David Drake - [Reaches 01] - Igniting The Reaches

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Igniting the Reaches

To Rana Van Name

Who first heard about this one

when we were all going off to dinner;

And who is special.

1

Above Salute

Piet Ricimer stood out like an open flame on the crowded, cluttered bridge of theSultan as she orbited

Salute. Stephen Gregg was amused by the young officer's flashy dress.

Well, Ricimer was no younger than Gregg himself—but Gregg, as a member of a factorial family, was

mature in ways that no sailor would ever be. More sophisticated, at any rate. Realizing that sophistication

and maturity might not be the same made Gregg frown for a moment until he focused on the discussion

again.

"I suppose itmight be Salute," mumbled Bivens, the navigator. Gregg had already marked Bivens down

as a man who never saw a planetfall he liked—or was sure he could identify.

"Look, of course it's Salute!" insisted Captain Choransky, commander of theSultan and the other two

ships of the argosy. "It's just this tub's lousy optics that makes it hard to tell."

His vehemence made the landfall seem as doubtful as Bivens' concern had done. This was Gregg's first

voyage off Venus, much less out of the solar system. He was too young at twenty-two Earth years to

worry much about it, but he wondered at the back of his mind whether this lot would be able to find their

way home.

Besides the officers, three crewmen sat at the workstations controlling the forward band of attitude jets.

TheSultan had been stretched by two hull sections after her first decade of service as an intrasystem

trader. That had required adding another band of jets.

The new controls and the sprawl of conduits feeding them had been placed on the bridge. They made it

difficult for a landsman like Gregg to walk there under normal 1-g acceleration without tripping or

bruising himself against a hip-high projection. Now, with the flagship floating in orbit, Gregg had even

worse problems. The spacers slid easily along.

The most reassuring thing about the situation was the expression of utter boredom worn by every one of

the crewmen on the control boards. They were experienced, and they saw no reason for concern.

"Sir," said Ricimer, "I'll take the cutter down and find us a landing site. This is Salute. I've checked the

star plots myself."

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"Can't be sure of a plot with these optics," Bivens muttered. "Maybe theDove got a better sighting than I

could."

"I'll take the six men who came with me when I soldThe Judge, " Ricimer said brightly. "I'm pretty sure

I've spotted two Southern compounds, and there are scores of Molt cities for sure."

Ricimer was a short man, dark where Gregg was fair. Though willing to be critical, Gregg admitted that

the spacer was good-looking, with regular features and a waist that nipped in beneath powerful

shoulders. Ricimer wore a tunic of naturally red fibers from somewhere outside the solar system, and his

large St. Christopher medal hung from a strand of glittering crystals that were more showy than valuable.

"Might not even be Molts here if it isn't Salute," Bivens said. "Between the twenty-third and twenty-ninth

transits, I think we went off track."

Choransky turned, probably as much to get away from his navigator as for a positive purpose, and said,

"All right, Ricimer, take the cutter down. But don't lose her, anddon't con me into some needle farm that

won't give me a hundred meters of smooth ground. TheSultan 's no featherboat, remember."

"Aye-aye, sir!" Ricimer said with another of his brilliant smiles.

"I'd like to go down with the boat," Gregg said, as much to his own surprise as anyone else's.

That drew the interest of the other men on the bridge, even the common sailors. Piet Ricimer's face went

as blank as a bulkhead.

Gregg anchored himself firmly to the underside of a workstation with his left hand. "I'm Stephen Gregg,"

he said. "I'm traveling as supercargo for my uncle, Gregg of Weyston."

"I know that," Ricimer said, with no more expression in his voice than his face held.

"Ah—Ricimer," Captain Choransky said nervously. "Factor Gregg is quite a major investor in this

voyage."

"I know that too," Ricimer said. His eyes continued to appraise Gregg. In a tone of challenge, he went

on, "Can you handle a boat in an atmosphere, then, Gregg?"

