by David Drake
More than two minutes ago Blantyre had excitedly reported that a local delegation was on the quay demanding access. Woetjans with a squad of armed spacers was keeping the officials from stepping onto the boarding ramp.
But Daniel'd always been good at prioritizing. First things first.
The Greybudd had landed two slips away from the Princess Cecile and the air still roiled with hot steam and the sharpness of ozone from her thrusters. Rust obscured the transport's number, but a checkerboard of replacement hull plates made Daniel sure of his identification. Besides, Corius would've brought his own vessel down first.
He and Adele walked down the boarding ramp to meet the four officials. They wore berets with a red-and-white rosette. Two were in khaki uniforms; one wore a uniform jacket with shapeless blue trousers; and the last had similar trousers, a horizontally striped shirt, and went barefoot.
All wore pistols and belt knives. The barefoot fellow carried a crude-looking shoulder weapon with a drum magazine, probably a shotgun powered by chemical explosives.
Daniel continued to smile, but in all truth they weren't a prepossessing bunch.
"I'm Pennant-Leader Onsbruck," said the huskier of the men in full uniform. He was in his mid-twenties, a little older than Daniel but younger by a decade than the other uniformed man and the thug with the shotgun. The fellow in the khaki jacket was a slight teenager with acne and close-set eyes. "We're here to take charge of your ship till the full Committee can assess it."
"And your guns," said the older uniformed man. He was over six feet tall but stooped and soft-looking. A bookkeeper before the war, Daniel thought. Some sort of office worker, at any rate. "Foreigners aren't allowed to have guns in Ollarville."
Woetjans, standing on the ramp with five husky spacers ready for anything, spat into the water. She cradled an impeller in the crook of her left arm, but Daniel suspected that if trouble started she'd kick the man with the shotgun in the balls and then strike right and left with the stock of her weapon. The bosun was a good shot and big enough that the impeller's heavy recoil didn't faze her, but shooting was just a job to her. She took personal pleasure in breaking bones, however.
"Yes," Daniel said, nodding agreeably. "I think for now it's best that you consider us Dunbar citizens since we're here to help your government against the Pellegrinians. And there's no question of turning over an RCN warship without a decree of the Cinnabar Senate, of course, so you'll have to pass on that also."
"Who do you think you're ordering around?" Onsbruck demanded, his face getting red. The kid with acne looked even more like a rat than he had to start with; his hands were twitching. "If you foreigners come here, you either obey our regulations or you're no better than those pissants from Pellegrino!"
Hogg was on the Sissie's spine, sitting on a telescoped yard and goggling at the harbor. An impeller was concealed in the furled sail beside him. Given how quickly Hogg could snap off a shot, Woetjans might not get much chance to crack skulls after all.
Daniel's smile grew broader. This lot wouldn't make trouble, though. Not when Yuli Corius was landing with two thousand troops even as the discussion took place.
Adele's eyes had a bright, unfocused look that Daniel had learned to interpret: she'd been listening to something through her commo helmet. Her gaze suddenly locked on the chief of the local delegation.
"I assure you, Master Onsbruck," she said, snapping out syllables like a series of mousetraps closing, "that as representatives of Cinnabar, we'll be punctilious about dealing with the Federal Republic of Dunbar. We have no right to become involved in your domestic politics, however, nor do we intend to do so. Whether you're here as private citizens or as members of the Eastern Provinces League, you have no right to involve yourselves in our mission."
"We are the government here!" the little rat said. "We've got the power!"
"You've got shit," said Woetjans in an even voice. When the youth reached for the pistol under his belt, Woetjans stepped forward and stiff-armed him into the water.
The thug with the shotgun looked at Onsbruck and said, "What? What?"
"Don't!" Daniel said, but talking didn't seem a sufficient way to deal with the situation. He grabbed the shotgun at the balance with both hands and twisted counterclockwise. The thug twisted back. Daniel reversed his effort, swinging the weapon in an arc that ended when the gunbutt thumped the thug's right temple.
The thin fellow dropped his clipboard and stood transfixed. Onsbruck himself threw his hands in the air and cried, "I'm not fighting! I'm not fighting!" in a voice that rose into the treble range.
"I am!" said Dasi. He grabbed Onsbruck by the throat and right arm; his partner Barnes seized the other wrist and elbow and started to twist them the wrong way.
"Belay that!" Daniel said. "Barnes, let him go!"
"Aw, sir . . .," said Dasi, but he was grinning. He released Onsbruck's neck but kept hold of the wrist. His now-freed right hand drew one the knives from the local's belt and cut the belt itself through. It fell to the ramp with the other knife, the holstered pistol, and a trio of grenades.
"Somebody fish the little one out of the water, will you?" Daniel said peevishly. "Woetjans, pull him out, if you please."
He was breathing hard and he'd lost his cap. He looked at the shotgun. The closed breech showed a gap of over an eighth of an inch; the casing of the chambered round was readily visible. I wonder which end's the more dangerous. He grimaced and tossed the weapon into the harbor.
