"Unidentified vehicle," said the a guard in the gatehouse a quarter mile from Waddell's mansion, "halt in the air so we can examine you. Or else!"
"I'm halting as directed," Tovera replied with cool courtesy as she brought the aircar to a hover. They were speaking on a two-meter hailing frequency, though the ground unit was transmitting with enough power to come in on light bulbs. "We're unarmed as we said we'd be, and we have the package with us. Over."
Adele, seated beside Tovera, was using her data unit to identify the sensors tracking them. The house proper was in the middle of a twenty-acre compound including a terraced formal garden. The stone perimeter wall had projecting towers at the northeast and southwest corners. Each mounted an automatic impeller which was now aimed at the aircar.
The slave lines were a half mile north of the compound. Rice paddies stretched into the night in three directions.
From the roof of the mansion the aircar was being followed by a basket of twelve six-inch rockets, free-flight weapons which pirates salvoed to strip the rigging of their prey. Their high-explosive warheads wouldn't penetrate a starship's hull or damage the cargo, but any one of the dozen could blast an aircar into bits too small to identify. That wouldn't have concerned Adele even if she'd been thinking of the matter in personal terms rather than as data on her display
"All right, you can come in slowly," the guard ordered. He was trying to be forceful but sounded nervous instead. Waddell had retained only a dozen or so troops here; the remainder were defending his town house from the mob. "Land on the roof where you see Hesketh with the light. Slowly, mind!"
"Mistress?" asked Tovera, speaking over the sound of the fans. The car's top was retracted to make it easier for Waddell's guards to examine them, and the intake rush was very loud even when the vehicle wasn't moving forward.
Adele rechecked her preparations; she had the necessary codes and two alternative means of access to Waddell's security system. "Yes," she said, setting the data unit on the floor without shutting it down. "You can go in, now."
Tovera nudged the yoke forward. The aircar staggered, then wobbled badly for the first twenty feet before she adjusted the fan tilt to smooth their descent.
Tovera treated driving as a technical problem to be solved by intellect rather than through any emotional understanding of the process. She wasn't a good driver, but she was good enough.
Adele smiled. Tovera'd learned to act as though she had a conscience in much the same way, come to think.
There was a grunt from the back seat; Adele looked over her shoulder. Elemere'd slid against the locked door. He met her eyes but didn't speak.
The entertainer wore the gold dress, but his makeup was smudged and he'd lost his wig. His wrists were tied in front of him. A cable anchored on the supports for the running boards ran between his elbows and back; the bights at either end were padlocked. Elemere could neither brace himself with his hands nor cushion the impact when the car threw him from side to side.
A man waving a glowing yellow wand stood on the roof of the mansion. The small lights on the coping showed he had a sub-machine gun in the other hand. A second guard waited with his back to the penthouse over the stairhead; he was covering the oncoming aircar with a carbine.
The tower-mounted impellers continued to follow the vehicle as it settled toward the roof. Electronic lockouts would prevent the guns from firing in this direction—otherwise they'd riddle the mansion they were supposed to protect—but the guards either didn't know that or were bluffing.
The car bobbed violently as it crossed the coping. Tovera's mouth was set in a hard line. When the vehicle was completely over the roof, reflected thrust bounced it higher. Instead of easing the throttles back, she cut them completely. The car dropped what was probably only a few inches but felt to Adele like a foot. Elemere jolted forward, crying out as the cable bit the inside of his elbows.
Adele rose carefully, keeping her face blank. She didn't want to show any expression that Tovera could take as disapproval. She stepped out of the car, raising her hands as she did.
"Hold it right there!" said the guard who'd dropped his yellow wand in order to grip the sub-machine gun with both hands. The other guard continued to point his carbine, though his aim wavered from Adele to Tovera and back again. "Sir! Sir! They're here!"
The penthouse door flew open; the landing beyond was brightly lighted. Four guards came out, three holding carbines and the fourth with a slung sub-machine gun and a resonance scanner.
The last was older than the others and had three vertical gold bars on his sleeves. He ran the scanner over Tovera—who watched with a bemused expression—and then Adele.
"Councilor?" he said, cocking his head—unnecessarily—toward the microphone on his epaulet. He'd closed the armored door behind him. "They're not armed."
"I told you we wouldn't be," Adele said, letting waspishness color her tone. "I'm here to make peace, I told you that too. And we brought him."
She nodded toward Elemere, bolt upright but silent. He followed the guards with his eyes, but his head barely moved.
"Put a light on him!" rasped a speaker over the door. Adele recognized Waddell's voice. She moved to the side while a guard obediently shifted his carbine to his left hand to shine a powerful belt light on the entertainer.
