Andre Norton Super Pack. Andre Norton

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СКАЧАТЬ we can just wait and let them collect us.” He yawned, his dark eyes set in smudges. “I don’t care if they’ll just let us sleep the clock around afterwards. D’you really think,” he addressed Rip, “that we’ve done ourselves any good?”

      Rip neither denied nor confirmed. “We took our only chance. Now it’s up to them—” He pointed to the wall and the teeming world which lay beyond it.

      Ali grinned wryly. “I note you left the what-you-call-it with Hovan.”

      “He wanted one to experiment with,” Dane replied. “I thought he’d earned it.”

      “And now here comes what we’ve earned—” Rip cut in as the hum of the riser came to their ears.

      “Should we take to cover?” Ali’s mobile eyebrows underlined his demand. “The forces of law and order may erupt with blasters blazing.”

      But Rip did not move. He faced the riser door squarely and, drawn by something in that stance of his, the other two stepped in on either side so that they fronted the dubious future as a united group. Whatever came now, the Queen’s men would meet it together.

      In a way Ali was right. The four men who emerged all had their blasters or riot stun-rifles at ready, and the sights of those weapons were trained at the middles of the Free Traders. As Dane’s empty hands, palm out, went up on a line with his shoulders, he estimated the opposition. Two were in the silver and black of the Patrol, two wore the forest green of the Terrapolice. But they all looked like men with whom it was better not to play games.

      And it was clear they were prepared to take no chances with the outlaws. In spite of the passiveness of the Queen’s men, their hands were locked behind them with force bars about their wrists. When a quick search revealed that the three were unarmed, they were herded onto the riser by two of their captors, while the other pair remained behind, presumably to uncover any damage they had done to the Tower installations.

      The police did not speak except for a few terse words among themselves and a barked order to march, delivered to the prisoners. Very shortly they were in the entrance hall facing the wreckage of the crawler and doors through which a ragged gap had been burned. Ali viewed the scene with his usual detachment.

      “Nice job,” he commended Dane’s enterprise. “They’ll have a moving—”

      “Get going!” A heavy hand between his shoulder blades urged him on.

      The Engineer-apprentice whirled, his eyes blazing. “Keep your hands to yourself! We aren’t mine fodder yet. I think that the little matter of a trial comes first—”

      “You’re Posted,” the Patrolman was openly contemptuous.

      Dane was chilled. For the first time that aspect of their predicament really registered. Posted outlaws might, within reason, be shot on sight without further recourse to the law. If that label stuck on the crew of the Queen, they had practically no chance at all. And when he saw that Ali was no longer inclined to retort, he knew that fact had dawned upon Kamil also. It would all depend upon how big an impression their broadcast had made. If public opinion veered to their side—then they could defend themselves legally. Otherwise the moon mines might be the best sentence they dare hope for.

      They were pushed out into the brilliant sunlight. There stood the Queen, her meteor scarred side reflecting the light of her native sun. And ringed around her at a safe distance was what seemed to be a small mechanized army corps. The authorities were making very sure that no more rebels would burst from her interior.

      Dane thought that they would be loaded into a mobile or ‘copter and taken away. But instead they were marched down, through the ranks of portable flamers, scramblers, and other equipment, to an open space where anyone on duty at the visa-screen within the control cabin of the spacer could see them. An officer of the Patrol, the sun making an eye-blinding flash of his lightning sword breast badge, stood behind a loud speaker. When he perceived that the three prisoners were present, he picked up a hand mike and spoke into it—his voice so being relayed over the field as clearly as it must be reaching Weeks inside the sealed freighter.

      “You have five minutes to open hatch. Your men have been taken. Five minutes to open hatch and surrender.”

      Ali chuckled. “And how does he think he’s going to enforce that?” he inquired of the air and incidentally of the guards now forming a square about the three. “He’ll need more than a flamer to unlatch the old girl if she doesn’t care for his offer.”

      Privately Dane agreed with that. He hoped that Weeks would decide to hold out—at least until they had a better idea of what the future would be. No tool or weapon he saw in the assembly about them was forceful enough to penetrate the shell of the Queen. And there were sufficient supplies on board to keep Weeks and his charges going for at least a week. Since Tau had shown signs of coming out of his coma, it might even be that the crew of the ship would arouse to their own defense in that time. It all depended upon Weeks’ present decision.

      No hatch yawned in the ship’s sleek sides. She might have been an inert derelict for all response to that demand. Dane’s confidence began to rise. Weeks had picked up the challenge, he would continue to baffle police and Patrol.

      Just how long that stalemate would have lasted they were not to know for another player came on the board. Through the lines of besiegers Hovan, escorted by the Patrolmen, made his way up to the officer at the mike station. There was something in his air which suggested that he was about to give battle. And the conversation at the mike was relayed across the field, a fact of which they were not at once aware.

      “There are sick men in there—” Hovan’s voice boomed out. “I demand the right to return to duty—”

      “If and when they surrender they shall all be accorded necessary aid,” that was the officer. But he made no impression on the Medic from the frontier. Dane, by chance, had chosen better support than he had guessed.

      “Pro Bono Publico—” Hovan invoked the battle cry of his own Service. “For the Public Good—”

      “A plague ship—” the officer was beginning. Hovan waved that aside impatiently.

      “Nonsense!” His voice scaled up across the field. “There is no plague aboard. I am willing to certify that before the Council. And if you refuse these men medical attention—which they need—I shall cite the case all the way to my Board!”

      Dane drew a deep breath. That was taking off on their orbit! Not being one of the Queen’s crew, in fact having good reason to be angry over his treatment at their hands, Hovan’s present attitude would or should carry weight.

      The Patrol officer who was not yet ready to concede all points had an answer: “If you are able to get on board—go.”

      Hovan snatched the mike from the astonished officer. “Weeks!” His voice was imperative. “I’m coming aboard—alone!”

      All eyes were on the ship and for a short period it would seem that Weeks did not trust the Medic. Then, high in her needle nose, one of the escape ports, not intended for use except in dire emergency opened and allowed a plastic link ladder to fall link by link.

      Out of the corner of his eye Dane caught a flash of movement to his left. Manacled as he was he threw himself on the policeman who was aiming a stun rifle into the port. His shoulder struck the fellow waist high and his weight carried them both СКАЧАТЬ