“Get the hell out of the way!” he shouted, stepping quickly through the men.  They grumbled and fell back to let him by, but Rynason heard the men still fighting in the rear, and then he saw them.  There were three of them, two men and what looked like a boy still in his teens.  The boy had red hair and a dark, ruddy complexion:  he was new to the outworlds.  The two older men had the pallor of the Edge drifters, nurtured in the artificial light of spacers and sealed survival quarters on the less hospitable worlds.

The larger of the two men had a knife, a heavy blade of a type that was common out here; many of the men used them as hatchets when necessary.  This one dripped with blood; the smaller man’s left arm was torn open just below the shoulder, and hanging uselessly.  He stood swaying in the dust, hurling a string of curses at the man with the knife, while the boy stood slightly behind him, staring with both fear and hatred in his eyes.  He had a smaller knife, but he held it loosely and uncertainly at his side.

Manning stepped between them.  He had sized up the situation already, and he paused now only long enough to bite out three short, clipped words which told these men exactly what he thought of them.  The man with the knife stopped back and muttered something which Rynason didn’t hear.

Manning raised the stunner coldly and let him have it.  The blast caught the man in the shoulder and spun him around, throwing him into the crowd; several of them went down.  The long knife fell to the ground, where dirt mixed with the blood on it.  There was silence.

Manning looked around him, swinging the stunner loosely in his hand.  After a moment he said calmly, but loud enough for all to hear, “We won’t have time for fighting among ourselves.  The next man who starts anything will be killed outright.  Now get these men out of here.”  He turned and strode back through the mob while the boy and a couple of the other men took the wounded away.

Malhomme had moved further into the crowd.  He was strangely silent; usually he went among these men roughly and jovially, cursing them all with goodnatured ease.  But now he stood watching the men around him with a frown creasing his heavily lined face.  Malhomme was worried, and Rynason, seeing that, felt his stomach tighten.

Manning faced the men from the front of the crowd.  He stared at them shrewdly, holding each man’s gaze for a few seconds.  Then he grinned, and said, “Save it for the horses, boys.  Save it for them.”

* * * * *

Rynason rode out to the field with Manning, Stoworth, and a few of the others.  It was a short trip in the landcar, and none of them spoke much.  Even Stoworth rode silently, his usual easy flow of trivia forgotten.  Rynason was thinking about Manning:  he had handled the outbreak quickly and decisively enough, keeping the men in line, but it had been only a temporary measure.  They would be expecting some real action soon, and Manning was already offering them the Hirlaji.  If the alarm turned out to be a false one, would he be as easily able to stop them then?