Jenks was crying in the grip of the two assistants. The hulking butcher stepped behind him. The Molt held a knife with a broad 30-centimeter blade in his right hand. He grabbed a handful of Jenks' long hair with his left hand and drew the man's head back.
The watching Molts gave a collective sigh.
The butcher drew his blade across the prisoner's throat in a long, clean stroke, severing everything but the spinal column. Blood spurted a handsbreadth into the air, drowning Jenks' shout in a gurgle.
The butcher stepped back. His assistants upended the thrashing body so that it would drain properly. As Jenks himself had said, their training had been with hogs.
The Molt spectators began to leave. The sun was fully up. Somebody switched off the floodlights, though Stephen didn't hear the order given.
"We'll take your vehicle to the Commandatura, Mister McKensie," Piet said conversationally, "and perhaps your men should come with us. I want it to be clear to my people that you're all under my protection." He gave the envoy a very hard smile. "So that I don't have to hang any of my own men."
"Dole, take two of our people and ride along with them," Stephen ordered. The bosun nodded to a pair of men from the Wrath.
"You're staying here?" Sal asked.
Stephen nodded. "For a while," he said. "If I were running the show for the Federation, this is just when I'd counterattack. Of course, that's if I had troops that were worth piss. Which Eliahu doesn't."
Together they looked out at the bleak landscape the Gallant Sallie had scoured. The truck with Piet and the Fed envoys drove past them into the city.
"I'm glad you're not working for President Pleyal," Sal said quietly.
He laughed. "Oh, so am I. I hate to be on the losing side, and nobody's going to beat Piet Ricimer."
Jenks lay on ground black with his blood. The Molts had almost completely dispersed. One of the butcher's assistants finished cleaning the knife with a wad of raw fiber, then handed it back to his master. They left also.
"You were lying when you said. . what you said to McKensie," Sal said.
"There's lies and lies," Stephen said. For a moment he thought he was going back to that place. He felt someone clutch his hand; Sal touched him, held his hand firmly.
"If they thought doing something like that would bother me," Stephen said, "they might think I wouldn't really do it, and that would be worse than a lie. Piet wouldn't order anything like that. Not unless he really had to."
Sal whispered something. He couldn't be sure of the words. He thought they were, "Oh dear God."
"And anyway," Stephen added, "I don't think I could sleep much worse than I do already."
SAVOY, ARLES
January 10, Year 27
1808 hours, Venus time
The Gallant Sallie's crew had the two lower floors of what had been a rich man's residence in the north suburb of Savoy, but Sal kept the two-room suite and garden on the roof for herself. She and Stephen had just finished dinner-Rickalds had cooked it with surprising talent-in the shade of a potted palm tree when they heard boots on the outside staircase. Stephen lifted and pointed the flashgun waiting muzzle down beside his chair.
"Hello the house!" called Piet Ricimer. "May I come up, or would you rather I check back another time?"
"There's never a time I'd regret seeing you, Piet," Stephen called as he settled the flashgun back. "Though it's not my-"
He glanced at Sal.
"Honored, sir, deeply honored," Sal said as she rose and walked to the stairs. The outside facility was little more than a ladder. There was a more comfortable staircase within the suite, but the owner had obviously wanted a means of private access for himself and his guests.
The general commander, resplendent in maroon velvet with a chain and medallion of massive gold, hopped up and over the waist-high wall into the garden. He looked at Sal, in a black-and-silver dress she'd found here in a closet, looked at Stephen, and gestured to the garden. "You have excellent taste, Sal. In all things."
She forced a smile.
"Stephen," Piet said. He sat near the table, on a bench built around a stand of four-meter-high bamboo. "I think we've achieved all we're going to here, and I'm ready to move on. I'm comfortable with the status of the ships and captains. .
He grinned at Sal. His face lit like a plasma thruster when he wanted it to". . some more than others, of course. But I'd like your opinion of the troops."
Stephen nodded twice while he marshaled his thoughts. "They fought well during the initial assault," he said. "I'd have been surprised if they didn't, of course. What's of more importance is that they've kept good watch during the past week when the danger receded. Discipline's been good in general. The men obey their officers, and the officers carry out your orders."
"I haven't noticed the friction between soldiers and sailors that I'd feared," Piet said. "Is that your observation also?"
Stephen nodded. "Healthy arrogance on both sides," he said, "but nothing worse. Seven gunshot wounds since the fighting ended, and one fellow managed to lop off his foot with a cutting bar. But it's all been accidental."
He gave his friend a tight smile. "You'd better get us back into action, Piet," he said, "or drunken foolishness is going to eat us down to a nub."
Piet squeezed the back of Stephen's hand and released it. "I think we can expect action on Berryhill," he said. "There's a military garrison there, and the defenses of St. Mary's Port are too dispersed for us to hope to slip in the way we did here."
"The men hired on to fight, Piet," Stephen said. "They'll do that. And Pleyal doesn't have any force in the Reaches that can stand against us."
It was odd to watch the pair of them this way, acting as if they were the only two people in the universe. No bluster, no hesitation, no beating around the bush. The truth as they saw it, analyzed by minds as fine as Stephen's marksmanship and Piet's touch on a starship's controls.
"Then I'll leave you two to your dinner," Piet said, rising. "I'll have a draft of an operational plan tomorrow for us to go over. Mistress Blythe-Sal-your pardon for the interruption."
He was gone over the wall even as he spoke. His boots clacked on the wooden steps.
"People think Piet takes risks," Stephen said as the footsteps faded. "And he does, of course. But they don't understand that he makes plans that keep the risks to a minimum."
"You take risks," Sal said. "With him."
Stephen gave her a wan smile. "What do I have to lose?" he said softly.
She walked to his chair, knelt, and put her arms around him. His body was as tense as a trigger-spring. It was long seconds before he responded.
* * *
She felt Stephen get out of bed at close to local midnight. Arles had three moons, but they were too small to cast noticeable illumination.
She didn't speak until she realized that he was putting his clothes on. "Don't go," she whispered.
He bent and kissed her. Then he was gone, and she heard the outside stairs creak with his solid weight.
Somebody on the ground floor was singing, "From this valley they say you are leaving. ." She thought the voice was Tom Harrigan's pleasant baritone.
Sal slept fitfully till dawn. Whenever her eyes closed, she saw the face of the Fed in the tower, lighted by the red flash of her revolver.
BERRYHILL
January 18, Year 27
1451 hours, Venus time
The last of the four transports that had carried the ground forces was the Mount Maat, a sphere-built 400-tonner even older than Whitey Wister, her captain. Stephen visored his eyes against the glare as she lifted with a delicacy the operation's two new vessels might have envied.