The Reaches Page 11

  "We should be ahead of the Earth Convoy," Mostert said. His heavy face was without visible emotion, but the precise way his hands rested on the conference table suggested the control he exerted to retain that impassivity. "We'll load, repair, and be gone in a few days. We can offer the authorities on Biruta a fair price for using their graving docks. They need Molt labor as badly as the other colonies."

  "There's only one place to land a starship on Biruta," Fedders said with his eyes on a ceiling molding. "That's Island Able. And they'll have defenses there, the Feds will . . ."

  A starship which committed to land on Biruta had no options if batteries at the port opened fire. The seas that wrapped the remainder of the planet would swallow any vessel which tried to avoid plasma bolts that would otherwise rip her belly out.

  "They won't know we're from Venus," said Mostert. "I'll go in first with the guns ready for as soon as we're down."

  He looked at his cousin. "Ricimer," he said. "You can bring your featherboat in at the same time the Tolliver lands, can't you?"

  "Yes," Ricimer said softly. "We could do that. It'll confuse the garrison."

  Mostert nodded. "If we give them enough to think about, they won't act. So that's what we'll do."

  He looked around the conference table. "No further questions, then?" he said with a deliberate lack of subtlety.

  No one spoke for a moment. The Venerians had accessed the data banks in the Jewelhouse Commandatura while they held the Fed governor and his wife under guard. The information there suggested that the annual Earth Convoy was due anytime within a standard week of the present . . .

  "If there isn't any choice," Piet Ricimer said in the grim silence, "then—may the Lord shelter us in our necessity."

  Gregg remembered the terror in the eyes of the wife of the Jewelhouse governor. He wondered if the Lord saw any reason to shelter the men in this room . . . including Stephen Gregg, who was of their number whether or not he approved of every action his company took.

  20

  Biruta

  Biruta's atmosphere was notably calm. That, with the planet's location at the nearer edge (through transit space) of the Reaches and the huge expanse of water to provide reaction mass, made Biruta an ideal way station for starships staggering out from the solar system.

  The Peaches had to come in at the worst part of the flagship's turbulence. She bucked and pitched like lint above an air vent. Ricimer and the men on the attitude jets, Leon and Lightbody this time, kept the featherboat on a reasonably even keel.

  Jeude and Tancred in their hard suits hunched over the plasma cannon forward. They'd opened the gunport at three klicks of altitude, though they'd have to run the weapon out before they brought it into action.

  Gregg smiled grimly as he gripped a stanchion and braced one boot against a bulkhead. He was getting better at this. And there were amusement parks where people paid money to have similar experiences.

  Guillermo stood across the narrow hull from Gregg. From his first landing, the Molt rode as easily as if his jointed legs were the oil-filled struts of shock absorbers.

  "Guillermo," Gregg called. "Did your genetic memory cover space flight? Landings, I mean."

  "Yes, Mr. Gregg," the Molt said. "It does."

  Gregg wasn't sure precisely what Guillermo's status was. So far as Mostert was concerned, Guillermo was an unsold part of the cargo loaded at Punta Verde. The larger vessels still carried fifty or sixty other Molts . . . who would be sold to the Feds here, if all went well.

  To Gregg and the Peaches crewmen, the alien who'd taken over Bailey's duties in the course of the past four planetfalls wasn't simply merchandise. Gregg wasn't sure Guillermo had ever been merchandise to Piet Ricimer.

  "What're them ships there?" Lightbody muttered as he peered at the viewscreen over his control consoles. "They're not big enough to be the Earth Convoy."

  "Water buffalo," Leon said. "Liftships, laser-guided drones. The Feds' biggest ships boost to orbit with minimum reaction mass to keep the strain down. Liftships, they're just buckets to ferry water up to them."

  Island Able was a ragged triangle with sides of about a kilometer each. A complex of buildings and two very small ships—featherboats or perhaps merely atmosphere vessels—were placed at the northern corner, protected by an artificial seawall.

  Grounded near the eastern corner were the water buffalo, ships in the 50-to-80-tonne range. Until the bosun explained what they were, Gregg thought the vessels' simple outlines were a result of the screen's mediocre resolution.

