When the _Pequod_ surfaced under the city roof, I saw what was
cooking. There were twenty or more ships, either on the concrete docks
or afloat in the pools. The waterfront was crowded with men in boat
clothes, forming little knots and breaking up to join other groups,
all milling about talking excitedly. Most of them were armed; not just
knives and pistols, which is normal costume, but heavy rifles or
submachine guns. Down to the left, there was a commotion and people
were getting out of the way as a dozen men come pushing through,
towing a contragravity skid with a 50-mm ship's gun on it. I began not
liking the looks of things, and Glenn Murell, who had come up from his
nap below, was liking it even less. He'd come to Fenris to buy
tallow-wax, not to fight a civil war. I didn't want any of that stuff,
either. Getting rid of Ravick, Hallstock and Belsher would come under
the head of civic improvements, but towns are rarely improved by
having battles fought in them.
Maybe I should have played dumb and waited till I'd talked to Dad face
to face, before making any statements about what had happened on the
_Javelin_, I thought. Then I shrugged that off. From the minute the
_Javelin_ had failed to respond to Dad's screen-call and the general
call had gone out to the hunter-fleet, everybody had been positive of
what had happened. It was too much like the loss of the _Claymore_,
which had made Ravick president of the Co-op.
Port Sandor had just gotten all of Steve Ravick that anybody could
take. They weren't going to have any more of him, and that was all
there was to it.
Joe Kivelson was grumbling about his broken arm; that meant that when
a fight started, he could only go in swinging with one fist, and that
would cut the fun in half. Another reason why Joe is a wretched shot
is that he doesn't like pistols. They're a little too impersonal to
suit him. They weren't for Oscar Fujisawa; he had gotten a
Mars-Consolidated Police Special out of the chart-table drawer and put
it on, and he was loading cartridges into a couple of spare clips.
Down on the main deck, the gunner was serving out small arms, and
there was an acrimonious argument because everybody wanted a chopper
and there weren't enough choppers to go around. Oscar went over to the
ladder head and shouted down at them.
"Knock off the argument, down there; you people are all going to stay
on the ship. I'm going up to the _Times_; as soon as I'm off, float
her out into the inner channel and keep her afloat, and don't let
anybody aboard you're not sure of."
"That where we're going?" Joe Kivelson asked.
"Sure. That's the safest place in town for Mr. Murell and I want to
find out exactly what's going on here."
"Well, here; you don't need to put me in storage," Murell protested.
"I can take care of myself."
Add, Famous Last Words, I thought.
"I'm sure of it, but we can't take any chances," Oscar told him.
"Right now, you are Fenris's Indispensable Man. If you're not around
to buy tallow-wax, Ravick's won the war."
Oscar and Murell and Joe and Tom Kivelson and I went down into the
boat; somebody opened the port and we floated out and lifted onto the
Second Level Down. There was a fringe of bars and cafes and dance
halls and outfitters and ship chandlers for a couple of blocks back,
and then we ran into the warehouse district. Oscar ran up town to a
vehicle shaft above the Times Building, careful to avoid the
neighborhood of Hunters' Hall or the Municipal Building.
There was a big crowd around the _Times_, mostly business district
people and quite a few women. They were mostly out on the street and
inside the street-floor vehicle port. Not a disorderly crowd, but I
noticed quite a few rifles and submachine guns. As we slipped into the
vehicle port, they recognized the _Pequod's_ boat, and there was a
rush after it. We had trouble getting down without setting it on
anybody, and more trouble getting out of it. They were all
friendly--too friendly for comfort. They began cheering us as soon as
they saw us.
Oscar got Joe Kivelson, with his arm in a sling, out in front where he
could be seen, and began shouting: "Please make way; this man's been
injured. Please don't crowd; we have an injured man here." The crowd
began shoving back, and in the rear I could hear them taking it up:
"Joe Kivelson; he's been hurt. They're carrying Joe Kivelson off."
That made Joe curse a blue streak, and somebody said, "Oh, he's been
hurt real bad; just listen to him!"
When we got up to the editorial floor, Dad and Bish Ware and a few
others were waiting at the elevator for us. Bish was dressed as he
always was, in his conservative black suit, with the organic opal
glowing in his neckcloth. Dad had put a coat on over his gun. Julio was
wearing two pistols and a knife a foot long. There was a big crowd in
the editorial office--ships' officers, merchants, professional people. I
noticed Sigurd Ngozori, the banker, and Professor Hartzenbosch--he was
wearing a pistol, too, rather self-consciously--and the Zen Buddhist
priest, who evidently had something under his kimono. They all greeted
us enthusiastically and shook hands with us. I noticed that Joe Kivelson
was something less than comfortable about shaking hands with Bish Ware.
The fact that Bish had started the search for the _Javelin_ that had
saved our lives didn't alter the opinion Joe had formed long ago that
Bish was just a worthless old souse. Joe's opinions are all
collapsium-plated and impervious to outside influence.