by David Drake
Below Sal, two men in hard suits staggered toward the stairway. The gilded armor, now scoured and defaced by the plasma bath, was Piet Ricimer's.
Piet kept his right gauntlet against the berm to guide him where he didn't trust his eyes. His left hand gripped the right gauntlet of the bigger man, who held what looked like a bundle of smoking fabric.
Stephen was still alive, but at this moment Sal had only intellect left to be glad of the fact. The earthshaking thumps of further destruction blurred even that.
"That'll teach them not to mess with Venus, won't it, Mister Harrigan?" Brantling crowed. "We fed them the sharp end this time!"
"Aye, by God we did," Tom Harrigan said in guttural triumph. "We've singed President Pleyal's beard, we have!"
Across the port, three ships that could have supplied a large colony for a year blazed in devouring glory.
ISHTAR CITY, VENUS
June 6, Year 27
0331 hours, Venus time
Sal opened the door with exaggerated care, stepped into the front room of the apartment she shared with her father, and closed the door on her fingers. "Christ's bleeding wounds!" she shouted before she remembered she was trying not to disturb Marcus.
Marcus Blythe lurched upright on the divan where he'd been dozing. "Sal?" he called. He turned up the table lamp from a vague glow to full brightness.
"Sorry, Dad," Sal said. "I didn't mean to . . ."
She shook her head in puzzlement, trying to remember what it was she'd meant to say. "Look, why don't you go off to bed now, Dad?"
"Here, you sit down," Marcus said. He tossed off the sheet covering him, then rose from the divan by shifting his torso forward and catching himself with his cane before he fell back. "I'll scramble some eggs for you. You always liked my eggs, didn't you, Sallie?"
"Dad, I'm not . . ." Sal muttered. Maybe I'm hungry after all. Her legs weren't working right, certainly. She flopped into the straight-backed chair by the little table. She teetered for a moment but didn't fall over.
"Some food will be good, Sallie," Marcus said as he shuffled into the kitchenette adjacent to the front room. "Don't I know it. I've had my nights out partying too, you know."
Sal moved the lamp, certain that Marcus' bottle was on the other side of it. There was no bottle on the table. She frowned and bent over to see if the liquor was on the floor beside the divan. There wouldn't be much left, of course, but . . .
No bottle on the floor either.
"Ferlinghetti at the Fiddler's Green was saying the Southern ship your squadron captured was as rich a prize as any Captain Ricimer ever brought back," Marcus said. Eggs spattered on hot grease.
"Richer than that," Sal said absently. "Where's your bottle, Dad?"
They'd stumbled into the Mae do Deus on Callisto, where the crew had attempted to conceal their 2,000-tonne monster when they heard Piet Ricimer was out with a squadron. The vessel had been one of the largest merchantmen of the Southern Cross before President Pleyal's coup de main six years before absorbed what had been a separate nation into the North American Federation.
"Ah, you know, Sallie dearest, I'm not sure there is a bottle in the apartment," her father said in brittle cheeriness. "I'll have to pick something up, won't I?"
"What d'ye mean, there's no bottle?" Sal shouted. She stood halfway up, lost her balance, and sat back down with a crash that jolted her spine all the way to the base of her skull.
Marcus' fork clinked busily against the pan, stirring in the spices and pepper sauce. "Fullerenes from the Mirrorside," he said as if he hadn't heard his daughter. "Worth more than microchips are, Ferlinghetti says."
"You bet," Sal agreed morosely. "A captain's share of what we took from the Mae . . . I'm a rich girl, Daddy. Your little Sal is rich, rich, rich."
She reached into the right-hand pocket of her loose tunic and brought out a liter bottle of amber Terran whiskey. It was nearly full. She couldn't remember how it had gotten there.
"Sing praises to our God and king . . ." Sal warbled, trying to open the bottle. After three failures, she squinted carefully and saw that the bottle had a screw cap instead of the plug stopper she was used to.
