The Reaches

by David Drake

  Gregg followed. When he threw his arms out to balance him, pain lancing across his pectoral muscles stopped the motion. He fell on his face and had to shuffle his knees forward to rise.

  He began running, ten paces behind Stampfer. The vessel's side hatch was open, and the glow of her idling thrusters was a beacon to safety.

  39

  Sunrise

  Dole waited poised at the controls while a gust of unusual violence even for Sunrise channeled between the hulls of the Dalriada and that of the metal-built ship lying parallel to her. The wind settled to 15 or 20 kph.

  "There!" the Halys' bosun said as he shut the thrusters down with a flourish. "That's greasing her in!"

  "I'll go see what I can learn about why we were abandoned on Umber that way," said Stephen Gregg in an expressionless voice. He reached for the hatch control.

  "Sir?" Dole said, sharply enough to draw Gregg's attention back from its bleak reverie. "Ah—d'ye think you're going to need the flashgun you're carrying?"

  Gregg stared at him. "That depends on what I learn," he said evenly.

  "Right, right," said Dole as he rose from the console. "So wait for a minute while I get my gear on too, okay?"

  Stampfer got up from the attitude controls. He laced his fingers together over his head and stretched them against the normal direction of the joints. "I guess we'll all go, sir," he said toward the bulkhead. "It was all our asses they left to swing in the breeze, wasn't it?"

  "Too right," murmured Gallois, already half into his hard suit.

  "Say," said another of the Dalriadans plaintively as he donned his armor, "does anybody know what that other ship's doing here with our two?"

  "I don't know what it's doing," Gregg said as he waited for his men to equip themselves, "but I'm pretty sure what it is, is the Adler. They're Germans from United Europe."

  He paused while he remembered Virginia. "The captain's a man named Schremp," he added. "I could have lived a good deal longer without seeing him again."

  Dole had brought the Halys in between two ships lying within a hundred meters of one another. It was a form of bragging, proving how much better he could do than the Halys' AI.

  It had also been dangerous, but Gregg felt too bloody-minded to care if misjudgment sent them crashing through the side of the Dalriada. Anyway, it was a short walk hatch-to-hatch in the brutal wind.

  The ramp to the Dalriada's forward hold dropped as soon as Gregg opened the Halys. He and his crew started toward the larger vessel. A single man waited for them in the hold. He raised his visor as they entered.

  It was Piet Ricimer.

  "Good Christ!" Gregg blurted. "Piet, I—Dulcie told me you were dead."

  "Thanks to the goodness of Christ," Ricimer said, a reproof so gentle you had to know him well to recognize it, "nothing happened to me that rest and a great deal of blood plasma couldn't cure."

  He glanced toward the ramp. "I'm going to close the hatch now," he said, reaching for the control. "You'd better step forward, Gallois."

  Gregg embraced him. Their suits clashed together loudly.

  "I thought you were, were lost too, Stephen," Ricimer murmured. "When I came to, I asked where you were. They said they were sure you'd lifted off of Umber, but you hadn't joined them on the run to Sunrise."

  "Them bastards took off like scalded cats!" Dole snarled. "And us in a Federation pig that thinks it's a miracle to come within four zeros of her setting on a transit. Of course we were going to be a couple days behind, if the bastards didn't wait up on us!"

  "I've got something to discuss with Captain Dulcie," Gregg said in a voice as pale as winter dawn. He clapped his friend on the back and moved toward the companionway to the bridge.

  Ricimer stepped in front of him. "No, Stephen," he said. "I made the plans, I gave the orders. The fault was mine."

  "You were unconscious!" Gregg shouted.

  "I was responsible!" Ricimer shouted. They were chest-to-chest. "I am responsible, under God, for the future success of this voyage. Me!"

  Both men eased back by half-steps. They were breathing hard. "Stephen," Ricimer said softly. "What's done is done. It's the future that counts. Those mistakes won't happen again."

  Gregg smiled savagely. "So, it's forgive and forget, is that it, Piet?" he said.

  "No, Stephen," Ricimer said. "Just forgive." He wet his lips with his tongue. "It was good enough for our Lord, after all."

  Gregg laughed. He turned to his crew. "How do you men feel about that?" he asked mildly.

