(Sorry for the delay, folks! Hope you enjoy it!)

The eyes of the passer-by would have noted nothing out of the ordinary in the encounter between The Good Company and the two men who had stepped forward to confront them. There were enough smiles among the seven to incline a casual glance to read the affair as a reunion, or, at the very least, a meeting of experienced professionals. The latter, of course, struck close to the truth of the thing.

William wore the widest and brightest smile of all. He glanced adoringly at the two. “This,” he said, bringing his hands together as though he were a child catching first sight of his filled stocking on Christmas morning, “this – this! – is what I love about Harold Darling. Two to our five! He never spends a penny more than is the absolute minimum to buy and keep votes.”

William's smile grew wider, and he moved toward the two on light feet. Darling's men exchanged a glance, but gave no sign in speech or posture that would have suggested to an onlooker anything other than a peaceable encounter.

William rose onto the toes of one foot, again evoking scenes from a previous career, spun and faced his four friends in The Good Company. He winked at them, then twirled back around to face the two men, reaching into his jacket as he spun.

At that, Darling's men dropped into combative shapes, reaching into their own jackets to retrieve revolvers, but William brandished only a bouquet of flowers as he completed his turn toward them. With all the stagecraft a man could muster, he let his smile fade into a frown and shook his head. “Sirs, surely this occasion demands amity rather hostility?”

“Your love of deceit is well known, William,” said the man who had first spoken. “I have the past-sight, and if it were possible to employ that talent on the dead, in graveyards from our ocean here to the Atlantic, I'd see more than a few men sent down to Hell after accepting 'innocent tokens of amity' from you.”

William replied with protestations, but beneath his words he sent thoughts to Taiko. What can you tell me about them, dear friend?

Taiko sent an image of herself laughing. They subscribe to the belief that wrapping magnets around their skulls obscures their thoughts to my kind and to the handful of humans with similar talents. Beneath their hats, each wears three, one at one they call the third eye and one at each temple.

Excellent news, William thought. I wonder how long we should allow them to hold that belief. What else?

There...is a third man. He is observing all of us from a window high up in a building on the opposite side of the street. He has a rifle. He will likely attempt to kill Hiram first, then Victoria, though these two believe that order should be reversed. Taiko shared those thoughts with all of The Good Company.

William, Hiram, and Miriam each thought, nearly all at once, These two are more intelligent than they look.

(It should be noted here that had the three given voice to their thoughts, they would have chosen different expressions. But such was the nature of the mind and its emotions as read by a Laikan: part of the communication was Taiko herself choosing words to associate with the roil of ideas and feelings that rumbled across the uppermost region of the humanoid brain. By contrast, in addition to suggestive images, she could send the very words and expressions she desired to those within range. Laikans of a certain social class received training in sending and reading from a very young age, but the biological and psychological mechanism of this ability entirely eluded the grasp of the science of the late nineteenth century.)

Victoria could not suppress a laugh, and Darling's men looked at her with real fear in their eyes. Taiko sensed their panicked thoughts: ...not paid enough to have to account for one of these things...wish O'Hare would shoot her and be damned and done with this.

As if called to action by the desires of his fellows, O'Hare fired a shot, but it failed to find its mark. The five members of the Good Company knew of his attempt only by the flying splinters of wood it gouged from the post it lodged in after sailing past them.

These damnable runed rifles. Silent indeed, but so very unsporting, Taiko thought to her friends.

Mr. O'Hare's second attempt had an even more diminished chance of finding a target: The Good Company had already dashed toward the building from which he had aimed at them. Given their companion's less than impressive aptitude for marksmanship, Mr. Darling's other two enforcers also opted to seek cover.

“I wonder whether those bullets were intended for me or Victoria?” Hiram said as he burst through the door of the building in which O'Hare had established himself.

“I hate to tempt Fate – well, not truly, no; I don't mind tempting her every now and then – but if this fellow had been the one behind the gun, Sedgwick would have finished his sentence,” William said. He was wiping his hands with his handkerchief, and in response to Victoria's quizzical look, he replied, “I like to have clean hands before and after doing work.”

Miriam nodded. “I do believe you intend to propose a division of forces.”

“Oh, he is, Miriam,” Victoria said. “Adding insult to injury to Mr. Darling. Darling the non-human hater, Darling the woman hater.”

William nodded. “Hiram, sir, if you would accompany me to dispose of our would-be assassin?” Hiram twirled his club and began whistling a work song.

Victoria put a hand on Taiko's arm. “If you would be so kind, could you keep the people William and Hiram are about to disturb as they handle the man upstairs and the policemen who are sure to arrive shortly calmed and away from us while Miriam and I handle the two men outside and send a message to Mr. Darling? I know it's a terrible strain, dearest, and I know you've not seen direct action in a while, but the way this encounter has fallen out calls for your talents being put to use in here.”

Taiko agreed, though she partnered the thoughts she sent with a sigh. My much neglected flail has no mind to sense, but I am certain it would send me a sensation of gravest disappointment if it could talk. We may have to quit San Francisco for a time after this, but perhaps a future occasion will see me employ my martial abilities.

Victoria gave her dear Laikan friend kisses on each cheek and then motioned to Miriam. Up the stairs went Hiram and William; through the door went the women of the company.



When Miriam and Victoria returned, they found Taiko leading the bystanders – who had indeed come rushing out of their rooms at the sounds of roughness from the upper floors – and the police officers who'd arrived in a rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. Victoria smiled at Miriam. “How splendid. Every church should have a Laikan as its choir director. No one would forget words or sing off-key.”

