The Reaches Read Online Free

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.
    Ricimer shrugged. "I doubt it," he said. "But I don't know anything about Salute." He stared at the white sky. "If this really is 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 the Sultan '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 Southerns do, 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 the Sultan '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 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. The Sultan 's other two trucks were right behind them, but the Dove 's crew were still setting up the vehicle they'd unloaded. The Preakness 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.
     

5
Salute
    The general rise in the lumpy terrain was imperceptible, but when the trucks jounced onto