Seas of Venus by David Drake Read Free Book Online

programs myself," Dan said. "They couldn't cover everything, but what they taught you is Blackhorse standard."
    He grinned, devil-may-care Uncle Dan again. "Life can't cover everything either, lad. Though it took me a while to figure that out myself."
    Johnnie traversed the guns ten degrees, using the left-grip control, to swing them to the marked bearing of one of the distant islands. He then touched the right grip, bringing the sight picture back to direct.
    For a moment, the hologram was an electronic image of the sea itself. Then the hydrofoil crested a swell and the sights centered on a blur of a gray slightly darker than that of the water. Johnnie dialed up the magnification to its full forty powers and thumbed in stabilization. The gun barrels rose automatically as L7521's bow slid into another kilometer-wide trough.
    Just before the gunsight's direct viewpoint was covered by waves, the men in the gun tub saw something with jaws of yellow fangs lift above the vegetation and stare toward them. Nictitating membranes wiped sideways, dulling the eyes.
    An image of sea water rose to fill the gunsight. Johnnie switched back to search mode.
    He looked at his uncle, hunched below the tub's armor in the assistant's seat. The halo of spray from the steerable front foil soaked Dan as thoroughly as it did the younger man, but there was no sign of discomfort on his smiling face.
    "You've been planning for . . . for years to do this, haven't you?" Johnnie said. "Bring me into the Blackhorse as soon as you could—twist the Senator's arm."
    Dan shrugged. "The training programs? I wouldn't have forced you, lad. You wanted to learn, so you might as well learn the right way. Even the Senator agreed with that. Otherwise you might have run off and joined some jackleg outfit that'd get you killed—if you were lucky."
    The implications of what he'd just heard spread across Johnnie's mind like the base of a slime mold, then burst into feculent words: "You don't think I'm good enough for a real company, Uncle Dan? You don't think I could get into the Blackhorse without you pulling strings?"
    The older man shook his head. "Wrong wording," he said calmly, as though he were unaware of the shock and horror behind his nephew's flat statement.
    " You don't think that any real company's going to enlist the son of A. Rolfe Gordon against the Senator's will, do you?" Dan explained. "War's a business, Johnnie. Admirals put their lives on the line, sure; but they're gambling on a lot more than the chance of getting killed. Nobody competent—nobody competent enough to command a successful company—would offend the most powerful politician on Venus."
    "He may not be for long," Johnnie said in mingled regret and anger. "Heidigger and Carolina won't let him stay if they win."
    "Even then no fleet is going to offend the Senator for nothing," Dan continued. "Nobody in the history of Venus has been able to do what your father's already managed—a free association of three domes, forced by the populace and against the will of the oligarchs who'd been running the show until then."
    "But if he fails—" Johnnie said.
    "If he fails this time ," his uncle said, riding over the interjection, "there's still the chance he'll be back in power later. Politicians have long memories—and so do Admirals."
    Dan focused on the sight picture, then frowned and rose from his seat to look over the armor. "Cover that," he ordered, pointing off the right bow. "Samuels is going to pass too close."
    The sights went direct when Johnnie swung the guns with his right-hand control. The panoramic blur of land against sea became a huge mass to the left—probably the sub-continental Omphalos Sathanou, though that meant the hydrofoil's speed had been above the seventy knots Johnnie was guessing. To the right was an unnamed islet from which trailed a fur of water-brushing tree branches.
    "All weapon stations, track right," Johnnie's earphones ordered in a voice that wasn't his