  On the third, western, corner, the Feds had built a fort with four roof turrets. Even as bad as the viewscreen was, Gregg should have been able to see the barrels of the guns if they were harmlessly lowered.

  "Captain," he said, glad to note there was no quaver in his voice. "I think the fort's guns are muzzle-on to us."

  "They might track the Tolliver, Stephen," Ricimer said, "but I don't think they'd all four track us. I don't think the turrets have their guns mounted."

  As he spoke, his hands played delicately with the thruster controls. The Tolliver rotated slowly on its vertical axis as it dropped. One or more of its attitude jets must be misaligned. Ricimer held the Peaches in a helix that kept the featherboat between the lobes of two of the flagship's huge thrusters.

  The Tolliver settled close to the administration complex in a blast of steam and gravel. The featherboat hovered for a moment. When the flagship's cloud of stripped atoms dissipated suddenly like a rainbow overtaken by nightfall, Ricimer brought them in a hundred meters from the Tolliver. They flanked the direct path between the bigger ship and the Federation buildings.

  It was probably not chance that the line at which the featherboat came to rest pointed her bow and plasma cannon at the fort a kilometer away.

  Gregg and the Molt undogged the roof hatch. Steam billowed in like a slap with a hot towel. Jeude and Tancred remained at their gun, but the remainder of the crewmen got to their feet.

  Gregg glanced at the viewscreen. Two Federation trucks drove close to the Tolliver, dragging hoses. "What—" he started to say.

  The trucks suddenly bloomed with a mist of seawater. It paled to steam as it cooled the landing site and the vessel's hull. The hoses stretched to intakes out beyond the line of Island Able's gentle surf.

  "They think we're the Earth Convoy," Ricimer said. It was only when he grinned broadly that Gregg realized how tense his friend had been beneath his outer calm. "They don't let their admirals sit aboard for an hour or so while the site cools naturally."

  "They aren't going to bother with us, though, are they?" Dole grumbled. "Not that it looks like there's much entertainment on this gravel heap."

  "I think if we suited up, Stephen," Ricimer said, "we could get to the Tolliver about the time they opened up for the local greeting party. Eh?"

  "They got some platforms out a ways, fella told me on Jewelhouse," Jeude called in response to Dole's comment. "Not on the island, though. Not enough land."

  "Sure," Gregg said. He thumped his armored chest. "I'd feel naked getting off a ship without a hard suit, the way things have been going. The leggings won't make much difference."

  Guillermo opened the armor store and sorted out ceramic pieces, the full suit sized to Ricimer's body and the lower half of Gregg's. Ballistic protection alone didn't justify the awkwardness and burden of complete armor.

  Piet Ricimer latched his torso armor over him, then paused. He looked around the featherboat's bay, even glancing at the suited gun crew behind him. In a clear, challenging voice, he said, "Guillermo, when we get back home, I'll have a suit made to fit you. I don't like carrying crewmen who don't have a way to stay alive in case we have to open the bay in vacuum."

  "Too fucking right," Dole said, responding for the crew.

  "And I'll chip in on the cost," Gregg said evenly, completing the answer of the question that nobody was willing to admit had been asked.

  Ricimer's smile lit the bay. "Leon, you're in charge," he
said. "Stephen, let's go watch my cousin negotiate."

  21

  Biruta

  Five meters from the Peaches, the shingle was cool again. Gregg lifted his visor. Another Venerian ship dropped from orbit, but for the moment it was no more than a spark of high-altitude opalescence. The thunder of its approach had yet to reach the ground.

  An airboat supported by three boom-mounted ducted props lifted from the administrative complex. Gregg tapped Ricimer's shoulder—armor on armor clacked loudly—and pointed. "Look," he said, "they're sending a courier to the outlying platforms."

  Instead of heading off with a message that couldn't be radioed because of interference from starship thrusters, the airboat hummed a hundred and fifty yards across the shingle and settled again before the Tolliver's lowering cargo ramp.

