It was about a nice little girl whose stepmother had iron teeth and unpleasant intentions. The little girl had a handkerchief, a pearl and a comb that she had inherited from her dear dead mother, and her own good heart. As it turned out, these were just enough to find her a better home with a prince, and all were happy except the stepmother, who missed her lunch.

The old man had just finished and the kids were reluctantly allowing themselves to be taken off to bed when there was a commotion on the road at the edge of camp. I turned to look, but my eyes had grown used to the light of the fire and I couldn’t see far into the darkness.

A voice there said, “I be damned if I’ll take another day like this one, Horst. We should have been here two hours ago. It be your fault, and that be truth.”

Horst said, “You signed on for good and bad. If you want to keep your teeth, you’ll quit your bitching and shut up!”

I had a good idea then what the pen was used for. I decided that it was time for me to leave the campfire, too. I got up and eased away as Horst and his men herded their animals past the fire toward the stockade. I cut back to where I had Ninc parked for the night. I threw my bedroll out of the bubble tent and knocked the tent down.

There seemed to be just one thing to do, everything considered. That was to get out of there as fast as possible.

I never got the chance.

I was just heaving the saddle up on Ninc when I felt a hand onmy shoulder and I swung around.

“Well, well. Horst, look who we have here,” he called. It was the one who had made the joke about me being beneath the notice of a Losel. He was the only one there, but with that call the others would be up fast.

I brought the saddle around as hard as I could and then up, and he fell down. He got up again, though, so I dropped the saddle and reached for my gun under my coat. The saddle bounced off him and he went down again, but somebody caught me from behind and pinned my arms to my sides.

I opened my mouth to scream — I have a good scream — but a rough, smelly hand clamped down over it before I had a chance to get more than a lungful of air. I bit down hard-5,000 lbs. per square inch, or some such figure, in a good hard bite — but he didn’t let go. I started to kick, but it did me no good. One arm around me, right hand over my mouth, Horst dragged me off, my feet trailing behind.

When we were behind the pen and out of earshot of the fire, he stopped dragging me and dropped me in a heap. “Make any noise,” he said, “and I’ll hurt you.”

That was a silly way to put it, but somehow it said more than if he’d threatened to break my arm or my head. It left him a latitude of things to do if he pleased. There was enough moonlight for him to see by and he examined his hand.

“I ought to club you anyway,” he said. “There be no blood, at least.”

The one I’d dropped the saddle on came up then, shaking his head to clear it. He’d been hurt the second time and had gone down hard. When he saw me, he brought his booted foot back to kick me. Horst gave me a shove that laid me out fiat and grabbed the other one.

“No,” he said. “You go look through the kid’s stuff and see how much of it we can use and bring it all back with the horse.”

The other one didn’t move. He just stood glaring. The last three men were putting the animals in the pen, so it was a private moment.

“Get going, Jack,” Horst said in a menacing tone and finally Jack turned away. It seemed to me somehow that Horst wasn’t objecting so much to me being kicked, but was rather establishing who it was that did the kicking around here.

But I wasn’t out of things yet. In spite of my theoretical training, I wasn’t any too sure that I could handle Horst, but I still had my pistol under my coat and Horst hadn’t relieved me of it yet.

He turned back to me, and I said, “You can’t do this. You can’t get away with it.”

It was a stupid thing to say, I admit, but I had to say something.

He said, “Look, boy. You may not know it, but you be in a lot of trouble. So don’t give me a hard time.”

He still thought I was a boy. It was no time to correct him, but it was very unflattering of him at a time when I was finally getting some notice from people to make a mistake like that.

“I’ll take you to court.”

He laughed. A genuine laugh, not a phony, curl-mymoustaches laugh, so I knew I hadn’t said the right thing.

“Boy, boy. Don’t talk about the courts. I be doing you a favor. I be taking what I can use of your gear and letting you go. You go to court and they’ll take every- thing from you and lock you up besides. I be leaving you your freedom.”

“Why? Why would they do that?” I asked. I slipped my hand under my coat slowly. I could feel the hard handle of the sonic pistol.

“Every time you open your mouth you shout that you be off of the Ships,” Horst said. “That be enough. They already have one of you brats in jail in Forton.”

I was about to bring my gun out when Jack came up leading Ninc. I mentally thanked him.

He said, “The kid’s got good equipment. But I can’t make out what this be for.” He held out my pickup signal.

Horst looked at it, then handed it back. “Junk,” he decided. “Throw it away.” He handed it back.

I leveled my gun at them. (Hell on wheels strikes again!) I said, “Hand that over to me carefully.”

They looked at me and Horst made a disgusted sound.

“Don’t make any noise,” I said. “Now hand it over to me.

Jack eased it into my hand and I stowed it away. Then I paused with one hand on the horn of the saddle.

“What’s the name of the kid in jail in Forton?”

“They told us about it in Midland,” Horst said. “I don’t remember the name.”

“Think!” I said.

“It’s coming to me. Hold on.”

I waited. Then suddenly my arm was hit a numbing blow from behind and the gun went flying. Jack pounced after it, and Horst said, “Good enough,” to the others behind me.

I felt like a fool.

Horst stalked over, reached in my pocket and brought out my signal, my only contact with the Ship and my only hope for pickup. He dropped it on the ground and said in a voice more cold than mine could ever be because it was natural and mine wasn’t, “The pieces be yours to keep.”

He stamped down hard and it didn’t break. It didn’t even crack. Frustrated, he stamped again, even harder, and then again and again until it finally came to pieces. My pieces.

Then he said, “Pull a gun on me twice. Twice! He slapped me so hard that my ears rang. “You stupid little punk.”

I looked up at him and said in a clear, penetrating voice, “And you big bastard.”

It was a time I would have done better to keep my mouth shut. All I can remember is a Hash of pain as his fist crunched against the side of my face and then nothing more than that.

Brains are no good if you don’t use them.