A small exclamation escaped the lips of a plump official in the king's train.

"Bahdi-Lim, my wakil of the karum," Shuriash said. "He tracks a scent of profit more eagerly than a lion upon the trail of an antelope."

Minister of commerce, Ian thought, bowing slightly.

"Copper and tin, for the king's artisans."

The king's eyes lit up, imagining spearheads and arrowshead and swords. "My brother Yhared-Koff'in is generous!"

"Jewelry, for the king's wives and daughters," Ian said. "Ivory and rare woods, that the king may adorn his palace and the houses of the gods his patrons."

This time the murmur reached as far as the crowd surrounding the landing spot. The crisscross stack of ebony logs was taller than a man, and surrounded by threescore ivory tusks, all of them far larger than the Middle Eastern elephant could produce.

"Strange beasts, to make merry the heart of the king!" Ian concluded, with a sweep of his arm.

Shuriash burst into delighted laughter, and for a moment his face was a child's. One of the cages held a chimp; another a baby giraffe; and the third a moa, staring around with blinking wonderment.

"The king's heart is made glad by the gifts of his brother; his heart is full of happiness to see them." Shuriash's voice changed in the middle of the double-barreled formal sentence, suddenly didn't seem quite as delighted as his words.

"Remember, he has to return the favor, or lose face, " Doreen whispered in Ian's ear. Kings here didn't do anything so declasse as trading; instead they exchanged royal gifts that just happened to be of roughly equivalent value.

Meanwhile Shuriash was considering the honor guard. "Your kingdom is not poor," he said meditatively. "Nor are your craftsmen lacking in skill. I am surprised that you cannot afford armor for all your troops." His gaze sharpened. "Are those eunuchs?"

"No, O King. Know that some among us shave their chins, even as some of your priests shave their heads."

"Curious."

"In all lands custom is king," Ian said tactfully. "In every land the customs differ."

"And are those women?" Kashtiliash blurted in amazement. Even with cropped hair, the light summer uniforms made that fairly obvious, once a local started looking.

"Yes, O son of Shagarakti-Shuriash," Ian said, bowing again. "Such is our custom."

The prince snorted; he kept silent under his father's eye, but he fierce young hawk-features snowed what he thought of that custom.

Shuriash went on: "And I see they bear fine blades, but no spear nor shield, neither bow nor javelin nor sling. Only those curious maces of wood and metal."

Ian smiled. "Would the king my lord wish a demonstration? I will call the officer who commands the troops my ruler Jared Cofflin has sent to guard this expedition; the officer will satisfy the king's mind. We call these weapons rifles; they are like a bow, like a sling, yet not like a bow or sling."

The king nodded eagerly; so did Prince Kashtiliash, and a number among the officers who followed behind. Colonel Hollard strode over and stopped before the Babylonian monarch, bowing his head and saluting.

"O King, may you live forever," he said. His Akkadian was nearly as good as Ian's, with perhaps a trifle less of an accent. "Does the king have an animal that may be killed?"

Shuriash nodded, intrigued. A moment's relaying of orders, and a donkey was led out and tethered to a stake a hundred yards downstream. Hollard pointed to a guardsman's shield, and took it when Shuriash nodded agreement. He hung it carefully from the donkey's harness so that it covered most of the little beast's side.

"First section, front and center at the double!" he snapped when he returned.

Eight Marines trotted up and stopped in unison; Ian could see Shuriash's eyes following that, as well. Close-order drill and standing to attention hadn't been invented here yet; the king's guards were alert, but there was little formality to their postures.

"Oshinsky, kill that donkey," the Republic's commander said. "And don't miss."

"Sir, yessir," the Marine replied. She was a brown-haired young woman, a native Islander with corporal's chevrons and a Sniper star.

"There will be a loud noise," the Islander commander said in Akkadian.

She went to one knee and thumbed back the hammer of her Westley-Richards. Ian could see her squinting thoughtfully as she brought the rifle to her shoulder, exhaled, squeezed…

Crack.

Forewarned, the king and his son only blinked. A few of his courtiers made covert signs with their fingers, or clenched small idols that hung from their belts. The grizzle-bearded officers clenched their hands as well, on the hilts of their swords, and screams came from the watching crowd. The sulfur-stinking cloud hid the donkey from Ian for a moment; he felt a wordless prayer drifting up with it, to an atheist's God. The problem was that he knew that particular deity delighted in the perverse; otherwise he wouldn't be here in the thirteenth century B.C.

The donkey gave an agonized bray, and seconds later it collapsed, going to its knees and then falling over sideways to kick a few times.

"By the brazen prick of Marduk," Shuriash said quietly, when a terrified guardsman ran back with the shield.

The men behind him were gabbling prayers under their breath, clutching at amulets; a shaven-headed priest extended his toward the strangers, chanting an incantation. The king held the shield up and then wiggled a finger through the hole the.40-caliber bullet had made through sheet bronze, tough bull hide and layered strips of poplar wood.

"You can throw thunderbolts?" he went on. His face was set, but sweat gleamed on it. "You must be a nation of mighty sorcerers."

Ian nodded to Hollard. "O great King, the earth lies at your feet," the young colonel said soothingly. "Not a thunderbolt. Lead shot, like a sling."

He took Oshinsky's rifle and raised the lever. "See, O King, here is the shot." He held up a bullet in his other hand. "Behind it is a powder that burns very fast. That creates a-" Hollard hesitated; there was no word for "gas" in Akkadian-"a hot swift wind that pushes the lead shot out of the iron tube, too swiftly for the eye to see."

"Like a sling bullet," Shuriash said. "Only too swift to see. It can pierce armor? How far?"

"A thousand long paces, O king. Shall I demonstrate?"

The king nodded, a tightly controlled gesture. This is a brave man, Ian thought. Several of the courtiers were still trembling; it spoke volumes of their fear of their monarch that none had run. Many of the crowd had, streaming back toward the city to spread Ghu-knew-what rumors.

Hollard pointed southward along the riverbank. The Islanders had planted stakes there, at fifty-yard intervals. Atop each was a local clay pot.

"Those are full of water," Hollard said. "But the bullets would strike through any armor a man could carry, and send his spirit to the realm of Nergal." He switched to English: "Squad, independent fire. Make it count."

Corporal Oshinsky snapped: "You heard the colonel. Llaundaur, you first, then to the right."

The Sun People trooper licked his thumb, wet the foresight of his weapon, and brought it up to his shoulder in a smooth movement that ended with another crack; the nearest clay jar shattered in a spectacular leaping jet of water. Colonel Hollard took out his binoculars and showed Shuriash how to adjust them; by the time the last pot broke, the king was looking more at them than at the firearms. Ian could see wheels spinning in the Babylonian's mind and gave himself a mental kick.

Hollard rescued the situation. "Let these tubes of far-seeing-these binoculars-be my humble gift to the king's majesty," he said.

"Out! Out!" King Shuriash bellowed.

The priests bent over the sheep's liver, the baru-diviners, the mahhu-priests who foretold in frenzies of madness, backed out of the council room where the king of Kar-Duniash had met with the ambassadors, taking with them the smell of blood and incense. Their lord resumed his pacing.