CHAPTER
SIX
Before Ky could contact the rental agency, Martin reported that the loader had arrived. He and his crew had already installed the first of the visual scans, so Ky could watch the loader grind across the dock toward the ship and listen in on the conversation with her crew.
“Sorry,” the operator said. “Had to get clearance from Immigration and check your financials.” The operator had a gray uniform with RENTALL EQUIPMENT in red on the front and back.
Martin held up a hand. “We will need to scan your machine.”
“Fine. I get paid by the hour; don’t hurry.” The operator lounged in his seat.
Martin used a long-handled mirror and various other tools to check over, under, and around the loader. “Now you,” he said. “Get down.”
“Me? You’re only renting the loader; you don’t need to scan me.”
“Oh, I think we do,” Martin said. The man shrugged, started to climb down, and suddenly launched himself at Mehar, whipping a knife from his boot. She sidestepped neatly and thrust a short baton into his gut. He folded around it, dropping the knife. Mehar stepped back; Martin moved in, swung the man around, and clipped him smartly on the jaw. “Good job, Mehar,” he said. “You’re a natural at this.”
“I would rather not be,” Mehar said, hooking the baton back on her belt.
“Beeah, Jim—perimeter.” Martin’s reminder focused the other two on the dock access. Ky watched, fascinated, as Martin secured the man’s knife by scooping it into a plastic bag, then fastened his wrists and ankles with cargo cords, as he had done with Jim at first.
“Captain—”
“Yes,” Ky said. “I saw that.”
“You said station police didn’t want to give us protection. Think they’d be interested in taking in a perp?”
“I suppose we’d better ask,” Ky said. “And I’d better talk to the rental company, too.”
“Threaten them,” Martin advised. “They sent you a ringer or they were bent to start with.”
Ky looked up the emergency numbers and called the station police, here called the Garda. “You did what?” was the response of the desk clerk. “You can’t just hit people and tie them up.”
“My crew was attacked with a knife,” Ky said.
“Witnesses? Other than your own crew?”
“Recorded in video,” Ky said.
“Oh. Well. We’ll send someone over.”
Who to call next? Getting more security on their dockside seemed more important than wrangling with the rental company. Lastway’s business directory listed five security services, but only three were bonded and insured: Baritom, Maxx, and Padilla Protection. She had no clue which to pick. The stationmaster, she knew, would not be allowed to give an opinion—who else could?
ISC. They had their own security, but they must use onsite firms for personal protection sometimes, and they would surely know who to contact for dockside surveillance. Ky contacted their Lastway office and asked for the station director.
“Who’s calling, please?”
To ISC, the Vatta name should still be gold-plated, Ky thought. “Captain Kylara Vatta,” she began, “of the—”
“Vatta!” Then, “Just a minute . . .”
Less than a minute, and a gruff male voice barked at her. “Who do you think you are, queen of the spaceways? Don’t you realize we have better things to do than baby-sit some rich trader’s brat?”
“I beg your pardon!”
“You Vattas are spoiled rotten,” the voice went on. “Can’t wait your turn like everyone else! Think you’re special. Well, out here, Captain Vatta, we’re all citizens and we don’t try to cut in line. You’ll take your place in the outgoing queue just like everyone else and that’s final.” The connection blanked.
Ky stared at the console as if it had grown actual teeth, and then called again.
“What?” said the angry voice she’d just heard.
“I wasn’t trying to cut in line,” Ky said. “I had a question.”
“I’m not a damned information desk,” he said, and cut the connection again.
Ky told herself that everyone at ISC must be under tremendous strain. She still found it hard to believe that the station manager of an obscure office like Lastway could have reason to be that angry with Vatta Transport, or any particular Vatta, but he was, and that was a fact to cope with.
Who else? She scanned the business directory, looking for familiar names. Somewhat to her surprise, Lastway Station had three branches of Hark!, the sectorwide pastry franchise: “The original Hark!, in business at this location for 17 years . . .”; “Hark! #2, convenient to the financial district”; and “Hark! Light: same flavor, less filling.” She doubted that they’d have much knowledge of security companies. The Captains’ Guild? She contacted them.
“I’m sorry but we consider the Vatta account closed at this time,” said the reception clerk as soon as she gave her name. “Any services would be on a cash basis only.”
“I’m not planning to stay there,” Ky said. “I just had a question.”
