We Open on Venus - Starship Troupers 2 Read online

  Table of Contents

  We Open on Venus

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  About the Author

  We Open on Venus

  Book Two of Starship Troupers

  Christopher Stasheff

  A Del Rey Book

  BALLANTINE BOOKS • NEW YORK

  Sale of this book without a front cover may be unauthorized. If this book is coverless, it may have been reported to the publisher as “unsold or destroyed” and neither the author nor the publisher may have received payment for it.

  A Del Rey Book Published by Ballantine Books

  Copyright © 1994 by Christopher Stasheff

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States of America by Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  References to Didn’t He Ramble by Andy Backer, Copyright © 1962 by Andy Backer, are made by the kind permission of the author.

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 93-90709 ISBN 0-345-36891-6

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition: February 1994

  1

  I was out of my acceleration couch and into the “down” lift before the first strangled moan finished coming out of the intercom. I called out, “B deck!” and the door closed behind me while Barry was still calling into the audio pickup, “Ogden? Ogden, old friend! What is the matter? What is wrong, Ogden?”

  What was wrong? I knew damned well what was wrong! I fidgeted as the door closed and the lift sank at a sedate and leisurely pace. I had heard that kind of groaning too often, way too often, when I had “volunteered” for our local ambulance squad—Sensei had said it would do me good to see what kind of agony I could inflict if I wasn’t careful. I did see some damage from fighting, but I saw a lot more of other kinds of human misery, too, and I began to develop a greater degree of compassion—and a very strong stomach. I think Sensei had that in mind, too. And along with all the rest, I learned real fast to recognize the kind of sound a person makes when he’s just had a heart attack.

  What was wrong? Sixty years of hundred-proof lunches and two hundred pounds of fat slammed by the hammer blow of a spaceship’s takeoff, that was what was wrong!

  The lift door opened. I shot down the hall and swerved toward Ogden’s stateroom, then came to a skidding halt. The door was open, and Susanne was bending over the old ham, giving him what had to be the deepest kiss I’d ever seen from the outside. Jealousy tore through me, and it was all I could do to stand still until the surge had passed, even though I knew damn well that it wasn’t passion I was watching, just CPR.

  Then the jealousy ebbed, and I yelled at the intercom, “Bridge! McLeod! Where’s the first-aid kit on this tub?”

  “On the wall by the door to the companionway, ensign,” the old captain’s voice snapped.

  I took the emphasis on the last word as a rebuke, but I took the robo-doc out of its recess, too; I think I remembered to open the little door first. Then I ran around to Ogden’s far side and knelt down, to start clipping leads onto his wrists and head and, when Susanne wasn’t pumping his chest, onto his breastbone. Then I taped the little hollow tube right over the vein on the inside of his elbow— and sat back … All I could do was hold my breath and twiddle my thumbs, while Susanne blew air into the old actor’s lungs and the robo-doc diagnosed Ogden’s condition, then injected the appropriate pharmaceuticals.

  It took about thirty seconds.

  Thirty very long seconds—I was surprised to find out that I was actually caring about Ogden, about this man I had only met a few days before—that I was hoping in an agony of impatience that he’d be all right. I realized I had come to like the huge old coot, in spite of his grandiose manner and his boozing.

  Then his color began to come back, and he started to breathe on his own. Susanne sat back with a gasp of relief and wiped her mouth. I went limp myself, then realized what she’d just been through and jumped up to get a glassful from the autobar. I took it back to her and she looked up, surprised, then smiled and said, “Thanks, but I think I’ve had enough alcohol for the time being—secondhand.”

  “Mouthwash,” I said.

  She stared at me a minute, then grinned and took the glass. She took a tiny sip and sucked on it as she watched Ogden. He was breathing steadily, and opened his eyes again as we watched. “Th … Thank …”

  “Shhh.” Susanne pressed a finger over his mouth. “You need to save your energy now. Anyway, you’re welcome.” The robo-doc hummed and issued a strip of paper. I tore it off and read it.

  “Diagnosis?” Susanne asked.

  “Minor heart attack,” I answered. “Just as we thought— but only a small one. It says we don’t have to turn back to Terra, but we should have him checked out by a human doctor when we get to New Venus.”

  “It knows our destination?”

  “No, it says, ‘next port of call.’ I was interpreting freehand. Then there’s a list of pills, two a day each, two days’ bed rest—and absolutely no alcohol.”

  Ogden groaned.

  “There, there.” Susanne took his hand. “It must have been horrible for you—the pain, the fear …”

  “Worth it,” Ogden croaked gallantly. “Worth every agon of angst. Go through it again in an instant, m’dear, for the pleasure of such devoted attention from one so beautiful.” Susanne actually blushed. “You need to rest now, Mr. Wellesley.”

  “Of course, my dear—after just a small dram, eh?”

  “No!” Susanne said firmly. “You heard what the robo-doc said—absolutely no alcohol!”

  Ogden groaned again, even more loudly.

  “Such noise!” Susanne scolded. “I thought you said you’d go through agony for me!”

  “Well, yes, my dear, agony—but not temperance!”

