by David Drake
I engaged the landing program, handing all decisions over to the console. We were supposed to be a civilian freighter, and there was nothing about this landing that was likely to be a problem. We were going to land just the way the Alfraz had when it first arrived here—before I stole it—and the way every ship captured by pirates from Salaam landed.
The High Drive kicked in, breaking us out of orbit at about 1.5 g. Gamba was watching the fusion bottle from his position: There was now a line feeding data to the console as there should have been all along. Pasternak was back in the hold with the unit, though.
The Chief Engineer had insisted that he sail with the ship himself, even though Captain Leary had assigned Gamba, who was a thoroughly qualified motorman. Pasternak said he wanted to check the quality of his repairs and modifications; which was probably true, but I’m sure nobody else had doubts. Certainly I didn’t.
There were five riggers—including Lal—on the cabin bunks, and forty additional couches welded to the deck of the hold. They weren’t stacked; heaven knew that we had plenty of room. The couches were for a company of the Special Police, the unit which reported directly to Saguntum’s Director of Public Safety.
Colonel Foliot himself was leading the detachment.
The Alfraz dropped into the atmosphere. The plasma thrusters lighted more than a second before the High Drive shut off, enough to give us a real kick from the doubled braking. Pasternak will have done something about that before we lift, I’ll bet.…
The exterior sensors hadn’t been upgraded, so my view of ben Yusuf was blurry at the beginning, then blocked by a rainbow veil after the thrusters lit. There wasn’t much to see anyway, and my attention was on the ship diagnostics. The rigging wasn’t rattling to speak of. The Sunray crew had given the Alfraz a quick rebuild at Jacquerie. Any doubtful clamps and wrappings had been replaced, and what was there now had been snugged up properly.
“Prepare for landing!” I shouted over the PA system, but nobody aboard could hear me.
The Alfraz had been slanting down broadside, driving against the braking effort. As our speed dropped, the console brought our underside parallel to the sea beneath us and slowly rotated our bow forward so that we would appear from the surface to be in normal flight. We were scarcely more streamlined in this attitude than we had been when we started through the atmosphere sideways.
Because we had some forward motion, our exhaust was streaming behind us as we approached the roadstead of Salaam. I could see about a dozen ships floating there, most of them cutters of a few hundred tons like the one which had captured the Martinique. That seemed now to have happened in another lifetime.
I picked a fairly empty stretch, more or less in the middle and close to the beach. That was farther than I’d have liked from the pier which the heavier lighters used, but it gave the squads hoofing it to the missile batteries equal distances to go.
“Touching down!” I said. That was obvious to all the spacers aboard from the doubled sound and queasy mushing, but probably at least some of the troops in the hold had never been off Saguntum. Though if they couldn’t hear me, I suppose it didn’t matter.
The console landed us with less fuss and bucking than if we’d been at a proper dock whose slip walls would set the ripples bouncing back and forth. We were rocking the other ships on the roadstead, but that was their problem.
The thrusters shut off. Lal got up from his bunk and did what I hadn’t remembered to do: drop the anchors in both outriggers to hold us in place, barring a serious storm. It was a separate control on the bulkhead.
The whole crew was getting up. Woetjans helped Lal open a port in the cabin so that he could thrust a flare gun through the influx of steam and ozone. I could barely hear the thump of the flare cartridge since my ears were still stunned from the landing.
Lal brought the gun back in, replaced the expended round with a fresh one, and fired again. This time I could just barely make out the pop of the flare bursting above the ship.
“What’s all that about?” Wedell asked, looking uneasily from Lal to me.
“Mistress,” Lal said. “I am summoning boats from the shore. Usually one would come, but because I have summoned two, I hope that we will get many. The boatmen will hope we are coming with many slaves aboard.”
“Thanks,” Wedell muttered, but she had a sour look.
I went into the hold. The police detachment seemed to have come through the landing pretty well, though one or two had tossed their cookies. If you’re not used to it, a starship’s landing approach is pretty uncomfortable.
