The power was already switched to the coils. Kelburney wasn’t the sort to let his last act in life be fumbling to take his pistol off safe.
Adele squeezed the trigger as she exhaled, both eyes open. The sound of the room departed like water vanishing down a drain. The front post was sharply focused; her target was a blue glint in a gray-gold blur.
WHACK!
The snapping discharge through the impeller rings was a surprise as usual, accelerating the heavy slug to several times the speed of sound. The pistol recoiled in Adele’s hand, the muzzle lifting. It was well balanced, settling back on target as naturally as Adele’s own familiar weapon would have done.
The head of Kelburney’s statue twisted awry. Whether she’d hit the right eye or not, she’d certainly torn the casting enough that the sapphire flew out of its socket.
WHACK/WHANG!
In her concentration Adele hadn’t heard the sound of the first slug’s hammerblow on the metal, but she did the second as gold ripped apart. Long splinters, reddish against the age-blackened surface wood, stood out from the post like a halo where the shots had penetrated after striking the metal.
The top of the statue’s head tumbled ringingly to the floor. Dalbriggans in the back of the Hall scrambled to get out of the way.
“I believe you have a second cup now, Astrogator Kelburney,” Daniel said, releasing the older man and stepping back. “If you’ll have somebody bring it up to us, perhaps you and I can use it to drink to a new understanding between your people and mine.”
He smiled toward Adele. “At any rate,” he added, “I believe you understand Officer Mundy better now.”
Adele took the pistol by the receiver with her right fingertips and offered the butt to Kelburney. The flux had heated the barrel to yellow heat in only two shots. It was a powerful weapon, meant to punch through body armor.
“Thank you for the loan, sir,” Adele said.
The only noise in the Hall was the continuing echo from the commotion moments before. The Dalbriggan officers on the dais drew back with sharp expressions, more tense than they’d been while Adele was aiming the weapon.
Kelburney took the pistol expressionlessly. He looked at the truncated statue, obviously judging the likelihood that he could duplicate Adele’s feat—and correctly deciding that there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in Hell of it.
“Here, woman,” he said, handing the pistol back to Adele. “Anybody who can shoot the way you can ought to have a gun of her own.”
And what in heaven’s name am I supposed to do with a cannon like this? Adele thought; but she took the weapon with a tight smile. That was the politic thing to do, after all, and it was a very nice piece of workmanship.
Kelburney turned to face the assembly and placed his hands on his hips. “Siblings of the stars!” he said. “Free citizens of Dalbriggan and the universe! Is it your will that I and your council examine these strangers and make policy based on what we learn?”
The shout built from a dozen throats to a hundred; finally the whole assembly shook the walls with its bellowed response. At first there were a few cries of, “No!” among the general assent, but as the volume built so did the agreement.
Kelburney raised his arms skyward. The shouting stopped, though the Hall still rumbled with shuffling feet and indrawn breaths.
“Siblings!” Kelburney said. “Will you be bound by our decision?”
This time there was no opposition. The assembly’s decision was implicit in its first response; and this would not, Adele suspected, be a good environment for people who recalcitrantly espoused a minority view.
Kelburney gestured Adele and Daniel both close. He shouted into their ears, “The Council Chamber’s through the door behind us. I’m glad to learn the RCN has a proposition for me, because as it chances I have a proposition for the RCN.”
He gestured them ahead. Others from the dais were already going into the room beyond, though the Hall proper still reverberated with the enthusiasm of the full assembly.
I wonder, Adele thought, if I should ask for a holster and belt while I’m at it?