The Reaches

also?'

Stephen nodded. 'Healthy arrogance on both sides,' he said, 'but nothing worse. Seven gunshot wounds since the fighting ended, and one fellow managed to lop off his foot with a cutting bar. But it's all been accidental.'

He gave his friend a tight smile. 'You'd better get us back into action, Piet,' he said, 'or drunken foolishness is going to eat us down to a nub.'

Piet squeezed the back of Stephen's hand and released it. 'I think we can expect action on Berryhill,' he said. 'There's a military garrison there, and the defenses of St. Mary's Port are too dispersed for us to hope to slip in the way we did here.'

'The men hired on to fight, Piet,' Stephen said. 'They'll do that. And Pleyal doesn't have any force in the Reaches that can stand against us.'

It was odd to watch the pair of them this way, acting as if they were the only two people in the universe. No bluster, no hesitation, no beating around the bush. The truth as they saw it, analyzed by minds as fine as Stephen's marksmanship and Piet's touch on a starship's controls.

'Then I'll leave you two to your dinner,' Piet said, rising. 'I'll have a draft of an operational plan tomorrow for us to go over. Mistress Blythe-Sal-your pardon for the interruption.'

He was gone over the wall even as he spoke. His boots clacked on the wooden steps.

'People think Piet takes risks,' Stephen said as the footsteps faded. 'And he does, of course. But they don't understand that he makes plans that keep the risks to a minimum.'

'You take risks,' Sal said. 'With him.'

Stephen gave her a wan smile. 'What do I have to lose?' he said softly.

She walked to his chair, knelt, and put her arms around him. His body was as tense as a trigger-spring. It was long seconds before he responded.

* * *

She felt Stephen get out of bed at close to local midnight. Arles had three moons, but they were too small to cast noticeable illumination.

She didn't speak until she realized that he was putting his clothes on. 'Don't go,' she whispered.

He bent and kissed her. Then he was gone, and she heard the outside stairs creak with his solid weight.

Somebody on the ground floor was singing, 'From this valley they say you are leaving. .' She thought the voice was Tom Harrigan's pleasant baritone.

Sal slept fitfully till dawn. Whenever her eyes closed, she saw the face of the Fed in the tower, lighted by the red flash of her revolver.

BERRYHILL

January 18, Year 27

1451 hours, Venus time

The last of the four transports that had carried the ground forces was the Mount Maat, a sphere-built 400-tonner even older than Whitey Wister, her captain. Stephen visored his eyes against the glare as she lifted with a delicacy the operation's two new vessels might have envied.

The Mount Maat swept south with less than ten meters between her thrusters and the tidal flats. Her exhaust blasted a trench in the mud, flinging up sand fused into gossamer sheets so fragile that they shattered again before they touched the ground.

The tracks of the other transports were clouds fading above the ocean as the steam of their passage cooled. Liftoffs-and the previous landing approaches-so close to horizontal were dangerous for any but the most skilled pilots. Such maneuvers were less risky than rising high enough for the plasma cannon of St. Mary's Port to bear on the ships, though.

The roar of the Mount Maat's motors faded. The transport began to climb into a sky that retained some color from a sun that had just set at ground level. The Mount Maat was still vectored away from the port's guns. Her exhaust licked pearly highlights onto the sullen rollers.

'I shipped with Whitey once,' Lewis said to Beverly beside him. 'Crackerjack pilot, but he's a bugger. Him and his navigator, they're at it every night in their cabin.'

'Bit old for that, I'd think,' Beverly replied. 'Both of them could be my granddad.'

'Don't you believe it,' Lewis insisted. 'Them buggers, they don't never lose pressure in their hoses the way decent folks does.'

Stephen's aide for the operation was a European lieutenant named Vanderdrekkan. When the transport was far enough away that the recombining ions of her exhaust no longer completely smothered the RF spectrum, the delicate-looking blond man resumed his conversation on a portable radio.

Major Cardiff had recommended Vanderdrekkan for the job, saying that he was careful and precise. Brave as well, though that went without saying. Vanderdrekkan's only flaw was that he'd take all night to plan an assault when a quick rush would have been cheaper.

The Gallant Sallie had been the first of the four transports to land on Berryhill. Piet had planned to use a larger ship, but he'd accepted Sal's offer when she volunteered. Stephen hadn't said anything. He hadn't known what to wish for, and he knew life too well to want responsibility for unpredictable results.

When Stephen Gregg pulled a trigger, he knew exactly what to expect. That was responsibility enough for anyone.

Vanderdrekkan lowered the radio and said, 'Colonel? Seibel says they're making progress, but he's going to have to replace the men clearing the path soon.'

Troops filed by in a ragged double column. All of them were in half armor. Besides personal weapons, these men from the Mount Maat carried cases of ammunition and replacement batteries slung on poles between each pair of them.

'We've got six hundred men,' Beverly muttered, more or less to Lewis. 'Guess we can wear out a few cutting trail and still whip Pleyal's ass.'

Maybe I should put my loaders in charge of the advance company, Stephen thought.

Lieutenant Vanderdrekkan cleared his throat and looked embarrassed. 'Seibel also says he can see a paved road on the other side of the river.'

'Tell Seibel. .' Stephen said. He paused and smiled grimly. He considered waiting till he saw Seibel. No. 'Tell Seibel over the radio that it's only a little less likely that the Feds have defended the highway from the obvious landing spot than that they've defended the spaceport itself. Tell him also that if he has further stupid suggestions, I'll be up with him in a few minutes and he can make them to my face.'

Lewis grinned and winked at Beverly. The sailors claimed Mister Gregg as one of theirs when they boasted to the squadron's landsmen. Stephen knew very well that he wasn't anybody's, least of all his own; but it was small enough reward for men willing to walk into Hell at his back.

The tremble as of heat lightning to the north was the squadron in orbit exchanging plasma bolts with the defenses of St. Mary's Port. The demonstration might make the Feds nervous, but they wouldn't neglect the ground defenses. 'Let's go,' Stephen said to Vanderdrekkan. 'All Seibel has to do is keep the river on his left, but that may be beyond his competence.'

The aide trotted a few paces ahead, muttering, 'Make way for the colonel,' to heavily laden troops as he passed them. Stephen swung along the muddy track with his loaders following him closely.

Major Cardiff was in charge of the rear guard. He'd wanted to lead the advance, but Stephen needed somebody he trusted to chivy stragglers forward and make sure none of the inevitable minor casualties were abandoned in the brush. Seibel wouldn't have another significant position in any force Stephen was involved with, but his dithering didn't matter now. Stephen didn't have a high opinion of himself as a commander, but he knew how to lead; and you only lead from the front.

The vegetation covering the thick silt along the river was woody, thumb-thick, and branched into whips reaching as far as five meters in the air. In a few hundred meters the troops would reach the limestone bluff on which St. Mary's Port was built. After the climb, they'd be in the local equivalent of short grass and the going would be easier.

There'd be a realistic danger of ambush too, of course. The Feds had been given more than a month to prepare.