"Sharpening?" Fierral's red hair glinted as she shook her head.

"They get nicked when they fight," said Ryba dryly. "How do we find this Skiodra?"

"He will find you if you fly the trade banner."

"We don't have a pole or a trade banner," pointed out Ayrlyn.

"Poles we can make," said Nylan, turning toward Narliat. "What does a trade banner look like?"

"A trade banner." The armsman shrugged. "It is a white banner with a dark square in the middle."

"We can put something like that together,"

"With what?" asked Ayrlyn. "I didn't notice such things as needles or thread in the survival paks."

"There are some needles in the medical kits-for sutures," said Ryba.

Nylan frowned, wondering why Ryba was so familiar with the medical kits. That hadn't been her training at all. Then again, as captain, she'd looked at everything.

He'd been mostly involved in solving the shelter problem.

"We'll also have to make a show offeree when this Skiodra shows up."

Ayrlyn translated for Narliat.

"Skiodra is very polite if you are strong." The armsman shrugged. "If not, you become slaves, and he sells you to the traders from Hamor. That happened to a cousin of Memsenn's. She lived on a farm outside of Dellash. One day Skiodra passed by, and when her consort came home, she was gone. He chased Skiodra's men, and they killed him."

"Not a pleasant fellow." Fierral's fingers went to her sidearm.

"I don't think any of Candar is what we'd term peaceful," said Ryba. "The only way to ensure peace is through strength."

"That was what Lord Nessil said. But. . . now that he is dead, it may be that the Jeranyi will march, or the Suthyans." Narliat edged closer to the fire, then looked at the angels around him. "Truly, you are people of the winter. Is Heaven cold?"

"Colder than Candar, even than here," replied Ayrlyn, "except maybe in winter."

Across the fire, Gerlich and Selitra stood and eased away into the shadows, hand in hand.

Ryba and Nylan exchanged looks.

Ayrlyn snorted. "Poor woman. Thinks she's special."

"I've warned them," added Fierral, "but it does get lonely."

"I would make you less lonely ..." volunteered Narliat.

Fierral shot a look at Narliat, who immediately glanced at the darkness beyond the fire.

"He's learning Temple fast," laughed Ayrlyn. "Even if it's not that different from Anglorat."

"Too fast," said Fierral.

"Supper's ready," called Saryn. "Such as it is."

At the call of supper, even Gerlich and Selitra reappeared, no longer quite hand in hand.

Nylan followed the others, getting his helping of mush and chunk of blackened rodent, as well as a few berries and a chunk of wild onion. The roughly circular wooden platter was the result of a collaboration between some of the marines and Narliat.

He sat farther from the fire, on a boulder overlooking the landers, using his fingers and a crudely carved spoon he had made. The slightly charred rodent was tastier than the mush, but he ate both, and washed them down with water from the plastic cup he had claimed and kept.

Beside him, Ryba ate, equally silent.

After he finished, Nylan stood. "I'm going to rinse this off, and rack it, and wash up. Then I'm going to collapse."

"Wait for me." Ryba finished her last mouthful of mush. "I won't be too long. I have to check with Fierral to make sure the sentries are set."

"All right." Nylan walked over to the side branch of the stream, diverted for the purpose of washing, and rinsed off the wooden platter, then used the scattering of fine sand to wash his hands. After that he rinsed them and splashed off his face.

"Next," said a voice.

He looked up to see Ayrlyn standing there. "Sorry." He stood and moved away from the stream.

She smiled. "You don't have to be."

"You're doing well with Narliat."

"He figures he'd better do well. He doesn't have anywhere else to go. Besides, he likes the ratio of men to women."

"Has anyone .. . ?"

"Right now, Ryba would have their heads, but that won't last. She probably knows that, too. She thinks of everything." Ayrlyn paused. "Just be careful, Nylan.

She uses everyone."

He nodded, hoping the darkness would cover his lack of enthusiasm.

Ayrlyn bent to rinse her platter, and Nylan walked to the lander, passing a pair of marines on the way. One was Huldran, the stocky blond who helped with stone-cutting; the other a solid brunette whose name he had not learned.

"Evening, ser."

"Good evening, Huldran. Are you on sentry duty?"

"Not tonight. Not tonight."