  Piet Ricimer chuckled. "You wouldn't expect a Federation admiral to walk, would you, Stephen?" he said. "The locals expect high brass with the Earth Convoy, so they've sent a ride for them."

  Four Federation officials descended from the airboat. They'd put on their uniforms in haste: one of them still wore grease-stained utility trousers, though his white dress tunic was in good shape.

  The vehicle had only six seats. One of those was for the driver, who remained behind. Presumably some of the locals planned to walk back.

  Gregg and Ricimer walked in front of the boat, following the officials to the flagship's ramp. The driver looked startled when he saw the two strangers were armed as well as wearing hard suits. Ricimer had a rifle, while Gregg carried a replacement for the flashgun that had failed at Punta Verde.

  Ricimer eyed the driver through the windscreen, then raised a gauntleted index finger to his lips in a shush sign. The driver nodded furiously, too frightened even to duck behind the plastic bow of his vehicle.

  "Administrator Carstensen?" called the leader of the local officials from the foot of the ramp. The Tolliver's dark cargo bay showed only shadows where the crew awaited their visitors. "I'm Port Commander Dupuy. We're glad to welcome you to Biruta. I'm sure your stay will be enjoyable."

  "I'm sure it will too, gentlemen," boomed Alexi Mostert. "I'm absolutely sure that you'll treat me and my ships as if we belonged to your own Federation."

  "What?" said Dupuy. "What?"

  The man in greasy trousers was either quicker on the uptake or more willing to act. He spun on his heel and started a long stride off the ramp—

  And froze. Between him and escape were the officers from the featherboat, huge in their stained white hard suits. The Fed official drew himself up straight, nodded formally to Ricimer and Gregg, and turned around again.

  "I'm afraid I'll have to ask you gentlemen to be our guests for a time," Mostert continued. "We'll pay at normal rates with Molt laborers for the supplies we take, I assure you . . . but so that there aren't any misunderstandings, I'll be putting my own men in your fort and admin buildings. I'm sure you understand, Mr. Dupuy."

  If the Federation official made any reply to Mostert, his words were lost in the roar of the Hawkwood, landing with her plasma cannon run out for use.

  22

  Biruta

  "Easy, easy . . ." echoed Leon's voice through the fort's superstructure. Heavy masses of metal chinged, then clanged loudly together—the trunnions of a 15-cm plasma cannon dropping into the cheek pieces. "Lock 'em down!"

  "Look at this," Ricimer murmured to Gregg in the control room below—and to Guillermo; at any rate, the Molt was present. Ricimer slowly turned a dial, increasing the magnification of the image in the holographic screen. "Just look at the resolution."

  "Boardman, use the twenty-four-millimeter end, not the twenty-two!" Leon shouted. "D'ye have shit for brains?"

  The bosun's twenty-man crew was completing the mounting of the fort's armament. The heavy plasma cannon had been delivered by a previous Earth Convoy. In three days, the Venerians had accomplished a job that Federation personnel on Biruta hadn't gotten around to in at least a year.

  On the other hand, the Feds in their heart of hearts didn't expect to need the fort. The Venerians did.

  "This is what we'll have on Venus soon," Ricimer said. "This is what all humanity will have, now that we have the stars again."

  The five Venerian ships—the Grandcamp had vanished after the first series of transits, and only an optimist believed that she or her crew would ever be seen again—clustered together near the buildings at the north end of the island. Men were busy refitting the battered vessels for the long voyage back to Venus. They used Federation equipment as well as that carried by the argosy.

  "All right," Leon ordered. "You four, torque her down tight. Loong, you and your lot are dismissed. Take the shearlegs and tackle back to the Tolliver with you. Anders, you're in charge here until you're relieved."

  Ricimer had focused on the Rose, eight hundred meters across the island. At the present magnification, Gregg could identify some of the crewmen fitting new thruster nozzles beneath the vessel. The holds gaped open above them, letting the sea breeze flow through the vessel.

  "We could see right into the ship if the light was a little better," Gregg agreed.

