Oh stay with company and mirth
And daylight and the air;
Too full already is the grave
Of fellows that were good and brave
And died because they were.
—A. E. Housman
"Sure you don't wanna come, sir?" said Walcheron. Instead of being angry, the sailor seemed pleased that Johnnie had knocked him down in order to save the Angels from the tender mercies of his twin-sixties. "There's an officers' club if you don't wanna . . . ?"
Johnnie forced a smile and waved. "No, I'll just wander. I—I've been in bars, but haven't had a chance to look at a fleet's base before."
"Hang on," warned the Angel driver as he engaged the torque converter of his prime mover. The flat-bed trailer, loaded with sailors from the hydrofoil in place of its more normal cargo, jerked at the end of its loose hitch toward the base cantina.
Captain Haynes and the two staff lieutenants who made up the negotiating team had already been carried two hundred yards to the Administration Building in a slightly-flossier conveyance, an air-cushion runabout. That left Johnnie and a single disconsolate sailor—the watch—alone with the M4434.
Johnnie nodded to the sailor and walked down the dock, coming as close to a saunter as the hot, humid air permitted him.
Paradise Base was a smaller, less polished version of Blackhorse Base. The Blackhorse torpedoboat was docked at the destroyer slip; the Angels had no hydrofoils of their own. The next facility around the circumference of the harbor was a drydock holding a dreadnought. The combination of concrete walls and a battleship completely hid everything else in that direction.
Johnnie walked past, looking interested but nonchalant. Dan had told him to observe everything, but not to make any notes or sketches until M4434 was at sea again. Johnnie didn't know what his uncle wanted—and he couldn't imagine that it made any difference, since the Angels' precise strength would become a matter of record as soon as the deal was done.
But Johnnie had his orders, and he was going to carry them out.
He reached the land end of the quay, facing the Admin Building and a series of barracks. He turned left to pass the drydock.
There were twelve destroyers in the slip. All of them seemed to be combat-ready—but that was the full extent of the Angels' strength in the class. Though destroyers weren't capable of surviving the fire of heavier vessels for more than a few seconds, they provided the inner screen against hostile torpedoboats—a particularly important mission for the Angels, who didn't have hydrofoil gunboats of their own.
Johnnie walked on. The drydock had been cast from red-dyed concrete, but under the blasting sun it seemed to glow a hazy white. Sweat soaked the sleeves of Johnnie's cream tunic, and he could feel the skin on the back of his hands crinkle.
One side of the quay beyond the drydock was given over to cargo lighters hauling supplies to the dreadnoughts anchored in mid-harbor. Traffic was heavy, and there were several railcars backed up on the line leading to the quay from warehouses within the base area.
Two cruisers were drawn up in the slip to the other side. They were middle-sized vessels, armed with rapid-firing 5.25-inch guns rather than the heavier weapons that might have been able to damage a battleship. In effect, they were flagships for the destroyer flotillas; and the pair of them were the only vessels of their class in the company.
Mercenaries have been called the whores of war. Like many prostitutes, the Angels found specialization the best route to success.
The Angels specialized in dreadnoughts.
There were four of the mighty vessels anchored in deep water. They quivered in the sunlight like gray flaws in the jeweled liquid splendor. The ships looked as though they had just crawled from the jungle which ruled the shore encircling most of the harbor.
The most distant of the battleships, the Holy Trinity, was huge even by the standards of her sisters. Her armor could take a battering as long as that of any vessel on the seas of Venus, and shells from her 18-inch main guns would penetrate any target they struck.
By themselves, the Angels were suicidally out of balance. The company had no scouting capacity of its own; its light forces were insufficient to screen its battleships; and the handful of submarines Johnnie saw moored to a rusting mothership might be useful to test the Angels' own antisubmarine defenses during maneuvers, but they certainly weren't a serious threat to another fleet.
None of that mattered now: Admiral Braun could have the deal he wanted, because the Angels' five dreadnoughts would be the margin of victory in the coming fleet action.
A man on a two-wheeled scooter—nobody at Paradise seemed to walk when they were out of doors—had left the cantina and raced up the quay from which Johnnie had come. Now the vehicle was back, revving high and leaned over at sixty degrees to make the corner onto the harbor road.
Johnnie stepped to the side. There was plenty of room for a truck, much less the scooter, to get around him, but he didn't trust the driver to have his mount under control.
He was probably over-sensitive. There were no personal vehicles in the domes: the slidewalks took care of individual transportation. He'd have to get used to—
The scooter broadsided to a curving halt in front of Johnnie.
The driver jumped off, leaving his machine rocking on its automatic side-stand. He was young, Johnnie's age, but his skin was already burned a deep mahogany color by the fierce light penetrating the clouds of Venus. He wore ensign's pips on his collar and the legend "Holy Trinity" in Fraktur script on the talley around his red cap.
"Is your name Gordon?" the Angel ensign demanded.
"Ensign John Arthur Gordon," Johnnie said. His mind was as blank and white as the sky overhead.
We regret to inform you that your son, John Arthur Gordon, was executed as a spy. May God have mercy on . . .
The other youth smiled as broadly as a shrapnel gash and thrust out his right hand. "Right!" he said. "I'm Sal Grumio, and you just saved my brother's life!"
"Huh?"
"Tony, you know?" Sal explained as he pumped Johnnie's hand furiously. "He was in command of the Dragger, you know, the guard boat?"
"Oh," said Johnnie as the light dawned. "Oh, sure . . . but look, it wasn't me. One of his own people jumped in after him. That took real guts, believe—"
"Guts, fine," Sal interrupted. He waved his hands with a gesture of dismissal. "We're all brave, you bet. But you're the one had brains enough to use solids and kill the squid. That was you, wasn't it?"
"I, ah . . . ," Johnnie said. "Yeah, that was me."
Sal jerked a thumb in the direction of the cantina. He gestured constantly and expressively. "Yeah, that's what your gunner said in there. Said you're screamin' 'Use solids, use solids!' and shootin' the crap outa the squid with a rifle. Tony'd 've been gone without that, and hell knows how many others besides."
"Well, I . . . ," Johnnie said. "Well, I'm glad I was in the right place."
"Hey, look," Sal said with a sudden frown. "You don't want to wander around out here in the sun. Come on, I'll buy you a drink or ten."
"Well, to tell the truth . . . ," Johnnie said. "Look, I'm so new I haven't been in the Blackhorse a full day. I've never really seen a base or any ship but a torpedoboat. I'd just—"
"Hey, you never been aboard a dreadnought?" the Angel ensign said, grinning beatifically. "Really?"
"Never even a destroyer," Johnnie said/admitted.
"You got a treat coming, then," said Sal, "because I've got one of the Holy Trinity's skimmer squadrons. Hop on and I'll give you a tour of the biggest and best battleship on Venus!"
Sal swung his leg over the saddle of his scooter and patted the pillion seat.
"Ah," said Johnnie, halting in mid-motion because he was sure Sal would take off without further discussion as soon as his passenger was aboard. "Look, Sal, is this going to be OK?
. . . your son, John Arthur Gordon, has been . . .
"Hell, yes!" the other youth insisted. "Look, nothing's to good for the guy who saved Tony's life, right? And anyway—"
Johnnie sat, still doubtful. The scooter accelerated as hard as it could against the double load.
"—you guys and us 're allies, now, right? Sure it's OK!"