Seas of Venus(34)

Johnnie stepped to the window. The glazed slit was eight inches high, but the thirty-two-inch bridge armor it peered through made the opening seem as narrow as the slots in a jalousie.

The Holy Trinity was deep within the bay and closer to the northern side than the main occupied area on the south. That was desirable for the present purpose, since the mile or more the shells had to travel would give them a chance to stabilize, thus limiting the chances of a wild round. The 5.25-inch guns were only secondary armament for a dreadnought, but their shells were big enough to cause real problems if they landed among the base defenses they were firing to support.

The bridge was forward of the secondary battery amidships, but holographic displays inset every two yards beneath the viewslit showed the entire vessel—a quick reference for purposes of damage assessment. Seven of the eight secondary turrets were aligned with their twin guns perpendicular to the ship's axis. The front turret on the right side pointed just off the bow.

"Fire one," said the OOD.

The right-hand of the pair of guns in hologram flashed and recoiled. The Holy Trinity rang like a railroad collision, and a ball of orange powder gases hid the viewslit for an instant.

If these are the secondaries, what happens when the big guns fire?

The spark of the shell landing was almost lost in the jungle beyond the gash of bare No-Man's-Land, but it bloomed into a cloud of devouring white smoke. The consoles twittered inaudibly with exchanges between base control and the guard units engaged with the non-human threat.

Johnnie turned to Sal, standing beside him, and asked, "Are the turrets manned, then?"

"All automatic," Sal said with a shake of his head. "You only need people if there's a problem—or if director control goes out."

If the superstructure is a flaming ruin, with sensors and communications disrupted and scores of dead . . . then the turrets could fight on alone.

"Fire for effect," said the OOD.

For a while.

The guns began to belch flame at a rate of a shot every five seconds, WHANG WHANG WHANG WHANG WHANG—

A pause.

WHANG—

"Cease fire!"

The target area was a roiling mass of smoke. A huge root burst out of the soil halfway between the jungle and the human defenses; it writhed and died before flamethrowers were able to bathe it.

"Sir, the left tube has a stoppage," announced the man at the gunnery console.

"I know it's got a bloody stoppage!" snarled the OOD. "I can bloody hear, can't I? Get a crew to clear it."

There were patterns of compression and rarefaction rippling across the algae which slimed the dreadnought's forecastle. The marks were vestiges of the muzzle blasts.

"Ah, shall I wake the off-duty watch?" the technician asked.

Something huge leaped from the jungle where the shells had landed. It was a mass of flames. A track of yellowing leaves followed it for hundreds of yards through the forest.

"No, dammit, go yourself," said the OOD. "I'll have Rassmussen send somebody from the engine room. Two of you ought to be able to handle it."

He turned to another technician. "Graves, bring up Turret Eye-Vee in case they need—"

The OOD broke off as his commo helmet spoke to him. He looked at Johnnie. "You," he said. "Are you Ensign Gordon?"

Johnnie drew himself up stiffly. "Yessir."

"Then you're about to go home," the OOD said. "They're bringing your hydrofoil alongside in the few minutes."

The man beamed. For the first time, Johnnie saw him looking cheerful.

"I think," the Angel lieutenant added, "that we've got a deal!"





13


Venus looked on Helen's face,

(O Troy Town!)

Knew far off an hour and place,

And fire lit with the heart's desire;

Laughed and said, "Thy gift hath grace!"

—Dante Gabriel Rossetti





Sal pushed the hatch control. "Come on, Johnnie," he said. "You up to a fast ride down?"

"Elevators at last?" Johnnie asked. "Sure, I'm up to anything."

"Bring 'em around to the starboard quarter, Lieutenant Hammond," the Angel ensign called back to the OOD as the hatch closed behind them. "Anything it is, my friend. You're going by the skimmer winch."

They clanged down the companionway from the conning tower more easily than they'd come up it, and perhaps a little faster; but a part of Johnnie's mind kept imagining his uncle sneering, "Arthur, your idiot son broke his neck running down stairs. . . ."

The air was thick with powder fumes. The breeze riffling across the harbor brought with it faint hints of burned vegetation and phosphorous—though that might have been Johnnie's imagination.

Voices cursed from the forward 5.25-inch turret. The men sent to clear the stoppage began to hammer, an uncontrolled sound that struck Johnnie as a doubtful way to deal with high explosive.