First Command (48 page)

It was obvious that the man resented having to take orders from anybody but his own officer, even from the ship’s captain, but Major Swinton had been suspended from duty-and sent down to his quarters in disgrace. Brabham had taken over fire-control, and managed to convey the impression that he hoped he would not be required to function as gunnery officer. Tangye had the radar watch.

Grimes stayed in the control room, taking his sandwich lunch there, although the other officers were relieved for their meal. He continually refilled and rekindled a pipe that became ever fouler and fouler. He listened patiently to Brandt when the scientist reported on the findings that he, aided by the ship’s technical staff, had made. There had been very little metal in the structure of the airship, he said. The framework, control cabin, and engine pods had been made from a light but very strong wood. Stays and control cables, however, were of stranded wire, indicative of a certain degree of technological sophistication. The engines, which had survived the crash almost intact, seemed to be similar to Terran diesels. Unfortunately no fuel remained, but analysis of the deposits in the cylinders would provide clues as to the nature of what had been burned in them.

The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were beginning to fall into place—and Grimes regretted that he would not be able to complete the picture. After Swinton’s trigger-happy effort any and all visitors to this world would be received with hostility. It was a pity, as this would have been an interesting planet for detailed study, a world upon which the industrial revolution had taken place or was, at the very least, well under way. And there were political and sociological aspects as well as the technological ones which Grimes would have liked to have investigated. That obvious state of war—or, at least, a warmish cold war—between nations. Anti-aircraft artillery and a willingness to use it—as witness the reception of
Discovery’s
probe outside that city. But at least one of the powers, whoever it was that had owned the ill-fated airship, was less apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward. Or, he told himself glumly, they had been less apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward. Now they had learned their lesson.
That bloody, bloody Swinton!

“Of course,” said Brandt, with whom Grimes had been talking things over, “the major ruined everything.”

“He’s ruined himself as well, this time!” snapped Grimes. “I told the man, before witnesses, not to open fire unless ordered by myself to do so.” He laughed grimly. “I’m afraid you won’t get the chance to give away your picture books and educational toys on this planet, Doctor. Thanks to the Mad Major we got off on the wrong foot.”

He pushed himself up from his chair, made a circuit of the viewports. Shadow was creeping over the valley from the West, but the rugged country to the east of the tarn was Still brightly illuminated by the slowly setting sun—the pearly gray and glowing ocher of the cliffs, the static explosions of vividly green foliage, spangled with the scarlet and purple of huge gaudy blossoms.

Where every prospect pleases,
he thought,
but only Man is vile. Man, with a large, black, capital
“
M.
”

“Target,” called Tangye suddenly. “Aerial. Bearing 050. Range thirty-five.”

“General standby,” ordered Grimes. Then, more to himself than to anybody else, “I’ll not make it ‘action stations’ yet. If I do, the work’ll never get finished. I doubt if that gas bag’ll be keen to close us.” He turned to Brabham. “If it does, Number One, you can pump a few rounds of HETF across its bows, as a deterrent. You will not, repeat not, shoot to hit.”

Brabham gave him a sour look of acknowledgment, as though to say,
You don’t need to tell
me
my job!

Grimes looked down at the hoses, still out, still writhing rhythmically as the pumps drew in water from the lake. He thought,
I’ll let the old bitch drink her fill.
He watched the sullen Marines, ash-bedaubed, still at their grisly work, their morbid scavenging. He rather regretted that he had not put Major Swinton in personal charge of the operation.

“Bearing 050. Range thirty. Closing,” intoned Tangye.

“The poor brave, stupid bastards!” whispered Grimes. That flimsy ship, flammable as all hell, against
Discovery’s
weaponry. He went to the intercom, called for Flannery.

“An’ what would ye be wantin’, Captain?” asked the telepath when he reported to the control room.

“Don’t waste my time!” snapped Grimes testily. “You know damn well what I’m wanting!”

“Then I’ll be tellin’ ye, Captain. I’m receivin’ ‘em—loud, but not all that clear. Just raw emotions, like. Frightenin’, it is. Hate. Revenge. Anybody’d think ye were the black Cromwell himself, payin’ another visit to the Emerald Isle.”

