The meeting broke up to adjourn to Togo-san's workshop. There was bamboo there in plenty, and young men eager to help the ex-lieutenant of Axenites in testing his device. As the week wore on, young Kansans appeared from other villages, called by blabrigars and messengers on camelopard-back to join the army that was to make brothers and sisters of the troopers of First Regiment.
The blowgun Hartford finally established as his field model was some two yards long, made of bamboo bored through the joints and polished smooth within, of a caliber somewhat less than the diameter of a man's little finger. Though the bamboo-tube was somewhat flexible, Togo-san and his apprentices were able to bind a front sight to the muzzle, allowing somewhat greater accuracy that could be obtained by pointing and hoping.
The dart was about the length of a man's hand. Its point was a sliver of bamboo, sharp as steel, entirely sharp enough to penetrate the tough material of a safety-suit if puffed from the blowgun with enough force.
All the craftsmen of the village became arms-makers. They drilled bamboo, polished the bore with abrasive-coated cord, fitted on the sights and tested their blowguns against the targets. Hundreds of darts were turned out for practice, and the most perfect were saved for the battlefield itself. The blowgunners began their drill, shooting from a prone position at targets as far as ten yards off, as great a range as amateurs could be expected to shoot with accuracy in the short time these had for practice.
To fire the blowgun, the dart was wrapped in a bit of silk of sunflower-stalk-fluff, so that it would fit tightly into the tube. The puff that sent it on its way had to be sharp and hard. Achieving the proper slap of air took more practice even than aiming.
Hartford became every day a better horseman, or rather camelopardist. He in fact rejoiced in opportunities to leap-frog into his saddle, fit his feet and legs into the leather gambadoes, and go hailing off into the hills to recruit men and material. He carried with him the radio he'd salvaged from his safety-suit, and could from time to time pick up First Regiment transmissions. The bitcher from his suit was useful in training large numbers of recruits on the blowgun range, and would be used when the Kansan guerrillas took the field against the troopers. He was picking up the language rapidly, now. He had to use Takeko's services as interpreter less and less. Her usefulness declined not a bit, though, as the girl became his first lieutenant in charge of details.
The band of expert puff-gunners was joined by a company of scouts. These men and women skulked the hills afoot or astride camelopards, spying out the programs of the Regiment. Having no radio to maintain contact with Yamamura, each scout carried a pair of blabrigars, 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 bai............