"That's him!" said Waddell. There was a video pickup in the frame of the speaker. "By God that's him."
"Of course it's . . .," Adele said, but she let her voice trail off when the door opened again. Waddell stepped out, followed by half a dozen guards including an officer with a sub-machine gun.
"So!" sneered the Councilor to Adele. "You brave Cinnabars have had to climb down a peg, have you not?"
"Look," she said quietly. "Commander Leary's neck is stiffer than mine. I just want to get home, and without repairs here in Charlestown we'll be six months doing that. If we even can."
She made a curt gesture toward the entertainer. "I don't doubt that Leary'll fume when he learns what I've done," she said, "but I'll bet he'll be just as glad it happened. He was drunk when he took the fellow in, and when he sobered up he was too much a Leary to get himself out of the mess. So I'm getting us all out."
Instead of responding, Waddell leaned into the car. He chucked Elemere under the chin with his index finger. Several of the guards stiffened and aimed at the entertainer's head. Elemere jerked away and screwed his eyes shut. He didn't speak.
Waddell straightened, laughing like oil gurgling from a punctured drum. "Bring him in," he said to the guard officer. "Into . . . we'll start in my bedroom, I think."
"You two," the officer said to a pair of guards. They handed their carbines to the men next to them and fumbled with the cable.
"Here, we have to unlock it," said Adele. Then, when the guards now standing between her and the car didn't move quickly enough, "Out of the way, you fools!"
She bent over and released one end of the cable; Tovera was on the other side of the car. The padlocks were programmed to open to either's right thumbprint. Straightening together, Adele and her servant slid their hands down the front of Elemere's low-cut dress and withdrew the pistols hidden in the false bosom.
Adele fired across the car, hitting the guard holding two carbines just below the left eye socket. The officer dropped his scanner but he didn't have his hands on his sub-machine gun before she'd shot him in the middle of the forehead. He'd ducked. She'd aimed for the bridge of his nose, but it didn't matter because her pellet punched through the bone at this short range.
Tovera's shots were sharp as whiplashes. Something tugged Adele's right sleeve, the hand of a spasming guard or possibly the pellet itself. It didn't matter.
A guard clubbed his carbine at Tovera. Adele shot him through the neck, missing his spine. Blood sprayed from entrance and exit wounds, then from the victim's mouth. He lost his grip on the weapon but fell into Tovera before slumping to the ground. She continued to shoot with the regularity of a metronome.
Adele had three targets in a clump, trying to raise their weapons. Hesketh still held the light wand. She shot out his right eye, shot the man to his left through the chin and throat, then snapped a shot at the third as he tried to duck behind the car. She thought she broke his spine with a raking shot, but Tovera glanced down and fired twice more to be sure.
Everyone on Adele's side of the car was down; across from her, only Waddell and Tovera were standing. The Councilor's mouth was working but no sounds came out. Ozone, ionized aluminum from the driving bands—a thick, hot smell that both bit and coated Adele's throat—and the stench of blood filled the air.
The barrel of Tovera's pistol shimmered bright yellow. She jerked the sub-machine gun from the hands of a dead officer, then slapped Waddell with the pocket pistol. He screamed and staggered backward, pressing both hands to the welt on his cheek. Tovera giggled, then tossed the pistol onto the floor of the aircar.
"That's enough!" Adele said sharply. She reloaded her own weapon, ignoring the barrel's searing glow. The skin on the back of her wrist throbbed and the fine hairs had shriveled, but she didn't think she'd have blisters.
Adele didn't know how many of the twenty rounds in the magazine she'd used, but experience had taught her it was probably more than she'd have guessed. She had a lot of experience at this. . . .
A carbine bullet whacked the coping and howled into the night. The automatic impellers in the towers wouldn't fire, but the guard to the southwest was using his personal weapon. Waddell wouldn't have thanked him, if Waddell's mind'd had room at the moment for anything but sheer terror.
Tovera dropped the knife from a guard's belt with which she'd just freed Elemere's wrists. She raised her sub-machine gun. The tower was out of effective range, and neither she nor Adele were particularly skilled with long arms. Besides, there was a better way. . . .
"No!" said Adele, dropping the pistol into her pocket. It'd probably char the lining but that was one more thing that couldn't be helped. She bent into the car and grabbed her personal data unit. "Get Waddell inside. And you too, Elemere, now!"
The tower guard emptied his carbine in full auto. At least one bullet hit the masonry—Adele heard the spang-ng-ng of the ricochet—but most of the burst punctured empty sky. Tovera waited beside the doorway while Elemere pulled Waddell inside, gripping him by the crotch of his loose, silken pantaloons. In the entertainer's free hand was the knife Tovera'd used to cut him free.
