His Majesty's Starship (8 page)

Gilmore winced at the clanging going on outside the ship. “What are they doing out there? Riveting us together?”

The noise did seem to go on for a very long time; a quite unreasonably long time, indeed. Gilmore would recommend in his log that
Britannia
’s docking equipment be given a full overhaul.

“The prince is ready to come on board, sir,” Peter Kirton said at long last.

“Let’s go meet him, then.”

The Prince of Wales hung in mid-air, limp and green between two of
Britannia
’s crew. Normally a neat and dapper figure, he looked blearily up at Gilmore and moaned.

“He’s well drugged, sir, and we think he’s stopped vomiting,” one of the newcomers said helpfully. The prince groaned. His eyes were glassy and unfocused.

“Oh, God ... We’ll get him to the ring. Give me a hand, Mr Kirton. Leave the prince’s baggage here, we’ll get it stowed later ...”

It took another hour before everything was properly sorted out, and twenty minutes of that were taken up by
Britannia
being unable to give
Ark Royal
clearance to disengage. The clanging again went on for a very long time. Did the king really travel in that ship? Gilmore wondered. Did he have any idea of what a shower they were? It surprised him; he had always thought better of
Britannia
’s crew.

At long last, the two ships were apart.
Britannia
backed off from
Ark Royal
and slowly turned away, orienting herself to boost down the arc back to UK-1. Gilmore watched her receding blip on the radar screen with relief.

“Right!” he said, and rubbed his hands. This was finally it. Finally it, after all this waiting. “Ms Coyne, plot an arc to join the delegation fleet. Half-gee boost.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Gilmore rubbed his hands together again and fought back a grin as the manoeuvring bell sounded. No more preparation, no more supplies to secure, no more last-minute worry.

They were on their way to join the delegation.

*

The pinging noise interrupted the reverie of His Excellency R.V. Krishnamurthy of the Department of Diplomatic Affairs, Government of the Confederation of South-East Asia (or Greater India, as he preferred to call it), and he froze the display on his aide to answer the call. “Yes?”

“Excellency.” In the wall display
Shivaji
’s captain, Surit Amijee, bowed slightly. “We’ve reached the rendezvous point.”

“Thank you, Captain.” Amijee’s image vanished and Krishnamurthy stood up to look out of the porthole in the floor of his stateroom. All he could see was black beyond the port and his own reflection. But it was the rendezvous point for the delegation fleet.

“Phase One,” he murmured. The countdown to Phase Two, in which the ships would travel to the point where the Rusties said they would ‘step-through’ between solar systems, was beginning. He felt an uncharacteristic surge of excitement. Excitement was something he tried not to feel – it clouded one’s judgement – but under the circumstances, perhaps he could allow himself this little luxury.

Because he had been the mover behind this whole scheme. He had stuck his neck out, insisting that the Confederation be represented on the delegation. He had laid out the case for why the Confederation had to have a space presence. There was a lot riding on this mission, as Manohar Chandwani had made so clear the last time they saw each other.

Well, he had eventually got his message across, though it had made him a whole fresh new crop of enemies in Delhi. Once he had got approval for his plan it had been put into operation in a very short space of time:
Shivaji
and various other items bought from the Confederation’s allies; a crew (all citizens, Chandwani had said: all Indians, he had made sure) gathered together from other space companies. He shuddered.
Shivaji
wasn’t the only ship on the delegation to be purchased or borrowed to meet the Rusties’ requirements, but still it was humiliating.

The door chime sounded. “Come,” he said. It slid open and Krishnamurthy had a brief glimpse of the dark green uniforms of his NVN guards outside before they were eclipsed by an eager Secretary Subhas Ranjitsinhji.

“Excellency,” said Ranjitsinhji. “We’ve reached the rendezvous point.”

“Thank you, Subhas. Captain Amijee has already apprised me of the situation in, I believe, precisely those words.” Ranjitsinhji kept his face still, trying not to look disappointed. I don’t believe it, Krishnamurthy thought. He wanted to be the one to tell me and now he’s upset. Krishnamurthy pretended not to notice. “Who else is here?”

“Apart from the Rustie ship, four others,” Ranjitsinhji said.

The Rustie ship. The prideship. The nearness of that triumph of alien technology, just a few hundred metres away, made Krishnamurthy’s skin tingle. He had seen footage of the Rustie vessels. They were a wonder: no fusion flame, no careful balancing of action and reaction, just the playing off of one gravitational force against another. It attracted itself towards this object, repelled itself from that one. He was no spacer but still he felt it was uncanny, watching a ship move so effortlessly. Also off-putting was contrasting the size of the thing visually with the muzziness of its radar echo: its ceramic construction meant it hardly registered.

They make their ships out of pottery! Doubtless we’ll find out why ...

“And how is the network going, Subhas?” Krishnamurthy asked. Ranjitsinhji had been so full of his plans to install an agent on every ship that Krishnamurthy had let him go ahead, out of curiosity to see what would happen. The man did have a talent for getting his spies into the strangest places.

