Read Upon a Sea of Stars Online
Authors: A. Bertram Chandler
Upon a Sea of Stars (18 page)
Chapter 9
THE DERELICT HUNG IN ORBIT
about Lorn, and the team of scientists and technicials continued the investigations initiated by
Rim Mamelute’s
people during the long haul to the tug’s home planet. Grimes, Sonya and the others had been baffled by what they had found—and now, with reluctance, the experts were admitting their own bafflement.
This ship, named
Destroyer
by her builders, and renamed
Freedom
by those who had not lived long to enjoy it, seemed to have just completed a major refit and to have been in readiness for her formal recommissioning. Although her magazines and some of her storerooms were stocked, although her hydroponics tanks and tissue culture vats had been operational at the time of her final action, her accommodation and working spaces were clean of the accumulation of odds and ends that, over the years, adds appreciably to the mass of any vessel. There were no files of official correspondence, although there was not a shortage of empty filing cabinets. There were no revealing personal possessions such as letters, photographs and solidographs, books, recordings, magazines and pin-up girl calendars. (The hapless humans who had been killed by the blast seemed to have brought aboard only the rags that they were wearing.) There were no log books in either control or engine rooms.
The cabins were furnished, however, and in all of them were the strange chairs with the slotted backs and seats, the furniture that was evidence of the existence of a race—an unknown race, insisted the xenologists—of tailed beings, approximating the human norm in stature. Every door tally was in place, and each one made it clear that the creatures who had manned the ship, before her seizure, used the English language, but a version of it peculiarly their own: KIPTIN . . . CHIIF INGINIIR . . . RIICTIIN DRIVI RIIM . . . HIDRIPINICS RIM. . . .
Even so she was, apart from the furniture and the distortion of printed English and—as the engineers pointed out—the prevalence of left-handed threads, a very ordinary ship, albeit somewhat old fashioned. There was, for example, no Carlotti navigational and communications equipment. And the signal log was a model the use of which had been discontinued by the Survey Service for all of half a standard century. And she lacked yet another device, a device of fairly recent origin, the Mass Proximity Indicator.
She was, from the engineering viewpoint, a very ordinary ship; it was the biologists who discovered the shocking abnormality.
They did not discover it at once. They concentrated, at first, upon the cadavers of the unfortunate humans. These were, it was soon announced, indubitably human. They had been born upon and had lived their lives upon an Earth-type planet, but their lives had not been pleasant ones. Their physiques exhibited all the signs of undernourishment, of privation, and they almost all bore scars that told an ugly story of habitual maltreatment. But they were men, and they were women, and had they lived and had they enjoyed for a year or so normal living conditions they would have been indistinguishable from the citizens of any man-colonized world.
And there was nothing abnormal in the hydroponics tanks. There were just the standard plants that are nurtured in ships’ farms throughout the Galaxy—tomatoes and cucumbers, potatoes and carrots, the Centaurian umbrella vine, Vegan moss-fern.
It was the tissue culture vats that held the shocking secret.
The flesh that they contained, the meat that was the protein supply for the tailed beings who should have manned the ship, was human flesh.
“I was right,” said Sonya to Grimes. “I was right. Those people—whoever, wherever (and whenever?) they are—are our enemies. But
where
are they? And when?”
“From . . . from Outside . . . ?” wondered the Commodore.
“Don’t be a bloody fool, John. Do you think that a race could wander in from the next galaxy but three, reduce a whole planet of humans to slavery, and worse than slavery, without our knowing about it? And why should such a race, if there were one, have to borrow or steal our shipbuilding techniques, our language even? Damn it all, it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t even begin to make sense.”
“That’s what we’ve all been saying ever since this blasted derelict first appeared.”
“And it’s true.” She got up from her chair and began to pace up and down Grimes’ office. “Meanwhile, my dear, we’ve been left holding the baby. You’ve been asked to stay on in your various capacities until the mystery has been solved, and my resignation from the Intelligence Branch of the Survey Service has been rescinded. I’ve been empowered by the Federation Government to co-opt such Confederacy personnel to assist me in my investigations as I see fit. (That means you—for a start.) Forgive me for thinking out loud. It helps sometimes. Why don’t you try it?”
“All we know,” said Grimes slowly, “is that we’ve been left holding the baby.”
“All we know,” she countered, “is that we’re supposed to carry the can back.”
