Without really knowing why he was doing what he was about to do, Kesley cupped his hands. "Tina!"

The girl reappeared and confronted him quizzically.

"Get upstairs and pack my things," Kesley ordered her. "I'm leaving."

"Leaving?"

"Right this minute," he said. "I'm leaving with him." He pointed squarely at van Alen.

II

City noises—the dizzying chaos of the metropolis. Kesley and van Alen reined in their mounts at the gates of the city of Galveston, capital of Texas Province and a main bastion of Duke Winslow of North America.

It seemed to Kesley that they had been riding for months. Actually, it had been only a matter of weeks for the long ride through the farmlands, down through Texas to the Gulf.

They moved along now at a slow canter, guiding their horses into a line that disappeared between the heavy copper gates surrounding the walled city. Galveston was an encircled peninsula, guarded by land, open to the sea.

Men in the green-and-gold uniforms of Duke Winslow's guard rode alongside the line, keeping the jostling crowd in order.

"Better get your coins ready," van Alen muttered, as they drew near the gate.

"Coins?"

"This is a fee city. A dollar a head to enter the gate."

Kesley made a face and dug a golden dollar from his pocket. He looked at the tiny, well-worn coin almost wistfully. "The good Duke takes care that his subjects are never weighted with overmuch coinage," he observed. "The Duke's men relieve us of it joyfully."

They rode past the gate. A sleepy-eyed toll-keeper sat, impassively watching, as each newcomer to the city deposited his dollar in the till.

As Kesley passed the tollbox, he flipped the coin in casually. It clinked against several of the others, spun, and bounced out, rolling some ten feet away. Kesley shrugged apologetically and continued 

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