Despite not being able to come up with anything specific, Kelvin still had a niggling feeling of disquiet. He kept thinking about it as he knocked back his antifungal booster tablets with the last of the martini, unstrapped and got out of his seat, unsealed his helmet and racked it, smeared some antifungal cream on his face and hands, then put on his planetside belt with holstered heat-beam (for Venusian ambulatory fungus and the like), stunner (for ambulatory human lowlifes and the like), and bush knife (for when the options got really limited). He eyed the bar at the back of the cockpit for a moment, considering a second martini, but decided against it. Time enough for that when the Loafer was back in orbit.
“Cabin secure?” he asked Suze, though as always he also checked the somewhat mildewed viewscreen next to the hatch. Miners were exiting to the gate in an orderly fashion, doubtless encouraged by the sight of Suze, huge in her armored vacuum suit, a stunner held tight in her right gauntlet, her left hand entirely encased in the ball of a field-lightning projector, for those exciting moments when the occupants of the entire front six passenger rows needed to be shocked into better behavior.
“Yeah, all OK.”
Kelvin palmed the hatch, then repeated the gesture several times until it opened, letting in a wave of warm, moist air. Like everything else on the shuttle, the sensor was affected by too much moisture and by Venusian molds that had a liking for plastic. Only so much could be done with regular cleaning and decontamination, the life of even “Venerified” tech was always much shorter than the manufacturers claimed.
“Go and get whatever it is sorted out,” said Suze. “I’ll do the ground admin and clear us to go back up.”
“Thanks, Suze,” said Kelvin. He smiled, trying not to show his apprehension. He hoped it would be both of them going back up. Suze could fly the shuttle if she had to, though she wasn’t anywhere near as experienced as Kelvin, having learned on the job, whereas he had been through the full orbital-atmosphere school at Fort Atherton, then flown ten years operational with the Pan-Pacific Collective Combined Forces on Earth before somehow living through the Third PPCCF Intervention, flying assault shuttles to and from the beachhead on Deimos to Mars …
“Oh shit,” he said, as his previous vague apprehension solidified into a more certain dread. His Navy service was twenty years ago, and with a different navy, but he was still getting a derisory pension and there had been some small print attached to that when he demobbed …
“What?” asked Suze.
“I just remembered something,” he said grimly, a memory made more concrete by the sight of a thin-faced chief petty officer in a Terran Navy coverall sidling down the side of the gate tube, the miners edging across to give her room when they saw the razorgun on her hip and the lit-up SP brassard on her arm. Venusport Police were inclined to turn a blind eye and could be bribed, but everyone knew that you didn’t want to cross the Terran Navy Shore Patrol, the MBU Law Enforcement Detachment, or the Mercury Inc. Compliance Facilitation Division, the three organizations that took turns in policing the spaceport.
“Commander Kelvin Kelvin 21, formerly of the PPCCF?” asked the petty officer. She didn’t wait for Kelvin to nod, already holding up a field identification unit, taking a snap of his eyes before proffering its waiting orifice.
“Yeah, that’s me,” said Kelvin because there was no point trying to pretend he was someone else. He put his hand in the unit and waited for the prick of the tester, which would sample his DNA, specifically looking for the encoded sequences spliced there long ago by the PPCCF to identify him from his clone siblings, and, later still, to note various information and secrecy access levels as he was promoted or when he got assigned to Special Forces.
The ID unit reported positively to the petty officer, who collapsed it and returned it to a thigh pocket. Then she conjured a blue flimsy from somewhere, possibly inside her sleeve, handed it to Kelvin and saluted him.
He almost saluted back out of long-lost habit, but the blue flimsy was in his hand, and it was squawking only slightly more slowly than he could read the printed words.
“Nonsecret. Commander Kelvin Kelvin 21 OFC HPPC Second Class, under the terms of the amalgamation of the PPCCF in Terran World Government Treaty Part Seven Section Three Paragraphs Four through Twenty ‘Absorption of Existing Active and Reserve Military Forces’ your Sufficient Service Exemption from Recall to Active Service Exemption Type 23A is revoked and under the TWG Emergency Requirements Activation Act (New) you are hereby required to report immediately and without delay to Commanding Officer Venusport Treaty Obligation Detachment, TN for service not to exceed three standard Terran years and of this moment your salary, Venusian supplements, Pilot Bonus, and War service gratuity will commence at the rate of Commander Step Three (Special Forces) Terran Navy. Thank you and have a nice day.”
“Shit,” said Suze. “Three years!”
“What’s this about, Chief?” asked Kelvin. “Did a war start and no one tell us?”
“Not so as I’ve heard, sir,” replied the CPO. “If you’d just follow me, sir?”
Kelvin nodded and turned to Suze.
“Take the Loafer back up as soon as you can. You and Sal fly together, take turns as pilot in charge, and have Sim and Saul in the cabin—better to double up just in case. I’ll be back as soon as I see what this is about. Uh, tell Susan Senior not to worry.”
“You just going to go along?” asked Suze.
Kelvin shrugged. “You heard it. I forgot the PPCCF kept all of us Mars Intervention vets on the reserve list and World Gov just took that over, I guess. Nothing I can do about it. But I can’t see them needing a clapped-out fifty-year-old shuttle pilot for long.”
“I was told to hurry, sir,” reminded the petty officer. “If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Lead on,” said Kelvin. “See you, Suze.”
The terminal was crowded with miners trying to expedite themselves ahead of one another through the rudimentary automatic arrival system, but instead of joining one of the jostling queues, the CPO led Kelvin to a VIP exit, where two Venusian Police agents checked her pass and waved them to a moving walkway that ran through a prep tunnel that misted them with antifungal agents, performed an automated ID check, then extruded them out through some slowly yawning armored doors of great antiquity into the vehicle park, where the full soggy warmth of Venus hit. Kelvin took a handkerchief out of the sleeve pocket of his coveralls, mopped the instant sweat off his forehead, and tied it around his nose and mouth to help keep out the airborne spores. The booster tablets were supposed to take care of anything inhaled or digested, but Kelvin figured that cutting down the ingestion in the first place was always worth a try.
“So what can you tell me now that there are no civs listening, Chief?”
“Nothing, sir,” replied the CPO. She held up a hand and a waiting groundcar popped its doors. Two more Shore Patrol types got out of the front, putting paid to any notions that Kelvin might have had to do a runner. Not that he had any. There was nowhere to run to on Venus, not long-term anyway. At least, nowhere he wanted to run to, that was for sure.
While the spaceport was somewhat ordered, the rest of Venusport was pretty much a shambles. Along a notional grid pattern that had been bent, twisted, and ignored over the last hundred years there rose the massive domes from the First through Fifth Expeditions, each now containing hundreds of homes, businesses, and small industries. Sprinkled between the domes were buildings of every possible style, from single-box prefab plasteel instahuts to six-story mansions of local phlegm-colored brick, abandoned ships repurposed as factories or dwellings, and the ever-popular yurts of local lizard-hide over steel frames that could be quickly moved if circumstances required it.