Jak, maddened with indignation, snapped, "I told you I'm Jak SP345O926O. Who are you, and how may we help? In about an hour and a half—"
"Silence!" shouted the visitor.
This brutal direction shocked Jak into acquiescence. An even greater shock stunned him when the other man who had remained in the cabin removed his helmet. This one, Jak decided, must be mentally deficient, or else he would have had a plastidoc treat the red scar tissue covering the left side of his face. Jak could not understand the semicircle of black cloth over the man's left eye.
The leader bent his torso toward Drusilla as much as the spacesuit allowed, and said, "My true name and serial number, you shall never know, fair lady; but for practical purposes, I have adopted the name of the most famous pirate of the early Twentieth Century, Earl Flim. You may call me Captain Flim."
The third man came back through the passage. He looked ordinary enough, although he had let his hair grow. He reported, "No one else aboard, captain."
Flim said, "Excellent, Ger. Destroy all communication apparatus."
Ger pulled a wrench from his tool kit and took a preliminary slash at the radio. Completely puzzled, Jak protested, "Wait! What do you mean 'pirate?' Pirate? What—"
"Silence!" Flim roared.
Only then did Jak notice the pistol. Since the successful conclusion of the Crime War, when Organized Crime, the greatest blight that ever sapped a planet, was eradicated, guns could be found only in museums. Even before the War, guns had become a rarity among the law abiding citizenry; since the slaughter of fifteen thousand people a year in hunting and home accidents in the State of America alone had brought about anti-firearm laws and sent the gun the way of the private automobile.