The women nodded solemnly. The five merchant adventurers behind them looked around uneasily.

"They could get us bloody well killed," Murphy said. "Tell them wives of yours I mean it."

"I already did," Reznick said. "Christ, Ben, there's times I can't believe any of this."

"I know what you mean." He shook his head wryly. "Fightin' in Africa, 'bout to be finished by the Cubans and we get picked up by a goddamn flyin' saucer. And even then it don't make sense. This whole planet, none of it makes sense."

"Except to Captain Galloway."

"Yeah. I guess."

"Hell, Ben, it was you said we ought to come here…"

"You agreed," Murphy reminded him. "I didn't twist your arm." He grinned. "Anyway, I still think it was best. That paper the Cap'n sent us, it said he really did understand things here. He knows why there's people here, and what those saucer critters want, and-"

"And you can believe as much of it as you want to," Reznick said. He paused a moment, then matched Murphy's grin. "And we both sure as hell want to believe a lot of it."

"Yeah. Let's go." He led the way through the open gates.

The courtyard behind the gates smelled of burned gunpowder. It was packed with people. Archers in kilts held them back to make a lane that Murphy's party could ride through. "Like MP's," Murphy said.

"Big deal." Reznick squinted upwards. "Don't look now, but there's a sniper up in the tower over the gate."

"Yeah, I spotted him. Don't matter. There's a dozen of those archer types on the wall up there, too. There's sure as hell only one way to play this now."

The wall ahead of them was taller than the first, and the gateway through it was so narrow they had to go single file. The gate itself was a long maze-like corridor, with two twists barely wide enough for their mounts. Then they came out into an inner court, empty except for half a dozen richly dressed courtiers.