Marcus lifted the pan and scraped eggs onto a serving plate. "Ah, Sal?" he said nervously. "I thought that tonight you might, you know, have something to eat and go to bed. Instead of stay—"
"Who the hell are you to think anything, you damned old drunk?" Sal shouted. She stood up. The chair overset in one direction and the table in another. "I'll go to sleep when I'm damned—"
The lamp with a bubble-thin shade the color of a monarch butterfly's wing was Venerian ceramic. It hit the floor and bounced, chiming in several keys but undamaged. The glass bottle from Earth shattered in a spray of liquor.
"Oh, the bastards," Sal said. Her body swayed. "Oh, the dirty bastards."
Marcus scuffled across the room and embraced her. "Let's have a little something to eat, Sallie my love," he said. "You like my eggs, don't you, dear?"
"It'd be all right if I'd seen his face before I shot him," Sal whispered as she hugged her father.
"Sallie?" Marcus said.
"On Arles," she said, thinking she was explaining. "Every night he comes to me and he's a different face. I could take one, that'd be, that'd be . . . But he's different every night, and then mush. Red mush, dad. One after another and then they die."
"Oh, Sallie," Marcus said. "Oh, my little baby girl."
Sal shuddered and drew herself upright. "That's all right, Dad," she said. "I appreciate the trouble you took, but I'm going out for a bit, I think. I'll be back, you know, later."
"Sal, please don't go out again tonight," Marcus pleaded.
Captain Sarah Blythe, heroine of Venus' struggle against Federation tyranny, closed the door behind her. The night clerk at the baths usually had a bottle under his counter.
BETAPORT, VENUS
July 1, Year 27
1412 hours, Venus time
"What do you think of them, Gregg?" said Alexi Mostert, gesturing as he shouted over the echoing racket of the New Dock. "All three of them as handy as the Wrath, and their scantlings just as sturdy."
"We've spread the nozzle clusters," Siddons Mostert added from Stephen's other side. "Another ten centimeters between adjacent thrusters to improve hover performance."
The vessels in the three nearest cradles were purpose-built warships; like the Wrath, as even Stephen could see, but the finer points of construction were as much beyond his capacity to judge as they were outside his interests. It was inconceivable that the Mostert brothers had invited him here to talk about scantlings and hover performance.
"Ships are things that I ride on, gentlemen," Stephen said dryly. "I'm sure Piet would be delighted to discuss the way the Wrath handled, if you want to talk with him."
The twenty-odd ships fitting out in the gigantic New Dock were either state-owned or under contract to the governor's forces. Access to the dock was limited for fear of sabotage. A platoon of black-armored Governor's Guards at the entrance checked the sailors, workmen, and carters flowing into New Dock at all hours, and there were parties of armed men aboard each vessel.
Stephen suspected that the guards were a psychological exercise thought up by Councilor Duneen or another of the governor's close advisors rather than a response to real concerns. Through the guards' presence, Governor Halys said to the people of Venus, "The Federation threat is real and imminent, and the sacrifices you will shortly be called on to make are justified."
The governor was right about the threat, at least. Stephen Gregg, who knew as much about sacrifice as the next person, would have been uncomfortable urging it on anyone else.
"Yes, Factor Ricimer is a marvelous sailor, isn't he?" Siddons said. "And marvelously lucky as well. Snapping up the Mae do Deus like that!"
Siddons was a tall, slightly hunched man with the solemn mien of a preacher. He was the elder brother by two years and looked considerably older than that, although the close-coupled A
lexi had spent far more of his life in the hardships and deprivations of long voyages. Alexi Mostert continued to lead an occasional argosy even now that he'd been appointed Chief Constructor of the Fleet.
"If you call that luck," Stephen said with a cold smile. "Piet interviewed prisoners at Winnipeg and learned the ship was already overdue. He calculated her back-course and plotted the locations where her captain might lay up if he learned the Earth Approaches were too risky."
"Ah," Alexi said, nodding in understanding.
"Very simple in hindsight, isn't it, gentlemen?" Stephen said. "Good preparation often makes a task look easy."
"I think back to the days we were shipmates, Piet and I," Alexi said with forced heartiness. "And you too, Gregg. We paid a price, we did, but it was worth it for Venus' sake! There's bigger things than any one man."
