The Reaches

'I'm going out with the commission myself,' Blythe said harshly, hunching over the liquor glass. 'It was me the Feds attacked, me and the Gallant Sallie. It's us who'll take redress from them, by God we will!'

She was embarrassed by the outburst. To cover it with a mask of small talk, Stephen said, 'I feel the same way about slash. No other run has quite the taste of Eryx slash, though.'

He smiled minusculely and added, 'If I didn't think it was too affected for words, I'd have my brother ship me a case every week or so.'

'That's your hold, Eryx?' Blythe said. She was watching him over the top of her glass, but he wasn't sure she'd taken another sip.

'The family hold,' Stephen said deprecatingly. 'My brother Augustus is the factor, and it's a very small place, Eryx is.' But with a flush of the pride that never ceased to amaze him, he added, 'There've been Greggs of Eryx since the Collapse, though.'

'You don't live at the hold, then?' Blythe said. Because she knew she was edging beyond the bounds of proper discussion with a stranger-a famous man, a powerful man-she looked at Stephen's elbow rather than his face as she spoke. Her eyes were pleasantly blue with brown rings about the irises.

'It didn't really work out,' Stephen said, pouring more slash. 'They were more than kind, but I made the family nervous and that made me, you know, more uncomfortable. I've got two rooms in Betaport. On holidays I make day-trips to Eryx so the kids can climb on their Uncle Stephen. But I don't sleep over.'

'Two rooms?' Blythe repeated. This run of slash proved on the order of seventy- five-percent ethanol. Whether she was used to the liquor or not, it had stripped some of the subtlety that might otherwise have overlain her question.

Blythe's eyes probed Stephen's clothing again as she considered whether her initial appraisal had been wrong. He was in court dress, suitable for wear at functions in the Governor's Palace. The colors were muted, beige and russet, and the cut of the garments was looser than the mode; but the fabric was Terran silk, and the ensemble had probably cost more than a set of eight thruster nozzles for the Gallant Sallie.

Stephen laughed, a harsh sound that he hated to hear. 'You think that with my share of the loot we took from Pleyal and his thugs in the Reaches, Piet and I and the rest, I ought to be able to afford a place like this myself?'

He gestured, indicating not the pantry in which the two of them were hiding but the suite of which it was a part. The measure of wealth on Venus was the volume of one's dwelling. There'd been an enormous recent growth of trade, fueled directly and indirectly by the microchips that raiders like Piet Ricimer brought home from the pre- Collapse automated production facilities in the Reaches. Men like Blenrott, who'd invested heavily and been lucky, had huge sums to sink into town houses like this one on the fringes of the capital.

'And so I could,' Stephen continued. 'But if I wanted to have a lot of people around me, Captain Blythe, I'd be out there in the function rooms, wouldn't I?'

'I, ah,' Blythe said. Her glass was empty. Stephen leaned toward her to refill it, but she waved him away. She'd already had more than was probably good for her discretion. 'I assumed you had a wife or, ah. .'

'Are you offering?' Stephen said in a cold, professional tone.

Sarah Blythe set her glass on the terrazzo floor beside her. She could have thrown it without much risk of breakage. Metal-poor Venus had developed ceramics technology to levels undreamed of before the Collapse cut the planet off from Earth and the Asteroid Belt. She straightened, took a step forward, and slapped Stephen as hard as she could.

Stephen let the blow land, though it jolted his head to the side. He'd been hit by men who put less steam into their punches. 'I'm sorry,' he said. 'That was stupid and uncalled for. I'll try to make amends.'

Blythe swung again. He stopped the blow with the fingers of his left hand. Her eyes widened when she realized how quick the motion had been. 'Captain Blythe,' he said with the least tremble of emotion, 'I apologize.'

She'd had a right to hit him, but the impact had taken Stephen Gregg's mind into another place: the place he tried to forget about by drinking. He could control his actions, but couldn't help the suffusing golden joy at the thought of killing again soon.