Once in the forward area of the lander, Nylan pulled off his boots. Then he sat in the darkness for a time barefooted, before he pulled off the shipsuit that, despite careful washing, was getting both frayed and stained.

When Ryba still did not appear, he finally stretched out, folding the cover back to just above his waist. His shoulders and his forearms ached, and his feet hurt.

He also worried about Ryba-their relationship. A lot of the time she was distant, commanding, just like he imagined an antique nomad-liege of Sybra. Of course, that was her heritage, and Candar seemed to reinforce those traits.

In the distance, he could hear laughter, but could not recognize the voices.

As his eyes began to close, he heard footsteps on the hard floor of the lander, and he propped himself up on his elbow. "I told you I wouldn't be long." Slowly, Ryba slipped out of her boots, and then out of the shipsuit, and eased under the thin cover. Her lips were cool, but found his, and her skin was like satin against him.

Later-much, much later-they eased apart, although Ryba's hand held his for a moment.

"Don't go away." Ryba rolled away from Nylan. "I'll be back in a moment."

"Where would I go?"

She ruffled his hair slightly and pulled on her shipsuit over her naked body, thrusting her bare feet into her shipboots- boots that were beginning to wear, as were everyone's.

Nylan wondered absently if traders had boots, or if footwear would become yet another problem. He leaned back on the couch, letting the cool air from the door waft over him. Sometimes ... on the one hand, Ryba was a good leader, captain, whatever, and she was receptive, sometimes aggressive in sex ... and yet... he sometimes felt more like an object than a person.

His eyes closed. It had been a long day, as were they all, and he.was barely aware when Ryba returned, slipping off her suit and lying beside him under the thin blanket that was almost too hot.

XVI.

THE SUN HAD barely cleared the trees on the eastern side of the sheer drop-off at the base of the meadow when Nylan laid the endurasteel brace and the crowbarlike local blade beside one of Ryba's Sybran blades. Beneath the blades was a crude quench trough, half-filled with water and the hydraulic oil for which there was really no other use-not for centuries, probably.

Then the engineer walked around the working space outside the base of the unfinished tower construction. Should he consider a dry moat as well? He shook his head. Half the year or more a moat would be a bug-filled mess, and the other half the high snows would render it useless.

"Stop spacing out. Get on with it," he muttered, turning to the firm cells. The power bank was down to twenty percent, and the system wouldn't work at levels below twelve. His eyes went to the windmill, which turned in the lighter morning breeze. The cell being charged was over eighty percent. Another day might find it at ninety percent if the wind picked up, if...

Nylan laughed ruefully. Far less than a day of continuous heavy laser usage would discharge one bank of cells, and it would take nearly half a local season to recharge the individual cells in just one of the four banks they had brought down from the Winterlance. The more he tightened the beam and the shorter the energy pulse, though, the less the effective power drain, and that meant some things were less power-intensive. Darkness knew he'd better find less power- intensive ways to use the laser.

With a little more than half the stone for the tower cut, he'd exhausted two banks and most of the third. The emergency charger had recharged three cells, but each bank held ten. Still ... he had gotten more proficient with managing the laser's power flows, and each row of stones took a shade less power. Also, the cut edges and leftover chunks could be used, perhaps for the less exposed inside walls.

Terwhit... terwhit. The call of one of the birds-a green and brown scavenger- drifted across the high meadow from beyond the field, along with the smoke from the small cook fire.

The engineer studied the curves of the Sybran blade again, with his eyes, senses, and fingers, frowning as his senses touched a slight imperfection in the hilt. Then he grinned. Who was he deceiving? He was no bladesmith, just a dumb engineer trying to figure out how to counterfeit a workable sword while no one was around to second-guess him if his idea didn't work-using questionable techniques in an even more questionable environment.

Terwhit. With a rustle of feathers, the small greenish-brown bird flitted from a twisted pine in the higher rocks behind the partly built tower toward the firs in the lower southwest corner of the high meadow.

Nylan ran his fingers over the Sybran blade again, then picked up the endurasteel brace he had unbolted from one of the landers. Again, he forced himself to feel the metal. It also had several imperfections hidden from sight- Heaven-based quality control or not.

