The Reaches

by David Drake

  "There will be no duels during this expedition," Piet Ricimer said. His tone was fiery, but his eyes were focused on the far distance rather than the assembly before him. "We are on the Lord's business, reopening the stars to His service. If anyone fights a duel—"

  Ricimer put his hand on Gregg's shoulder and turned the bigger man to face him. Gregg was the dull wax of a candle, and his friend was a flame.

  "If anyone fights a duel," Ricimer said. "Is that understood?"

  Gregg dropped to one knee before the general commander. He rotated his right wrist so that the rifle was behind him, pointing harmlessly into the flagship's hold.

  Ricimer lifted him. Gregg stepped back into the shadows again. "If anyone fights a duel," Ricimer repeated, but the fierceness was gone from his voice, "then the surviving parties will be left at the landfall where the offense against the Lord occurred. There will be no exceptions."

  He looked out over us. The assembly gave a collective sigh.

  Ricimer knelt down. "Let us pray," he said, tenting his hands before him.

  * * *

  Decades Station had barracks to accommodate more transients than the whole of the Venerian force. One of the blocks was brightly illuminated. In it, spacers with a flute, a tambourine, and some kind of plucked string instrument were playing to a crowd.

  I sat on the porch of the administration building across the way, wondering if any of the Federation women were inside with our men.

  Lavonne would be waiting for me in her quarters. I'd go to her soon. As soon as I calmed down.

  " . . . could stick them all in the hulk," said a voice from the darkness. Footsteps crunched along the path. Two sailors were sauntering toward the party. "None of them gentlemen's worth a flying fuck."

  "Well, they're not much good for real work," said a second voice, which I thought might be Jeude's. "Get into a fight, though, they can be something else again."

  "Gregg?" said the first voice. "I give you that."

  "I swear the new fellow, Moore, he's as bad," replied might-be-Jeude. The pair were past the porch now, continuing up the path. "Straight into a dozen Molts, no armor, nothing but a bar."

  "Likes to get close, huh?"

  "He didn't even stop when they were dead!" the second man said, his voice growing fainter with increasing distance. "I swear, Dorsey, you never saw anything like it in your life."

  My eyes were closed and I was shivering. After a time, I'm not sure how long, I stood shakily and began to walk toward the station's staff quarters.

  MOCHA

  Day 37

  The mid-afternoon sun was so wan that stars were already out on the western horizon. At night they formed a sky-filling haze, too dense to be called constellations. The wind that swept across the ankle-high tundra was dank and chill.

  "There's one of them," I said. I started to raise my hand to point at the Rabbit sidling down the slope a kilometer away.

  The native didn't seem to be walking directly toward the ships on the shallow valley's floor. His track would bring him there nonetheless, as a moth spirals in on a flame.

  Piet Ricimer caught my arm before it lifted. "He'll think you're trying to shoot him," Ricimer said.

  "Yeah," Macquerie agreed. "No point in putting the wind up the little beasts. They can fling stones farther than you'd believe."

  A pump chuffed as it filled the Kinsolving with reaction mass from a Southern well we'd reopened the night before. The Southerns had also left a score of low shelters whose walls were made of the turf lifted when the interior was cut into the soil. The dwellings crawled with lice, so today some of our people were building similar huts at a distance from the originals.

  "There were a dozen Rabbits in the old Southern camp when we landed," Gregg muttered. "Where did they go?"

  Macquerie shrugged. "Mostly they sleep in little trenches without top cover," he said. "Hard to see unless you step in one. Anyway, if they're gone, they aren't pilfering from us."

  "They can't take enough to harm us seriously," Ricimer said. "They're men like us. I won't have them treated as animals."

  Macquerie sniffed and said, softly enough to be ignored, "Hard to tell the difference, I'd say."

  Ricimer resumed walking toward the top of the slope. Distances were deceptively great on Mocha's treeless landscape. The surface rippled in shallow valleys separated by low ridges. Rare but violent storms cut raw gullies before the torrents drained to impermeable rock layers from which the vegetation would in time lift the water again.

  "There's nothing on the other side different from here, you know," Macquerie said. He was breathing harshly by now.