“But why shouldn’t we?” he demanded suddenly. “Not necessarily this can, but one of our own.”
She stopped her restless motion, turned to stare at him. She said coldly, “I thought that you had made a study of archaic slang expressions. Apparently I was wrong.”
“Not at all, Sonya. I know what ‘to carry the can back’ means. I know, too, that the word ‘can’ is still used to refer to more and bigger things than containers of beer or preserved foods. Such as . . .”
“Such as ships,” she admitted.
“Such as ships. All right. How do we carry the can, or
a
can back? Back to where the can came from?”
“But where? Or when?”
“That’s what we have to find out.”
She said, “I think it will have to be
the
can. That is, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking: that this
Destroyer
or
Freedom
or whatever you care to call her drifted in from one of the alternative universes. She’ll have that built-in urge, yes, urge. She’ll have that built-in urge to return to her own continuum.”
“So you accept the alternative universe theory?”
“It seems to fit the facts. After all, out here on the Rim, the transition from one universe to another has been made more than once.”
“As we should know.”
“If only we knew how the derelict did drift in. . . .”
“Did she
drift
in?” asked Grimes softly. And then, in spoken answer to his wife’s unspoken query, “I think that she was blown in.”
“Yes . . . yes. Could be. A nuclear explosion in close, very close proximity to the ship. The very fabric of the continuum strained and warped. . .” She smiled, but it was a grim smile. “That could be it.”
“And that could be the way to carry the can back.”
“I don’t want to be burned, my dear. And, oddly enough, I shouldn’t like to see you burned.”
“There’s no need for anybody to be burned. Have you ever heard of lead shielding?”
“Of course. But the weight! Even if we shielded only a small compartment, the reaction drive’d be working flat out to get us off the ground, and we’d have damn all reaction mass to spare for any maneuvers. And the rest of the ship, as we found when we boarded the derelict, would be so hot as to be uninhabitable for months.”
He gestured towards the wide window to the squat tower that was
Faraway Quest
. “I seem to remember, Sonya, that you shipped with me on our Wild Ghost Chase. Even though you were aboard as an officer of the Federation’s Naval Intelligence you should remember how the
Quest
was fitted. That sphere of anti-matter—now back in safe orbit—that gave us anti-gravity. . . We can incorporate it into
Freedom’s
structure as it was incorporated into Quest’s. With it functioning, we can afford to shield the entire ship and still enjoy almost negative mass.”
“So you think we should take
Freedom
, or
Destroyer
, and not
Faraway Quest
?”
“I do. Assuming that we’re able to blow her back into the continuum she came from, she’ll be a more convincing Trojan horse than one of our own ships.”
“Cans,” she said. “Trojan horses. Can you think of any more metaphors?” She smiled again, and her expression was not quite so grim. “But I see what you mean. Our friends with the squeaky voices and the long, thin tails will think that their own lost ship has somehow wandered back to them, still manned by the escaped slaves.” Her face hardened. “I almost feel sorry for them.”
“Almost,” he agreed.
Chapter 10
THE BOFFINS
were reluctant to release
Freedom,
but Grimes was insistent, explaining that disguise of
Faraway Quest
, no matter how good, might well be not good enough. A small, inconspicuous but betraying feature of her outward appearance could lead to her immediate destruction. “Then what about the crew, Commodore?” asked one of the scientists. “Surely those tailed beings will soon realize that the ship is not manned by the original rebels.”
“Not necessarily,” Grimes told the man. “In fact, I think it’s quite unlikely. Even among human beings all members of a different race tend to look alike. And when it comes to members of two entirely different species . . .”
“I’m reasonably expert,” added Sonya, “but even I find it hard until I’ve had time to observe carefully the beings with whom I’m dealing.”
“But there’s so much that we could learn from the ship!” protested the scientist.
“Mr. Wales,” Grimes said to the Rim Runners’ Superintending Engineer, “how much do you think there is to be learned from the derelict?”
“Not a damn thing, Commodore. But if we disguise one of our own ships, and succeed in blowing her into whatever cosmic alternative universe she came from, there’s far too much that could be learned from
us
. As far as shipbuilding is concerned, we’re practically a century ahead.”
“Good enough. Well, gentlemen?”
“I suggest, Commodore, that we bring your
Freedom’s
armament up to scratch,” said Admiral Hennessey, but the way that he said it made it more of an order than a suggestion.
