The Romulan War_ Beneath the Raptor's Wing (Book 1) - Michael A. Martin [71]
Of course, Brooks had already half expected something strange to come out of today’s public political meeting—a gathering that Qaletaqu himself had called in order to brief the people of his tribe on the report he was to deliver tomorrow morning under the Ares City Dome before the full Governing Council of the Confederated Martian Colonies—which wasn’t being held in the nominally official town hall across the street. And she received further confirmation of the weirdness of today’s meeting even before Mars’s official Coalition representative formally called the oddly informal proceedings to order.
This occurred when the local mining and areothermal power magnate who ran the Dytallix-Barsoom Resource Extraction Corporation, a grizzled, overall-clad man whom the two dozen or so people present called Kolichiyaw, abruptly rose from the folding chair between the two occupied, respectively, by Kwahu, Canyontown’s sheriff, and Cheveyo, the shaman in charge of Popé Pueblo’s communal habak.
“Where you off to, Kolichiyaw?” the sheriff said, polishing the star-shaped badge pinned to his black lapel with a soiled white sleeve. “The town meeting’s about to start.”
“I need a drink,” Kolichiyaw said, thrusting out his jaw belligerently. To Brooks’s eye, the BREMCO executive had already had more than enough to drink. “I’ll be right back.”
Still seated near the sheriff, Cheveyo the shaman shook her head. “You know the rules, Koli. There’s no drinkin’ at the town meetings.”
“The holy lady’s got it right, Kolichiyaw,” Sheriff Kwahu said. “Booze and politics don’t mix.”
Kolichiyaw stopped, turned around, and shook his head truculently. “No. Sobriety and politics don’t mix. Especially now that we’ve gotta worry about these Romans sneaking up on us on their way to Earth.”
“Romulans, Koli,” Kwahu said as he rose slowly from his seat. “They’re called Romulans.”
“Whatever. I’m goin’ to get a drink now. Be right back.” With that, the mining chief resumed his course for the bar.
“No,” Kwahu said, loudly enough to bring nearly all the ambient chatter in the room to a halt. “You’re not. If you have anything more to drink, you’d best head straight home instead of back here.”
Brooks watched as Kolichiyaw stopped in his tracks and faced the sheriff yet again. “Look, Kwahu, I really don’t see the problem with me grabbing a little drink, and then coming right back here with it ’fore the meetin’ starts.”
Kwahu shook his head and sighed sadly, then opened his coat momentarily, just long enough to reveal the presence of a rather nasty-looking pistol. The weapon still seemed disconcertingly handy despite the sheriff’s having allowed the flap of his coat to fall and conceal it again.
“Here’s the problem, Koli, at least as I see it,” Kwahu said languidly. “You break the no-drinking-at-public-meetings rule, and I’m going to shoot you. Okay?”
Brooks studied Kolichiyaw’s face very closely. The mining magnate stared back at the sheriff defiantly, his jaw muscles looking as taut as suspension bridge cables bearing far too much weight.
Though Brooks had sought a little local color to illustrate her journalistic portrait of Mars, she hoped not to find blood red on her painter’s palette. A frisson of real fear began surging through her, making her hyperalert to every motion, every facial tic, every nuance of behavior from the men who stood on either side of the standoff.
A tall, rail-thin woman dressed entirely in black rose from the chair positioned almost directly beneath the dart board and approached Kolichiyaw, coming to a stop directly at his side. Apparently unconcerned by the escalating tension between Kolichiyaw and the sheriff, she drew a small object from her pocket from which she extended a long metal strip, perhaps as wide as a human thumb. With the fluid motions of an expert, she anchored one end of the metal strip to the polished stone floor with