WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(73)

The rating standing behind her in the truck bed leaned forward. He clouted the officer across the head with the butt of his impeller.

The impact sounded like an axe on a tree trunk. The officer's arms flapped as she flew out of the gun truck and hit face-first on the brick roadway.

The Kostroman who'd struck her pointed the impeller from his waist at Daniel. "You got a problem with that?" he said.

"Hell, why should we save good booze for rich officers who never did anything for us?" Adele Mundy demanded shrilly. "Let's drink it all ourselves, I say!"

"Too damned right!" Hogg seconded. He hopped out of the van and stumped over to Daniel. "All of it!"

"All right, all right," Daniel whined in what he hoped sounded like angry resignation. "We'll say it was hijacked. The way things are tonight, nobody's going to know the difference."

Somebody cheered. The Kostroman who'd hit his officer jumped down and started for the warehouse door. The ratings from both the van and the gun truck surged after him. Woetjans and three of her huskier fellows held back slightly to be sure of entering behind the last of the Shore Police.

Daniel put his hands in his waistband and began to whistle very softly.



Adele stood near the door of the warehouse. If she hadn't known better, she'd have been sure that the activities within were carefully rehearsed.

The van's headlamp threw a fan of light into the building. The sailors' figures cut it into wobbling, distorted shadows.

"Now!" called Woetjans. She grabbed the barrels of two impellers and jerked the weapons upward, out of the hands of the policemen carrying them. Dasi hit one on the head with his prybar; Sun grabbed the other from behind by both elbows and ran him headfirst into a brick pillar.

There wasn't a shot or even a shout in the whole operation. Glass shattered as somebody broke a brandy bottle over a Kostroman's head, but there were plenty more where that one came from. The Shore Police were down before they knew there was anything waiting for them except cases of liquor.

"All shipshape, sir," Woetjans called.

"Five of you put their armbands on," Daniel called. Hogg had gone to the warehouse doorway with his pistol ready, but his master was kneeling over the Kostroman officer. "Adele, come here if you will."

It sounded like an order rather than a request to her; perfectly proper under the circumstances. She went to Daniel's side.

He was unfastening the officer's belt and holster. Now that the victim was lying in the beams of the gun truck's lights Adele could see she was a young woman with tight blonde curls and ratlike features. The right side of her scalp oozed red, but she was breathing normally.

Looking up again, Daniel said, "I think this'll fit you. Get into it fast. We'll have to hope that the gate guards don't pay a lot of attention to you as we leave."

"Oh," said Adele. She saw the logic immediately: the guards had called a squad of Shore Police to check on the van they'd passed into the compound. If the van tried to leave unescorted, the guards were going to wonder what had happened to the squad. It was at least possible that they'd come up with the right answer. None of the female Cinnabar sailors was slim enough to pass for the police commander.

Understanding was one thing. The thought of actually pretending to be a Kostroman officer, acting, made Adele queasy with stage fright. She'd never liked being in front of groups or having everyone look at her.

Aloud she said, "Yes, all right."

She shrugged out of her tunic. The Kostroman uniform wouldn't have a pocket for her personal data unit. For now she could bundle her own trousers around it and carry the packet under the seat of the police vehicle.

Daniel finished stripping the Kostroman officer, then walked to the warehouse doorway while Adele dressed. "Tie them but not too tight," he ordered the sailors inside. "I want them to be able to get loose after we're gone."

Adele pulled on the officer's trousers. They fit properly, but the uniform was cut tighter than she liked. Frustration at the rub of the cloth built to momentary fury. She reminded herself that she was merely transferring her anger at the whole situation to something trivial—and the situation was more her own fault than that of anyone else around her.

Perhaps that was why she was so very angry.

Daniel came back to her. He pulled the pistol from its gilt leather holster and said, "I don't suppose you've ever used one of these, Adele?"

"No," she said. It was an electromotive pistol of local manufacture; she'd never fired or even handled one. The weapon was very bulky, but its projectiles were no bigger or faster than those of the little Cinnabar weapon in Adele's pocket.

For all that, Kostroman weapons were satisfactory if you didn't mind their size. Vanness's death was proof of that.