“They’ll have the arms locker by now,” Ran said. “It’s on the Engineering Deck, a hundred meters from the Cold Crew hatch they used. I’ve got my pistol and that cannon we picked up on Calicheman in my cabin, but they’ll probably have somebody on Corridor Twelve by now . . . .”
“We’ll try,” Wanda said in sharp decision. “We need more than one pop-gun, that’s for sure.”
Her face suddenly fell into a hard smile. “And it’s Grantholm rather than Nevasa because the Nevasans were going to hijack the Empress from inside. That means if there’s a sponge-space commando attacking, it’s from Grantholm.”
“Excuse us?” a voice called from the direction of the corridor entrance. The person speaking was hidden by vegetation between him and the officers on the curved aisle. “Lieutenants? We’re coming toward you. Your ship’s artificial intelligence said you were here.”
Wanda drew her pistol. Ran stepped deliberately in front of her, hiding the weapon from sight.
“What is it?” he demanded sharply.
A lanky old man stepped around the stand of Grantholm reeds. It was a passenger Ran had met the day the Empress undocked from Earth: Wade, Richard Wade, and his plump cabinmate Belgeddes trailed behind him.
“A Grantholm commando has invaded your ship, Mr. Colville,” Wade said. He gave a courtly nod to recognize Wanda as well. “And we thought you might like our help in doing something about it.”
* * *
“You want to what?” Wanda Holly said.
“Thinks we’re a couple silly old buffers, Dickie,” Belgeddes said, shaking his head sadly. “Well, I suppose we can’t blame her.”
The plump old man put his index finger to the throat of his tunic and opened it to an undershirt of some bleached natural fiber.
“Gentlemen,” said Ran Colville, “please get to your cabin at once. Ms. Holly and I—”
“They’ll have somebody in officers’ country by now,” Wade said, “the Grantholmers will. They won’t have had time to search the cabins this quick, though. The two of you head that way, they’ll come down on you like lizards on a beetle. But if it’s you and I sauntering down the hall, Ms. Holly—well, an old fart and his popsy won’t ring any alarm bells in whoever’s on guard, will we?”
“Best be me with the young lady, Dickie,” said Belgeddes as he pulled his undershirt from beneath his waistband. “And it best be me with the little gun, Ms. Holly, because even if you’re better than I think you are, I’ve got more of this kind of experience.”
He tugged the undershirt upward, baring his belly and chest.
“Jesus Christ,” Ran Colville said softly.
Much of the scar tissue smeared a bright pink across Belgeddes’ pasty torso was of too general a nature to identify its cause, but the line of four dimples from right shoulder to right nipple were obviously bulletholes. It was amazing the man had survived.
Ran glanced back at Wanda. She touched her tongue to her lips but said nothing. Behind her, holographic pachyderms ground away at the Calicheman equivalent of mangrove roots.
“I’m sorry if I’ve distressed you young people,” Begeddes said as he covered his ruined flesh again, “but I had to convince you that we’re . . . experienced in this sort of thing. Otherwise you’ll go off and get yourselves killed without doing a lick of good.”
“And don’t jump to the wrong conclusion about the scars, young fellow,” Wade said to Ran. “Tom’s the one who walked away from that one—”
“On Esmeralda, it was,” Belgeddes murmured with a wry smile. “‘Ought to be interesting,’ Dickie says, and I go along with him because I always do, for my sins.”
“—and there were twelve of the others,” Wade continued without looking at his plump friend. He shook his head sadly. “Tom’s a dab hand with a pistol, no one better. Give him a long gun, though, and the only way he could hit anything is to get close enough to swing it like a club.”
Ran looked at the two passengers, and thought how much he wished Commander Kneale were alive—
And how much he wished Mohacks and Babanguida were still on board—