped the first monster. Tembl and the brown Band had done their jobs. The Kratch had smashed into the double rock, and remained wedged there, dented.

Unfortunately that meant this site could not be used again: another thing he had not anticipated.

The second team, or rather the third team, had profited from Rondl's advice; the tube was still leading its monster. Rondl now flashed to them how to dispatch it, and it did not take long to conclude that issue. This time only one Band disbanded.

They had met the enemy, Rondl thought again with relief, amazement, and joy, and conquered it. Only six Bands had disbanded -- three from victory, three from the initial excitement at the notion of coping simultaneously with three Kratches. None from actual combat. Rondl now had his cadre of toughened troops.

And Cirl -- she was safe. "I knew you would not let me disband," she flashed brightly. "You don't believe in life after disbanding, so you would not let me go." Rondl was weakly glad it had proved so.

Meanwhile, the Solarian Monsters progressed on toward Planet Band. They took over the two outer moons and most of the larger moonlets, neglecting only the one that was the base for the Bellatrixians. It was evident that the Solarians did not want trouble with Sphere Bellatrix. The Monsters' advance eliminated virtually all Bands in the outer reaches. Now they were closing on the inner moons.

Little time remained. Rondl did not feel adequately prepared, but he knew he had to make his move now. His battle-seasoned troops had to be up to the job!

He set an ambush on the second moon, Glow. He knew from observation that the Monsters typically approached a planetary body cautiously, fired several explosive shots into it, then landed their vessels on the surface and disgorged assorted vehicles to traverse the terrain. It was this traversing that took time, because they covered every part of each planet or moon, crisscrossing and pausing at any unusual formations. Obviously they were searching for something -- and that was the whole mystery of their presence.

What could they want? There was nothing but rock and sand and gas on those moons.At any rate, the Monsters had to be discouraged, because even if they never found the object of their search, they would destroy the Band society in the process of looking.

Destruction of the Solarians was not Rondl's strategy. Most Bands could never tolerate such an asocial concept, even to save their own society. So the objective was merely to thwart the Monster invasion, preferably without destruction of scenery or loss of life. At first this had seemed a hopeless task, but Rondl had consulted with his advisers and worked out a plan they thought might work.

More than a thousand Bands went to Moon Glow ahead of the Monsters. The great majority of these had not been seasoned by the campaign against the Kratch, but that campaign had had a salutary effect on Band morale, and many more volunteers had come. Since it was necessary to cover the entire surface, these inexperienced people had to be used. But Rondl took care to intersperse among them the seasoned ones, so that wherever the action occurred, there would be experienced people to handle it.

The Bands hid all around, in all manner of ways. Some buried themselves in sand, others in the scant snow and ice of the deep shadows, and others beneath rocks and boulders. They concealed themselves by coating their surfaces with clay or flakes of rock, so that they became filled disks or lumps, and lay scattered across the land all over the moon. Some hovered in the tenuous atmosphere, riding the twisted lines spawned by the odd magnetic patterns of this region. Others established physical orbits, becoming moonlets themselves, concealed among the chunks of rock already there. In short, Monsters were bound to encounter Bands, without knowing it.

There was a system of communication, with selected individuals positioned to receive and relay flashes from the surface. Rondl and Cirl waited well out from Glow with a reserve troop of Bands. This was the command post. Such a concept no longer seemed alien; it was practical. Large-scale missions had to be organized hierarchically, and once he had gotten this concept across to his troops, they had cooperated.

The fleet of Monster ships arrived as projected. They blasted away at the moon, as though seeking to make it twitch with discomfort. Rondl hoped no Bands were at the sites of the explosions. Yet this was a necessary risk; they had known some could be disbanded randomly. Those would be the first to convey the report of this engagement to the Viscous Circle. Rondl felt guilty using that concept to encourage the Bands, but at this point he had to facilitate things in any fashion that offered. If they did not halt the Monsters, the entire species of Band could make that trip to the Viscous Circle!

After the usual nonreaction by the moon -- what had the Solarians expected? -- the Monster ships settled down on the surface. Actually there were several types and sizes of them. The larger ships remained in orbit, as they were unable to withstand the effect of surface gravity. The medium-sized ones went on down, and the smallest shuttled between, conveying specimens to the large ones. Rondl realized that, coincidentally, this operation was organized very much like his own; the alien command post was also in space.

Wheeled vehicles emerged from the landed ships and commenced their canvassing. They moved rapidly, as each had extensive territory to cover.

