"Yes," Ran said, "I do."
He'd thought he'd have to get that from the Galley off Corridor 3, on the opposite side of the deck. Also, he'd thought Medchen was going to be a problem . . . though it appeared he was wrong in that expectation.
The Chief Steward stepped into his alcove and came out again with covered plates and a setting of flatware, still wrapped in its napkin. The Grantholm attack must have occurred just as he sat down to dinner.
"Right," Ran said. He kept his voice unnaturally calm. "Now, some stun-gas projectors. I want about six."
Medchen pointed. "Locker Four," he said, "beside you. There's a gross of them."
Ran opened the locker. Boxes of nerve-numbing gas, each projector about the size of a knife hilt, were stacked on the bottom of the cubicle. Medical supplies filled the shelves on top.
The gas—actually an aerosol—was skin absorbed. It numbed motor nerves without affecting the autonomic nervous system. The humans it struck went instantly catatonic, whether they were drunk, furious, or mad as hatters at the moment they received the dose, but it had no long-term side effects.
That last point was desirable when the target was a cook with a cleaver. It was absolutely necessary when the problem involved, say, a passenger trying to strangle his wife.
Ran took the six projectors he'd decided on when he made his plan. It was tempting to grab more now that he saw the dozen full boxes, but he restrained himself Quantities of equipment weren't going to turn this hijacking around. Luck and guile would have to do.
He looked back at the Chief Steward. "One thing, Medchen," he said. "I hope you're not thinking of reporting this to our friends from Grantholm?"
Medchen shook his head slightly. "No, Mr. Colville," he said. "I'm not going to say anything about it to anybody."
"That's good," said Ran softly. "Because if you did—you can't be sure that they'd kill me, Medchen. And you can be very sure that I'd come back and kill you if I was still alive."
The Chief Steward nodded. "Yes, Mr. Colville," he said. "I'm well aware of that."
His smile was as hard and tight as a wrinkle on a walnut's shell. "But I hope they do kill you, Mr. Colville," he added.
As Ran slid his cart out of the pantry, it occurred to him that while Medchen was certainly a bastard, he wasn't at all a stupid bastard. . . .
* * *
Rural landscapes from central North America shimmered silently from the walls as Wade dragged the third corpse into Ran Colville's cabin. He was panting slightly. Belgeddes sphinctered the panel closed behind him. Wanda Holly took Ran's pistol from the drawer which she'd opened with the same master chip that had unlocked the cabin.
Wade unclipped the sling of the dead soldier's submachine gun. "Now, little lady," he said as he examined the weapon, "this is going to get—"
"Call her 'lieutenant,' Dickie," Belgeddes said as he took the pistol from Wanda's hand. "Not 'little lady,' you know."
"You can have the other submachine gun if you want it," Wanda said to Belgeddes. As she spoke, she switched on Ran's console. "You—you're a better shot than I am."
"Now, Lieutenant," Wade resumed, "this is going to get very unpleasant, I'm afraid. Perhaps—"
"Not for me, good lady," Belgeddes said as he compared the two identical pistols with a broad grin. "These suit me very well."
The grin slipped into something feral. "As you've seen, I should have thought."
"Do let me finish, Tom," Wade said sharply. "Lieutenant Holly, there isn't any clean way of proceeding from here. If you care to wait—"
"Mr. Wade," Wanda said, "I am in charge here. We will proceed as follows. We'll have to ki—eliminate—the isolated soldiers before we attempt the bridge controls. We'll—we'll trust Ran to take care of engineering control."
"See, Dickie?" Belgeddes said as he reopened the drawer the pistol came from. He rummaged around until he found a box of cartridges among the hard copy. "All under control."
"How do you propose to locate the hostiles, Lieutenant?" Wade asked formally. "And if I may suggest . . . ? They appear to be deployed in threes, not as individuals."
"Yes, that's correct," Wanda said with a sharp dip of her jaw that passed for a nod. "And we'll locate them like this."
She unclipped the communicator from the front harness strap of the body she'd dragged into the cabin. It worked on the same principals as Trident's intra-ship communications rigs, but it was somewhat larger and extended a rigid wand to a structural feature instead of using a transceiver chip and a length of flex.