Woetjans bent over but apparently decided that she couldn't easily reach the man struggling in the water. Grinning she poked the muzzle of her impeller down while gripping the stock with both hands. "Here you go, sonny," she said. "Just catch hold. And don't worry, the safety's on—I think!"
Simkins, another of the spacers on guard, was looking over the other side of the ramp. "Hey!" she called. "There's a body here. Bloody hell, there's two bodies!"
Daniel stepped to her side. The bodies were so ripe that they bulged at the necks and wrists where their clothes constricted them. One wore a striped shirt and workman's trousers like the EPL thug; the other had pantaloons and a tunic with puffed sleeves, female fashion on Pellegrino and the planets trading with it.
The corpses had been shot in the back of the neck. The wounds were red and swollen; the flesh was black everywhere else it was exposed.
"What's this?" Daniel said sharply, glancing at the EPL officials. Onsbruck was rubbing his left elbow with his right hand. He looked up sullenly and said, "It's nothing to you. They were traitors, probably. We don't coddle traitors in Ollarville."
Daniel noticed his hands were clenching and unclenching. He deliberately spread his fingers wide. He'd really like to throw this fellow into the harbor and hope he couldn't stay afloat as well as the boy accompanying him had, but that wasn't the job of an RCN officer. What happened between citizens of Dunbar's World was a domestic affair.
"Go on back to your kennel, Master Onsbruck," he said pleasantly. "And take the rest of your pack with you, if you please."
Onsbruck bent to pick up his equipment belt. Daniel shoved him: not a blow, simply a matter of placing his hand on Onsbruck's head and pushing. The EPL official shot backward, off the ramp and several feet beyond. He sprawled on his back when his feet couldn't backpedal fast enough to keep him upright.
"I believe I gave you directions once already, Onsbruck," Daniel said, his voice still quiet. He used the side of his boot to skid the belt into the water with a loud splash.
Daniel looked over his shoulder. There were automatic impellers mounted in three open hatches, and the dorsal turret was trained on the city. Another twenty spacers stood in the main hatch under Cory; they were armed to the teeth. Hogg and Tovera slipped through them, grinning like the fiends they were.
"Master Cory," Daniel said, "take charge of the security here if you will, till Captain Vesey gives you other orders. Woetjans, you and your squad to accompany Officer Mundy and myself just down the quay to the Greybudd.
I have some matters to discuss with Councilor Corius."
CHAPTER 14
Ollarville on Dunbar's World
Troops in gray-green battle dress were marching off the Greybudd via two of the ship's three ramps. Most of them carried sub-machine guns, but there seemed to be one stocked impeller per ten-man squad.
The ramp closest to the bow had stuck halfway down. Spacers from the Greybudd were looking at it from the quay and the hatchway, but there wasn't the sort of bustle that Daniel liked to see in a crew when something goes wrong. He frowned.
The troops were forming a perimeter, closing off the quay and politely—reasonably politely—but firmly moving out the handful of idlers and dockworkers who were there at the moment. As Daniel and his escort approached, one of the soldiers began talking urgently into a handheld radio. Another man stepped out of the line with his arm raised in bar.
"Sorry, gentlemen," the second soldier said. "This area's closed to everybody but the Bennarian Volunteers unless you've got a pass from—"
"Let 'em through, Rajtar!" said the man who'd been on the radio. He shoved forward and put his hand on the second man's—Rajtar's, presumably—shoulder for attention. "The Councilor's on his way down right now to see them. It's the RCN mission, you see?"
Rajtar looked surprised and uncertain. "Ah, right, sir. Sorry, thought you were more of this lot."
He waved a hand at Ollarville generally. The port was being forced to handle cargoes well beyond its normal capacity. Much of the overage was piled in vacant lots or stretches of street frontage. Existing businesses were supplemented by shanties, and the buildings themselves were being raised by additional stories made of bamboo and wicker.
"Glad to have the RCN on our side. Bloody glad."
"Sorry," Adele murmured to Daniel as they led his entourage through the cordon. "Corius' staff didn't get the word to the troops in time. If I'd been back at my console, I could've routed the orders through myself."
Daniel smiled broadly and waved toward Yuli Corius, trotting down the stern ramp behind his reptilian bodyguard. Three men in uniform, aides rather than guards from the look of them, followed. He said quietly, "I prefer you here."
That was certainly true, though he wasn't sure he could give a reason that'd mean anything to other people. Adele was a friend, certainly; but Hogg and Woetjans were friends as well in their different ways.
Learning was all very well and Daniel valued it, but he had more interests in common with Hogg or even the common spacers than he did with Adele Mundy. If Daniel'd thought knowledge for its own sake was important, he'd have lived a very different life. Time spent poring over books that didn't advance a particular interest of his—natural history, for example, or anything to do with the duties of his profession—was no better than so much time spent in jail.
It wasn't even Adele's intelligence or at least not only her intelligence. Perhaps it was the way Adele applied her intelligence as dispassionately as a scalpel; no matter how she felt or what she felt. She'd provide a clear, cogent analysis of a question even if she knew the result would be her own death.
He could trust her. He could trust her judgment in any and every situation, and you could hardly ask for a better definition of who you wanted at your side in a chancy negotiation.