  "I need the exercise," Ricimer said. He paused again and looked back. "Was this where Landolph landed, then?" he asked.

  Macquerie and the general commander were unarmed. Gregg cradled his flashgun; the weight of the weapon and its satchel of spare batteries wasn't excessive to a man as strong as he was.

  I carried a cutting bar. I'd known to pick one with a belt clip this time.

  "Yes, that's right," Macquerie agreed. "Since then, nobody touches down on Mocha unless there's a problem with the gradients into Os Sertoes. Once or twice a year, that can happen."

  The Kinsolving's crew had off-loaded a featherboat and were assembling it. Ricimer planned to use the light craft to probe the Breach without stressing one of the expedition's larger vessels.

  "Three more of them," I said. "Rabbits, I mean." I lifted my chin in a quick nod toward mid-slope in the direction of the camp.

  The four of us must have passed within a few meters of where the natives had appeared. The Rabbits slouched along, apparently oblivious of the starships scattered in line for half a kilometer across the valley floor. One Rabbit wore a belt twisted from the hides of burrowing animals; another carried a throwing stick. Mocha's winds limited the growth of plants above ground, but the vegetation had sizable root systems.

  "Some of them know Trade English," Macquerie said.

  "From before the Collapse?" Gregg asked. I noticed that the big man continued to scan the ridgeline above us while we others were focused on the Rabbits.

  Macquerie shrugged. "I don't have any idea," he said.

  Piet Ricimer wore a cape of naturally-patterned wool. He threw the wings back over his shoulders. The wind was behind him now, though it was still cold enough for me. "That's why what we're doing is important," Ricimer said. "Those people."

  "You're risking your life for the Rabbits?" Macquerie said in amazement.

  "For mankind, Captain," Ricimer said. His voice was rich, his face exalted. "If man is to survive, as I believe the Lord means him to, then we have to settle a thousand Earths, a hundred thousand. There'll always be wars and disasters. If we're confined to one star, to one planet really—when the next Collapse comes, it'll be for all mankind, and forever."

  "Earth has returned to the stars," I said. "The Feds and the Southerns are out on hundreds of worlds between them. They have no right to bar Venus from space—"

  "Nor will they," Gregg said. His voice was as gray and hard as an iron casting.

  "—but they're there," I continued. "Mankind is."

  "No," said Ricimer, speaking with the certainty of one to whom the truth has been revealed. "What they're doing is mining the stars and the past to feed the present whims of tyrants. None of the settlements founded by the Federation and the Southern Cross is as solid as the colony on Mocha was before the Collapse. The destiny of mankind isn't to scuttle and starve in a ditch on a hillside!"

  Captain Macquerie cleared his throat doubtfully. "Do you want to go on up the hill?" he asked.

  Ricimer laughed. "I suppose we've seen what we needed to see here," he said. The power informing his tones of a moment before had vanished, replaced with a light cheerfulness. "And had our exercise."

  The distance back to the Porcelain looked farther than the ridge—still above them—had seemed from the vessel's ramp. "We're not here to found colonies," I said.

  "Ah,
we're here to bait the whole of mankind out to the stars by bringing back treasure," Ricimer said.

  He strung his laughter across the breeze like quicksilver on a glass table. "To break Earth's monopoly, so that there won't be another revolt of outworlds against the home system, another Collapse . . . And quite incidentally, my friends, to make ourselves very wealthy indeed."

  The trio of Rabbits glanced around, their attention drawn by the chime of distant laughter.

  MOCHA

  Day 38

  I lounged at the flagship's main display, watching an image of the floodlit featherboat transmitted from the Kinsolving's optics. A six-man crew had finished fitting the featherboat's single thruster. Guillermo was still inside the little vessel, setting up the electronics suite. Ricimer intended to take the vessel off exploring tomorrow or the next day.

  Trench-and-wall barracks had sprouted beside each of our ships. Plastic sheeting weighted with rocks formed the roofs and sealed walls against the wind. The turf-and-stone dwellings weren't much roomier than the ships, but they were a change after a long transit.