“A question?” He sounded as if he’d never heard of asking a question. “What about, then?”
“What private security companies onstation would you recommend?”
“The station business directory has a list.”
“I know that, but only three are bonded. What services have other captains found reliable?”
“I’m afraid, under the circumstances, that I can’t take the liability risk of recommending anything in that line. Now if you wanted a recommendation for a good restaurant—”
“Oh, fine,” Ky said. The clerk went on, completely missing her tone.
“Julian’s is very nice—they grow their own fresh vegetables, and they have a cultivar of synthibeef that’s extremely good. Or, if you prefer seafood, there’s Fish Heaven. All local produce—”
“Thank you,” Ky said. “That’s very nice. I don’t suppose you have any idea where I can purchase ordnance?”
“Ordnance?” The clerk’s voice squeaked. “You mean like . . . er . . . weapons?”
“Exactly,” Ky said. It was a forlorn hope, but scaring him looked like the only fun she was going to have.
“Well . . . there’s always the MilMartExchange, over on Hub Four.”
“Thank you,” Ky said again. “Are they in the business directory?”
“Yes, Captain. Under HEAVY EQUIPMENT NEW AND USED.”
“You’ve been most helpful,” Ky said, her good humor restored. Heavy equipment new and used, huh? Was this why the Sabines had been so suspicious of her “farm equipment” on the manifest?
She looked at the directory again, shrugged, and called Baritom Security Services because it came first on the list. Baritom Security Services put her on hold long enough to be annoying; then a senior sales representative came on. “You can understand that we have concerns about any assignment with a Vatta family member at this time—with Vatta accounts frozen—”
“Hard goods,” Ky said. “Acceptable to Immigration Control.”
“Oh. Well . . . the liability risk—”
“I am willing to waive liability where no misconduct by your employees is involved,” Ky said. “We need dockside security as well as personal escort.”
“I’m afraid we would have to add a surcharge for the additional hazard.”
“If you add the surcharge, I’m less willing to waive liability,” Ky said.
“Surcharge. Dockside . . . that’s a minimum of six personnel, two on each shift. Escort charges vary with shift. When would you want them?”
“As soon as possible,” Ky said. “I’m uncertain of the duration at this point.”
“That’s all right. We can have a team at your dockside in . . . fifteen minutes. An escort will be dispatched when you request—were you needing one this shift?”
Ky looked at the chronometer, set now to Lastway Station’s standard time. The shift would end in a half hour, and the next shift was mainday or business. She wouldn’t get out of here before then. “No, not this shift,” she said. “I’ll let you know.”
The police still hadn’t arrived. Ky looked up MilMartExchange, and found that it occupied almost half of Hub Four’s extensive storage holds. “Surplus new and used military heavy equipment: no credit” was its subhead. No more details available without a personal visit, but she could apply for a customer ID that would, the site said, “facilitate entry to the facility for first-time customers. Confidentiality assured. Recommended procedure.” Ky hesitated, then decided to apply: anyone interested already knew she was docked here; the public-access ship listing would tell them that. To her surprise, the “application” consisted of asking for a number; she did not even have to give a name.
She took down the number she was given—fifteen digits—then looked up WEAPONS, where she found six gun shops listed, ranging from Bernie’s Knives and Guns, “cheap, reliable personal protection,” to Blade, Bullet, and Bow—“blades, firearms, and archery tackle for the discriminating.” She looked for ORDNANCE and found “see heavy equipment,” plus a small boxed notice that Lastway was not responsible for the legal status of ships mounting heavy equipment—captains should check with their relevant political units.
Sabine’s concern now seemed more reasonable. And Lastway Station’s regulations on personal weaponry were clearly less stringent than those on many other stations. Ky looked at the available live shots of station activity and noticed that a number of the people walking past were obviously armed. Probably others carried concealed weapons.
The directory listed a number of sources for surveillance and security systems, including most of the weapons sources already shown. Vic’s Precision Protection Supply was closest, on the same sector of the same hub. She had Martin’s wish list of gadgets and software. No, the first thing was to arrange handling of funds.
All the major quadrant banks had branches here; Ky picked Crown & Spears. Their representative regretted any inconvenience that it might cause, but they had put a lock on Vatta corporate accounts until matters had been adjudicated. Ky had expected that. “Did you receive a transfer from Belinta a few weeks ago? It was in my personal account, not a company account.”
