The Reaches

'I'm General Commander Ricimer,' Piet said. 'Kal-cha, is this man Jenks the one who killed your colleague?'

'Are you questioning the word of a gentleman, Mister Ricimer?' McKensie shouted tremblingly.

'Gentlemen don't need to be told it's wrong to murder an envoy under a flag of truce!' Sal said in a voice of harsh authority.

'This is the man, Master,' the Molt wearing the yellow sash said.

Jenks was young, probably still in his teens. He had flowing black hair and a beard that partially hid the bruises on his face.

He was beyond fighting now. Jenks' eyes were dull and he looked ready to faint in the hands of the Feds holding his elbows.

Piet nodded. 'Very well, then,' he said. 'I need to confer for a moment.'

He turned his back on the fiscal to talk intently with the Molts. Guillermo and Kal-cha fell into a side discussion of clicks and chittering.

Stephen looked around. More Venerians appeared, on foot or driving. Some of them seemed to think there'd been an attack. Nobody started shooting; not yet, at least. Stephen was half smiling as he returned his attention to McKensie.

'I don't know how God can let people like you exist!' the fiscal said in a hoarse whisper. 'You slaughtered innocent women and children, infants. You burned them alive!'

Stephen felt his mind sinking into the cold, gray place where only the view through a gunsight had reality. He heard his voice lilt as he said, 'You know, it takes a lot to set Piet Ricimer off. He's as kindly a man as ever shipped beyond Pluto.'

Stephen smiled. He knew he was smiling because he could feel the muscles of his face shift and could see the horror in McKensie's eyes. 'But some of Piet's subordinates aren't like that at all. Some of us could line up every man, woman, and child on this planet and cut their throats, and sleep none the worse for it. Do you understand?'

McKensie said nothing. One of the men holding Jenks turned his head away.

Looking grim, Piet stepped aside so that several Molts could come through the gate. One of the aliens was a squat giant with torso and limbs half again the thickness of the others'. He wore a leather bandolier from which dangled a dozen knives in loops.

Jenks stared at the Molt. 'He's the butcher!' he shouted in a cracking voice. 'He butchers pigs at the port, I've seen him. He's a butcher!'

'Are you empowered by Director Eliahu to negotiate a ransom for Savoy, Mister McKensie?' Piet asked.

Jenks tried to kick free. The butcher's two assistants gripped the prisoner's arms. The Fed guards backed away. One of them wiped his hands. Stephen felt Sal stiffen at his side.

'We can't afford much,' McKensie said. His face was frozen. He kept his eyes on Piet to avoid looking at anything else. 'This is a poor planet, a very poor planet.'

'We'll discuss that in due course,' Piet said. He gripped the fiscal by the shoulder and forced him to turn.

Jenks was crying in the grip of the two assistants. The hulking butcher stepped behind him. The Molt held a knife with a broad 30-centimeter blade in his right hand. He grabbed a handful of Jenks' long hair with his left hand and drew the man's head back.

The watching Molts gave a collective sigh.

The butcher drew his blade across the prisoner's throat in a long, clean stroke, severing everything but the spinal column. Blood spurted a handsbreadth into the air, drowning Jenks' shout in a gurgle.

The butcher stepped back. His assistants upended the thrashing body so that it would drain properly. As Jenks himself had said, their training had been with hogs.

The Molt spectators began to leave. The sun was fully up. Somebody switched off the floodlights, though Stephen didn't hear the order given.

'We'll take your vehicle to the Commandatura, Mister McKensie,' Piet said conversationally, 'and perhaps your men should come with us. I want it to be clear to my people that you're all under my protection.' He gave the envoy a very hard smile. 'So that I don't have to hang any of my own men.'

'Dole, take two of our people and ride along with them,' Stephen ordered. The bosun nodded to a pair of men from the Wrath.

'You're staying here?' Sal asked.

Stephen nodded. 'For a while,' he said. 'If I were running the show for the Federation, this is just when I'd counterattack. Of course, that's if I had troops that were worth piss. Which Eliahu doesn't.'

Together they looked out at the bleak landscape the Gallant Sallie had scoured. The truck with Piet and the Fed envoys drove past them into the city.

'I'm glad you're not working for President Pleyal,' Sal said quietly.

He laughed. 'Oh, so am I. I hate to be on the losing side, and nobody's going to beat Piet Ricimer.'

Jenks lay on ground black with his blood. The Molts had almost completely dispersed. One of the butcher's assistants finished cleaning the knife with a wad of raw fiber, then handed it back to his master. They left also.

'You were lying when you said. . what you said to McKensie,' Sal said.

'There's lies and lies,' Stephen said. For a moment he thought he was going back to that place. He felt someone clutch his hand; Sal touched him, held his hand firmly.

'If they thought doing something like that would bother me,' Stephen said, 'they might think I wouldn't really do it, and that would be worse than a lie. Piet wouldn't order anything like that. Not unless he really had to.'

Sal whispered something. He couldn't be sure of the words. He thought they were, 'Oh dear God.'

'And anyway,' Stephen added, 'I don't think I could sleep much worse than I do already.'

SAVOY, ARLES

January 10, Year 27

1808 hours, Venus time

The Gallant Sallie's crew had the two lower floors of what had been a rich man's residence in the north suburb of Savoy, but Sal kept the two-room suite and garden on the roof for herself. She and Stephen had just finished dinner-Rickalds had cooked it with surprising talent-in the shade of a potted palm tree when they heard boots on the outside staircase. Stephen lifted and pointed the flashgun waiting muzzle down beside his chair.

'Hello the house!' called Piet Ricimer. 'May I come up, or would you rather I check back another time?'

'There's never a time I'd regret seeing you, Piet,' Stephen called as he settled the flashgun back. 'Though it's not my-'

He glanced at Sal.

'Honored, sir, deeply honored,' Sal said as she rose and walked to the stairs. The outside facility was little more than a ladder. There was a more comfortable staircase within the suite, but the owner had obviously wanted a means of private access for himself and his guests.

The general commander, resplendent in maroon velvet with a chain and medallion of massive gold, hopped up and over the waist-high wall into the garden. He looked at Sal, in a black-and-silver dress she'd found here in a closet, looked at Stephen, and gestured to the garden. 'You have excellent taste, Sal. In all things.'

She forced a smile.

'Stephen,' Piet said. He sat near the table, on a bench built around a stand of four-meter-high bamboo. 'I think we've achieved all we're going to here, and I'm ready to move on. I'm comfortable with the status of the ships and captains. .

He grinned at Sal. His face lit like a plasma thruster when he wanted it to'. . some more than others, of course. But I'd like your opinion of the troops.'

Stephen nodded twice while he marshaled his thoughts. 'They fought well during the initial assault,' he said. 'I'd have been surprised if they didn't, of course. What's of more importance is that they've kept good watch during the past week when the danger receded. Discipline's been good in general. The men obey their officers, and the officers carry out your orders.'

'I haven't noticed the friction between soldiers and sailors that I'd feared,' Piet said. 'Is that your observation