Seas of Venus(4)

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.