Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (64 page)

“But it’s working, isn’t it? Mr. Yosarian, I’d like to hire
Little Sister
for a day. There’s no shuttle available to take me out to
Epsilon Scorpii
, and I want to make an inspection as soon as possible.”

“I’m not hiring her out,” said Yosarian. Then he grinned. “But I want to see how she handles. We’ll regard this as a sort of trial run. I can be ready for space in thirty minutes. That suit you?”

Chapter 4

YOSARIAN,
as promised, had
Little Sister
ready for space in half an hour. There were delays, however, before she could lift off. Only two spacesuits were on board; others had to be borrowed from the Interstellar Transport Commission’s stores. Luckily the storekeeper was able to find one large enough to accommodate the roboticist’s corpulence. Meanwhile Pinnett got in touch, by radio telephone, with
Epsilon Scorpii’s
ship-keeping officer to make arrangements for the reception of the boarding party.

Finally, with everybody and everything aboard
Little Sister
, the pinnace was buttoned up. Yosarian, not without diffidence, took the pilot’s seat in the control cab. Grimes sat beside him. Billy Williams and Pinnett disposed themselves in the main cabin. Permission was received from Aerospace Control to lift off. Yosarian looked at Grimes, who nodded.

The fat man’s pudgy hands hesitated briefly over the console, then turned on the inertial drive.
Little Sister
shuddered as the thrust built up. The drive hammered more loudly as the little ship lifted from the apron. Yosarian increased the rate of ascent and said to Grimes, “Can’t you feel the difference? The innie needed tuning very badly.”

It sounded the same to Grimes as it always had—but as long as Yosarian’s tinkerings kept him happy that was all right by him. He did not interfere with the roboticist as he pushed
Little Sister
up and up, through wisps of high cirrus, into a sky which rapidly deepened to indigo, into the airless blackness where the unwinking stars were brightly shining. The pinnace’s new owner seemed to know what he was doing and was not so arrogant as to attempt himself tasks that were better carried out by the computer. He fed the elements of
Epsilon Scorpii’s
synchronous orbit, which he had obtained from Pinnett, into
Little Sister’s
electronic brain and switched control from manual to automatic. Before long a spark appeared on the radar screen, a point of light, tiny at first, that expanded into a glowing blob that grew steadily.

He turned to Grimes and said, “Well, there she is, Captain.” He paused, then asked, “How did I do?”

“Very nicely, Captain,” said Grimes.

Yosarian blushed happily and said, “Would you mind taking over now, Captain Grimes? You’re more used to this sort of thing than I am.”

“But you have to get some practice. Just match orbital velocity; it shouldn’t be difficult. Edge her in until we’re half a kilometer off target, then put her back on automatic . . .” He transferred his attention to the NST transceiver.
“Little Sister
to
Epsilon Scorpii . . .”

“Eppy Scorpy
to
Little Sister.
I read you.”

A slightly effeminate voice, thought Grimes. Some very junior officer, he decided, not an old retired captain augmenting his pension with a shipkeeper’s salary. (But he had been a shipkeeper himself although he had been neither old nor retired. He had needed the money.)

“Is your airlock ready?” he asked. “We will board as soon as we’re suited up.”

“Opening outer door now,” came the reply.

Little Sister
was on station, maintaining the correct distance off. In the cabin Pinnett was getting into his spacesuit; it was obviously not the first time that he had been required to wear such a garment. Yosarian, however, required assistance to get into the especially large outfit that had been borrowed for him. When the roboticist was at last suited up Grimes got into his own space armor. He realized, once he had sealed himself in the garment, that it was not the one that he had regarded as his own while he had been
Little Sister’s
owner and master. The last person to have used it must have been Tamara Haverstock; after all this time a trace of her perfume still persisted. He allowed his memories briefly to take over his mind. Who else had worn this suit? Only Tamara, he decided—and she, now, was no more than a recollection of somebody whom he would never see again, any more than he would ever see again those other lost ladies—Jane Pentecost, Fenella Pruin, Shirl, Darleen, Susie, Una Freeman . . .
I must be wanting a woman,
he thought,
if it takes no more than a fugitive whiff of scent to start me wandering down memory lane . . .