“I regret, madam, that I find no record of such a transfer. The last value we have for madam’s personal account, based on ansible data, is indeed healthy, but those funds are not presently available because of the ansible failure. In the present crisis, we cannot advance monies based on remote accounts.”
“Very well, then. I want to open a new account,” she said. “We’re selling cargo here and I’ll be making purchases.”
“It would have to be cash or hard goods,” the bank’s representative said.
“Of course,” Ky said. “I’ll courier over about four thousand credits’ worth—using as a rough guide the official appraisal from Immigration—”
The face in the screen smiled more naturally now. “That will be fine, Captain. Their assessments are often . . . less than we might give, shall we say. And you say you have cargo as well?”
“Yes. We’re unloading now; my cargomaster will be dealing shortly.”
“Excellent. Now—is this to be a Vatta Transport account, or a personal account?”
“Personal,” Ky said.
“Very well. We will await your courier and make funds available as soon as the valuation has cleared.”
Ky had just closed the connection when Martin called to her. “The Garda are here,” he said. “Their officer would like to speak with you.”
“I’ll be right out. Baritom Security is sending a couple of personnel to help guard dockside, and I’m going to need a courier to Crown & Spears to open an account. Would you say another Baritom agent, or a courier service?”
“Neither,” Martin said. “When Baritom takes over dockside coverage here, I’ll escort you or a crewmember.”
The Garda who met Ky held out a legal notification pad. “Make your mark here, madam. You’re being notified of your legal status on this station, your legal rights and obligations . . .” Ky read the notification and signed her name. She handed him a data cube with the recording of the man’s attack, and he nodded. “We’ll be in touch,” he said. One of his fellows took the cargo cords off the operator and put on their own restraints; then they hauled the man away.
“I’ve got a list of what we need to complete our own perimeter security,” Martin said.
“There’s a supplier on this hub, not that far away,” Ky said. “When I get the bank account set up—and by the way, I haven’t contacted the rental company yet. In the meantime, can we start unloading?”
“Yes, ma’am. Jim here has convinced me that he does indeed know how to handle one of these things—I had him move it around while we were waiting for the Garda to show up.” He paused, then said, “And here’s Baritom.”
Ky glanced toward the dockside entrance and saw two uniformed men waiting by the entrance. She started forward, but Martin stopped her.
“It’s my job,” he said. “If you’ll just get whatever you need for the bank run . . . and I’d recommend Mitt for your courier. He has an implant and he looks nothing like you.”
By the time Ky came back, Martin had assigned the two Baritom guards to the dockside entrance and told Alene to open up the nearside cargo hold. Beeah and Mehar were pacing around the dockside; Jim was backing away from the cargo hold with the first stack of containers. Mitt, his face sober, took the packet with two diamonds from Ky and put it in an inner pocket in his tunic.
Shortly thereafter, she had an account with a balance of 5,876 credits and a Crown & Spears credit chip, with authorization code. With that, Vic’s Precision Protection Supply was willing to send over 648 credits’ worth of surveillance gear. It arrived just as Martin and Mitt returned from the bank; Martin took charge of it and began installation at once.
Unloading proceeded; Ky looked at the tradehall listings and saw that the Leonoran pharmaceutical components should do very well, bringing much more than they would have on Leonora. Now that she had a bank account, she could list the cargo on the boards, and bids began to come in. She shunted those to Alene’s attention. Her own attention focused on what she needed most to make her ship and her crew safer while in port. Any port. The attack on Belinta had involved both firearms and contact poison; they would need their own weapons, personal armor, and antidotes to such poisons—if any existed.
The tricky part would be getting to the small-arms dealers before someone got to her. Martin would come with her, but would that be enough? If she didn’t wear Vatta colors, and carried her own weapons after she got them . . . who else in the crew knew how to use any? She paused to ask Martin.
Mehar, of course, was an expert with the pistol bow. It turned out that she had also handled needlers before. Jim, as Ky now began to expect, rather shamefacedly admitted to having handled a variety of weapons.
“There were sorta like pirates hanging out in the estuaries near where we farmed. So I kind of picked up some of it—and my father, he always hunted even though the landlords didn’t like it.”
“So what do you know enough about to be useful?”