  Men shrugged within their hard suits. "Whatever you say, sir," Stampfer said.

  Gregg put his flashgun muzzle-down on the deck. "What I say," he said, "is that we all swore an oath to obey Captain Ricimer when we signed on for this voyage. So I guess we'd better do that."

  He grinned lopsidedly at his friend.

  Ricimer unlatched his hard suit. "We can leave all the gear here," he said. "I'll be going back aboard the Peaches after the meeting myself."

  "Meeting?" Gregg repeated as he began to strip off his armor also.

  "Yes," Ricimer said. "You're just in time for it. Captain Schremp has a crewman who was aboard the Tolliver when we refitted here on the previous voyage. As a result he located us, and he wants us to join forces with him on the next stage of our operations . . ."

  40

  Sunrise

  A dozen members of the Dalriada crew bent over equipment in the compartment adjoining the bridge and captain's suite. They weren't precisely lurking; even after the casualties on Umber, space aboard the 70-tonne vessel was tight. There was no question that the men's nervous attention was directed toward the meeting in the next chamber.

  Besides the Dalriadans, three metal hard suits stood in pools of condensate. One of the suits was silvered, and the rifle slung from it was the ornate, pump-action repeater Gregg had seen Captain Schremp carrying.

  Ricimer led Gregg onto the bridge. The ten men already there crowded it. Only Wassail among the Dalriada's officers would meet Gregg's cold eyes, but the Germans nodded to the newcomers.

  To Gregg's surprise, Schremp clearly recognized him. Of course, Gregg hadn't forgotten Captain Schremp . . .

  "Rondelet," the German captain boomed before Ricimer had seated himself again at the head of the chart table. "There's a hundred occupied islands with Fed ships at a score of them at any given time. None of them are defended to the degree that'll be a problem to you and me together."

  He waved a hairy, powerful hand. "Umber was suicide. You were lucky to get out of it as well as you did, Ricimer."

  "Umber might not have been such a problem," said Stephen Gregg from where he stood by the hatch, "except some idiot had botched a raid two weeks before and roused the whole region."

  One of the Germans muttered a curse and started to get up from his chair. Schremp waved him down with a curt gesture and said, "We needed a featherboat on Umber, that is so. On Rondelet your featherboat comes in low, eliminates the defense battery, and the larger ships drop down and finish the job. Together, it's easy."

  "Our raid on Umber wasn't such a failure as it may have appeared to outsiders," Ricimer said coolly. "I've reviewed the pilotry data we gathered there, and it's clear that the Federation holds Rondelet in considerable strength. Each of the magnates there has an armed airship of his own . . . and as you've pointed out, Captain Schremp, there are more than a hundred of these individual fiefdoms."

  "They're spread out," insisted one of Schremp's henchmen, a squat fellow with blond hair on his head but a full red beard. "We pick an island where a ship is loading, strip the place, and we're gone before the neighbors wake up."

  "Or," Ricimer said, "we're a few seconds late in lifting off, and there's a score of airships circling the island, waiting to put plasma bolts into our thrusters when we're a thousand meters up. I think not."

  Schremp's hands clenched on the chart table. He deliberately opened them and forced his face into a smile. "Come now, Captain Ricimer," he said in a falsely j
ocular tone. "There are always risks, of course, but these Principals as they call themselves—they live like kings on their little islands, yes, but they don't have armies. A dozen or so armed Molts for show, that is all. They won't fight."

  "My late brother," Ricimer said with a perfect absence of emotion, "was saying something very similar when a Molt killed him."

  Gregg's face went as blank as his friend's. He'd wondered why Adrien wasn't present . . . He reached over, regardless of the others, and squeezed Ricimer's shoulder.

  "The Earth Convoy will top off and refit on Rondelet on its way to Umber," Wassail put in. He'd obviously studied and understood the data lifted from Umber's Commandatura also. "It's due anytime now."

  "All right," snarled the blond German, "what do you propose we do? Calisthenics on the beautiful beaches outside and then go home?"

  "No, Mr. Groener," Ricimer said. "My men and I are going to Benison. What your party does is of course your own affair."