Stephen looked at Mostert and shrugged. Alexi Mostert had lost all his teeth while starving on a hellish voyage back from the Reaches, where the Feds had ambushed what was meant to be a peaceful trading expedition. There'd been fifteen survivors out of more than a hundred men crammed aboard a ship that was damaged escaping.
"I don't know what anything's worth, Mostert," Stephen said.
He realized the statement wasn't true even as the words came out of his mouth. Things were worth what somebody was willing to pay for them. That was the first rule of business. Though . . . Stephen wasn't sure that he, or Alexi, or even Piet had paid the prices they did for anything as abstract as "Venus."
"I was wondering," Siddons Mostert said, pausing to clear his throat. "I was wondering who Factor Ricimer thinks the governor should appoint commander of our fleet when Pleyal attacks. Eh, Gregg?"
"I think you ought to ask Piet about that, Mostert," Stephen said. "If you really think it's any of your business."
He heard the edge in his voice. That shouldn't bother anyone who knew him, though it might worry the Mosterts. Friends knew that Stephen Gregg spoke in a musical lilt when he was determining who to kill first.
An electric-powered tractor, its transmission whining in compound low as it dragged three wagons filled with cannon shells, would pass close enough to brush the trio of men. Stephen walked forward, toward the warship looming in its cradle overhead. The legend inlaid in violet porcelain on her bow was GOVERNOR HALYS. There were at least six state or state-hired vessels named that or simply Halys, which would be at best confusing in the fleet actions everyone expected.
"Ah, it could be rather awkward, Gregg," Siddons said. He stood looking up at the Governor Halys, his neck at the same angle as Stephen's. "It's possible that the governor might feel that she had to appoint someone of a, an older factorial family to the position. Factor Ricimer might think his merits should overcome any question of his birth. Eh?"
"If the governor wants to know Piet's opinion . . ." Stephen said. His words were ordered as precisely as cartridges in a repeater's magazine. " . . . then she should ask him the next time he visits the mansion. I gather he's invited at least once a week when he's on Venus."
"Yes, but—" Alexi said.
"Listen to me, Mostert," Stephen interrupted. "If you brought me here to ask what Piet's opinion on this thing or that thing might be, then I'm going to go off and get a drink and we can all stop wasting our time."
Alexi Mostert turned sideways to face Stephen squarely. He crossed his hands behind his back and said, "All right, Gregg. What's your opinion of someone other than Factor Ricimer being appointed Commander of the Fleet?"
Stephen looked at the burly older man. He'd known Alexi Mostert for more than a decade. Stephen had shipped out to the Reaches for the first time aboard a vessel of the Mostert Trading Company. Though acquaintances rather than friends, they'd been through harsh times together just as Alexi said, in battle and in its aftermath.
"This is official business, isn't it?" Stephen said. "Somebody's afraid that I might kill anybody who was put in charge of the fleet over Piet's head? Yes?"
Behind him, Siddons Mostert choked. Alexi, standing with as much stiff dignity as his build and years allowed, said, "Well, since the question's come up, Gregg—how would you answer it?"
Stephen stared at Mostert. The older man, though obviously frightened, met his gaze. On all Venus, there were only a few men—and one woman—who could have ordered the Mostert brothers to ask the question that Alexi had just put.
"Since I'm being consulted as an expert," Stephen said in a cool, businesslike tone, "let's consider the general situation first. The governor has to appoint someone whose ancestors were factors back to before the Collapse. Otherwise every gentleman in the fleet will be squabbling over precedence. We'll kill more of ourselves in duels than we will Feds in battle."
Alexi let out a deep breath, nodding approvingly.
"I'm aware of that, and I'm sure Piet's aware of it," Stephen continued. "And I assure you, Piet wants Federation tyranny broken more than he wants honors for himself"—Stephen grinned coldly—"much though he wants honors for himself."
"And has earned them, nobody more," Siddons Mostert said effusively. "I think there may have been concern that political necessities might have been viewed as an insult to Factor Ricimer, when nothing could be farther from the truth."