“Slug throwers. We didn’t have stunners and needlers and all those spacer things. Make a big enough hole in it, my dad always said, and you’re sure it’s dead. There was this thing that lived out in the woods, big as a cow, and had these scales on it—”
“Slug throwers . . . handguns or long barrels?”
“Both, Captain. Now what I really liked, but only got to use once and he was really mad about it, was the mayor’s Schneider-Watson .44 automatic. Made a lot of noise, it did, but you could put holes in those bitty little pirate speedboats with it. Or give me a rifle like my dad had . . .”
“How about accuracy?” Ky said.
“I’m pretty good,” Jim said with unusual modesty for him. “My dad, now, he was a dead shot at any distance, but I qualified top in the marksmanship class for the local militia.”
“Militia? You were in the militia?”
He turned red. “Well . . . actually . . . not that long. See, they didn’t like my family that much, and when they found I’d shot a swamphog—well, three actually—with one of the militia weapons, they used that as an excuse to kick me out. I don’t see what’s so wrong about that. I was going to replace the ammunition, and I cleaned up the rifle before I put it back.”
Ky bit her lip. It would not do to laugh, but she was beginning to have a good idea what kind of family Jim had come from. They had a few like that on Corleigh—old George was one of them—who had not, as her father put it, ever moved into the city from the frontier, even after the frontier was settled. You want them on your side, her father had told her. Their virtues weren’t needed most of the time, but when they were, nothing else would do. So now she had what her father called a “bush rat” of her very own, and she’d better make proper use of him.
She called Martin in to look at the catalogs from the various shops. Martin’s face was eloquent; she didn’t need his verbal comments to second her opinion that Bernie’s Knives and Guns was out of the running, along with Arms4U. He thought the gun club might have serviceable weapons for the crew, but Ky noticed that the list of available weapons hadn’t been updated for several weeks. Blade, Bullet and Bow had top-quality weapons and prices to match, like Terrifield, back home on Slotter Key.
Her father’s personal weapons were all from Terrifield; she had gone there with him once, and remembered the quiet shop with its slightly faded green carpet and old-fashioned display cases where the weapons on display were all antiques, and customers and staff spoke to each other in strings of cryptic numbers. “I’m looking for a P1400 with the 21–37 adapter,” she’d heard one customer say. And the clerk had retired behind a curtain—a bulletproof curtain, her father mentioned later—and returned a moment later with something in a flat gray case. Her father tapped her shoulder—rude to stare, that meant—and made his own numerical request, which appeared on the counter in a few moments in a dull green case. It had been years before she understood what the numbers meant, and the difference in quality between the weapons there and the ones at Connery’s Sporting Goods in Corleigh Town, which all had names as well as numbers: Hotshot 2100, Blastem—which came in attractive colors—Matchmaker. She shook herself out of that memory, and the surge of fear that her father was dead. She had to hope he wasn’t.
Crash, as the obvious favorite shop for law enforcement and military, would have a wide selection and no trashy stuff, but Martin objected. “It’s got ties to law enforcement; they’ll have someone in there who talks to them. Until we know more about how things work here, that’s not a good idea. Blade’s a good choice for your weapons, if you can afford it. I’ve heard of them from people who’ve been here before.”
From their docking slot at Hub Two, Hub Four with its multitude of arms merchants could be reached by external shuttle or internal tram, with transfers. Blades, Bullets, and Bows, though in Hub Three, was reasonably close by tram, and on the way to Hub Four, where she planned to visit MilMartExchange. One trip would be safer than several. Martin recommended she take Jim along as well as himself and Beeah.
“The boy’s an obvious gawking tourist,” Martin said. “He’ll be a distraction to others, and anyway he’s got to get better shore clothes.”
Lastway Station was as bustling and colorful as Belinta had been quiet and dull. Despite the danger, Ky’s heart lifted at the sight of hurrying pedestrians, bright shop entrances, exotic smells, the dock entrances of other ships, familiar and unfamiliar logos. She wanted to take off and explore, like any giddy apprentice on a first visit to other worlds, but she schooled her pace to a steady walk and managed not to gawk and point the way Jim was.
They reached the interhub tram stop without incident. Martin pointed out to Jim the kind of shore suit he should buy as soon as possible: plain, dark, suitable for any of several occupations. Ky wondered if Jim was paying attention; his eyes were wide. The tram itself was much like those on any station; they bought five-day passes and boarded one of the pressurized cars. Only one other passenger was in their car, a young girl with an obvious schoolbag. She was slumped in a corner, staring at her hand reader.
