To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga (36 page)

“There’s only one thing to do with people like you, Lieutenant. We give you a chance. We give you the command of something small and relatively unimportant—and see what sort of a mess you make of it. I’m letting you have
Adder.
To begin with you’ll be just a galactic errand boy, but if you shape well,
if
you shape well, you will be entrusted with more important missions.

“Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then try to remember all that we’ve tried to teach you, and try to keep your nose clean. That’s all.”

Grimes stiffened to attention, saluted, and left Damien’s office.

Grimes had come to love his first command, and was proud of her, even though she was only a little ship, a Serpent Class Courier, lightly armed and manned by a minimal crew. In addition to Grimes there were two watch-keeping officers, both Ensigns, an engineering officer, another one ringer, and two communications officers, Lieutenants both. One was in charge of the vessel’s electronic equipment, but could be called upon to stand a control room watch if required. The other was the psionic radio officer, a very important crew member, as
Adder
had yet to be fitted with the Carlotti Deep Space Communications and Direction Finding System. In addition to crew accommodation there was more than merely adequate passenger accommodation; one function of the Couriers is to get V.I.P.s from Point A to Point B in a hurry, as and when required.

“You will proceed,” said Commodore Damien to Grimes, “from Lindisfarne Base to Doncaster at maximum speed, but considering at all times the safety of your vessel.”

“And the comfort of my passenger, sir?” asked Grimes.

“That need not concern you, Lieutenant.” Damien grinned, his big teeth yellow in his skull-like face. “Mr. Alberto is . . . tough. Tougher, I would say, than the average spaceman.”

Grimes’s prominent ears flushed. The Commodore had managed to imply that he, Grimes, was below average. “Very well, sir,” he said. “I’ll pile on the Gees and the Lumes.”

“Just so as you arrive in one piece,” growled Damien. “That’s all that our masters ask of you. Or, to more exact, just so as Mr. Alberto arrives in one piece, and functioning.” He lifted a heavily sealed envelope off his desk, handed it to Grimes. “Your Orders, to be opened after you’re on trajectory. But I’ve already told you most of it.” He grinned again. “On your bicycle, spaceman!”

Grimes got to his feet, put on his cap, came stiffly to attention. He saluted with his free right hand, turned about smartly and marched out of the Commodore’s office.

This was his first Sealed Orders assignment. Clear of the office, Grimes continued his march, striding in time to martial music audible only to himself. Then he paused, looking towards the docking area of the spaceport. There was his ship, already positioned on the pad, dwarfed by a huge
Constellation
Class cruiser to one side of her, a
Planet
Class transport to the other. But she stood there bravely enough on the apron, a metal spire so slender as to appear taller than she actually was, gleaming brightly in the almost level rays of the westering sun. And she was
his.
It did not matter that officers serving in larger vessels referred to the couriers as flying darning needles.

So he strode briskly to the ramp extruded from the after airlock of his flying darning needle, his stocky body erect in his smart—but not too smart—uniform. Ensign Beadle, his First Lieutenant, was there to greet him. The young man threw him a smart salute. Grimes returned it with just the right degree of sloppiness.

“All secure for lift off—Captain!”

“Thank you, Number One. Is the passenger aboard?”

“Yes, sir. And his baggage.”

Grimes fought down the temptation to ask what he was like. Only when one is really senior can one unbend with one’s juniors. “Very well, Number One.” He looked at his watch. “My lift off is scheduled for 1930 hours. It is now 1917. I shall go straight to Control, Mr. Beadle . . .”

“Mr. von Tannenbaum and Mr. Slovotny are waiting for you there, sir, and Mr. McCloud is standing by in the engine room.”

“Good. And Mr. Deane is tucked safely away with his poodle’s brain in aspic?”

“He is, sir.”

“Good. Then give Mr. Alberto my compliments, and ask him if he would like to join us in Control during lift off.”

Grimes negotiated the ladder in the axial shaft rapidly, without losing breath. (The
Serpent
Class couriers were too small to run to an elevator.) He did not make a stop at his own quarters. (A courier captain was supposed to be able to proceed anywhere in the Galaxy, known or unknown, at a second’s notice.) In the control room he found Ensign von Tannenbaum (“The blond beast”) and Lieutenant Slovotny (just “Sparks”) at their stations. He buckled himself into his own chair. He had just finished doing so when the plump, lugubrious Beadle pulled himself up through the hatch. He addressed Grimes. “I asked Mr. Alberto if he’d like to come up to the office, Captain . . .”

