Free Rhapsody in Black by Brian Stableford Page B

ladder. They had already seized such of our armoury as was accessible without grubbing in the hold. Eve and I donned our suits with dramatic care. Remembering what conditions on the world were liable to be like, I took a flashlight and secured it inside the suit. The gunman didn’t object.
    I was the last to leave. One gunman went out with Eve, the other with me. There was a third waiting outside, and that was all. They had apparently been given no trouble at all. I was very grateful that Johnny hadn’t been inspired by our numerical superiority to put up a fight. The Hooded Swan wasn’t a big ship, as starships go, and with seven passengers, five crew and three gunmen aboard she was distinctly overcrowded. The consequences of a beam battle in a sardine can are dreadful to contemplate.
    We were escorted across the surface of Rhapsody away from the Swan . They didn’t leave anyone on board, and they permitted Nick to secure the lock against potential invaders.
    I’d put us down in the twilight zone, at the required latitude, within a couple of hundred yards of the surface-lock which gave access to the principal warren. The pinpoint accuracy was a great compliment to my piloting, but no one expressed gratitude that we didn’t have far to walk. The surface was all dust-drifts and rock-jags, and wasn’t suitable for strolling in the evening, but we had no difficulty in obeying the instructions which our captors sent over the open call circuit. They marched us in Indian file to the vast lock, which gave us access to the capital. I looked around briefly, and caught sight of one other ship—presumably the Star Cross ramrod—a couple of miles away towards daylight.
    We were permitted to desuit in the reception area under the lock. I was allowed to retain the flashlight, but not to remove any of the other potentially useful things that were secreted in the suit, under the guise of standard equipment. (Like, for instance, food concentrates and the emergency bleep.)
    We were now privileged to clap eyes on our captors for the first time, while they crammed us into a hand-operated hoist.
    The heavy mob looks the same the universe over. They have never really escaped the influence of the clichés laid down by the earliest exponents of the art of strong-arming. They always have big shoulders and slack features, and a casual swing to their movements deliberately styled to suggest that they can—and maybe do—bend iron bars between their fingers. Our welcoming committee was trying hard—if subconsciously—to give this overall impression, but they weren’t very good at it. Gangsters may be born or made, but these men had had gangsterism thrust upon them. They looked as if they’d rather be pecking away at a rock face, and that was probably their normal occupation.
    â€˜What the hell goes on?’ asked Nick, while the hoist descended noisily. It was Charlot’s picnic, of course, but Charlot hadn’t bothered to protest or demand to be taken to their leader, so perhaps Nick thought it was up to him to expel some hot air. Mavra and company seemed to take the whole affair very fatalistically.
    â€˜Shut up,’ said one of the gunmen bravely.
    â€˜There’s no need to add insult to injury,’ I remarked.
    â€˜Shut up,’ he said again. He obviously didn’t feel up to explaining the situation. A man of action.
    â€˜As a matter of simple curiosity,’ said Charlot oilily, ‘are you institutionalised or freelance?’
    No answer.
    I rephrased the question for them. ‘He means, are you the regular cops or did you just take up the habit?’
    Still no answer. It’s possible that they still didn’t understand the allusion, but I concluded that it was more likely they weren’t going, to say anything more. I admire a man who can take his own advice.
    We didn’t get to see much of the local scenery. They hustled us out of the hoist