Authors: Ben Bova

Venus (24 page)

BOOK: Venus

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F
uchs stared down at Sanja’s dead body. No one had touched it. Bahadur had called the captain. One of the women had handed me a tissue to clean my face. Another handed me a wetvac to clean the floor of my vomit.

Fuchs prodded the corpse, flexed Sanja’s wrists and ankles.

“He’s been dead several hours,” he muttered, more to himself than the rest of us.

Turning, he spotted me trying to mop up my mess. He gestured bruskly and rattled off some commands in the Asian dialect that the crew spoke. One of the men grabbed the buzzing wetvac out of my hands, his face surly.

“Come here, Humphries,” Fuchs called.

Reluctantly I stepped closer to the bunk. My stomach heaved and I tasted burning bile in my throat.

“Control yourself!” Fuchs snapped. “What happened here?”

“I … I was asleep.”

Fuchs seemed more irritated with me than concerned
about Sanja’s murder. I was convinced it was murder.

He looked across the compartment. The other crew members were sitting on their bunks, or huddled around the table in the open area in the center. A few were standing near the hatch, clustered around Bahadur.

Fuchs gestured to the tall, bearded Bahadur. He walked slowly, with as much dignity as a man can muster when he’s sporting a blackened, swollen eye.

“Well?” Fuchs demanded.

Bahadur answered in English. “He committed suicide.”

“Did he?”

Bahadur pointed to the knife resting on the bunk at Sanja’s side.

Fuchs asked more questions in their Asian language. Bahadur gave answers. From their tone I gathered that Bahadur was offering no information at all.

At last Fuchs heaved a heavy, deep sigh. “So Sanja slit his own throat because he was ashamed of betraying your mutiny,” he summarized.

“Yes, Captain. That is the truth.”

Fuchs eyed him with utter disgust. “And who’s going to commit suicide next? Amarjagal? Or maybe Humphries, here?”

I nearly threw up again.

“I cannot say, Captain,” replied Bahadur. “Perhaps no one.”

“Oh?”

“If we lift ship and leave this evil place, then no one will need to die.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Fuchs said, his ice-blue eyes colder than ever. “Maybe you’re right. Come with me.”

He started for the hatch, Bahadur following him. “You too,” he said, crooking a finger at the man with the wetvac. He’d been one of the mutineers back at the pump station. “And you,” he added to the woman who’d been there also.

The three mutineers glanced at one another. The rest of
the crew hung back from them, as if afraid to be contaminated by their presence.

“And you, Humphries,” Fuchs said. “Come with me.”

He paraded the four of us up the passageway, toward the nose of the ship, and then down a ladder to a hatch set into the lower deck.

“Open it up,” he commanded Bahadur.

I watched, puzzled, as the man tapped out the standard code on the electronic control box set into the heavy metal hatch. It sighed open a crack and Bahadur pulled with both hands to swing it open all the way. It must have been heavy; he grunted with the effort.

“There’s one of
Lucifer’
s three escape pods,” Fuchs said in English, pointing downward with a blunt finger. “Plenty of room for the three of you and several others. You can ride it up to orbit and make rendezvous with
Truax
up there.”

Bahadur’s eyes widened. “But, Captain—”

“No buts,” Fuchs snapped. “You want off this ship, there’s your ticket back to orbit. Get in.”

Eyeing his two companions uneasily, Bahadur protested, “None of us knows how to navigate, sir.”

“It’s all preset,” Fuchs said, iron-hard. “I’ll handle the launch sequence from the bridge. The pod is programmed to boost above the atmosphere and establish itself in orbit. I’ll tell
Truax
to pick you up. When they go back to Earth you’ll go with them.”

The woman said something in swift, rasping tones.

Fuchs laughed harshly. “That’s entirely correct. I’ll tell
Truax
that you are mutineers and murderers and you’re to be kept in custody for trial.”

The three of them chattered among themselves for a few moments, more frightened than angry.

“It’s up to you,” Fuchs said. “You can get up to
Truax
right now or you can stay and obey my orders.”

Bahadur asked meekly, “If we stay and obey orders, there will be no trial later?”

Fuchs looked up into his pleading eyes. “I suppose I could forget your pathetic little attempt at mutiny. And we can log Sanja’s death as suicide.”

“Captain!” I objected.

He ignored me and kept his eyes locked on Bahadur. “Well?” he demanded of the crewman. “What’s it going to be?”

Bahadur glanced swiftly at his two companions. I wondered how much English they knew, how well they were following this exchange.

Drawing himself up to his full height, Bahadur at last decided. “We will stay, Captain.”

“Will you?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“And you’ll follow all my orders?”

“Yes, sir.”

“With no grumbling? No complaints?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“All three of you?” Fuchs waved a finger to include the two others. “There’ll be no more … suicides?”

“We are agreed, Captain, sir,” said Bahadur. The other two nodded glumly.

Fuchs smiled broadly at them. But there was no humor in it. “Good! Excellent! I’m glad we’re all agreed.”

They started to smile back. I wanted to say something, to object to his simply forgetting about Sanja’s murder. But before I could form the words, Fuchs’s smile evaporated.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to give you three some very difficult tasks, you know,” Fuchs went on. “Each of you will have to take double watches now, to make up for Sanja’s death.”

Their faces fell.

“And all the EVA work we’ll have to do in preparation for reaching the ground, that’ll be your job, too.”