  I was alone aboard the Porcelain. I'd volunteered for communications watch, and I hoped to tie the featherboat—Ricimer had named it the Nathan—into the remote viewing net I'd created. No reason, really. Something to do that only Jeremy Moore could do. The audio link was complete, but the Molt was still enabling the featherboat's external optics.

  I had one orange left from the bags of citrus fruit we'd loaded on Decades. It'd taste good now, and oranges don't keep forever . . .

  Boots scuffed in the amidships section. Somebody—several somebodies, from the sound of it—had entered via the loading ramp to the hold.

  Crewmen returning for personal items, I supposed. I was bored, but I didn't particularly want to chat with spacers who'd never read a book or a circuit diagram.

  The hatch between the midships section and me in the bow was closed but not dogged. It opened for Thomas Hawtry, followed by Delray and Sahagun. I got up from the console.

  "We brought you some cheer, Jeremy," Hawtry said as he walked past the 17-cm cannon, locked in traveling position on its cradle. He was smiling brightly.

  Sahagun carried a square green bottle without a label. Delray held a repeating carbine; uncharacteristic for him to be armed, but perhaps they were worried about Rabbits in the starlit night.

  Hawtry held out his hand for me to shake. Holding—not quite seizing—my hand, Hawtry guided me away from the console. Delray stepped between me and the controls. The other four surviving gentlemen of Hawtry's coterie entered the bow section.

  Hawtry patted the back of my hand with his left fingertips, then released me. "Sorry for the little deception, Jeremy," he said. His tone was full and greasy. "Didn't want to have an accident with you bumping the alarm button, because then something awkward would happen. That's it there, isn't it?"

  Hawtry nodded toward the console.

  "Yes," I said. "The red button at the top center."

  Coos wiggled the cage over the large button to make sure it was clipped in place. He and Farquhar carried rifles also. Levenger and Teague wore holstered pistols like Hawtry's own, but those could pass simply as items of dress for a gentleman.

  When I came back to the Porcelain from our hike, I'd returned my cutting bar to the arms locker in the main hold. A bar's really better for a close-in dustup, Jeude had said on Decades, but there were seven of them here . . .

  "We're here to save the expedition, Jeremy," Hawtry said. "And our lives as well, I shouldn't wonder. You've seen how that potter's whelp Ricimer hates gentlemen? You've been spared the worst of the insults, but that will change."

  He lowered himself into the seat I'd vacated. Coos and Sahagun stepped to either side so that Hawtry could still view me directly.

  "So you're planning to kill the general commander and replace him?" I said baldly. I crossed my hands behind my back.

  Delray and Teague looked uncomfortable. "Say, now, fellow," Hawtry said with a frown. "Nobody spoke of killing, not in the least. But if we—the better class of men—don't act quickly, Ricimer will abandon us here on Mocha. He as good as stated his plans when he put me, me, aboard the Absalom. A hulk can't transit the Breach, anyone can see that!"

  "Go on, then," I said. My voice was calm. I watched the unfolding scene from outside my body, quietly amazed at the tableau. "If you're not going to kill General Commander Ricimer, what?"

  Sahagun glanced at Hawtry and held the bottle forward a few centimeters to call attention to it.

  "Say, I'm the real commander of the expedition anyway," Hawtry said. He looked away and rubbed the side of his nose. "By Councilor Duneen's orders, and I shouldn't wonder the governor's directly. If it should be necessary to take over, and it is."

  "Thomas, what are you going to do?" I said, with gentle emphasis on the final word.

  "A drink so that that psychotic bastard Gregg goes to sleep," Hawtry said, rubbing his nose. "That—that one, he won't listen to reason, that's obvious."

  Sahagun lifted the green bottle again. The liquor sloshed. The container was full, but the wax seal around the stopper had been broken. Delray grimaced and turned his back on the proceedings.

  "Ricimer, he's not a problem without Gregg," Hawtry continued. "We'll put them on the Absalom—and a few sailors for crew, I suppose. There won't be any problem with the men. They'll follow their natural leaders, be glad to follow real leaders!"

  "But you want me to give Gregg the bottle," I said. I sounded as though I was checking the cargo manifest. "Because he'd wonder if any of you offered it."

  "Well, drink with him, jolly him along," Hawtry said. "It won't do you any harm. You'll wake up in the morning without even a headache."

