Seas of Venus(21)

"How cold do they keep it?" the younger man asked as he looked around the entrance hall. It was dim and a little dingy as well as being cold. Not cool, cold.

"Eighty degrees," Dan said. "Which is wrong—it ought to be pegged to no more than ten degrees below the ambient, but people like to be comfortable when they can . . . and they don't worry about what's going to happen in action, even on a dreadnought, when the cooling plant takes a direct hit."

The door marked "Commander in Chief" was open, but that was just the outer office. The secretary/receptionist at the central desk and electronics console wore the bars of a senior lieutenant.

"Good morning, Commander," the lieutenant said. "Admiral Bergstrom asked if he might have a few minutes alone with Captain Haynes before you joined them."

Captain Haynes demanded a few minutes alone with Admiral Bergstrom, Johnnie translated. His face grew taut. He remembered what his uncle had said about control, but he wasn't able to relax.

Despite all the sophisticated hardware associated with the desk, there was an acetate-covered sign-out chart on one wall of the room. It was printed with boxes in which the names and destinations of officers were written in grease pencil. On the opposite wall was a holographic seascape: pelicans banking over dunes sprinkled with sea oats, while a gentle surf foamed up the strand.

The seascape showed a memory of Earth. Nowhere on Venus was there a scene so idyllic.

"Sure, that's fine, Barton," Dan said easily. "We'll wait in the hall and keep out of your hair."

There were bulletin boards in the hall. One of them listed a handful of apartments in Wenceslas Dome. Dan nodded to it and said, "Leases that got opened up three months ago. They've been pretty well picked over by now."

"Is it going to be all right?" the younger man asked tightly. "With Haynes already there?"

"We'll make it all right, won't we?" Dan said. "Just follow my lead, is all."

He grinned in what seemed good humor and added, "You can think of it as your baptism of fire, John. Only, no matter how bad you screw up, nobody's going to die."

The expression changed minusculy. "For a while, that is."

"You know," Johnnie said, "in all the years I've known you, Uncle Dan, there's only once I've seen you really angry."

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."