"Devilish thoughtless," he whispered to himself. "Wake everyone up with their noise."

He put his head to one side, thinking about what he'd just said, sniffing at the air and catching the faint scent of burning herbs, something he hadn't really noticed before on account of his cold.

"Something is afoot, Watson," he said. "Think of the strange affair of the light-sleeping albino and what happened when the drum was pounding near him. But Holmes, nothing happened. The lad did not wake. Precisely, my dear Watson. Jak has not awakened. Nor did he stir as I blundered out of the tent. Now, why can that be?" Doc crouched behind a young aspen. "But soft, who comes hither?"

A dozen or more men approached him from the center of the camp. They were moving quietly, and Doc could make out the glint of moonlight off edged steel. One of them carried the drum at his waist, beating on it with a padded hammer.

At the front of the group were Schickel and Straub, the latter easily identifiable by his shaved head.

Doc drew his Le Mat and eased back on the hammer, cocking it over the .65-caliber shotgun round. He

held the revolver low, so that the silvery wash of light wouldn't catch on the blaster's gold decoration.

Straub held up his right fist and the drummer stopped. The light was very poor, and Doc strained to see just what it was that the bald man held in his uplifted hand. It was either a short-hafted scythe or a long pair of shearing scissors.

"Doesn't much matter which," Doc breathed, talking to himself to steady his nerves and boost his courage.

For several seconds the menacing gang of brushwood men stood still and silent. Doc watched the tableau, his brain working overtime, making connections the scent of strange herbs; the rhythmic beating of the

drum; the deep sleep of his friends; friends whose reflexes would normally stand comparison with a mountain cougar.

"Mesmerism," he whispered. "Straub has laid some deep hypnotic dream upon them all."

One of the men with Straub and Schickel had gently pulled back the flaps of both tents, peering

cautiously in with a hooded lantern, returning and giving a thumbs-up sign.

"For earth and water and air," Straub said, again lifting what Doc could now see was a pair of long scissors.

Why earth and water and air? Doc wondered. It was probably some sort of mock-mystical incantation.

"Ready?" Straub said to the others, moving a little to one side.

Doc bit his lip. Now he didn't have a clear shot at the leader of the group, who was hidden behind several

of the other men. In that case, Schickel would have to do, as the putative head of the ragged community.

That decided "who."

And it was clear that "when" was now.

"Now," Doc said, steadying his right wrist with his left hand, looking straight down the gold-chased

barrel.

His finger tightened on the trigger.

RYAN HAD BEEN in an uneasy slumber, tossing and turning, aware of physical discomfort, yet not quite able to drag himself clear of the trap of sleep to do anything about it. It was as though he lay beneath a log jam that had crushed his brain, making it impossible for him to act at all.

All of his instincts were yelping at him, trying to warn him that something was grievously wrong. But it was as if his mind were shrouded in several layers of clinging plastic film.

The boom of thunder ripped away that muffling veil and jerked him fully awake, his hand grabbing automatically for the butt of his SIG-Sauer, aware now of screams and shouts from just outside the thin fabric of their tent, aware of J.B., Krysty and Mildred also suddenly coming awake around him.

"Le Mat," the Armorer said, as terse as ever.

THE SHORT UNDER BARREL of the Le Mat carried the 18-gauge scattergun charge. It was hopelessly inaccurate at any range much above twenty paces, where the shot would star out so far that it was only likely to cause relatively minor flesh wounds. But, as a light cavalry handgun, it wasn't likely to be used at anything other than point-blank range.

Schickel was standing about sixteen yards from the dark shadows where Doc was crouched. His face was half-turned away, toward the entrance to the nearer tent, where he was about to order his men to take the helpless outlanders prisoner. Or chill them. It didn't much matter which. Just as long as it gave Straub the chance he needed to get his lusting fingers on the two superbly unique heads of hair sleeping within.

As Straub had rightly said, "If the fucks aren't with us, then that has to mean that they're against us. Nobody argue with that?"

Nobody had argued.

Schickel's mouth was open when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught the tiny red flash of fire from among the bushes to his left.

Before his mind had even begun to attempt the problem of what could have caused the crimson spark, Schickel was hit in the face with unimaginable power.

The pellets had spread out sufficiently to strike the war chief between throat and forehead. His left ear vanished, as did his left eye, pulped by the lead. His left cheek opened up under the impact, and his teeth in both upper and lower jaw were shattered, the jagged splinters of bone driven through by the slugs to rip apart the right cheek, bursting it outward like an exploding melon.