Gregg sniffed. "I can't handle a boat anywhere," he said flatly. "But I'm colonel of the Eryx battalion of

the militia, and I'm as good a gunman as anybody aboardthis ship."

Ricimer's smile spread again. "Yeah," he said, "that might be useful."

He reached out his hand to shake Gregg's. When he saw the landsman was afraid to seem awkward in

reaching to take it, Ricimer slid closer. He moved as smoothly as a feather in the breeze. Ricimer's grip

was firm, but he didn't make the mistake of trying to crush Gregg's hand to prove that he was as strong

as the bigger man.

"Maybe," Ricimer added over his shoulder as he led Gregg out through the bridge hatch, "we can give

you some hands-on with the boat as well."

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2

Above Salute

"Tancred!" Ricimer shouted as he slid hand over hand past crewmen in the bay containing the other two

sets of attitude-jet controls. "C'mon along.Leon , get Bailey and Dole from the main engine compartment.

We're taking the cutter down!"

"Bloody well about time!" agreedLeon . He was theSultan 's bosun, a burly, scarred man.Leon picked

his way with practiced skill through a jungle of equipment and connectors toward a back passage to the

fusion thrusters.

"Lightbody and Jeude are already in Cargo Three with the boat," Ricimer said as he plunged headfirst

down a ladderway toward the cargo holds.

Gregg tried to go "down" feetfirst as he would on a ladder under gravity. The passage, looped with

conduits, was too narrow for him to turn when he realized his mistake. Tancred, following Gregg the

proper way, was scarcely a boy in age. His face bore a look of bored disgust as he waited for the

landsman to kick his way clear of obstacles he couldn't see.

Though theSultan wasn't under thrust, scores of machines worked within the vessel's hull to keep her

habitable. Echoes in the passage sighed like souls overwhelmed by misery.

Three crewmen underLeon were readying the eight-meter cutter when Gregg reached the hold. Tancred

dogged the hatch closed, then joined the others with a snorted comment that Gregg chose not to hear.

Ricimer was at the arms locker, handing a cutting bar to a wiry spacer. "Here you go, Gregg," Ricimer

called. The hold's empty volume blurred and thinned Ricimer's tones. "What do you want to carry?"

Gregg looked over the selection. The bridge had a separate arms locker, but the larger cabinet was here

in Cargo Three, whose outer hatch provided theSultan 's main access—except, presumably, when the

hold was full of cargo.

The locker held a dozen breech-loading rifles, each with a bag of ammunition sized to that weapon's

chamber. Two of the rifles were repeaters, but those would be even more sensitive to ammo variations

than the single-shots.

True standardization had ended a millennium before, when hit-and-run attacks during the revolt of the

outer colonies wrecked automated factories throughout the human universe. Billions of people died in the

Collapse that followed.

Humanity had recovered to a degree. Mass production was technically possible again. The horror of

complex systems that could be destroyed by a shock—and bring down civilization with them—remained.

It was as much a religious attitude as a practical one.

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Most of the locker was filled with powered cutting bars, forty or more of them. Venerian ceramic

technology made their blades, super-hard teeth laminated in a resilient matrix, deadly even when the

powerpack was exhausted and could not vibrate the cutting edge. Apart from their use as weapons, the

bars were useful tools when anything from steel to tree trunks had to be cut.

There were also three flashguns in the locker. These had stubby barrels of black ceramic, thirty

centimeters long and about twenty in diameter, mounted on shoulder stocks.

Under the right circumstances, a flashgun's laser bolts were far more effective than shots from a

projectile weapon. The flashgun drained its power at each bolt, but the battery in the butt could be

replaced with reasonable ease. Under sunny conditions, a parasol accumulator deployed over the

gunner's head would recharge the weapon in two or three minutes anyway, making it still handier.

But flashguns were heavy, nearly useless in smoke or rain, and dangerous when the barrel cracked in

use. The man carrying one was a target for every enemy within range, and side-scatter from the bolt was

at best unpleasant to the shooter. They weren't popular weapons despite their undoubted efficiency.