Perception devices extended from them, emitting radiation. Now at last the rationale began to manifest: the Band communications system relayed news that the Monsters reacted to anything metallic. Were they short of metals? Surely not; their ships were mostly metal, suggesting that they had substantial quantities of it in their home system. Therefore it was likely that the metal merely signaled the possible presence of something else the Monsters wanted.

What could that be?

Rondl thought he should know. But when he concentrated on that thought, it vanished as though deliberately hiding from him. He let it go, being by now well used to this frustration.

The Band body was to a large extent metallic, though evidently not the kind of metal the Monsters wanted. That was just as well; it would have been terrible if the Solarians had charged in to Planet Band and begun capturing Bands for their metal content, in the manner of the Kratch! Now some Bands were located and ignored; others were taken aboard the land-traveling vehicles. There seemed to be a preference for those Bands who had coated themselves with metallic dust and fragments, holding them in place magnetically. It seemed that this additional concentration of metal made them of interest. But not compellingly so; the Bands were merely dumped in hoppers with other objects and ignored. That was exactly what Rondl wanted.

A new hint came. There was a concavity in the surface of one of the large lava-flow plains, and several vehicles converged on this. Rondl's planetary geologist specialists had already advised him that this concavity was natural, the result of the long-ago collapse of a volcanic bubble of gas.

At times some water had condensed in it, leaving concentric marks; now it was dry. It really was of very little interest to anyone except a geologist -- and it turned out to be of no further interest to the Monsters, once they too had ascertained its nature. The vehicles went on. But this diversion indicated that it was not merely metal, but special shapes that they were searching out.

Perhaps they collected the small bits of metal in the hope that these were fragments of the main mass, so that an increasing density of them would chart its presence.

In due course the vehicles reached rendezvous points and delivered their samples to the shuttle ships. The shuttles blasted off with much flame and smoke and wastage of energy -- and with a few concealed Bands within.

Now it should get interesting. Each Band had been drilled in the procedure, and knew what to do. Rondl was not in contact with these captives, but did not need to be. The effects of his strategy should become apparent soon. The first shuttle homed in on its command ship. A docking-hatch opened in the larger vessel. The shuttle flew neatly in -- and misjudged slightly, colliding with the rim of the aperture. It seemed to be an accident of chance, a minor malfunction causing a small but awkward deviation in course.

There was a pause. Then the dented shuttle backed off, reoriented, and moved forward again -- and banged into the other side of the hatch, staving in its nose-point.

"It's working!" Cirl flashed with almost unsocial glee. She was becoming hardened to violence by her association with Rondl, especially during the dreams and the Kratch hunt. "Our plan is causing them trouble!"

So it seemed. There was a Band aboard that shuttle -- and that Band had used its magnetism to distort the internal control signals of the shuttle, so that the craft moved slightly off the mark. The Monsters did not know the cause; they thought it was a real accident. Apparently Monsters were accustomed to equipment failure, and took it in course.

Other shuttles were arriving. Similar accidents occurred. The shuttles had to park in orbit, waiting for robots from the command ships to clear the debris and fix the crushed mechanisms. A spreading ripple of complication developed, as delayed shuttles missed their scheduled rendezvous back on the moon, and the collector vehicles had to wait to deliver their loads.

"Snafu," Rondl flashed contentedly.

Cirl was not familiar with the concept. Rondl started to clarify it --

and lost it himself. "But it covers what is happening to the Monsters," he said. Finally space-suited Monsters emerged from the command ships and crossed clumsily to the shuttles that had been misbehaving. Rondl felt humor; he knew the Monsters would find few genuine malfunctions. The Bands would remain quiescent as long as any Monster was paying attention. So at last some shuttles were properly docked and their cargoes unloaded.

The troublemaker Bands were now inside the command ships, undiscovered.

The arrogant ignorance of the Monsters, who took no note of Bands in their cargo, was about to cause them grief.

"Situation normal," Rondl said.

The flow of shuttles resumed -- until more accidents happened. One misjudgment was worse than most; the shuttle accelerated instead of decelerating as it entered the docking port. As a result, it collided violently with the interior mechanism of the larger ship.

"All fouled up," Rondl continued.

There was the flash of an explosion. Smoke puffed out the port, dissipating into space about the ship. "I think that Band interfered with the wrong circuit," Cirl remarked. "They weren't supposed to do that much damage."

But she did not seem unduly disturbed.

