The Venus Belt Read Online Free Page B

the asteroids with me?” I looked closer at her knitting, wondering if I should mention that the arms were getting a bit long.
    Click-clickety-click. “Is that a question from my employer, or merely the husband of my dearest friend?” Clickety-click-click.
    “Waffling already! Look, even without Hamiltonians mixed up in this, space travel’s no kind of risk for—”
    Clarissa sat down beside me. “Win, I’m a Healer. I’m also a fully grown sapient being...”
    I’d seen this independent mood before. Unfortunately it was a major reason I loved the woman. “Yes?”
    “I know what I’m doing! Maybe they fly around on giant firecrackers where you come from—”
    “Unfair! Just because my country’s economically depressed—”
    “And technologically backward.” Click-click-clickety.
    “Butt out, banana-breath! And technologically backward, that’s no re a son to...Listen: how many gees you figure to pull, just getting up to the li n er?”
    “Hmm. Well, the liner itself starts out at one gee, gradually dropping to a tenth of that by the time it reaches Ceres. That can’t be too bad, can it?”
    “ You can it. Answer my question: how many gees aboard the shuttle ?”
    “Uh, six—but there are ways, Win, heart patients do it all the—”
    “Swell. You’ll qualify sometime the middle of the twenty-fifth century. I’m leaving at the end of the week. You think I like going off a hundred mi l lion miles, maybe missing the baby—certainly missing you?” I leaned over to kiss her and hesitated. “Hey, Miss Simian Collegiate, I thought you wan t ed to be excused.”
    “Don’t mind me, this’ll be terrific for the anthro paper I’m doing: ‘Love among the Humans—Ennui or Boredom?’” Click-click-clickety-clack! “Dirty bad —I’ve dropped another...I wonder who that can be?”
    I got up and crossed to the windows. It was difficult to see in the eve n ing twilight; Confederate tastes run to generous acreage, lots of trees, hed g es, miscellaneous bushery. The folks at Cheyenne Ridge had gru d gingly let a little white stuff through, not enough to dampen the electrically warmed streets, but plenty for postcard scenery, maybe a snowman or two in the morning. I gave the window knob a twirl, doubling the a m plification. Sure enough, through the gate and up the gracefully curving rubber-surfaced drive, a hovercraft skated to a landing and two familiar furry shapes climbed out.
    I turned to my companions. “How about something in the fireplace? And kill the fatted whiskey bottle. It’s Captain Forsyth—and the mo n key’s uncle.”
    ***
    Olongo Featherstone-Haugh, a mountain among gorillas, handed me forty yards of dampened overcloak, unwinding a mile or two of muffler from around his massive neck. “Can’t be too careful, old boy”—he wiped an errant snowdrop from his pistol grip—” awfully prone to respiratory co m pl i cations, don’t you know.”
    True enough. Even given current medical technology, no gorilla took unnecessary chances that way. I added Forsyth’s ancient yellow slicker to a heap of steaming garments on the stair rail. Upstairs, Koko had a roa r ing fire started. Clarissa handed the President about a gallon and a half of Scotch.
    “Ahh! A wintry evening among friends. Thanks indeed, dear lady.”
    “Catch your prowler yet?” I asked. Some fool had broken into his o f fice last weekend. Putting in some overtime, Olongo had come back from the john and interrupted them in mid-burgle.
    He settled in my biggest chair, arms stretched comfortably across his ample frontage, firelight flickering in his eyes. “Afraid not, old man. St u pid sod that I am, I left my life-preserver in the office when I stepped out. Spot of luck they didn’t shoot me with it—had it halfway out of the holster when I threw that wastebasket. Next time I’ll be ready for them. Now tell me about this emergency of Lucy’s before I perish from curios i ty.”
    “Not much to tell.” I pushed my