Read Online Venus by Ben Bova - Free Book Online

aboard.
    We didn’t do that just for comfort. The gravity on Venus is only a few percent less than Earth, and if we had coasted out to Venus in zero-gee, our muscles and bones would have been deconditioned during the two-month flight. This way, with artificial gravity induced by spinning, we’d be ready for diving into Venus’s clouds as soon as we parked in orbit around the planet.
    Once we were cleared to unbuckle, I went straight from the Clippership to my stateroom aboard Truax . It had been the captain’s quarters when Truax had plied the ore route between the Asteroid Belt and the Earth/Moon system. I saw that it was adequately furnished, although a bit shabby. Still, the foldout bed felt comfortable enough and the wall screens all worked. There was enough room to avoid the feeling of being cooped up. No windows, but the wall screens could be programmed to show any view I had in my video library.
    I checked the closets and the lav. All my clothing and personal toiletries were in place. Good. The medicine cabinet was fully stocked with my enzyme supply, and three syringes were laid neatly in the drawer beside the sink. Fine.
    Still, the stateroom had the faint odor of strangeness about it. The lingering residue of someone else’s presence. I never got to feel completely at ease there. Certainly the built-in desk and other furnishings weren’t in a style I would have picked.
    That couldn’t be helped now. I gave myself an injection
and then went to the desk. There was business to be attended to. Duchamp was the captain, very well. But how dare she kick our astronomer off the mission and substitute someone I hadn’t even met? A biologist, no less.
    I asked the intercom system to locate her. In a few seconds her lean, sharp-featured face appeared on my screen.
    “I need to speak with you, Captain,” I said, laying just a hint of stress on the last word.
    “We’re in the midst of a systems check,” she said, her expression flinty. “I’ll be free in one hour and …” Her eyes flicked away for a moment “ … eleven minutes.”
    “In my quarters, then,” I commanded.
    She nodded and the screen went blank.
    I waited in my stateroom. I could have gone out to the bridge, it was hardly ten paces down the passageway. But I decided it would be better to make her come to me. Establish the authority. She’d been named captain, she’d won that battle. But I’m the owner, I told myself, and she’s not going to run roughshod over me.
    I hoped.
    One hour and twelve minutes later she knocked once on my door, opened it, and entered my stateroom. Her coveralls still looked crisp and fresh. If the systems checkout had strained her in any way it certainly didn’t show in her appearance.
    I stayed seated at my desk. With a gesture I invited her to sit in the nearest chair. She sat and crossed her legs, but for the first time since I’d met her she looked tense. Good, I thought.
    “About this new crew member,” I began. “It’s not your place to make personnel substitutions.”
    “I’m aware of that,” she said.
    “Then what do you mean by displacing our astronomer with a biologist, of all things? You can’t—”
    “The fact that she’s a biologist was not uppermost in my decision,” she said sharply, cutting me off.
    “What?” I must have blinked several times. “What do you mean?”

    “Her name is Marguerite Duchamp. She’s my daughter.”
    “Your daughter!”
    “My daughter.”
    “That’s rank nepotism! We don’t need a biologist. I don’t want a biologist! You can’t bring your daughter on this mission!”
    Duchamp merely raised an eyebrow and said, “My daughter comes with me.”
    “It’s impossible,” I said, as firmly as I could manage.
    “Look,” Duchamp replied, with ill-concealed impatience, “your father wants me out of his way, okay. But I’m not going to leave my daughter on the same planet with that humper. Not with him! Understood?”
    I gaped at her. Beneath that icily