"Piet?" Gregg said.
"Um?" his friend said, grinning wryly back over his shoulder.
"Why did we come here at all?"
Ricimer looked front again and nodded his head. "Because I had to see," he said at last. "See the Mirror, and see how President Pleyal was really developing the worlds he claims."
He looked back at Gregg again. All the humor was gone from his face. "They can't be allowed to continue, Stephen," he said. "Everything here, everything on Jewelhouse and Biruta and everywhere the Federation squats-slavery, cruelty, and no chance of survival if there's the least shock to the home government. Mankind will return to the stars. President Pleyal and his henchmen can't be allowed to stop it, no matter what it takes."
"Oh, I know what it'll take," Stephen Gregg said, as much to himself as to his friend. His right hand rested on the grip of his flashgun, while his left gently rubbed the weapon's barrel. "And it can be arranged, you bet."
32
Near Rondelet
"We ought to go down and get them," said Adrien Ricimer. "There's probably a dozen ships on Rondelet for the taking."
He turned. Because everyone aboard the Peaches wore his hard suit, there was much less room than usual in the featherboat's interior. Adrien's elbow clacked against the back of Gregg's suit. For an instant, Gregg's right fist bunched. He didn't look around. After a moment, he relaxed.
"I watched the Rose come down with her thrusters shot away, boy," Dole said from the scanner readout. "I don't much want to watch from the inside when another drops."
The featherboat slowly orbited Rondelet at ten light-seconds distance; the Dalriada kept station a little less than a light-second away. Piet had narrowed the viewscreen field to the image of the planet alone, since a spherical panorama was useless on this scale, but even so Rondelet was no more than a cloud-streaked blue bead.
Radar and even optical magnifiers on the planet could find the ships. There was no reason to assume that would happen so long as the Venerians kept their thrusters and transit apparatus shut down. Chances were good that an incoming Federation vessel would spend a number of close orbits trying to raise an operator on the planet's surface who could supply landing information.
"Ionization track," said Dole.
Coye, crewing the plasma weapon with Leon, reacted by latching down his faceshield. There was no need for that yet, but the slap click startled Gregg into doing the same thing. Gregg quickly reopened his visor, embarrassed but obscurely happy to have something to do with his hands at a moment he had no duties.
"Adrien," Piet Ricimer ordered his brother, "get the Dalriada. We'll handle this, but they're to be ready to support us. Leon, don't run the gun out until I order. Everyone, check your suit now before we open up."
As Ricimer spoke, his fingers accessed scanner data and imported it to the AI's navigational software. The AI would set a course for interception, updating it regularly as further information came in.
Gregg peered over the console toward the viewscreen, trying to make out the target they were hunting. It might not have registered as yet on the small-scale optical display.
"I'm lighting the thrusters," Piet Ricimer said.
The featherboat shook like a wet dog as the separate engines came on-line at fractionally different moments. Ricimer held the thrusters to low output, just enough to give the Peaches maneuvering way.
Gregg shook his head and laughed harshly. Jeude, crouched across the central chest from Gregg, looked at him in concern. The two of them would be the boarding party, if and when it came to that.
Behind Gregg, Adrien talked excitedly to Captain Dulcie of their consort. "Don't worry about me," Gregg said. "I just want it to happen. But it'll happen soon enough."
"I'm about to engage the AI," Piet Ricimer said. His voice was clear and calm-but also loud enough to be heard throughout a larger vessel than the Peaches.
Gregg clamped his armored left arm to a stanchion. He held the flashgun to his chest with his right, so that it wouldn't flail around under acceleration. He should have checked his satchel of reloads again, but there would be time for that. .
"Enga-"
Gregg's tripes everted repeatedly in a series that had by now become familiar if not comfortable. It was like watching an acrobat do backflips, only these were in four dimensions and he was them.
"— ging."
Rondelet vanished from the viewscreen. A fleck of light grew between intervals of transit, when grayness blinked like a camera shutter across the screen. At the sixth jump, the fleck was a ship for the instant before disappearing through transit space.
On the seventh jump, the Peaches and its target were parallel and so apparently close on the screen that Gregg imagined that he could pucker and spit across to the other vessel's metal hull. He closed his visor, though for the moment he left the vents open to save the hard suit's air bottle.
"I'll take the communicator, Adrien," Piet said. He lifted the handset from his brother's half-resisting grip and switched it from radio to modulated laser.
The screen blanked and cleared. The vessels retained the same alignment, though they must have shifted some distance within the sidereal universe. The featherboat's AI had locked courses with the Federation ship. For the moment, the Fed crew was probably unaware that they had company, but they had no chance now of escaping.
There were infinite possible actions but only one best solution. Given the task of predicting what another navigational computer would do, an AI with sufficient data could find the correct answer every time.
"Federation cargo vessel," Ricimer said in a voice punctuated by intervals of transit. "Shut down your drives and prepare for boarding. If you cooperate, you won't be harmed. Shut down your drives."
"Sir," said Leon. "I want to run the gun out."
"Go ahead, Leon," Ricimer agreed calmly.
The bosun activated the hydraulics which opened the bow port and slid the muzzle of the plasma cannon clear of the hull. A flexible gaiter made an attempt at sealing the gap between hull and gun tube, but it leaked so badly that Dole shut down the Peaches' environmental system as soon as Ricimer ordered the gun brought to battery.
Pressure in the featherboat's hull dropped abruptly. The vents in Gregg's suit closed automatically and he began to breathe dry bottled air. Sound came through his feet.
Another jump. Another. The Federation vessel was no longer on the viewscreen. Adrien swore.
Another jump and there was the target again, the four thrusters podded on its belly brilliant. At this range the Peaches' 50-mm plasma cannon would shatter all the nozzles and probably open the hull besides.
The Fed ship wasn't very prepossessing. Judging from hull fittings of standard size, particularly the personnel hatch, it was barely larger than the featherboat-30 tonnes burden at most. It was a simple vessel, even crude. Gregg suspected it had been built here in the Reaches in a plant like the one they'd viewed on the mirrorside of Benison.
"Take the heathens, sir!" Lightbody said from the attitude controls. The processor in Gregg's helmet flattened the voice transmitted by infrared intercom.
"Federation vessel-" Ricimer began. As he spoke, vacuum drank the target's exhaust flare. For a moment, the nozzles stood out, cooling visibly against the hull their glow lighted. The Feds vanished again; the Peaches jumped and they did not.
The featherboat's AI corrected. After a final, gut-wrenching motion, the Peaches lay alongside the target. The thrusters and transit drives of both vessels were shut down.