  He rubbed his nose again.

  "That Gregg's got a hut of his own," Levenger said in a bitter voice. "While the rest of us sleep with common sailors!"

  "Gregg doesn't sleep well when he's on the ground," I said. I felt the corners of my mouth lift. Maybe I was smiling. "He doesn't want to distress other people. And there's the embarrassment, I suppose."

  Hawtry lifted himself angrily from the seat in which he'd been pretending to relax. "Listen, Moore," he said. "Either you can do this and things'll go peacefully—or I'll personally shoot you outside Gregg's door, and when he comes out we'll gun him down. He won't have a chance against seven of us."

  Not a proposition I'd care to bet my life on, Thomas, I thought. My lips tingled, but I didn't speak aloud.

  "We'll kill you as a traitor, and him because he's too damned dangerous to live!" Hawtry said. "So which way will it be?"

  "Well, I wouldn't want anyone to think I was a traitor," I said. "But you'll have to wait—"

  Hawtry raised his arm to slap me, then caught himself and lowered his hand again. His face was mottled with rage. "There'll be no delays, Moore," he said savagely. "Not if you know what's good for you."

  "Gregg knows I'm on watch," I explained in a neutral voice. "If I appear before I've been relieved, he'll be suspicious."

  "Oh," said Hawtry. "Oh. How long are you . . ."

  I looked at the chronometer on the navigation console set to ship's time. "Oh," I said, "I think ten minutes should do it."

  The midships hatch banged violently open. "No time at all, gentlemen," said Stephen Gregg as he stepped through behind the muzzle of his flashgun. His helmet's lowered visor muffled his voice, but the words were as clear as the threat.

  Gregg wore body armor. So did Piet Ricimer, who followed with a short-barreled shotgun. Dole and Lightbody were behind the commander with cutting bars. Stampfer, the gunner, carried a heavy single-shot rifle, and Salomon had a repeater. There were more sailors as well, shoving their way into the bow section.

  Hawtry dived for the compartment's exterior hatch, an airlock. Perhaps he felt that no one would shoot in a room so crowded.

  "Steady," Ricimer murmured.

  Hawtry tugged the hatch open. No one tried to stop him. Jeude waited in
the airlock with his cutting bar ready. He twitched the blade forward, severing Hawtry's pistol belt and enough flesh to fling the gentleman back screaming.

  "Take their weapons," Ricimer said calmly.

  "It may interest you gentlemen to know," I said, my voice rising an octave as my soul flooded back into my body, "that there was a channel open to Guillermo in the featherboat all the time we were talking. And if there hadn't been, I assure you I would have found another way to stop you traitors!"

  "It wasn't me!" Coos cried. He was a tall man, willowy and supercilious at normal times. "It wasn't—"

  Lightbody punched Coos in the stomach with the butt of his cutting bar, doubling him up on the deck. Coos began to vomit.

  "I'll expect you to have that cleaned up by end of watch, Lightbody," Ricimer said as he uncaged the alarm button.

  "Aye-aye, sir!" Lightbody said.

  The flagship's siren howled a strident summons.

  * * *

  "Listen. Moore," snarled Hawtry's voice through loudspeakers mounted to either side of the main hatch. A spotlight on the Kinsolving two hundred meters away was focused on the flagship's hold. "I'll personally shoot you outside Gregg's door, and when he comes out we'll gun him down."

  Wind sighed across the valley, bearing away the murmur of the gathered spacers. Someone called, "Bastard!" in a tone of loud amazement.

  "Ricimer, he's not a problem without Gregg," said Hawtry's voice. Guillermo was working the board, mixing the gentleman's words for greatest effect from the recording the Molt had made in the Nathan.

  Hawtry struggled against his bonds in the center of the hold. Dole had cinched Hawtry's ankles to a staple. The gentleman's wrists were tied in front of him and he was gagged besides. Hawtry's six followers stood at the base of the ramp—disarmed and discreetly guarded by trusted sailors, but not shackled.

  "We'll kill you and him!" said Hawtry's voice. You'd have had to hear the original words to realize the speech was edited. At that, Guillermo hadn't distorted the thrust of the gentleman's harangue.