Seas of Venus(50)

"Sir, I know ships," the sailor replied. "But I been shit-scared ever since I stepped outa the submarine."

Eliminated. Dream on.

The saw whirred like a nervous cat. Johnnie's finger had tightened more than he'd intended.

"Boat's ready," said a tech as he twisted over the side. He lifted his feet high against the chance of something making a late grab at him.

Half the waiting men lurched into the boat while the others slid the hull toward deeper water. The technique worked well enough, but it was completely spontaneous.

This time the man who'd jumped early waited, shivering with fear or anticipation, until Johnnie clapped him on the back and said, "Go! Go on!"

Light winked on the deck of the Holy Trinity. Someone had opened a hatch and spilled some of the interior illumination.

Coming or going? Someone headed in to his bunk, or out onto the rail from which he'd be able to raise the alarm . . . ?

"Sir?" grunted Sergeant Britten. "Sir. C'mon!"

Johnnie had been walking outward at the bow of the boat. He was waist-deep in the water. He tried to lift himself over the gunwale. Britten caught him beneath the armpit and pulled hard. "Throw that damned—"

Johnnie dropped the saw, no longer necessary.

"—saw away!" the sergeant growled.

Johnnie flopped into the boat. It was already full beyond its designed capacity.

There was a flurry from the water as something struck the tool and rose with it, thrashing violently. Johnnie looked back over his hips, but the creature and its frustrating prey had sunk again.

"Quiet back there!" snapped the earphones in the voice of Uncle Dan, who must have thought the fish was part of the second boat's boarding process.

The collapsible boats started across the harbor. Johnnie was in the bow of the second. He could barely see the other vessel, twenty feet ahead of him. When Sergeant Britten completed raising the heat/light/radar-absorbent camouflage net, the second boat became equally hard to spot, even to someone expecting it.

The camouflage nets blinded the boats' crews as completely as they did outside observers. The coxswains steered by the images projected in their visors—constructs from the helmets' data banks and inertial navigation equipment.

The boats slid across the water at less than a walking pace. The wake of the leader rocked the following vessel less than the slight harbor chop. The dreadnought that was their target grew slowly in Johnnie's visor, but knowing that he saw an image rather than the actual guns and hull somehow robbed the vision of its reality.

Although: the Holy Trinity was real, and the hologram projected into the helmet visor was as much the object as sky glow reflected from the gray armor onto Johnnie's retinas would have been.

The dreadnought lay at an angle to the boats; they were approaching its port side. "Force Prime," Johnnie warned, "the skimmer port on the starboard bow—the right side of the bow—" How did you say 'port port' without being confusing? "—is open. I'm not sure the one on this side is."

The first boat slowed. The careful computer simulation in Johnnie's helmet showed the wake travelling on ahead as the boat dropped to a crawl. Johnnie rocked as his coxswain cut power to keep station.

"Lead Prime, this is Force Prime," said Uncle Dan's voice. "Take over the lead. Bring us in, John."

"Coxswain," Johnnie said, "take us around the bow. The port we're looking for's about a hundred fifty feet back."

The thruster wound up, a hum through the hull instead of a sound. Men swung to and fro again, their heavy packs emphasizing the gentle acceleration.

"Coxwain," Johnnie snapped, "we're not in a hurry."

But they were, all of them were; in a hurry to make something happen themselves. All they could do now was wait for a burst of automatic gunfire to gut their boats and a few men, leaving the remainder to splash for a while as they provided food and entertainment for the harbor life.

The simulated bows of the Holy Trinity loomed above them. The boat was beneath the bow flare, invisible to anyone on the dreadnought's deck. Sergeant Britten ripped back the netting—not before time, because they were headed for the chain of the bow anchor.

The coxswain saw the obstacle without need for the warning and curses from the men in the bow, but it had been a near thing. The software controlling the simulation needed a little tinkering. . . .

The skimmer port was a black rectangle against slate gray. Water gurgled doubtfully through it. The coxswain throttled back still further.

"Easy . . . ," breathed Sergeant Britten, as much to himself as to the coxswain.

Johnnie stood up in the bow. He wasn't afraid. He didn't have leisure to be afraid.

"Here, sir," Britten murmured.