John Dyer trudged back to the beer hall. "Give me your rifle," he told an armed man. Before the man could say anything Dyer snatched the rifle from him.
"All right," Dyer said. "Who's going with me?"
"Hold on," Sordman said. "Where are you going?"
"After Smith."
"I'm going after him. Let him go and I'll have him out cold before an hour's up."
"There isn't anything a rifle can't stop."
Sordman understood. These men were afraid of Talent. But some, like Dyer, had to fight that fear. They had to prove that intelligence and the technical power organized society gives individual men were superior to Talent.
"I can't stop you," Sordman said. "But listen to me. Smith has to be captured alive. The man is insane. He's no more a villain than you or me. He just tampered with a force he couldn't control. You might stop him with a bullet but you'll have to kill him to do it."
"He killed two of us," a man said.
"He's drugged. He can hide and kill you from a distance."