Under the Ember Star. Charles Allen Gramlich

his dress, his manner. They all showed him to be a settlement Kelm and no member of the wild tribes.

      “I knew they would not harm you,” Duash said suddenly.

      “Glad someone knew,” Ginn said dryly.

      The nomad chieftain laughed again, then shoved the plasma pistol into the braided twine it used for a belt.

      “The alh Corovaneen is honored among us,” the nomad said, speaking in its native tongue with an occasional Earth standard word thrown in. “Yet in this he is not fully correct. We might have put you to dirt. You were wise in the claim of your bomb device. Even though we knew you were bluffing. Only your military has access to such things. Yet you showed no fear. We know you now for strength. Rest and peace. We will not kill.”

      Ginn smiled faintly before responding fluently in the nomad’s own language. “I appreciate that.” She took her hand from her pocket, but added: “I think I’ll leave the bot activated anyway.”

      The chieftain lifted both hands, fingers curled backward into a position no human-jointed digits could manage. It was the Kelmerian equivalent of a shrug. Then the being turned and strode away through the boulder field.

      “We ride now,” it called over its shoulder. “There is far travel ahead, and in the desert, those who do not belong.”

      Duash followed the chieftain, not meeting Ginn’s gaze as he passed.

      Ginn shook her head but trailed after the others. Mostly she was thinking about the chieftain’s “those who do not belong.” It had to be Jac’s men, and if they found her a second time they wouldn’t be so easily surprised.

      Within fifty yards, the boulders gave way and they emerged onto the banks of an ancient river. A kind of purple lichen patched the dry river bed, and skeet-brush grew thicker there. She even saw some wild kaftee plants, though all were an immature blue-green and too young to bear seed.

      Kelmer was veined with such dead rivers, Ginn knew. Some were only truly dead on the surface. She figured there was underground water here. Maybe even an underground stream. It would be well to remember this location.

      From the river bank to the stream bed was an eight foot drop. Almost sheer. The nomad chieftain took it without hesitation. The other nomads followed. Ginn stepped up beside Duash, who hesitated at the very edge as he’d hesitated before a similar drop back at her ruined apartment.

      Surreptitiously, Ginn let her shoulder bump the Kelmerian’s. His balance knocked off, Duash had to take a step forward. With a mewl of surprise, he dropped over the edge but managed somehow to land on his feet below. Ginn followed, and smiled sweetly into the glare she’d earned.

      Where they stood, the river had once made a bend and the bank had been undercut. In the darkness there, well hidden unless you knew what to look for, Ginn glimpsed the outlines of seven long, lean desert hovercycles.

      Yes, they would ride.