The troops were pulling on long shawls to cover their battledress and equipment. The shawls were ben Yusuf countrymen’s garb, unusual in Salaam itself, but they wouldn’t cause remark.
I found Colonel Foliot and said, “Sir, I’m going to open the main hatch shortly. I’d like you to move your people toward the stern so that they won’t be seen from the boats approaching.”
“Right,” said Foliot crisply. He reached down for the bullhorn resting at his feet and said, “Squad leaders, get your teams together in the back now! We’re going to open the ship up and we don’t want to spook our transportation.”
The troops moved away in good order. I heard a few angry corrections, but there were no major screw-ups and minimal delay. With Foliot at my side, I threw the hatch switch.
As the ramp began to crank down, a huge presence joined us. Chief Woetjans stood close, wearing a shawl like the those covering the troops. Hers appeared to have been cut from tarpaulin.
Steam and plasma swirled in. Foliot and many of his people sneezed or coughed. I said, “Chief, you’re not going with us. I told you I need you to take charge of the ship while I’m gone and call the sloops down with the rest of the troops.”
“Yeah, I thought about that,” Woetjans said. “Gamba can handle that as well as I could. Well, hell, Pasternak’s senior but he doesn’t want the job; it’s more Gamba’s style anyhow.”
“Chief, it’s a Saguntine job,” I said. “I’m just along as a guide.”
“Six wouldn’t want you going alone,” Woetjans said. “And I won’t bloody have it. Just belt up.”
“I’m not alone!” I said. Foliot was watching us; I couldn’t read his expression. “There’ll be forty troops with me!”
“They’re with him,” Woetjans said, nodding toward the colonel. “That’s as should be, but they’re not bloody with you. I am.”
I wasn’t going to convince her. I just wasn’t. Partly, I guess, because she was right.
“Glad to have you with us, Chief Woetjans,” Foliot said. His smile wasn’t warm, but he sounded like he meant the words.
The ramp seated on the outrigger with the usual bang. The first two boats were nearing us; the third was close behind. The large lighter had chugged clear of the cargo dock.
“Stay here, Chief, till the locals tie up,” I said. “Colonel, you can come with me.”
I walked down the ramp, waving with my left arm and smiling broadly. I was wearing ordinary spacers’ slops but with a saucer hat. My belt purse was full of Alliance thalers.
In my right cargo pocket was the pistol I’d gotten from Abram, the gun Monica had used to kill the Karst consul. I didn’t like carrying it, but it would have been stupid not to.
I stood at the end of the ramp. “We want all three of you,” I called to the leading boats. I thought I recognized the boatman as the man who’d taken me and Giorgios to land the day I was purchased. I held out my hand, slanted just enough that the locals could see the thalers in it—but not so much that the money slid into the water.
I made a production of giving Foliot the coins and gestured him into the first boat a battered metal one patched with structural plastic. “Stay here till we’re all loaded,” I ordered the boatman. I turned to the hatch and called, “Two more men!”
Until the lighter arrived, I didn’t want to give the boatmen a notion of how many of us there were. Foliot had managed to get into the first boat w
ithout displaying the submachine gun under his shawl. I knew that boatman would stay put now, but I really wanted troops in the others as well.
Two of Foliot’s people trotted down the ramp, but Ellie Woetjans was with them. I didn’t object. Again I openly gave money to the troops and pointed them to the boats. They weren’t as careful as the colonel had been, but it didn’t matter any more.
I walked out toward the stern of the outrigger and waved the lighter to me when its captain showed hesitation about tying up until the smaller boats had pulled away. I shouted toward the hatch, “Send the rest!” and hopped directly into the lighter’s bow, bumping the boy who held the line.
I took it from him and lashed us to a cleat as Woetjans crashed to the deck like a load of iron. She took a length of pipe from under her shawl as she headed for the stern. I hoped she knew she wouldn’t need the club but that was a minor problem if it was any problem at all.
