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"Over er, his hand still vibrating an inch over the butt of his gun where it jutted out of his belt

The captain said, "The dead will have a lot of coun out, but he didn’t knohere to point it He wouldn’t shoot the captain, surely, but his wrist was sagging in the direction of the ranger, just in case he needed to shoot soed The captain and the Texian were so tense, they could’ve twanged like harp strings

And the Dreadnought pulled theot back there?" asked the captain "What have you really got, that’s what I want to know"

"Dead people That’s all"

Mercy decided it was finally ti called yellow sap He wants make a weapon out of it"

Most of the eyes in the caboose and at least one gun shifted focus to aiht at her

The ranger’s didn’t He didn’t take his glare away from the scientist, because he already kneas in the caboose He added his right hand to his left, and now both paluns

She blurted out the rest "The dead men back there didn’t die in war They died from too much sap But the stuff the sap’s made of--it does a whole lot worse! It aze whipped back and forth between the the truth? Is she?"

Not quite rattled, but taken off guard, Purdue gruht maybe Horatio Korman would back her up, but he didn’t--perhaps because he wanted the scientist and his assistant to forget about hiht with the captain instead So she defended herself, saying, "I do, Captain--please, you have to believe me! And you," she said to Purdue, "if you want to proveback there!"

"I want to see your papers again," the captain said to the scientist "I want to see who processed thened them, and--"

"What difference does ithis approach "Yes, we’reweapons--that’s what armies do! What’s carried in the last car is i we’ve ever been able to create so far The potential," he said, pleading now, almost "You have no idea what potential"

Mercy said, "Just this once, Mr Purdue’s right, Captain You have no idea of the potential You have no idea what it does to people--what it could do to the South, yes, but what it could do to anyone Anywhere The gas thatwhat unifor his guns lower a fraction of an inch while he thought He said, "I have my orders, too, Purdue And I have my men to protect, and you’re not one ofI can do for them now--and if the Union wants its weapon, the Union can send soive me later, or court-​martial me if they’d rather, because by God, we’re--"

Purdue’s posture changed ever so slightly, and at the sa motion But before he could interrupt the captain with a bullet through the heart, Horatio Korasp He fired them both, one at Oscar Hayes, and one at Malverne Purdue

Hayes went doithout a sound, and Purdue’s rifle ly loud bullet straight through the ceiling

Before Purdue could fall all the way to the floor, the captain was on hiainst the injured h the shoulder, up near the junction where it ushed over his torso as he flailed to stop it, but he failed to push the captain’s boot off his chest

He burbled, "You can’t You can’t do it Everything depends on it! My career depends on it, and maybe the Union--the whole Union!"

Horatio Koruns with a spin that put theentle into the holsters

"I’d rather it didn’t," the captain said He discerned with a glance that Hayes was dead, then checked Purdue "This bastard h for," he gagged "To cost useverything"

"No, you were going to cost us everything, and now you aren’t Ranger, do you kno to undo these couplers?"