The Reaches

as animals.'

Macquerie sniffed and said, softly enough to be ignored, 'Hard to tell the difference, I'd say.'

Ricimer resumed walking toward the top of the slope. Distances were deceptively great on Mocha's treeless landscape. The surface rippled in shallow valleys separated by low ridges. Rare but violent storms cut raw gullies before the torrents drained to impermeable rock layers from which the vegetation would in time lift the water again.

'There's nothing on the other side different from here, you know,' Macquerie said. He was breathing harshly by now.

'I need the exercise,' Ricimer said. He paused again and looked back. 'Was this where Landolph landed, then?' he asked.

Macquerie and the general commander were unarmed. Gregg cradled his flashgun; the weight of the weapon and its satchel of spare batteries wasn't excessive to a man as strong as he was.

I carried a cutting bar. I'd known to pick one with a belt clip this time.

'Yes, that's right,' Macquerie agreed. 'Since then, nobody touches down on Mocha unless there's a problem with the gradients into Os Sertoes. Once or twice a year, that can happen.'

The Kinsolving's crew had off-loaded a featherboat and were assembling it. Ricimer planned to use the light craft to probe the Breach without stressing one of the expedition's larger vessels.

'Three more of them,' I said. 'Rabbits, I mean.' I lifted my chin in a quick nod toward mid-slope in the direction of the camp.

The four of us must have passed within a few meters of where the natives had appeared. The Rabbits slouched along, apparently oblivious of the starships scattered in line for half a kilometer across the valley floor. One Rabbit wore a belt twisted from the hides of burrowing animals; another carried a throwing stick. Mocha's winds limited the growth of plants above ground, but the vegetation had sizable root systems.

'Some of them know Trade English,' Macquerie said.

'From before the Collapse?' Gregg asked. I noticed that the big man continued to scan the ridgeline above us while we others were focused on the Rabbits.

Macquerie shrugged. 'I don't have any idea,' he said.

Piet Ricimer wore a cape of naturally-patterned wool. He threw the wings back over his shoulders. The wind was behind him now, though it was still cold enough for me. 'That's why what we're doing is important,' Ricimer said. 'Those people.'

'You're risking your life for the Rabbits?' Macquerie said in amazement.

'For mankind, Captain,' Ricimer said. His voice was rich, his face exalted. 'If man is to survive, as I believe the Lord means him to, then we have to settle a thousand Earths, a hundred thousand. There'll always be wars and disasters. If we're confined to one star, to one planet really-when the next Collapse comes, it'll be for all mankind, and forever.'

'Earth has returned to the stars,' I said. 'The Feds and the Southerns are out on hundreds of worlds between them. They have no right to bar Venus from space-'

'Nor will they,' Gregg said. His voice was as gray and hard as an iron casting.

'— but they're there,' I continued. 'Mankind is.'

'No,' said Ricimer, speaking with the certainty of one to whom the truth has been revealed. 'What they're doing is mining the stars and the past to feed the present whims of tyrants. None of the settlements founded by the Federation and the Southern Cross is as solid as the colony on Mocha was before the Collapse. The destiny of mankind isn't to scuttle and starve in a ditch on a hillside!'

Captain Macquerie cleared his throat doubtfully. 'Do you want to go on up the hill?' he asked.

Ricimer laughed. 'I suppose we've seen what we needed to see here,' he said. The power informing his tones of a moment before had vanished, replaced with a light cheerfulness. 'And had our exercise.'

The distance back to the Porcelain looked farther than the ridge-still above them- had seemed from the vessel's ramp. 'We're not here to found colonies,' I said.

'Ah, we're here to bait the whole of mankind out to the stars by bringing back treasure,' Ricimer said.

He strung his laughter across the breeze like quicksilver on a glass table. 'To break Earth's monopoly, so that there won't be another revolt of outworlds against the home system, another Collapse. . And quite incidentally, my friends, to make ourselves very wealthy indeed.'

The trio of Rabbits glanced around, their attention drawn by the chime of distant laughter.

MOCHA

Day 38

I lounged at the flagship's main display, watching an image of the floodlit featherboat transmitted from the Kinsolving's optics. A six-man crew had finished fitting the featherboat's single thruster. Guillermo was still inside the little vessel, setting up the electronics suite. Ricimer intended to take the vessel off exploring tomorrow or the next day.

Trench-and-wall barracks had sprouted beside each of our ships. Plastic sheeting weighted with rocks formed the roofs and sealed walls against the wind. The turf-and-stone dwellings weren't much roomier than the ships, but they were a change after a long transit.

I was alone aboard the Porcelain. I'd volunteered for communications watch, and I hoped to tie the featherboat-Ricimer had named it the Nathan-into the remote viewing net I'd created. No reason, really. Something to do that only Jeremy Moore could do. The audio link was complete, but the Molt was still enabling the featherboat's external optics.

I had one orange left from the bags of citrus fruit we'd loaded on Decades. It'd taste good now, and oranges don't keep forever. .

Boots scuffed in the amidships section. Somebody-several somebodies, from the sound of it-had entered via the loading ramp to the hold.

Crewmen returning for personal items, I supposed. I was bored, but I didn't particularly want to chat with spacers who'd never read a book or a circuit diagram.

The hatch between the midships section and me in the bow was closed but not dogged. It opened for Thomas Hawtry, followed by Delray and Sahagun. I got up from the console.

'We brought you some cheer, Jeremy,' Hawtry said as he walked past the 17-cm cannon, locked in traveling position on its cradle. He was smiling brightly.

Sahagun carried a square green bottle without a label. Delray held a repeating carbine; uncharacteristic for him to be armed, but perhaps they were worried about Rabbits in the starlit night.

Hawtry held out his hand for me to shake. Holding-not quite seizing-my hand, Hawtry guided me away from the console. Delray stepped between me and the controls. The other four surviving gentlemen of Hawtry's coterie entered the bow section.

Hawtry patted the back of my hand with his left fingertips, then released me. 'Sorry for the little deception, Jeremy,' he said. His tone was full and greasy. 'Didn't want to have an accident with you bumping the alarm button, because then something awkward would happen. That's it there, isn't it?'

Hawtry nodded toward the console.

'Yes,' I said. 'The red button at the top center.'

Coos wiggled the cage over the large button to make sure it was clipped in place. He and Farquhar carried rifles also. Levenger and Teague wore holstered pistols like Hawtry's own, but those could pass simply as items of dress for a gentleman.

When I came back to the Porcelain from our hike, I'd returned my cutting bar to the arms locker in the main hold. A bar's really better for a close-in dustup, Jeude had said on Decades, but there were seven of them here. .

'We're here to save the expedition, Jeremy,' Hawtry said. 'And our lives as well, I shouldn't wonder. You've seen how that potter's whelp Ricimer hates gentlemen? You've been spared the worst of the insults, but that will change.'

He lowered himself into the seat I'd vacated. Coos and Sahagun stepped to either side so that Hawtry could still view me directly.