And after that we go upriver,lori said.

Yes.

“Next!” the sheriff called.

Yuri Wilkin stepped up to the table, keeping the leash tight on his sayce, Randolf. Rain pattered on the empty warehouse’s roof high above his head. Outside the open end, behind the sheriff, the yellow-brown polyp crater of harbour five was returning to a semblance of normality. Most of the boats had returned after their night on the river. A work crew from one of the shipyards were surveying the fire-ravaged hull that was bobbing low in the water. Some captain who hadn’t been fast enough to cast off when the rioters came boiling along the polyp in search of Ivets.

The smell of burnt wood mingled with more exotic smells from the stored goods that had caught fire in several warehouses. The flames shooting out of the doomed buildings had been tremendous, even Lalonde’s rain had taken hours to extinguish them.

Yuri had milled around watching along with the rest of the rioters last night, mesmerized with the destruction. The flames had lit something inside him, something that felt joyful at the sight of a young terrified Ivet reduced to a bloody chunk of unrecognizable meat beneath the crowd’s clubs. He had yelled encouragement until his throat was hoarse.

“Age?” the sheriff asked.

“Twenty,” Yuri lied. He was seventeen, but he already had a reasonable beard. He crossed his fingers, hoping it would be enough. There were over two hundred people waiting behind him, all wanting their chance now the sheriffs had started recruiting again.

The sheriff glanced up from his processor block. “Sure you are. You ever used a weapon, son?”

“I eat chikrows every week, shoot them myself. I know how to move around in the jungle OK. And I got Randolf, trained him all by myself, he’s an ace baiter, knows how to fight, knows how to hunt. He’ll be a big help upriver, you get two of us for the price of one.”

The sheriff leant forwards slightly, peering over the edge of the table.

Randolf bared his stained fangs. “Killl Ivezss,” the beast snarled.

“OK,” the sheriff grunted. “You willing to take orders? We don’t need people who aren’t prepared to work in a team.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Reckon you might, at that. You got a change of clothes?”

Grinning, Yuri twisted round to show him the canvas duffle bag slung over his shoulder; his laser rifle was strapped to it.

The sheriff picked a vermilion-coloured deputy’s badge from the pile beside his processor block. “There you go. Get yourself down to the Swithland and find a bunk. We’ll swear you in officially once we’re underway. And muzzle that bloody sayce, I don’t want him chewing up colonists before we get there.”

Yuri rubbed the black scales between Randolf’s battered ears. “Don’t you worry about old Randolf, he ain’t going to hurt no one, not till I tell him to.”

“Next!” the sheriff called.

Yuri Wilkin settled his hat firmly on his head, and headed for the sun-drenched harbour outside, a song in his heart and mayhem in mind.

“Gods, I’ve seen some rough planets in my time, Joshua,” Ashly Hanson said. “But this one takes the biscuit. There isn’t even anyone at the spaceport who wanted to buy copies of Jezzibella’s MF album, let alone a black-market distribution net.” He took a drink of juice from his long glass, it was a purplish liquid with plenty of ice bobbing around, some aboriginal fruit. The pilot never touched alcohol while the Lady Macbeth was docked to a station or in a parking orbit.

Joshua sipped his glass of bitter, which was warm and carried a punch almost as strong as some spirits he’d tasted. At least it had a decent head.

The pub they were drinking in was called the Crashed Dumper, a wooden barnlike structure at the end of the road that linked the spaceport with Durringham. Various time-expired spaceplane components were fastened up against the walls, the most prominent a compressor fan from one of the McBoeings that took up most of the end wall, with a couple of the fat blades buckled from a bird impact. The pub was used by spaceport staff along with the pilots and starship crews. It was, allegedly, one of the classier pubs in Durringham.

If this was refinement, Joshua didn’t like to think what the rest of the city’s hostelries must be like.

“I’ve been on worse,” Warlow growled. The bass harmonics set up vibrations on the surface of the brightlime in his bulbous brandy glass.

“Where?” Ashly demanded.

Joshua ignored them. This was their second day in Durringham, and he was starting to worry. The day Ashly had flown them down there had been some sort of riot next to the river. Everything had shut down, shops, warehouses, government offices. Spaceport procedures had been minimal, but then he suspected they were always like that on Lalonde. Ashly was right, this was one massively primitive colony. Today had been little better; the Governor’s industrial secretary had put him in touch with a Durringham timber merchant. The address turned out to be a small office down near the waterfront. Closed, naturally. Enquiries had eventually traced the owner, Mr Purcell, to a nearby pub. He assured Joshua a thousand tonnes of mayope was no problem. “You can’t give it away down here, we’ve got stocks backlogged halfway up the Juliffe.” He quoted a price of thirty-five thousand fuseodollars inclusive, and promised deliveries could start to the spaceport tomorrow. The wood was a ridiculous price, but Joshua didn’t argue. He even paid a two thousand fuseodollar deposit.

Joshua, Ashly, and Warlow had gone back to the spaceport on their hired power bikes (and the rental charge on those was bloody legalized robbery) to try to arrange for a McBoeing charter to ship the wood up to Lady Mac . That had taken the rest of the day, and another three thousand fuseodollars in bribe money.

It wasn’t the money which bothered him particularly; even taking Lalonde’s necessary lubrication into account the mayope was only a small percentage of the cost of a Norfolk flight. Joshua was used to datavised deals, and instant access to anybody he wanted via the local communication net. On Lalonde, where there was no net, and few people with neural nanonics, he was beginning to feel out of his depth.

When he had ridden back into town in the late afternoon to find Mr Purcell and confirm they had a McBoeing lined up, the timber merchant was nowhere to be found. Joshua retreated to the Crashed Dumper in a dark mood. He wasn’t at all sure the mayope would even turn up tomorrow; and they had to leave in six days to stand any chance of securing a cargo of Norfolk Tears from a roseyard merchant. Six days, and he didn’t have any alternative to mayope. It had seemed such a good idea.

He took another gulp of his bitter. The pub was filling up as the spaceport staff came off shift. Over in one corner an audio block was playing a ballad which some of the customers were singing along to. Large fans spun listlessly overhead, trying to circulate some of the humid air.

“Captain Calvert?”

Joshua looked up.

Marie Skibbow was dressed in a tight-fitting sleeveless green stretch blouse, and a short pleated black skirt. Her thick hair was neatly plaited. She was carrying a circular tray loaded with empty glasses.

“Now this is what I call improved service,” Ashly said brightly.

“That’s me,” Joshua said. Jesus, but she had tremendous legs. Nice face too, ever so slightly wiser than her age.

“I understand you’re looking for a cargo of mayope, is that right?” Marie asked.

“Does everybody in town know?” Joshua asked.

“Just about. A visit from an independent trader starship isn’t exactly common around here. If we weren’t having all this trouble with the Quallheim Counties and the anti-Ivet riots you’d be the most gossiped over item in Durringham.”