Grimes turned to face the Admiral, the Flag Officer commanding the Naval Force of the Confederacy. Bleak stare clashed with bleak stare, almost audibly. As an officer of the Reserve, Grimes considered himself a better spaceman than his superior, and was inclined to resent the intrusion of the Regular Navy into what he was already regarding as his own show.
He replied firmly, “No, sir. That could well give the game away.”
He was hurt when Sonya took the Admiral’s side—but, after all, she was regular Navy herself, although Federation and not Confederacy. She said, “But what about the lead sheathing, John? What about the sphere of anti-matter?”
Grimes was not beaten. “Mr. Wales has already made a valid point. He thinks that it would be imprudent to make the aliens a present of a century’s progress in astronautical engineering. It would be equally imprudent to make them a present of a century’s progress in weaponry.”
“You have a point there, Grimes,” admitted the Admiral. “But I do not feel happy in allowing my personnel to ship in a vessel on a hazardous mission without the utmost protection that I can afford them.”
“Apart from the Marines, sir, my personnel rather than yours. Practically every officer will be a reservist.”
The Admiral glared at the Commodore. He growled, “Frankly, if it were not for the pressure brought to bear by our Big Brothers of the Federation, I should insist on commissioning a battle squadron.” He smiled coldly in Sonya’s direction. “But the Terran Admiralty seems to trust Commander Verrill—or Mrs. Grimes—and have given her on-the-spot powers that would be more fitting to a holder of Flag Officer’s rank. And my own instructions from Government House are to afford her every assistance.”
He made a ritual of selecting a long, black cigar from the case that he took from an inside pocket of his uniform, lit it, filled the already foul air of the derelict’s control room with wreathing eddies of acrid blue smoke. He said in a voice that equaled in acridity the fumes that carried it, “Very well, Commodore. You’re having your own way. Or your wife is having her own way; she has persuaded the Federation that you are to be in full command. (But will you be, I wonder. . .) May I, as your Admiral, presume to inquire just what are your intentions, assuming that the nuclear device that you have commandeered from my arsenal does blow you into the right continuum?”
“We shall play by ear, sir.”
The Admiral seemed to be emulating the weapon that he had just mentioned, but he did not quite reach critical mass. “Play by ear!” he bellowed at last, when coherent speech was at last possible. “Play by ear! Damn it all, sir, that’s the sort of fatuous remark one might expect from a Snotty making his first training cruise, but not from an allegedly responsible officer.”
“Admiral Hennessey,” Sonya’s voice was as cold as his had been. “This is not a punitive expedition. This is not a well organized attack by naval forces. This is an Intelligence operation. We do not know what we are up against. We are trying to find out.” Her voice softened slightly. “I admit that the Commodore expressed himself in a rather un-spacemanlike manner, but playing by ear is what we shall do. How shall I put it? We shall poke a stick into the ants’ nest and see what comes out. . . .”
“We shall hoist the banner of the Confederacy to the masthead and see who salutes,” somebody said in one of those carrying whispers. The Admiral, the Commodore and Sonya Verrill turned to glare at the man. Then Sonya laughed. “That’s one way of putting it. Only it won’t be the black and gold of the Confederacy—it’ll be the black and silver of the Jolly Roger. A little judicious piracy—or privateering. Will Rim Worlds Letters of Marque be valid wherever we’re going, Admiral?”
That officer managed a rather sour chuckle. “I think I get the drift of your intentions, Commander. I hate to have to admit it—but I wish that I were coming with you.” He transferred his attention to Grimes. “So, Commodore, I think that I shall be justified in at least repairing or renewing the weapons that were damaged or destroyed by the blast—as long as I don’t fit anything beyond the technology of the builders of this ship.”
“Please do that, sir.”
“I shall. But what about small arms for your officers and the Marines?”
Grimes pondered the question. There had been no pistols of any kind aboard the derelict when he had boarded her. It could be argued that this was a detail that did not much matter—should the ship be boarded and seized herself there would be both the lead sheathing
and
the sphere of anti-matter that would make it obvious to the boarding party that she had been . . . elsewhere. Assuming, that is, that the last survivors of her crew did not trigger the explosive charge that would shatter the neutronium shell and destroy the magnets, thus bringing the sphere of anti-iron into contact with the normal matter surrounding it. Then there would be nobody to talk about what had been found.
