Everyone shows up: April (Sister Joann), Tim (Sir Brindal Karth), Nick (Brother Xavier), and Chris (Peter Sangaree). Unfortunately, everyone is slightly burnt out so things swiftly fall to the less-demanding allure of computer games. In particular, the singularly brain-dead Worms2 has acquired an incomprehensible fan base among the player population.
The characters elect to head upriver in the Sutter Kane's pinnace. The pinnace takes eight men to row, or three to sail, so the group picks out six of the Sutter Kane crew to man the boat. There is a certain amount of debate over whether or not to bring along the surveyor, Freeman Seaden Quinn. The final decision is to leave him at the base camp with the task of finding a good site for a permanent settlement. Fr. Quinn estimates that this job will take two or three weeks. To provide for the journey, the characters lay in several barrels of rice, a couple of bottles of multivitamins, and a touch of nutmeg for Brindal Karth. In addition, Brother Xavier secretes a supply of mint julep among his goods. To provide a touch of variety in their diets and stave off nutrition-deficiency diseases, the characters also bring fishing gear.
From the maps the characters brought from the Surreveil Valley monastery, the river goes through the mountains about 250 kilometers upriver. Sailing upriver at a rate of some 3 to 8 kph should place the characters in the mountains within five to seven days. To speed the journey and reduce crew morale, the group elects to spend part of the evening rowing, after the wind dies down too much to permit good sailing. To keep themselves safe at night, Sir Brindal Karth volunteers to keep watch with his Evil (infrared) Eye.
After two days of marshy vistas and tangled agwaro groves, the characters have seen a wide variety of flora and fauna. Several types of marsh birds live in the river flats and rise into the sky shrieking when the characters' boat goes by. Early on the second evening, Brother Xavier sees a series of eight-limbed furred creatures drinking from the river's edge and shoots one, commenting, "Got it. Hope it wasn't sentient." The rest of the group refrains from comment as the creature is swiftly cleaned, dressed, and converted into dinner. The group also has fairly consistently good luck fishing. Most of their catch they dub "near-eels." The creatures have four main fins (two lateral, one ventral and one dorsal) extending back to a whiplike tail. They may look odd, but they prove to be good eating.
Four days into the trip, Sir Brindal Karth sees three VERTOLs fly overhead, traveling northward towards the coast. The characters assume that between the darkness and the VERTOLs' speed they probably were not detected.
By the sixth day of the characters' journey, the mountains are visibly closer and the river banks have become high and difficult to pass. The characters start to think that something important when one of the seamen pulls up a fairly recent-looking boot on his fishing line. Sir Brindal Karth has the pinnace pulled up to the shore. Brindal Karth heads up a nearby tree to get the lay of the land. He spots a suspiciously industrial-looking cloud of white, puffy steam rising from a site in the mountains to the West. Bob Lungflook manages to determine the position of the boat based upon a sun sighting, putting the skills he learned as an air pirate on Delphi to good use.
The group leaves four of the Sutter Kane crew with the pinnace at the shore. They take the remaining two crewmen with them as they head towards the mountains.
As the group is picking it's way across an escarpment, a bullet zings off the rock near Brother Xavier's feet. It soon turns out that the characters have been encountered by three rangers whose leader claims to be out looking for "nobilists." The leader eventually gets around to introducing himself as Ribben, and explains that he and his cohorts are all "democrats." This is something of a strange concept to the characters, who stare at him uncomprehendingly.
Some conversation follows, in which it develops that Ribben and his men are actually looking for patrols sent out by the local Vuldrok. It also appears that all of them hail from the Chibren Cooperative, a government that nobody has ever heard of, that has managed to stay concealed in the upper Anquelline river basin for hundreds of years.
Sir Brindal Karth, following a hunch, asks Ribben, "So, how to you feel about the Universal Church?" Ribben answers, "Say what? Never heard of it." Brindal Karth immediately blurts out, "I love you people!" Taken aback by Brindal Karth's enthusiasm, Ribben explains that there is spirit in everything: in him, in Brindal, in the tree, in the rock, even in Brother Xavier (who looks at Ribben with an expression fit to kill). As long as the spirits are happy, things will go your way. By the end of Ribben's little speech, both Brother Xavier and Sister Joann are completely convinced that the entire Chibren Cooperative is full of pagans and heretics.
With the introductory niceties out of the way, Ribben leads the characters back to North Ridge City.
The characters find that North Ridge City is the source of the steam cloud they had spotted earlier. The entire place is built into the side of a mountain, and is obviously almost completely invisible from the air. As the characters are led up a hidden path and through a shadowed door, they recognize that the Chibren have put a surprising amount of effort into making themselves inobvious.
