To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga (14 page)

“This way a little . . . that’s it.”

“She’ll do, Skipper.”

“No she won’t. Look at the bend on it!”

Then Jane’s laughing voice.
“Our secret weapon, Jeremy. A laser that fires around corners!”

“That will do, Miss Pentecost. Straighten it, will you?”

“Ay, ay, sir. Captain, sir.”

The two interstellar drive engineers were working in silence, but with efficiency. Aboard the ship were only Grimes and Summers, the telepath.

Grimes felt out of it, but somebody had to mind the shop, he supposed. But the likelihood of any customers was remote.

Then he stiffened in his chair. One of the spacesuited figures was falling away from the vessel, drifting out and away, a tiny, glittering satellite reflecting the harsh glare of the working floods, a little, luminous butterfly pinned to the black velvet of the Ultimate Night. Who was it? He didn’t know for certain, but thought that it was Jane. The ship’s interplanetary drives—reaction and inertial— were on remote control, but reaction drive was out; before employing it he would have to swing to the desired heading by use of the directional gyroscopes. But the inertial drive was versatile.

He spoke into the microphone of the transceiver. “Secure yourselves. I am proceeding to rescue.”

At once Craven’s voice snapped back, “Hold it, Grimes. Hold it! There’s no danger.”

“But, sir . . .”

“Hold it!”

Grimes could see the distant figure now from a viewport, but it did not seem to be receding any longer. Hastily he checked with the radar. Range and bearing were not changing. Then, with relative bearing unaltered, the range was closing. He heard Jane call out, “Got it! I’m on the way back!”

Craven replied, “Make it snappy—otherwise young Grimes’ll be chasing you all over the Universe!”

Grimes could see, now, the luminous flicker of a suit reaction unit from the lonely figure.

Later, he and the others examined the photographs that Jane had taken.

Epsilon Sextans
looked as she was supposed to look—like a badly battle-scarred frigate of the Waldegren Navy.

21

IN TERMS OF SPACE
and of time there was not much longer to go.

The two ships—one knowing and one unknowing—raced toward their rendezvous. Had they been plunging through the normal continuum there would have been, toward the finish, hardly the thickness of a coat of paint between them, the adjustment of a microsecond in temporal precession rates would have brought inevitable collision. Craven knew this from the results of his own observations and from the encoded position reports, sent at six hourly intervals, by
Adler.
Worried, he allowed himself to fall astern, a mere half kilometer. It would be enough—and, too, it would mean that the frigate would mask him from the fire of planet-based batteries.

Summers maintained his listening watch. Apart from the position reports he had little of interest to tell the Captain.
Adler,
once or twice, had tried to get in contact with the Main Base on Waldegren—but, other than from a curt directive to proceed as ordered there were no signals from the planet to the ship. Dartura Base was more talkative. That was understandable. There was no colony on the planet and the Base personnel must be bored, must be pining for the sight of fresh faces, the sound of fresh voices. They would have their excitement soon enough, promised Craven grimly.

Through the warped continuum fell the two ships, and ahead the pulsating spiral that was the Dartura sun loomed ever brighter, ever larger. There were light years yet to go, but the Drive-induced distortions made it seem that tentacles of incandescent gas were already reaching out to clutch them, to drag them into the atomic furnace at the heart of the star.

In both Control Rooms watch succeeded watch—but the thoughts and the anticipations of the watchkeepers were not the same. Aboard
Adler
there was the longing for rest, for relaxation—although
Adler’s
Captain must have been busy with the composition of a report that would clear him (if possible) of blame for his defeat. Aboard
Epsilon Sextans
there was the anticipation of revenge—insofar as Craven, Baxter, Jane Pentecost and the survivors of the ship’s original personnel were concerned. Grimes? As the hour of reckoning approached he was more and more dubious. He did not know what to think, what to feel. There was the strong personal loyalty to Craven—and, even now, to Jane Pentecost. There was the friendship and mutual respect that had come into being between himself and Baxter. There was the knowledge that
Adler’s
crew were no better than pirates, were murderers beyond rehabilitation. There was the pride he felt in his own skill as a gunnery officer. (But, as such, was he, himself, any better than a pirate, a murderer? The exercise of his craft aboard a warship would be legal—but here, aboard a merchantman, and a disguised merchantman at that, the legality was doubtful. What had his motives been when he volunteered—and as a commissioned officer of the Survey Service he had had no right to do so—and what were his motives now?)

