"Say," said another of the Dalriadans plaintively as he donned his armor, "does anybody know what that other ship's doing here with our two?"
"I don't know what it's doing," Gregg said as he waited for his men to equip themselves, "but I'm pretty sure what it is, is the Adler. They're Germans from United Europe."
He paused while he remembered Virginia. "The captain's a man named Schremp," he added. "I could have lived a good deal longer without seeing him again."
Dole had brought the Halys in between two ships lying within a hundred meters of one another. It was a form of bragging, proving how much better he could do than the Halys' AI.
It had also been dangerous, but Gregg felt too bloody-minded to care if misjudgment sent them crashing through the side of the Dalriada. Anyway, it was a short walk hatch-to-hatch in the brutal wind.
The ramp to the Dalriada's forward hold dropped as soon as Gregg opened the Halys. He and his crew started toward the larger vessel. A single man waited for them in the hold. He raised his visor as they entered.
It was Piet Ricimer.
"Good Christ!" Gregg blurted. "Piet, I-Dulcie told me you were dead."
"Thanks to the goodness of Christ," Ricimer said, a reproof so gentle you had to know him well to recognize it, "nothing happened to me that rest and a great deal of blood plasma couldn't cure."
He glanced toward the ramp. "I'm going to close the hatch now," he said, reaching for the control. "You'd better step forward, Gallois."
Gregg embraced him. Their suits clashed together loudly.
"I thought you were, were lost too, Stephen," Ricimer murmured. "When I came to, I asked where you were. They said they were sure you'd lifted off of Umber, but you hadn't joined them on the run to Sunrise."
"Them bastards took off like scalded cats!" Dole snarled. "And us in a Federation pig that thinks it's a miracle to come within four zeros of her setting on a transit. Of course we were going to be a couple days behind, if the bastards didn't wait up on us!"
"I've got something to discuss with Captain Dulcie," Gregg said in a voice as pale as winter dawn. He clapped his friend on the back and moved toward the companionway to the bridge.
Ricimer stepped in front of him. "No, Stephen," he said. "I made the plans, I gave the orders. The fault was mine."
"You were unconscious!" Gregg shouted.
"I was responsible!" Ricimer shouted. They were chest-to-chest. "I am responsible, under God, for the future success of this voyage. Me!"
Both men eased back by half-steps. They were breathing hard. "Stephen," Ricimer said softly. "What's done is done. It's the future that counts. Those mistakes won't happen again."
Gregg smiled savagely. "So, it's forgive and forget, is that it, Piet?" he said.
"No, Stephen," Ricimer said. "Just forgive." He wet his lips with his tongue. "It was good enough for our Lord, after all."
Gregg laughed. He turned to his crew. "How do you men feel about that?" he asked mildly.
Men shrugged within their hard suits. "Whatever you say, sir," Stampfer said.
Gregg put his flashgun muzzle-down on the deck. "What I say," he said, "is that we all swore an oath to obey Captain Ricimer when we signed on for this voyage. So I guess we'd better do that."
He grinned lopsidedly at his friend.
Ricimer unlatched his hard suit. "We can leave all the gear here," he said. "I'll be going back aboard the Peaches after the meeting myself."
"Meeting?" Gregg repeated as he began to strip off his armor also.
"Yes," Ricimer said. "You're just in time for it. Captain Schremp has a crewman who was aboard the Tolliver when we refitted here on the previous voyage. As a result he located us, and he wants us to join forces with him on the next stage of our operations. ."
40
Sunrise
A dozen members of the Dalriada crew bent over equipment in the compartment adjoining the bridge and captain's suite. They weren't precisely lurking; even after the casualties on Umber, space aboard the 70-tonne vessel was tight. There was no question that the men's nervous attention was directed toward the meeting in the next chamber.
Besides the Dalriadans, three metal hard suits stood in pools of condensate. One of the suits was silvered, and the rifle slung from it was the ornate, pump-action repeater Gregg had seen Captain Schremp carrying.
Ricimer led Gregg onto the bridge. The ten men already there crowded it. Only Wassail among the Dalriada's officers would meet Gregg's cold eyes, but the Germans nodded to the newcomers.
To Gregg's surprise, Schremp clearly recognized him. Of course, Gregg hadn't forgotten Captain Schremp. .
"Rondelet," the German captain boomed before Ricimer had seated himself again at the head of the chart table. "There's a hundred occupied islands with Fed ships at a score of them at any given time. None of them are defended to the degree that'll be a problem to you and me together."
He waved a hairy, powerful hand. "Umber was suicide. You were lucky to get out of it as well as you did, Ricimer."
"Umber might not have been such a problem," said Stephen Gregg from where he stood by the hatch, "except some idiot had botched a raid two weeks before and roused the whole region."
One of the Germans muttered a curse and started to get up from his chair. Schremp waved him down with a curt gesture and said, "We needed a featherboat on Umber, that is so. On Rondelet your featherboat comes in low, eliminates the defense battery, and the larger ships drop down and finish the job. Together, it's easy."
"Our raid on Umber wasn't such a failure as it may have appeared to outsiders," Ricimer said coolly. "I've reviewed the pilotry data we gathered there, and it's clear that the Federation holds Rondelet in considerable strength. Each of the magnates there has an armed airship of his own. . and as you've pointed out, Captain Schremp, there are more than a hundred of these individual fiefdoms."
"They're spread out," insisted one of Schremp's henchmen, a squat fellow with blond hair on his head but a full red beard. "We pick an island where a ship is loading, strip the place, and we're gone before the neighbors wake up."
"Or," Ricimer said, "we're a few seconds late in lifting off, and there's a score of airships circling the island, waiting to put plasma bolts into our thrusters when we're a thousand meters up. I think not."
Schremp's hands clenched on the chart table. He deliberately opened them and forced his face into a smile. "Come now, Captain Ricimer," he said in a falsely jocular tone. "There are always risks, of course, but these Principals as they call themselves-they live like kings on their little islands, yes, but they don't have armies. A dozen or so armed Molts for show, that is all. They won't fight."
"My late brother," Ricimer said with a perfect absence of emotion, "was saying something very similar when a Molt killed him."
Gregg's face went as blank as his friend's. He'd wondered why Adrien wasn't present. . He reached over, regardless of the others, and squeezed Ricimer's shoulder.
"The Earth Convoy will top off and refit on Rondelet on its way to Umber," Wassail put in. He'd obviously studied and understood the data lifted from Umber's Commandatura also. "It's due anytime now."
"All right," snarled the blond German, "what do you propose we do? Calisthenics on the beautiful beaches outside and then go home?"
"No, Mr. Groener," Ricimer said. "My men and I are going to Benison. What your party does is of course your own affair."
"Benison?" Schremp cried. "Benison! There's nothing but local trade there. Food ships to Rondelet and Umber. Where's the profit there?"