Hogg snorted. "And what's a fly's pelt worth, young master?" he said. "For the things that are worth the trouble of skinning, I find a wire noose generally works best. But I take your meaning, sure."
The three-barred gate, backlit by the pole lamp forty yards down the approach road, was closed again. There was a small light on in the brick guardhouse that formed the east gatepost.
Kostroman ratings moved to either side of the roadway as the vehicles approached. They lifted their impellers but didn't point them.
Hogg downshifted and crawled the last hundred feet to the gate in the van's bottom gear. The cab doors were front-hinged. Daniel unlatched his and let inertia swing it fully open as the van finally halted. He put his foot on the running board, swung the brandy to his shoulder—no problem, thank God—and stepped to the ground.
"Here you go, my friends," Daniel said breezily as he walked toward a Kostroman. He deliberately chose the rating he'd choked unconscious when they arrived. "This case was broken in transit, you know the sort of thing."
He hunched the brandy off his shoulder and swung it to the startled Kostroman. The man tried to take the gift while still holding his impeller. The weight was too much—the case was wood in addition to the glass bottles themselves—so he dropped the weapon to use both hands.
"I wouldn't want you to think a gentleman of L'ven can't be generous," Daniel said avuncularly.
The other ratings converged on their fellow. One of the trio outside started to climb over the gate to get her share, despite the petty officer's angry command.
Daniel put a hand on top of the case as Kostromans jostled for possession. "Let's let me get out of here first, shall we?" he said. He dipped his left index finger toward the gate.
"Right!" bellowed the petty officer. "Open the gate and then we'll see what we see about the other."
"I'll look after the brandy," Daniel said with a paternal smile at the six ratings trying to hold the brandy. "Just set it down here."
The Kostromans looked at one another. The one in the middle knelt and set the case on the brick pavement. Then as one they rushed to the gate, drawing it open with even more verve than they'd shown when they admitted the van in the first place. Daniel wondered idly if the ratings ever obeyed their own officers as well as they did him.
Well, from what he'd seen, there wasn't much reason to obey Kostroman officers. . . .
Hogg revved the engine when he thought there was clearance enough. Daniel waited in seeming leisure until the Kostromans returned, a little winded from their exercise. He nodded to them as he got into the truck.
"Gently, now," he ordered Hogg. "We don't want them to think we've just robbed the bank."
Hogg grimaced, but he pulled through the gateway at a rate that didn't, for a change, seem calculated to tear the transmission out of the van. The gun truck followed.
The ratings had begun trying to pry open the case with their impeller muzzles. Several of them cheered Daniel as he rode away.
* * *
The streets of Kostroma City were busier than Adele remembered them being earlier in the evening. Black and yellow bunting or a banner flew from every civilian vehicle she saw, but many of them obviously carried would-be neutrals who were leaving town with the most portable of their valuables.
There were still jitneys full of Zojiras and gangsters who wore Zojira colors for the time being. Some vehicles carried prisoners; others were packed with loot.
"The Alliance's got people up on the rooftops already," Woetjans muttered in obvious disquiet. She drove the gun truck with competence but no flair, gripping the yoke as if to hurl the vehicle into turns by main force. "We should've gone around the city instead of straight back through it."
Adele had seen groups of two and three people watching the street from roofs as they passed, but she'd thought of them as spectators or owners guarding their homes. They were armed, but that was natural enough too. Woetjans's experienced eyes had noted uniforms and equipment that meant something else again.
The Zojira clan was terrorizing its enemies; native-born Kostroman criminals were making fortunes. The Alliance of Free Stars was focused on control of the planet rather than such ephemeral affairs.
"Hogg didn't have any choice," Adele said soothingly. Woetjans was rightly nervous about the situation, but blaming Hogg might cause problems later. "All the roads on the island go through the city, at least here on the south tip. The whole planet was settled from this spot."
"Yeah, well, I guess Mr. Leary knows what he's doing," Woetjans said. "Him being in charge's the only good luck there is in the whole business."
Adele didn't see how Daniel could possibly know what he was doing, but she wasn't going to say that now. Daniel seemed to be on top of the situation, that was true.