The tram slid away from its stop, moving smoothly through the translucent transport tube between hubs. Ky craned her neck, trying to orient herself to the whole station, but it was impossible. Hubs two and three and their arms blocked most of her view. The planet below was beneath the car’s opaque floor. Her stomach lurched as the tram spanned between the artificial gravity of Hub Two and Hub Three, then they were pulling into the Hub Three tram stop as the usual voice synthesizer announced “Approaching Hub Three station. All Hub Three passengers transfer here to Hub Three radial trams. Approaching Hub Three station. All Hub Three passengers . . .” The schoolgirl didn’t look up as Ky and her crewmembers rose.
Hub Three, where passenger liners docked, had a fancier tram station. Sound-reducing tiles covered the floor and walls in an attractive blue, green, and beige pattern. Instead of ticket machines, there was an information booth with a live clerk behind the window. Ky had already looked up the location of the shop—less than a hundred meters from the tram station—so she turned right and found herself in a passage with obviously expensive shops on either side.
Past a haberdashery, a jeweler’s, a window display of fine china and crystal, a window with two lengths of velvet on which rested three silver salvers, she came to the windows of Blade, Bullet, and Bow: on the right, a pair of swords like something out of legend leaned against tall black boots and a cocked hat with a plume; on the left, a fan-shaped array of arrows around a recurved bow. The door had no handle, just a button. Ky pushed it.
The door opened; she faced a slender middle-aged man, clean-shaven, in a gray suit as plain as her own and as well tailored. Behind him, at a discreet distance, was another man whom Ky knew would be armed. “May I help you?” the man said. As he spoke, his gaze slid past her to Martin, Beeah, and Jim, then back to her face.
“I want to buy a personal weapon,” Ky said.
“Meaning no disrespect, madam, but if you are a stranger to this station, there are less expensive shops . . .”
“But not, I suppose, those carrying better quality,” Ky said, smiling.
“No, madam. Would madam care to step in? I am Andrew Barris.” He said that as if she should know the name.
“Thank you,” Ky said. “May my escort attend?”
He looked past her again. “Perhaps madam would feel secure with only one?”
“Of course,” Ky said. She turned. “Martin, two of you can wait outside.”
“Beeah, Jim, stay close to the shop,” Martin said.
Ky smiled again at the salesman. “You will of course wish to ensure that he is not armed.”
Now the smile widened. “Madam is perceptive. Ardin: you may proceed.”
Martin quirked an eyebrow. “Standard Arms 11 mm, shoulder holster. I presume you’d rather I didn’t reach for it?”
“Is that all?”
“The only firearm, yes.”
“Would you remove the holster harness?”
“Be glad to.” Martin removed his tunic and shrugged out of the harness. The store employee took it carefully, without touching Martin’s weapon, and placed it on the counter before running a hand scanner over Martin.
Then he nodded at his employer, who nodded at Ky.
“How may we serve you?” was the next question.
“I’m thinking a 10 or 11 millimeter Rossi-Smith, with whatever ammunition is legal for everyday carry on this station. Frangibles? Spudders?”
The man’s eyes widened just slightly. “Is this for yourself, madam, or your . . . um . . . escort?”
“This would be for me,” Ky said, smiling. “When I shoot someone, I expect them to stay down awhile.”
He looked at her as if he wanted to say more, but didn’t immediately speak. When he did, his voice was even softer. “We have a number of weapons of that caliber. We have three ten-millimeter Rossi-Smiths in the shop at present. Two are customized, one with rose-gold inlay and floral carving on the grip. I’m sure madam would like to see the one with rose-designed—”
“The plain one, please,” Ky said. For just an instant he stared.
“Wait one moment, please,” he said. “And if I could just have madam’s credit references?”
“Cash,” Ky said. She did not want some spy at the bank to know exactly what her weapons were. His eyebrows went up and his lips tensed. Ky went on. “Perhaps you would be good enough to switch on the excellent site security I’m sure you have. I would then be glad to explain.” His mouth was still tight, but he nodded, pressed a button, then brought out from beneath the desk one of the squat cylinders Ky recognized.
“The outer perimeter is now shielded to most scanners,” he said. “This completes the acoustic shielding, and the windows behind the display cases are one-way. Is madam satisfied?”
