he had caught some of Travis' enthusiasm. Travis turned back to the
bed feeling unreasonably optimistic. No way out, eh? Well by jingo,
old Pat Travis would ride again, he could feel it in his bones.

A few moments later he had another feeling in his bones. This one was
much less delightful. He was pacing past a heavy drapery when
something very hard and moving very fast struck him on the head.

* * * * *

The first thing Travis saw when he awoke was, unmistakably, the behind
of a young woman.

His head was lying flat on the floor and the girl was sitting next to
him, her back toward him very close to his face. He stared at it for a
long while without thinking. The pain in his head was enormous, and he
was not used to pain, not any kind of pain. The whiskey men drank
nowadays left no hangovers, and for a normal headache there were
instantaneously acting pills, so Travis on the floor was unused to
pain. And though he was by nature a courageous man it took him a while
to be able to think at all, much less clearly.

Eventually he realized that he was lying on a very hard floor. His
arms and legs were tightly bound. He investigated the floor. It was
brick. It was wet. The dark ceiling dripped water in the flickering
light from some source beyond the girl. The brick, the dripping water,
the girl, all combined to make it completely unbelievable. If it
wasn't for the pain he would have rolled over and gone to sleep. But
the pain. Yes the pain. He closed his eyes and lay still, hurting.

When he opened his eyes again he was better. By jing, this was
ridiculous. Not a full day yet on Mert and in addition to his other
troubles, now this. He did not feel alarmed, only downright angry.
This business of the flickering light and being tied hand and foot was
too impossible to be dangerous. He grunted feebly at the back of the
girl.

"Ho," he said. "Now what in the sweet name of Billy H. Culpepper is
this?"

The girl turned and looked down at him. She swiveled around on her
hips and a rag-bound foot kicked him unconcernedly in the side. For
the first time he saw the other two men behind her. There were two of
them. The look of them was ridiculous.

The girl said something. It was a moment before he realized she was
speaking in Mert, which he had to translate out of the Langkit behind
his ear.

"The scourge awakes," one of the men said.

"A joy. It was my thought that in the conjunction was