When his troops started to arrive, Foliot traded places with one of them and climbed back onto the ramp to take charge of sorting them out. The smaller boats turned toward shore with six men in each as the remainder of the detachment filed onto the lighter.
When the last one—Foliot himself—was aboard, I waved toward Woetjans and loosed the line. I walked toward the stern as the diesel chugged and we backed away from the outrigger. The boatman looked terrified as I approached.
I reached into my purse, pulled out a handful of thalers—I didn’t bother to count them. I pulled the throat of his tunic open and dumped the coins down it to catch at his belt. “Just do as you’re told and stay quiet,” I said, looking him in the eyes. “There’ll be more of these, understood?”
By the time we’d returned to the pier, the smaller boats had grounded on the beach. Squads of six headed along shore toward either missile pit. They were walking briskly but weren’t running. The remaining six accompanied the boatmen to the shelter where the locals waited between runs.
“Don’t follow us in a mob,” Foliot ordered as we headed up toward Salaam proper. “Squads with twenty yards between each!”
I heard a pop to my left and turned. A green flare floated down in the sky above the western missile battery. A moment later a similar flare popped over the battery to our right. The flares might puzzle locals but I didn’t think they’d alarm anybody. We had radios but we’d only use them as a last resort; neither Foliot nor I trusted radio in the thick-walled town.
“That’s a relief,” I muttered to Foliot as we snaked our way up the slope. To call any two streets “parallel” in a place like Salaam was stretching a point, but we were following the more or less continuous track to the right of the street at the center of the gulley. I could generally touch the buildings on both sides by stretching my arms out.
Foliot snorted. “Even if the crews were awake,” he said, “and you said they wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be a fight. Not with the personnel and equipment I’ve seen on ships from ben Yusuf.”
I nodded, but what I’d said was true: I was relieved.
Most of the pedestrians we met were women out doing their shopping. The better-off ones had a maid or two to carry purchases and often an armed slave for a guard. I wouldn’t have guaranteed that any of the guns I saw would function. One carbine was missing its loading tube like the pistol we’d taken from Platt’s chauffeur.
I understood the colonel’s contempt. He was more used to being shot at than I was, however.
I heard the sound of a ship dropping toward the harbor, coming from the south as we had. I hoped it was one of the Saguntine sloops. They were supposed to follow us down when the Alfraz announced that the missile batteries were in our hands. I could at least hope that was happening.
We kinked to the right at the cross street which led past the south flank of the palace and then to the west toward the prison across the valley. Instead of doing that, I took Woetjans into the alley behind the women’s wing while Foliot waited at the corner to guide his troops when the time came. Though it was high morning, the narrow passage was dim.
Half a dozen men sheltered there; I didn’t know what sort of transaction was going on. I took out more thalers as I approached.
“You can come back when we’ve finished our business,” I said, not shouting but loud enough to hear. I held the coins out in my left hand. “But you leave now, fast.”
Instead of giving the money to the nearest man, I tossed it over the heads of the whole group. The fellows closest to me had seen I was holding thalers, so they led the rush toward the other end of the alley.
I signalled to Foliot to come through. Woetjans went deeper into the alley with the pipe in her hand. A couple of the locals were taking longer than they should have to search for coins in the bad light. A swipe of the bludgeon across a man’s backside sent him squealing with his fellows into the far street.
“It was just a tap, sir,” Woetjans said. “If I’d hit him like he deserved, I’d’ve broken his hips.”
“I’m not so softhearted that I cared,” I muttered. I tugged at the door. It resisted for a moment. There wasn’t much likelihood that in the short time I’d been gone that Giorgios—or his successor—had found somebody to engage the electronic lock through the console, but I was afraid that somebody’d drawn the bolt on the inside.
Only rust had been fighting me. The door started to move. Woetjans reached past and dragged it fully open so quickly that I had to jump out of the way.
There was room in the tunnel for the whole Saguntine detachment. I stopped at the far end and waited till I heard the alley door clank shut. As I opened my mouth to speak, Colonel Foliot said, “Remember men, we don’t want to leave any survivors. Kill everyone you see!”
