Seas of Venus

by David Drake

  Dan chuckled. "You've seen me angry, lad? When was that?"

  "Yesterday. In the Senator's office, when you told him he was a—that he didn't have any balls."

  "Oh, that," the older man said. He chuckled again. "And that's why you decided your father was a coward, is it? Well, you mustn't mistake tones for emotions. The Senator reacts very emotionally to anything involving you—that's just biology, after all. So I—"

  He spread his right hand and looked critically at the nails. "—had to get his attention on the level at which he was operating."

  Johnnie blinked and turned away. "Then it wasn't true?" he said, trying to keep the tremor out of his voice.

  "Look at me," his uncle said. "Look at me."

  "Yessir."

  "What's true is that Mankind has a chance to survive and spread to the stars," the mercenary officer said without raising his voice. "What's true is that I'll do whatever I need to do in order to protect that chance."

  Johnnie was standing rigid. Dan relaxed with a visible shudder and attempted a grin.

  "One more thing and we'll drop this, John," he said. "I want you to remember. I've killed people because it was my job. I've killed people because I was scared. But I've never killed anybody because I was angry."

  Johnnie nodded. "Sure," he said. He would have made the same reply if his uncle had told him it was noon, and the information would have made as much difference to him.

  "Commander?" called Lieutenant Barton from the office doorway. "The Admiral will see you now."

  Dan put his arm around Johnnie's shoulders. "Buck up," he said as they strode forward. " 'Forward into ba-at-tle, see our banners go!' "

  "I'll be fine, Uncle Dan." He really believed it now.

  "Sure you will, John," Dan replied. He settled himself and his sweat-marked uniform into the semblance of the third-ranking officer in the premier mercenary fleet on Venus. "You wouldn't be here if I weren't sure of that."

  Dan motioned Johnnie through the inner doorway first. Captain Haynes, seated in one of the two chairs in front of the Admiral's desk, snapped, "Not him."

  Johnnie paused. Dan's touch moved him into the office.

  "Yes, him, Captain," Dan said as he closed the door and stepped past his nephew. "Recruit Gordon's presence is necessary for this discussion."

  He nodded toward Admiral Bergstrom. "But the explanation won't take very long."

  Admiral Bergstrom's office was large without being spacious. It was filled with enough scrap and rusted metal to suggest a salvage yard.

  One wall held a stenciled swatch of a gunboat's bow panelling. The last digit of the number, Z841–, had vanished into the hole blown by an explosive shell.

  Above the panel was a hand-held rocket launcher of a pattern at least thirty years old. Beside them both was the sun-bleached, shrapnel-torn pennant of a flotilla commander; and, to the right of that in the corner beside the door, was the empty circular frame which had once held the condensing lens of a high-resolution display.

  All four walls were similarly adorned, and larger pieces of junk took up floor-space besides.

  Souvenirs of a life spent in the service of war.

  Admiral Bergstrom looked like a clerk with tired, nervous eyes. His left hand was withered, though he used it to play with a miniature mobile of shrapnel chunks as he looked from one to another of his visitors.

  The rumor Johnnie had overheard in conversations in his father's house was that Bergstrom had a maintenance-level drug habit. The Admiral's dilated pupils suggested the rumor might be true.

  Dan sat. "Sir, it's necessary that Recruit John Gordon be given officer's rank and made my aide without the usual formalities. His background is such that he'll be a credit to the company, but—"

  "That's absurd!" said Haynes, his face darkening.

  Don't be sorry. Be controlled.

  "But it isn't because of that that I make the request," Dan continued. "I presume you've realized that Recruit Gordon is my nephew . . . and Senator Gordon's son. Unfor—"

  "If there was ever a good time to provide, uh, untrained civilians with commissions," Haynes said, "it's not now when we're facing the most severe test in the Blackhorse's history."

  The catch in the captain's voice suggested that he'd intended a less flattering phrase than "untrained civilians." Discretion, and memory of just how powerful a politician's brat Johnnie was, had bridled his tongue.

  "Untrained . . . ," Dan repeated, as if savoring the word on his tongue. Then, sharply but not hostilely, "Johnnie, keep your eyes on me!"

