Seas of Venus(25)

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.

Seconds later, the wake surged in a feeding frenzy more violent than a grenade going off.

Johnnie relaxed. If that was meant to impress me . . . he thought.

He'd almost put two rounds of his own through the head of the fish before it went under; but he had a task to carry out for Uncle Dan. This wasn't the time or place to show off.

Haynes holstered his weapon without reloading and gave Johnnie a satisfied smirk. "I'm under orders to bring you along," he repeated, "but that doesn't mean you'll be present during the negotiations. I'm not taking a chance of some untrained kid blurting the wrong thing and putting the whole deal at risk. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir," Johnnie said. He even agreed. After all, a deal with the Angels would be the best proof possible that the Blackhorse wasn't attempting some phony game to fool Senator Gordon.

"And don't try to scare me with what your father's going to say," Haynes continued in a rising voice. "The deal I cut with Admiral Braun will prove that the Blackhorse has been negotiating in good faith."

"Yessir," Johnnie said. He wondered if Haynes was stupid—unlikely, given his position—or whether the captain just thought that everybody he disliked was stupid.

"There'll be bars open at Paradise Base," Haynes continued. "Or you can stay with the boat if you like. Just keep out of trouble or I swear it won't matter who your relatives are."

"Yessir."

Haynes strode past him, back to the cockpit.

Johnnie rubbed his right palm on his thigh. His uniform had been soaked with spray on the high-speed run, but the hammering sun dried the cloth in minutes after the M4434 dropped off her foils.

He really wished he'd showed up Haynes' clumsy marksmanship; but there'd be another time. . . .

He wiped his gunhand again and returned to the bow while the torpedoboat rocked and waited for the outer net to open. He could just as easily have waited where he was, but then somebody might have thought he was afraid to chance the narrow catwalk amidships.

Johnnie reached the bow in time to steady himself against the gun tub when the auxiliary thruster accelerated M4434 through the minimal opening which the net-tender drew for them.

Reverse thrust slowed the hydrofoil again. A derrick on the net-tender's bow slid the folds of net forward again to mate with the line of buoys holding up the fixed portion of the meshes. The water was a deep blue-green, slimed with wastes discharged from the base installations.

Something else had entered with M4434. A paddle-tipped tentacle as big around as a pony keg curled out of the water and wrapped itself around the net-tender.

For an instant, all the chaos and violence was of the squid's doing. A second long tentacle encircled the little vessel. There was a flurry of foam and a mass of shorter tentacles, writhing like Medusa's hair, drew six feet of the squid's mauve body up the net-tender's starboard side.

The vessel bobbed. Waves lapped its starboard rail.

Three, then a dozen guns opened up from the hydrofoil and the net-tender itself. Explosive bullets dimpled the sea, the net-tender's hull, and the squid. Johnnie snatched out the automatic rifle as the gunner spun his twin-sixties to bear.