Seas of Venus Read online

  A red light glowed on the wall above the door. Somebody was in the anteroom, watching the sequence through closed-circuit cameras.

  The muscles of Johnnie's lean face set in a pattern scarcely recognizable as the visage of the good-looking youth of a moment before. He holstered his weapon and touched the door control.

  "Well," he said as the armored door rotated and withdrew, "are you satisfied, Sena—"

  The man in the anteroom wore a Blackhorse dress uniform, with the gold pips and braid of a commander. His only similarity to Senator A. Rolfe Gordon was that both men were in their mid-forties—

  And they'd been brothers-in-law before the Senator's wife ran off with a mercenary not long after she gave birth to Johnnie.

  "Uncle Dan!" cried Johnnie. He started toward Commander Daniel Cooke with his arms wide . . . before he remembered that what was proper for a boy of nine should have been outgrown by nineteen. He drew back in embarrassment.

  Uncle Dan gave him a devil-may-care grin and embraced Johnnie. "What's the matter?" he demanded. "Did I develop skin-rot since I last saw you?"

  He stepped back and viewed the younger man critically. "Though I won't," he said, "offer to swing you up in the air any more."

  "Gee it's good to . . . ," Johnnie said. "I wasn't expecting to see you."

  "I have a meeting with the Senator this morning," Dan explained. "And I thought I'd come a little early to see my favorite nephew."

  "Ah . . . shall we go somewhere comfortable?"

  "If you don't mind," replied his uncle, "I'd like to watch you run through a sequence or two."

  Dan's smile didn't change, but his voice was a hair too casual when he added, "The Senator comes to watch you frequently, then?"

  "No," said Johnnie flatly. "Not often at all. But too often."

  His face cleared. "But I'd love to show you the set-up, Uncle Dan. The screens in the anteroom—"

  "I'd prefer to be in the simulator with you," Dan said. He lifted his saucer hat and ran his fingers through his black, curly hair. "Though I won't be shooting."

  "There's some danger even with the—" Johnnie began until his uncle's brilliant grin stopped him.

  Right, explain the danger of ricochets to Commander Daniel Cooke, whose ship took nine major-caliber hits three months ago while blasting her opponent in Squadron Monteleone to wreckage.

  "Sorry, Uncle Dan."

  "Never apologize for offering information that might save somebody's life," Dan said. "Got a jungle sequence in this system?"

  "This system's got about everything!" Johnnie answered with pride as the gray walls dissolved into a mass of stems, leaves, and dim green terror. As the holographic simulation appeared, the climate control raised sharply the temperature and humidity of the air it pumped into the environment.

  They were on the edge of a clearing, a dimpled expanse of yellow-brown mud. The surface was too thin to provide purchase for any plants save those which crawled about slowly on feather-fringed roots. Creatures with armored hides had trampled a path around the periphery of the clearing, through the brambles that were now curling to reclaim the terrain.

  A bubble rose from the mud and burst flatulently.

  "The trouble with the simulator," Johnnie said in a whisper, "is that you know there's something there in the mud."

  The air was still and as moist as a sponge.

  "Which makes it exactly like the land anywhere on Venus' surface," said his uncle, also speaking quietly. "Go on, then."

  Johnnie took a step forward. If he'd been expecting to run a jungle sequence, he'd have equipped himself with a powered cutting-bar and a more powerful handgun. . . .

  His left arm brushed aside a curtain of gray tendrils, roots hanging from an air plant to absorb water from the atmosphere—and entangle small flying creatures whose juices would be absorbed to feed the plant. The simulator couldn't duplicate the touch of vegetation, but a jet of air stroked Johnnie's sleeve to hint at the contact.

  A swamp-chopper exploded toward them from the oozing muck.

  Johnnie drew and fired. His thumb rocked the grip's feed-switch forward even as the first two rounds of explosive bullets cracked out, shattering the creature's stalked eyes.

  Johnnie threw himself sideways. He fired the remainder of the magazine as solids which could penetrate the swamp-chopper's armored carapace while the blinded monster thrashed in the vegetation where Johnnie had been.