Rondl gave her a satisfied flash. His prior efforts to stop the Monsters had been failures; this abrupt success was highly gratifying. But he was not sure how long it would continue. The Monsters were gruesome, but not stupid; they would investigate, and eventually catch on. What would happen then?

As it turned out, the confusion caused by the series of accidents prevented the Monsters from concentrating on the origin of those accidents.

The Band connection remained undiscovered. Signals flashed from ship to ship, comparing sites and actions -- and the orbiting Bands were able to intercept and modify some of these signals, causing further mischief. One command ship changed its orbit when it was not supposed to, disrupting the shuttle schedule again.Rondl could not resist participating. He located the laser-signal lenses and positioned himself carefully between the lenses of two ships. This was the sort of maneuver a Band was naturally equipped for. Laser beams were narrow and plainly visible to Bands; it was child's play to intercept a fixed beam, as though talking to a distant Band.

Sure enough, messages were crossing. Rondl expected to intercept gibberish, for the Monster language differed from that of the Bands, and even when translated into light it should not be intelligible. But to his amazement he understood it. Was this another dream? Surely not! But he refused to be concerned at the moment; he would exploit this anomaly to the utmost while he could. By rotating in place he could pick up both sides of their dialogue. The Monsters were very crude conversationalists; first one would transmit a complete thought, then the other would. That gave Rondl plenty of time to reorient.

"...thought that was the directive, sir. We have it on recording.

'Correct orbit to Specification DL-11.' We did not question -- "

Here the signal was interrupted by an imperious override beam from the other ship. Quickly Rondl reoriented.

"...should have questioned, Major! You know we have not completed Stage Four of this assignment. Now get that tub back to the Stage Four rendezvous orbit!"

Rondl reacted with the ability of his kind, modifying the message as though he were participating in a circle-communication. He did not need time to reflect; the message he relayed became part of his thought, and his input was automatic. The tiniest, most precise flux in his magnetic lens modified the light passing through it very slightly. Thus the second "four" became

"five," changing the directive a little bit.

"Return to what stage, sir?" the major queried, confused. Rondl did not know what the numbers of the stages signified, but he was sure that the wrong number would make further mischief.

"Are you deaf?" the senior officer retorted with typical Monster courtesy. "I told you four!" Only Rondl changed it again to "five." It was so simple to add one light-bit to the relevant sequence.

"Yes, sir," the major replied dubiously. This was all in laser, which was the machine-translated form of the Monster's verbal communication, but Rondl could almost see the creature's mobile, fleshy mouth-orifice rims rippling and his liquid-centered eyeballs squishing in confusion. "Five." And, of course, Rondl converted that back to "four."

That out-of-place ship shot out its voluminous gases in the clumsy way these machines had, looking like the System's messiest Kratch with indigestion (Rondl liked that image), and lurched toward the new position. This turned out to be the jump-off orbit for the return journey to the Monster base station set up near Moon Spare.

Rondl was not able to intercept the following communications between the two ships, as he had to pay attention to his own operations. But he could guess their nature. He saw the major's ship move out, then pause, then travel back to its proper orbit: Stage Four. By this time the shuttles had stacked up horrendously, and two had collided in space -- surely an accident facilitated by the Bands aboard. There was an almost hopeless tangle to sort out.

Meanwhile the Monsters were having other problems. Rondl had other Bands monitor the laser communications; the Bands were unable to comprehend the meanings, but reported that messages were continuous and seemed increasingly irate. Many things were going wrong inside the ships, as the Bands in the cargoes exerted their mischievous influence. More shuttles went astray, causing more damage. Several ground vehicles got lost, some wrecking themselves on rough terrain, requiring special expeditions to extricate them.

Some shuttles got confused and traveled on the wrong schedules, causing further obstructions.

By the time the mission was finished, it had taken three times as long as the one that surveyed Moon Spare, and the Monsters were evidently tired and irritable. An increasing number of their errors were now of their own making.

A number of Bands had been lost, but most found their way back to Rondl's headquarters. The overall mood was one of satisfaction.

Rondl regarded this Band operation a success. They had disrupted the Monster schedule, giving themselves more time to organize for their next effort, and they had learned a great deal about the vulnerabilities of the enemy. Next time they should be able to do a more competent job of interference!

Cirl was especially pleased. She organized several circles, so that participants could exchange information and assimilate larger perspectives and plan superior future efforts. Now everyone knew that there was an alternative to mass disbanding as the Monsters advanced. It was possible to fight back --

without actually doing brute violence.