“Are you all right, Skipper?” asked Williams sharply, his voice distorted but still recognizable as it came from the helmet speaker. The big man had seated himself in the chair vacated by Yosarian, was speaking into the NST transceiver microphone.

“Of course, Mr. Williams,” said Grimes. He added, lamely, “I was just thinking.” He continued, speaking briskly, “All right. You’re in charge until we get back. We’re locking out now.”

The small airlock could accommodate two persons—but not when one of the pair was as bulky as Yosarian. Grimes and Pinnett, therefore, went out first after Grimes had told the roboticist that, according to protocol, he, as captain, should be last out of the ship. Before long the three men were hanging outside
Little Sister’s
golden hull, staring at the great hulk of
Epsilon Scorpii
gleaming against the backdrop of stars. Sunlight was reflected from most of her shell but the open airlock door was in shadow. That was all to the good; it made it much easier to see the bright green light that illuminated the chamber.

“Grimes to Pinnett. Go!” ordered Grimes.

Pinnett went. He handled himself not unskillfully, launching himself into the void with an economically short blast from his suit reaction unit, making only one trajectory adjustment before he braked himself just outside the open airlock door. Grimes watched him, his figure in black silhouette against the green illumination, as he pulled himself into the chamber.

“You next, Mr. Yosarian,” said Grimes.

“I . . . I don’t think . . .” Then, in a burst of embarrassed frankness, “This is the first time that I’ve done this sort of thing . . .”

“So we take no risks,” said Grimes.

He positioned himself behind the fat man, put both gloved hands on the other’s armored shoulders, took a firm grip.

He said, “Whatever you do, don’t touch your reaction-unit controls. I don’t want a hole blasted in my belly. Just relax . . .”

Pushing Yosarian before him, he jetted toward
Epsilon Scorpii
. The short flight was a clumsy one. He was grateful that there were not many witnesses. He managed to turn around when halfway to his objective, fired a short braking blast. He missed the open doorway, fetched up with a clang on the ship’s side a meter from the rim. Fortunately Pinnett was spaceman enough—like most of the Interstellar Transport Commission’s managers he had done his stint as a ship’s purser—to extend a helping hand, pulling Grimes and his bulky, ungainly tow into the chamber.

There was ample room for all of them in the airlock and they were able to get themselves sorted out, all standing the same way up, their magnetically soled boots holding them to the deck. The outer door closed and the illumination changed from green to red, indicating that they were in a hard vacuum environment. It acquired a yellowish tinge, became amber, showing that atmosphere was being fed into the chamber. It became green once more.

The inner door opened.

The shipkeeper was waiting to receive them.

She spoke into the little transceiver that she was wearing on her left wrist.

“Come in,” she said sourly. “This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard. I hope that one of you is an engineer. The autochef is playing up again. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I’ve reported it. And isn’t it time that I got some new spools for the playmaster? And . . .”

Grimes stared at her. She was wearing a well-filled T-shirt and very short shorts. The sandals on her rather large feet were secured by string, the original straps being no more than broken ends. Her free-floating hair made a dingy green halo about her head. A pair of vividly green eyes glared at the boarders. Even her skin—and there was plenty of it on view—had a greenish tinge. She would have been a good-looking enough wench, thought Grimes, had she been cleaner (to judge from the state of her shirt and even her face she was a messy feeder), had her expression been less surly. But even after a bath and looking happy she would have been too strong featured to suit his taste in women.

A Donegalan, he decided. (He had visited New Donegal once, during his career in the Survey Service.) Human ancestry, but with a slight genetic drift from the norm. A woman-dominated society. No spaceships of Donegalan registry but, each year, a few promising girls sent to the Antarctic Academy on Earth—where the Commandant and his officers made sure that none of them did well enough to graduate into the Survey Service. Most of them, however, did qualify for entry into the Interstellar Transport Commission and other shipping lines. There was more than male chauvinism involved in the Academy’s attitude toward the Donegalans. They were notorious for always carrying chips on their shoulders, and such an attitude on the part of junior officers could seriously impair the efficient running of a warship.

Faceplates were opened.

