"You got to be with us," Schickel said, now so angry that a thread of spittle sprayed from his open mouth.

"Now you know what we intend."

Straub turned and looked at him, staring for a long time, until the purple faded from the chief's temples and cheeks. "That's better, friend. Rage makes enemies of friends, doesn't it? And none of us want that."

"They could go tell the baron," Schickel mumbled, but his words seemed to have been dragged from a

long way off, barely audible to the outlanders.

"They won't do that, will you, Cawdor?" Ryan didn't answer. "Because they're honorable men, Schickel. I

understand that, even if you don't." Straub lifted his eyes toward the two outlanders. "Sit, Schickel," he said, without looking around. The war chief sat heavily, like a dumped sack of grain. He looked to be in a stupor, and Ryan recalled Krysty's suspicion that Straub might be some kind of hypnotist.

"We're going to bed now," he said, turning away, followed by J.B.

Straub's voice followed them into the darkness. "Sleep well and safe. You have my word of honor that not

a hair of your heads will be harmed."

When they were a safe distance away, J.B. spit in the dirt. "Honor," he said. "Knows where he can put his honor. Where the sun don't shine."

Chapter Seventeen.

Mildred and Krysty were already under the piles of fur and rags that passed for blankets. Neither had got undressed at all.

"The others sleeping clothed?" Ryan asked as soon as he and J.B. were safely inside the tent.

Krysty nodded. There was a small tallow lamp guttering in a holder, suspended from the low roof, giving only a dim yellow light. "Yes. Jak insisted. Doc wanted to at least pull off his boots, but Jak said we might need to get out fast."

"Straub gave us his word of honor that nobody would harm us during the night," J.B. said.

"He tell you why he's so interested in me and Jak?"

"He's a trader in human hair," Ryan replied. "Sells it to rich bitches for fancy wigs. He said he'd pay high

jack for your hair and for Jak's."

"Smooth, bald shit," Mildred said. "Son of a bastard probably sold his own hair."

Krysty didn't smile. "I tell you, friends, that there's something specially wrong about Straub. I can't read

him at all. We'd do well to leave now."

The Armorer was sitting on the makeshift bed beside Mildred. "They're scared of our blasters, Krysty. I don't think they'd dare try anything." "The two women who showed us to these tents and pointed out the water and relief facilitiesboth of which are the stream about fifty yards eastwere telling us about this baron, Weyman." Mildred was unselfconsciously holding hands with J.B. "Told us that he's a swift and evil man. That it would be better if he was to be overthrown."

"Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" Ryan said. "Of course, they could be telling the truth. Could be we'd do well to support them and pick up some free jack for ourselves. Yeah, could be."

"Then again, lover," Krysty said with a smile, "these mutie pigs might fly."

"We'll move on after dawn tomorrow. Freeload first food off them." Ryan yawned. "Fireblast! Listen to

that drum. Hope that doesn't keep up all night." The sound was steady and regular, coming from somewhere on the far side of the camp, almost like the muffled beating of a huge heart. They all listened for a few moments, but the drumming didn't seem to be getting any louder.

"How about putting a guard on?" J.B. suggested. "Might be safer."

Ryan yawned again. "I don't know. Enough of us here. Enough blasters."

"I think you're wrong." Krysty slapped him on the arm. "Wake up, Ryan. You're dropping off to sleep."

"Mildred's already gone," said J.B., also starting to yawn. "Feel more tired than I'd have thought. Was

going to check the Uzi and the scattergun but, but I guess I'll just leave them this once."

The drumming was echoing around the forest clearing, seeming to come from all sides at once. Krysty crawled across the trampled dirt floor and stuck her head out of the flap, seeing no sign of life. It looked

like everyone in the settlement had packed it in and gone to bed early. It had become much colder, and she could see her breath misting the darkness in front of her.

The rhythmic beat was a little softer and a little slower.

Krysty found herself yawning.

