As reluctant as he was to risk Anyara, King Rikard had to admit her logic.

So one morning Blade, his son, and an odd assortment of others marched out of the city. There was Anyara, Krimon, assorted other neuters to watch what happened, and a dozen or so experienced fighters to keep away spectators. It was a warm morning, with a gentle breeze from the west.

The machine was sitting on the grass where Blade had parked it after moving it out of the city. It was now covered with hides and dyed cloths, so that from a distance it looked like a large tent.

Blade found it hard to keep his eyes from straying to the eastern horizon, half-expecting a dozen Looter machines to come racing across the plain in search of their vanished companion. Were the Looters so careless or so rich in machines that they didn't care what happened to this one? That was hard to believe. They had certainly done their best to destroy it before it fled out of range.

They-or their other machines. Blade shook his head. He wondered more and more if the Looters had come themselves, whoever they were. Or had they just sent their machines? If just the machines were roaming about in Tharn, that could explain why there had been no pursuit. The programming of the machines' computers could be too rigid to permit that.

Blade climbed into the machine and punched the screen controls and power switch. The screens flickered into life. The machine still had power, hopefully enough for all it still had to do. Fortunately it would not be taking any more long trips.

Anyara appeared on the forward screen, striding vigorously out across the plain. She was pulling off her tunic as she walked. The plan called for her to start the test naked. Then bit by bit she would add gear-all of it once living-until she was either dead or fully-equipped for war. Which would come first?

Anyara stopped fifty yards away and stripped off her trousers. She raised her arms in signal to Blade, the sunlight gleaming on her bare body. It was a body that still had a good deal of its former grace and beauty, in spite of childbearing and hard living.

Anyara signaled more vigorously. She was obviously getting impatient. Blade sighted in the ray, then hesitated for a moment. Logic told him that Anyara would be standing there, proud and impatient, after the purple ray struck her. Instinct kept telling him that she would be lying stiff and dead on the plain. With her would lie most of Tharn's hopes for fighting off the Looters.

Delaying matters made no sense at all. Blade leaned forward, pressing the firing button as he did so.

Flash! Purple fire lanced out across the plain, and the glare surrounded Blade. A line of purple darted from the ray-tube to Anyara, enveloped her-and left her standing as though it had been no more than a puff of wind.

Through the open hatch, Blade could hear the cheers.

Someone threw Anyara a leather belt with a leather pouch attached to it. She put it on, and Blade fired again. Once again she stood tall and proud, her graying hair streaming out behind her.

Tools now-hammers and wedges, made of bone and wood and teksin. Anyara put them on, and was still standing after another dose of the ray.

Leather boots, leather bottles, leather trousers, a leather tunic. Then teksin-a teksin helmet, teksin armor, teksin knives. Anyara piled on piece after piece, the purple ray leaped out at her time after time, and each time she stood unharmed and waving defiance to the Looters' purple death.

By the time the test was over, Anyara was staggering. But this was from the weight of the equipment she was carrying, not from the effects of the ray. When Blade finally cut off the power in the machine, the last thing he saw on the screen was Anyara beginning to strip down again.

She was down to trousers and helmet by the time Blade climbed out of the machine and stood on the grass. He was grinning from ear to ear and felt like cheering. His guess had been right! He had discovered the key to making the fighters of the people immune to the Looters' deadliest weapon.

Anyara dashed up to Blade, grabbed him by the shoulders, kissed him wildly, danced about him like a young girl. On either side he could hear the neuters and the fighters cheering again, louder and longer than ever before.

Gently Blade pulled himself free from Anyara's embraces and turned to face the others. They were crowding toward him, joy and worship shining from their faces.

Blade raised his hands for silence.

«We have learned the first part of what we must know to fight the Looters. We have learned how to keep their machines from destroying us. Now we must learn more how to destroy them!»

«It shall be done, Mazda,» said Krimon. «This day and for all the days to come until our victory, all the people stand behind Mazda. We will go where he sends us, do as he bids us, speak or be silent as he wishes us.»

Blade nodded, but he was not so happy now. To come to a people who saw you as all but a god meant you had no problem being accepted or obeyed.

But you did have a problem of living up to what they expected of you.

Chapter 15

A month of hard work followed.

Blade began to train ninety picked fighters in his methods for attacking Looter machines. Much of the training was guesswork, and would be guesswork until it was tested in combat. This bothered Blade.

It didn't bother the people. They would follow wherever Mazda led, sure that Mazda could and would lead them only to victory.

Blade wished he could be that confident. Pretending that he was soon became one of the hardest parts of his job.

None of it was easy. Day in and day out, he spent twelve and fourteen hours a day in grinding training. He ended each day sweat-soaked, dry-throated, dust-covered, all his muscles aching. But then he would have to face a council meeting, and finally take a woman determined to have Mazda's seed in her.

That normally would have been a very pleasant part of his duties. But now more often than not a woman was the last thing Blade wanted to face at the end of the day.

Fortunately Blade had the capacity of at least three ordinary men when it came to sex. Otherwise there would have been a good many disappointed women among the people, and rumors running about that Mazda was not all that a man should be!

The machine's power lasted nearly a month. By the time it became immobile, it had given up nearly all the secrets Blade felt he needed to know. Meanwhile the building of teksin weapons and armor, research into explosives, and a dozen other projects went forward at top speed.

A week after that Blade rode east with an expedition fifty strong. Besides himself there was Anyara and eight fighting teams of six. The other forty trained fighters stayed behind, to start the training of more of their comrades. «In time a thousand or more of the people will know how to fight the machines of the Looters. In every town and village, on every farm, in each band of herdsmen, there will be some. Against such numbers the Looters cannot win.»

«They may kill many of us,» said King Rikard soberly, concerned for his people.

«True. But those who die will make sure that the people live.» Blade did not mention his reason for saying this more confidently than before. He was more and more certain that the Looter command system must be incredibly cumbersome, inflexible, unable to adapt rapidly to meet new threats.

In war, that was a sure road to defeat.

Nearly two months had gone by since he captured the machine. Surely a command with any sort of normal wits about it would have done something to search out the missing war machine! But the eastern horizon remained bare of any signs of Looters.

Now, however, they would be riding out toward that horizon. For the first time in two years the fighters of the people would ride out, hoping to see the machines of the Looters ahead of them.