Finally, he powered up the firin cell bank, pulled on the goggles and the gauntlets, and picked up the heavy brace. After readjusting the laser, he pulsed the beam, slowly cutting along what felt like the grain of the metal. He pursed his lips, considering the apparent idiocy of what he did- guiding a laser with a sense of feel he could not even define to create an antique blade out of a brace from a high-tech spaceship lander.

The heavy tinted goggles protected his eyes, although he realized that he wasn't using his vision, but that sense of feel, a sense that somehow seemed to break everything into degrees of something. What that something was and how he would categorize it were more questions he couldn't answer.

He didn't try, instead releasing the power stud and letting his senses check the cut and the metal-which felt rough, almost disordered.

With another deep breath, he flicked on the laser and spread the beam for a wider heat flow, using his senses and the power from the laser to shape and order the edge of the blade, trying to replicate something like the feel of the . Sybran blade.

After the second pass, he unpowered the laser and pushed back the goggles, wiping his forehead. Then he bent and picked up the plastic cup, swallowed the last of the water in it, and set the empty cup back on the ground beside the cell bank where the power cable wouldn't hit it.

One of the marines-Istril-sat atop one of the rocky ledges and watched as he readjusted the goggles and studied the model blade again.

Once more, he picked up the metal that had been a brace and triggered the laser, shifting his grip, and trying to ensure that his gauntlets were well away from the ordered line of powered chaos emanating from the powerhead.

After his first rough effort at shaping the blade, he turned to the curved hand guards and tang. As he shaped the metal, he tried to smooth it, just as he once had smoothed power fluxes through the Winterlance's neuronet. When the rough shape was completed, he unpowered the laser and checked the cells-a drop of less than one percent so far. Not too bad for a first try.

He pushed back the goggles and blotted the area around his eyes, then studied the blank blade. Even with one rough cut, the shape looked better than the local metal crowbars.

He could feel Istril's eyes on him, but he did not look toward the rocks. The smoke from the cook fire was more pronounced, as was the hum of people talking. He did not look toward the landers, either. Instead, he inhaled, then exhaled deeply and replaced the goggles and lifted the laser.

Trying not to feel like an idiot, he triggered the laser and continued to use his mental netlike sense and the power of the laser to work the metal, almost to smooth the grains into an ordered pattern while trying to create the equivalent of a razor edge on both sides of the blade.

By the time he finished with the laser, not that long it seemed, sweat poured down his forehead, out and around the goggles, and his knees trembled. Done with the laser, he set the powerhead down and waited as the metal cooled toward the color of straw.

The oil - and - water mixture in the crude trough felt right, but whether it was .

.. time would tell. Using the modified space gauntlets, he swirled the mixture in the trough and eased the blade into it, letting his new sense guide the tempering- or retempering. Then he laid the blade on the sheltered sunny side of the black boulder where it would complete cooling more slowly.

He set aside the goggles and checked the power meters- a drop of one percent, maybe a little more. He nodded. He could make something that looked like a blade, but was it any good?

As he saw Ryba's broad-shouldered figure striding grimly toward him, he offered himself a smile. He'd get one opinion all right-and soon.

"Why did you take my blade? It had to be you. No one else would-"

Nylan held up a hand to stop her. "I'm guilty. I didn't hurt it. I needed a model, and I didn't want to feel like a fool."

"Model for what?"

His eyes turned toward the flat rock where his effort rested.

"Darkness! How did you do that?"

"Art, laser, dumb luck-all of the above. Don't touch it; it's still hot enough to burn your skin, and I don't know if it will work. It looks right; it feels right, but I'm no swordsman. It could shatter the minute it's used. I don't think so, but it could."

Ryba stepped up to the blade and looked down at the slight curves of the deep black metal. "It's beautiful."

"Technology helps," Nylan admitted. "But I don't know if it will even work. It could break apart at the first blow."

"I don't think it will." Ryba looked at him. "It looks like it will last forever."

"It doesn't matter what it looks like. It's how it feels and lasts."

She studied the blade again. "I need to teach you more about using blades. It would be a shame for someone who can create this not to be able to use it well."

"You don't even know if it's right."

Ryba's dark green eyes met his. "About some things, I can tell."

Nylan shrugged.

"How many of these can you make?"

"Over time, enough for everyone, and probably a few more. I'd guess a little less than a two-percent charge on the bank for each. But I don't want to do that many until we've got enough stone for the tower."