“The boarding party’s waiting at the main hatch, sir,” Woetjans said. The bosun held a stocked impeller and wore a bandolier of reloads besides her equipment belt. She didn’t look any more concerned about the landing than Adele did.
“Not before the master puts on his pretty white suit,” Hogg announced. He held the jacket and trousers of Daniel’s 1st Class uniform; Tovera, smiling faintly, stood behind him with the shoes and hat. “You’re going to see the high muckymuck of the whole cluster, after all.”
Adele looked at Hogg curiously. “The Astrogator is a pirate, Hogg,” she said, an observation rather than an argument.
“All the more reason, mistress,” Hogg said firmly. “You’ve got to put on side with wogs or they don’t respect you.”
Adele grimaced—Daniel knew she didn’t like the ethnic pejoratives that were universal with Hogg and most of the Cinnabar spacers. She turned up her palm and let the subject drop.
Daniel changed clothes, which mostly meant moving his limbs as directed while Hogg and Tovera stripped off his garments and put on fancier ones. “Adele?” Daniel said. “Will you be needed at your console, or . . . ?”
“Certainly not,” Adele said tartly. “I’ll be with you in case the Astrogator requires detailed information.”
Daniel smiled. “Yes,” he said. “That too.”
Adele looked suddenly worried. “I don’t have to change clothes, do I? I don’t have a white uniform.”
“Just the master dresses up, mistress,” Hogg said with assurance. “The rest of us look like a buncha scruffs, but we carry enough hardware to blow a hole in the landscape. Not that I expect shooting, but we gotta blend in t’ talk to these types.”
Daniel heard the main hatch undogging in a metallic chorus. The bolts withdrew with quick hammerblows that rang through the fabric of the ship. He keyed the PA system and said, “Mr. Mon, you’re in command until I return from a chat with the Astrogator,” he said.
Starting for the companionway, Daniel added, “Woetjans, I think an escort of ten crewmen under a petty officer will be sufficient.”
“You’ve got twenty and I’m in charge of them,” the bosun said as she preceded him. “Besides your own party. Sir.”
Which amounted to—Daniel looked over his shoulder to see who was following—Adele with Hogg and Tovera both. The pale spider whom Adele used for a servant carried the attaché case which contained her submachine gun. Hogg had slung a knapsack over his left shoulder; on his right hung a submachine gun muzzle-forward in a patrol sling.
“We’re not going to fight a whole planetful of pirates, Hogg,” Daniel said, knowing he sounded peevish. If there was fighting at all, it meant that his plan had gone wrong.
“If we look like we’re ready to, young master,” Hogg said, wheezing down the companionway behind him, “then maybe we won’t have to. And anyway, I’m not as sure as you are just what’s going to happen in that warehouse you’re taking us into.”
Daniel grimaced but said nothing further. In all truth, a gunfight in the pirate’s council hall would be a lot less surprising than the recent attack by the Tanais defenses.
The guards in the entryway were alert, which wasn’t entirely a good thing. Daniel had been raised in the country and had handled guns from before he could write in cursive. Most of the spacers were as ignorant of firearms as they were of formal etiquette. There was a real possibility that a tense guard was going to blow a hole the size of a dinner plate through Daniel as he walked down the gangplank.
“Hogg, remind me to institute a program of small-arms training as soon as we’ve sorted out this business with Strymon, will you?” he said.
“That’s if none of our good friends have shot holes in our backs in the meantime, you mean,” Hogg muttered.
“Yes, indeed,” said Adele, and even Tovera was nodding with her serpentine smile. It seemed to be a general concern among all members of the community who really knew which end of the gun the slug came out of.
The crewmen of the escort waited in the B Level corridors to either side of the entryway, keeping out of the way until it was time to leave. They jostled as they fell in behind Daniel.