“No!” I shouted, hoping to be heard over the general growl of agreement. “Sir, three weeks ago that would’ve been Monica! I won’t let you go any farther if you plan to massacre slaves and children!”
I couldn’t really stop them—the only lock on the door was the little bolt on the top edge—but I had to say something. To Foliot, the palace was where his daughter had been imprisoned and raped—I assume he knew she had been raped. To me, and even I think to Monica, it had been home for several months. I had friends here.
Foliot stared at me. Several of the troops had small lanterns which provided enough light for me to see his features distorted with anger—and for him to see the horror in mine.
Foliot relaxed. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said quietly. He turned and roared, “Cancel that last order! If anybody resists, if anybody’s got a weapon, shoot them.”
He faced me again. I gave him a rueful nod and pulled the door open. The palace staff hadn’t even thrown the bolt since I’d escaped with Monica.
We burst into the wives’ garden. Two wives and half a dozen attendants were there. I’d deliberately set the assault for midmorning: the palace was a maze at any time, and a night attack would be like charging into quicksand.
A maid was coming out with glasses and a carafe of sherbet on a tray. She saw us and screamed. Dropping the tray, she turned to run back inside. Somebody shot from behind me. The maid slammed into the doorjamb and slumped down. I hopped over her legs to get to the door from which she’d come.
I’d provided as good a plan as I could of the interior of the building, but I’d never expected to be coming back—let alone to be coming back through the Wives’ Wing. If we’d used the main entrance, we’d have been in a battle from the first instant. I didn’t doubt that Foliot’s troops could mow down huge numbers of the Admiral’s soldiers, but there were hundreds of them—a thousand being paid, but probably about six hundred in reality.
The places we wanted to get to were on the third and fourth floor. By entering the Wives’ Wing, I was certain that we wouldn’t meet serious armed opposition for maybe as much as an hour.
Inside was a tiled lobby. The maid had come from the food preparation area to the left. It wasn’t exactly a kitchen, but food which had been cooked in the main kitchen was passed thro
ugh the flap in an iron-bound door to the women’s side. Here it was separated and carried upward to the wives’ apartment.
The eunuch posted at the armored door had heard the scream and burst of shots in the garden. He was coming toward us, holding his impeller at the balance. Foliot gave him a short burst which flung his body into a preparation table.
The cook who’d started to follow him screamed and threw herself to the floor. I was pretty sure she was unharmed.
I was sorry about the maid outside, but that was just bad luck. The shooter, one of Foliot’s men, probably regretted killing her too, but everybody was on edge.
The dead eunuch was one of the pair who’d taken the lute from Monica so that Azul could break it. He died because he was carrying a gun, but I wouldn’t have mourned him regardless.
To the right was a circular metal staircase which must have come out of a starship. I started upward with Woetjans pounding along behind me. Another eunuch leaned over the fourth-floor railing. Several people shot at him, blasting sparks of burning steel from the staircase. None of the shots hit the eunuch, but he dropped his carbine as he screamed and jumped back. That was just as good so far as I was concerned.
There was no doorway on the second or third floors between the wives’ section and the general palace, so there were no guards either. Another companionway had been mated to the unit which served the two lower floors; it was black-enameled instead of stainless steel.
So far as Woetjans and I were concerned, the stairs were tedious but not a serious stretch of our abilities. Though older than I was, the bosun had spent her life since childhood climbing companionways and antennas. She’d still be going when I ran out of steam.
The Saguntine contingent was well below us when we reached the top landing, though. They were reasonably fit, but spiralling up scores of steel treads was unusual exercise for any landsman.
I was concentrating on each next step rather than looking up, which I suppose was a bad idea since somebody might look down at any moment and blow my head off. I wasn’t used to thinking about that sort of thing. I didn’t realize how high we’d gotten until I cut my left hand on the railing and realized that I’d reached where shots at the guard had gouged it.