“Happens I do know them, you bet,” Babanguida agreed grimly.
“So there’s Buck on watch, half asleep and nothing but a pistol by him. The Ildis, the tramp, she comes out of sponge space, and bingo! up come four hundred Mahgrabis and tear down the bulkheads. He shouts and drops the first five—”
“He just started shooting?” Babanguida said. “At passengers?”
“At Thirds,” Mohacks replied, “except on the Ildis they called them cargo. Anyway, one of Buck’s rules is ‘When in doubt, empty the magazine.’ It wouldn’t have done much good, though, only about the time Buck got to the hatch with the other three hundred and some screaming Mahgrabis behind him, down come the Grantholm crew. They carried shotguns and submachine guns in their cabin baggage, and I don’t mind telling you the next thirty seconds was pretty busy.”
“I don’t believe you’ve got a brother,” Babanguida said.
“Sure I do,” his companion said. “Well, when the smoke cleared, damned if the captain didn’t sober up enough to see there was an intra-system packet bearing down on a converging course. It blew two magnetics, trying to brake when it saw the Ildis wasn’t stopping. Buck hopes they went sailing on out till they all froze, ’cause a hundred to one they were going to crew the ship once the labor battalion took it over. It was all planned.”
Babanguida sniffed.
“It happened just like I said,” Mohacks protested. “Any starship, even a tramp, is worth a fortune. What the Empress’s worth, well . . . if you ask me, they could mount flamethrowers down here in Third and I wouldn’t mind.”
“That I might believe,” Babanguida said. “But if you’ve got a brother, then I’m President of Trident Starlines.”
Gray-clad emigrants moved along. A child began to sing in a loud voice. His mother shushed him, then flashed a nervous smile at Mohacks and Babanguida as she passed.
Her expression glowed with inner hope.
* * *
The male Szgranian facing Kneale in the VIP Lounge was twenty centimeters shorter than the commander and, though relatively broad in proportion to the human, had a flattened look. He wore a parcel-gilt silver breastplate covered with jagged symbols which Kneale supposed were writing, and his harness was hung with six holstered weapons.
One for each hand.
A generation or so ago, Trident Starlines had accepted the argument that the weapons of a Szgranian warrior were cultural artifacts which the warrior had to be allowed on shipboard. Even then, the company had forbidden projectile weapons, but the swords which Szgranians wielded with their upper pair of arms and the broad-bladed push daggers for the middle pair were permitted.
That ended with an unfortunate incident on the old Princess Royal. An aide to the female head of a Szgranian clan decided his mistress had been defiled by the offer of a birthday cake. It was the chef’s unfortunate notion to mold the cake in the lady’s own likeness, but the table steward paid the price. He was lopped into several pieces before four of the vessel’s officers piled onto the aide and overpowered him.
Since then, Szgranians wore cultural artifacts of demonstrably non-functional plastic, for so long as they were in spaces controlled by Trident Starlines. Nevertheless, the aide had a set of teeth developed to pulp hard-shelled grain—Szgranians were vegetarians, not omnivores—and which could go through major human bones like a hammermill.
“You are the captain?” the aide squeaked forcefully. He was accompanied by five other Szgranians. They were presumably of lower rank, because their rig-outs were less glittering in precisely regulated stages. Despite the strong jaws, most Szgranians could be mistaken for Terrans from the neck up.
“I’m Commander Hiram Kneale,” Kneale boomed back. No one familiar with Terran hippos expected a species to be placid because it was vegetarian. “If you want a starship navigated, Captain Kanawa is your ma*. If you want honor done to a passenger, I am the highest ranking officer for the purpose in Trident Starlines. I represent the Empress of Earth!”
The aide snorted and stepped back to the group of his subordinates. They chittered at one another, waving their arms like a storm in a pine thicket, while Kneale waited stolidly.