But
Freedom
—as a pirate or a privateer—would be sending boarding parties to other ships. There was the possibility that she might have to run before superior forces, unexpectedly appearing, leaving such a boarding party to its fate. Grimes most sincerely hoped that he would never have to make such a decision. And if the boarding party possessed obviously alien hand weapons the tailed beings would be, putting it very mildly, suspicious.
“No hand weapons,” he said at last, reluctantly. “But I hope that we shall be able to capture a few, and that we shall be able to duplicate them in the ship’s workshop. Meanwhile, I’d like your Marines to be experts in unarmed combat—both suited and unsuited.”
“And expert knife fighters,” added Sonya.
“Boarding axes and cutlasses,” contributed the Admiral, not without relish.
“Yes, sir,” agreed Grimes. “Boarding axes and cutlasses.”
“I suggest, Commodore,” said Hennessey, “that you do a course at the Personal Combat Center at Lorn Base.”
“I don’t think there will be time, sir,” said Grimes hopefully.
“There will be, Commodore. The lead sheathing and the anti-matter sphere cannot be installed in five minutes. And there are weapons to be repaired and renewed.”
“There will be time,” said Sonya.
Grimes sighed. He had been in one or two minor actions in his youth, but they had been so . . . impersonal. It was the enemy ship that you were out to get, and the fact that a large proportion of her crew was liable to die with her was something that you glossed over. You did not see the dreadful damage that your missiles and beams did to the fragile flesh and blood mechanisms that were human beings. Or if you did see it—a hard frozen corpse is not the same as one still warm, still pumping blood from severed arteries, still twitching in a ghastly semblance to life.
“There will be time, Commodore,” repeated the Admiral.
“There will be time,” repeated Sonya.
“And what about you, Mrs. Grimes?” asked Hennessey unkindly.
“You forget, sir, that in my branch of the Federation’s service we are taught how to kill or maim with whatever is to hand any and every life form with which we may come into contact.”
“Then I will arrange for the Commodore’s course,” Hennessey told her.
It was, for Grimes, a grueling three weeks. He was fit enough, but he was not as hard as he might have been. Even wearing protective armor he emerged from every bout with the Sergeant Instructor badly bruised and battered. And he did not like knives, although he attained fair skill with them as a throwing weapon. He disliked cutlasses even more. And the boarding axes, with their pike heads, he detested.
And then, quite suddenly, it came to him. The Instructor had given him a bad time, as usual, and had then called a break. Grimes stood there, sagging in his armor, using the shaft of his axe as a staff upon which to lean. He was aching and he was itching inside his protective clothing, and his copious perspiration was making every abrasion on his skin smart painfully.
Without warning the Instructor kicked Grimes’ support away with a booted foot and then, as the Commodore sprawled on the hard ground, raised his own axe for the simulated kill. Although a red haze clouded his vision, Grimes rolled out of the path of the descending blade, heard the blunted edge thud into the dirt a fraction of an inch from his helmeted head. He was on his feet then, moving with an agility that he had never dreamed that he possessed, he was on his feet, crouching and his pike head thrusting viciously at the Instructor’s crotch. The man squealed as the blow connected; even the heavy codpiece could not save him from severe pain. He squealed, but brought his own axe around in a sweeping, deadly arc. Grimes parried, blade edge to shaft, to such good effect that the lethal head of the other’s weapon was broken off, clattering to the ground many feet away. He parried and followed through, his blade clanging on the Instructor’s shoulder armor. Yet another blow, this time to the man’s broad back, and he was down like a felled ox.
Slowly the red haze cleared from the commodore’s vision as he stood there. Slowly he lowered his axe, and as he did so he realized that the Instructor had rolled over, was lying there, laughing up at him, was saying, “Easy, sir. Easy. You’re not supposed to kill me, sir. Or to ruin my matrimonial prospects.”
“I’m sorry, Sergeant,” Grimes said stiffly. “But that was a dirty trick
you
played.”
“It was meant to be dirty, sir. Never trust nobody—that’s Lesson One.”
“And Lesson Two, Sergeant?”
“You’ve learned that too, sir. You gotta
hate
. You officers are all the same—you don’t really hate the poor cows at the other end of the trajectory when you press a firing button. But in this sort of fighting you
gotta
hate.”
“I think I see, Sergeant,” said Grimes.
But he was not sorry when he was able to return to his real business—to see
Freedom
(or
Destroyer
) readied for her expedition into the Unknown.