Authors: Ben Bova
Venus (37 page)
I
helped Marguerite lug Fuchs’s comatose body down to the sick bay. She had been tearful when she’d been arguing with him, but now she was dry-eyed and all business.
helped Marguerite lug Fuchs’s comatose body down to the sick bay. She had been tearful when she’d been arguing with him, but now she was dry-eyed and all business.
“You’d better get to the bridge,” she told me, once we had him lying on the table.
“Right,” I said.
But Fuchs opened one eye slightly and pawed at the sleeve of my coveralls. “Tell … Amar …” His voice was terribly slurred, his face twisted into a grisly rictus of pain.
“Don’t worry,” I said, grasping his shoulder. “I’ll take care of everything.”
“The bugs … sharp angle … of ascent.”
I nodded as reassuringly as I could. “I know. I’ll get the job done.”
“You did … okay … down on … surface.”
I forced a smile. Praise from him was vanishingly rare. “Thanks.” Then on impulse I added, “Father.”
He tried to smile back but he couldn’t. He mumbled
something, but his voice was too slurred for me to understand what he said.
something, but his voice was too slurred for me to understand what he said.
For an awkward moment I simply stood there, my hand on his shoulder. Then his eyes closed and the medical monitors that Marguerite was setting up began wailing shrilly.
“Get out of my way,” she hissed urgently.
I beat a retreat to the bridge.
Amarjagal was still in the command chair, looking tired herself.
“When’s the next watch due on duty?” I asked.
Her grasp of the English language was minimal. I asked her again, slower and louder. Her eyes barely flicked to the digital clock on the display panel. “Forty-two minutes.”
“And when do we enter the top cloud deck?”
Again she had to translate my words in her head before she could answer, “One hour and one half.”
I went to the comm console and, leaning over the shoulder of the crewman sitting there, punched up the translation program. He glared up at me but said nothing.
“Amarjagal,” I said, thinking as I spoke, “I will relieve you for one hour. Take a break and then get back here before we enter the last cloud deck.”
My words were repeated to her in her own language by the computer’s synthesized voice. Then she asked a question.
“What right do you have to give orders?” the synthesized voice said, without inflection.
“I’m taking command of the ship,” I said, looking straight at her.
She blinked, then blinked again when the computer translated my words. “But where is the captain?”
“The captain’s in sick bay,” I said. “I’m speaking for him. You’ll have the helm when we enter the clouds again, under my command.”
Amarjagal stared at me for a long wordless moment, digesting the computer’s words, her stoic face and dark eyes revealing nothing.
“You are not the captain,” she said at last.
“I am the captain’s son,” I said. “And I will act for him while he’s in sick bay. Is that understood?”
I hadn’t the faintest idea of how she’d react. She simply stared at me, apparently digesting what I had just said, thinking it over, trying to figure out how she should react to this new situation. She had been loyal to Fuchs when Bahadur mutinied. If she accepted my command now, I thought, the rest of the crew would follow her lead. If she wouldn’t, then we’d have chaos—or worse, another mutiny.
At last she said in English, “Yes, sir.” And she got up from the command chair.
I tried not to let the relief I felt show in my face, but my insides were quivering madly. For the first time in my life, I took the seat of authority. Deep in the back of my mind that self-critical voice was warning me that I was going to screw everything up. But I remembered that I had indeed gone down to the surface and recovered Alex’s remains. I was not a helpless, inexperienced, spoiled kid anymore.
Or so I hoped.
The two other crew members on the bridge eyed me warily but said nothing. Not that I could have understood them if they did speak. They watched Amarjagal leave the bridge, then turned back to their consoles in stony silence.
I called up the ship’s planned flight profile. As I suspected, Fuchs had set
Lucifer
for the steepest possible ascent through the bug-laden clouds to get us past the danger as quickly as possible.
Lucifer
was essentially a dirigible, an airship that floated through Venus’s thick atmosphere propelled by small engines whose main task was to maintain headway against any currents of wind the ship encountered. We could not force our way up through the final cloud deck; we had to climb, venting the gas in our envelope until it was down to vacuum so it could rise to the top of the atmosphere.
Lucifer
for the steepest possible ascent through the bug-laden clouds to get us past the danger as quickly as possible.
Lucifer
was essentially a dirigible, an airship that floated through Venus’s thick atmosphere propelled by small engines whose main task was to maintain headway against any currents of wind the ship encountered. We could not force our way up through the final cloud deck; we had to climb, venting the gas in our envelope until it was down to vacuum so it could rise to the top of the atmosphere.