  Genetically, the swamp-chopper was a crab, but ionizing radiation and the purulent surface of Venus had modified the creature's ancestors into man-sized predators. They retained lesser arthropods' unwillingness to die. Despite 18 rounds into its thorax, the creature was still trying to claw through the bole of the holographic tree with which it had collided in its blind rush.

  Johnnie slapped a fresh magazine into his pistol and aimed.

  Dan put a hand on his arm. "Forget it," he said. "Don't worry about the ones that can't hurt you. Let's—"

  "Cooke?" boomed an amplified voice. "Cooke! What are you doing here?"

  Both men turned. The red light which glowed in the heart of a thicket of holographic bamboo indicated that someone was in the simulator's anteroom.

  "Duty calls, lad," said Dan, rising to his feet. Johnnie shut the system down, just as something green, circular, and huge sailed toward them from the middle canopy.

  Dan opened the door. Senator Gordon stood in the anteroom with his legs braced apart and his hands in the pockets of his frock coat. He neither stepped forward nor offered to shake hands.

  Dan offered an ironic salute. "Good to see you again, Senator," he said.

  "If I'd known you had nothing on your mind but playing foolish games with my son, Commander Cooke," Gordon said, "I wouldn't have bothered making time in my schedule to see you. Particularly at this juncture."

  Dan ostentatiously shot his cuff to look at the bioelectrical watch imprinted onto the skin of his left wrist. He didn't bother to say that he was still twenty-three minutes early for his appointment because Gordon was already well aware of the fact.

  "The games I've come to discuss aren't silly ones, Senator," Dan said coolly.

  "For that matter—" he added with a raised eyebrow "—these simulations aren't silly either. Which is why I offered to buy Johnnie a membership to a commercial range."

  "Yes, of course," the Senator said. When he was angry, as now, a flush crept up his jowls and across the hair-fringed expanse of his bare scalp. "You'd have had John spending all his time in the warehouse district. No thank you, Cooke. I can afford to accommodate my son's whims in a less destructive way."

  "Right," said Johnnie in a brittle voice that sounded years younger than that in which he had been speaking to his uncle. "You got me the simulator, all right. After you knew Dan had already taken out a membership for me at Action Sports!"

  "Something I've learned over the years," Dan said mildly, "is that the reasons don't matter so long as the job gets done."

  He smiled at his nephew, but his face cleared to neutrality as he focused on Senator Gordon again. "But that's not what we're here to discuss . . . and I think your office would be a better location."

  Johnnie nodded. "I'm really glad to see you again, Uncle Dan," he said. "Maybe if you have time—"

  "No," said his uncle, "I'd like you to accompany us, Johnnie. You see—" and his face segued again from smile to armed truce as his eyes locked again with those of his ex-brother-in-law "—this concerns you as well as the Senator. And everyone else on Venus."

  Gordon's face was just as hard as that of Commander Cooke. "Yes," he said after a moment. "All right."

  As Johnnie followed the two older men into the elevator to the Senator's penthouse office, his heart was beating with a rush of excitement greater than that he'd felt minutes before in the simulator.

  He didn't know what was going on.

  But he knew that it wasn't a simulation.

  2

  There is a Hand that bends our deeds

 
To mightier issues than we planned:

  Each son that triumphs, each that bleeds,

  My country, serves Its dark command.

  —Richard Hovey

  Senator Gordon's office befitted the most powerful man in Wenceslas Dome—and mayhap in all of Venus. The penthouse windows commanded a sweeping vision, down across the city and up to the black ceramic dome.

  In the center of the dome hung a ball of white light, framed in black swags: an image of Earth as she had become, and a warning to the generations of Venus why nuclear power had to be banned if Mankind were to survive in this her remaining refuge.

  "Sit down, sit down," said the Senator as he stepped behind his broad, ostentatiously empty desk and seated himself.

  Johnnie obeyed, his face expressionless. He'd only been in his father's office a dozen times during his life, and he'd never before been invited to sit.

  The cushion sagged deeply beneath him. He looked across the desk at the Senator and found that he was looking up.

