Tom stood watching the ambulance whisk Murell off, dithering in
indecision. The poisoning of Murell seemed like an unexpected blow to
him. That fitted what I'd begun to think. Finally, he motioned the
laborer to pick up the lifter, and we started off toward where he had
parked his jeep, outside the spaceport area.
Bish walked along with us, drawing his pistol and replacing the fired
round in the magazine. I noticed that it was a 10-mm Colt-Argentine
Federation Service, commercial type. There aren't many of those on
Fenris. A lot of 10-mm's, but mostly South African Sterbergs or
Vickers-Bothas, or Mars-Consolidated Police Specials. Mine, which I
wasn't carrying at the moment, was a Sterberg 7.7-mm Olympic Match.
"You know," he said, sliding the gun back under his coat, "I would be
just as well pleased as Mr. Fieschi if this didn't get any publicity.
If you do publish anything about it, I wish you'd minimize my own part
in it. As you have noticed, I have some slight proficiency with lethal
hardware. This I would prefer not to advertise. I can usually avoid
trouble, but when I can't, I would like to retain the advantage of
surprise."
We all got into the jeep. Tom, not too graciously, offered to drop
Bish wherever he was going. Bish said he was going to the _Times_, so
Tom lifted the jeep and cut in the horizontal drive. We got into a
busy one-way aisle, crowded with lorries hauling food-stuffs to the
refrigeration area. He followed that for a short distance, and then
turned off into a dimly lighted, disused area.
Before long, I began noticing stacks of tallow-wax, put up in the
regular outside sausage skins but without the Co-op markings. They
just had the names of hunter-ships--_Javelin_, _Bulldog_, _Helldiver_,
_Slasher_, and so on.
"What's that stuff doing in here?" I asked. "It's a long way from the
docks, and a long way from the spaceport."
"Oh, just temporary storage," Tom said. "It hasn't been checked in
with the Co-op yet."
That wasn't any answer--or maybe it was. I let it go at that. Then we
came to an open space about fifty feet square. There was a jeep, with
a 7-mm machine gun mounted on it, and half a dozen men in boat-clothes
were playing cards at a table made out of empty ammunition boxes. I
noticed they were all wearing pistols, and when a couple of them saw
us, they got up and grabbed rifles. Tom let down and got out of the
jeep, going over and talking with them for a few minutes. What he had
to tell them didn't seem to bring any noticeable amount of sunlight
into their lives. After a while he came back, climbed in at the
controls, and lifted the jeep again.
4
MAIN CITY LEVEL
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account