Seas of Venus(22)

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.