The head of the firm was using the mouse to rotate a wire-drawing outline of some machine part; he clicked on Save and turned, sprang up from the littered table and advanced with outstretched hand.

"Jared, Marian!" he said eagerly. "Good to see you!"

"From the smile, I gather it must work, Ron," Jared replied as he shook his hand; then his own lips quirked. Leaton's enthusiasm was as infectious as a puppy's.

"Yes, indeed!" Leaton said. "We've got it in Bay Number Two. It was the ammunition problem that was toughest, but we're setting up a production-scale plant out of town by Casting Number One-closer to the powder mill, anyway."

Cofflin nodded while Leaton rummaged in a drawer; gunpowder manufacture was one thing they'd zoned right out in the countryside by Gibbs Pond from the beginning, and convenience be damned. The thought of a couple of tons of the stuff going off around here…

"Here it is," the machinist-turned-industrialist said, handing over a brass cartridge.

Jared Cofflin took it and turned it over in his hands. "Still.40?"

"Mmmm-hmmm. No reason to change it, and that way we don't have to do up new jigs and bits for the rifling benches and boring machines. Priorities, again… we' re still short of tool steel, the high-carbon cutters work, but they wear out so damn fast. Okay, sorry. I'll stop complaining. The bullet's virtually the same as the Westley-Richards model too-a little more antimony and tin for hardening."

"What's this?" Cofflin said, flicking his thumbnail against the rim. Between it and the body of the shell was a thin rounded section.

"Miniature brass tube-we fabricate the base separately and then join it to the shell body with this. Makes it a hell of a lot easier to- well, not to get technical…"

Cofflin and Alston looked at each other and shared a dry chuckle. Leaton grinned and patted the air with his hands, acknowledging the hit. He was notorious all over the Republic for his readiness to shove technical detail into the ear of anyone who'd listen.

"All right, not to get too technical, it makes it a hell of a lot easier to fabricate. Here." He pulled a black cylinder out of the drawer. "Told you about this, didn't I, Marian?"

"Mmmm-hmmm." She turned it over in her fingers, a black tube with a thin hole down the center. "Compressed gunpowder," she said to Jared.

"What's the point?" Jared asked. "I'd think that would make it harder to fill the shell, since it's bottlenecked."

"It's the shape," Marian explained. "Ordinary black powder blows up as the grains burn from the outside in. This burns from the inside out, faster and faster 'till it's all gone."

Leaton nodded enthusiastically. "Nineteen hundred feet per second, as opposed to fourteen hundred for the old Westley-Richards," he said. "By the way, I'm working on a Gatling gun using the same cartridge-very promising."

"Nice work, Ron," Cofflin said.

"Stole the idea for the compressed powder: Lee-Metford, 1888. Metford rifling, too."

"You did the research."

They followed the engineer out into the shop, and then into one of the long timber bays. A stocky woman in a leather apron studded with pockets and loops for tools looked up and smiled greeting to Leaton, nodded to the Chief and Alston.

"Got 'em right here," she said, handing a rifle to Cofflin and another to the commodore. "First batch-all the collywobbles out, as far as we can tell."

"Interesting," Cofflin said, turning the weapon over in his hands. Most of it looked like the Westley-Richards, but instead of a side-mounted hammer there was a small rounded lever protruding from a curved slot on the right. Flush with the upper side of the weapon was a rectangular steel block that had a milled groove in the top and pivoted in a steel box set into the wood of the stock.

"Single-shot?" he said. Leaton nodded. "Why not a magazine gun?"

Marian replied for him. "KISS principle," she said. Keep It Simple, Stupid; the Republic had learned that early on. "This has got… how many?"

"Twelve moving parts," Leaton said. "See the screw at the back?"

"Ayup," Cofflin said.

"Undo that, and then you can strip it down for cleaning and repair by hand, like this"-he demonstrated-"no tools required. A blacksmith who's a good hand with a metal file could repair any of the parts, or duplicate them at need."

The engineer snapped the weapon back together again. "Here's how it works. You push down on the grooved block like this for the first round."

Cofflin obeyed; there was a soft, yielding resistance and a slight click. The block pivoted down from a pin at the rear, and now it made a ramp that led straight into the chamber.

"Slide a round into the breech." Cofflin pushed it down with his thumb. "Now put your right hand on the stock and pull the little lever back and down. That's half-cock-the weapon's on safety now. Pull it back all the way, and when you hear the next click it's ready to fire."

Cofflin took the rifle over to the waist-high bench that separated the workroom from the firing range. It was about a hundred yards long, with thick timber to either side and a wall of sandbags at the end to hold the man-shaped target. Nantucket's Chief put the weapon to his shoulder, giving a grunt of satisfaction at the smooth, well-balanced feel. Squeeze the trigger gently…

It broke clean, with a crisp action. Crack, and the butt kicked his shoulder; he lowered it again.

"How do I get the spent shell out and reload?" he asked.

Leaton chuckled like a child with a Christmas surprise to bestow. "Just pull the trigger all the way back so it hits that little trip-release stud behind it," he said.

Cofflin did, and started slightly as the breechblock snapped down and the spent cartridge was ejected to the rear and slightly to the right; he blinked as it went ping on the asphalt floor and rolled away. The technician scooped it up and dropped it into one of the capacious pockets that studded her leather apron, where it jingled with a good many others.

"Two springs, inside, I guess?" he said. "Well, that'll make it easier to use."

Marian slung a bandolier over her shoulder. "Easier and faster," she said, buckling back the cover flap. Brass cartridges showed in neat rows, nestling in their canvas loops. "Watch."

She brought the rifle to her shoulder and fired. Crack, and a puff of off-white smoke was added to the one he'd made. Ting, and the breech went down and the shell ejected.

Faster, all right, he noted. The old rifles went bang… beat… beat… beat… beat… bang when you were firing as fast as you could. This was more like bang… beat… beat… bang.

She repeated the process once more in slow motion. "See, there are only four movements to reload-take your hand off the stock, reach down for a cartridge, thumb it home, then thumb back the cocking lever and aim. That's about the same as for a bolt-action rifle."

Cofflin whistled, working his jaw to help his abused ears. "Fast is right," he said. "Four, mebbe five seconds between rounds?"

"Twelve aimed rounds a minute," Leaton agreed proudly, rubbing his hands together. "With a little practice. That's twice what the Westley-Richards can do, and this one's got more range and accuracy, as well."

"And it's waterproof, unlike the flintlocks, the rifle and the ammunition both," Alston said. "Virtually soldier-proof, too. Simple, rugged, easy to use and maintain. Until we can go to smokeless powder and a semi-auto, this is our best bet, I think."

"Ron," Cofflin said sincerely, "you've done it again. Congratulations!"

"Ah…" Leaton shuffled his feet. "Actually, it's the fruit of a weird taste in reading matter. It's German, originally-Bavarian, from the 1860s, I just modified the design a bit here and there. Guy named Werder from Munich developed it, one of those all-round Victorian inventors and machinists. Obscure, but probably the best single-shot rifle ever made."