The Reaches

'Whatever,' I said. Trees like the one the men with Lacaille carried had a starchy pith that could be eaten-or converted to alcohol. Lacaille said identical trees were common on at least a score of worlds throughout the region. New Eryx wasn't on Federation charts; but somebody'd been here, and a very long time ago.

'He's fitting in well,' Stephen said. 'Of course, we saved his life. You did.'

I snorted. 'I can't think of a better way to make a man hate you than to do him a major favor,' I said. 'Most men. And damned near all women.'

Stephen stood and stretched powerfully. He'd slung a repeating carbine over his right shoulder with the muzzle down to keep rain out of the bore. The only animal life we'd seen on New Eryx-if it was either animate or alive-was an occasional streamer of gossamer light which drifted among the trees. It could as easily be phosphorescent gas, a will-o'-the-wisp.

'Think I'll go for a walk,' Stephen said without looking back at us. He moved stiffly. The burns on his legs were far from healed.

'Do you have a transponder?' Piet warned.

'I'll be able to home on the kiln,' Stephen called, already out of sight. 'Low frequencies travel forever.'

'Because he seems so strong,' Piet said very softly, 'it's easy to overlook the degree to which Stephen is in pain. I wish there was something I could do for him.'

He turned and gave me a wan smile. 'Besides pray, of course. But I wouldn't want him to know that.'

'I think,' I said carefully, 'that Stephen's the bravest man I'll ever know.' Because he gets up in the morning after every screaming night, and he doesn't put a gun in his mouth; but I didn't say that to Piet.

I cleared my throat. 'What'll happen with the Chay, do you think?' I said to change the subject.

'There's enough universe for all of us, Chay and Molts and humans,' Piet said. 'And others we don't know about yet. I wouldn't worry about what happened at On Chay, if that's what you mean. There'll be worse from both sides after we've been in contact longer, but eventually I think we'll all pull together like strands in a cable. Separate, but in concert.'

'Optimist,' I said. Christ! I sounded bitter.

Piet laughed and put his hand over mine to squeeze it. 'Oh, I'm not a wide-eyed dreamer, Jeremy,' he said. 'We'll fight the Chay, men will, just as we fight each other. And the Chay fight each other, I shouldn't wonder.'

His tone sobered as he continued, 'The real danger isn't race or religion, you know. It's the attitude that some men, some people-Molts or Chay or men from Earth-have to be controlled from above for their own good. One day I believe the Lord will help us defeat that idea. And the lion will lie down with the lamb, and there will be peace among the nations.'

He gave me a smile; half impish, half that of a man worn to the edge of his strength, uncertain whether he'll be able to take one step more.

'Until then,' Piet said, 'it's as well that the Lord has men like Stephen on His side. Despite what it costs Stephen, and despite what it costs men like you and me.'

The kiln chuckled, and I began to laugh as well. Anyone who heard me would have thought I was mad.

UNCHARTED WORLD

Day 232

We touched the surface of the ice with a slight forward way on instead of Piet's normal vertical approach. For this landing, he'd programmed a ball switch on his console to control the dorsal pairs of attitude jets. He rolled the ball upward as his other hand chopped the thrusters.

The three bands of attitude jets fired a half-second pulse. Their balanced lift shifted enough weight off the skids to let inertia drag us forward. Steam from the thrusters' last spurting exhaust before shutdown hung as eight linked columns in the cold air behind us as the Oriflamme ground to a halt.

Salomon unlatched his restraints and turned to face Piet's couch. 'Sir,' he said, 'that was brilliant!'

I swung my feet down to the deck. Men with duties during landing had strapped themselves to their workstations. The rest of us were in hammocks on Piet's orders. No matter how good the pilot, a landing on an ice field could turn into disaster.

The reaction-mass tanks were almost empty, though. Our choice had been to load a nitrogen/chlorine mixture from the moon of one of the system's gas giants, or to risk the ice. The gases would have given irregular results in the plasma motors as well as contaminating the next tank or two of water. Nobody had really doubted Piet's ability to bring us down safely.

'Thank you, Mister Salomon,' Piet said as he rose from his console. 'I'm rather pleased with it myself.'

He glanced at the screen, then touched the ramp control. 'At least we don't have to wait for the soil to cool,' he added.

The center screen was set for a 360° view of our surroundings. There was nothing in that panorama but ice desert picked out by rare outcrops of rock. Irregular fissures streaked the surface like the Oriflamme's hull crazing magnified. The ice crevices weren't dangerously wide. Most of those I could see were filled with refrozen meltwater, clearer and more bluish than the ice surrounding.

'I'll take out a security detail,' Stephen said. He clasped a cape of some heavy natural fabric around his throat and cradled his flashgun. I didn't have warm clothing of my own. Maybe two or three of the Chay capes together. .

'Security from what, Mister Gregg?' Salomon asked in surprise.

'We don't know,' Piet said. 'We haven't been here before.'

I picked up my cutting bar and snatched a pair of capes as I followed Stephen aft. Crew members weren't going to argue the right of a gentleman to appropriate anything that wasn't nailed down. Besides, this wasn't a world that even men who'd been cooped up for seven weeks were in a hurry to step out onto.

The ground beneath the Oriflamme collapsed with the roar of breaking ice. We canted to port so violently that I was flung against the bulkhead. Men shouted. Gear we'd unshipped after our safe landing flew about the cabin.

The vessel rocked to a halt. I'd gotten halfway to my feet and now fell down again. The bow was up 15° and the deck yawed to port by almost that much. I was afraid to move for fear the least shift of weight would send the Oriflamme down a further precipice.

Piet stood and cycled the inner and outer airlock doors simultaneously from his console. 'Mister Salomon, Guillermo,' he said formally. 'Stay at your controls, please. I'm going to take a look at our situation from outside.'

Stephen and I followed Piet through the cockpit hatch. Elsewhere in the ship, men were sorting themselves out. Their comments sounded more disgruntled than afraid.

I was terribly afraid. I'd left the capes somewhere in the cabin, but I held my cutting bar in both hands as I jumped the two meters from the bottom of the hatch ladder to the ground.

The wind was as cold as I'd expected, but the bright sunlight was a surprise. Unless programmed to do otherwise, the Oriflamme's screens optimized light levels on exterior visuals to Earth daytime. This time the real illumination was at least that bright.

The Oriflamme's bow slanted into the air; her stern was below the surface of the shattered ice.

'We're on a tunnel,' Stephen said, squatting to peer critically at the ground. 'We collapsed part of the roof. Do you suppose the sunlight melts rivers under the ice sheet?'

'Can we take off again?' I asked. The wind was an excuse to shiver.

'Oh, yes,' Piet said confidently. 'Though we'll all have blisters before we dig her nozzles clear. .'

LORD'S MERCY

Day 233

The sweat that soaked my tunic froze at the folds of the garment. The mittens I'd borrowed were too large. We'd reeved a rope through the tarp's grommets to serve as handles. It cut off circulation in my fingers even though there were four of us lifting the hundred-kilo loads of ice and scree away from the excavation.

At least we weren't going to be crushed if we slipped. Stampfer headed a crew of ten men, off-loading the broadside guns using sheerlegs and a ramp. If a cannon started to roll, it was kitty bar the door.