Gregg took a flashgun and a bandolier holding six spare batteries from the locker.

Piet Ricimer raised an eyebrow. "I don't like to fool with flashguns unless I'm wearing a hard suit," he

said.

Gregg shrugged, aware that he'd impressed the sailor for the first time. "I don't think we'll run into

anything requiring hard suits," he said. "Do you?"

Ricimer shrugged in reply. "No, I don't suppose so," he said mildly.

Carrying two single-shot rifles, Ricimer nodded the crewman holding another rifle and three cutting bars

toward the boat. He followed, side by side with Gregg.

"You owned your own ship?" Gregg asked, both from curiosity for the answer and to find a friendly

topic. He didn't care to be on prickly terms with anybody else in the narrow confines of a starship.

Ricimer smiled at the memory. "The Judge,yes," he said. "Captain Cooper, the man who trained me,

willed her to me when he died without kin. Just a little intrasystem trader, but she taught me as much as

the captain himself did. I wouldn't have sold her, except that I really wanted to see the stars."

Ricimer braked himself on the cutter's hull with an expert flex of his knees, then caught Gregg to prevent

him from caroming toward a far corner of the hold. "You'll get the hang of it in no time," he added

encouragingly to the landsman.

The interior of the boat was tight for eight people. The bench down the axis of the cabin would seat only

about five, so the others squatted in the aisles along the bulkheads.

Gregg had heard of as many as twenty being crammed into a vessel of similar size. He couldn't imagine

how. He had to duck when a sailor took the pair of rifles from Ricimer and swung, poking their barrels

toward Gregg's eyes.

Ricimer seated himself at the control console in the rear of the cabin. "Make room here for Mr. Gregg,"

he ordered Leon, who'd taken the end of the bench nearest him. The burly spacer gave Gregg a cold

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look as he obeyed.

"Hatch is tight, sir," Tancred reported from the bow as he checked the dogs.

Ricimer keyed the console's radio. "Cutter toSultan 's bridge," he said. "Open Cargo Three. Over."

There was no response over the radio, but a jolt transmitted through the hull indicated that something

was happening in the hold. The boat's vision screen was on the bulkhead to the left of the controls. Gregg

leaned forward for a clearer view. The double hatchway pivoted open like a clam gaping. Vacuum was a

nonreflecting darkness between the valves of dull white ceramic.

"Hang on, boys," Ricimer said. He touched a control. An attitude jet puffed the cutter out of the hold, on

the first stage of its descent to the surface of the planet below.

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3

Salute

"Got a hot spot, sir,"Leon said, shouting over the atmospheric buffeting. He nodded toward the snake of

glowing red across the decking forward. The interior of the cutter was unpleasantly warm, and the bitter

tinge of things burning out of the bilges made Gregg's eyes water and his throat squeeze closed.

"Noted," Ricimer agreed. He fired the pair of small thrusters again, skewing the impulse 10° from a

perpendicular through the axis of the bench.

The spacers swayed without seeming to notice the change. Tancred grabbed Gregg's bandolier. That

was all that prevented the landsman from hurtling into a bulkhead.

"Thanks," Gregg muttered in embarrassment.

The young spacer sneered.

Ricimer leaned over his console. "Sorry," he said. "I needed to yaw us a bit. There's a crack in the outer

hull, and if the inner facing gets hot enough, we'll have problems with that too."

Gregg nodded. He looked at the hot spot, possibly a duller red than it had been a moment before, and

wondered whether atmospheric entry with a perforated hull could be survivable. He decided the answer

didn't matter.

"Do you have a particular landing site in mind, Ricimer?" he asked, hoping his raw throat wouldn't make

his voice break.

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"Three of them," Ricimer said, glancing toward the vision screen. "But I don't trust theSultan 's optics

either. We'll find something here, no worry."

