ncy, to wait until the nobles had stopped, climbed out of their
tankettes, equipped themselves equally, and a mutual ground of battle
had been agreed upon. In that case, three against one would make short
work of it.

The better chance lay with the woods and the tribesmen. It was the
better chance, but Geoffrey did not relish it. He scowled as he dropped
a primer charge down the rifle's barrel, followed it with a cartridge,
took a cooled bullet from Myka, and tamped it down with the ramrod until
it was firmly gripped by the collar on the cartridge. He took a square
of clean flannel from its compartment in the butt and carefully wiped
the lenses of the telescopic sight.

"Can I stop now?" Myka asked.

Geoffrey looked at her sharply. It had never occurred to him that the
woman might simply be humoring him, and yet that was the tone her voice
had taken. Truth to tell, he had simply handed her the stove, pig lead,
and mold, and told her to go to work.

He looked at her now, remembering that he'd been hurried and possibly
brusque. It ought not to matter--though it did--since she was hardly a
lady entitled to courtesy. She hardly looked like anything, after hours
crouched inside the tankette.

Her copper hair was smeared with grease, disarranged, and even singed
where she had presumably leaned against a hot fitting. Her clothes were
indescribably dirty and limp with perspiration. She was quite pale, and
seemed to be fighting nausea--hardly surprising, with the exhaust fumes
that must have been present in the compartment.

Nevertheless, her hair glinted where the sun struck it, and her
litheness was only accented by the wrinkled clothing. Over-accented,
Geoffrey thought to himself as he looked at the length of limb revealed
by her short trousers.

He flushed. "Of course. Thank you." He looked at the pile of finished
bullets. There were enough of them to stand off an army, provided only
the army did not shift about behind rocks and trees as the tribesmen
did, or was not equally armed, as the nobles would be. Yet, a man had to
try to the end. "You don't expect this to do much good," he said to the
woman.

Myka grinned at him. "Do you?"

"No, frankly. But why did you help me?"

"To keep you busy."

"I see." He didn't. He scooped the bullets up, put them in one pocket,
and dropped the cartridges in another. He stood up.

"There wasn't any point in letting you get nervous," Myka explained.
"You can be quite a deadly