Starliner(69)

It was still a beautiful day.

Tidal wasn't on any body of water, which was a pity. Even a lake would have been useful to flush the effluvium of the slaughterhouses at the edge of town. Earthmoving equipment dug trenches to replace those already filled with stinking blood and offal. Flies and the native equivalents formed clouds that looked thick enough to walk on. Layers of quicklime, and the dirt bulldozed onto the trenches when evaporation had shrunk and congealed their contents, did little to discourage the insects.

"This is—hideous!" Oanh said.

"Amazing," Franz echoed in scarcely less pejorative tones.

"This is certainly the home of the rugged individual," Ran said mildly. "Nobody's asking us to live here, of course."

Though Calicheman was a beautiful place in its own stark fashion. Only the human colonists gave Ran pause. Not the first time he'd thought that about one planet or another.

Tidal was built in a melange of styles, most of them garish. High walls concealed and protected the homes of the wealthy, and virtually everyone Ran noticed on the streets was armed. There were no sidewalks, though paved plazas fronted some businesses.

The taxi pulled up hard enough to make the chassis sway on its springs. "Forty-two dollars," the driver said, tapping the sign on her reader.

"I'll get it," Franz said, extending a credit chip.

"Double if it's drawn on an off-planet bank," the driver added. She'd unholstered her long-barreled pistol. It lay on her lap, not pointed anywhere in particular but a blunt warning.

"I'll get it," Ran said mildly. "My credit's through the local Trident office."

He fed his chip into the reader, his face without expression. Oanh got down from the car's high body. Franz tugged their overnight cases from under the seat.

Oanh screamed. Two big men wearing bright garments beneath rough-out leather vests and chaps had the girl by the elbows. They tossed her into the back of a closed car and leaped in behind her.

Ran grabbed the taxi driver's pistol. "Hey!" she bellowed as she caught the barrel before he could aim. The kidnap vehicle accelerated away with all four wheels squealing.

"I'll buy the damned thing!" Ran shouted.

"Like hell!" the driver shouted back. She tried to bite his hand.

Ran let go of the gun. It was too late for that. The other vehicle had vanished into the sparse traffic. He wasn't sure he'd have fired anyway. He'd never been much use with handguns, and Oanh was likely to be injured in the crash even if he'd managed to shoot out a tire.

Franz Streseman was shouting for the police. Ran didn't bother. The Empress's pilotry information had made it clear that self-help was the only help there was on Calicheman. Locals were watching the event with various levels of amusement.

A public telephone, armored like a tank, stood a few meters away. Ran retrieved his credit chip from the taximeter, ran to the phone, and punched TRIDENT on the keypad. The response was strikingly fast.

"Bridge," announced the Empress's AI through the flat-plate speaker.

"Emergency," Ran said. "Deck officer. Over."

The speaker rattled. "Holly, over," it said tensely.

"Wanda, a Trident passenger has got a problem," Ran explained, "and we're going to solve it."

Ran made a series of curt statements and requests. One thing he didn't say, because he didn't want it on record, and because he didn't know how Franz Streseman, distraught at his elbow now, would react.

Ran hadn't recognized the actual kidnappers. But he was quite certain that the face glaring from the back of the kidnap vehicle was that of Gerd von Pohlitz.

* * *

Wanda Holly was alone in the rental car. Ran waved her over to the front of Tidal's Municipal Building, a one-story structure with rammed-earth walls and a littered areaway. Twilight and neon from nearby establishments helped disguise the building's aura of filth.

"You got to understand," said the Town Marshal, a woman named Platt with gray hair in unattractive curls, "that just because a couple outsiders say there's a crime, that don't make it a crime."

"We understand you perfectly, madam," Franz Streseman said in a voice that could have struck sparks from steel. He started to get into the car.

"Just a minute, buddy," Platt snapped, thrusting her arm out in front of the young Grantholmer. If she'd done that to a local, she'd have been handed the limb back with the fingers missing, but she obviously figured it was safe to bully passengers from a luxury starship. They wouldn't make a scene.

Platt turned her attention to Wanda in the driver's seat. "What kind of weapons you got in there?" she demanded.

The deputy, a fat drunk named Boardman, with a billiard-ball scalp and dried vomit on his vest, watched the proceedings from behind an automatic shotgun. If he did start shooting, he was as likely to cut his superior in half as he was to do whatever passed for his intention, but that wouldn't help whoever else was around during the wild volley.