The cutter's vision screen gave a torn, grainy view of the landscape racing by beneath. A few cogs of the

scanning raster were out of synch with the rest, displacing the center of the image to the right. Ragged

green streaks marked the generally arid, rocky terrain.

Gregg squinted at the screen. He'd seen a regular pattern, a mosaic of pentagons, across the green floor

of one valley. "That's something!" he said.

Ricimer nodded approvingly. "There's Molts here, at least. Captain Choransky wants a place where the

Southerns have already set up the trade, though."

The Molts inhabited scores of planets within what had been human space before the Collapse. Tradition

said that men had brought the chitinous humanoids from some unguessed homeworld and used them as

laborers. Certainly there was no sign that the Molts had ever developed mechanical transport on their

own, let alone star drive.

It was easy to think of the Molts as man-sized ants and their cities as mere hives, but they had survived

the Collapse on the outworlds far better than humans had. Some planets beyond the solar system still had

human populations of a sort: naked savages, "Rabbits" to the spacers, susceptible to diseases hatched

among the larger populations of Earth and Venus and virtually useless for the purposes of resurgent

civilization.

Molt culture was the same as it had been a thousand years ago, and perhaps for ten million years before

that; and there was one thing more:

A few robot factories had survived the Collapse. They were sited at the farthest edges of human

expansion, the colony worlds which had been overwhelmed by disaster so swiftly that the population

didn't have time to cannibalize their systems in a desperate bid for survival. To present-day humans, these

automated wonders were as mysterious as the processes which had first brought forth life.

But the Molts had genetic memory of the robot factories humans had trained them to manage before the

Collapse. Whatever the Molts had been to men of the first expansion, equals or slaves, they were

assuredly slaves now; and they were very valuable slaves.

Gregg checked his flashgun's parasol. Space in the boat was too tight to deploy the solar collector fully,

but it appeared to slide smoothly on the extension rod.

Two spacers forward were discussing an entertainer in Redport on Titan. From their description of her

movements, she must have had snake blood.

The thrusters roared, braking hard. "So . . ." said Ricimer. "You're going to be a factor one of these

days?"

Gregg looked at him. "Probably not," he said. "My brother inherited the hold. He's healthy, and he's got

two sons already."

He paused, then added, "It's a small place in the Atalanta Plains, you know. Eryx. Nothing to get excited

about."

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The edge of Ricimer's mouth quirked. "Easy to say when you've got it," he said, so softly that Gregg had

to read the words off the smaller man's lips.

The thrusters fired again. Gregg held himself as rigid as a caryatid. He smiled coldly at Tancred beside

him.

Ricimer stroked a lever down, gimballing the thrusters sternward. The cigar-shaped vessel dropped from

orbit with its long axis displayed to the shock of the atmosphere. Now that they'd slowed sufficiently,

Ricimer slewed them into normal flight. They were about a thousand meters above the ground.

"You know, I'm from a factorial family too," Ricimer said with a challenge in his tone.

Gregg raised an eyebrow. "Are you?" he said. "Myself, I've always suspected that my family was really

of some no-account in the service of Captain Gregg during the Revolt."

His smile was similar to the one he had directed at Tancred a moment before. "My Uncle Benjamin,

though," Gregg continued, "that's Gregg of Weyston . . . He swears he's checked the genealogy and I'm

wrong. That sort of thing matters a great deal—to Uncle Benjamin."

The two young men stared at one another while the cutter shuddered clumsily through the air. Starships'

boats could operate in atmospheres, but they weren't optimized for the duty.

Piet Ricimer suddenly laughed. He reached over the console and gripped Gregg's hand. "You're all right,

Gregg," he said. "And so am I, most of the time." His smile lighted the interior of the vessel. "Though you

must be wondering.

"And there . . ." Ricimer went on—he hadn't looked toward the vision screen, so he must have caught

the blurred glint of metal out of the corner of his eyes—"is what we're looking for."

