"Rear Admiral James is . . . er . . . slightly biased. Do you mean to tell me that you have never met Miss Freeman?"
"No, sir. My time has been fully occupied by my duties."
Commodore Damien stared up at the tall, fair-haired young man in sardonic wonderment until Delamere, who had a hide like a rhinoceros, blushed. He said, "She must keep you on a tight leash."
"I don't understand what you mean, sir."
"Don't you? Oh, skip it, skip it. Where was I before you obliged me to become engaged in a discussion of your morals?" Delamere blushed again. "Oh, yes. Miss Freeman will be taking passage with you, until such time as you have intercepted the derelict. With her will be a boarding party of Survey Service personnel, under Lieutenant Commander Grimes."
"Not Grimes, sir! That Jonah!"
"Jonah or not, Delamere, during his time in command of one of my couriers there has never been any serious damage to his ship—which is more than I can say about you. As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted, Lieutenant Commander Grimes will be in charge of the boarding party, which will consist of three spacemen lieutenants, four engineer lieutenants, one electronic communications officer, six petty officer mechanics, one petty officer cook and three wardroom attendants."
"Doing himself proud, isn't he, sir?"
"He and his people will have to get a derelict back into proper working order and bring her in to port. We don't know, yet, what damage has been done to her by the pirates."
"Very well, sir." Delamere's voice matched his martyred expression. "I'll see to it that accommodation is arranged for all these idlers. After all, I shan't have to put up with them for long."
"One more thing, Delamere . . . ."
"Sir?"
"You'll have to make room in your after hold for a Mark XIV lifeboat. All the derelict's boats were taken when the crew and passengers abandoned ship. Lieutenant Commander Grimes will be using the Mark XIV for his boarding operation, of course, and then keeping it aboard
Delta Geminorum.
Grimes, of course, will be in full charge during the boarding and until such time as he releases you to proceed on your own occasions. Understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then that will be all, Lieutenant Commander." Delamere put on his cap, sketched a vague salute and strode indignantly out of the office. Damien chuckled and nattered, "After all, he's not the Admiral's son-in-law
yet . . . .
"
Grimes and Una stood on the apron looking up at
Skink.
She wasn't a big ship, but she looked big to Grimes after his long tour of duty in the little
Adder.
She was longer, and beamier. She could never be called, as the Serpent Class couriers were called, a "flying darning needle." A cargo port was open in her shining side, just forward of and above the roots of the vanes that comprised her tripedal landing gear. Hanging in the air at the same level was a lifeboat, a very fat dagger of burnished metal, its inertial drive muttering irritably. Grimes hoped that the Ensign piloting the thing knew what he was doing, and that Delamere's people, waiting inside the now-empty after hold, knew what they were doing. If that boat were damaged in any way he would be extremely reluctant to lift off from Lindisfarne. He said as much.
"You're fussy, John," Una told him.
"A good spaceman has to be fussy. There won't be any boats aboard the derelict, and anything is liable to go wrong with her once we've taken charge and are on our own. That Mark XIV could well be our only hope of survival."
She laughed. "If that last bomb blows up after we're aboard, a lifeboat won't be much use to us."
"You're the bomb-disposal expert. You see to it that it doesn't go off."
Delamere, walking briskly, approached them. He saluted Una, ignored Grimes. "Coming aboard, Miss Freeman? We shall be all ready to lift off as soon as that boat's inboard."
"I'll just wait here with John," she said. "He wants to see the boat safely into the ship."
"My officers are looking after it, Grimes," said Delamere sharply.
"But
I've
signed for the bloody thing!" Grimes told him.
The boat nosed slowly through the circular port, vanished. For a few seconds the irregular beat of its inertial drive persisted, amplified by the resonance of the metal compartment. Then it stopped. There was no tinny crash to tell of disaster.
"Satisfied?" sneered Delamere.
"Not quite. I shall want to check on its stowage."
"All right. If you insist," snarled Delamere. He then muttered something about old women that Grimes didn't quite catch.
"It's
my
boat," he said quietly.
