The drawer had the ammo and gas mask, and also handcuffs and ankle restraints. We put them on the sheriff. “Floater’s here,” Po said from the door.
“Driver?” Marygay called back. He said no; it had the autodriver light on. “You’re coming along, then. Hostage.”
“If you leave me locked up in the cell, there’s no way I could hamper you. I’d prefer that.”
Max grabbed his arm. “We’d prefer to have you along.”
“Wait,” I said. “You think they’re going to kill us.”
“As soon as they see you’re armed, yes. My being with you wouldn’t affect the decision.”
“One reason we love you so much,” Marygay said. “Your concern for one another.”
“It wouldn’t just be Man making that decision,” he said; “not in Centrus. A Tauran truly wouldn’t understand why it made any difference.”
“They let Taurans in on police matters?”
“No, but it won’t be a police thing, once the starship’s part of it. Matters that involve space are going to involve Taurans.”
“The more reason for a hostage,” Max said.
“Do you hear yourself?” the sheriff said. “Which of us now is placing a low value on life?”
“Just on yours,” Max said, and gave him a push toward the door.
“Wait,” I said. “Until they know what we’re doing, there won’t be any Taurans involved?”
“Only people and Man,” he said. “But it won’t take them long to see what’s happening and contact the Taurans.”
“Yeah.” I pointed at the door. “Take him out and lock him up. We have to confer.”
Max was back in a minute. “It may be time to gamble,” I said. “The floater’s going to go down Main to get to the spaceport. I could slip out by the museum, and you all go on. With the sheriff, you’ll have the expected seventeen people, if anybody’s looking. That will gain us some time. Then you can disable the floater before it gets there.”
“But then you don’t have the floater’s fuel cell.” We had planned on that in case the fighting suit was cold. “Yes, he will,” Max said, intense. “We get a klick or so from the spaceport and put the floater on manual and ground it. That’s five, maybe seven minutes from dropping him off. Give him a minute or two to get into trouble. Then we turn the floater around and take it back to him.”
“With the police in hot pursuit,” Marygay said.
“Maybe; maybe not,” I said. “You keep the gun, in case, but hell. They don’t have police like on Earth.” Probably not on Earth now, either. “Unarmed traffic cops.”
“You don’t want the gun?” Max said.
“No–look; that tear gas is a godsend. I go in with the tear gas and the mask and a crowbar, I’ll be inside the suit in minutes. Hell, I’ll meet you on the road to the spaceport.”
Marygay nodded. “It could work. And if it doesn’t, at least you won’t have used a deadly weapon on the guard.”
I was able to stuff the gas grenades and mask into the sheriff’s briefcase. Hard to disguise a crowbar, but I found I could slide it down my pants leg to the knee, and the belt held it in place, with the top part concealed by my coat.
We all got situated in the floater and it took off, rising to about a hundred meters. The snow had gotten pretty heavy; you couldn’t see the ground. We hoped it was like this in Centrus. It would slow things down for them, but not for us, so long as the wind stayed calm. The shuttle was okay in snow but wouldn’t launch in a strong cross-wind.
It was an uncomfortable hour. The sheriff wasn’t the only hostage, in fact; everyone else’s fate was dependent on the outcome of a string of unpredictable events. And nobody wanted to talk about it, not with the sheriff listening.
I became curiously calm as the floater dropped to ground level, near the city limits. There was a certain amount of danger ahead, but it was thin soup compared to what I remembered of combat.
I didn’t want to think about how many years ago that was. I hoped the museum guards were soft city boys and girls–bookish and unfamiliar with violence. Maybe old folks. I’d give them a story for the grandkids, regardless.