He, Grimes, was not happy. He had far too much time to ponder the implications. He was an accessory before, during and after the fact. He had started off correctly enough, when he had tried to prevent Craven from requisitioning the Survey Service cargo aboard
Delta Orionis,
but after that . . . after he and Jane . . . (that, he admitted, was a memory that he wanted to keep, always, just as that other memory, of the bright picture of naked female flesh on the screen, he wished he could lose forever.)

He had started off correctly enough—and then, not only had he helped install the purloined armament but had used it.
(And used it well,
he told himself with a brief resurgence of pride.) Furthermore, the disguise
of Epsilon Sextans
had been his idea.

Oh, he was in it, all right. He was in up to his neck. What the final outcome of it all would be he did not care to contemplate.

But it would soon be over. He had no fears as to the outcome of the battle. The element of surprise would be worth at least a dozen missile launchers.
Adler
would never have the chance to use her laser.

Adler,
reported Summers, had shut down her Mannschenn Drive and emerged briefly into normal spacetime to make her final course adjustment. She was now headed not for the Dartura Sun but for the planet itself—or where the planet would be at the time of her final—and fatal— reemergence into the continuum. The last ETA was sent, together with the coordinates of her planetfall.
Epsilon Sextans
made her own course adjustment—simultaneity in time and a half kilometer’s divergence in space being Craven’s objective. It was finicky work, even with the use of the ship’s computer, but the Captain seemed satisfied.

The race—the race that would culminate in a dead heat—continued. Aboard the frigate there was, reported Summers, a lessening of tension, the loosening up that comes when a voyage is almost over. Aboard the merchantman the tension increased. The interstellar drive engineers, Grimes knew, were no happier about it all than he was—but they could no more back out than he could. Craven was calm and confident, and Baxter was beginning to gloat. Jane Pentecost assumed the air of dedication that in women can be so infuriating. Grimes glumly checked and rechecked his weaponry. It passed the time.

Dartura itself was visible now—not as tiny disk of light but as a glowing annulus about its distorted primary. The thin ring of luminescence broadened, broadened. The time to go dwindled to a week, to days, to a day, and then to hours . . .

To minutes . . .

To seconds. . . .

Craven and Grimes were in the Control Room; the others were at their various stations. From the intercom came the telepath’s voice, “He’s cutting the Drive—”

“Cut the Drive!” ordered the Captain.

In the Mannschenn Drive room the spinning, precessing gyroscopes slowed, slowed, ceased their endless tumbling, assumed the solidity that they exhibited only when at rest. For perhaps two seconds there was temporal confusion in the minds of all on board as the precession field died, and past, present and future inextricably mingled. Then there was a sun glaring through the viewports, bright in spite of the polarization—a sun, and, directly ahead, a great, green-orange planet. There was a ship. . . .

There were ships—ahead of them, astern, on all sides.

There were ships—and, booming from the intership transceiver, the transceiver that was neither tuned nor switched on (but navies could afford induction transmitters with their fantastic power consumption), came the authorative voice:
“Inflexible
to
Adler
!
Heave to for search and seizure ! Do not attempt to escape—our massed fields will hold you!”

The effect was rather spoiled when the same voice added, in bewilderment, “Must be seeing double . . . there’s two of the bastards.” The bewilderment did not last long.
“Inflexible
to
Adler
and to unidentified vessel. Heave to for search and seizure!”

“Hold your fire, Mr. Grimes,” ordered Craven, quietly and bitterly. “It’s the Survey Service.”

“I know,” replied Grimes—and pressed the button.

22

HE NEVER KNEW
just why he had done so.