“Ms. Connellan,” said Pinnett, “this is Captain Grimes.” Grimes nodded. “And Mr. Yosarian . . .” The roboticist managed, even in his bulky spacesuit, a quite courtly bow. Pinnett went on, “Ms. Connellan is one of our second officers . . .”

“Demoted to watchperson,” she snarled. “I’ve a Master’s ticket—and this is the best job that the bloody Commission can find for me!”

“Shipkeeping officer,” Pinnett corrected her. “With very generous hard-lying money over and above your salary.”

“Which I earn, in this rustbucket where damn all works the way that it should!”

“What exactly is not working, Ms. Connellan?” asked Grimes pleasantly.

“The autochef, for a start. And the NST transceiver only works if you know just where to give it a clout. You were lucky that it wasn’t on the blink when you came up from Port Southern; the last time that you condescended to call on me, Mr. Pinnett, you had to hammer on the control-room viewports to attract my attention. Then, a couple of days ago, I tried to actuate the Carlotti transceiver, just so that I could find out what ships are around. It just spat sparks at me and died. Oh, and just to pass the time I’ve been browsing through the logs. It seems that Captain Taine had one helluva job establishing this wreck in orbit. I know that he’s not the best ship handler in the universe but the fact that the innies were playing up made him even worse than usual. And . . .”

“That will do, Ms. Connellan,” snarled Pinnett. “That will do!”

“Like hell it will. What about the nutrient pumps for the tissue culture vats? I’ve had to dump the lamb and the beef and the pork. Would
you
like chicken for every meal?”

“That will do!”

“It will
not
do, Mr. Pinnett. I demand that you find me a deep space appointment.”

“I am not the Commission’s astronautical superintendent, Ms. Connellan.”

“Too right you’re not. But you’re a planetary manager, aren’t you? Somebody in the top office must listen to you sometimes.”

“Captain Grimes,” said Pinnett, trying hard to ignore the irate shipkeeper, “may I suggest that we start the tour of inspection?”

“It’s what we came here for,” said Grimes. “Ms. Connellan, will you lead the way? We’ll start in the control room and work aft.”

“Are you really thinking of buying this . . .
thing?
” asked the girl interestedly. “You must have more money than sense.”

Perhaps I have,
thought Grimes.
Perhaps it’s always been that way, even when I’ve been flat broke.

***

Grimes was glad that Yosarian had come along. Even though the roboticist was not an astronautical engineer he knew machines; too, there was his keen interest in spaceships.

“The people who were here,” he complained, “just did not care. All over there is lack of proper attention . . .”

“I should have been given the time to get the shore gang up here to do some cleaning up,” said Pinnett stiffly.

Yosarian ignored him as he continued his inspection of one of the offending pumps on the farm deck.

“Look at this!” he spluttered. “Every lubrication point clogged! Small wonder that it seized up . . .” He stared reproachfully at the woman. “Surely even you should have seen what was the trouble.”

“I’m employed as a shipkeeping officer,” she snapped, “not as a mechanic!”

Yosarian shook his head sadly. “But your own comfort . . . Your own safety, even . . .”

“I’ve told you that I’m not an engineer.”

“That is glaringly obvious,” he said.

“Mr. Pinnett,” she demanded, “did you bring this man here to insult me?”

“But this is Mr. Yosarian,” said Pinnett.

“And so what? Am I supposed to fire a twenty-one-gun salute? But if there were any guns in this ship they wouldn’t be working, any more than the pumps are.”

“So the pumps aren’t working,” snarled Pinnett. “You are at least partly responsible for that.”

“The butterfly-brained Terry apes who were the alleged engineers of this scow on her last voyage were responsible, and you know it!”

“Let’s get on with the inspection,” said Grimes tiredly.

Throughout the ship it was the same story, a glaring example of the “she’ll be all right” principle carried to extremes. There were many things, such as those nutrient pumps, that Ms. Connellan could have put right. And, with all the time on her hands, she might have done something about the state of the inertial drive room. Hasty repairs of some kind seemed to have been carried out at the very conclusion of the voyage while the ship was being established in parking orbit—and then the tools employed had not been returned to their clips but had been carelessly dropped, were now, in these free fall conditions, drifting around dangerously in the air eddies set up by the body movements of the inspection party.