Blythe stepped back and drew a shuddering breath. 'I apologize too, Mister Gregg,' she said. She didn't meet his eyes. She massaged her right palm with her left hand. If she'd closed her hand into a fist, she'd have broken at least a knuckle. 'My question was improperly pers-'

He held out the bottle.

'No, no,' she said. 'Not for me. I've obviously had too much already.'

'Yes, well, maybe I have too,' Stephen said, stoppering the bottle. There wasn't much left in it anyway. 'You're owner as well as captain of the ship involved in the incident on Lilymead?'

'The Gallant Sallie, yes,' Blythe said. 'My father's still alive, but he assigned the title to me when he had to retire. So that I could pledge a security interest in the ship during out-system trading.'

Stephen nodded his understanding. He'd gone into space as a merchant, a supercargo looking out for the interests of his uncle, Gregg of Weyston, an investor in the voyage. Piet Ricimer was a junior officer on the same ship. Amazing the changes that ten years could bring; good and otherwise.

'Marcus Blythe is my father,' Blythe said. Then-perhaps because she'd slapped him and wanted to punish herself for reacting the way she had-she went on crisply, 'And he is my father, in every way that matters. I was born while Dad was on a two-year voyage to Southern Cross colonies in the Reaches. I'm told my mother saw a lot of Samuel Trafficant during the time Dad was gone, I don't know. But Marcus has always been a father to me!'

Stephen nodded again. 'Samuel. .' he said. 'That would be the brother of Trafficant of Trafficant?' He'd met Factor Trafficant once, years ago; a heavyset man with hair the same shade of blond as Sarah Blythe's.

'Uncle of the current factor,' Blythe said with a deliberate lack of emotion. 'I'm told Samuel controls some of the family investments, but I don't really know.'

She looked directly at him. 'I live in Ishtar City near the Old Port with Dad. My mother died before I was two.'

Stephen shrugged away the challenge in the stocky woman's gaze. 'What's the burden of your Gallant Sallie, then?' he asked. 'If you're-'

There was a knock on the pantry door. 'Stephen?' called a familiar voice through the panel. 'Can you join us for the ceremonies?'

'Of course, Piet,' Stephen said. 'That's why we're here, after all.'

He reached past Sarah Blythe for the latch. It wasn't until the door opened, though, that she realized the plumpish, youngish man whom she faced close enough to kiss was Captain Piet Ricimer, the most famous spacer on Venus-and the man whose name President Pleyal was said to scream in his nightmares. 'Oh!' Blythe said.

'Captain Blythe,' Stephen said with a bland smile for the humor in the situation, 'permit me to introduce you to my friend Factor Ricimer. Piet, this is Sarah Blythe, the captain of the ship which escaped during the incident on Lilymead.'

Piet shook Blythe's hand with every sign of approval. Piet Ricimer believed that only idolaters like those of the Federation permitted women to do the work of men, but he was rarely impolite-or impolitic-when he could avoid it. Piet's purpose in life, the return of mankind to the stars in furtherance of God's plan, eclipsed every other belief and feeling within him.

'A very good job, Captain,' Piet said. 'I've noticed that your report gives the credit to your crew, but they wouldn't have reacted as you describe without proper training and a captain they were willing to fight for.'

Behind Piet stood Guillermo, Piet's Molt servant. Referring to Guillermo as a slave was one of the few things that brought Piet to instant, open anger. So far as Piet was concerned, Molts were human and the slavery the Feds practiced in the Reaches was a sin against God.

Crewmen who'd served with Piet on his long voyages treated Guillermo as a fellow and a dab hand with a starship's controls, almost the equal of Captain Ricimer himself. The Molt wasn't much good in a fight, but that didn't matter. Not in a ship with Mister Gregg aboard, it didn't.

Behind Piet and Guillermo stood a servant in Blenrott's livery, pale and purple. The houseman watched Stephen in obvious nervousness. Stephen caught Piet's eye and nodded to indicate the servant.