Talking it over afterward, thinking about it, he was able to evolve a theory that fitted the facts. During the brief period immediately after the shutting down of the Drive, during the short session of temporal disorientation, there had been prescience, of a sort. He had known that
Adler,
come what may, would attempt one last act of defiance and revenge, just as
Adler’s
Captain or Gunnery Officer must have known, in that last split second, that Nemesis was treading close upon his heels.

He pushed the button—and from the nozzles in the shell plating poured the reflective vapor, the protective screen that glowed ruddily as
Adler’s
lasers slashed out at it.

From the speaker of the dead transceiver, the transceiver that should have been dead, roared the voice of the Survey Service Admiral.
“Adler!
Cease fire! Cease fire, damn you!” There was a pause, then: “You’ve asked for it!”

She had asked for it—and now she got it. Suddenly the blip on Grimes’ screen that represented the Waldegren frigate became two smaller blips, and then four. The rolling fog outside
Epsilon Sextans’
viewports lost its luminosity, faded suddenly to drab grayness. The voice from the transceiver said coldly, “And
now you,
whoever you are, had better identify yourself. And fast.”

Craven switched on the communications equipment. He spoke quietly into the microphone. “Interstellar Transport Commission’s
Epsilon Sextans.
Bound Waverly, with general cargo . . .”

“Bound Waverley? Then what the hell are you doing here? And what’s that armament you’re mounting?”

“Plastic,” replied the Captain. “Plastic dummies.”

“And I suppose your ALGE is plastic, too. Come off it, Jerry. We’ve already boarded your old ship, and although your ex-Mate was most reluctant to talk we got a story of sorts from him.”

“I thought I recognized your voice, Bill. May I congratulate you upon your belated efforts to stamp out piracy?”

“And may I deplore your determination to take the law into your own hands? Stand by for the boarding party.”

Grimes looked at Craven, who was slumped in his seat. The Master’s full beard effectively masked his expression. “Sir,” asked the Ensign. “What can they do? What will they do?”

“You’re the space lawyer, Grimes. You’re the expert on Survey Service rules and regulations. What will it be, do you think? A medal—or a firing squad? Praise or blame?”

“You know the Admiral, sir?”

“Yes. I know the Admiral. We’re old shipmates.”

“Then you should be safe.”

“Safe? I suppose so. Safe from the firing squad—but not safe from my employers. I’m a merchant captain, Grimes, and merchant captains aren’t supposed to range the spacelanes looking for trouble. I don’t think they’ll dare fire me—but I know that I can never expect command of anything better than
Delta
class ships, on the drearier runs.” Grimes saw that Craven was smiling. “But there’re still the Rim Worlds. There’s still the Sundowner Line, and the chance of high rank in the Rim Worlds Navy when and if there is such a service.”

“You have . . . inducements, sir?”

“Yes. There are . . . inducements. Now.”

“I thought, once,” said Grimes, “that I could say the same. But not now. Not any longer. Even so . . . I’m Survey Service, sir, and I should be proud of my service. But in this ship, this merchant vessel, with her makeshift armament, we fought against heavy odds, and won. And, just now, we saved ourselves. It wasn’t the Survey Service that saved us.”

“Don’t be disloyal,” admonished Craven.

“I’m not being disloyal, sir. But . . . or, shall we say, I’m being loyal. You’re the first captain under whom I served under fire. If you’re going out to the Rim Worlds I’d like to come with you.”

“Your commission, Grimes. You know that you must put in ten years’ service before resignation is possible.”

“But I’m dead.”

“Dead!”

“Yes. Don’t you remember? I was snooping around in the Mannschenn Drive room and I got caught in the temporal precession field. My body still awaits burial; it’s in a sealed metal box in the deep freeze. It can never be identified.”

Craven laughed. “I’ll say this for you. You’re ingenious. But how do we account for the absence of the late Mr. Wolverton? And your presence aboard this ship?”

“I can hide, sir, and . . .”

“And while you’re hiding you’ll concoct some story that will explain everything. Oh Grimes, Grimes—you’re an officer I wish I could always have with me. But I’ll not stand in the way of your career. All I can do, all I will do, is smooth things over on your behalf with the Admiral. I should be able to manage that.”