And

a normal conversation. "I don't know what you think you're about, Marilee," the Councilor said, "but it won't work in the Hall. Do you understand? There will be no guns in the Hall. None!"
"The Hall is the Council's business, Dyson," the woman replied. Her words cut through the twilight like lyre notes. "The House is mine. You and your rubbish are not to enter the House again. Good evening." Her heel and toe gouged the dust as she turned. "Gentlemen," she added cooly, "let us go inside."
The rank that Marilee had led to the confrontation returned as a file behind her to the House. Slade was the last man. He fought the impulse to throw back his shoulders as if better to absorb the shots that might still arrive.
Slade had found a good group of people back here.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The interior of Slade House had shrunk in the years he had been away. He would not have expected that. When Don Slade left Tethys, he had his full growth; but he had long been divorced from the life of the House in which he lived. The memories that lived when the earth spouted around him and the sky screamed hellfire were those of his childhood.
In memory the corridors were high and dimmed by mystery, not neglect. Rooms built to house the warriors of the Settlement now stored mementos of that harsh, vivid time. And through all the memories blazed the figure of Slade's grandfather, Devil Don, the Old Man; the craggy, powerful model for Slade's life.
The Old Man had surrendered the administrative duties of House and planet to his son as soon as the son could handle them. But while the duties had been his, the Old Man had performed them with the fierce skill he displayed whenever he forced himself into a business that he hated. In retirement, he fished and hunted across the seas of Tethys, brawling with men half his age. And he carried with