Once inside North Ridge City, the characters are confronted by a crowd of troops armed with an array of weapons ranging from simple bolt-action rifles to a single assault blaster. These soldiers insist that the characters hand over their weapons, a request that most of the characters (Brother Xavier being the obvious holdout) comply with promptly.
Once the soldiers are convinced that the characters have been rendered somewhat less dangerous, a middle-aged woman in a cream-colored overall approaches and introduces herself as Senator Ipegia Peppin. She claims that she represents some of the folk of North Ridge City, and is a member of the Defense Committee. By now, the characters have started to get some idea of the scale of the Chibren Cooperative, and ask the Senator how large the Cooperative really is. She glibly notes that they have three cities, and number almost half a million people, every single one of them a voting democrat.
The characters ask Senator Peppin about the Vuldrok. She explains that there have been raiders from the Utag Kingdom (which appears to be one of several Vuldrok nations) around the Chibren Cooperative for the last ten years, extracting tribute and support. They maintain a local base with about twelve technicians on-site, plus a landing field able to support up to two assault landers, and barracks sufficient for 1200 men. In exchange for (relative) immunity, the Chibren provide them with fuel, parts, and whatever else catches their fancy.
The characters are immediately seized with thoughts on how best to destroy the base or ambush the VERTOLs that operate from it, including sabotaging the fuel supply, sneaking bombs onto the landing field, and simply telling the Hawkwoods about it so they can bomb it from orbit. At this point, the Senator pipes up with some concerns about keeping the existence of the Chibren Cooperative secret from the Hawkwoods. To allay her suspicions, Bob Lungflook explains that though Sir Brindal Karth may be a lousy noble, he's the most liberal noble that Bob has ever run into. Brindal Karth completely blows this endorsement away by flat-out admitting that he's a Third Republic sympathizer and actively believes that the Guilds will inevitably win as soon as they are able to eliminate the corrosive influence of the Universal Church.
With the conversation pretty much shattered, Senator Peppin tells the characters that they will need to attend a meeting of the full Defense Committee of the Senate tomorrow in Chibren. She assures them that Groupleader Ribben will show them to a commissary where they can eat, and then will arrange transportation to Chibren.
The commissary food proves to be highly-spiced lentil stew, plus corn bread. There is very little meat in evidence, most of it apparently game. When asked about diet, Groupleader Ribben explains that the Cooperative uses wide-canopy trees to conceal their fields from overhead observation, and breeds their crop plants to use little light. Unfortunately, this tends to limit their diet. Breeding animals on anything approaching a large scale is right out, as the byproducts of a high-density feedlot would be too hard to hide (the high nitrate concentrations could be detected right up to the Anquelline River delta, for example).
The characters' transportation to Chibren proves to be a simple truck of rather great age. The driver takes them along a narrow road concealed from above by trees and rather reminiscent of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Most of the journey is accomplished under cover of darkness. The river crossing is made upon a ferry equipped with a camouflage top that is claimed to make it look like another part of the river to a satellite. The characters finally arrive in Chibren late at night, where they are shown to a common rooming-house to sleep.
The next morning, the characters are escorted to the Senate Hall in Chibren and introduced to the Defense Committee: Senator Hareb (a military specialist), Senator Yemena (an industrial specialist), Senator Pythas (an environmentalist), and Senator Peppin (whom the characters have already met). Their discussion is fairly short, and boils down to one simple point: the Chibren Cooperative would very much like to dispose of the Utag Kingdom troops in their midst, but haven't been able to come up with a good way to do it. The characters represent a new resource to them, and might be able to come up with a plan to get rid of the raiders. Both the characters and the Senators agree that to be effective, any such plan needs to deal with not only the local outpost but also the main Utag base onworld.
To help the characters in their efforts, Senator Hareb provides the characters with permission to use Chibren military records. He promises that their archives include detailed records on the Utag aircraft that use the local base, down to the level of individual VERTOLs and schedules. He also promises that he will have the characters briefed by Ranger officers on the current strength of the Chibren military (such as it may be).
Before the characters are released to return to their boat, the Senators have them sign a document swearing to never reveal the existence of the Chibren Cooperative to any outside group. Special exception is provided for a limited number of their companions and aides (Peter Sangaree). The way the document is written, the characters are swearing in the names of the Chibren Cooperative and the spirits of the Anquelline River basin. Both Brother Xavier and Sister Joann mark that section out and swear under the eye of the Pancreator.
The characters end the session preparing to depart the Chibren Cooperative, nine days after departing their outpost near the Gieresport Airport. Each character gains five experience points.