"Commander, I was on my way to see you," Corius said. He wore a field gray uniform like those of his Volunteers, but without any indications of rank. Corius didn't carry a weapon, though, an oversight that'd mark him as a worthwhile target to any hunter as practiced as Hogg . . . or as Daniel himself, come to think. Though hunters that skilled weren't thick on the ground either.
"This is Colonel Quinn, my field commander," Corius went on, gesturing to the short, extremely fit, sixty-year-old at his side. "We're going to the military routing office here in Ollarville and I want you to accompany me. With Lady Mundy, of course."
Quinn responded with a Cinnabar salute, touching his right index finger to his brow with his stiff hand and forearm in perfect line. "Sir!" he barked. "A pleasure to meet you!"
Daniel returned the salute, but not nearly as sharply. Quinn was obviously Cinnabar—but not a Cinnabar officer, not with that demeanor and accent. Very likely he'd been a noncom in the Land Forces before retiring into what was supposed to be a cushy billet in the sticks.
It must not've worked out the way Quinn had expected, though, since the man's nose and ears were oddly pinker than the rest of his tanned features. They were synthetic, not real skin. At some point in the recent past Quinn had been mutilated, and reconstructive surgery hadn't been able to put the damage quite right.
"And to meet you, Colonel," Daniel said. Part of him—the RCN officer and the Cinnabar gentleman both—was irritated at Corius' phrasing: I want you to accompany me. On the other hand, he wanted to see the nearest central government officials also, and it'd be foolish to cavil about some wog's unfortunate terminology.
Daniel grinned brightly. "Yes, I'm planning to talk to the locals myself. We'd be pleased to have you and the colonel join us."
After all, he could horsewhip the fellow on the ramp of his ship some other time, if that seemed like a good idea. The humor of the thought made Daniel smile—and the thought of the Councilor's face if he knew what caused the smile made him chuckle audibly.
"Quite," said Corius, but a puzzled look flashed across his face. "The Federal Building's three blocks down the waterfront."
He nodded; toward a four-story building clad in tan brick, Daniel thought, but that was just because it was prominent. Though he'd learned over the years that the chance of a government building being strikingly ugly were very good, and this one qualified. The brick had a violet undertone that made Daniel queasy when he concentrated on it.
"I've got an aircar aboard the Greybudd," Corius continued, "but rather than wait for it to be unloaded, I propose that we walk. With a suitable escort, of course."
"I haven't seen anything in Ollarville that a couple crossing guards couldn't handle," Hogg said, picking his nose. "What do you guess, Woetjans?"
Woetjans spat again. The gobbet wobbled ten feet as straight as a chalk line, then plopped into the slip.
The lizardman, Fallert, made a noise in his throat like a loose gear train. That was apparently laughter.
Corius looked even more disconcerted. He cleared his throat and said, "Let's go, then. Colonel Quinn, detail a squad to accompany us."
Tovera said something to Hogg in a low voice. Daniel couldn't be sure, but he thought it was something like "ten crossing guards." Whatever the precise wording, it put Hogg and Fallert in boisterous good humor as they sauntered through the cordon.
Spacers aren't trained to march in unison, and Corius' Volunteers were individually recruited mercenaries who hadn't spent a lot of time on drill and ceremony either. It struck Daniel that the body of them looked more like a well-armed street gang than they did professional soldiers.
That seemed to be quite in keeping with the conditions prevailing in Ollarville. He grinned and began to whistle "The Patapsco Shanty" cheerfully.
Adele intensely disliked using her visor and its simple cursor controls in place of a proper display linked to her wands, but while she was walking down Water Street she didn't have a better option. She was uncomfortably aware that Barnes and Dasi kept step, poised to catch her if she stumbled. It was embarrassing, but falling on her face would be still more embarrassing. That was a real possibility, given the state of the pavement and the fact she was seeing through a 70 percent mask of projected data.
The half-dozen guards at the entrance to the Federal Building were in laborers' clothes, loose dark trousers and striped shirts, but they all wore the red-and-white EPL rosette somewhere on their garments. They bent their heads close and buzzed to one another as the combined Bennarian and RCN contingent approached; one man scurried inside. None of them had been in the delegation which had visited the Princess Cecile earlier in the afternoon.
"Colonel Quinn?" said Corius in a carryi
ng voice. "If those ruffians open their mouths, I want you to have them soundly thrashed."
"Very good, sir," said Quinn, sounding like he meant it.
Hogg turned to Fallert and said conversationally, "Say, I could come to like your master."
The lizardman laughed again. "He won't let me eat the hearts of those I kill for him, though," he said. His pronunciation of Standard was excellent, though he didn't or couldn't give labial consonants their proper emphasis. "I don't know why. It's only cannibalism when it occurs within a single species."
"S'pose he means it?" Barnes said in a husky whisper, ostensibly to his partner but of necessity speaking across Adele.
She didn't reply. She simply didn't know the answer, and she wasn't good at making empty conversation.
The EPL contingent backed out of the doorway; two even walked quickly away as if late for a distant appointment. A man whose crossbelts supported two pistols remained to glower at the foreigners, his hands on his hips.