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.
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