"Umm," Salomon said. "They wouldn't pass a bottomry inspection at Betaport, but I don't think we need to worry as yet."
An animal screamed in the near distance. It was probably harmless-and the "snake" couldn't have made a sound if it had wanted to-but my shoulders shrank together every time I heard the thing.
The local equivalent of insects swarmed around the hooded lights we'd spiked to tree boles to show us our dinner. The creatures were four-legged. They varied in size from midges to globs with bodies the size of a baseball and wingspans to match. They didn't attack us because of our unfamiliar biochemistry, but I frequently felt a crunch of chitin as I chewed my meat.
"The nearest place that'd stock thruster nozzles is Riel," Lacaille volunteered without looking up from his meal. "But the port gets a lot of traffic, and it's defended."
"Real defenses?" Dole asked, glancing over at Lacaille. "Or a couple guns and nobody manning them?"
"I'd sure rather have warehouse stock than cannibalize a ship," Winger said. "It's a bitch of a job unscrewing burned-in nozzles without cracking them."
The little receiver in my tunic pocket squawked, "Calling North Island Command! Calling North Island Command! This is-"
Everyone in hearing jumped up. The opposite bench tilted and thumped the ground. Lacaille's mouth opened in horror.
"What in the name of Christ is that?" Stephen asked softly. He wasn't looking at me. His eyes roved the forest, and the flashgun was cradled in his arms.
"It's all right!" I said. "Sit down, everybody. It's all right."
"Yes, sit down," Piet decided aloud. He bent to help raise the fallen bench, holding his carbine at the balance so that the muzzle pointed straight up. He'd jacked a round into the chamber, and it would take a moment to clear the weapon safely.
He sat again and looked at me. "What is all right?"
"— Venusian pirate ship full of treasure," my pocket crackled. I took the receiver out so that everyone could see it. "Plot this signal and home on it. I don't have the coordinates, but it's somewhere in the opposite hemisphere from the base. Calling-"
I switched the unit off. Dole said, "McMaster!" and stood up again.
"Don't!" I said.
Dole stepped over the bench, unhooking his cutting bar.
"Sit down, Mister Dole," Piet said, his voice ringing like a drop forge.
The bosun's face scrunched up, but he obeyed.
"And the rest of you," Piet said, waving to the men at the other table and the far end of ours. They'd noticed the commotion, though they couldn't tell what was going on.
"I fiddled the backup transmitter," I said in a voice that the immediate circle could hear. "No matter what the dial reads, it's transmitting a quarter-watt UHF. He could be heard farther away if he stood in the hatch and shouted."
Stephen made a sound. I thought he was choking. It was the start of a laugh. His guffaws bellowed out into the night, arousing screamers in the trees around us. After a moment, Stephen got the sound under control, but he still quivered with suppressed paroxysms.
"We still have to do something about the situation, though," Piet said softly.
"No," I said. From the corner of my eye, I noticed a shadow slip from the main hatch and vanish into the forest. "The situation has just taken care of itself."
A smile of sorts played with Piet's mouth. "Yes," he said. "I see what you mean. He doesn't want to be aboard the target his friends are going to blast."
He turned his head. "Mister Dole," he said crisply, "we'll have the net down at first light. The voyage isn't over, and we may need it another time. I expect to lift fifteen minutes after you start the task."
"Aye aye, sir!" the bosun said.
"I suppose it'll be weeks before another big gulper takes over this stretch of the river," Lacaille said.
"Maybe not so long," Stephen said. He got up and stretched the big muscles of his shoulders. "And anyway, I'm sure there are more snakes and suchlike folk than the one you and Jeremy met."
He chuckled again. The sound was as bleak as the ice of Lord's Mercy.
ABOVE RIEL
Day 311
Guillermo's screen showed the world we circled in a ninety-four-minute orbit. The central display was a frozen schematic of Corpus Christi, Riel's spaceport, based on pilotry data, Lacaille's recollections, and images recorded during the Oriflamme's first pass overhead.
"There are fourteen vessels in port that probably have thruster nozzles of the correct size," Piet said, sitting on the edge of his couch. Thirty of us were crowded into the forward compartment, and his words echoed on the tannoys to the remainder of the crew. "Besides those, there's a number of smaller vessels on the ground and a very large freighter in orbit."
"Freighter or not. ." Kiley murmured, "anything that weighs two kilotonnes gets my respect."
"Two of the ships are water buffalos without transit capability," Piet continued. "We'll have to carry our prize off to an uninhabited system to strip it, so they're out. Likewise, a number of the ships are probably unserviceable, though we don't know which ones for sure. Finally, there's a Federation warship in port, the Yellowknife."
There was a low murmur from the men. Somebody said, "Shit," in a quiet but distinct voice.
"Yes," Piet said. "That complicates matters, but two of our nozzles have cracked. Maybe they just got knocked around when we tipped on Lord's Mercy, but it's equally possible that the other six are about to fail the same way. This will be risky, but we have no options."
"Hey, sir," Stampfer said. "We'll fucking handle it. You just tell us what to do."
That wasn't bravado. Stampfer and everybody else in the Oriflamme's crew believed that Captain Ricimer would bring us all home somehow. Emotionally, I believed that myself. Intellectually, I knew that if I hadn't stumbled as I ran toward the Montreal, the Fed plasma bolt would have killed me instead of the man a step behind.
"For ease of drawing reaction mass," Piet said, "the port is in the bend of a river, the Sangre Christi. It's a swampy area and unhealthy, since Terran mosquitoes and mosquito-borne diseases have colonized the planet along with humans."
Men glanced at one another in puzzlement. Malaria didn't seem a serious risk compared to the others we'd be chancing on a raid like this.
A slight smile played across Piet's mouth. "As a result," he explained, "the governor and officers of the garrison and ships in port stay in houses on the bluffs overlooking the river."
His index finger swept an arc across the display. "That should slow down any response to our actions."
Piet sobered. "I'll take the cutter down at twilight, that's at midnight ship's time, with fourteen men aboard," he said. "A party of six will secure the Commandatura and port control-they're together."
"I'll take care of that," Stephen said.
Piet's grin flickered again. "Yes," he said. "I hoped you would."
He looked at me. "There are four gunpits with laser arrays. The fire control system and the town's general communications both need to be disabled. You can handle that, Jeremy?"
"Sure," I said. The task was a little more complicated than it might have sounded to a layman. You have to identify the critical parts in order to cut off their power, blow them up, whatever. But I shouldn't have any difficulty.
"Or Guillermo could," Stephen said, scratching the side of his neck and looking at nothing in particular.
"I'll do it!" I said.
"I'll need Guillermo for the other phase of the operation," Piet said. "I don't expect any trouble about landing a cutter without authorization, but I personally can't go around asking which of the ships ready to lift have thruster nozzles in good condition. Guillermo can speak to Molt laborers and identify a suitable prize without arousing suspicion."