The police still hadn’t arrived. Ky looked up MilMartExchange, and found that it occupied almost half of Hub Four’s extensive storage holds. “Surplus new and used military heavy equipment: no credit” was its subhead. No more details available without a personal visit, but she could apply for a customer ID that would, the site said, “facilitate entry to the facility for first-time customers. Confidentiality assured. Recommended procedure.” Ky hesitated, then decided to apply: anyone interested already knew she was docked here; the public-access ship listing would tell them that. To her surprise, the “application” consisted of asking for a number; she did not even have to give a name.

She took down the number she was given—fifteen digits—then looked up WEAPONS, where she found six gun shops listed, ranging from Bernie’s Knives and Guns, “cheap, reliable personal protection,” to Blade, Bullet, and Bow—” blades, firearms, and archery tackle for the discriminating.” She looked for ORDNANCE and found “see heavy equipment,” plus a small boxed notice that Lastway was not responsible for the legal status of ships mounting heavy equipment—captains should check with their relevant political units.

Sabine’s concern now seemed more reasonable. And Lastway Station’s regulations on personal weaponry were clearly less stringent than those on many other stations. Ky looked at the available live shots of station activity and noticed that a number of the people walking past were obviously armed. Probably others carried concealed weapons.

The directory listed a number of sources for surveillance and security systems, including most of the weapons sources already shown. Vic’s Precision Protection Supply was closest, on the same sector of the same hub. She had Martin’s wish list of gadgets and software. No, the first thing was to arrange handling of funds.

All the major quadrant banks had branches here; Ky picked Crown & Spears. Their representative regretted any inconvenience that it might cause, but they had put a lock on Vatta corporate accounts until matters had been adjudicated. Ky had expected that. “Did you receive a transfer from Belinta a few weeks ago? It was in my personal account, not a company account.”

“I regret, madam, that I find no record of such a transfer. The last value we have for madam’s personal account, based on ansible data, is indeed healthy, but those funds are not presently available because of the ansible failure. In the present crisis, we cannot advance monies based on remote accounts.”

“Very well, then. I want to open a new account,” she said. “We’re selling cargo here and I’ll be making purchases.”

“It would have to be cash or hard goods,” the bank’s representative said.

“Of course,” Ky said. “I’ll courier over about four thousand credits’ worth—using as a rough guide the official appraisal from Immigration—”

The face in the screen smiled more naturally now. “That will be fine, Captain. Their assessments are often… less than we might give, shall we say. And you say you have cargo as well?”

“Yes. We’re unloading now; my cargomaster will be dealing shortly.”

“Excellent. Now—is this to be a Vatta Transport account, or a personal account?”

“Personal,” Ky said.

“Very well. We will await your courier and make funds available as soon as the valuation has cleared.”

Ky had just closed the connection when Martin called to her. “The Garda are here,” he said. “Their officer would like to speak with you.”

“I’ll be right out. Baritom Security is sending a couple of personnel to help guard dockside, and I’m going to need a courier to Crown & Spears to open an account. Would you say another Baritom agent, or a courier service?”

“Neither,” Martin said. “When Baritom takes over dockside coverage here, I’ll escort you or a crewmember.”

The Garda who met Ky held out a legal notification pad. “Make your mark here, madam. You’re being notified of your legal status on this station, your legal rights and obligations…” Ky read the notification and signed her name. She handed him a data cube with the recording of the man’s attack, and he nodded. “We’ll be in touch,” he said. One of his fellows took the cargo cords off the operator and put on their own restraints; then they hauled the man away.

“I’ve got a list of what we need to complete our own perimeter security,” Martin said.

“There’s a supplier on this hub, not that far away,” Ky said. “When I get the bank account set up—and by the way, I haven’t contacted the rental company yet. In the meantime, can we start unloading?”

“Yes, ma’am. Jim here has convinced me that he does indeed know how to handle one of these things—I had him move it around while we were waiting for the Garda to show up.” He paused, then said, “And here’s Baritom.”

Ky glanced toward the dockside entrance and saw two uniformed men waiting by the entrance. She started forward, but Martin stopped her.

“It’s my job,” he said. “If you’ll just get whatever you need for the bank run… and I’d recommend Mitt for your courier. He has an implant and he looks nothing like you.”

By the time Ky came back, Martin had assigned the two Baritom guards to the dockside entrance and told Alene to open up the nearside cargo hold. Beeah and Mehar were pacing around the dockside; Jim was backing away from the cargo hold with the first stack of containers. Mitt, his face sober, took the packet with two diamonds from Ky and put it in an inner pocket in his tunic.

Shortly thereafter, she had an account with a balance of 5,876 credits and a Crown & Spears credit chip, with authorization code. With that, Vic’s Precision Protection Supply was willing to send over 648 credits’ worth of surveillance gear. It arrived just as Martin and Mitt returned from the bank; Martin took charge of it and began installation at once.

Unloading proceeded; Ky looked at the tradehall listings and saw that the Leonoran pharmaceutical components should do very well, bringing much more than they would have on Leonora. Now that she had a bank account, she could list the cargo on the boards, and bids began to come in. She shunted those to Alene’s attention. Her own attention focused on what she needed most to make her ship and her crew safer while in port. Any port. The attack on Belinta had involved both firearms and contact poison; they would need their own weapons, personal armor, and antidotes to such poisons—if any existed.

The tricky part would be getting to the small-arms dealers before someone got to her. Martin would come with her, but would that be enough? If she didn’t wear Vatta colors, and carried her own weapons after she got them… who else in the crew knew how to use any? She paused to ask Martin.

Mehar, of course, was an expert with the pistol bow. It turned out that she had also handled needlers before. Jim, as Ky now began to expect, rather shamefacedly admitted to having handled a variety of weapons.

“There were sorta like pirates hanging out in the estuaries near where we farmed. So I kind of picked up some of it—and my father, he always hunted even though the landlords didn’t like it.”

“So what do you know enough about to be useful?”

“Slug throwers. We didn’t have stunners and needlers and all those spacer things. Make a big enough hole in it, my dad always said, and you’re sure it’s dead. There was this thing that lived out in the woods, big as a cow, and had these scales on it—”

“Slug throwers… handguns or long barrels?”

“Both, Captain. Now what I really liked, but only got to use once and he was really mad about it, was the mayor’s Schneider-Watson.44 automatic. Made a lot of noise, it did, but you could put holes in those bitty little pirate speedboats with it. Or give me a rifle like my dad had…”

“How about accuracy?” Ky said.

“I’m pretty good,” Jim said with unusual modesty for him. “My dad, now, he was a dead shot at any distance, but I qualified top in the marksmanship class for the local militia.”