“Thank you,” Ky said. “My name is Kylara Vatta.” His lips twitched; she nodded. “Yes, that Vatta family. As you clearly are aware, my family is under attack. I was in transit when the trouble started and know no more than what’s in the newsfeeds. I have been informed that the local station considers Vatta corporate accounts unreliable and is demanding cash; I assumed that you would follow suit. If I have insulted your honor, please accept my apologies.”
His face softened. “My dear . . . madam . . . I understand completely. If the local financial institutions have frozen Vatta accounts, then you are right. I’m sorry to say that because of our location, so far from the center of humanspace, we are unable to offer credit if local accounts are frozen. However, we would be pleased to accept barter, if you do not, perhaps, have access to local supplies of cash.”
“My cargo’s selling,” Ky said. “And I’ve opened a separate account; I expect to have access to cash shortly. However, in addition to purchasing a weapon from you, I wanted to ask your advice on two things. First, I have some . . . er . . . family valuables that I could sell, but I have no idea who would give me an honest price. I have had to rely, so far, on assessors attached to Immigration.”
“I understand your concern, madam. As for the valuables . . . it depends on the type. Items of historical value, or precious materials?”
“Materials,” Ky said.
He glanced at her case. “With you, perhaps?”
“A portion,” Ky said. She slipped her fingers into the pouch and removed one diamond. “This, for instance.”
He nodded, showing no emotion. “Quite nice,” he said, as if customers laid diamonds on the counter every day. Perhaps they did. “We can arrange immediate appraisal; the firm we use is certified by interstellar convention and bonded. Is that satisfactory? I am already persuaded that your items are of sufficient value to cover any likely purchases.”
“Quite,” Ky said.
He opened a drawer and laid the Rossi-Smith on the pad in front of her. She picked up the weapon. Perfectly plain, the grip of some dark . . . “Wood?” she asked. It felt organic, but not quite like wood.
“No, madam. That’s bloodbeast tusk, from Xerion. It shares with Old Earth ivory the characteristic of remaining grippy even if one’s hands should sweat, but it has much better impact resistance. Madam will note that the action is the classic 1701 model, rather than the newer 1900—”
“Which tends to develop a stick with repeated rapid fire,” Ky said.
“Exactly,” he said, smiling. “Perhaps madam would like to try it out on our range?”
“Indeed yes,” Ky said. She followed him through a curtain, down a narrow passage, and then into a two-person gallery. Here he offered ear protectors, goggles, and discreet assistance; the rounds he gave her were clearly marked target rounds. She loaded, lined up, and fired; the trigger pull had just enough resistance, and the recoil, with the target round, was negligible. Her first three shots were in a line, left to right, across the middle of the target. “Drat,” she said mildly. “It’s been too long.”
“Not bad,” he said. “But you were rushing.”
She tried again, this time remembering all the tricks her father had taught her, and produced a tight cluster.
“Better,” he said, as if he were her instructor. He probably was. “You are aware, madam, of the difficulty of hitting targets in variable g?”
It was something they’d studied in the Academy; Ky remembered the frustration, on that trip to the Academy’s own orbiting training station. “Oh yes,” she said, perhaps a bit too fervently. “Luckily, I’m not going to be shooting at anyone who’s not shooting at me . . .” She took another clip of target rounds, loaded, and placed the group in half the area of the last one.
“Very nice, madam. Now, station regulations limit the permissible ammunition loads to frangibles and chemical immobilizers, no . . . er . . . spudders. Rounds with total delivery force small enough to avoid structural damage to the station, of course. For this model, we recommend the Rossi-approved PF for a frangible round, and the CPF, which encapsulates the latest legal release of an immobilizer–marker combination. Dispersal is limited by droplet size to within a meter of the impact point, so there is minimal collateral involvement.”
“Does the station management have a preference?”
“Some criminals do wear protective gear, which of course limits the utility of the frangible rounds—”
“Personal armor,” Ky said. “I meant to ask about that, too.”
“We carry protective gear, of course, in a range of sizes and price points.”
“I’d better take a look,” Ky said. “And yes, I’ll take this one.” How much trouble did she expect to have? “I’ll take another two clips to sight in with, and then five each of PF and CPF.”
