The Reaches

The Chay walked with quick, mincing steps, though there was nothing birdlike about their erect bodies. Their bulging eyes swept at least 240° even when they faced front, and they continually rotated their heads to cover the remaining arc.

'The mummy on Respite,' I murmured to Stephen as we followed the guards back aboard the Oriflamme.

'I was thinking that,' he said. 'And now I really wonder how long ago he was buried.'

Stephen was still distant from his surroundings. Perhaps it was mention of Biruta, where Pleyal's men had treacherously massacred Venerian traders. For reasons of state, there was still formal peace between the Free State of Venus and the North American Federation; but because of Biruta, there was open war beyond Pluto, and survivors like Piet and Stephen were the shock troops of that war.

Piet and Stephen and Captain, now Chief Adviser, Cseka.

The Long Tom was aligned with the bow port-and the Chay vessel-but not run forward to battery. Stampfer was still with the gun, but he'd sent his crew aft so that only he and the navigation officers waited for us in the bow compartment. Piet had dropped the table which hung on lines from the ceiling. Men watched through the hatch and from an arc outside the cockpit.

'Five years,' Cseka said. 'You lose track. Five years.'

He took the tumbler of cloudy liquor Piet offered him: slash distilled from algae. This was a bottle we'd brought from Venus rather than what the motor crews brewed whenever we landed, but there wasn't a lot of difference.

'We have, ah, wines and such,' Piet said. 'Loot, of course.'

Cseka drained his tumbler in three wracking gulps. Slash proved anywhere from fifty to eighty percent ethanol. 'A taste of home, by God,' he muttered. 'The Chay, they can do anything with plants, but they can't make slash that's real slash.'

'Perhaps they're too skillful,' Stephen said. I don't know whether he was joking. 'Slash doesn't permit subtlety.'

'I was their slave for. .' Cseka said. He frowned and refilled his tumbler. 'Years. You can't measure it. Pleyal's slave, bossing gangs of Molt slaves all across the Back Worlds. The eye, that was from Biruta. They took my leg off on a place that hasn't any name. Pleyal doesn't waste medicines on slaves when amputation will do.'

He swallowed another three fingers of slash. Cseka's eye was fixed on the bottle, but I can't guess what his mind saw.

'And then the Chay raided the plantation I was running on Rosary.' Cseka gave us all a broad, mad grin. The tiny flowers wobbled in his eye socket as he turned his head. 'I escaped with them. They might have killed me before they understood. That would have been all right, I'd still have been free of Pleyal.'

The Chay had a sweetish odor like that of overripe fruit. I couldn't tell whether it was their breath or their bodies. They looked silently around the compartment. One of them reached toward the 17-cm cannon, but his long- fingered hand withdrew before it quite touched the gun. Stampfer, squat and glowering, relaxed minusculely.

'I've been guiding On Chay ever since,' Cseka said. 'Not leading-the Council leads. But I know the Feds, and I help the Chay fight them. The bastards.'

'We came through the Breach,' Piet said, 'but we'll have to return the long way to Venus. We'll carry you back with us and give you a full share of-'

'No!' Cseka shouted. His hand closed on the neck of the bottle. I thumbed the power switch of my cutting bar and opened my left hand to grab the nearest Chay's weapon before he could-

Cseka relaxed and beamed his clownface grin at us again. 'No, I'm where I belong,' he said. He spoke now in a cracked lilt. 'Killing Feds. Killing all the Feds, every one of the bastards, every one.'

He poured more slash. Stephen almost hadn't moved, but 'almost' was the amount he'd tucked the flashgun into his side to have a full stroke when he swept the butt across the heads of Cseka and the guard nearest him. Piet had reached across the back of his couch, where a double-barreled shotgun hung by its sling, and the lever from the plasma cannon's collimator was in Stampfer's hand.

'I want you to come back to On Chay with me,' Cseka said, sipping this time instead of tossing the liquor off. 'I told our scouts to look for ceramic-hulled ships, you know. To report to me at once and not to attack. And here you appear in this system.'

He seemed to be oblivious of what had almost happened. Perhaps he didn't remember. The Chay hadn't moved, but their facial skin had shifted from green/brown to mauve.

'We appreciate the offer. .' Piet said. 'But-'

'No, it's not out of your way,' Cseka said with a dismissive wave of his hand. 'The fourth planet here.'

'That's a gas giant,' Salomon said sharply from his console.

'Yes, the second moon out,' Cseka agreed. He was all sweet reason now. The sharpness was gone, but his voice still sing-songed. 'It'll be worth your time. The Chay grow tubular fullerenes, grow them, any length you want. Kilo for kilo, they're worth more than new-run chips.'

Piet's face grew blankly quiet. He wasn't looking at anyone. We all waited for him to speak. The Oriflamme wasn't a democracy.

He smiled dazzlingly. 'Yes, all right,' he said to Cseka. 'We'll follow you, then?'

Cseka nodded, the flowers bobbing in his eye socket. 'Yes, yes, that's what we'll do,' he said. Suddenly, fiercely he added, 'I knew there'd be ships from Venus sooner or later. Between us, we'll kill them all!'

He turned and slammed out through the open airlock without further comment. The three guards exchanged glances, only their eyes moving, before they strutted after their human leader.

Stephen relaxed slightly. 'Cseka was always a bit of a hothead,' he said in an emotionless voice.

Piet watched the castaway climb back aboard the vessel in which he had arrived. 'That was a different man, the one we knew,' he said.

'You trust him, then?' I said. I switched off the cutting bar and hung it, so that I could work life back into the hand with which I'd been gripping the weapon.

'No,' said Piet. The port of the Chay vessel began to rotate closed before the last of the guards hopped through. 'He's obviously insane. But he's different from the man Stephen and I knew.'

He pushed the button controlling the Oriflamme's siren, calling the men aboard for liftoff.

I dropped my rifle and ammo satchel on the deck. 'I'm going with them,' I said. I jumped from the airlock instead of using the steps. Over my shoulder I called, 'We need to know more about the Chay than we do now!'

Men piling aboard via the ramp looked in surprise as I sprinted to the alien vessel. Nobody tried to call me back from the bridge. Piet and Stephen weren't the sort to waste their breath.

'Cseka!' I shouted. 'Open up! Let me ride with you!'

The port continued to spin slowly closed. It had shrunk to the size of my head. I stuck the blade of my unpowered cutting bar into the opening.

The port stopped closing. I waited. The Chay vessel's hull pulsed slowly as I stood beside it with my hand on the grip of my bar.

After a minute or so, the knot rotated the other way again. When the opening was large enough, I climbed aboard.

ON CHAY

Day 156

The engines' firing level reduced gradually, as though someone was shutting down the fuel valves by micro- adjustments as we settled toward the moon's inhabited surface. Some thing was, but not a person, unless the Chay vessel herself had personality as well as life.

One of the reptiles chewed a banana-shaped fruit that dribbled purple juice down his jaw and the front of his cape. It seemed to have a narcotic effect. The Chay's eyes hadn't moved since he began eating; translucent lids slipped back and forth across them at intervals.

Cseka lay on his back, staring at the frameless screen that covered the cabin ceiling. Instead of a real-time scan, adjusted images swept over the display area at one- or two-second intervals.

None of the vessel's crew was anywhere near the controls aft. The ship was landing itself.