  Uncle Dan, moving as gracefully as a leopard, sat on the arm of his chair. The mercenary officer smiled frequently, but there was more humor than usual in his expression as he winked at Johnnie and then returned his attention to Senator Gordon.

  The Senator spread his hands flat on the desktop in a pattern as precise as the growth of coral fronds. He didn't look at them. "I want to make it clear before we begin, Commander," he said, "that negotiations between Wenceslas Dome and the Blackhorse are conducted between the Military Committee and your commanding officer, Admiral Bergstrom. Not between me and you."

  Dan raised an eyebrow. "And you can't speak for the Military Committee, Senator?" he said in false concern. "There's been a coup, then?"

  The Senator became very still. "No, Commander," he said. "But there hasn't been a change of leadership in the Blackhorse either. Has there?"

  "No, quite right," Dan said. He spoke easily but with no attempt to feign nonchalance. "Admiral Bergstrom talks about retirement, but I think it'll be years—unless he dies in harness."

  The soft cushions made Johnnie feel as though he were cocooned and invisible. Neither of the older men seemed aware of his presence.

  "Whereupon," the Senator continued, "he'll be succeeded by Captain Haynes . . . whom you hate rather more than you hate me, don't you, Commander?"

  Dan shrugged and turned up his left hand in a gesture of dismissal. "Oh, I don't hate Captain Haynes, Senator," he said. "He's as good an administrative officer as a mercenary company could have . . . but a little too much of a traditionalist, I think, to become Admiral of the Blackhorse at a time when Wenceslas Dome is overturning so many traditions."

  It was like watching a scorpion battle a centipede. Uncle Dan feinted and backed, but his manner always hinted of a lethal sting, waiting for the right moment. The Senator drove on implacably, trusting in the armor of his certainty; absolutely determined.

  "Now, if you said Captain Haynes hated me more than any other man on Venus . . . ," Dan added. "In that, I think you might be correct."

  The Senator sniffed. "A distinction without a difference," he said. "And in any case, Blackhorse internal politics are of no concern to me. All that matters to Wenceslas—to the Federated Domes—is that the Blackhorse stand ready to earn the retainer we pay you. If there's a problem with your side of the bargain, perhaps it's time for us to engage some other fleet."

  Dan pouted his lips in agreement and said, "Yeah, that's the problem all right, Senator. That's just what I came to talk to you about."

  Nobody in the office breathed for ten long seconds.

  The Senator checked a security read-out on the corner of his desk; found it still a satisfactory green. "Say what you came to say, Daniel," he said, speaking as flatly as if his words clicked out through the mandibles of a centipede.

  "Heidigger Dome has hired Flotilla Blanche," Dan said. "Carolina's got the Warcocks. We could handle either one of them without problems. If Blackhorse alone faces both of them together, then that's all she wrote. For us. And for you."

  Johnnie expected Dan to undercut the weight of his words with a shrug or a grin. Instead, the mercenary officer's voice was as emotionless as that of the dome politician a moment before.

  "Yes," said the Senator, "of course. So you'll have to associate another fleet for the duration."

  Senator Gordon's penthouse was designed to impress, but it was a working office as well. Johnnie flipped up the right armrest of his chair to expose the keypad there. His fingertips began to summon data while his eyes flicked back and forth between the older men.

  "We need to associate another fleet," said Dan, the emphasis making clear there was more than agreement in the words. "But no other fleet will deal with us. Nobody I trust."

  Holograms of the three fleets sprang to life in the air on either flank of the desk: Blackhorse to the Senator's right in blue symbols, Flotilla Blanche and the Warcocks to the left in red and orange respectively.

  Senator Gordon looked startled. He glanced about the room for a moment before he noticed his son's hand on the keypad. Dan's eyes narrowed, but there was no other change in his expression.

  The Senator's focus returned to the core of the discussion.

  "That's not good enough," he said, slapping the words out like a poker player showing his hand a card at a time. "The retainer Wenceslas Dome has paid you over the past five years has made the Blackhorse the most powerful fleet on Venus . . . and the most profitable. If you're trying to cut corners now, you're going to regret it."

