“I have decided,” he told them, “after considering everyone’s advice and suggestions, that keeping all the rebels in one world is impractical and dangerous. Instead the recruits should establish themselves over many worlds, waiting for the call to meet and fight.
“This is not entirely my idea,” he acknowledged. “The Traveller suggested something like it, though his ideas have flaws and weaknesses. We need to recognise and discuss those flaws and weaknesses now–one being how to inform everyone safely of our change of plan, another to delivering the call to gather for battle.” He looked at the generals, noting their surprise at his endorsement of Baluka’s idea, which Hapre had championed but he had resisted until now. “Suggestions?”
“The rebels are already scattered through the worlds,” Volk said. “I don’t think we need to gather them together in order to send them away again. We just need to get instructions to them.”
“That could take a while, with only four of us and our assistants,” Hapre pointed out.
“We can put messages about as we intended, but instead of instructions to find the new base we tell them to find a place to hide and wait,” Frell said.
“Your assistants will have to place the messages,” Tyen told them. “I have other tasks for you.”
Hapre shook her head. “I need Baluka with me. Send Daam in his place.”
Tyen’s heart sank a little. This would ruin the best part of his plan. “The Traveller is stronger and more experienced at travelling between worlds. Daam is the least experienced–but he’s efficient and will cope with being assistant to all of us for a few days.”
He glanced at the other generals. Though they agreed with Tyen’s assessment of the two assistants’ abilities, they all suspected he was trying to send Baluka away.
Tyen held back a sigh. “So…” he began, then paused, distracted as he saw that Frell was wondering now whether Tyen was blind to Baluka’s potential. “Recruitment. So far we’ve not had to make much effort: they’ve come to us. How do we get the message out that we want them to wait for a call without the allies hearing about it?”
Perhaps he does, Frell was thinking. Perhaps he sees Baluka as a riv—His thoughts belatedly shifted to the question as Tyen looked at him.
“What do you think, Frell?” Tyen asked.
“That’s a communication problem: Hapre’s specialty,” the man answered, looking at his counterpart.
She nodded. “We send out messengers, who travel the worlds delivering our instructions. Each informs potential recruits of a different signal and meeting place, so if any messengers are found by the allies only one area of recruitment is compromised. When the messengers return to us, we’ll know where all the recruits are so we can get the right signal to them. If two messengers’ paths cross and deliver different instructions it shouldn’t matter, because the recruits only need to wait for one of the two signals.”
Frell nodded. “We’ll have to hope the allies don’t read the messengers’ minds without them knowing.” Does Baluka have a solution for that problem? He should be here, discussing this with us.
Volk, the stronger sorcerer of the two, nodded without realising he was responding to Frell’s thought. Strange how Tyen always refers to Baluka as “the Traveller” as if he’s reluctant to encourage familiarity. If he does see Baluka as a challenger to his authority, surely he’d welcome it. He didn’t want to be leader. But then, maybe he has come to like it.
Now him, too. Tyen closed his eyes and shook his head. Some of the other options he and Vella had discussed came to mind. One was to keep the generals busy and apart to prevent, or at least delay, them from colluding against him.
“You should start straight away, Hapre,” he said. She paused, then nodded. “You’ll need more than just our four assistants for this. Since you wish to keep Baluka with you, the two of you should track down more rebels and employ them as messengers.” He turned to Frell. “Frell, the recruitment challenge is yours. Find volunteers willing to travel the worlds recruiting rebels and telling all about the signal and what to do when it comes. Volk, now that you don’t need to attend to the security of hundreds of rebels, I want you to gather information for us. We have no idea of the Raen’s strength, or how many allies there are now, and it is time we did.”
The man blinked in surprise, then, as he considered what this would entail, his expression became serious. This is more dangerous than recruiting rebels. It means going to places the Raen and allies are well known and asking dangerous questions. Is he sending me away because he could hear me thinking about Baluka being a potential rival?
“We ought to find out where the Raen’s home world is, too,” Hapre added, oblivious to her counterpart’s rising panic.
“You don’t have to go yourself,” Tyen reassured Volk. “Recruit spies. It is time we knew more about the enemy.”