“And is he coming up, Number One,?” Grimes looked pointedly at the clock on the bulkhead.

“No, Captain. He said . . .”

“Out with it man. It’s time we were getting up them stairs.”

“He said, ‘You people look after your job, and I’ll look after mine.’”

Grimes shrugged. As a courier captain he had learned to take V.I.P.s as they came. Some—a very few of them—he would have preferred to have left. He asked, “Are Mr. Alberto and Mr. Deane secured for lift off?”

“Yes, Captain, although Spooky’s not happy about the shockproof mount for his amplifier . . .”

“He never is. Clearance, Sparks . . .”

“Clearance, Captain.” The wiry little radio officer spoke quietly into his microphone. “Mission 7DKY to Tower. Request clearance.”

“Tower to Mission 7DKY. You have clearance. Bon voyage.”

“Thank him,” said Grimes. He glanced rapidly around the little control room. All officers were strapped in their acceleration chairs. All tell-tale lights were green. “All systems
Go . . .
” he muttered, relishing the archaic expression.

He pushed the right buttons, and
went.

It was a normal enough courier lift off. The inertial drive developed maximum thrust within microseconds of its being started. Once his radar told him that the ship was the minimum safe altitude above the port, Grimes cut in his auxiliary rockets. The craft was built to take stresses that, in larger vessels, would have been dangerous. Her personnel prided themselves on their toughness. And the one outsider, the passenger. Grimes would have grinned had it not been for the acceleration flattening his features. Commodore Damien had said that Mr. Alberto was tough—so Mr. Alberto would just have to take the G’s and like it.

The ship drove up through the last, high wisps of cirrus, into the darkling purple sky, towards the sharply bright, unwinking stars. She plunged outward through the last, tenuous shreds of atmosphere, and the needles of instruments flickered briefly as she passed through the van Allens. She was out and clear now, out and clear, and Grimes cut both inertial and reaction drives, used his gyroscopes to swing the sharp prow of the ship onto the target star, the Doncaster sun, brought that far distant speck of luminosity into the exact center of his spiderweb sights. Von Tannenbaum, who was Navigator, gave him the corrections necessitated by Galactic Drift; it was essential to aim the vessel at where the star was
now,
not where it was some seventy-three years ago.

The Inertial Drive was restarted, and the ever-precessing rotors of the Mannschenn Drive were set in motion. There was the usual brief queasiness induced by the temporal precession field, the usual visual shock as colors sagged down the spectrum, as the hard, bright stars outside the viewports became iridescent nebulosities. Grimes remained in his chair a few minutes, satisfying himself that all was as it should be. Slowly and carefully he filled and lit his foul pipe, ignoring a dirty look from Beadle who, in the absence of a Bio-Chemist, was responsible for the ship’s air-regeneration system.

Then, speaking through a swirl of acrid smoke, he ordered. “Set Deep Space watches, Number One. And tell Mr. Deane to report to Lindisfarne Base that we are on trajectory for Doncaster.”

“E.T.A. Doncaster, Captain?” asked Beadle.

Grimes pulled the sealed envelope from the pouch at the side of his chair, looked at it. He thought,
For Your Eyes Only. Destroy By Fire Before Reading.
He said, “I’ll let you know after I’ve skimmed through this bumf.” After all, even in a small ship informality can be allowed to go only so far. He unbuckled himself, got up from his seat, then went down to his quarters to read the Orders.

There was little in them that he had not already been told by Commodore Damien. Insofar as the E.T.A. was concerned, this was left largely to his own discretion, although it was stressed that the courier was to arrive at Doncaster not later than April 23, Local Date. And how did the Doncastrian calendar tally with that used on Lindisfarne? Grimes, knowing that the Blond Beast was now on watch, called Control and threw the question on to von Tannenbaum’s plate, knowing that within a very short time he would have an answer accurate to fourteen places of decimals, and that as soon as he, Grimes, made a decision regarding the time of arrival the necessary adjustment of velocity would be put in hand without delay. Von Tannenbaum called back. “April 23 on Doncaster coincides with November 8 on Lindisfarne. I can give you the exact correlation, Captain . . .”

