We left our heroes under attack in a small canyon in the Rockies. Cantrel, Aphron, and Mario were sneaking around the canyon walls, sniping at the javelin throwers, while Tom, David, the Naza, the Teldai, and Dr. Wu made a dash across the canyon, toward the firewall.

Tom arrived first and ordered his (robot) horse through the fire. But the horse noticed that the fire was in a pit and had to jump. It vanished into the fire and left Tom on the near side, slightly bruised.

The horse quickly came back, damaged but functioning.

The Teldai arrived next and spurred his ostrich (also a robot) through the fire. He was instantly impaled on the spears of three of the enemy waiting on the other side.

Meanwhile, the spearmen at the far end of the canyon charged Wu and the Naza, who fought them off, taking damage themselves. The Naza pounded one of them into the ground with her customary delicacy, and Wu used karate together with his gun.

The various gunslingers in our group picked off javelin throwers at a steady rate, and even got some shots past the shields of the spearmen and into their chief, the Banker. Eventually, tide of battle turned and Wu offered them surrender. They retreated instead, so Cantrel and Aphron, both on flying belts, took out after them. Aphron flew right into a nest of spear, but recoiled and found the Banker retreating with a few of his men. Aphron polished him off and was instantly acclaimed the new banker. Aphron now "owned" our erstwhile attackers.

We went to their village and recuperated as best we were able. Tom repaired his robot horse. Dr. Wu repaired our wounded and the tribesmen we had conquered. The Teldai was quite dead, but Tom recalled the amazing tricks the pantope machines can do and insisted on preserving the body for the autodoc. Alas, our ground car had no stasis field, or even a refrigerator, so Tom had the villagers smoke the Teldai. Who knows? He can't get any deader.

The previous Banker and his men, by the way, all spoke with broad cockney accents. And when Aphron accidentally revealed that he was using a flying belt, someone exclaimed, "Blimey, he's got a brolly!" And when the Banker died, the tribesmen sent up a curious chant of "Chim-chim-er-ee." So it came as no great surprise that this tribe has a religion based on Mary Poppins. They have a 3-D movie projector and one cassette, with a holographic adaptation of the Disney version of Mary Poppins in it. They solemnly view this vision once every month. (We were cheered into town to "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.")

In addition to smoking the Teldai for us, the tribe told us about the surrounding territory. The two most powerful groups are the Sara people, worshippers of a prophetess named Sara, and the Mor Men, whose sacred place is the lost city of the sea of Deseret. They are ancestor worshippers and, fairly clearly, latter-day Latter Day Saints. Also, the Banker is not allowed to leave the tribe. That's Aphron, who will have to sneak out early next week if he means to continue with this adventure. The rest of us are free to go as we please, and at least one villager would like to come with us. She is a young lady named something dreadful like Buggo. I believe she is a healer, but my memory may be faulty.

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