We had a set of rocket engines, but they were to be used only after we cleared the topmost cloud deck, to push us on up into orbit. I checked the figures in the computer’s flight
program. If we fired those rockets too soon we would not establish an orbit around Venus, we would merely fling
Lucifer
into a long ballistic trajectory that would arc back into the clouds halfway around the planet. Once in orbit, though, there was a nuclear propulsion module waiting to power our flight back to Earth. Fuchs had dropped it off in a parking orbit on the way into Venus’s clouds.
program. If we fired those rockets too soon we would not establish an orbit around Venus, we would merely fling
Lucifer
into a long ballistic trajectory that would arc back into the clouds halfway around the planet. Once in orbit, though, there was a nuclear propulsion module waiting to power our flight back to Earth. Fuchs had dropped it off in a parking orbit on the way into Venus’s clouds.
So above all else, I had to resist the urge to light off the rockets. Fire them too soon, and we would doom ourselves to stay in Venus’s atmosphere until the bugs chewed through the hull or the heat got us or our food ran out. A life sentence in hell. And not a long one, at that.
I was worried about those bugs. They had destroyed both Alex’s ship and mine. Although Fuchs had bragged about how
Lucifer
’s overdesign had gotten him through the bugs without crippling damage, I wondered how much more of the bugs’ attack the ship could take.
Lucifer
’s overdesign had gotten him through the bugs without crippling damage, I wondered how much more of the bugs’ attack the ship could take.
Was there anything else I could do? Coat the hull with something the bugs wouldn’t or couldn’t eat? I hadn’t the faintest idea of what that might be, and even if I knew there wasn’t much that we could do in less than ninety minutes.
How much damage had
Lucifer
sustained on the way in? I riffled through the captain’s files and then the computer’s maintenance and safety programs, finding nothing. Either Fuchs didn’t get a chance to check the damage or the data were stored somewhere else in the files.
Lucifer
sustained on the way in? I riffled through the captain’s files and then the computer’s maintenance and safety programs, finding nothing. Either Fuchs didn’t get a chance to check the damage or the data were stored somewhere else in the files.
I wanted to ask the crewman running the communications system, but he didn’t understand English. I called up the translation program and tried to make him understand what I needed. He stared hard at me, frowning with concentration, then turned back to his keyboard. A stream of data began pouring across the main display screen. Perhaps it was the data I sought, perhaps it was something else entirely. Either way, I couldn’t understand a bit of it.
Amarjagal came back to the bridge and I got out of the command chair. Using the language program, I asked her about data on damage to the ship.
“We did check for damage,” the computer’s voice translated. “Hull integrity was not breached.”
“But how much damage was done?” I demanded, feeling frustrated at this laborious process of translating from one language to the other. Time was ticking away. I thought that I should bring Nodon up to the bridge to translate for me.
“Not enough to breach the hull,” came her answer.
I went from frustration to exasperation. “Is there any way to assess how much more damage we can take before the hull is breached?”
Amarjagal puzzled over that for what seemed like half an hour, then replied simply, “No.”
So we were about to climb into that bug-infested cloud deck, more than fifteen kilometers thick from bottom to top, without the faintest idea of how much damage the hull had sustained during the first trip through or how much more damage we could take before the hull cracked open.
Holding back my anger and frustration, I said to Amarjagal—to the computer, really—“Rig the ship for the steepest ascent possible.”
“Understood,” she said back to me.
I left the bridge in a black fury. We were heading blindly into danger, without any idea of how to protect ourselves. But halfway down to the sick bay another thought struck me: What difference does it make? I almost laughed aloud at the realization. We’re going back into the bugs and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it. We’re simply going to have to get through them as quickly as we can, and let the chips fall where they may.
Deep in my gut I was still totally dissatisfied with the situation. But up in my brain I adopted a fatalist’s pose: Whatever happens, happens. If you can’t do anything about it, that’s it.
Yet something inside me refused to accept the situation. Something was gnawing at me the way the bugs would soon be chewing on our hull. There must be
something
we can do! But what?
something
we can do! But what?
Fuchs was unconscious when I reached the sick bay, and
Marguerite was staring at the monitors along the bulkhead as if she thought that if she looked at them long enough, hard enough, they would show her what she wanted to see. The monitors weren’t whining any danger signals, at least, although I realized that might be because Marguerite had turned the alarms off.
