'Lying bastard-'
'It's an easy matter. You made a run to Hubris that is not logged, nor is any cargo list filed. How will they calculate import duties?'
His chair scraped back a centimetre or two.
'Why were you on Hubris?'
'I wasn't! Who says I was?'
Take your pick. Saemon Crotes. Namber Wylk/
'Don't know them. You've got the wrong man, you miserable bastard. Now frag off!'
'Murdin Eyclone, then. What about him? Didn't he hire you?'
That brought the nod at last. An imperceptible motion of his head.
The crewman beside me lunged out of his seat, a compact shock-flail snapping out of his sleeve and into his gloved hand.
'Drop it/ I willed, without even speaking.
The flail sparked as it bounced off the table top.
It was in my hand a second later. I whipped it back across its owner's face and smashed him sideways off his chair. Then I snapped it round, crushed the left ear of the other crewman and laid him full length on the floor at the foot of the table.
I sat back down, facing Tanokbrey, the flail in my hand. His face as grey and his eyes darted now with panic.
'Eyclone. Tell me about him/
His left arm moved inside his jacket and I jabbed the flail into his shoulder. Unfortunately, I realised he was wearing armour under that silk.
He reeled from the impact, but his arm came up all the same, a short-snouted laspistol clutched in his fist.
I slammed the tablejnto him and his shot went wild, punching through the back of a nearby ruffian. The victim toppled over, bringing another table smashing down.
Now the shot and the commotion had got the attention of the entire tavern. There was general shouting and confusion.
I didn't pay it any heed. Tanokbrey fired again through the overturned table and I dove aside, colliding with milling bodies.
The merchant was on his feet, kicking and punching his way through the mob to the exit. I could see Betancore, but the mass of bodies prevented him from blocking Tanokbrey.
'Aside!' I yelled, and the crowd parted like hatch shutters.
Tanokbrey was on the walkway outside, running for the quay at the end of the street. He turned and fired. Pedestrians screamed and ran. Someone was pushed into the canal.
Tanokbrey leapt into a grav-skiff, shot the protesting hire-driver, pushed the corpse off the steering perch, and gunned the craft away down the canal.
Betancore's air-bike was sat on its kickstand to my left. I cranked the power and swept off down the waterway in pursuit.
'Wait! Wait!' I heard Betancore yelling.
No time.
Tanokbrey's flight caused mayhem down the length of the busy canal. He drove his skiff into the jostling traffic, forcing craft to heave out of his way. Already the decorative golden filigree on the skiffs black hull was grazed and dented with a dozen glancing impacts. People on the banks and abroad on the water howled and yelled at him as he wrenched his way through. Where the street met a canal thoroughfare, he tried to extend his lead with a surge of speed. A fast-moving courier boat coming down the stream veered at the last moment, and struck the quayside with great force, sending the craft up over end, its hull shredding, its driver cartwheeling through the air.
I laced the air-bike through the disrupted traffic in Tanokbrey's wake. I wanted to gain height, and move to a level where I could coax more speed from the machine without fear of collision. But the vehicle's grav-plate had a governor unit that prevented anything more than three metres of climb. I had no time to figure out where the governor was or how to disable it. I aimed the bike between turning skiffs, water-buses heavy in the choppy canal, other darting air-bikes.
Ahead, I could hear the distant sounds of military bands.
Tanokbrey whipped out of a junction into the Grand Canal, and straight into the side of the afternoon's parade. A slow-moving river of
skiffs, military barges and landspeeder escorts filled the entire width of the waterway. The craft were full of jubilant Imperial Guardsmen and officers, thundering regimental bands and battlefleet dignitaries. The air was glittering with streamers and banners, company standards, Imperial eagles and Gudrunite carnodons. One entire barge bore a massive golden carnodon sculpture to which whooping guardsmen clung. Garlands fluttered from the barrels of a thousand brandished las-rifles. The walkways and bridges of the Grand Canal were choked with cheering civilians.
