The Reaches

It was the first time I'd been on a planet besides Venus.

'Let's go!' boomed Stephen Gregg in the sudden dampening of the hold's echoes. He strode down the ramp, a massive figure in his armor. 'Keep close, but form a cordon at the edge of the cleared area.'

I tried to stay near Gregg, but a dozen sailors elbowed me aside to exit from the center of the ramp. I realized why when I followed them. Though the hatchway was a full ten meters wide, the starship's plasma motors had raised the ground beneath to oven heat. The center of the ramp, farthest from where the exhaust of stripped ions struck, was the least uncomfortable place to depart the recently-landed vessel.

I stumbled on the lip at the end of the ramp. The surroundings steamed like a suburb of Sheol, and the seared native vegetation gave off a bitter reek.

The foliage beyond the exhaust-burned area was tissue-thin and stiffened with vesicles of gas rather than cellulose. The veins were of saturated color, with reds, blues, and purples predominating. Those hues merged with the general pale yellow of leaf surfaces to create the appearance of gray when viewed from a distance.

I wore a neck scarf. I put it to my mouth and breathed through it. It probably didn't filter any of the sharp poisons from the air, but at least it gave me the illusion that I was doing something useful.

Sailors clumped together at the margin of the ravaged zone instead of spreading out. The forward ramp was lowered also, but men were filtering slowly down it because Hold One was still packed with supplies and equipment.

'Stephen,' called the man stepping from the forward ramp. 'I'll take the lead, if you'll make sure that no one straggles from the rear of the line.'

The speaker wore brilliant, gilded body armor over a tunic with puffed magenta sleeves. The receiver of his repeating rifle was also gold-washed. Because the garb was unfamiliar and the man's face was in shadow, it was by his voice that I identified him as Piet Ricimer.

Gregg broke off in the middle of an order to a pair of grizzled sailors. 'Piet, you're not to do this!' he said. 'We talked-'

'You talked, Stephen,' Ricimer interrupted with the crisp tone of the man who was general commander of the expedition. 'I said I'd decide when the time came. Shall we proceed?'

Forty-odd men of the Porcelain's complement of eighty now milled in the burned-off area. About seventy-five percent of us had firearms. Most of the rest carried cutting bars like mine, but there were two flashguns besides Gregg's own. Flashguns were heavy, unpleasant to shoot because they scattered actinics, and were certain to attract enemy fire. I found it instructive that Stephen Gregg would carry such a weapon.

The sky over the Federation base to the south suddenly rippled with spaced rainbow flashes. Four seconds later, the rumble of plasma cannon discharging shook the swamp about the Porcelain.

A ship that must have been the Mizpah dropped out of the sky. The sun-hot blaze of her thrusters was veiled by the ionized glow of their exhaust. Plasma drifted up and back from the vessel like the train of a lady in court dress.

'The stupid whoreson!' said Stephen Gregg. 'They were to land together with us, not five minutes later!'

Ricimer jumped quickly to the ground and trotted toward Gregg. 'Stephen,' he said, 'you'd best join me in the lead. I think it's more important that we reach the base as quickly as possible than that the whole body arrives together. I'm very much afraid that Blakey is trying to land directly on the objective.'

As the Mizpah lurched downward at a rate much faster than that of the Porcelain before her, a throbbing pulse of yellow light from the ground licked her lower hull. From where I jogged along a step behind Ricimer and Gregg, the starship was barely in sight above the low vegetation, but she must have been fifty or more meters above the ground.

The plume of exhaust dissipated in a shock wave. Seconds later, we could hear a report duller than that of the Mizpah's cannon but equally loud.

Ricimer held a gyro compass in his left hand. 'This way,' he directed. Twenty meters into the forest, the Porcelain was out of sight.

'The bloody whoreson!' Gregg repeated as he jogged along beside his friend and leader.

'How. .' I said. My voice was a croaking whisper. I couldn't see for sweat between the angry passes I made across my eyes with my sopping kerchief.

'. . do you stand this?' I finished, concluding on a rising note that suggested panic even to me. I deliberately lowered my voice to add, 'You're wearing armor, I mean.'

Piet Ricimer squeezed my shoulder. Ricimer's face was red, and the sleeves of his gorgeous tunic were as wet as my kerchief. 'You'll harden to it, Moore,' he said. He spoke in gasps. 'A kilometer isn't far. Once you're used to, you know. It.'

'The men won't follow. .' Gregg said. He was a pace ahead of us, setting the trail through the flimsy, clinging vegetation. He didn't look back over his shoulder as he spoke. 'Unless the leaders lead. So we have to.'

'A little to the right, Stephen,' Ricimer wheezed. 'I think we're drifting.' Then in near anger he added, 'Macquerie says the base was set on the firmest ground of the continent. What must the rest be like?'

Each of my boots carried what felt like ten kilos of mud. The hilt of the cutting bar had a textured surface, but despite that the weapon kept trying to slide out of my grip. I was sure that if I had to use the bar, it would squirt into the hands of my opponent.

The assault force straggled behind the three of us. How far behind was anybody's guess. About a dozen crewmen, laden with weapons and bandoliers of ammunition, slogged along immediately in back of me. They were making heavy going of it. The mud had stilled their initial chatter, but they were obviously determined to keep up or die.

Three of the spacers were the regular watch from the attitude-control consoles. I suspected the others were among Ricimer's long-time followers also. With their share of the wealth from previous voyages, why in God's name were they undergoing this punishment and danger?

And why had Jeremy Moore made the same choice? The day before sailing, Eloise had made it clear that there was a permanent place for me. On her terms, of course, but they weren't such terrible terms.

The only thing that kept me up with the leaders was that I was with the leaders. I was with two undeniable heroes; staggering along, but present.

'If she'd really crashed,' Ricimer said, 'we'd have-she'd shake the ground. The Mizpah.'

'Fired off all ten guns descending,' Gregg muttered. There was a streak of blood on his right hand and forearm, and his sleeve was ripped. 'Means they landed with them empty. Feds may be cutting all their throats before we come up. Stupid whoresons.'

Then, in a coldly calm voice, he added, 'Stop here. We've reached it.'

I knelt at the base of a spray of huge, rubbery leaves. My knees sank into the muck, but I didn't think I could've remained upright without the effort of walking to steady me. Ricimer halted with his left hand on Gregg's shoulder blade. Sailors, puffing and blowing as though they were coming up after deep dives, spread out to either side of the trail we had blazed.

The native vegetation had been burned away from a hundred-meter band surrounding the Federation base. Water gleamed in pools and sluggish rivulets across the scabrous wasteland. The natural landscape was inhuman and oppressive; this defensive barrier was as ugly as a cinder.

The perimeter fence was of loose mesh four meters high. Judging from the insulators the fence was electrified, but it didn't provide visual screening. Trees heavy with citrus fruit grew within the enclosure.

In the center of the fenceline were a gate and a guard tower, at present unoccupied. Two men were strolling toward the tower up a lane through the trees. They were laughing; one carried a bottle. Both had rifles slung.

Gregg aimed his flashgun from the concealment of a plantainlike growth with blue leaves the size of blankets.

'Wait, Stephen,' Ricimer ordered. He took off his gilt-braided beret, wiped his face in the crook of his arm, and put the beret on again. 'Mister Sahagun!' he called, stepping out into the cleared area. 'Mister Coos!'

At the words, I recognized the pair as two of the gentlemen who'd transferred to the Mizpah. They'd taken off their heavy armor. I'd thought they were Federation soldiers whose bullets might kill