“Maybe so, maybe not,” Jonas said. “In any case, they’re Affiliation brats, sons of big estates off in the Green Somewhere, if Rimer and that fool he works for have it straight. That means we’ll be very, very careful. Walk easy, like on eggshells. Why, we’ve got three more months here, at least! And those young’uns may be here that whole time, counting this ’n counting that and putting it all down on paper. Folks counting things ain’t good for us right now. Not for men in the resupply business.”

“Come on! It’s make-work, that’s all—a slap on the wrist for getting in trouble. Their daddies—”

“Their daddies know Farson’s in charge of the whole Southwest Edge now, and sitting on high ground. The brats may know the same—that playtime’s purt’ near over for the Affiliation and all its pukesome royalty. Can’t know, Clay. With folks like these, you can’t know which way they’ll jump. At the very least, they may try to do a half-decent job just to try and get on the good side o’ their parents again. We’ll know better when we see em, but I tell you one thing: we can’t just put guns to the backs of their heads and drop them like broke-leg hosses if they see the wrong thing. Their daddies might be mad at em alive, but I think they’d be very tender of em dead—that’s just the way daddies are. We’ll want to be trig, Clay; as trig as we can be.”

“Better leave Depape out of it, then.”

“Roy will be fine,” Jonas said in his quavery voice. He dropped the stub of his cigarette to the floor and crushed it under his bootheel. He looked up at The Romp’s glassy eyes and squinted, as if calculating. “Tonight, your friend said? They arrived tonight, these brats?”

“Yep.”

“They’ll be in to see Avery tomorrow, then, I reckon.” This was Herk Avery, High Sheriff of Mejis and Chief Constable of Hambry, a large man who was as loose as a trundle of laundry.

“Reckon so,” Clay Reynolds said. “To present their papers ’n all.”

“Yes, sir, yes indeedy. How-d’you-do, and how-d’you-do, and how-d’you-do again.”

Reynolds said nothing. He often didn’t understand Jonas, but he had been riding with him since the age of fifteen, and knew it was usually better not to ask for enlightenment. If you did, you were apt to end up listening to a cult-manni lecture about the other worlds the old buzzard had visited through what he called “the special doors.” As far as Reynolds was concerned, there were enough ordinary doors in the world to keep him busy.