"Yours?"

"No. That is-"

"Chenault's?"

"He-" She broke off. "You're hurting my arm."

Dumarest released her, hefting the gun. "Try to run and I'll use this. Why did you want to kill me?"

"I didn't. The gun fires a harmless dart. It would just have made you sleep for a while." She frowned at his expression. "You don't believe me. Look for yourself." She pointed to where a gaudy tuft of feathers stood in the grass beyond the bench. "That's what I shot at you. You can check it."

"There's an easier way." Dumarest lifted the gun and aimed it at her body. Deliberately he thumbed back the hammer. "Two barrels," he said. "Two charges. Let's see if they're both the same."

She watched, wide-eyed as he moved to place her between himself and the bench. A hand lifted to her mouth as he began to close his finger on the trigger but she made no other sign of fear. Not even when he fired.

"Well?"

Dumarest looked at the dart standing from the wood of the bench. Perhaps it was as harmless as she'd claimed or perhaps she'd only thought it to be harmless. The latter, he guessed, she hadn't flinched from the decisive test.

He said, "Did Chenault give you the gun?"

"Yes."

"Why? What were you supposed to do with it?"

"Sometimes there are predators. They come into the valley and hunt the creatures here. When they do I take care of them."

"And visitors?" Dumarest shrugged as she made no answer. It was prudent to be cautious on even the most civilized of worlds and, in the Burdinnion, few were that. "Were you born here on Lychen?"

"No."

"Where then? Solis?" A guess and a wrong one as the shake of her head signified. "It's just that you remind me of someone I knew once. She had the same color hair as your own."