  "Yessir!"

  "There's a lens frame on the wall behind you. Shoot withi—"

  The double cra-crack! of the pistol shots surprised everyone in the office except Commander Cooke; even Johnnie, especially Johnnie, because if he'd thought of what he was doing he'd never've been able to do it. Two rounds, and he didn't turn until the second was away, shockingly loud in a room without a sound-absorbent lining.

  Johnnie thumbed the catch and replaced the partial magazine with a fresh one from his belt pouch. His fingers worked by rote. His first round had starred the concrete wall just beneath the eight-inch ring; his second had struck in the center of the target. Both of the light, high-velocity bullets had disintegrated in sprays of metal against the hard surface.

  The door burst open. "What the—" shouted Lieutenant Barton. His eyes widened and his hand dropped toward the butt of the pistol he carried in a flapped service holster.

  Johnnie slipped his own weapon into his cutaway holster and turned his back on Barton. His ears rang, and the air was cloying with the familiar odor of powder smoke.

  "That won't be necessary, Lieutenant," Dan said, lifting one leg lazily to hang it over the arm of his chair. "Everything's under control here."

  The door closed. Johnnie focused his eyes on a signed group photograph on the wall above Admiral Bergstrom's head.

  "Under control . . . ," Haynes said. "Cooke, you're insane."

  "Now that we've covered the matter of Recruit Gordon's training," Dan said, "there's the serious matter of why—"

  "There's more to training than skill with small arms, Daniel," said the Admiral quietly. "As you know."

  "As I know, sir," Dan agreed. "In everything but hands-on experience, Recruit Gordon compares favorably to the best of our junior lieutenants. But the reason it's necessary that we commission him isn't that we need another officer—useful though that may be . . . but rather, because Senator Gordon doesn't trust us."

  "What?" blurted Captain Haynes.

  What? Johnnie's mind echoed in equal surprise.

  "The Senator has been following our attempts to associate a supporting company with increasing irritation," Dan continued smoothly. "He called me to him to demand an explanation—"

  "That's not yours to give, Daniel," Admiral Bergstrom said with an edge to the words that Johnnie hadn't thought within the capacity of the commander in chief.

  "I know that, sir," Dan continued, nodding. "But I know my ex-brother-in-law also, and there was nothing to be gained by claiming those negotiations were none of my affair, so he'd have to talk to one of you."

  He dipped his head first to Bergstrom, then to Captain Haynes.

  "But that's ridiculous," Haynes protested. "There've been some delays, certainly, but they weren't through any fault of ours."

  "I told the Senator that, yes," Dan said, bobbing agreement.

  "And in any case, now that I'm back it's just a matter of working out the last details of our agreement with Admiral Braun of the Angels," Haynes continued.

  "That I couldn't tell the Senator," Dan said, "because as you know, I don't believe it myself."

  "Right!" blazed Haynes. "You don't believe it because Admiral Braun's a friend of mine. What do you propose, Commander? Working a deal with your great good friend de Lessups in Flotilla Blanche?"

  Johnnie couldn't see his uncle's face as he met Haynes' glare, but his voice seemed as calm as if he were ordering lunch as he rep
lied, "Admiral de Lessups offered me his number two slot last year, Captain. But neither he nor I would expect the other to act dishonorably when our companies were already engaged by rival domes.

  "Any more," Dan continued in a sudden, jagged snarl like that with which he had hectored the Senator, "than I'd expect your Admiral Braun to act honorably at any distance greater than pistol range!"

  "Listen, you—"

  "Gentlemen!"

  "If Braun meant to sign, he'd already have signed!" Dan shouted.

  "I needed to take care of business back at Wenceslas," Haynes retorted with a hint of defensiveness. "I'll meet him face to—"

  "You had to see your wife, you mean!"

  Admiral Bergstrom's right fist rang deliberately on a section of dimpled armor plate on his desktop. "Gentlemen!" he shouted.

  Captain Haynes had jumped into a crouch. He blinked like a sow bear at her first sight of Spring sunshine, then sat—or flopped—into a chair again. His right hand clenched and relaxed; and clenched again. Johnnie couldn't be certain, but he thought the visicube on the desk before Haynes contained an image of his wife.