A crane traveling in a trackway built into the dock's ceiling rumbled slowly past, carrying a tank of reaction mass. Drops of condensate fell from the outside of the tank like a linear rain shower. One of them plucked Stephen's right cuff.
"You asked me here to have this meeting," Stephen said, looking up at the huge water tank, "because of the armed guards, isn't that right? In case I flew hot and decided to kill you."
"It was my idea," Siddons admitted miserably. "Alexi said it wouldn't make any difference if, if you . . ."
Stephen laughed. "Oh, that's true enough to take to the bank, yes," he said.
Ten meters away, an officer in half armor looked bored. Two sailors chatted with their shotguns leaning against a pile of crates in a cargo net beside them. Stephen could have both guns before the guards realized he was taking them; though it would be much easier to grip a Mostert by the throat in either hand and batter their heads together until there was nothing left to break.
Stephen smiled.
"I've never been unwilling to do my duty to Venus and the governor, Gregg," Alexi Mostert said, standing stiff again. For all the words were as pompous as the old spacer looked in his present pose, they were basically the truth. There'd never been a lack of folk on Venus willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause they thought worthy.
"For what it's worth," Stephen said, nodding to Siddons, "I've never killed anybody just because I was angry. I've killed them for less reason, killed them because they were available and I was putting the fear of God into my general surroundings at the time. But never because I was angry."
"You've always been a loyal citizen of Venus, Mister Gregg," Siddons Mostert said. "Nobody doubts your patriotism."
"I'm not a patriot, Mostert," Stephen said. "Sometimes I've been a friend, though. It can amount to the same thing."
He bowed formally to the brothers. "I'm going to get a drink, since I believe we've covered our business, yes?"
"Yes, that's right," Alexi said. "Ah—we're heading for dinner, Siddons and I. If you'd like to come . . ."
Stephen shook his head, smiling. "Just a drink," he said. His expression shifted, though it would have been hard to say precisely which muscles tensed or slackened to make such a horrible change. "You know," he said, "sometimes I think the only time I'm alive is when I'm killing somebody. Funny, isn't it?"
Siddons Mostert stood with a frozen smile. Alexi, very slowly, shook his head.
HELDENSBURG
July 4, Year 27
2306 hours, Venus time
The wind across the starport was gusty and strong, but it blew directly from Sal, leaning out of the cabin airlock, to the nearest of the forts. The flag of United Europe, sixteen stars on a green field, was only an occasional flap of bunting f
rom behind the pole.
The fort and the three others like it on the margins of the field each had firing slits and a garrison of fifty or so human soldiers as well as heavy, ship-smashing plasma cannon. The troops looked bored as they watched starships from the walls of the position, but their personal weapons were always nearby.
Those were the sorts of details Sal had learned to consider since she started voyaging beyond Pluto.
"All right, lift her, but easy!" Tom Harrigan ordered.
Winches on the Gallant Sallie and the port operations lowboy took the first strain together. The ceramic turbine for a city-sized plasma power plant would have been a marginal load for either crane alone, especially at the full extension necessary to transfer it from hold to trailer. When the cables took the weight, the turbine skidded toward the hatchway. Brantling slowly let out slack while the Heldensburg operator reeled the load toward the lowboy at the same rate.
Wueppertal, the operations manager assigned to the Gallant Sallie, nodded approvingly from beside Harrigan. "Wueppertal?" Sal called. "What's the word on our return cargo?"
The Heldensburg official looked around and walked closer to the hatch. The turbine was balanced now. Brantling paid out more cable, allowing the other operator to draw the load over the bed of the lowboy.
Wueppertal patted the two-way radio hooked to his belt. "They've located the rest of the chips, Captain," he said. "It was an inventory error, somebody entering two crates when it should have been eleven. We'll have them out to you yet this evening, after we've off-loaded the rest of your cargo."
The microchips Sal was contracted to carry back to Paris Ouest on Earth were newly manufactured on a Near Space colony of the Independent Coastal Republic. Heldensburg produced very little itself, but in the past ten years it had become a major transit point for Near Space trade.