  He pointed his index finger. It looked white and pudgy compared to the mercenary's sinews and mahogany tan, but there was no doubting the reality of the threat the gesture implied. "You will, Daniel. And Admiral Bergstrom. And every member of the Blackhorse."

  "I didn't say the other fleets rejected the deals we were offering, Arthur," Dan answered calmly. "I said they wouldn't deal with us at all."

  For an instant, his lips curved into a grin as humorless as the edge of a fighting knife. "We of the Blackhorse have done very well from our association with Wenceslas, as you say. Unfortunately, others have noticed that and decided to . . . do something about the matter."

  Dan pointed at the columns of blue ships. "Leaving us with that," he said. "And you with that as well, Arthur . . . because I don't think your idea of a Federation of Venus is any more popular among your peers than the Blackhorse is with ours."

  There were eighteen dreadnoughts in the display's first blue column, but two of the symbols were carated: ships so seriously damaged in battle three months before that they were still out of service.

  Across from the Blackhorse array were twelve red battleships and ten orange. One of the latter symbols was marked with a flashing carat, indicating it was doubtful. Because of the long association, Wenceslas Dome's data bank had much better information on the Blackhorse than on any of the other fleets.

  In light forces, the disparity of strength was even more marked. Each of the three companies had a pair of the carriers which bore gliders and light surface vessels into the battle zone. The orange and red columns showed an advantage of two to one in cruisers and three to two in destroyers.

  Only in submarines did the Blackhorse rise to near equality with its combined opponents. Near equality is a synonym for inferiority.

  "Why hasn't Admiral Bergstrom told me this?" the Senator asked quietly. Before there could be an answer, he rephrased the question: "Why are you telling me this, Daniel?"

  "Admiral Bergstrom doesn't like to bear bad news," Dan said. "He thinks there must be a way out, though he doesn't see one. Captain Haynes thinks there is a way out. Haynes was one of the founding members of the Angels, and he's convinced that he can bring Admiral Braun into an agreement with us."

  Johnnie's fingers tapped the keypad.

  "And you think?" the Senator prompted in a voice as dry as the sound of a rattlesnake sliding over leaves.

  "I think there's a way to win, yes," said the mercenary. "But neither Be
rgstrom nor Haynes are going to find it."

  The Angels' forces now hung in slate-gray holograms alongside those of the Blackhorse. The smaller company was lopsidedly weak in cruisers and destroyers, and they had no carriers at all. When the Angels operated alone, they had to depend instead on skimmers launched from their dreadnoughts to keep hostile hydrofoils and surface-effect torpedoboats at bay.

  But the Angels did have five battleships; and the nine 18-inch guns mounted on the newest of them, the Holy Trinity, made her a match for any ship on the planet in a one-to-one slugfest.

  The Senator, his eyes on the blue and gray columns of the display, said, "You don't believe your forces, strengthened by the Angels, can successfully engage the fleets hired by Heidigger and Carolina, Commander?"

  The question mark curled in his voice like the popper of a bullwhip.

  "I wouldn't believe Admiral Braun if he told me the sea was wet, Senator," Dan said. "Captain Haynes is a perfectly truthful man, making him—"

  "Making him very different from you, Commander!" Senator Gordon's face was gorged with blood. Watching him, Johnnie suddenly realized that "shooting the messenger who brings bad tidings" had not always been an empty phrase.

  "Making him unsuitable as a negotiator with Admiral Braun," the mercenary continued. "And making him an unsuitable choice for Admiral, in my opinion; but that's neither here nor there. The present problem is that whatever Haynes thinks, the Angels won't be supporting us when it comes to the crunch."

  Uncle Dan's voice was calm only in the sense that an automatic weapon shows no emotion as it cycles through the contents of its feed tray.

  "I see," said the Senator. "You believe that because Wenceslas Dome is pursuing a practical plan of confederation, the leaders of the other domes are concerned at their potential loss of power—"

  "As you already knew, Arthur."

  The Senator nodded. "As I already knew. And the fleets, equally concerned that a Venus united in peace will have no further need for them, are refusing to ally themselves with the Blackhorse. Making it impossible for the Blackhorse to engage the forces hired by Heidigger and Carolina."