The Reaches

Oriflamme into firing position. Salomon poured full power through the thrusters. Heat battered me from all sides. I would have screamed but my lips and eyelids were squeezed tight against the ions that flayed them like an acid bath.

I fell down, feeling the shock as the third of our big guns fired. Acceleration squeezed me to the deck as the jets hammered at maximum output. I was blind and suffocating and at last I did scream but the fire didn't scour my lungs.

I thrashed upright. The crewman spraying me with a hose shut it off when he saw I was choking for breath. I was wrapped in a soaking blanket. So were the others who'd staggered aboard with me.

Dole knelt and held Piet's hands with a look of fear for his commander on his face. Stephen checked the bore of his flashgun and Lightbody was trying to unlatch his body armor. The fifth blanket must cover Jeude, because it didn't move.

Our ramp was still rising. Through the crack I could see waves on the lake fifty meters below, quivering in the icteric light of a laser aimed at us from the Templeton defenses. Something hit the hull with a sound more like a scream than a crash. Our last broadside gun slammed as the ramp closed against its jamb.

Piet got to his feet. Dole tried to hold him. Piet pushed past and staggered toward the companionway to the Oriflamme's working deck. His face was fiery red under the lights of the hold. Stephen walked behind Piet like a giant shadow.

I stood up. Pain stabbed from my knuckles when I tried to push off with my free hand. My face was swelling, so that I seemed to be looking through tubes of flesh. Soon I wouldn't be able to see at all.

I stumbled to the companionway, swinging my arm to clear startled crewmen from my path.

I had to get to the bridge. My partner held the course we would follow until we won free or died.

INTERSTELLAR SPACE

Day 102

'Sir, please leave the dressing in place,' begged Rakoscy, the ship's surgeon. 'I can't answer for what will happen to your eyes if you don't keep them covered for the next twenty-four hours at least.'

'It's under control, Piet,' Stephen said, taking Piet's hands in his own. He pulled them down from Piet's eye bandage with as much gentle force as was necessary. 'There's nothing to see anyway. Salomon'll tell us when the data's been analyzed.'

Dressings muffled both men's hands into mittens. The visored helmet Stephen wore because of the flashgun's glare had protected his face.

Lightbody moaned in a hammock against the cross-bulkhead, drugged comatose but not at peace. He'd come through the night better than the rest of us physically, but I was worried about his state of mind.

I hadn't thought of Lightbody and Jeude as being close friends. I don't suppose they were friends in the usual sense, a deeply religious man and an irreverent fellow who talked of little but the women and brawls he'd been involved with between voyages. But they'd been together for many years and much danger.

I could see again. Shots had shrunk the tissues of my face enough for me to look out of my eye sockets, and Rakoscy had left openings in the swaths of medicated dressings that covered the skin exposed to the plasma exhaust. I felt as though a crew had been pounding on my body with mauls, but Rakoscy assured me there'd be no permanent injury.

It was good to worry about Lightbody's state of mind, because then I didn't have to consider my own.

Salomon turned his couch and said, 'Sir, Guillermo and I have a course to propose.'

Rakoscy led Piet by the hands to the center console. I suppose it would have made better sense for Salomon to use Piet's couch under these circumstances. The same AI drove all three consoles, but the main screen was capable of more discriminating display because it had four times the area of the others.

Salomon hadn't suggested he take over, much less make the decision without asking. Logic wasn't the governing factor here. It rarely is in human affairs.

Stephen moved nearer to me and hesitated. I'm not sure whether or not he knew I could see.

'That seemed close,' I said quietly. 'Or is it something I'll get used to after the fiftieth time?'

Stephen gave a minuscule smile. 'No,' he said, 'that was pretty near-run, all right. If it hadn't been for Salomon taking the initiative, it would've been a lot too close.'

He coughed. 'You're all right?'

'Yeah,' I said. 'I don't have much color vision at the moment, that's all.'

He looked hard at me, but he didn't push for answers to the real questions. Why had God saved me and taken Jeude beside me?

If there was a God.

Piet settled onto his couch and sighed audibly. Fans, thrusters, and the noise of the ship herself working filled the Oriflamme with a constant rumble. With time, that drifted below the consciousness.

There were no human sounds aboard now. The crew in the forward section had fallen tensely and completely silent.

Piet switched on the public address system by feel. 'Go ahead,' he said.

'Trehinga is about six days transit from Templeton,' Salomon said. 'Seven, according to Federation charts, but I'm sure we can do it in six.'

The navigator had shown himself to be able and quick-thinking. As Stephen said, he'd saved us on Templeton. Salomon ran out the big guns against orders when he heard the landed Parliament identify herself as a presidential vessel-a dedicated warship-over the radio. The Feds we met were a party sent by the Parliament's captain to port control when nobody replied to the radio.

Despite his proven ability, Salomon licked his lips from nervousness as he proposed a solution based on information that the general commander couldn't see. Alone of us aboard the Oriflamme, Salomon was afraid that his responsibilities were beyond him.

'It has dock facilities,' he continued. 'We've lost two attitude jets, and the upper stern quarter of the hull was crazed by laser fire as we escaped. But there shouldn't be much traffic.'

'Trehinga grows grain for the region,' Guillermo put in from the opposite console. 'There are no pre-Collapse vestiges, and therefore little traffic or defenses.'

Salomon nodded, gaining animation as he spoke. 'The port's supposed to have a company of human soldiers,' he said, 'but Mister Gregg says he doubts that.' He looked up at Stephen.

Piet nodded agreement. 'A few dozen militia, counting Molts with spears and cutting bars,' he said. 'Unless the Back Worlds are much better staffed than the Reaches in general.'

'Of course, Templeton was no joke,' Stephen said. The lack of concern in his voice wasn't as reassuring as it might have been if a less fatalistic man were speaking.

'Templeton was a treasure port,' Piet said briskly. 'Go on, Mister Salomon. What about the risk of pursuit from Templeton?'

'The bloody Parliament isn't pursuing anybody till they build her a new bow, sir,' Stampfer said. 'Since me and the boys on Gun Three blew the old one fucking off as we lifted.'

The satisfaction in the master gunner's voice was as obvious as it was deserved.

Piet nodded again in approval. 'And there wasn't anything docked on Templeton when we arrived that would be a threat,' he said. 'Nevertheless, we'll need to take some precautions if we're going to do extensive repairs.'

Piet turned his head-'looked,' but of course he couldn't see-from Salomon to Guillermo and back. 'Are we ready to go, then?' he asked. The infectious enthusiasm of his tone helped me forget how much I hurt. Piet had been burned at least as badly.

'The first sequence of the course is loaded,' Guillermo said. Salomon glanced up in surprise, but the Molt knew Piet Ricimer.

'Then let's go,' Piet said. 'Gentlemen, prepare for transit!'