Miriam nodded. “I can see merit in learning songs from a Laikan implanting the sensation of the sung words in one's mind.” She laughed. “But I suspect many in the choir would not like their director to be aware of the true thoughts bubbling to the top of their brains as they sang. You've heard of the phrase some like to append to the titles of hymns, I'm sure.”

Victoria grinned and wagged a finger at Miriam. “You are a wicked woman to have followed your train of thought to that particular destination. Which is why I like you so much.”

One of the people Taiko had more or less detained while the others in the Company had gone to work spoke up after the song ended. “Ma'am, are we free to leave now?” he said as he looked at her with no small amount of anxiety. Taiko sent a rueful thought to Victoria: Some days, I find myself wishing I could wager a tidy sum of money on whether public opinion tilts more strongly against my race or yours.

To the man and, though it tested the boundaries of her abilities, all the others save the policemen, she thought Yes, you are all free to go about your business. The private matter that compelled me to keep you here for your safety has been resolved.

Both of the police officers scowled at Taiko as the crowd of bystanders and the curious melted away. An illustrator might have used either one as a model for a dime novel's lawman: it would have been hard to miss the sharpness of their uniforms or the roughness of their knuckles.

The senior officer approached Taiko with one arm stretched out to grab her by the neck, but before he could draw closer to the Laikan, Victoria slid over to block his path. He blinked, thinking that the movement of his eyelids had caused him to miss her striding from out of nowhere to stand before him of a sudden and believing that, therefore, another instant's closure of his eye would erase her.

She smiled at him when he opened his eyes again. “Dear officer, I trust you were not intending to accost my beloved Taiko?”

“Well, ma'am...we've got laws against unasked for brain things like that, haven't we, and I, ah...” he sputtered. At that time, few, if any, police departments in any American city – even New York or Boston – instructed their patrolmen in resisting glamors. This man, then, stood little chance against someone as skilled as Victoria. The encounter entered with him offering the ladies his card as Miriam showed him and his partner to the door and promising to attend to them at once should any further troubles befall them.

With all onlookers removed from the scene, Miriam took the opportunity to remove her veil and wipe her face. “Victoria, I envy you. I have no doubt you were giving thought to some vexing problem that confounds even the brightest of the learned in the natural sciences as you were flummoxing that poor man and his partner. Oh, to employ multiple focusings of the will like that again....”

Taiko and Victoria regarded their friend with nothing less than the fondest of hearts. Only a patient eye – or a loving eye – could see the beauty that still existed in her face despite the scars; but only a wise eye would have seen that, far from being products of chance and accident, the jagged lines represented attempts at runes.

While either of her female companions could have pieced the story behind the scars over time by delving lightly into her mind, neither was inclined to do so. Hiram was not in the habit of asking about such things. William kept his own counsel on that particular matter.

Victoria embraced Miriam and whispered to her, “Sweetest Miriam, believe me when I tell you that you will regain your abilities and faculties to their fullest extent in time. Patience.” Miriam nodded, and, at the heavy echo of Hiram's feet upon the stairs, fixed her veil into place.

Hiram nodded at the women as he descended. He kept one hand clapped to his left shoulder and in his left hand was just over half of his cherished weapon. “This O'Hare was a degree more handy in close quarters than he was a crackshot. He possessed an ornate Bowie knife, the likes of which I've not seen since the time I rode with the rangers of Texas many years back. Now, there was a man I served with who...”

Before Hiram could launch into his tale, William came sliding down the rail clutching a large leather bag containing the missing votes. He hopped off just in front of the big ochre, smiled and bowed to the women below, and examined his friend's wound. “Hiram, here you are about to bleed to death, and you bore the ladies with your tales of the frontier.” William reached into his jacket and removed a runed handkerchief. With swift, economical movements born of long practice, Mr. Able dressed the big ochre's wound. The bleeding stopped at once.

“That will want a serious look once we have time,” Victoria called up to him. “And that time will want to be soon if you're to retain use of that arm.”

“You have repaired greater damage to me, madam,” Hiram said. “I trust that, with the two men outside properly handled, and with William and I having recovered the ballots from Mr. O'Hare, we are done here?”

“I believe so,” Victoria replied, taking William's arm as he reached the ground floor. All five filed through the door and into the streets of San Francisco again. They passed the two men who'd first opposed them as they walked. Taiko grinned a fine canine grin as she saw that they had been frozen into place, victims of a special web rune known only to Victoria. The men's eyes flashed a kind of pure hatred and anger as they watched Victoria stroll away.

Dearest Victoria, will you ever share the nature of that rune, or will you take its secret with you when you go...wherever it is that your people go when they pass on?

We are riding the same wheel as you and everyone else, love, Victoria returned. As the men at the fair say, where it stops, no one knows. But, no, one day I'll write it down or, more likely, share it with someone who seems interesting enough to deserve it.

Taiko sent – and received – a wry smile.


No one greeted the Company as returning heroes when they delivered the ballots to their supposed rightful polling place. Taiko saw weary and resigned faces, and she caught more than a few wishes that she and her four friends would disappear into a crack in the earth: they had, beyond repair, worn out any feelings of conviviality they might have expected to receive from people who were, after all, fellow employees of the man who'd sent them after Darling's men. William handed over the ballots and received the very slightest nod of acknowledgement from Bartholomew.

No one spoke at all as the Good Company filed out of the building, and Taiko shut her mind to the flood of feelings and thoughts that came from within. She took Miriam's hand for a reassuring squeeze, and the five went back to their rented rooms.



By the time the newspapers reported their employer's victory on the following day, the Good Company was already well on its way out of town. Their next employment saw them traveling far northward of California, beyond even the frozen wilds of Canada. But as many a chronicler has stated throughout history, that is a story for another time.