"And it's being carried in
my
ship."
"Shall we be getting aboard?" Una asked sweetly.
They walked up the ramp to the after airlock. It was wide enough to take only two people walking abreast in comfort. Grimes found himself bringing up the rear.
Let Frankie-boy have his little bit of fun,
he thought tolerantly. He was confident that he would make out with Una; it was now only a question of the right place and the right time. He did not think that she would be carried away by a golden-haired dummy out of a uniform tailor's shop window. On the other hand, Delamere's ship would not provide the right atmosphere for his own campaign of conquest. Not that it mattered much. He would soon have a ship of his own, a
big
ship. Once aboard the derelict
Delta Geminorum
people would no longer have to live in each other's pockets.
Grimes stopped off at the after hold to see to the stowage of his boat while Una and Delamere stayed in the elevator that carried them up the axial shaft to the captain's quarters. The small craft was snugly nested into its chocks, secured with strops and sliphooks. Even if Delamere indulged in the clumsy aerobatics, for which he was notorious, on his way up through the atmosphere the boat should not shift.
While he was talking with two of his own officers—they, like himself, had an interest in the boat—the warning bell for lift-off stations started to ring.
"Frankie's getting upstairs in a hurry!" muttered one
Skink's
lieutenants sourly. "Time we were in our acceleration couches."
And time I was in the control room,
thought Grimes. This wasn't his ship, of course, but it was customary for a captain to invite a fellow captain up to Control for arrivals and departures.
"We haven't been shown to our quarters yet, sir," said one of Grimes' officers.
"Neither have I, Lieutenant, been shown to mine." He turned to the ship's officer. "Where are we berthed?"
"I . . . I don't know, sir. And once the Old Man has started his count-down the Odd Gods of the Galaxy Themselves couldn't stop him!"
"Don't let us keep you, Lieutenant," Grimes told him. "Off you go, tuck yourself into your own little cot.
We'll
manage."
"But
how,
sir?" demanded Grimes' officer. "We can't just stretch out on the
deck . . .
"
"Use your initiative, Lieutenant. We've a perfectly good ship's boat here, with well-sprung couches. Get the airlock door open, and look snappy!"
He and his two officers clambered into the boat. The bunks were comfortable enough. They strapped themselves in. Before the last clasp had been snapped tight
Skink's
inertial drive started up—and (it seemed) before the stern vanes were more than ten millimeters from the apron the auxiliary reaction drive was brought into play. It was the sort of showy lift-off, with absolutely unnecessary use of rocket power, of which Grimes himself had often been guilty. When anybody else did it—Delamere especially—he disapproved strongly. He could just imagine Frankie showing off in front of his control room guest, Una Freeman . . . .
Oh, well,
he thought philosophically as the acceleration pushed him down into the padding,
at least we're giving the mattresses a good test. I don't suppose that they'll be used again . . . . A long boat voyage is the very least of my ambitions.
Skink
thundered up through the atmosphere and, at last, the drive was cut. Grimes and his two companions remained in their couches until trajectory had been set, until the high keening of the Mannschenn drive told them that they were on their way to intercept the derelict.
Skink
was not a happy ship.
The average spaceman doesn't mind his captain's being a bastard as long as he's an efficient bastard. Frankie Delamere was not efficient. Furthermore, he was selfish. He regarded the vessel as his private yacht. Everything had to be arranged for
his
personal comfort.
Skink
was an even unhappier ship with the passengers whom she was carrying. To begin with, Delamere seemed to be under the impression that the medieval
droit du seigneur
held good insofar as he was concerned. Una did her best to disillusion him. She as good as told him that if she was going to sleep with anybody—and it was a large
if
—it
would be with Grimes. Thereupon Frankie made sure that opportunities for this desirable consummation were altogether lacking. Some of his people, those who respected the rank if not the man, those who were concerned about their further promotion, played along with the captain. "One thing about Delamere's officers," complained Grimes, "is that they have an absolute genius for being where they're not wanted!"