  "Benison?" Schremp cried. "Benison! There's nothing but local trade there. Food ships to Rondelet and Umber. Where's the profit there?"

  "A ship itself is worth something," said Dulcie, "when you pay for it at the point of a gun." The Dalriada's captain had brightened noticeably when Ricimer said they weren't going to attack another well-defended target.

  Schremp stood up. His right fist pumped three times, ending each stroke millimeters above the tabletop. "Are you all cowards?" he demanded. "Did you all have your balls shot off on Umber, is that it?"

  He turned and pointed at Gregg. "You, Mr. Gregg," he said. "Will you come with me? You're not a coward."

  Gregg had been leaning against the hatchway. He rocked himself fully upright by flexing his shoulders. "My enemies have generally come to that conclusion, Captain," he said. "Neither am I a deserter, or a fool."

  Schremp didn't flinch at Gregg's tone, but Dulcie stared at his hands in horror.

  "So be it!" Schremp said. Everyone in the room was standing. "You will not help us, so we will help ourselves."

  He led his entourage off the bridge, bumping between chairs and Venerians pressed against the bulkhead. At the hatch Schremp turned and said, "Captain Ricimer, for your further endeavors, I wish you even better fortune than you had on Umber!"

  Gregg closed the hatch behind the Germans. They would be several minutes in the next compartment donning their hard suits—unless they were angry enough to face Sunrise weather unprotected as they returned to the Adler.

  The Venerians looked at one another, visibly relaxing. "Well," said Dulcie, breaking the silence, "I think picking up the local trade on Benison is far the best idea."

  Ricimer gave him a lopsided smile. "Oh," he said, "that isn't my plan at all, Captain Dulcie. Though we are going to Benison."

  41

  Benison

  Lightbody would be watching the panel, but Gregg had set the sonic scanner to provide an audio signal before he let himself doze off in the featherboat's bay. The peep-peep-peep of the alarm wakened him instantly, even though when he came alert the tiny sound was lost in the shriek of a saw fifty meters away cutting into the frame of the Halys.

  Lightbody, bending down to arouse Gregg, seemed surprised he was already up. "Somebody's coming from the east, sir," he whispered. "I think it must be the captain coming back."

  "I think so too," Gregg said. He checked the satchel of reloads, aimed his flashgun, and then tested his faceshield's detents to be sure that it would snap closed easily if he needed the protection. Daylight through the foliage had a soft, golden tinge.

  The saw stopped. Somebody cheered in satisfaction. The men were treating their work as if it were a normal shipwright's task, ignoring the fact they were on a hostile planet. Realistically, there was no silent way to remove a thruster and the transit system from a ship built as a single module; besides, five hundred meters of the dense forest would drink the noise anyway. The comfortable, even carefree manner of the men under his temporary command irritated Gregg nonetheless.

  "I'm coming in," called Piet Ricimer. He was out of sight, to prevent a nervous bullet or laser bolt. "I'm alone, and I'm coming in."

  "Thank God for that!" Gregg said. He jumped down and met his friend ten meters from the Peaches. They shook, left hand to left hand, because Gregg held the flashgun to his side on its muzzle-forward patrol sling.

  "Where's Guillermo?" Gregg asked.

  "With K'Jax and his, well, Clan Deel," Ricimer explained as they walked back to the featherboat. "There's fifty or sixty of them coming. I came on ahead."

  "We need that many?" Gregg said.

  "For portage," his friend replied. "I don't want more than one trip through the Mirror. I'll only need a few of our people, humans; specialists. Ah, I want you to remain in charge of the base party and the vessels."

  They'd reached the Peaches. Men without specific tasks—and Dulcie, who was supposed to be overseeing work on the Halys—strode toward their commander along the paths trampled to mud beneath the trees.

  "I want to be able to flap my arms and fly," said Gregg evenly. "That's not going to happen either."

  "We've got the AI dismounted and we're almost done sectioning it for carriage, Captain Ricimer," Dulcie boomed with enthusiasm. "And the powerplant, thrusters and plumbing, that's already complete. The ship's pretty well junked, though."

  Ricimer nodded absently to him. "The Halys wasn't a great deal to begin with," he said. "But she'll do. Stephen—"

  Gregg shook his head. "There was work to be done here," he said. "Fine, I stayed while you went off to find the Molts. I'd sooner have gone, but I understood the need."

