The basket was descending; Dr. Clargue was in it, doing what he saw as his duty. Lamartiere wished the doctor had stayed safe in the fortress, but there was no help for it now.
The big truck pulled up twenty meters from Hoodoo. Grit sprayed from beneath the tires, but the breeze carried it back away from the tank.
A man nearly two meters tall and broad in proportion got out of the door set in the concrete armor of the bed. He wore a blue and gold uniform—a military uniform, Lamartiere supposed, though he couldn't imagine what military force wore something so absurdly ornate. There was even a saber in a gilded sheath dangling from a shoulder belt.
"My name's Maury!" he called to Lamartiere. He put his hands on his hips. "I own everything in the Boukasset, so I guess I own you, too."
"No," said Lamartiere. He spoke through the conformal speakers in Hoodoo's hull. His voice boomed across the desert, echoing from the cliffs and tall stone walls of the shrine. "You don't own us."
Maury laughed cheerfully. Lamartiere's amplified voice had made some members of the gang flinch or even hit the ground, but their leader seemed unafraid. "I like a boy with spirit," he said. "Come down out of that thing and we'll talk about how we can all win this one."
"We can discuss anything we need just like we are," Lamartiere replied. "You might say I've gotten used to being in the driver's seat."
The big man chuckled again. He sauntered toward Hoodoo.
"I said we're fine like we are!" Lamartiere repeated. "I can hear anything you've got to say from where you're standing."
Maury had fair hair and the pale complexion that goes with it. His expression didn't change, but a flush climbed his cheeks like fluid in a thermometer on a hot day.
"I got a message from the Council that they'd like me to give you a hand, boy," he said. "I don't take orders from Goncourt but I'm willing to be neighborly. Thing is, the way you're acting don't put me in a very neighborly frame of mind."
The rest of the gang didn't know how to take what was going on. The thugs seemed more nervous than angry. A 170-tonne tank was impressive even if it were shut down. When purring and under the control of someone who sounded unfriendly, it was enough to frighten most people.
"I was told you might help me with supplies," Lamartiere said. He kept the emotion out of his voice, but the tank's speakers threw his words like the judgment of God. "Now that I'm here, I get the impression that any help you gave me would come at a price I wouldn't be willing to pay. Why don't you go back where you came from before there's an accident?"
Maury laughed again. His heart wasn't in it, but even as bravado it took courage. Most of his gang were festooned with weapons—there were at least a dozen 2cm powerguns whose ammo would have filled Hoodoo's ready magazine if Lamartiere had dared ask for it—but Maury himself wore only the saber.
"We haven't even talked price," the big man said, almost cajoling. "Believe me, you'll do fine with your share. The Boukasset may not look like much—"
He gestured broadly. The gold braid on his cuff glowed in the sun's last ruddy light.
"—but my friends don't lack for anything. Anything at all!"
There was a commotion near the wall of the shrine. Lamartiere risked a quick glance sideward. He could drop his seat into the driver's compartment and button the hatch up over himself, but that would give Maury the psychological edge.
One of Maury's men had backed a woman against the stone. She shouted and tried to move sideways. The man caught her arm and lifted it, drawing her closer to him.
"Let go of her!" Dr. Clargue said as he stepped toward the pair. The gangster shoved the woman violently toward Clargue, then stepped back and unslung a submachine gun.
"Freeze!" Lamartiere said. His shout made dust in the air quiver.
"Let her go, Schwitzer," Maury said. His bellow was dwarfed by the echoes of Lamartiere's amplified voice. "For now at least. This is just a neighborly visit."
He turned to Lamartiere again and continued, "But let's say for the sake of discussion that you did want to make something out of this, kid—just how did you plan to do that? Because I know from Goncourt that you don't have any ammo for those pretty guns of yours."
Cursing under his breath the idiots on the Council who'd given this man a hold over him, Lamartiere slid the targeting pipper onto Maury's face in the gunnery display. The turret whined, bringing the 20cm main gun squarely in line with the self-styled chief of the Boukasset.
"I can't swear on my sister's grave," Lamartiere said, "because she doesn't have one. But by her soul in the arms of God, I swear to you that Hoodoo carries ten thousand rounds for the tribarrel and two hundred for the main gun. Shall I demonstrate for the rest of your men?"
The main gun's barrel was a polished iridium tunnel. Maury was no coward, but what he saw staring at him was not merely death but annihilation. After a frozen moment's indecision he turned his back. He took off his stiff cap and slammed it into the ground.
"Mount up!" Maury snarled. "We're moving out!"
He stalked to the armored truck. His men obeyed with the disorganized certainty of pebbles rolling downhill. One of them scuttled over to retrieve the cap, then dropped it again and ran off when he made the mistake of looking up at the 20cm bore.
Maury halted at the door. Drivers were starting their engines: turbines, diesels, and even a pair of whining electrics. Maury pointed an arm the size of a bridge truss at Lamartiere and said, "Maybe you'll come to talk to me when you've thought about things. And maybe we'll come to you again first!"
He got in and his motley squadron started to pull away from the shrine. The air-cushion vehicles merely swapped ends, but those with wheels turned awkwardly or even backed and filled. The bolted-on armor interfered both with visibility and their turning circles.
Dr. Clargue walked over to the tank's bow. He looked wobbly. Lamartiere himself felt as though he'd been bathed in ice water. He was shivering with reaction and had to take his hands away from the controls to keep from accidentally doing something he'd regret.
The gang vehicles headed south in a ragged line, looking like survivors from a rout. The leaders continued to draw farther ahead of the others. Maury's own overloaded truck wobbled in the rear of the procession.
"Doctor," Lamartiere said. He'd switched off the speakers, so he had to raise his voice to be heard over Hoodoo's idling fans. "There's self-defense strips just above the skirts. They're supposed to blast pellets into incoming missiles, but I don't know if they're live. Can you check that for me?"
"Yes," Clargue said. "I'll do that now."
Lamartiere reached out a hand to help the doctor clamber up the bow slope. Before he got into the turret Clargue paused and said, "I worried when I stood watch alone, Denis, because I wasn't sure I'd be able to use a weapon. I was trained to save lives, as you know. But I think I can do that, too, if I must."
"I know what you mean," Lamartiere said. "Look, keep looking for the transfer command so we can use the ammo in the storage magazines if we have to. When we have to. Maury'll decide to call my bluff before long."
"Yes, I'll keep looking," the doctor said in a weary tone.
"I wish to God I was in a different place," Lamartiere whispered. "I wish to God I was in a different life."
The stars shone through the dry air in brilliant profusion. Hoodoo's displays careted movement, but Lamartiere had already heard the winch squeal. He focused the upper screen on the descending basket, using light enhancement at 40:1 magnification.
"It's Marie," he said to Clargue. "She's carrying a couple buckets on a pole across her shoulders."