Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (94 page)

The cat was chasing the deadly, glittering toy which, twisting and turning, was trying to get itself into a position to deliver an attack. A heavy paw went out, batted the tiny rider off her saddle, knocking the bicycle off balance. It fell to its side and lay there briefly, its wheels still spinning. The front one turned at right angles to the frame as it tried to right itself. But the animal was too fast for it. Jaws opened wide and closed, metal on metal, and . . . crunched. There was a brief sputter of blue sparks, the acridity of ozone.

The rider, the tiny golden woman, was running now. The cat dropped the twisted remains of the bicycle, started after her. The beast was fast, agile, but its prey was even—although barely—more so. How long could the chase go on? How long would the Countess go on living? How long would it be before the watch beast realized that its mistress was dead and detonated the explosive device built into it?

“Captain!” somebody was saying. “Captain!”

Grimes withdrew his horrified attention from the macabre chase, saw that Mayhew had come into the cabin. There was blood on the telepath’s hands and clothing (not his own, Grimes was to learn later).

“We must get it out of the ship,” Mayhew said urgently. “We must get it out before it detonates!”

Grimes found that he could speak.

“We . . . can’t. Not while the drive is running. We must not . . . discharge mass.”

“You were firing off guns.”

“That was . . . different. All the mass stayed within the combined fields.”

“Then shut down the drive. Come up to control. I can handle both Una and the cat.”

Handle Una?
wondered Grimes. Surely that figurine did not run to a brain, either electronic or organic.

He felt strength seeping into him. From Mayhew? He managed to get up from the chair in which he had been slumped. The cat, still chasing the little golden woman, brushed against his leg but ignored him. The Countess was beyond noticing anything. Mayhew went to him, supported him, led him to the door. As soon as they were through, the figurine scampered out into the alleyway, followed by the animal.

He ignored them. Painfully, he pulled himself up the ladder and through the hatch into Control. Williams was there, slumped in his seat, unconscious. He staggered to the command chair, sank into it. His fingers went to the controls set in the armrests.

“The overall monitor,” urged Mayhew.

He activated the rarely used Big Brother Is Watching system. In the stern vision screen he could see, at will, into every compartment of the ship. He was able to follow the sternward progress of the little golden girl, the vicious black-and-white predator, the flight and pursuit down the spiral staircase surrounding the axial shaft.

“Mr. Malleson is in the Mannschenn Drive room,” said Mayhew.

Don’t nag me,
he thought.

He said, “Tell
Epsilon Draconis
that I’m shutting off the synchronizer and shutting down the drive . . .”

He heard, from the NST transceiver, “What am I supposed to do? Make a break for it, or what?”

Tell him to get stuffed,
he thought.

He said, “Ask him to stand by, please. We have problems.”

He looked out through the port.
Epsilon Draconis
was there, hard and distinct against the background of vaguely swirling darkness, the nebulosities that were the stars. As the whine of
Sister Sue’s
drive deepened to a rumble and then died she faded, vanished, and abruptly the stars became hard points of light.

And . . .

And,
I murdered William Moore as I sailed, as I sailed . . .

But William Moore Williams was there, sprawled in his seat and snoring.

Grimes returned his attention to the screen.

Deck after deck after deck, the tiny golden woman, the big black-and-white cat, hunted and hunter, while in the commodore’s day cabin the ham-strung Countess breathed her last. Deck after deck after deck . . .

He took a sideways look.
Epsilon Draconis
was still with him. She, too, had shut down her Mannschenn Drive, was standing by to render assistance should it be required.

Deck after deck after deck . . .

“Open inner airlock door,” he said to Mayhew.

“Door opening, Captain.”

The miniature Una was in the chamber, the cat hard upon her heels.

“Close inner door. Open outer.”

He switched to an exterior view of the hull. He saw the door open, saw the sudden flurry of ice crystals. The cat now had the golden figurine in its mouth, was tumbling over and over as it fell into the nothingness.

There was an eye-searing flash and then the screen was dead.

“What
are
you doing?” came Captain Mulligan’s petulant voice from the NST transceiver.

“Tell him,” said Grimes to Mayhew, “just dumping garbage.”