  Guillermo said, "The third control from the right." His three jointed fingers together indicated the rotary switch he meant. "Up will increase light levels above ambient."

  Ricimer touched the control, then rolled it upward. The edges of the display whited out with overload. Shadowed areas congealed into clarity beneath the ship, within the holds, and even through the open gunports.

  "You've seen this sort of equipment before?" Ricimer asked.

  The Molt flicked his fingers behind his palms in the equivalent of a shrug. "It's a standard design," he said. "My memory—"

  "Memory" was a more or less satisfactory description of what amounted to genetic encoding.

  "—includes identical designs."

  "They'd have to be," Gregg realized aloud. "It's not as though the Feds built this. Their Molts did."

  The huge advantage the North American Federation had over other states was its possession of planets whose automated factories had continued to produce microchips for years or even centuries after the Collapse. When the factories finally broke down, they left behind dispersed stockpiles of circuitry whose quality and miniaturization were beyond the capacity of the present age.

  Fed electronics were not so much better than those of the Venerians as greatly more common. But Fed electronics were better also . . .

  "Once Venus has its trade in hand," Ricimer said, "we'll do it properly. The Federation goes by rote—"

  He nodded to Guillermo. Leon, muttering about the lazy frogspawn crewing some vessels he could name, clomped down the ladder serving the gun stations on the roof.

  "—only doing what was done a thousand years ago. We'll build from where mankind was before the Rebellion—new ways through the Mirror, new planets with new products. Not just the same old ways."

  "Old ways is right," Leon said as he entered the control room. "Those guns we mounted, they're alike as so many peas. Men didn't make them, Molts and machines did. The Feds just sit on their butts and let the work do itself—like people did before the Collapse."

  Guillermo looked at the bosun. "Is work by itself good?" the Molt asked. "How can it matter whether you pull a rope or I pull a rope or a winch pulls the rope—so long as the rope is pulled?"

  "Centralized production is sure enough bad," Leon said. "That's what caused the Collapse, after all. That and people having too much time to spend on politics, since they didn't do anything real."

  "It's more than that," Piet Ricimer added. "Machines can't create. They'll make the same thing each time—whether it's a nozzle or a flashgun barrel or a birdbath. When my father or even one of his apprentices makes an item, it has . . ."

  He smiled wryly to wipe the hint of blasphemy away from what he was about to say. "A man's work has what would be a soul, if the work were a man rather than a thing."

  Guillermo's head moved from Leon to Ri
cimer, as if the neck were clicking between detents. "And my race has no soul," the Molt said. The words were too flat to be a question.

  "If you do have souls," Ricimer replied after a moment's hesitation, "then in selling your fellows as merchandise, we're committing an unspeakable sin, Guillermo."

  Man and Molt looked at one another in silence. The alien's face was impassive by virtue of its exoskeletal construction. Piet Ricimer's expression gave up equally little information.

  Guillermo cocked his head in a gesture of amusement. "Things are things, Captain," he said. "But I'll admit that the number of things may be less important than how you use the things you have. And your Venus clan uses things very well."

  The Tolliver's siren began to wind.

  "Damn the timing!" Gregg snarled. "Leon, did the men from the Tolliver leave in the truck?"

  The bosun pursed his lips and nodded.

  "All right," Gregg decided aloud. "Piet, I'll run across to the flagship and find out what's going on. You can—"

  Ricimer smiled. "I think we can learn what's happening more easily than that, Stephen," he said.

  As he spoke, he tapped pairs of numbers into a keypad on the console. Each touch switched the holographic display, either to a lustrous void or an image:

  An office in the island's administrative complex, where half a dozen Venerians had put down their playing cards when the siren blew;

  A panorama from a camera placed a hundred meters above the empty sea;

  Another office, this one empty save for a chair over which was draped the uniform jacket of a Federation officer.

  "Seventeen," Guillermo suggested, pointing.

  Ricimer keyed in one-seven. The screen split, with Alexi Mostert on the left half, saying to the Federation officer on the right side, "Yes, your Administrator Carstensen, if he's in charge! And don't even think of trying to land without my permission!"