  "Now that I'm back," Haynes resumed in a voice that was almost falsetto, "I'll go to Paradise Base and knock down the final details." He raised his eyes to meet those of the Admiral. "With your agreement, sir?"

  Bergstrom grimaced. "Yes, yes," he said without enthusiasm. "I would have thought that perhaps Hackney's Wizards were a better bet, but—"

  "The Angels have the big-bore throw weight that'll be crucial, sir," Haynes said earnestly.

  "Yes, well," the Admiral said. "It's really too late to begin negotiations with another fleet, now. And anyway, the Angels will certainly be satisfactory. Almost any company would be, given our own strength."

  Almost under his breath, Bergstrom added, "I don't understand why they seem to be treating the Blackhorse as a pariah. We've always kept up the highest standards. . . ."

  "Yes sir," Haynes said. He rose. "I'll take a hydrofoil to Paradise immediately."

  "And you'll take Ensign Gordon with you," Dan said from his seat.

  "I'll do no—"

  "Because by taking Senator Gordon's trusted observer," Dan continued with icy, battle-order precision. "The Senator's spy, if you will . . . we'll be proving to him that we have nothing to hide."

  Dan stood, a smooth uncoiling of his body from the seat as graceful as the motion with which his nephew drew and fired behind his back. "Isn't that so, Admiral Bergstrom? We have nothing to hide."

  Bergstrom grimaced again. He closed his eyes briefly, looking more than ever like an overworked bookkeeper at the end of the day.

  "Yes, of course," he said at last. "You'll be taking some staff with you to Paradise Base, Captain. I don't see any reason why Ensign Gordon shouldn't be among them."

  Johnnie was looking at his uncle. Commander Cooke grinned.

  10

  From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

  Unnumber'd and enormous polypi

  Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

  —Alfred, Lord Tennyson

  The forward gun tub was decorated with the hydrofoil's stencilled number, M4434, and a freehand rendition of her unofficial name: Bellycutter. There was also a cartoon of an oriental figure to explicate the name for anybody who hadn't seen the casualty rates for torpedoboats.

  The lone sailor on duty behind the twin guns was dozing, but there wasn't much reason for him to be alert. They had sped from Blackhorse across open sea and through the Kanjar Straits. The run was without incident until a pair of skimmers came out of Paradise Base, inspected M4434 as she dropped off her outriggers, and howled back within the harbor at high speed.

  Johnnie stood in the bow, bracing himself against the roll with a hand on the tub's armored rim. The continent of North Hell was a mass of greens and earth tones ahead of M4434, punctuated by concrete and plastic constructions on both jaws of land enveloping the Angels' fine natural harbor.

  The Angels, like Flotilla Blanche and the Warcocks, were based on the periphery of the Ishtar Basin. That would make link-up between the Angels and the Blackhorse—whose atoll was in the Western Ocean—tricky, though not impossible. Even if the direct route via the Kanjar Straits was blocked, there were scores of other passages through the archipelago sweeping around the south and east of the basin.

  The Angels' main installations were on the southern arm of the harbor. They were protected by a wall; beyond the wall a fence which sparkled as high currents fried life forms attempting it; and beyond the fence, strings of flashes and explosions. Guns were firing from the wall, blowing swathes in the nearest vegetation in an attempt to knock it down before roots and branches became a threat to the inner defenses.

  There were signs that the Angels had recently started to clear an area further out so that the present barrier could be given over to expanded facilities. The attempt had been abandoned, probably for the reason Blackhorse had done the same: all available men were working to put the fleet on a war footing.

  If the Angels were preparing for war, then Captain Haynes must be right. What would that do to Uncle Dan's maneuvering?

  The northern landspit was defended but almost unoccupied. At its tip were heavy batteries: railguns and, for engaging enemies over the horizon, conventional artillery in massive casements. The only other installations were those facing the threat of the jungle, which on this side of the harbor was muted.

  While the southern jaw had been in existence for millennia, its northern counterpart was the creation of a volcano within living memory.