Doc couldn't resist a whoop of delight before concentrating on the fiddling task of shifting the hammer of the massive Le Mat so that it would strike on nine rounds of .44-caliber ammunition.

The attackers were thrown into total confusion by the murderous attack from the blackness. Schickel was down, dying, felled like a stricken oak tree, before they even heard the thunderous boom from the blaster. None of them saw the muzzle-flash, but the billowing cloud of powder smoke among the trees was impossible to miss.

As well as being soaked in arterial blood and peppered with shards of bone, three or four of the men had also been bit by stray pellets from the 18-gauge, one of which had ripped through the big drum.

Schickel was still rolling in the dirt, the fountain of blood already slowed to a trickle as the heart ceased pumping, when panic started.

Straub had reacted quickest among the milling, yelling crowd, turning toward where Doc was crouching, gesturing with the shears. "In there. One of them has escaped us. Take him before the others awaken!"

Ryan heard the words with an unnatural clarity, as if each syllable had been hewn from a mountain of glass.

The moon was strong enough to penetrate the thin fabric of the tent, showing him the silhouettes of a number of people moving around outside. In that first waking moment he had no way of knowing whether they were friend or foe, though all of his combat instincts told him they were hostile.

He fired three quick rounds, aiming high, the bullets ripping up into the night sky, the noise of the shots deafeningly loud inside the tent.

"Outside!" he shouted, hoping that the rest of the group, in the other tent, were all awake and alert. A small part of his mind wondered what Doc was doing out in the trees, firing the Le Mat and causing chaos.

As he dived out, Ryan was immediately aware that there was some serious shit going down.

There was a dozen or more men, most of them with either knives or blasters drawn. Straub stared straight at him, with what looked like a big pair of scissors glittering in his right hand, an automatic pistol in his left. And there was a dying man, half his head blown away, thrashing bloodily in the dirt like a gaffed salmon. There was no sign at all of Doc, whose Le Mat had to have done the chilling.

It was immediately obvious that Ryan didn't have to worry about whether he hit friends or enemies out there.

There were only enemies.

Chapter Eighteen.

The greatest threat to Ryan and his companions came from their own blasters.

Just as Ryan came out from his tent, Jak slithered from the other shelter. Within less than five seconds they were all out in the open night, with blasters ready.

The planned attack on them had turned into a hopeless bloody shambles. The shocking death of Schickel

had thrown everyone into utter confusion, wondering where the next death would strike. Despite all of

Straub's efforts to regain discipline, nobody wanted to stay around.

Ryan put down two more of the brushwood men, picking kill shots in the good light of the sailing moon.

Jak's excellent night vision came to his aid, enabling him to take out another two with the booming .357 Magnum.

In those few moments, the raiders broke and ran.

Seeing that the field was theirs, Ryan shouted for everyone to calm down and stop firing.

"Get your stuff and we'll move out," he yelled.

Doc emerged from the undergrowth, still muttering under his breath, struggling with the Le Mat. "I fear

that I was of scant use after my first preemptive strike," he said. "Now I'm ready to wreak some more

bloody and savage vengeance and the rogues are fled."

"Should go after them and spill some more blood," Trader said, looking longingly toward the main body of the camp, where the fleeing men had vanished. "Could take out the whole lot of the bastards."

"Five dead's enough price." J.B. took off his glasses and polished them on his sleeve. "Agree with Ryan.

This is the time to move out."

Krysty stood with one arm around Dean's shoulders. The boy kept looking from side to side, barely awake, visibly frightened.

"What happened, lover?" she asked.

"Don't know." Ryan shook his head. "Some sort of drug in the food. Something like that, I guess."

"Then how come Doc escaped?" Mildred asked. "He ate what all of us did."

"Ah, I believe that I have the solution to that enigma," Doc said, smiling broadly.

"Not now, Doc." Ryan was watching the camp for any sign of life, particularly for a sight of Straub's bald

head. But the stillness was absolute. It was likely that they might regain their mislaid courage and stage a counterattack at any moment, and next time they might be more careful and successful.

It took only a few moments for everyone to retrieve their scant belongings from the two tents, those who needed to reload their blasters taking the opportunity.

"Ready?" Ryan looked around the circle of faces. "Then let's move it."

THERE WAS NO ATTEMPT at pursuit from the raggedy camp. Not a dog barked and not a shot was fired.

The moon continued its gentle progress across the star-scattered sky, and the temperature dropped further as dawn came closer.

The nine friends followed a trail toward the east. There had been a brief argument about whether they should return to the sea again and make another jump from the redoubt, but only Abe was strongly in favor of that plan.

Trader spoke out against the idea. "I reckon we should seek out this baron. What's his name?"