Starliner(107)

"You think we should have—what, attacked men with guns?" Dewhurst said. "Refused to cooperate?"

"Nothing of the sort!" Wade said forcefully. "Leave that to the professionals, to the ship's officers and crew. That's no business for passengers, after all."

Ms. Dewhurst elbowed her husband and nodded toward the fleet of buses and taxis jogging forward to carry away disembarked passengers. "Shouldn't we . . . ?" she said.

"Yes, I suppose we should," Dewhurst agreed.

He looked at his companions for the voyage. "I don't suppose you chaps are booked for the return sailing?" he said, a trifle wistfully.

Da Silva shook his head. "We're not all vacationers," he said. "I'll be here a month at least. Longer if my firm decides to set up a permanent office."

"Nor us, friend," Wade agreed, "though we'd considered it. The difference between vacationing and retirement is that nobody expects us to be anywhere. We'll take another ship from here. Maybe a freighter, for a change."

"There's always something popping around Dickie," Belgeddes said, shaking his head with a wry expression. "Been saying that for fifty years, so I suppose it's the way I like things to be."

"Well . . ." Dewhurst said. His eyes narrowed. "What on earth is that in your luggage, Wade?" he demanded. "A cannon?"

"Something like that," Wade agreed, looking at the 15-mm rifle strapped onto his well-worn trunk. Even taken down into two pieces, the weapon looked long and clumsy. "It was given me as a souvenir, I suppose you'd call it."

"Dear," said Ms. Dewhurst, tugging her husband's sleeve.

Dewhurst twisted his arm away. "In a damned minute!" he snapped.

"From Calicheman?" Da Silva asked.

"I believe so, originally," Wade agreed.

Belgeddes chuckled.

"Shouldn't doubt there'll be a story in it the next time somebody comments on the thing," Dewhurst said—half gibing, but half sorry to know that he wouldn't be present when the story was told.

"Shouldn't doubt that you were right," Belgeddes agreed.

A limousine pulled into the cab rank. When a taxi hooted its horn angrily at the interloper, a uniformed traffic warden rapped the cab's windshield firmly enough with her baton to threaten the glass.

"There he is," said Belgeddes.

"Your ride?" Da Silva said in amazement

"Not exactly," said Wade. "Tom and I have business, well, elsewhere for the while. But we took the liberty of arranging three days for you in the penthouse of the Circassia Palas. Manager's a friend of ours, you see. He's sent his personal car for you."

"The penthouse?" Ms. Dewhurst gasped. "We could never afford that, Mr. Wade!"

"It's on me, good lady," Wade explained with a courtly bow. "The least I could do after all the drinks your husband and Mr. Da Silva here bought me during the past weeks."

Belgeddes nodded. "Never remembers to carry small change," he murmured. "You'd think Dickie'd have learned in fifty years, but he never has."

"Perhaps we'll meet again," said Wade as he straightened. "It's not so big a universe as some people think."

"Until then," Belgeddes added. He gave Da Silva and the Dewhursts a languid salute, then followed his taller companion back toward a door in the terminal marked OFFICIAL PERSONNEL ONLY.

Even Ms. Dewhurst gaped after them. The limousine's chauffeur waited stolidly, continuing to hold the vehicle's door open.

* * *

"It's a triumph of people over architects," Wanda Holly said to Ran as they sauntered through a trattoria with tables of extruded plastic and exquisite, hand-carved chairs.

Bogomil Old Town was an area of slab-built concrete buildings set in a rectangular grid of broad streets, a district as functional as a prison. Though preserved as a monument to the early days of the colony, Old Town was a living museum whose current-day residents added humanizing touches.

Apartment facades were individually painted, and no two suites had identical sets of shutters. The entranceway of a seven-story box was framed with pillars of hammered copper extending to roof level and supporting balcony railings at each floor. On all the buildings fronting the Mirza, an arm of the sea too shallow for commercial navigation, the ground-floor shops were open in front so that they could spill out onto the boulevard.

"Happy-looking place," Ran commented.

"Peaceful" wouldn't be the right word, however. Locals sipping clear liquor not infrequently shouted and made the flimsy tables jounce with their fists. There was passion as well in the haggling of brightly-dressed shoppers; and though the knives most men wore were for show, a culture whose ornamentation includes weaponry is not wholly peaceful.