“But what can they hope to do against us?” demanded Grimes.

“I can’t tell ye. But they are hopin’ to do something that’ll not be improvin’ the state of our health.”

“Range twenty-five. Closing.”

Grimes called the engine room. “Captain here, Chief. How’s that water coming in?”

“Only number six tank to top up now—an’ it’s almost full.”

“Then stop the pumps. Reel in the hoses.” He put down the telephone. “Commander Brambham—sound the recall.”

The wailing of the siren was deafening, but above it Tangye’s voice was still audible. “Range twenty. Closing.”

“We can reach them easily with a missile, sir,” suggested Brabham.

“Then don’t!” snarled Grimes.

The hoses were coming in, crawling over the grass like huge worms. The Marines were mounting the ramp, herded by Sergeant Washington.

“Liftoff stations,” ordered Grimes quietly. He knew that he could be up and clear, especially with the reaction drive assisting the inertial drive, long before the airship, even if she attempted kamikaze tactics, could come anywhere near him. And if the dirigible were armed with missiles—which could hardly be anything more advanced than solid fuel rockets—
Discovery’s
anti-missile laser would make short work of them.

“Range fifteen. Closing.”

The control room was fully manned now, the officers waiting for their captain’s orders. But the hoses had stopped coming in; some mechanical hitch must have developed. But there was yet, thought Grimes, no urgency. He could well afford to wait a few more minutes. He had no wish to jettison equipment that could not be replaced until return to a Base.

“Range ten. Holding, holding, holding.” There was relief in Tangye’s voice.

The airship was well within sight now. It just hung there in the sky, from this angle looking like a harmless silver ball, a balloon, glittering with reflected light.

“And what do you pick up now, Mr. Flannery?” asked Grimes.

“Nothin’ new at all, Captain. They’re still hatin’ us, still wantin’ their revenge.”

“They’ll not be getting it at that range!” remarked Grimes cheerfully. He was certain that the natives’ airborne weaponry would be unable to touch him. And he would soon be getting off this world, where things had gone so disastrously wrong. The sooner he was back in Deep Space the better. He said, “Once the hoses are in, I’ll lift ship.”

He went to the big binoculars on their universal mount, and the officer who had been using them made way for him. The instrument was already trained on the dirigible. He knew there would be nothing fresh to see—he was just passing the time—but then his attention was caught by a bright, intermittent flickering. A weapon? Hardly. It did not look like muzzle flashes, and surely these people did not yet have laser. The reflection of the sunlight from a control cabin window? Probably. He realized that he was trying to read the long and short flashes as though they were Morse, and laughed at himself for making the futile attempt.

“Hoses in, sir.”

“Good.” Grimes started to walk back to his control chair—and stopped in mid-stride as a violent explosion from somewhere outside shook the ship. “In the lake!” somebody was shouting. “The lake!” Over the suddenly disturbed water a column of spray, intermingled with dirty yellow smoke, was slowly subsiding. And something big and black and glistening had surfaced, was threshing in its death throes. But nobody could spare the time to look at it to determine what manner of beast it was. There was a second burst, a flame-centered eruption of sand and water on the beach itself, closer to the ship than the first one had been.

Suddenly that flickering light from the dirigible made sense to Grimes. It was either a heliograph or a daylight signaling lamp, and the function of the airship was not to attack but to spot for a surface vessel with heavy long-range guns, hidden from
Discovery’s
view, just as
Discovery
was hidden from hers. And what was she doing? he wondered.. Laddering, or bracketing? The question was an academic one.

A third projectile screamed in—this one much too close for comfort. Fragments of stone, earth, and metal rattled against the spaceship’s hull and she shuddered and complained, rocking in her tripedal landing gear. There was no time for normal liftoff procedure—the ritual countdown, the warning to all hands over the intercom to secure for space. There was no time, even, for Grimes to adjust himself properly in his chair. The inertial drive was ready, as was the auxiliary reaction drive. He slammed the controls of each straight from Standby to Maximum Lift, hoping desperately that at this time, of all times, the temperamental engines would not decide to play up. The violent acceleration pushed him deep into the padding of his seat; others, not so lucky, were thrown to the deck.
Discovery
did not have time to complain about the rough handling. (Normally she was the sort of ship that creaks and groans piteously at the least provocation.) She went up like a shot from a gun—and a real shot, from a real gun, blew a smoking crater into the ground upon which she, only a split second before, had been resting.

