The Reaches

The bosun's party was moving toward us, slowed by their weight of weapons and, for a few of them, armor. 'Mister Dole?' Piet called. 'Set five of your men to secure the ship, if you will.'

Stampfer must have realized the situation was peaceful; he tilted the muzzle of the light cannon up like an exclamation point above the hasty barricade of crates across the hold of 17 Abraxis. Maybe the gesture helped the others relax.

Me, I was still trembling in reaction to a few minutes before, when I stopped Lightbody from blowing a pretty woman's head off.

'Prothero put his own men on Santos as overseers,' Rodrigo explained, drinking a thimble glass of slash cut three to one with water. 'The plantations are worked by Molts, of course. We don't-we didn't export, we just supplied convoys in the Back Worlds trade stopping over.'

The Southerns mixed freely with the Oriflamme's crew. A joint party had gone back to the Hercules, for supplies including Santos wine. The Federation prisoners watched sullenly as they resumed hauling heavy thruster nozzles.

Piet, Stephen, Lacaille, and I sat with the Southern leaders at a trestle table on the shaded side of the gully. Rodrigo's wife, Carmen, was at his side across the table, occasionally eyeing me as she raised the glass to her lips. She wasn't actually drinking.

'I know Prothero,' Lacaille said. 'I don't know anybody who likes or trusts him, but he's. . able enough. In his way.'

The Southerns watched the Fed castaway sidelong, uncertain about his status. I guess we all were uncertain, Lacaille himself included.

'The Hercules was on Santos when the Federation ships arrived,' Rodrigo continued. 'Captain Cinpeda commanded.'

A short, dark Southern nodded. He'd drunk his slash neat. His eyes never left the carafe I'd deliberately slid out of his reach.

'Prothero filled the Hercules with food and put his own crew aboard,' Rodrigo said. 'It was no more than piracy. But how could we fight with no warships of our own?'

Stephen's lips smiled; his eyes did not. Ships don't fight: men do. And Rodrigo wasn't that sort of man.

'Prothero took us with him on the Yellowknife' Rodrigo said. 'The Keys to the Kingdom was his flagship, but she needed repairs. He left her on Santos while he went ahead to Riel.'

'She's a great, cranky tub of eight hundred tonnes, the Keys,' Lacaille said. 'I'm not surprised she broke down. Her water pumps again?'

Cinpeda nodded to Lacaille with respect.

'They can't be depopulating all the Southern colonies,' I said. 'Can they?'

'I think,' Carmen Rodrigo said with her eyes lowered, 'that the decision was Commander Prothero's. I believe his intentions toward me were. . not proper. Though he already has a mistress!'

'Prothero's always operated as though the Middle Ways were his own kingdom,' Lacaille said. 'I doubt he was acting completely on orders.'

'We took our chance when the emergency siren sounded,' Rodrigo said. 'We thought it was a Chay raid. The prize crew had left the Hercules, so we went aboard and lifted as soon as the computer gave us a course.'

'To home,' Carmen said. 'We're going back to Rio. Better Pleyal a continent away than Prothero in the next cabin.'

There was an edge in her tone that I thought I understood. Carmen Rodrigo might or might not be a virtuous wife; I had my doubts. But she certainly intended to make any decisions of that sort on her own.

'Why this course, to St. Lawrence?' Piet asked suddenly. 'It's a week's transit in the wrong direction if you intend to return to the Solar System.'

'Reaction mass,' Cinpeda grunted. 'I wonder, master, could you. .'

He extended his tiny glass. I filled it from the carafe.

'Ah, thank you, thank you indeed, master,' the Southern captain said. He shuddered as he tossed the shot down, but his eyes gained a focus that had been missing a moment before.

'Reaction mass,' Cinpeda repeated. 'Prothero's crew, they'd refilled the air tanks when they landed on Riel, but they hadn't hooked up to the water yet. Food we had, air we had, but there wasn't water for ten days under power.'

'There is water here, isn't there?' Rodrigo asked in sudden concern as he gazed around him. The planet must have looked like a desert from orbit, and the slight greenery of this arroyo wasn't much more inviting.

'We've bored a well,' Piet said. 'You can draw from it, now that we've topped off.'

'If you were trying to escape,' Stephen asked, 'why did you land by us-and without signaling?'

'Fucking collimator's out,' Cinpeda said with a scowl. 'On the laser communicator. Fucking thing drifts. And the VHF transmitter, it's been wonky since they installed it.'

He looked as though he was going to ask for another drink. I shook my head minutely.

'We thought you'd done the same thing we did,' Rodrigo said, answering the first part of the question. 'Come here to get away from Prothero. We knew other ships escaped when we did.'

'Didn't even notice this one before we landed,' Cinpeda said with a nod toward the Oriflamme. 'What is it-don't you reflect radar?'

I shrugged. Ceramic hulls did reflect radar, but not as strongly as a similar expanse of metal. The Oriflamme was an outcrop in the gully to a radar operator unless the fellow was actively looking for a Venerian ship here.

'And there was no reason to come to this place,' Carmen added, 'except to avoid being on Riel. So we thought you might be from the Southern Cross too, until we saw your guns.'

'Does your vessel carry guns?' Stephen said. There was no challenge in his tone, only the certainty of a man who will be answered.

'A small cannon,' Rodrigo said. 'For the Chay, and perhaps not much use against them. We can't defend ourselves against you, sirs.'

Piet stood up with a nod. 'Nor do you need to,' he said. 'We have our own needs and can be of little help to you, but we certainly won't hinder.'

'How long will you remain on this planet?' Carmen asked without looking-pointedly without looking-at me.

'No longer than it takes to mount two more thruster nozzles, madam,' Piet said with a wry grin. 'Which is some hours longer than I wish it would be, now that you've arrived.'

'Are we so terrible?' Carmen said in surprise.

'The people who may follow you are,' I explained gently. 'The Feds know how much reaction mass they left on your ship, and they've got the same pilotry data as you do to pick the possible landfalls.'

'But we'll deal with them, if it comes to that,' Stephen said, hefting his flashgun. His eyes had no life and no color, and his voice was as dry as the wind.

No Federation force would be half so terrible as we ourselves were.

'Piet?' I said as I stood up. 'The Abraxis has a first-rate commo suite. If you'll let Guillermo help me, I can swap it into the Hercules in less time than it takes Winger to fit the nozzles.'

'That leaves the Abraxis without. .' Piet said. He smiled. 'Ah. One ship or the other.'

'And the choice to the men with the guns,' Stephen said. He was smiling also, though his expression and Piet's had little in common. 'As usual.'

'Yes,' Piet said. 'Go ahead.'

'Guillermo!' I shouted as I ran for the forward hatch and my tool kit. 'We've got a job!'

The Oriflamme's siren shut off as Guillermo and I clambered aboard the