Marguerite was staring at the monitors along the bulkhead as if she thought that if she looked at them long enough, hard enough, they would show her what she wanted to see. The monitors weren’t whining any danger signals, at least, although I realized that might be because Marguerite had turned the alarms off.
“How is he?’ I asked.
She jerked back, startled. She’d been studying the monitors so hard she hadn’t noticed me.
“I’ve got him stabilized, I think. But he’s sinking. It’s slow, but he’s losing it. Brain function isn’t returning, despite the hormone injections.”
“You’re doing everything you can,” I said, trying to soothe her.
But Marguerite shook her head. “He needs more! If I could talk to one of the medical centers on Earth—”
“Why not?” I said. “We can establish a comm link through
Truax.
”
Truax.
”
“He gave orders forbidding any contact, remember?”
I pushed past her and banged the comm unit on the bulkhead. “Amarjagal, I want a comm link with
Truax
immediately! Medical emergency.”
Truax
immediately! Medical emergency.”
It took a few moments, but she replied, “Yes, sir.”
Turning back to Marguerite, I grinned. “Rank hath its privileges. And powers.”
She didn’t bother to say thank you. She immediately started telling
Truax
’s communication tech what she needed. At least they both spoke English and there was no translation problem between them.
Truax
’s communication tech what she needed. At least they both spoke English and there was no translation problem between them.
I headed back for the bridge as the ship’s intercom blared, “RIG FOR STEEP ASCENT. STORE ALL LOOSE ARTICLES SECURELY. ALL HATCHES WILL SHUT IN THIRTY SECONDS.”
On impulse, I went past the bridge and sprinted along the passageway to the observation center, up in the nose. Through the thick windows I saw the underside of the cloud deck coming up fast. Then the ship began angling upward steeply. I almost toppled over; I had to grab one of
the sensor packs Marguerite and I had installed to keep my balance.
the sensor packs Marguerite and I had installed to keep my balance.
It was going to be a wild ride, I thought, as I made my way cautiously back to the bridge, like stepping down a steep gangplank.
Nodon was at the comm console when I got to the bridge, Amarjagal in the command chair. She started to get up, but I waved her back.
“You have the con, Amarjagal,” I said as I took the chair beside her. “You can handle this much better than I could.”
If my words pleased her, once the computer translated them, she gave no indication.
Nodon said to me, “Sir, the captain of
Truax
is sending many questions. Some of them are addressed to you personally, sir.”
Truax
is sending many questions. Some of them are addressed to you personally, sir.”
I hesitated, then replied, “Tell
Truax
we’ll talk with them after we establish orbit. For now, I want only the medical channel to remain open.”
Truax
we’ll talk with them after we establish orbit. For now, I want only the medical channel to remain open.”
“Yes, sir,” said Nodon.
So I belted myself into the chair beside Amarjagal as
Lucifer
angled steeply into the last layer of clouds between us and the relative safety of space. It’s strange, I thought: I had always considered space to be a dangerous environment, a vacuum drenched with hard radiation and peppered with meteoroids that could puncture a ship’s hull like high-powered bullets. But after our stay on Venus, the cold empty calm of space looked like heaven itself to me.
Lucifer
angled steeply into the last layer of clouds between us and the relative safety of space. It’s strange, I thought: I had always considered space to be a dangerous environment, a vacuum drenched with hard radiation and peppered with meteoroids that could puncture a ship’s hull like high-powered bullets. But after our stay on Venus, the cold empty calm of space looked like heaven itself to me.
The topmost cloud deck is the thickest of Venus’s three, and we seemed to be approaching it at a crawl. I watched the main screen’s display of our planned ascent trajectory, a long curving line through an expanse of gray that represented the clouds. The blinking cursor that marked our position seemed to barely move toward the underside of the cloud deck. The bugs were going to have plenty of time to gnaw on our hull. I remembered what they did to Bahadur and his cohorts in the escape pod.
There had to be
something
more that we could do to get through the clouds. Thoughts whirled through my mind,
flashing like kaleidoscope images. Bahadur. The escape pod. Our rocket engines. The acceleration that rocket thrust produces.
something
more that we could do to get through the clouds. Thoughts whirled through my mind,
flashing like kaleidoscope images. Bahadur. The escape pod. Our rocket engines. The acceleration that rocket thrust produces.
On impulse, I popped the tiny display screen up from the arm of my chair and called up the rocket propulsion program. How much extra rocket propellant were we carrying? Could we use the rockets to push us through the clouds and still have enough left to establish orbit once we were clear of the cloud deck?
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