The two others looked toward Bahadur. His eyes had gone so wide I could see white all the way around the pupils.

“And of course, once we get down to the surface I’ll need
a volunteer to test the excursion craft. You’ll be that volunteer, Bahadur.”

The man backed away several steps. “No, Captain. Please. I cannot—”

Fuchs stalked toward him. “You said you would follow my orders, didn’t you? All my orders? You agreed to that just a minute ago.”

“But I am not … that is, I don’t know how—”

“You either follow my orders or get off my ship,” Fuchs said, his voice as cold and sharp as an ice pick. “Or would you rather we had a trial here and now for Sanja’s murder?”

“Captain, please!”

It was uncanny. This big, broad-shouldered man was holding out his hands pitifully, begging for mercy from the short, snarling captain who confronted him like a pugnacious badger spitting defiance at a confused, frightened hunting dog.

“What’s it going to be, Bahadur?” Fuchs demanded.

He looked at his two companions. They seemed just as frightened and confused as he was.

“I’m going to make your life into an unending hell, Bahadur,” Fuchs promised. “You’ll pay for Sanja a hundred times a day, you can count on that.”

“No,” Bahadur whimpered. “No.”

“Then get off my ship!” Fuchs snarled, jabbing a hand toward the open hatch. “And take your two accomplices with you.”

Bahadur just stood there, totally whipped. I thought he was about to break into tears.

“Now!” Fuchs snapped. “Obey or leave. Make up your mind now.”

It was the woman who decided. Silently she went to the hatch and started climbing down into the escape pod. The other crewman followed her. Bahadur watched them, then shambled past the captain and disappeared down the shaft that connected to the escape pod.

Fuchs went over to the hatch and kicked it hard. It swung over and clanged shut.

“Seal it,” he ordered me. “Before the sniveling little shits change their minds.”

Shaking inside, I touched the key that sealed the hatch. Fuchs had orchestrated this to the last detail. He wanted Bahadur and his two fellow mutineers off his ship and he maneuvered them into going.

Wordlessly he tramped back to the bridge, with me trotting along behind him. He seemed to radiate fury, now that he no longer had to pretend to be conciliatory with Bahadur.

He relieved Amarjagal of the conn and took the command chair. “Humphries, take the communications console.”

My first impulse was to say it wasn’t yet time for my watch, but I swallowed that idea immediately. The captain was in no mood for contradictions, not even delays. I went to the comm console; the crewman already sitting there got up, looking slightly puzzled, and left the bridge.

“Give me the escape pod,” he said flatly.

There were three pods on the ship, I saw from the display screen. Before I could ask, Fuchs told me, “They’re in number one.”

I opened the channel. Fuchs spoke to them briefly in their own language, then called out, “I’m initiating the separation sequence in five seconds.”

I tapped the timer. It clicked down swiftly.

“Separated,” said the other technician on the bridge, in English.

Before I could ask any questions, the technician reported, “Ignition. They’re heading into orbit.”

“Put them on the main screen, Humphries,” Fuchs commanded.

It took me a few seconds to figure it out, and then I saw Bahadur’s tense, sweaty face on the screen. He was pressed back into his chair by the acceleration of the pod’s rockets. The two others were sitting slightly behind him. There were four empty chairs in view, as well.

“You’re on course for orbit,” Fuchs said to them.

“I understand, Captain,” Bahadur answered.

Fuchs nodded and turned off his image.

I asked, “Should I notify
Truax
that—”

“No!” he snapped. “We will make no contact with
Truax
. It’s bad enough Marguerite is querying their medical files. No contact!”

“But, sir, how will they know that the escape pod is in orbit? How will they make rendezvous?”

“That’s Bahadur’s problem. The pod has communications equipment. He’ll call
Truax
soon enough, never fear.”

“Are you sure? Sir?”

He gave me a sour look. “What difference does it make?”

I turned my attention back to my duties. In a few moments, though, Fuchs said, “Give me their course and position.”

The graphic showed their trajectory curving up from our altitude, through the sulfuric acid clouds and levelling off above the cloud deck into a slightly elliptical orbit around the planet. I punched up
Truax’
s position. They were orbiting on the other side of Venus, out of direct contact.

Puzzled, I punched up the extended orbital positions for the pod and
Truax.
They would be on opposite sides of the planet for a dozen orbits before the pod would inch close enough to
Truax
for rendezvous maneuvers to be started.

I told Fuchs about the problem.

He shrugged. “They have enough air to last,” he said.

“What about electricity?” I asked.

He frowned at me. “If Bahadur has the wits to unfold the pod’s solar panels and align them properly, they’ll have all the power they need. Otherwise they’ll have to go on the pod’s internal batteries.”

“Will that last long enough, Captain?”

“That’s not my problem.”

“In all fairness, sir, we should notify
Truax
—”

“If we do, I’ll have to report that those three people are mutineers and murderers.”

“That’s better than letting them die in orbit! Sir.”

“They won’t die in orbit,” Fuchs said calmly. “They won’t even make it to orbit.”

“What do you mean?”

He pointed a finger toward the screen on my console that displayed their trajectory. “Put that plot on the main screen.”

I did, and Fuchs leaned forward in his chair slightly, studying the graph. “I don’t think they’ll get through the clouds fast enough to avoid being chewed up by the bugs,” he muttered.

“They’ll only be in the clouds for twenty minutes or so,” I said.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “That pod has a pretty thin skin, though. It ought to be interesting.”

BOOK: Venus

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