Bent over and clutching the data unit to her chest, Adele ducked into the penthouse. She sat cross-legged on the landing, ignoring the others for a moment except to snap, "Close and bolt the door. Now!"
A console in the mansion's basement controlled the basket of rockets. Rather than go to its physical location, Adele slaved it to her data unit. She'd prepared for the contingency, though if asked she'd have said it was unlikely she'd need it. Preparation was never wasted effort.
The guard had reloaded. This time he aimed. A shot rang from the armored door, and Adele thought she heard another slap the wall. The fellow was wasting his time at present, but he had to be silenced before it'd be safe to fly out again.
Waddell screamed from the room at the base of the stairs. "Don't harm him till I'm there!" Adele said, moving the orange dot across the targeting display in a series of jerks. Daniel would do a much better job. . . . She felt the building shiver as the basket gimbaled to follow the display.
The pipper lay in the middle of the gun tower. Adele sent a firing signal. Two rockets blasted out, jolting the landing enough to lift Adele. She hadn't expected two at the same time. Red flashes and balls of dirty black smoke concealed the target a heartbeat before the doubled explosions shook the mansion. Windows shattered, maybe all the windows on the mansion's façade.
The smoke and dust cleared. A ten-foot section of wall had collapsed—the rockets obviously weren't very accurate—but the other warhead had destroyed the impeller and the fool who'd been standing beside it to shoot.
Adele began swinging the basket toward the other tower. The panoramic view at the top of the targeting display showed the surviving guard leaping off the back of the wall and presumably running in the direction of the slave lines. Just in case he decided to come back, she loosed three pairs of the remaining rockets, shattering that corner of the compound into smoking rubble.
She rose and put away her data unit as the echoes rumbled to silence. Waddell was spread-eagled faceup on the floor below. His wrists and ankles were tied to the legs of a couch and two heavy chairs; he could move his limbs, but not easily and not far. Elemere squatted near the Councilor's head; Tovera stood at his feet. All three watched in silence as Adele descended the stairs; Tovera was smiling.
"Councilor Waddell," Adele said with polite formality. The man had fouled himself; feces were oozing through his thin pantaloons. "I want you to call Commandant Brast at the Squadron Pool and order him to offer Commander Leary and his companions every facility. If you do that in a sufficiently convincing fashion, I will leave you unharmed when we go."
Waddell's left cheek was swollen to angry red except for the long white blister in the middle of it. "Well, without further harm," Adele corrected herself primly.
"I hope he refuses," Elemere whispered. "I really hope you refuse, Councilor."
He jabbed before Adele could stop him. Waddell screamed again, but the knife point merely slit the blister. It began to drain toward Waddell's ear.
"I'll do it!" Waddell wailed. His eyes were shut but tears squeezed from beneath the lids. "I'll do anything you say!"
Tovera giggled again. "Don't worry, Elemere," she said. "Perhaps we'll have better luck the next time we need something from him."
"Good evening, Commandant Brast!" Daniel called cheerfully as he approached the gate in the perimeter of the Squadron Pool. It stood out like a tunnel through the vines and small trees interweaving the remainder of the chain-link fence. "I'm glad you came to meet me yourself."
Two Sissies and a pair of Infantans were tying Manco A79 to trees on the shore just below the Pool. Yellow warning lights were spaced across the top of the dam; area lights on poles threw a white glare on the ground before the gate and the lock building. The administration building brightened the sky in the near distance, but intervening trees hid the structure itself.
Except for Daniel, the barge's two hundred passengers remained aboard. Even Hogg and Landholder Krychek stayed, though only after loud protest. Daniel couldn't take any chance of something going violently wrong, and ultimately both men were intelligent enough to accept a decision they knew was correct.
"Look, Commander," Brast said miserably through the gate. A junior officer'd been pointing a carbine at Daniel from the gatehouse; now he pulled the weapon back and concealed it behind him. "I've got the highest respect for you and the Cinnabar navy, but I can't let you in. I've got orders, you know."
The lock on this side of the dam was big enough to pass the barge, but a dozen Bennarian spacers were hunched around the control building, pointing automatic weapons. A79 wasn't carrying any cargo except spacers, so it'd be faster to march them in by the wicket than to lock the barge into the Pool. Once the formalities had been taken care of, that is.
"Of course, Commandant," Daniel said, continuing to approach with a friendly smile. "It's about your orders that I came, as a matter of fact. I hope that you'll let me—alone and unarmed, I assure you—through the gate to discuss matters, but I can fully understand if you're afraid to."
He was wearing utilities and a commo helmet, but he'd left his equipment belt in the barge instead of simply detaching the holster from it. He wanted to look professional but not threatening.
