“What’s the toast?” Kuma inquired. “Absent poisoners?”
“Indeed,” Lebmellin smiled.
The windows at either end of the bridge shattered and broke, just as the door to the bridge slammed open; suddenly the bridge was full of black-fatigued men holding unlikely-looking guns. Dloan Franck had started to go for his own pistol, but then stopped. He put his hands up slowly.
Lebmellin had his own gun out by then. Kuma turned to him, still holding his drink and looking slightly annoyed. “Lebmellin,” he said. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”
“No, Mister Kuma,” Lebmellin said, taking the Addendum up and putting it back in his robes while his men relieved the three of their hand weapons. “Though you might be in danger of losing more than that.”
One of the black-dressed men handed Lebmellin a crescent-shaped device like a tiara; Lebmellin put it on his head. The other men were doing likewise. Dloan Franck stared, frowning mightily, at the gun the man nearest to him was holding. A little red light winked on top of the gun’s night scope.
“Lebmellin, old son,” Kuma said, with what sounded like weary sorrow, “unless you’ve got an army out there, this could all end very messily indeed. Why don’t you just put the piece back down on the table and we’ll forget this ever happened?”
Lebmellin smiled; he nodded to another of the black-dressed men, who held a plain metal cube, about thirty centimetres to a side. He set the box on the chart table; there was a big red button on its top.
“This,” Lebmellin said, “is a Mind Bomb.”
They didn’t look very impressed. The aristocrat and Kuma both looked at Dloan Franck, who shrugged.
“This,” Lebmellin went on, “will cause anybody within a fifty-metre radius to lose consciousness for half an hour; unless they are wearing one of these.” Lebmellin tapped his tiara.
Kuma stared at Lebmellin, seemingly aghast. Dloan looked at Sharrow and shook his head slightly.
“Unpleasant dreams, my friends,” Lebmellin said. He pushed the red button down hard.
Sharrow cleared her throat. Miz Gattse Kuma sniggered.
Dloan Franck was still looking at the gun Lebmellin’s man held. The little red light on the sight had just gone off. The man was looking at the gun, too. He gulped.
Lebmellin stared at the three still-standing people round the chart table, then stepped forward and slammed the red button down again as hard as he could.
As though it was a signal, the woman and two men burst away from the table at the same instant, whirling round to respectively punch, kick and head-butt the three men nearest them; Dloan and Sharrow overpowered the two men who’d taken their guns while they were still trying to get their own rifles to work. Miz made a grab for Lebmellin, but he had pushed himself away from the table and fell back, stumbling across the deck of the red-lit bridge.
Four black-clothed bodies lay on the floor round the chart table; everybody else seemed to be fighting; another man fell to the deck; the aristocrat followed him down, straddling him and punching him and tearing something from his clothing. Lebmellin saw two of his men at the bridge doorway pointing their guns at the melee and shaking the rifles when they didn’t work. Sharrow fired the gun she’d taken back and one of the men at the door fell to the deck, screaming and clutching his thigh; the other threw his gun down and ran.
Lebmellin ran too; he got to the end of the bridge and hauled himself out of the shattered window. Somebody shouted behind him. He fell to the deck aft of the broken window, landing heavily.
Sharrow got up and ran after Lebmellin; she saw him hobbling along the deck outside. She jumped out of the window, landing on something small and hard lying on the metal deck, like a pebble. A big, sleek, jet-engined powerboat was idling by the hull of the ferry. She levelled the HandCannon at Lebmellin, twenty metres away. Somebody shouted a challenge from the far end of the deck; the bulky figure of the Vice Invigilator skidded and stopped; Lebmellin glanced back at her, hesitated, then threw himself over the rail and fell through the darkness.
Sharrow watched him tumble; he hit the starboard engine nacelle of the powerboat below and bounced slackly into the black water. A second later a door gull-winged open half-way along the craft’s cabin and a figure threw itself out, also splashing into the waves.
“What’s happening?” Miz said from the broken bridge window.
Sharrow glanced back at him and shrugged. “Lots,” she said, and looked down at the deck to see what her foot was resting on. It was the Crownstar Addendum. “Oh,” she said. “Found the piece.” She picked it up carefully.
“Good,” Miz said. The muffled engines of the powerboat below revved up; it started to drift forward, then its engines screamed and it pushed away across the small waves, spray billowing from its hull as it accelerated and rose up on two sets of A-shaped legs to reveal itself as a hydrofoil.
Miz and Dloan joined Sharrow at the rail; the black hydrofoil powered into the night, twin blue-pink cones of light pulsing from its engines. Dloan held the metal box Lebmellin had called a Mind Bomb-its top hinged back-and one of the guns the black-dressed men had carried.
“Look,” he said to Miz, while Sharrow squinted at the dark water. Dloan opened up the stock of the rifle, pulling out some wires. “Ordinary synaptic stunners with a radio-controlled off switch.” Dloan held up the Mind Bomb, which was empty save for a single tiny piece of electronic circuitry. “And a radio transmitter…”
Miz looked mystified, from the empty box to Dloan’s face.
“I think I can see somebody…” Sharrow said, shading her eyes.
“Hello!” a faint, female voice said from the waves below.
“Zefla?” Dloan said, setting the gun and box on the deck.
A voice floated back sarcastically. “No, but I can take a message.”
Sharrow thought she could just see Zefla, her blonde head bobbing in the water. “What are you doing down there?” she called.
“Waiting for a rope, perhaps?”
“If you’re going to be cheeky you can look for Lebmellin. He’s down there somewhere. Can you see him?”
“No. About that rope…”
Just before they lowered her a rope ladder, Lebmellin bumped into Zefla. His body went drifting past face down, his distorted skull oozing blood.
Zefla held on to the corpse for a moment. Miz frowned, looking down. “What are you doing, Zef?” he called.
“Checking the double-crossing son-of-a-bitch for the emeralds,” Zef shouted back.
“Na, don’t bother,” Miz told her. “They were fakes anyway.”
Zefla made a growling noise. Sharrow gave Miz a hard look, and he beamed a broad smile at her.
“Isn’t this great?” he said, sighing happily. “Just like the old days!”
Sharrow shook her head, secured the ladder and threw the end down to Zefla.
They helped her over the rail; she was dressed in knickers and a short black under-slip.
“You all right?” Sharrow asked her.
“Oh’, fine,” Zefla said, dripping. “Chief Invigilator’s been killed, his yacht’s sunk and I was kidnapped.” She started to wring her hair out. “How’s your evening been?”
“Tell you later,” Miz said, turning from one of his hired men. “Jam security and Marines on the way,” he told Sharrow.
She shoved the Addendum into her satchel. “Let’s go,” she said.
Their route took them down into the bowels of the ship and past a couple of Miz’s nervous-looking hired hands; he told the guards to stop anybody else from following them.
A gangplank just above sea level led from the stem of the ferry into a larger passenger ship; as they crossed they heard shooting and the sound of helicopters. Miz kicked the end of the gangplank into the water after they’d passed.