And no one was more surprised than Basom when Anketam said: "Basom, do you think you could handle the crew in the field?" Basom couldn't even find his tongue for several more paces. When he discovered at last that it was still in his mouth, where he'd left it, he said: "I ... I'll try, Ank. I sure will try, if you want me to. But ... well ... I mean, why pick _me_?" Old Blejjo chuckled knowingly. Jacovik, who hardly knew the boy, just looked puzzled. "Why not you?" Anketam countered. "Well ... you've always said I was lazy. And I am, I guess." "Sure you are," said Anketam. "So am I. Always have been. But a smart lazy man can figure out things that a hard worker might overlook. He can find the easy, fast way to get a job done properly. And he doesn't overwork his men because he knows that when he's tired, the others are, too. You want to try it, Basom?" "I'll try," said Basom earnestly. "I'll try real hard." Then, after a moment's hesitation. "Just one thing, Anketam--" "What's that?" "Kevenoe. I don't want him coming around me. Not at all. If he ever said one word to me, I'd probably break his neck right there." Anketam nodded. The Chief had given Zillia to Kevenoe only two months before, and the only one who liked the situation was Kevenoe himself. "I'll deal with Kevenoe, Basom," Anketam said. "Don't you worry about that." "All right, then," Basom said. "I'll do my best, Anketam." "You'd better," said Anketam. "If you don't, I'll just have to give the job to someone else. You hear?" "I hear," said Basom. V The war dragged on. In the spring of the following year, over a hundred thousand Invader troops landed on the seacoast a hundred miles from Chromdin and began a march on the capital. But somebody had forgotten to tell the Invader general that it rained in that area in the spring and that the mud was like glue. The Invader army bogged down, and, floundering their way toward Chromdin, they found themselves opposed by an army of nearly a hundred thousand Xedii troops under General Jojon, and the invasion came to a standstill at that point. Farther to the west, another group of forty thousand Invader troops came down from the Frozen Country, and a Xedii general named Oljek trounced them with a mere seventeen thousand men. All in all, the Invaders were getting nowhere, but they seemed determined to keep on plugging. The news only filtered slowly into the areas which were situated well away from the front. A thousand miles to the west of Chief Samas' barony, the Invaders began cutting deeply into Xedii territory, but they were nowhere near the capital, so no one was really worried. Anketam worked hard at keeping the barony going during the absence of The Chief. Instead of _cataca_, he and Jacovik planted food crops, doing on a larger scale just what they had always done in the selected sections around the villages. They had always grown their own food, and now they were doing it on a grand scale.