The Reaches

me in the next seconds.

Sahagun groped in startlement for his slung weapon before he recognized the speaker. 'Ricimer, is that you?' he called. 'Say, we're supposed to bring you in, but I just see that this bloody gate is locked. We'll-'

Gregg had shifted infinitesimally when Sahagun touched his rifle. Now he moved an equally slight amount. His flashgun fired, a pulse of light so intense that the native foliage wilted from the side-scatter. Great leaves sagged away, fluttering in the echoes of the laser's miniature thunder.

I tried to jump to my feet. I slipped and would have fallen except that a sailor I didn't know by name caught my arm.

The bolt hit the crossbar where it intersected the left gatepost. Metal exploded in radiant fireballs which trailed smoke as they arced away. Coos and Sahagun fell flat on ground as wet as that through which we'd been tramping.

'That's all right,' Gregg called as he switched the battery in his weapon's stock for a fresh one. As with his friend and leader, there was no hint of exhaustion in his voice now. 'We'll open it ourselves.'

'I think,' said Piet Ricimer softly, 'that we'll wait till our whole force has come up before any of us enter the base.'

There was nothing menacing in his words or tone, but I felt myself shiver.

'Ah, glad you've made it, Ricimer,' said Thomas Hawtry as he rose from the porch of the operations building. A score of men stood about him. Many of them were frightened-looking and dressed in rags of white Federation uniforms. 'I've got some very valuable information here, very valuable!'

Hawtry spoke with an enthusiasm that showed he understood how chancy the next moments were likely to be. Like the others of the Mizpah's gentlemen, he'd put aside his breastplate and rifle.

'In a moment, Mister Hawtry,' said Piet Ricimer. He wiped his face again with his sleeve. 'Captain Blakey. Present yourself at once!'

The Mizpah had come down within a hundred and fifty meters of the administration buildings and base housing, blowing sod and shrubbery out in a shallow crater. The multitube laser that slashed the descending vessel from a guard tower had shattered a port thruster nozzle.

Yawing into the start of a tumble, the Mizpah had struck hard. The port outrigger fractured, though the vessel's hull appeared undamaged. Our men and Molts from the base labor force now surveyed the damage.

I bubbled with relief at having gotten this far. Clouds scudded across the pale sky. It felt odd to know that there was no solid roof above, but it didn't bother me the way I'd been warned it might.

I wondered where I could find a hose to clean my boots. I glanced down. My legs. They were covered in mud from mid-thigh.

Blakey broke away from the group beside the Mizpah and trotted toward Ricimer. The Mizpah's plasma cannon were still run out through the horizontal bank of gunports. To fire paired broadsides into the Federation base as the ship descended, Blakey must have rolled the Mizpah on her axis, then counter-rolled.

'There's a treasure right here on Decades,' Hawtry said, pretending that he didn't realize he was being ignored, 'and I've located it. The Feds here are too cowardly to grab it up themselves!'

A freighter was docked at the far edge of the perimeter, nearly a kilometer from the administration building. That ship had taken much of the Mizpah gunners' attention. One blast of charged particles had struck her squarely, vaporizing a huge hole. The shock of exploding metal dished in the light-metal hull for half its length and set fire to the vessel's interior. Dirty smoke billowed from the wreck and drifted through the nearby fenceline.

I couldn't imagine any purpose in shooting at the freighter beyond a general desire to terrorize the defenders. In all likelihood, the Feds stationed here wouldn't have been aroused to defense except for the sudden blaze of cannonfire.

Blakey whipped off the broad-brimmed hat which he, like many experienced Venerian travelers, wore under an open sky. 'Mister Ricimer,' he blurted, 'I didn't have any choice. It was Mister Hawtry who-'

'May I remind you that I gave you specific direction to land a kilometer north of the Federation compound, Captain Blakey?' Ricimer said in a knife-edged voice. 'No one but the Lord God Almighty takes precedence to the orders I give on this expedition!'

'No sir, no sir,' Blakey mumbled, wringing his hat up in a tight double roll. The spacer's hair was solidly dark, but there was a salting of white hair in his beard and mustache.

'Now, wait a minute, Ricimer,' Hawtry said. He remained on the porch, ten meters away. The Federation personnel about him were easing away, leaving the gentlemen exposed like spines of basalt weathered out of softer stone.

'The Mizpah's condition?' Ricimer snapped.

'We'll jack up the port side to repair the outrigger,' Blakey said. He grimaced at his crumpled hat. 'Then we'll switch the thruster nozzle, we've spares aboard, it's no-'

'You lost only one thruster?' Ricimer demanded, his tongue sharp as the blade of a microtome.

'Well, maybe shock cooling from the soil took another,' Blakey admitted miserably. 'We won't know till we get her up, but it's no more than three days' work with the locals to help.'

I noticed that one of the Federation personnel was a petite woman who'd cropped her brunette hair short. She nervously watched the byplay among her captors, gripping her opposite shoulders with her well-formed hands.

I wondered if we'd be on Decades longer than three days. Although a great deal could happen in three days.

'Look here, Ricimer!' boomed Hawtry as he stepped off the porch in a determination to use bluster where camaraderie had failed. 'The Molts that have escaped from here, they loot the ships that crash into the swamps. There've been hundreds, over the years, and the Molts have all the treasure cached in one place. That's the real value of Decades!'

Ricimer turned his head to look at Hawtry. I couldn't see his eyes, but the six gentlemen stepping from the porch to follow lurched to a halt.

'The real value of Decades, Mister Hawtry,' Ricimer said in a tone without overt emotion, 'was to be the training it gave our personnel in discipline and obedience to orders.'

Ricimer turned to the men who'd accompanied him from the flagship. 'Dole,' he said mildly, 'find the communications center here and inform the Absalom and Kinsolving to land within the perimeter. Oh-and see if you can raise Guillermo aboard the Porcelain to tell them that we're in control of the base.'

'I'll go with him,' I volunteered in a light voice. 'I, I'm good with electronics.'

'Yes,' Ricimer said. 'Do it.'

Dole didn't move. I started toward the administration building as an obvious place to look for the radios. Stephen Gregg laid a hand on the top of my shoulder without looking away from Ricimer and the gentlemen beyond. I stopped and swallowed.

Ricimer swiveled back to the Mizpah's captain. 'Mister Blakey,' he said. 'You'll leave repairs to the Mizpah in the charge of your navigator. You'll proceed immediately to the Porcelain, in company with Mister Hawtry and the other gentlemen adventurers who were aboard the Mizpah when you decided to ignore my orders.'

'Lord take you for a fool, Ricimer!' Hawtry said. 'If you think I'm going to rot in a swamp when-'

Gregg locked down his helmet visor with a sharp clack. The flashgun's discharge was liable to blind anyone using it without filters to protect his eyes. Dole snicked the bolt of his rifle back far enough to check the load, then closed it again. Others of Ricimer's longtime crewmen stood braced with ready weapons. A cutting bar whined as somebody made sure it was in good order.

'There'll be no blasphemy in a force under my command, Mister Hawtry,' Ricimer said. Though his voice seemed calm, his face was pale with anger. 'This time I will overlook it; and we'll hope the Lord, Who is our only hope for the success of these endeavors, will overlook it as well.'