Upward she roared on her column of incandescent steam, with the overworked inertial drive deafeningly cacophonous. Already the island was showing as a map in the periscope screen. Off the northern coast, a gray slug on the blue water, stood the warship. There was a scintillation of yellow flashes as her guns, hastily elevated, loosed off a wild, futile salvo, and another, and another. The shell bursts were all well below the rapidly climbing
Discovery.

Laboriously Grimes turned his head, forcing it around against the crushing weight of acceleration, looked through the viewports. The airship was closer now, driving in at its maximum speed. But it did not matter.
Discovery
would be well above the dirigible by the time the courses intersected, at such an altitude that the down-licking exhaust would be dissipated, would not ignite the hydrogen in the gas cells. He bore the aviators no grudge, felt only admiration for them.

Admiration, and . . . helpless pity.

He stared, horror-stricken, into the periscope screen as the airship, now almost directly beneath
Discovery,
was caught in the turbulence of the spaceship’s wake. Giant, invisible hands caught the fragile craft, wrenched her, twisted her, wrung her apart. But there was buoyancy still in the sundered bow and stern sections, there was hope yet for her crew.

There was hope—until chance sparks, friction engendered, ignited the slowly escaping hydrogen. She blossomed then into a dreadful flower of blue and yellow flame from the center of which there was a spillage of wreckage, animate and inanimate.

Grimes cut the reaction drive. He did not wish to blow away all the water that had been purchased at too great a cost. He continued his passage up through the atmosphere on inertial drive only. It was time that he started to think about the casualties among his own people—the sprains, contusions, and abrasions, if nothing worse. He told Brabham to get hold of Dr. Rath and to find out how things were. Luckily nobody in the control room was badly hurt; everybody there had seen what was happening, had been given a chance to prepare for what was going to happen.

Grimes pushed the ship up and out, looking with regret at the dwindling world displayed in the screen. There was so much that could have been learned about it and its people, so much that should have been learned.

But, as far as he was, concerned it was no more than a big black mark on his service record.

Chapter 20

So he was back in Deep Space
again and the planet, the native name of which he had never learned, was no more than a tiny shapeless blob of luminescence, barely discernible to one side of the greater (but fast diminishing) blob that was its primary, Star 1717 in the Ballchin Catalog. He was back in Deep Space, and trajectory had been set for 1716, and
Discovery
had settled down, more or less, to her normal Deep Space routine.

More or less.

Officers and ratings were doing their jobs as usual and—also as usual—in a manner that wasn’t quite grossly inefficient. The ship was even less happy than she ever had been. Cases of minor insubordination were all too common, and all too often the insubordination had been provoked.

Perhaps, hoped Grimes, things would be better after planetfall had been made on the most likely world of Star 1716. Perhaps that world would prove to be the home of a Lost Colony, with genuinely human inhabitants. Perhaps it would be possible to make an unopposed landing and to establish amicable relations with the people at once, in which case everybody (including, eventually, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty) would be happy.

Meanwhile, he did not forget his promise to Captain Davinas. He made out the message, using the simple code that he and the tramp master had agreed upon.
To: Davinos, d/s/s Sundowner. Happy Birthday. Peter.
There would be little chance of such a short transmission being picked up by the Waverley monitors. It was transmitted on a tight beam, not broadcast, directed at the Carlotti relay station on Elsinore. There it would be picked up and immediately and automatically retransmitted, broadcast, at regular intervals, until it was acknowledged by
Sundowner.
Davinas would know from whom it came and what it meant. The Elsinore station would know the exact direction from which it had been beamed—but the straight line from
Discovery
to Elsinore was a very long one, stretching over many light-years. In the unlikely event of the broadcast’s being received by any station within the Empire of Waverley it would be utterly meaningless.