The Reaches

enthusiasm had touched but not won the man. 'If you really need a pilot for the Reaches, well-you can pick one up on Punta Verde or Decades. But not me.'

The door opened at the corner of my eye. The Molt standing there stepped aside as noise from the public bar boomed through the pickup on my earpiece. Captain Macquerie strode past, his face forming into a scowl of concern as he left the Blue Rose.

'No one just yet, Guillermo,' called Piet Ricimer, his words slightly out of synchrony as they reached my ears through different media.

The door closed.

'I could bring him along, you know,' Gregg said calmly in the relative silence.

'No,' said Ricimer. 'We won't use force against our own citizens, Stephen.'

'Then you'll have to feel your way into the Breach without help,' Gregg said. 'You know we won't find a pilot for Os Sertoes at any of the probable stopovers. There's not that much trade to the place.'

'Captain Macquerie may change his mind, Stephen,' Ricimer replied. 'There's still a week before we lift.'

'He won't,' snapped Gregg. 'He feels guilty, sure; but he's not going to give up all he has on a mad risk. And if he doesn't-what? The Lord will provide?'

'Yes, Stephen,' said Piet Ricimer. 'I rather think He will. Though perhaps not for us as individuals, I'll admit.'

In a brighter, apparently careless voice, Ricimer went on, 'Now, Guillermo has the three bidders for dried rations waiting outside. Shall we-'

I quickly disconnected my listening device and slipped from behind the bar, keeping low. If Ricimer-or worse, Gregg-saw me through the open door, they might wonder why I'd stayed in the tavern after they dismissed me.

'Hey!' called the barman to my back. 'What is it you think you're doing, anyway?'

I only wished I knew the answer myself.

BETAPORT, VENUS

6 Days Before Sailing

The brimstone smell of Venus's atmosphere clung to the starships' ceramic hulls.

Betaport's storage dock held over a hundred vessels, ranging in size from featherboats of under 20 tonnes to a bulk freighter of nearly 150. The latter vessel was as large as Betaport's domed transfer docks on the surface could accommodate for landings and launches.

Many of the ships were laid up, awaiting parts or consignment to the breakers' yard, but four vessels at one end of the cavernous dock bustled with the imminence of departure. The cylindrical hulls of two were already on roller-equipped cradles so that tractors could drag them to the transfer docks.

I eyed the vessels morosely, knowing there was nothing in the sight to help me make up my mind. I'd familiarized myself with the vessels' statistics, but I wasn't a spacer whose technical expertise could judge the risks of an expedition by viewing the ships detailed for it.

I supposed as much as anything I was forcing myself to think about what I intended to do. I rubbed my palms together with the fingers splayed and out of contact.

A lowboy rumbled slowly past. It was carrying cannon to the expedition's flagship, the 100-tonne Porcelain. The hull of Ricimer's vessel gleamed white, unstained by the sulphur compounds which would bake on at first exposure to the Venerian atmosphere. She was brand-new, purpose-built for distant exploration. Her frames and hull plating were of unusual thickness for her burden.

The four 15-cm plasma cannon on the lowboy were heavy guns for a 100-tonne vessel, and the Long Tom which pivoted to fire through any of five ports in the bow was a still-larger 17-cm weapon. The Porcelain's hull could take the shock of the cannons' powerful thermonuclear explosions, but the guns' bulk filled much of the ship's internal volume. The most casual observer could see that the Porcelain wasn't fitting out for a normal trading voyage.

I ambled along the quay. Pillars of living rock supported the ceiling of the storage dock, but the huge volume wasn't subdivided by bulkheads. The sounds of men, machinery, and the working of the planetary mantle merged as a low-frequency hum that buffered me from my surroundings.

The Absalom 231 was a cargo hulk: a ceramic box with a carrying capacity as great as that of the flagship. She was already in a transport cradle. Food and drink for the expedition filled the vessel's single cavernous hold. Lightly and cheaply built, the Absalom 231 could be stripped and abandoned when the supplies aboard her were exhausted.

The expedition's personnel complement was set at a hundred and eighty men. I wondered how many of them, like the hulk, would be used up on the voyage.

A bowser circled on the quay, heading back to the water point. Its huge tank had filled the Porcelain with reaction mass. I moved closer to the vessels to avoid the big ground vehicle. I walked on.

The Kinsolving was a sharp-looking vessel of 80 tonnes. A combination of sailors and ground crew were loading sections of three knocked-down featherboats into her central bay. Though equipped with star drive, a 15-tonne featherboat's cramped quarters made it a hellish prison on a long voyage. The little vessels were ideal for short-range exploration from a central base, and they were far handier in an atmosphere than ships of greater size.

What would it be like to stand on a world other than Venus? The open volume of the Betaport storage dock made me uncomfortable. What would it be like to walk under an open sky?

Why in God's name was I thinking of doing this?

The last of the expedition's four vessels was the 80-tonne Mizpah, also in a transport cradle. She was much older than the Porcelain and the Kinsolving. Clearly-even to a layman like me-the Mizpah wasn't in peak condition.

The Mizpah's main lock and boarding ramp amidships couldn't be used because of the transport cradle, but her personnel hatch forward stood open. On the hatch's inner surface, safe from reentry friction and corrosive atmospheres, were the painted blazons of her co-owners: the pearl roundel of Governor Halys, and the bright orange banderol-the oriflamme-of Councilor Frederic Duneen.

The Mizpah wasn't an impressive ship in many ways, but she brought with her the overt support of the two most important investors on the planet. If nothing else, the Mizpah's participation meant the survivors wouldn't be hanged as pirates when they returned to Venus.

If anyone survived. When I eavesdropped on the private discussion between Ricimer and Gregg, I'd heard enough to frighten off anyone sane.

Thomas Hawtry-Factor Hawtry of Hawtry-stepped from the Mizpah's personnel hatch. Two generations before, Hawtry had been a name to reckon with. Thomas, active and ambitious to a fault, had mortgaged what remained of the estate in an attempt to recoup his family's influence by attaching himself to the great of the present day.

He was a man I wanted to meet as little as I did any human being on Venus.

Hawtry was large and floridly handsome, dressed now in a tunic of electric blue with silver lame trousers and calf-high boots to match the tunic. On his collar was a tiny oriflamme to indicate his membership in Councilor Duneen's household.

Hawtry's belt and holster were plated. The pistol was for show, but I didn't doubt that it was functional nonetheless.

'Moore!' Hawtry cried, framed by the hatch coaming two paces away. Hawtry's face was blank for an instant as the brain worked behind it. The Factor of Hawtry was a thorough politician; though not, in my opinion, subtle enough to be a very effective one.

'Jeremy!' Hawtry decided aloud, reforming his visage in a smile. 'Say, I haven't had an opportunity to thank you for the way you covered me in the little awkwardness with Lady Melinda.'

He stepped close and punched me playfully on the shoulder, a pair of ladies' men sharing a risque memory. 'Could have been ve-ry difficult for me. Say, I told my steward to pass you a little something to take the sting out. Did he. .?'