Ricimer cut the thruster and brought the boat around in a slow curve with one hand while the other

keyed the radio. "Ricimer toSultan, " he said. "Home on me. We've got what looks like a Molt

compound with two Southern Cross ships there already."

"And we're all going to be rich!" Leon rumbled from where he squatted beside the bow hatch. He

touched the trigger of his cutting bar and brought it to brief, howling life—

Just enough to be sure the weapon was as ready as Leon himself was.

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4

Salute

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ThePreakness, third and last vessel of Captain Choransky's argosy, spluttered like water boiling to lift a

pot lid as she descended onto the gravel scrubland. Her engines cut in and out raggedly instead of holding

a balanced thrust the way those of theSultan 's boat had done for Ricimer.

Compared to theSultan herself, the littlePreakness was a model of control. Choransky's flagship slid

down the gravity slope like a hog learning to skate. Gregg had been so sure theSultan was going to crash

that he'd looked around for some sort of cover from the gout of flaming debris.

The flagship had cooled enough for the crew to begin opening its hatches. It had finally set down six

hundred meters away from the boat, too close for Gregg's comfort during the landing but a long walk for

him now.

The roaring engines of thePreakness shut off abruptly. The ground shuddered with the weight of the

vessel. Bits of rock, kicked up from the soil by the thrusters, clicked and pinged for a few moments on

the hulls of the other ships.

"Let's go see what Captain Choransky has in mind," Ricimer said, adjusting the sling of the rifle on his

shoulder. He sighed and added, "You know, if they'd trust the ships' artificial intelligences, they could

land a lot smoother. When theSultan wallowed in, I was ready to run for cover."

Gregg chuckled. "There wasn't any," he said.

"You're telling me!" Ricimer agreed.

He turned to the sailors. Two were still in the boat, while the others huddled unhappily in the vessel's

shadow. Venerians weren't used to open skies. Gregg was uncomfortable himself, but his honor as a

gentleman—and Piet Ricimer's apparent imperturbability—prevented him from showing his fear.

"The rest of you stay here with the boat," Ricimer ordered. "Chances are, the captain'll want us to ferry

him closer to the Southern compound. There's no point in doing anything until we know what the plan is."

"Aye-aye," Leon muttered for the crew. The bosun was as obviously glad as the remainder of the crew

that he didn't have to cross the empty expanse.

"And keep a watch," Ricimer added. "Just because we don't see much here—"

He gestured. Except for the Venerian ships—the crews of theSultan andDove were unloading ground

vehicles—there was nothing between the boat and the horizon except rocky hummocks of brush

separated by sparse growths of a plant similar to grass.

"—doesn't mean that there isn't something around that thinks we're dinner. Besides, Molts can be

dangerous, and you know the Southern Cross government in Buenos Aires doesn't want us to trade on

the worlds it claims."

"Let them Southerns just try something!" Tancred said. The boy got up and stalked purposefully around

to the other side of the boat, from where he could see the rest of the surroundings.

Gregg and Ricimer set out for the flagship. The dust of landing had settled, but reaction mass exhausted

as plasma had ignited patches of scrub. The fires gave off bitter smoke.

"Do you think there's really anything dangerous around here?" Gregg asked curiously.

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Ricimer shrugged. "I doubt it," he said. "But I don't know anything about Salute." He stared at the white

sky. "If this reallyis Salute."

From above, the landscape appeared flat and featureless. The hummocks were three or four meters

high, lifted from the ground on the plateaus of dirt which clung to the roots of woody scrub. Sometimes

they hid even theSultan 's 300-tonne bulk from the pair on foot.

The bushes were brown, leafless, and seemingly as dead as the gravel beneath. Gregg saw no sign of

animal life whatever.

"How do you think the Southerns are going to react?" Ricimer asked suddenly.