“And perhaps a holster and concealed carry permit? The background check is, I assure madam, brief and discreet. If madam’s escort does not already have one, it would be advisable to obtain one for him, as well.”
She had not carried a weapon on her person except for forays into the woods back home, where a very obvious holster on the hip was fine. “I’m thinking,” she said with a smile, reaching for the next clip.
Her bill mounted up. Weapon, ammunition, carrying case, cleaning kit—“Alas, madam, no one has ever been able to make a firearm perfectly self-cleaning . . .”—permit to carry openly or concealed, and finally the wearable protection. Here the top-grade torso armor was so thin and flexible that she found it hard to believe it would do any good. Barris put it over a human form whose base wobbled when he nudged it, stood it up in one of the lanes, and fired at it. The torso model on its pole barely moved; the armor stiffened, changed color, and the light towel he hung down the back appeared scorched brown when he lifted it to show her.
“One-way heat radiation, madam. Substantially reduces impact effect, as well as protecting against penetration. Only recently licensed for civilian use, though supposedly it’s been available in the black market for several years. Not that I would trust my life to that version.” His expression reminded Ky of a cat that had accidentally stepped in something abhorrent.
She tried on one of the vests in her size. Not much heavier than a wool vest, and surprisingly comfortable. It fit invisibly under her business suit. “Serious assassins go for the head, of course,” Barris said apologetically. “We can’t armor that without being obvious, which I gather is not madam’s desire.”
“I would prefer to be inconspicuous, yes,” Ky said.
“We can offer basic torso protection to your security personnel at competitive prices.” After all, the profit on what you’re getting for yourself covers our cost of stocking it went unsaid. Merchant to merchant, Ky looked at him. He smiled. She smiled back. Well, if someone took a shot at her people while she was getting from here to Hub 4, she would feel guilty for leaving them unprotected.
“Economy is a factor,” she said.
“Of course, madam. I shall be glad to call up the current price points from the other onstation dealers . . .”
“Quite all right,” Ky said. No need to say she had already. He would assume she had.
Somewhat to her surprise, just one of Aunt Gracie’s diamonds covered the entire cost with credit left over.
Fitting Martin with a conventional vest took only a few minutes, but when Ky went to call Jim and Beeah inside, they were no longer near the door. Instead, Jim was crouched near the display window of the china shop with Beeah standing over him.
“What’s wrong?” Ky asked. “Are you all right?”
“I am, but look at this . . .” He turned and stood, cradling in his arms a small black-and-white animal with stiff, spiky fur. “Someone’s been messing it about—I found it in the rubbish bin, trying to get out.”
“What is that?” Ky asked. Bright black eyes, little black nose, and the moist pink tongue that suggested Old Earth origin. Hairy, so a mammal of some kind. She glanced around and saw that Jim had indeed dismantled a rubbish bin to get it out, leaving trash strewn about. “And you’d better clean up the mess you made before someone fines us for littering.”
Jim stared at her as if she’d said she didn’t know what two plus two was. “It’s a puppy,” he said. “A terrier puppy. Here—you can hold him while I pick this up.” He shoved the wriggling little animal into her arms and turned; the puppy promptly fastened onto Ky’s hand with sharp little teeth.
“Ow!” she said. Beeah came up beside her. “Here—I expect we’re now in trouble for harboring an unlicensed animal onstation, but at least we can contain it. And it bites,” Ky added, as the puppy fastened its teeth on Beeah’s thumb.
“I noticed,” Beeah said, but he was grinning, prying open the puppy’s jaws to retrieve his thumb. He offered the puppy the cuff of his suit, and the puppy worried it, growling.
“I hope it doesn’t piddle on you,” Ky said. Jim stuffed the last of the trash back into the container and set the lid on. “Come on,” she said to him. “Let’s get you fitted.”
“Some guard you are,” Martin muttered to Beeah, as Ky led Jim back to the shop. He had retrieved his weapon and followed her out. “What did you think you were doing?”
When she came back, trailed by Jim, Beeah had the puppy cradled along one arm, upside down, and was stroking its belly. He handed it to Jim, reluctantly it seemed, while Martin rolled his eyes. Fitting Beeah also took only a short time; Ky accepted her change in local currency, and excused herself. She arrived outside just in time to see an obvious station guard staring at the sight with disgust. The guard moved across the passage toward them.
“You there!” he said. “Do you have a license for that animal?”