  "And—" began Ricimer.

  "Now," Gregg continued forcefully, "the operation's on the other side of the Mirror, and there's nothing to do here but wait. I'm sure Captain Dulcie can wait just as well as I could."

  He nodded pleasantly at the Dalriada's captain. Dulcie blinked, suspicious that he was being insulted but relieved at the implication that he wouldn't be expected to take a front rank in the coming raid. "Well, I'm sure you can depend on me to do my duty, gentlemen," he said.

  "An autogyro patrolling the fields came close enough we could hear it," Gregg said. "The camouflage net over the Dalriada did the job. That's the only threat in the past three days. Don't tell me you're not going to need a shooter worse on mirrorside. Because if you do, I'll call you a liar, Piet."

  Ricimer shook his head. "Well," he said, "we can't have that. I think six of the men will be sufficient. How did those with you aboard the Halys work out, Stephen?"

  "None of them were problems," Gregg said without hesitation. "Dole and Stampfer I'd take with me anywhere."

  "Then we'll take them on this operation," Ricimer said. He smiled. "I'm not sure they'll find it so great an honor after they've had personal experience with the Mirror."

  Ricimer's face hardened. "I'll inspect the supplies and equipment for the operation now," he added crisply. "If possible, I'd like to leave as soon as Guillermo gets here with our allies."

  * * *

  "I've got them," Gregg called up to the Molt invisible in the treetop as the wicker basket wobbled down into his arms.

  Gregg transferred handfuls of recharged batteries from the basket to an empty satchel, then replaced them with another dozen that had been run flat with the tree cutting and shaping. The bark-fiber rope was looped around the basket handle and spliced instead of simply being tied off. Otherwise it would have been simpler to trade baskets rather than empty and refill the one.

  "Ready to go!" he called. He stepped back as the Molt hoisted away.

  The solar collector had to be above the foliage to work. It was easier to lift batteries up to the collector than it would have been to haul fifty meters of electrical cable through the Mirror so that the rest of the charging system could be at ground level.

  "And so, I think, are we, Stephen," Piet Ricimer said, shocking Gregg as he turned without realizing his friend had walked over to him as he stared up into the
tree.

  "Ready?" Gregg said in surprise. He looked toward the starship in the center of the circle that had been cleared to provide the vessel's framework.

  The portable kiln still chugged like a cat preparing to vomit, grinding, heating, and spraying out the sand and rock dumped into its feed hopper. The routine of work over the past week had been so unchanging that Gregg was subconsciously convinced it would never change.

  "Lightbody and Stampfer are clearing the kiln," Ricimer said. He smiled wanly. "My father would never forgive me if I put up a kiln with the output lines full of glass. That can cause backflow through the feed chute the next time you use the equipment."

  Side by side, the two officers walked toward the ship, which was possibly the ugliest human artifact Stephen Gregg had ever seen in his life. He was about to entrust his life to her.

  The crewmen waited expectantly. The Molts who aided them when possible—Venerian ceramic technology belonged to the post-Collapse era, so it was not genetically coded into the aliens' cells—were ready to begin loading the ship with the piled equipment and supplies, but no one had given the order to begin.

  "Gentlemen," Piet Ricimer said loudly. Everyone's attention was on him already.

  The ship was a framework of wooden beams, covered with planks sawn from the neighboring forest with cutting bars. She was less than twenty meters long.

  "We're men of action, not ceremony," Ricimer continued. "Nonetheless, I thought we should pause for a moment, to pray and to name the vessel we have built."

  The rough-hewn planks were sealed and friction-proofed with a ceramic coating applied by one of the portable kilns the expedition carried to make repairs. It was the largest item the Molts had had to carry through the Mirror. Gregg couldn't imagine how K'Jax, who took the load himself, had managed.

  "I considered calling our ship the Avenger," Ricimer said. His voice, strong from the beginning, grew firmer and clearer yet. Gregg recalled Piet mentioning that his father was a lay preacher. "But vengeance is for the Lord. Our eyes must be on the benefit to all men that will occur when our profit leads our fellows to join in breaking the Federation monopoly."