The junior officer standing beside Brast whispered in his ear. The fellow's name is Tenris. . . . Brast gripped the gate with both hands and rested his forehead against the steel wire with his eyes closed. The pose emphasized his missing little finger.
Brast straightened. "All right," he said harshly, sliding the bar clear; it hadn't been locked. "Come in, then."
He glanced toward the bargeload of spacers. Daniel had told them to keep their weapons out of sight, but he wasn't sure any of the Infantans had obeyed. "Just you alone though!" Brast added.
"Of course," Daniel said. He carefully swung the gate shut after he entered. He gestured toward the gatehouse. "You have a commo terminal here, don't you? There should be a call from Councilor Waddell any time now—"
He prayed there'd be a call and bloody soon.
"—to explain the change in circumstances. I'd sooner stay near my crew, but if you like we can go back to your admin building."
"Why would Waddell be calling here?" Tenris said. The overhead light distorted his puzzled expression into a counterfeit of fury. "Especially the way things are now, I—"
"Commandant!" called the officer in the gatehouse. "They're relaying this from HQ. They say it's Councilor Waddell for you! What do you think it means?"
"Bloody hell," Brast whispered as he stepped into the gatehouse, a shack of 5-mm plastic sheeting on four vertical posts. If Tenris follows him, there won't be room for me. Daniel gripped the Bennarian by the shoulder and moved him back, then squeezed in behind the commandant.
The terminal's flat-plate display was unexpectedly sharp, except for the three-inch band across the middle in which squares danced like the facets of a kaleidoscope. Despite the flaw, nobody who'd seen Councilor Waddell could doubt it was him on the other end of the connection. He was flushed and agitated, and he held his right hand to his cheek.
"Councilor?" Brast said. He tried to salute but his elbow bumped the junior officer beside him. Now flustered, he continued, "Sir, this is Commandant Brast. You wanted me?"
"There'll be a Cinnabar officer coming to see you, Leary his name is," Waddell said in a hoarse voice. "Give him whatever he wants."
"Sir, he's here now," said Brast. "Ah—"
"Then give him what he wants!" Waddell shouted. He glanced to his side as someone off-screen spoke; the voice was only a murmur on this end of the connection. When he lowered his hand, Daniel saw the angry welt on his face.
Waddell glared back at the display. "He'll want a destroyer," he said. "Give it to him. Give him whatever he wants!"
"A destroyer?" blurted Tenris, listening from outside the gatehouse.
"But sir!" said Brast, too startled to be deferential. "The only destroyer we could give him is the Sibyl, unless you mean—"
"Yes, the Sibyl!" said Waddell. "Damn your soul, man, why are you arguing? It's necessary that Leary get everything he wants. Now! Now!"
"Sir, I understand you," Brast said. Daniel doubted whether that was true or anything close to being true, but it was the right thing to say. "But as you know, Admiral Wrenn has directed that—"
Waddell shook his fist at the display. "Damn you, man!" he cried, spraying spittle with the words. Droplets clung to the pickup, blurring the image slightly. "I'll have Wrenn shot if you like! Will that satisfy you? Now get on with it, do you hear me?"
"Aye aye, sir!" Brast said, saluting again. This time his subordinate edged back enough to allow the gesture. "I'll see to it at once!"
Adele's arm reached across the display area and broke the connection.
Brast turned, wiping his face with a kerchief he'd taken out of his sleeve. Daniel backed out of the shack and said, "May I direct my personnel to enter the compound, Commandant? Time's very short, you see."
"I don't understand this at all," Brast said in wonder. "Yes, yes, bring your people in."
He looked at Daniel sharply and said, "It's about the riots in Charlestown, I suppose? That the Councilor is so . . . forceful?"
"I can't go into the details now, sir," Daniel said politely. He nodded to the armed Bennarians standing close by, then opened the gate. Raising his voice he called, "Landholder Krychek, you may bring the crew in. Smartly now, if you will!"
"I don't know what Wrenn's going to say," Brast muttered. He sounded more puzzled than concerned. "I suppose it doesn't matter. He's gone off to his estate."
The spacers from the barge trotted toward the gate. They were singing "Rosy Dawn." Daniel heard Woetjans bellowing along with the Infantans, adding to the volume if not precisely to the music.
"Yeah, but he'll be back after things settle down," said Tenris, shaking his head in wonderment.
"One step at a time, gentlemen," Daniel said, beaming with pleasure. "We'll deal with that when we need to. After all—"
He smiled even more broadly at Brast and his subordinates.
"—we've dealt with everything that's come up thus far, haven't we?"
That wasn't really true for the Bennarian officers, but by God! it was for the Princess Cecile and her crew.