Part 14 (2/2)
”My naray beard said ”I'ineer; I had a little business at Waterville, buying, selling and rebuilding agriculturalfound out about e and carriedfor the Captain Nichols' shi+p down and ar her with collapsium”
”How ument nobody was quite sure; two hundred and fifty seehest esti
”You get us out of here,” Yves Jacque ”All ant is a chance at them”
”How about arms? You can't do much with clubs and fists”
”Don't worry about that; we knohere to get arms The treasure house, where they store their loot There's plenty of ar else you can think of They've used us to help stow the stuff; we knohere it is”
”Anse, you re rooe? Take fourtheet out to the end of the tunnel and call the _Lester Dawes_ Tell theunboats all the way in, and wait to guide them when they arrive”
When Anse turned and climbed into the jeep, he asked Yves Jacquemont: ”Why does this Perales want an interplanetary shi+p?”
”He's crazy!” Jacque all the pirates and outlaws on the planet into one band andHe's heard that there are space Navy superweapons on Koshchei--I suppose there are, at that--and he wants to get a lot of planetbusters and hellburners and annihilators” He lowered his voice ”Captain Nichols and I were going to fix up soot her out of atmosphere”
He talked for a while to Jacqueineer, whose na else at the spaceport of which a spaceshi+p could be built, but there were foundries and rolling-mills and a collapsed-utted, half torn down, and half arht be possible to continue the work on her and take her to space
Then the two scows floated over the top of the pit and began letting down They got the prisoners into them, the combat-effective men in one and the women and children in the other At the top, he took over the rehter, and the two contragravityshi+p officers in with him
”Up to the top,” Jacqueht at the next intersection”
As they approached the section where the pirates stored their loot, the sound of guns and explosions grew louder, and they began picking up radio and screen signals, all of which were scrambled and inco aht to be safe to use their own communication equipment; nobody would notice it
The treasure rooiant pack rat's nest Cases and crates of merchandise, bales, boxes, barrels Machinery Household and industrial robots The prisoners piled out of the two scows and began ruarettes and s tossed around and opened, and everybody was s The pirates evidently hadn't issued any tobacco rations to their prisoners
And they found ar out rifles, pistols, subrily than the cigarettes Sylvie Jacque boxes for her, while she passed out boxes of cartridges and made sure that everybody had aht have been a farotten a bale of cloth open and was tossing rags around while the chief engineer inspected weapons and showed people how to clean out the cosazines
Conn collected a few of his own party
”Let's look these robots over,” he said ”Find about half a dozen we can load with blasting explosive and send ahead of us on contragravity”
They found several--an electric-light servicer, a couple of wall-and-ashers, a serving-robot that looked as if it had come from a restaurant, and an all-purpose robo-janitor In the passage outside, they began loading the lorries with bricks of ionite and packages of cataclys all the scrap-iron and other junk around the explosives that they could As soon as they had weapons, the prisoners caood deal un slung froazines fro
”Well, look what you're doing to him!” she mock-reproached ”That's a dirty trick to play on a little robot!”
He grinned at her ”You andShe always treats robots like people”