Gregg snorted. "They can claim the Administration of Humanity gave them sole rights to this region if

they like. The Administration didn't do a damned thing for the Gregg family after the Collapse, when we

could've used some help—didn't do a damned thing—"

"Don't swear," Ricimer said sharply. "God hears us here also."

Gregg grimaced. In a softer tone, he continued, "Nobody but God and Venus helped Venus during the

Collapse. The Administration isn't going to tell us where in God's universe we can trade now."

Ricimer nodded. He flashed his companion a brief grin to take away the sting of his previous rebuke.

Factorial families were notoriously loose about their language; though the same was true of most sailors

as well.

"But what will the Southernsdo, do you think?" Ricimer asked in a mild voice.

"They'll trade with us," Gregg said flatly. He shifted his grip on the flashgun. It was an awkward weapon

to carry for any distance. The fat barrel made it muzzle-heavy and difficult to sling. "Just as the colonies of

the North American Federation will trade with us when we carry the Molts to them. The people out in

the Reaches, they need the trade, whatever politics are back in the solar system."

"Anyway," Ricimer said in partial agreement, "the Southerns can't possibly have enough strength here to

give us a hard time. We've got almost two hundred men."

Choransky's crew had uncrated the three stake-bed trucks carried in theSultan 's forward hold. Two of

them were running. As Ricimer and Gregg approached, the smoky rotary engine of the third vibrated into

life. Armed crewmen, many of them wearing full or partial body armor, clambered aboard.

Captain Choransky stood up in the open cab of the leading vehicle. "There you are, Ricimer!" he called

over the head of his driver. "We're off to load our ships. You and Mr. Gregg can come along if you can

find room."

The truck bed was full of men, and the other two would be packed before the young officers could

reach them. Without hesitation, Ricimer gripped a cleat and hauled himself onto the outside of

Choransky's vehicle. His boot toes thrust between the stakes which he held with one hand. He reached

down with the other hand to help Gregg into a similarly precarious position, just as the truck accelerated

away.

Gregg wondered what he would have done if Ricimer hadn't extended a hand, certain that his

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companion wanted to come despite the risk. Gregg didn't worry about his own courage—but he

preferred to act deliberately rather than at the spur of the moment.

He looked over his shoulder. TheSultan 's other two trucks were right behind them, but theDove 's

crew were still setting up the vehicle they'd unloaded. ThePreakness was just opening her single hatch.

"Shouldn't we have gotten organized first?" Gregg shouted into Ricimer's ear over the wind noise.

Ricimer shrugged, but he was frowning.

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Salute

The general rise in the lumpy terrain was imperceptible, but when the trucks jounced onto a crest, Gregg

found he could look sharplydown at the ships three kilometers behind him—

And, in the other direction, at the compound. Neither of the Southern vessels was as big as the

Preakness, the lightest of Choransky's argosy. The installation itself consisted of a pair of orange,

prefabricated buildings and a sprawling area set off by metal fencing several meters high. The fence

twinkled as it incinerated scraps of vegetation which blew against it.

There was no sign of humans. Squat, mauve-colored figures watched the Venerians from inside the

fence: Molts, over a hundred of them.

Captain Choransky stood up in his seat again, aiming his rifle skyward in one hand. The truck rumbled

over the crest, gaining speed as it went.

"Here we go, boys!" Choransky bellowed. His shot cracked flatly across the barren distances.

A dozen other crewmen fired. Dust puffed just short of the orange buildings, indicating that at least one

of the men wasn't aiming at the empty heavens.

"What are we doing?" Gregg shouted to Ricimer. "Is this an attack? What's happening?"

Ricimer cross-stepped along the stakes and leaned toward the cab. "Captain Choransky!" he said.

"We're not at war with the Southern Cross, are we?"

The captain turned with a startled expression replacing his glee. "War, boy?" he said. "There's no peace

beyond Pluto! Don't you know anything?"

Choransky's truck pulled up between the two buildings. Gregg squeezed hard to keep from losing his

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David Drake - [Reaches 01] - Igniting The Reaches

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