He regretted the words as soon as he had uttered them. The Countess’s cat had been no more than garbage, dangerous garbage at that, but the figurine of Una had been not only a gift, a thoughtful gift evocative of old memories, but it had saved his life and the lives of all those aboard
Sister Sue
, all of those, that is, who still had lives
to
save.

Chapter 52

“I SUPPOSE,”
said Grimes, “that we shall have to return her effects and papers to her next of kin on El Dorado . . .”

As Billy Williams and Magda Granadu watched, he looked through the listing of personal possessions and then, finally, picked up the dead woman’s passport.

A waste,
he thought, as he stared at the three-dimensional photograph.
A waste. But she was a vicious bitch, after all. A female chauvinist bitch . . .

And then he started to laugh.

“What’s the joke, Skipper?” asked the mate.

“Her name, Billy. Wilhelmina Moore, Countess of Walshingham . . .”

“But what’s so funny about that?” asked Williams.

Chapter 53

THE THREE SHIPS HUNG THERE,
in the warped continuum, the destroyer’s synchronizer making slaves of the Mannschenn Drive units of the other two vessels.

From the NST transceiver came the voice of the destroyer’s captain.

“
Denebola
to
Sister Sue
. You are under arrest.”

“Acknowledge,” said Grimes to Williams.

“
Sister Sue
, stand by to receive boarders.”

“Acknowledge, Mr. Williams. Then carry on down to the after airlock to do the courtesies.”

The mate was all concern.

“Sir, can’t we fight? What will they do to you?”

“Not as much as they’d like to,” said Grimes. “Don’t worry, Mr. Williams. It will all come right in the end.”

“I said, sir, that we should never have taken a Terran ship . . .”

“But we did. Never mind, it was by
my
orders. You’re in the clear. Off with you, now. Be polite, but not servile. I shall be in my cabin.”

He got up from the command chair, turned to Mayhew.

“You’re in charge, Ken, until Billy comes back. You know where to find me if you want me.”

He went down to his day cabin, lowered himself into his armchair.
Let the Survey Service take over now,
he thought.
I’ve done their dirty work for them. It was rather dirtier than I thought that it would be—but isn’t it always that way?

He filled and lit his pipe, looked up through the blue smoke that it emitted at the empty shelf upon which the figurine of Una Freeman had stood. He found that he regretted the loss of that gift very deeply. If—
if!
—he ever saw Una again he would tell her of the circumstances. Meanwhile he could expect a quiet voyage back to Earth, under escort and with a prize crew on board, an official rapping of the knuckles, an unofficial pecuniary reward and then a resumption of his tramping life. He hoped that Williams would stay with him, and Magda Granadu. Old Mr. Stewart probably would. Malleson and Crumley probably would not. As for the others—he would not wish to be in their shoes. But their defense, almost certainly, would be that they had mutinied against a captain who had turned pirate. There was a knock at his door. “Yes?” he called.

“Sir,” said Williams, “the officer in charge of the boarding party to see you.”

“Send him in.”

“You are under arrest,” she said.

Grimes stared up at her. On the shoulders of her silvery spacesuit were the scarlet tabs that showed that she was a member of the Corps of Sky Marshals. She had removed her helmet and was holding it under her left arm. Her face, given a coat of gold paint, would have been the face of the figurine destroyed by the killer cat.

“Aren’t you pleased to see me?” she asked.

“Yes. Of course. But aren’t you . . . ? Shouldn’t you, I mean, be on Austral?”

“I was recalled to the Corps for a refresher course. And piracy, as you know, is the concern of the Sky Marshals as well as of the Survey Service.”

“Mphm. Well. Glad to have you aboard, Una.”

“I’m glad to be aboard, John. This is far more capacious than that bloody lifeboat.”

“Yes. I’ll tell my purser to organize a cabin for you.”

She said, “Don’t bother. This will do very nicely.” She grinned. “I have to have some place to interrogate my prisoner. Somewhere well away from the other accommodation so that the screams won’t be heard.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t just sit there grinning. Put that vile pipe out for a start—and then you can help me out of my spacesuit. And the rest . . .”

“But I have to get up to Control, Una. To give some orders.”

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’ll be giving the orders from now on.”

***

More than once during the voyage back to Earth Grimes would think,
Where is that bloody cat now that I need him?