“Don’t bother, Pilot. My orders allow me quite a bit of leeway. Now, suppose we get Mr. Alberto to his destination just three days before the deadline . . . It will give him time to settle in before he commences his duties, whatever they are, in the High Commissioner’s office. As far as I can gather, we’re supposed to stay on Doncaster until directed elsewhere—so an extra three days in port will do us no harm.”

“It’s a pleasant planet, I’ve heard, Captain.” There was a pause, and Grimes could imagine the burly, flaxen-headed young man running problems through the control room computer, checking the results with his own slipstick. “This calls for a reduction of speed. Shall I do it by cutting down the temporal precession rate, or by reducing actual acceleration?”

“Two G
is
a little heavy,” admitted Grimes.

“Very well, Captain. Reduce to 1.27?”

“That will balance?”

“It will balance.”

“Then make it so.”

Almost immediately the irregular throbbing of the Inertial Drive slowed. Grimes felt his weight pressing less heavily into the padding of his chair. He did not need to glance at the accelerometer mounted among the other tell-tale instruments on the bulkhead of his cabin. Von Tannenbaum was a good man, a good officer, a good navigator.

There was a sharp rap on his door.

“Come in,” called Grimes, swiveling his seat so that he faced the caller. This, he realized, would be his passenger, anticipating the captain’s invitation to an introductory drink and talk.

He was not a big man, this Mr. Alberto, and at first he gave an impression of plumpness, of softness. But it was obvious from the way that he moved that his bulk was solid muscle, not fat. He was clad in the dark grey that was almost a Civil Service uniform—and even Grimes, who knew little of the niceties of civilian tailoring, could see that both the material and the cut of Alberto’s suit were superb. He had a broad yet very ordinary looking face; his hair was black and glossy, his eyes black and rather dull. His expression was petulant. He demanded rather then asked, “Why have we slowed down?”

Grimes bit back a sharp retort. After all, he was only a junior officer, in spite of his command, and his passenger probably piled on far more G’s than a mere lieutenant. He replied, “I have adjusted to a comfortable actual velocity, Mr. Alberto, so as to arrive three days, local, before the deadline. I trust that this suits your plans.”

“Three days . . .” Alberto smiled—and his face was transformed abruptly from that of a sulky baby to that of a contented child. It was, Grimes realized, no more than a deliberate turning of charm—but, he admitted to himself, it was effective. “Three days . . . That will give me ample time to settle down, Captain, before I start work. And I know, as well as you do, that overly heavy acceleration can be tiring.”

“Won’t you sit down, Mr. Alberto? A drink, perhaps?”

“Thank you, Captain. A dry sherry, if I may . . .”

Grimes grinned apologetically. “I’m afraid that these Couriers haven’t much of a cellar. I can offer you gin, scotch, brandy . . .”

“A gin and lime, then.”

The Lieutenant busied himself at his little bar, mixed the drinks, gave Alberto his glass, raised his own in salute. “Here’s to crime!”

Alberto smiled again. “Why do you say that, Captain?”

“It’s just one of those toasts that’s going the rounds in the Service. Not so long ago it was, ‘Down the hatch!’ Before that it was, ‘Here’s mud in yer eye’ . . .”

“I see.” Alberto sipped appreciatively. “Good gin, this.”

“Not bad. We get it from Van Diemen’s Planet.” There was a brief silence. Then, “Will you be long on Doncaster, Mr. Alberto? I rather gained the impression that we’re supposed to wait there until you’ve finished your . . . business.”

“It shouldn’t take long.”

“Diplomatic?”

“You could call it that.” Again the smile—but why should those white teeth look so carnivorous?
Imagination,
thought Grimes.

“Another drink?”

“Why, yes. I like to relax when I can.”

“Yours is demanding work?”

“And so is yours, Captain.”

The brassy music of a bugle drifted into the cabin through the intercom.

“Mess call,” said Grimes.

“You do things in style, Captain.”

Grimes shrugged. “We have a tape for all the calls in general use. As for the tucker . . .” He shrugged again. “We don’t run to a cook in a ship of this class. Sparks—Mr. Slovotny—prepares the meals in space. As a chef he’s a good radio officer . . .”