Abide With Me

Networking

Madam War Guna Dena stirred a pot of simmering vegetables with one hand, flipped several frying fish with the other and simultaneously directed her cohorts verbally, "Easy on the spices, Amaya, the DaNi are mild eaters. Jisha, time to put the fish into the stew, be generous, the Beavers will thank you!" Though outwardly in command of both herself and the Camp, she was a mother and a wife. Her eyes scanned the inky night sky for any bearer of good tidings.

Meanwhile, several otter and beaver teens had been roped in to pack the cooked food for the Chief and his troops already deployed on the mountainside. Huge leaves of the Banana and Teak trees were cut and partially wilted over coals. The fresh food was placed into these and folded into neat parcels. String from Banana stems were used to tie them off. Eco-friendly, camouflaged!

Madam War blew shrilly on a whistle, and Nightjars and Barn Owls began descending in twos and threes. Parcels were tied to their fronts with banana string. The birds rose silently with their burden, winging their way across down the mountainside. Very briefly there was a twinkling of flame from the forest below, gone in an instant! The Nightjar leading the supply- dropping sortee pulled at the banana string and the parcel whooshed down to the canopy and disappeared! As the remaining birds on night duty took off, there appeared four more twinkling lights outlining an area. They went out almost instantly. The signal received, the Owls and Nightjars carried out several more dropping runs and returned to camp quietly. That night, every soldier, wife and mother slept well - stomachs full, hearts hopeful!

In a dry gulch, under a rocky overhang, Chieftain War Guna Dena stretched out his legs with a sigh. His Aide-de-Camp handed him a food packet. Appetizing smells arose from the parcel the sergeant had retrieved. "Let's eat, Boys!" Chief Dena tore into his parcel. "Buriyani* and fried fish, and Pol Sambol*!" The Chief looked amazed, for the rest of the team's dinner featured Seeni Sambol*, that he himself absolutely detested! "To Madam War Guna Dena!" The soldiers smiled and toasted their benefactress with chicken legs and fell to with enthusiasm.

From deep inside the bowels of the mountain the Recon team silently withdrew and exited through the older adits on the mountainside, on the far side of the river from where Lori and Linghun Shiezei stood. As they traversed the mountainside, the moon dipped behind some clouds and the team vanished! If there seemed to be an unusual number of fireflies, flying in an organised and purposeful manner, no one except HRH's Intel team noticed.

Said Intel team, remotely headed by Captain Natasha Rovenayaka, was in a state of frenzied parley with 11 forces across three Realms and two countries! The Millona Coffee House was an ordinary place, with humans, otters and birds all flocking towards the aromatic hot and cold brews being dispensed by the owners, a mother-daughter Beaver duo. The working class, the executives, the students, the maids, the duo had their fingers on the throbbing pulse of Gampaha Town. Into this non-descript setting stepped a young lady, barely out of her teens, carrying a large case.

Choosing a corner table, she pulled out a complex looking abacus-like device from the case and set it in front of herself and stared worriedly at it, until the mother Beaver came up and said, "The usual?" Nodding abstractedly at the abacus, the young lady moved a few coloured beads studied them and muttered, 'These placements aren't working! I need eyes in Sigiriya, eyes and ears in Ampara, hands in Gampaha and lots of hands and legs in Ratnapura. The hands I have, are in Negombo... how do I get them from here...' she moved a red bead on the 12th rod of the abacus, 'to there, under the cover of night, all within 48 hours?' She moved a black bead on the lower half of the 16th rod.

"Oh, Naenda* Prisha, the usual, times six, my group is coming!" Over the next fifteen minutes, a motley crew of two students - a boy and a girl, a salesgirl Otter from a large shopping centre, a Math teacher Owl and a young DaNi dressed like a miner, entered the Millona Cafe a few minutes apart. They each nodded at the cafe's owners and drifted casually to the table in the corner. Aunty Prisha threw a rather old and rumpled cloth screen across the back of the shop and serenely continued dishing out hot drinks and snacks.