There was a man holding it by some kind of strap and he whispered into its furry ear. It snorted again and made a strange kind of grunting, whining sound.“I know what a horse is,” Knox told Egan. “I’ve seen the old holos.”“I guess you don’t know how to ride one, though, huh?” Egan stepped outside into the bright midday sun.The others followed, squeezing around the horse at the doorway. Knox pressed himself against the door frame as flat as he could, keeping his distance. Syd tried to move with confidence. He figured that wild animals could sense fear. Then he wondered whether horses were wild. He had a sense that they weren’t, but he’d never seen one in person before. He was pretty sure, in spite of his attitude, Egan hadn’t either.There were four horses and three riders with them, rough-looking people with skin cracked and weathered like the landscape of a nightmare. Bandits, for certain. They could probably sense fear too. They were definitely wild.Syd had to wonder what Egan was doing with this crew.Only one of them stood on the ground; the other two sat on the backs of their horses, straddling them and holding primitive weapons in their hands.
