“I brought you a couple of recruits,” said Hilary, as coolly as if the man on the rock was holding a stick of candy. He started to walk forward and Jason moved after him. Hal followed.
“This is Jason Rowe,” said Hilary. “Maybe you know him. The other’s not of the faith, but a friend. He’s Howard Immanuelson, a miner from Coby.”
By the time he had finished saying this he was within a meter and a half of the woman and the man with Jason and Hal a step behind. Hilary stopped. The woman glanced at Jason, nodded briefly, then turned her brilliant gaze on Hal.
“Immanuelson?” she said. “I’m Rukh Tamani. This is my sergeant, James Child-of-God.”
Hal found it hard to look away from her, but he turned his gaze on the face of the gray-haired man. He found himself looking into a rectangular, raw-boned set of features, clothed in skin gone leathery some years since from sun and weather. Lines radiated from the corners of the eyes of James Child-of-God; deeper lines had carved themselves in long curves about the corners of his mouth, from nose to chin, and the pale blue eyes he fastened on Hal were like the muzzles of cone rifles.
“If not of the faith,” he said to them all now, in a dry, penetrating tenor voice, “he hath no right here among us.”