Part 3 (1/2)

”Sure he will,” I said. ”It happens. You can patch him up. That should appeal to your maternal instincts.”

The stinging sarcasm left her even more aghast. Speechless, in fact.

Which was a mercy.

I watched the fight. Johnny was losing, and pretty obviously. That was just as well, because while the other guy knew he was having an easy time, he wouldn't be disposed to get particularly nasty. In point of fact, he was playing with Johnny rather than beating him up. I knew Johnny had started it, and I knew he had been provoked. It was all part of the game. But they weren't going to do any substantial damage.

They couldn't afford to let it blow up into a major incident.

”He's got a gun,” whispered Eve. She meant Johnny. Johnny liked wearing guns.

”Well, he better not b.l.o.o.d.y shoot anybody with it,” I said. Slight tension showed in the construction of the sentence, and I was surprised to note that I was a little more involved with what was going on than I ought to be.

Johnny went down, knocked backward by a flailing right fist with no real power in it. He tried to leap to his feet instantly, but as soon as his weight was on his heels, the Caradoc man scythed them out from under him with a kick, and Johnny went down hard on his a.r.s.e. The crowd laughed, and Johnny knew full well that if he tried to get up again the same thing would happen. He moved backward on his hands and knees, but the heavy came after him, making sure that Johnny got no s.p.a.ce at all. Finally, Johnny launched himself without bothering to get up at all. He was on his back, and it was his feet that lashed out, aimed at the company man's groin. It was an interesting move, but it had no chance. The Caradoc man grabbed one of Johnny's ankles and tried for the other, but only got his fingers barked. He hauled the foot way up into the air, actually lifting Johnny bodily from the ground. Then he dropped him on his head.

The fight was over. Johnny could lay still and be collected later. For one horrible moment I thought he was going to unclip the beamer, as he righted himself with a furious twist of his body. But he was only angry, not mad. He knew what sort of a fight he was in, and he knew it wasn't scheduled to end with someone getting burned. When he saw that the other man was standing still, he hesitated. Then, obviously out of some mistaken idea of pride, he made as if to go forward again.

I might have called out to tell him to stay where he was, but I couldn't be bothered.

It didn't matter, because the U. S. Cavalry arrived, albeit a little late.

A guy in a black police uniform came past me at a fast walk, shouldered his way through the circle of Caradoc men, and quickly took up a position between the erstwhile combatants.

At first glance, he struck me as being a very, very tired man. I couldn't blame him. His was the hottest seat of all. Keith Just, law enforcement officer, sole representative of New Rome on Pharos. Paradise's answer to Wyatt Earp. Except he didn't have three brothers. Or a jail.

He didn't seem to know whether his arrival had stopped the fight, or whether it had stopped by itself. He glanced around, looking neither angry nor threatening, but just haggard.

He didn't say anything for a moment or two, then he fixed his baby blue eyes on Johnny and said: ”Who the h.e.l.l are you?”

Johnny didn't answer him, but Nick delArco appeared from somewhere, with an apparent eagerness to sort the whole affair out. With him was a fat man in a very expensive suit with a white sunhat-presumably Frank Capella, boss of the Caradoc operation.

The crowd began to do a slow fade, probably inspired more by Capella's presence than Just's. Three or four of the spectators, however, not only stayed but edged themselves into greater prominence. They were wearing uniforms too-the uniforms of Caradoc's industrial police force, known to its detractors as Caradoc's private army.

Everybody began to talk. Somebody or other wanted the Caradoc man put under arrest, unless it was only Capella putting on a show. Nick delArco was explaining to Keith Just who he was and who Johnny was while Just was still trying to figure out who to question, and Johnny was trying to tell someone or other that it wasn't his fault.

I guessed they'd get it all sorted out in due course.

I turned back to glance at Holcomb, who was waiting for me to do just that. ”Caradoc doesn't want you here,” he said. ”They don't want arbitration. They know they're in the wrong.”

”Thanks,” I said. ”For all the help. And kind co-operation. I think you've done a really fine job here.

What we all need is more people with your galactic spirit. I'm certain that Charlot will get around to seeing you himself, if he has the odd thirty seconds to spare.”

I began to walk away, without really knowing where I was going. Eve, after a moment's hesitation, decided not to use her imagination, and followed me.

”If it wasn't for me,” Holcomb said to my retreating back, ”you wouldn't be here at all.”

”Thank you,” I said. ”Very much.” I didn't bother to turn around to say it to him.

”I don't think you handled all that very well,” Eve told me.

”No,” I said, ”I don't suppose you do.”

”In fact,” she said, ”I don't know why Charlot is using you on this job.”

”No,” I said again, ”I don't suppose you do.”

5.

That night, we had a post-mortem on the day. It wasn't a very good post-mortem. It hadn't been a very good day.

Charlot was blissfully unimpressed by the whole thing. He didn't mind about Johnny starting fights with Caradoc personnel. He didn't mind about my extremely undiplomatic interview with David Holcomb. In fact, he didn't seem in the slightest bothered about the fact that the situation on Pharos was more like a circus than a fact-finding commission. Perhaps he thought it appropriate that the whole thing did resemble a circus.

I had the feeling that it could get worse yet.

Afterward, the others all went back to the s.h.i.+p. I stayed with Charlot, for the real discussion as to progress or the lack of it.

”I take it,” I said, ”that the true nature of operations here is a secret between you, me, and the bugs.”

”There aren't any bugs,” he said.

”You've checked?”

He nodded.

”OK,” I said, ”so it's only thee and me. Why? I can see the sense in keeping it off the record, but how come I'm inner circle all of a sudden but Nick's not? It doesn't seem like you, somehow.”

”It's a matter of qualifications,” he said. ”I'd do it alone if I thought I could.”

I thought it wiser not to comment on the sudden burst of humility.

”You could have brought help from New Alexandria.”

”Not with your kind of experience.”

This was very flattering, but not wholly surprising. The fact that I was working for Charlot at all implied that he had an unusual confidence in my abilities. Sometimes I wondered whether he knew about the wind, but there was no way that he could, so far as I could see. The wind didn't see how he could either.

Personally, I had an idea that it was just Charlot's vanity-he relied very strongly on his own opinions and impressions, and if he had somehow got the idea that I was hot stuff back in the days when Lapthorn and I ran the Javelin around for New Alexandria, there was nothing in the galaxy would make him relinquish that notion.

”Have you got anything for me?” he asked.