Kim. Manville hurried back into the dining room and across it and out the door on the other side, and down there to his left, dimly illuminated by the night lights within the ship, he saw the group of them, the three men just now dragging Kim from the launch to the deck while she weakly and uselessly struggled.
Manville was about to run down there, to stop them and save her, when he suddenly realized he didn’t know this pistol he now clenched so hard in his right hand. It was a tool, after all, and you’re supposed to know your tools, and he didn’t know this tool. It would have a safety, he knew that, but was the safety at this moment on or off? He didn’t know.
He stood just out of sight of the people on deck, and studied the thing, a revolver with a bit of bullet showing at the back of each chamber. This small lever here on the side, handy to the right thumb; wouldn’t that be the safety?
The lever moved up and down, and when he first tried the thing it was in the down position. Would the man have done his searching with the safety on or off? There was nothing written on the pistol, no icons, no hint.
I’m an engineer, Manville thought, if I were the one who’d designed this, which way would turn the safety off, which way would turn it on? I would want the more speed when turning it off, would have less reason for speed when switching it on. The quickest simplest motion here is for the thumb to push this lever down, so if I were the engineer on this project I’d design it so the safety was off when the lever was down. The lever’s down.
If I’m wrong, I’ll know it when and if I have to pull the trigger. With luck, I’ll still have time to put my thumb under the lever and push it up. Without luck, I’m dead anyway, because this is nothing I know anything about.
Manville stepped forward onto the deck, the pistol held out in front of him, and moved toward the group, all of them now on deck, clustered around Kim, half-supporting her. The leader was saying, “—down to her cabin,” and of course that’s what they’d want, for Kim to be dead in her cabin, smothered with a pillow.
“Stop!” Manville shouted. “Put your hands up!” They looked at him with astonishment, but without fear. Because they were dragging Kim, none of them had a pistol in his hand, and yet they looked at Manville and he could see they were unafraid of him, unimpressed by him. They know, he thought, they know this is their world, not mine.
It was like meeting a dangerous dog: Don’t show your fear. “Everybody hands up!” he yelled. “Kim, get out of the way! Lean against the rail!”
The tableau they presented to him was this: The leader stood in the middle, one arm around Kim’s waist, holding her up, with the other big man to the right and the smaller man to the left. None of them obeyed him, none put their hands up. The leader didn’t release Kim, but held her even tighter. None of them even seemed worried.
Manville was about fifteen feet from them now, and reluctant to get any closer. He held the pistol out at arm’s length, aimed at the leader’s head, just next to Kim’s, and he called, “I’ll shoot! Let her go!”
“Oh, I don’t think so,” the leader said. He had a raspy scaly voice, like the whispery sound of a lizard moving on a stone wall. “You ever shoot a gun, mister?”
“Yes,” Manville said, and felt immediately calmer, because it was true. “I’m a good shot, as a matter of fact,” he said.
The leader grinned at him. “Ever shoot a man? Not everybody can, you know,”
“I can,” Manville said, but the calm had fled him, because he wasn’t at all sure now that he was telling the truth. He had captured this pistol, they were supposed to obey him, but they didn’t believe he was a threat. They believed he was an amateur, a baby in their hard world. He might interrupt them for a few seconds, but then they’d contemptuously brush him aside and get on with their bloody work.
Yes. The leader turned to the big man, to his left, and said, “Bardo, kill this cocksucker and let’s get on with it.”
It was because Manville was thinking mostly about the safety that he could do it. He wasn’t thinking about the shooting of a human being, he was thinking about time. If I’m wrong about the safety, he thought, I won’t have time for a second chance. That’s why, before Bardo could finish drawing his own pistol out from under his belt, Manville shot him in the chest.
Well. He’d been right about the safety. Good engineering.
They were all amazed, he could see that, and it gave him strength. Pointing the pistol at the leader again, he said, “Let her go.”
This time the leader did, releasing Kim and stepping one pace back, looking now mostly irritated and frustrated, but still not at all afraid. The other man, arms held out from his sides to show he didn’t mean to start any trouble, stood watchful, wary, but also not frightened.
These people are very dangerous, Manville thought. I’ve never dealt with such dangerous people. They’re waiting for me to make one tiny mistake, any tiny mistake, and God knows I’m likely to make a dozen mistakes. Except, no; one mistake is all they’ll give me.
He said, “Kim, get to the side, get out of the way.”
She did, stepping around behind the one he’d shot, who lay now on his back on the deck like a drowning victim who’s just been dragged aboard. She was tottery, but she could walk, she could take care of herself. Looking at Manville past the one he’d shot, she said, her voice shaky and weak, “George? Is he dead?”
“I really don’t care,” he told her, truthfully, and the leader surprised him with a snort of amusement, and Manville knew he didn’t have much time to press this advantage. “Kim,” he said, “get around behind them, get those pistols, hold onto them. Don’t let anybody grab you.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, with a weak smile. “I don’t want to be a shield. I think you’d shoot them right through me.”
That made the leader turn his head to give her an inquisitive look, and to say, “Is that right?”
Manville said, “Now, Kim.”
Kim moved, around behind the leader, who was now studying Manville as though to memorize him, or read him. As Kim put one cautious arm around him to pluck the pistol out from his belt, the leader said to Manville, “You’re some kind of ringer, I think. You’re not what I was told I was gonna find here.”
Oh, yes, I am, Manville thought, but I’m happy if you don’t believe it. And he knew it would be best if he didn’t say anything at all to that. The strong silent type, that’s me.
Kim got both pistols, and went back to lean against the rail. She looked very weak, and not as though she could possibly use those guns now dangling from her hands at her sides, not to save her life.
Manville said to the two men, gesturing at the one he’d shot, “Pick him up.” Not because he needed the man moved anywhere, but because he wanted to keep these last two occupied.
The leader and the other man obediently stepped over to crouch above the one he’d shot, and the leader said, “I think he’s still alive.”
“Pick him up.”
“We oughta get the captain down here,” the leader said, “get my man Bardo some medical attention.”
“Pick him up or I’ll shoot you,” Manville said.
The leader shrugged. “Not the way it was supposed to be,” he commented, and he and the other one picked up the wounded man, the leader at his ankles, the other man at his head.
Following Manville’s orders, they went back down through the ship, the killers first, muttering privately together over their unconscious mate, then Manville, and Kim last.
They made slow progress, because of the weight the two in front were carrying and because of Kim’s weakness and Manville’s fear that if he put any concentration on her, to help her, they’d find some way to take advantage.