  She gave him a slow and roguish smile, which I swear did him more good than all the drugs put together. “You’re very gallant, sir—but it just makes me more determined to keep you alive.” She looked up at me. “Get the stretcher, will you, Ramou?”

  “Sure.” I got to my feet, considering the advantages of having a heart attack myself. I turned to the door, calling out, “Bridge! Captain, where do I find a stretcher?”

  “End of the companionway,” McLeod said into the audio pickup. “That’s the hall, to you. Can’t miss it—the door’s got a red cross on it.”

  “Gotcha,” Ramou’s voice came out of the speaker. “I mean, ‘Aye, aye, sir!’ ”

  “And don’t you forget it,” McLeod grumbled, then sat back. “Guess he’ll live, gentlemen.”

  “Praise heaven,” Barry sighed. “Eh, Horace?”

  “Amen.” I agreed. The sweetest sound I had ever heard had been Susanne Souci’s voice saying Ogden was breathing again. When I had heard his groan of revival, his voice had never sounded so melodious.

  We heard Ramou’s footsteps retreat and come right back. Merlo frowned. ‘‘Maybe I should go down there and help Ramou get the old guy onto the stretcher. He’s no lightweight, you know.”

  “Neither is Ramou,” I pointed out.

  McLeod said, “The stretcher slides in under him and inflates around him, Mr. Hertz—you know that. The two of them ar
e certainly enough to rock him from side to side. You stay right here, First Officer.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Merlo sighed.

  Then all I heard for the next few minutes was a deal of grunting and panting, until Ramou said, “Okay, he’s secure. Sick bay, now?”

  “Certainly,” Barry said. “Then one of you stay with him, if you will—but we’ll need the other at the meeting.”

  I sat back in my acceleration couch, cursing myself for a fool. I had known the risk—known Ogden’s addiction to alcohol, and his obesity; he weighed at least twice what he should have—but had deluded myself with the notion that he would rather die attempting to tread the boards of a stage one more time than to wither away in some fetid and obscure tenement, unknown and miserable. I still thought I had been right, but I wished devoutly that I hadn’t tried to assist, if I had only helped my old friend to his death.

  “He will be all right, Horace,” Barry assured me, though he looked rather doubtful himself.

  Captain McLeod nodded. “The automated sick bay aboard this ship has full resuscitation equipment—even an exterior pacemaker, if he needs one. He’ll be okay now, as long as it’s only a cardiac arrest.”

  “Only a cardiac!” I protested.

  “Only,” he assured me. “Any modern ship is equipped to take care of heart attacks.”

  “But this ship is scarcely modem,” I demurred.

  “It’s younger than that Lazarian kid. Its sick bay will also take care of strokes, seizures, even kidney and liver failure. Anything more exotic, though, such as bubonic plague or a timed genetic disorder, we’d have to make planetfall for.”

  “Well, it’s certainly nothing of that magnitude.” But I wasn’t all that thoroughly reassured.

  Barry saw, and tried to distract me. “Whatever it is, he is in the care of the automated sick bay, and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

  Ramou’s voice came suddenly from the speaker. “The robo-doc says he’ll live—it was only a hiccup, not an explosion. He’s not supposed to get up for two days, though—and no alcohol!”

  I heard another groan from Ogden, much louder than the last. I smiled, relieved—if he could suffer withdrawal, he would survive.

  If he could.

  Barry’s voice became a bit more brisk. “We must get on with business, after all.”

  “Yeah, sure, Mr. Tallendar. Let’s go, Susanne.”

  Barry keyed the intercom to “all stations.”

  “The emergency seems to have passed, friends. Ogden is well, in spite of his stirrup cup. Now, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, everyone please report to the lounge immediately. We must discuss the situation. Respond, please.”

  He had said those exact words before—but the first response had been a strangled, gurgling groan from Ogden’s cabin. Apparently Susanne had heard it, too, along with everyone else—it must have been picked up by Barry’s microphone. Between herself and Ramou, I was sure Ogden was as well as possible.

  There was a staggered chorus of assent, including a few “aye, ayes.” Barry keyed off the intercom and rose, wiping his brow with a still-shaky hand. “I find I could do with a dram myself, though at the moment it seems somewhat less appealing than usual. Well! Shall we go, friends?”

  “You have my permission,” McLeod said, in a slightly frosty tone.

  Barry looked up, surprised, then remembered where he was. “Of course. Thank you, Captain. Forgive my overlooking the proprieties.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Tallendar,” McLeod said, with a stiff nod, “though as with any proprieties, these have a reason underlying them—especially when we’re talking about who can be on the bridge and who can’t, and whether or not all hands can assemble without hazard.”

  Barry had the grace to look abashed. “I hadn’t thought …”

  “I know,” McLeod agreed. “You didn’t know the ship might not yet have been safe for landlubbers to walk around, or to talk with each other without brewing panic. But as it happens, the artificial gravity did phase in as the acceleration eased up, just as it was supposed to, and panic would be most easily averted just now by your answering everybody’s questions—so carry on, Mr. Managing Director.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Captain.” Barry was the soul of politeness as he inclined his head, which was in itself a rebuke.

