The Reaches

50

Benison

The thrusters crashed to life. The Halys yawed nose-down to starboard as her stern came unstuck. The Venerians had removed the starboard stern unit to power the Umber. Ricimer, a suited doll in the open cockpit, seemed to have overcompensated for the imbalance.

"Forward throttle, sir!" Dole screamed. Piet couldn't hear him over the exhaust's crackling roar, and it wasn't as though the deathtrap's pilot didn't know what the problem was.

Besides, Gregg knew instinctively that Dole's advice was wrong. Gregg couldn't pilot a boat in a bathtub himself, but he knew from marksmanship that you were better off carrying through with a plan than to try to reprogram your actions in mid-execution.

You'd probably gotten it right when you had leisure to consider. Your muscles couldn't react quickly enough to follow each flash of ephemeral data. If you kept your swing and squeeze constant, the chances were that the shot and the target would intersect downrange.

If you were as good a shot as Stephen Gregg.

Ricimer was at least as good a pilot as his friend was a gunman.

The Halys continued to lift with her nose low. Her bow drifted to starboard so that as the blasted vessel climbed, she also wheeled slowly.

"You've got her, Piet," Gregg whispered. "You've got her, you do!"

They'd rigged manual controls to the Halys' remaining thrusters, using what remained of the reel of monocrystal line they'd left on mirrorside after the Umber was complete. They couldn't fit her with a collective: they didn't have a test facility in which to check alignments and power delivery, so that a single control could change speed and attitude in a unified fashion. Flying the Halys now was like walking three dogs on separate leashes-through a roomful of cats.

"He's got it!" Stampfer shouted, clapping his big hands together in enthusiasm. "I didn't think-"

He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't have to. Lightbody read his Bible with his back to the launch. Jeude squatted beside him. His eyes drifted toward the book, but every time they did, he set his mouth firmly and looked away.

Cased microchips stood in neat piles just within the edge of the undamaged forest. The only Molt present was Guillermo. The aliens had shifted the cargo through the Mirror more than an hour before the Venerians finished rerigging the Halys. K'Jax immediately gathered both Clan Deel and the newcomers from Umber and whisked them away.

He claimed he was doing that because the spaceship's liftoff would call Feds to the site. That might well be true, but Gregg suspected K'Jax wanted to absorb the new immigrants beyond human interference. Absorb them, and assert his own dominance.

The Feds had eased K'Jax' difficulties. The cutter's weapon had caught Ch'Kan, last of her people to run for the Mirror and safety.

Gregg's momentary shiver of hatred for K'Jax wasn't fair, wasn't even sane. The clan chief hadn't created the situation from which he was profiting. He was simply a politician handed an opportunity. A single strong clan under a leader with experience of Benison's conditions was to the benefit of all the race. .

With the exception of one or two of the newcomers who would balk, and who would become examples for the rest.

Gregg stroked the fore-end of his rifle. His feelings were quite insane; but it was just as well that K'Jax, a faithful ally, was nowhere around just now.

The Halys rose slowly. Her nozzles were toed outward, because if they'd been aligned truly parallel Piet would have had insufficient lateral stability. Half the attitude jets had been destroyed or plugged when the plasma bolt hit. Manually-controlled thrusters were as much as one man could hope to handle anyway.

As much or more.

The Halys reached the cloud base and disappeared. The throb of the thrusters faded more slowly.

A patch of cloud glowed for some moments. Lightning licked within the overcast. The charged exhaust had created imbalances that nature sought to rectify.

Gregg looked at his command: a Molt and five humans, himself included. Four firearms if you counted Guillermo's pistol, and four cutting bars.

None of the personnel in perfect condition, and Gregg able to move only by walking slowly. If he'd been physically able to survive the shock of takeoff, he'd have been in the Halys with Piet; but he couldn't.

"Mr. Dole," he said crisply. "You, Lightbody and Jeude position yourselves at the edge of the clearing there."

Between the Halys' exhaust on landing and takeoff, and the plasma bolts the Feds had directed at her from orbit, fires had burned an irregular swatch a hundred meters by three hundred into the forest. Large trees spiked up as blackened trunks, but in general you could see across the area. Gregg pointed to the center of one long side.

"Stampfer, Guillermo and I will wait across the clearing," he continued. "That way we'll have any intruders in a cross fire."

Jeude glanced at the party's equipment. "Some cross fire," he muttered.

Gregg smiled tightly. He hefted the heavy rifle Jeude himself had brought back from Umber City. "I'd prefer to have a flashgun, Mr. Jeude," he said. "But if the need arises, I'll endeavor to give a good account of myself with what's available. As shall we all, I'm confident."

The smile disappeared; his face looked human again. "Let's go," he said as he turned.

He heard Dole murmur as the parties separated, "If it's him with a sharp stick and the Feds with plasma guns, Jeude, I know where my money lies."