The smoke from the campfires was drifting around, carried on a light, eddying breeze. The woman sniffed

at it, tasting pinon. There was also something different, a sharp and sweet scent of herbs. It reminded her of the incense that they'd burned in an ornate golden container at a Catholic church she'd once visited when she was a little girl.

She yawned again, blinking her eyes, feeling them growing heavy.

From the tent next door, Krysty caught the sonorous sound of Doc snoring. He'd been complaining that he had a badly blocked nose and hadn't really been able to savor much of the venison at supper. The old man

had insisted that Trader snored far worse than he did and had even gone to the extreme lengths of shoving bits of shredded rag into his ears to try to sleep better and cut out the noise.

"Doc's well away," she said, pulling the flap across the front of their tent.

But nobody answered her.

All three of them were fast asleep.

Krysty lay down beside Ryan, feeling his body move a little as she eased herself close to him for comfort.

The last thing she saw as she drifted into the warm, waiting blackness was the strange dark-and-silver eyes of the man who called himself Straub.

AS HE GOT OLDER, Doc had become increasingly aware of niggling problems stemming from what his

mother would have called "the waterworks."

When he took a leak it no longer gushed out in a proud, forceful stream. Nowadays it tended to be more of a forked dribble, and he would find himself standing there, behind a tree, for what seemed like hours on end, waiting to finish.

The other aspect of the problem came to Doc in the still of the night.

In his youth it generally happened that he was able to go all the way through the night without needing to take a single piss. Now it wasn't that unusual for him to have to get up three or even four times.

He opened his eyes, rubbing at them, aware of the now familiar pressure on his bladder.

"By the Three Kennedys!" he muttered softly. "Is there no respite from this?"

For a few beats of the heart he lay still, wondering whether the gods might be kind to him and allow him

to slip back into sleep.

But it was a waste of time.

His body wouldn't be denied.

Sighing, Doc kicked off the sheepskin robe that had been keeping him warm, taking great care not to

disturb the others. Even though he knew from previous experience that it was almost impossible to stir a limb without waking Jak, probably jerking Trader from sleep, as well.

But this time he was lucky. He sniffed, aware that his cold had eased, which was one small blessing to be grateful for. His knees creaked as he stood, stooping under the ridge of the tent. The night seemed oddly silent, until Doc remembered that he'd stuffed some small pieces of cotton rag into his ears to shut out the endless rasping of Trader's snoring.

He took them out and placed them carefully in a pocket of his ancient frock coat.

"What?" he whispered.

There was the sound of a drum, coming from somewhere within the camp, very soft, its rhythm like a

much-slowed heart.

Doc opened the flap of his tent and peered out. He saw a quarter moon, riding high behind slivers of thin cloud, but there was no sign of life.

There was a ghostly frost dusting the ruts and furrows of the track through the camp. Doc remembered something about a stream a little way to the east, and he picked his way in that direction, guided by the faint sound of tumbling water, a sound that began to work on his "problem," making it more urgent.

The banks of the narrow river were steep in places, but the trail led to a shallow ford. Doc stood at its edge and unbuttoned, taking the habitual precaution of looking all around him to make sure he wasn't being observed.

A large owl sat on the low branch of the nearest redwood, staring intently at Doc, who discreetly turned his back on the bird.

When he finally finished, Doc was vaguely aware that the drumming had been getting even slower, each muffled beat now seven or eight seconds apart.

He buttoned up his breeches and started to pick his careful way back toward the tent. A sheet of thin ice glazed over some of the puddles, and Doc stopped for a moment, just within the fringe of trees, to work out the best route across the frozen mud.

The tent where Ryan was sleeping with Krysty, J.B. and Mildred was a little closer to him, barely twenty yards off, his own tent just beyond it.

Standing quite still in his black clothes, Doc was almost invisible.

The slowly beating drum was closer and louder, as though it were being carried through the sleeping camp.