The Reaches

33

Sunrise

"The meeting's in ten minutes," said Piet Ricimer, wobbling as a long gust typical of Sunrise stuttered to a lull. Though the two men were within arm's length of one another, he used the intercom in order to be heard. "Time we were getting back."

"You're in charge," Gregg said. There were no real hills in this landscape. He'd found a hummock of harder rock to sit down on. There was enough rise for his heels to grip and steady his torso against the omnipresent wind. "The meeting won't start until you get there."

A three-meter rivulet of light rippled toward them across the rocks and thin snow. The creature was a transparent red like that of a pomegranate cell. Twice its length from the humans, it dived like an otter into the rock and vanished.

Gregg's trigger finger relaxed slightly. He leaned on his left hand to look behind him, but there was no threat in that direction either.

The Peaches, Dalriada, and the prize Ricimer had named the Halys were a few hundred meters away. The ships had already gathered drifts in the lee of the prevailing winds. Temporary outbuildings housed the crusher and kiln with which the crews applied hull patches, though neither Venerian vessel was in serious need of refit.

On a less hostile world, men would have built huts for themselves as well. On Sunrise, they slept in the ships.

"What do you think, Stephen?" Ricimer asked. He faced out, toward a horizon as empty as the plain on which he stood. Occasionally a tremble of light marked another of the planet's indigenous life forms.

Gregg shrugged within his hard suit. "You do the thinking, Piet," he said. "I'll back you up."

Ricimer turned abruptly. He staggered before he came to terms with the wind from this attitude. "Don't pretend to be stupid!" he said. "If you think I'm making a mistake, tell me!"

"I'm not stupid, Piet," Gregg said. He was glad he was seated. Contact with the ground calmed him against the atmosphere's volatility. "I don't care. About where we go, about how we hit the Feds. You'll decide, and I'll help you execute whatever you do decide."

A creature of light so richly azure that it was almost material quivered across the snow between the two men and vanished again. Gregg restrained himself from an urge to prod the rippling form with his boot toe.

Ricimer laughed wryly. "So it's up to me and God, is it, Stephen?" He clasped his arms closer to his armored torso. "I hope God is with me. I pray He is."

Gregg said nothing. He had been raised to believe in God and God's will, though without the particular emphasis his friend had received. Now-

He supposed he still believed in them. But he couldn't believe that the smoking bodies Stephen Gregg had left in his wake were any part of the will of God.

"I'm going to go back there and give orders," Ricimer continued. His face nodded behind the visor, though the suit's locked helmet didn't move. "There's a risk that my plan will fail disastrously. Even if it succeeds, some of my men will almost certainly die. Stephen, you may die."

"All my ancestors have," Gregg said. "I don't expect to be any different."

He raised his gauntleted hand to watch the ringers clench and unclench. "Piet," he said, "I trust you to do the best job you can. And to do a better job than anybody else could."

Ricimer laughed again, this time with more humor. "Do you, Stephen? Well, I suppose you must, or you wouldn't be here."

He put out a hand to help his friend stand. "Then let's go back to Peaches, since until I do my job of laying out the plan, none of the rest of you can do yours."