  “Merlo, you’ll come, of course? Er, beg pardon, Captain! May the first officer be released from his duties to attend the company meeting? He is the scenic designer and technical director, after all.”

  “Then he can attend the meeting in all three capacities.” McLeod nodded toward a sliding panel in the wall. “Take the repeater console with you, will you, Number One? And tell me when it’s plugged in, in the passenger lounge—I intend to get in on this meeting, too!”

  I confess that I was rather nervous, looking up at the dais at the end of the room, where Barry sat right next to the grand synthesizer—and the remote-control console with Captain McLeod right behind it. Merlo was muttering something to him, and McLeod gave him a curt nod. Merlo straightened up, stepped back, and sat down beside me. “Says it’s working just fine,” he confided.

  “What in heaven’s name is it for?”

  “All the basic functions of the ship, Horace,” Merlo answered. “He’s got the four main viewscreens, the sensor scopes, and the attitude jet controls right there. If anything goes wrong, he can take care of it long enough for me to get to the bridge and take over. Not that anything’s going to go wrong, of course,” he added as an afterthought.

  “Of course not,” I agreed, “as long as we’re prepared for it. I wish I could say the same for the personnel.” I glanced around at my fellow actors, each one highly, shall we say, individualistic, and very energetic.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Merlo said, with amazing confidence. “Just wait till McLeod gets through.”

  I looked up with sudden apprehension. It hadn’t occurred to me that the captain was there for any purpose other than observation. Surely he was nothing but the driver of a very elaborate taxi! But I recalled reading certain novels by C. F. Forster during my salad days and found the muttered conference between McLeod and Barry somewhat unnerving, even if it seemed to be only a sentence or two, ending with Barry’s nod.

  Then he stood up and called out, “Your attention, please, my friends! This meeting is called to order!”

  “Called to order?” Mamie Lulala’s lip curled with scorn. “Come now, Barry! What is this—the grade school student council?”

  “No, Mamie,” Barry said with grave courtesy, “it is the first full business meeting of the Star Repertory Company. Never before have I had all the actors together at the same time—I have done my best to make sure that each of you is only in three of our four plays, so that although each of you has met most of the other players, none has yet met all. And, of course, this is the first session at which both our scenic designer and costume designer are in attendance.”

  Mamie gave a very loud, very martyred sigh and sat back in her lounge chair. “Shall we endure a roll call? Or shall we stand up and introduce ourselves?”

  “I don’t think …” Barry began, but just then something huge came in the door, and he broke off, staring.

  Everyone turned to look, myself included. Then I looked again, amazed. I hadn’t known stretchers came in so large a size.

  “Ogden!” Barry cried. “Ramou, are you out of your mind?”

  “I did not offer him a great deal of choice, Barry,” Ogden Wellesley said from his recumbent position on the floating stretcher. “I insisted. After all, I simply couldn’t have one of these excellent young people missing out on this first meeting because of my infirmities.”

  His voice had only an echo of its usual richness, but his color was good, and he seemed to be speaking without undue effort. For myself, I was delighted, if apprehensive.

  To judge by Barry’s expression, he shared my feelings. “Ogden, you mustn’t! Ramou! Susanne! Take him to the sick bay a
t once!”

  “Oh, well, if you must.” Ogden signaled to Ramou to turn the stretcher around. “I’m sure I can persuade the beverage dispenser there to issue some bourbon …”

  “On second thought, perhaps you should attend the meeting,” Barry said, never missing a beat. “After all, if the full company should be assembled, the full company should be assembled, eh what?”

  “So good of you, Barry.” Ogden waved Ramou away. “I would hate to think that my misfortunes had dampened the festive spirit of this initial occasion.”

  “Festive!” Mamie was on her feet. “Frenetic, perhaps, but scarcely festive. Here we are, leaving Earth in a panic, just scarcely time to grab my jewelry case and a totally inadequate sampling of my wardrobe …”

  “All right, that’ll do.” McLeod’s voice wasn’t really all that loud, but it cracked like a gunshot. Mamie spun to stare at him, shocked that any mere mortal should dare to interrupt her.

  McLeod met her glare with a look that could have pierced steel as he said evenly, “Would you introduce me, please, Managing Director?”

  Mamie recovered and took a breath.

  “Why, yes, of course,” Barry said easily. “The first order of business. Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you our captain, Gantry McLeod.”

  “Captain!” Mamie cried. “Barry, if you think this overgrown rocket jockey is going to—”

  “Thank you, Director Tallendar.” McLeod overrode her voice as he came to his feet. “Just keep it right up, Ms. Lulala. If you prefer to spend the rest of the trip in the brig, I’ll be glad to accommodate you.”

  “Brig! Just who do you think you are, you annoying little man?”

  Gantry was considerably taller than any of us except Merlo and Ogden, but they both knew that was not the matter of which Mamie was speaking. McLeod pressed something on his console and said, “Maintenance Unit Number Three, enter the lounge.”

  The doors opened, and a robot with rubber-padded pincers and a huge waste bin rolled in.

  Marnie stared at it, then whirled back to him. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Wouldn’t I just.” McLeod measured out a small smile. “Not that I’d have to, of course—I’d command you to report to the brig, and you’d go.”