WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(79)

Daniel looked from the yacht to the office. With his goggles down he'd be able to see through the building's windows, but identifying himself to this gang by using Cinnabar gear probably wouldn't be smart. "It still seems too good a bargain," he said.

"Yeah, I think so too," said Hogg with a sour expression. "But I don't see much choice but to keep our eyes open and go ahead."

Daniel clapped his servant on the shoulder. "When we drive to the quay to unload, we'll be on the back side of their automatic," he said. "Without an edge like that, this sort won't start anything."

He waved to the scattered ratings. "Mount up!" he ordered. "We'll transfer our rations to the ship over there, then we'll take a little vacation."

Daniel believed in planning if you had the time and information to do it; but if you didn't, you acted anyway. There was only one thing worse than trying to imagine every possible occurrence when you were for all practical purposes flying blind: remaining frozen because you couldn't imagine every possible occurrence.

"And if they do start something, Hogg," Daniel said as he got into the cab beside his servant, "then we'll deal with it."



Adele had made a half-hearted offer to help load the ship. Woetjans had said, "No, mistress, you're an officer," in a tone that made it sound like, "You'd be more trouble than you're worth."

Adele didn't take the implication as an insult since it was objectively true in her opinion. She stood at the top of the seawall, out of the line of traffic, and observed events.

Hogg had backed the van to where steps led down to the quay, but the distance from there to the Ahura was too great for the Cinnabar sailors to form a human chain. They carried the rations, one carton per trip.

Woetjans and three other sailors dismounted the automatic impeller from the police vehicle, then carried it and its case of ammunition to the ship also. The weapon had to be rigidly mounted to be of any use; the truck's pintle was welded to the frame and couldn't be removed. Either Woetjans thought she could jury-rig a mounting on the Ahura, or she was just making sure the gun wasn't in Ganser's hands while the Cinnabars were still in range.

The Kostromans hadn't volunteered to help load the Ahura. Adele doubted that Daniel would have permitted them to become involved anyway. They stood watching and occasionally talked among themselves in low voices. She knew that she was imputing sinister motives to the gang members because of their appearance, but people who went to so much effort to look sinister probably were a scurvy lot.

The armed sailors stayed aboard the Ahura while their fellows made multiple trips with the cargo. Daniel must have decided that he wanted his available weapons concentrated aboard the vehicle on which the Cinnabars hoped to escape. He'd called Adele to him; she'd shaken her head and remained where she was.

The back of the flatbed truck was twenty feet away from her. The heavy sheet of armor welded behind the cab protected the gun crew from fire from the front, but because of the way the automatic impeller was mounted, it could only sweep an arc of about sixty degrees to the right or left of the direction the truck was pointing. So long as the truck stayed where it was, the gun didn't threaten the Ahura.

Adele might not be any use in carrying boxes to the ship, but she was quite confident that the automatic impeller wasn't a danger to the Cinnabars so long as she survived.

Daniel had vanished within the Ahura to check the hull. Only then did he reappear to examine the cockpit. Now that Adele thought about it, there was only a superficial similarity between a spaceship and a marine vessel. Daniel might be the only Cinnabar present who knew anything about craft like the Ahura, and that because he was raised on the coast rather than from any sort of training.

Five Kostromans came out of the harbormaster's office and walked in Adele's direction. They were talking among themselves with studied innocence, but the strands of "conversation" didn't interweave: none of the thugs was listening to the others.

They were about to attack.

Three of the Kostromans, all men, went to the truck. The other two, a man and a woman, split off and stood on the seawall to Adele's other side, only six feet away. They faced the harbor, but their eyes flicked sideways toward Adele every few seconds. The man was describing the Ahura; the woman talked about the leaking roof that made a pool in her room every time it rained.

Adele turned her back on the pair beside her and watched them as reflections in a window of the office. When the Kostromans thought their target was no longer able to see them, both tensed.

Two of the other group hopped onto the back of the truck and sat there with their legs dangling over the side. The third man got into the cab. The engine ground for a moment, then started.