  The lava poured out at 4,000O. Though the pullulating life of Venus had robbed the surface of its virginal sterility even before it cooled to air temperature, the fresh rock nonetheless formed a sufficient barrier against the largest and most dangerous of the predatory vegetation.

  A low electrified fence, supported by chemical sprayers and flame guns, protected the gun emplacements from surface roots and the occasional large carnivore which burst from the jungle beyond the two hundred yards of russet lava. In a century—or even a few decades—rain water and the jungle would break the raw rock into permeable soil, with disastrous results for the gun crews on duty when it happened.

  But that would be another day, and the concerns of a mercenary were for the far shorter term. . . .

  Except maybe for Uncle Dan.

  Dan had said to observe everything about Paradise Base, the way he'd reflexively observed Admiral Bergstrom's office as he entered it. Bergstrom and Haynes probably thought Johnnie had been briefed on what to expect during the interview; the exhibition of shooting had impressed them, even Haynes, despite that.

  But the test had been much more extreme than that. Commander Cooke had wanted to see how well his nephew's training responded to genuine field conditions. " . . . your baptism of fire, John. . . ."

  Walcheron, the sailor manning the gun tub, suddenly snapped to alertness.

  Johnnie's left hand made an instinctive grab for the rifle butt-upward beside the unoccupied assistant gunner's seat. His head rotated quickly, scanning to find the cause of alarm.

  There didn't seem to be anything amiss.

  A pair of gliders wheeled high in the white sky, no threat even to a torpedoboat wallowing along on its main hull. The only other vessel in sight was the Angels' net-tending boat. The distance between the jaws of land was too great for the protective nets to be operated from shore, as at Blackhorse Base. Instead, a double-ended fifty-ton vessel equipped with winches accomplished the task from the center of the channel.

  The net-tender was lightly armed, even by torpedoboat standards. Besides, some of the crewmen aboard her were waving cheerfully at the visitor which would break the utter boredom of their duty.

  The man in the gun tub turned to Johnnie. "Your name Gordon?" he asked.

  "Yes—ah, yes," Johnnie replied, catching himself barely before he, an officer, called a seaman "sir."

  The gunner tapped his commo helmet. Jo
hnnie hadn't been offered one—and hadn't wanted to ask—on this trip. "Cap'n Haynes wants t' see you in the stern," the seaman explained, gesturing with his thumb.

  Johnnie opened his mouth to ask what he realized before speaking was a silly question.

  "He wants t' tell you something private, I guess," said the sailor, giving the obvious answer anyway.

  Captain Haynes had made this run (as the previous one, from Wenceslas Dome to Blackhorse Base) in the cockpit. Now he got up from his seat at the control console and made his way sternward. His stocky body rode gracefully through each chop-induced quiver of the deck.

  Haynes didn't bother to look over his shoulder to see that Johnnie was obeying the command.

  "Right," Johnnie said, picking his way carefully along the railing. He wasn't at all steady, though he was sure he'd learn the trick of walking along a pitching deck if he managed to avoid drowning in the near future.

  "Careful, kid," warned a pipe-smoking petty officer amidships. He reached out to steady Johnnie as the youth passed by.

  The sailor was amusing himself by blowing smoke rings onto the sea. Water boiled as predators attacked the insubstantial prey.

  Johnnie wondered if Haynes would permit the torpedoboat to stop and rescue him if he fell overboard. Judging from the way teeth instantly tore the smoke rings, it probably wouldn't matter. . . .

  The deck widened astern of the cockpit. Breathing hard from the earlier portion of the forty-foot journey, Johnnie reached the captain's side.

  Haynes had drawn his heavy pistol. He was looking back over the wake. He didn't turn around.

  Johnnie curled the fingers of his left hand firmly around the cage of ramjet penetrators. "Yes sir?" he said, uncertain whether or not the captain knew he'd arrived.

  "I've been ordered to bring you along, Ensign Gordon," Haynes said.

  He spat. The gobbet sailed to a point six inches from the surface of the water. A fish that was all teeth and shimmering scales curved out of the wake and snatched the spittle from the air.

  Haynes fired, blasting a waterspout just short of the target. The explosive bullet sprayed bits of miniature shrapnel into the fish so that it left a slick of blood as it resubmerged.