Free The Reaches by David Drake Page A

question because of the greater frequency of landings. Transits—again, that varies, but obviously the greater number of entries increases the possibility of system failure and of being caught in a pattern of rising gradients in which a vessel shakes its hull apart in trying to enter transit space."
    The spacer tapped his right index finger on his chair arm while his eyes stared at a point beyond the Factor's ear. "I would say," he continued as his eyes locked with those of his questioner, "five percent on a well-found vessel, but I'll admit that the Sultan wasn't in the best condition, and I can't claim to have full confidence in the ship-handling abilities of the Dove 's officers."
    Ricimer smiled bleakly. "You'll pardon me for frankness, sir," he said.
    "I'll pardon you for anything except telling me damned lies, lad," the Factor said, "and there seems little risk of that. But—what about the Federation and the Southern Cross, then? I've had more reports of the voyage than this one, you know."
    The older man brushed the sheaf of hard copy with his fingers. "It's all over Betaport, you see. My Stephen there"—he nodded, Uncle Ben again for the instant—"acquitted himself like a Gregg, and that surprises me no more than his accounts do. But one lucky bolt from a plasma cannon and there's your thrusters, your ship . . . and all hope of profit for your investors, lad."
    His eyes were on his nephew now, not Ricimer. "And families at home to grieve besides."
    Gregg jumped to his feet. "Christ's wounds, Uncle Ben!" he shouted. "Do you think I'm a, I'm a—" He shrugged angrily. "Some kind of a damned painting that's so delicate I'll fade if I'm put out in the light?"
    "I think," the Factor said, "that I'm an old man, Stephen. When I die, I don't choose to explain to my late brother how I provided the rope with which his son hanged himself."
    "I'll not be coddled!"
    "I'm not offering to coddle you!" the Factor boomed. "Come and work for me, boy, and I'll grind you into all the hardest problems Gregg Trading falls against. If you can handle them, then—well, my brother had sons, and I have Gregg Trading. What I won't do is send you to swim with sharks."
    Piet Ricimer stood up. He put his hand in the crook of Gregg's elbow. "Let me speak, Stephen," he said in a quiet, trembling voice.
    Gregg turned his back on his uncle.
    "Sir," Ricimer said. "You say you don't mind frankness, and I don't know any other way to be."
    The Factor nodded curtly, a gesture much like that with which Ricimer had acknowledged the question a moment before.
    "You'll survive and prosper if you hold to the in-system trade," the spacer said. "So will your heir and very likely his heir, if they're as able as you. What won't survive if you and the other leading merchants who respect you turn your backs on it is trade from Venus to the stars."
    "Assuming that's true," Gregg of Weyston said carefully, "which I do not assume except for discussion—what of it? When humanity was at its height before the Collapse, ninety-eight percent of the humans in the universe were within the solar system. There'll always be trade for us here."
    "There were twenty billion people on Earth before the Collapse," Ricimer replied evenly. "If there are twenty million today, I'll be surprised. Earth is a poisoned hulk. Venus is—the Lord put us on Venus to make us strong, sir, but nobody can think our world is more than a way station on the path of God's plan. The other in-system colonies breed men who are freaks, too weak for lack of gravity to live on any normal planet. We need the stars."
    Gregg faced slowly around again. He was embarrassed by his outburst. If there had been a way to ease back into his chair, he would have done so.
    "Man needs the stars, I accept," the Factor agreed with another nod. "And man is retaking them. Now, I don't accept Brisbane's dividing the Reaches between America and the Southerns, either—as a matter of principle. But principle makes a bad