Apart from sexual jealousy, Delamere did not like Grimes, never had liked Grimes, and Grimes had never liked him. He could not go too far—after all, Grimes held the same rank as did he—but he contrived to make it quite clear that his fellow Lieutenant Commander was
persona non grata
in the courier's control room. Then—as was his right, but one that he was not obliged to exercise—he found totally unnecessary but time-consuming jobs for the members of the boarding party, snapping that he would tolerate no idlers aboard his ship.
He, himself, was far from idle. He was working hard—but, Grimes noted with grim satisfaction, getting nowhere. He was always asking Una Freeman up to his quarters on the pretext of working out procedures for the interception of the derelict—and there he expected her to help him work his way through his not inconsiderable private stock of hard liquor. Grimes had no worries on this score. Her capacity for strong drink, he had learned, was greater than his, and his was greater than Delamere's. And there was the black eye that the captain tried to hide with talcum powder before coming into the wardroom for dinner and—a day or so later—the scratches on his face that were even more difficult to conceal. Too, Una—on the rare occasions that she found herself alone with Grimes—would regale him with a blow by blow account of the latest unsuccessful assault on the body beautiful.
Grimes didn't find it all that amusing.
"The man's not fit to hold a commission!" he growled. "Much less to be in command. Make an official complaint to me—after all, I'm the senior officer aboard this ship after himself—and I take action!"
"What will you do?" she scoffed. "Call a policeman? Don't forget that I'm a policewoman—with the usual training in unarmed combat. I've been gentle with him so far, John. But if he tried anything nasty he'd wind up in the sick bay with something broken . . . ."
"Or out of the airlock wrapped up in the Survey Service flag . . ." he suggested hopefully.
"Even that. Although I'd have some explaining to do then."
"I'd back you up."
"Uncommonly decent of you, Buster. But I can look after myself—as Frankie boy knows, and as you'd better remember!"
"Is that a threat?"
"It could be," she told him. "It just could be."
For day after day
Skink
fell through the immensities, through the Continuum warped by the temporal precession field of her Mannschenn Drive. As seen from her control room the stars were neither points of light nor appreciable discs, but pulsing spirals of iridescence. For day after day the screen of the mass proximity indicator was a sphere of unrelieved blackness—but Delamere's navigator, an extremely competent officer, was not worried. He said, "If the F.I.A. mathematicians got their sums right—and I've heard that they're quite good at figuring—
Delta Geminorum
is still well outside the maximum range of our MPI."
"Damn it all!" snarled his Captain. "We're wasting time on this wild goose chase. We should be well on our way to Olgana by now, not chauffeuring the civilian fuzz all round the bleeding Galaxy!"
"I thought you
liked
Miss Freeman, sir," observed the navigator innocently.
"Keep your thoughts to yourself, Lieutenant!"
"If
my
sums have come out right, we should pick up the derelict at about 0630 hours, ship's time, tomorrow."
"Your sums had better come out right!" snarled Delamere.
Reluctantly, Delamere asked Grimes up to the control room at the time when the first sighting was expected. He made it plain that he did so only because the other was to be in charge of the boarding operations. He growled, "You're supposed to be looking after this part of it. Just try not to waste too much of my time."
"Your time," said Grimes, "belongs to the Survey Service, as mine does. And it's all being paid for with the taxpayer's money."
"Ha, ha."
"Ha, ha."
The officers, and Una Freeman, looked on with interest. Una remarked that having two captains in the same control room was worse than having two women in the same kitchen. The watch officer, an ensign, sniggered.
Either a very brave or a very foolish young man,
thought Grimes.
"And where's your bloody derelict, Mr. Ballantyre?" Delamere snarled at his navigator. "I make the time coming up to 0633."
"It's been showing in the screen, sir, at extreme range, for the last three minutes. Just the merest flicker, and not with every sweep, but a ship's a small target . . . ."
Pushing his officers rudely aside Delamere went to the MPI, staring down into the sphere of blackness. Grimes followed him. Yes, there it was, an intermittently glowing spark, at green eighty-three, altitude seventeen negative.