Ranjitsinhji’s face fell. “I regret my initial plan was over-optimistic. I have recruited some agents-”

“No matter, no matter.” Krishnamurthy turned back to the porthole. “The success of this mission will depend on diplomatic intrigue and the scientific application of military might. It’s all very well to have some obscure, below-decks toilet cleaner in our pay, but what could he actually accomplish? Still, your agents might come in useful one day.”

“Thank you, Excellency ...”

Ranjitsinhji trailed off and Krishnamurthy saw his assistant was looking at the still frozen display from his aide.

“Rustie performance art,” he said by way of explanation. “Place Brave gave me the files and I copied them to you. Have you looked at them yet?”

“Um-”

“Fascinating. Truly fascinating. You can learn a lot from their stories of everyday Rusties. I recommend it, Subhas. Now, how long until the delegation fleet leaves?”

“Twenty three hours, Excellency.”

Krishnamurthy beamed. “It begins, Subhas. It begins.”

- 7 -

13-15 April 2149

There was silence on
Ark Royal
’s flight deck as the countdown to Phase Two entered its final minute. Arm Wild sat in his custom-made Rustie couch, watching. His spectacles-that-weren’t gave him a vaguely owlish look that verged on the comical.

Peter Kirton had the controls. “Sixty seconds,” he said.

“Very good,” Gilmore said.

“Exciting, isn’t it, Captain?” said a voice from the hatch, and Gilmore looked up in horror. Prince James was half in, half out of the flight deck, glancing about with interest; his space sickness appeared to have cleared up. Gilmore looked quickly around to check that there was a spare couch available.

“Sir, we’re boosting in less than a minute. Strap down!”

“Oh, don’t worry about me, I’ll hang on here-”

“You’ll damn well strap down now!”

The prince’s face grew cold. “Don’t take that tone with me, Captain.”

Gilmore turned round. “Ms Coyne, make to prideship, ‘Request postponement of boost due to-’”

“You wouldn’t!” The prince sounded shocked.

“Forty seconds,” Kirton said.

Gilmore turned back to the prince. “We’ll be boosting at 1.3 gees. You could hurt yourself badly, so strap down now!”

“All right, all right,” the prince said. He airswam clumsily to the couch next to Arm Wild, who had been watching the scene without comment but with who knew what thoughts, and strapped in. He was finished just as the countdown reached zero.

Fusion flames erupted from the sterns of the Earth ships. There was a distant rumble from
Ark Royal
’s own stern – from below.
Ark Royal
had weight again: it was accelerating at a rate of 1.3 Earth-type gravities, which was the gravity of the Roving. It would take getting used to.

“Convoy status?” Gilmore said.

“All ships firing as planned, sir,” said Kirton. He was grinning from ear to ear. “All systems are green. We’ll be at the coordinates for Phase Three in three days, thirteen hours, twenty three minutes.”

“Very good,” Gilmore said again, careful not to grin too. And it was – very good.

“I resented your tone on the flight deck, Captain,” said Prince James in the privacy of his cabin. The prince had asked Gilmore to see him as soon as he handed over to Hannah and the starboard watch.

Gilmore kept his voice low and calm, only hinting at his anger. “That is nothing,” he said, “next to my resentment of your assumption that you are excluded from shipboard procedure. You’re a prince and I’m just a lowly captain, but the laws of physics apply just as much to you as to me.”

“But-”

“Shut up,” Gilmore said. “I’ve been on ships when the boost has come on a fraction later than expected, or a fraction earlier, or not at all. It’s never happened with Samad on the engines, but it might still, through no fault of his own. I’ve seen people break limbs because they weren’t tied down, even at a very slight boost. But even that’s not important. What is important is that my crew are qualified professionals and if you are told to do something by any one of them, you damn well do it.”

The prince’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll remember your insolence, Captain.”

“Oh, for ...” Gilmore groaned. “You can’t really be this stupid, can you? The king’s too intelligent to let you be like this. For Christ’s sake, you’re going to take over his kingdom one day.”

The prince bristled. “Do not take that tone with me, Captain.”

“Then don’t deserve it, prince,” Gilmore said.

James glared at him for a moment longer. Then: “I apologise, and I undertake to obey all instructions given by your trained professionals. That will be all, Captain.”

And Gilmore found himself outside the prince’s door once more. He had a feeling he had probably called the prince’s bluff, on something. He also felt the prince hadn’t wanted it called.

Just another month and then he’s out of my hands, he thought. God give me patience.

*

Samad Loonat sat at his station above the blast bulkhead in the drive compartment of HMSS
Ark Royal
. Metres away below him, a successive stream of fusion explosions was propelling the ship on its course; he paid it as much attention as he would rain the other side of a window pane.

He paid far more attention to what was on his display. He frowned at it and shook his head. “Not possible,” he murmured. He ran the calculations again. Then he tapped his comm panel and called up to the flight deck.

“Ade, I’m sending some figures to your station. Run them and tell me your results.”

“Aye aye, sir.”

Adrian Nichol took a minute to finish and communicate the figures to Samad. His tone told Samad that the discrepancy had been spotted.

“Thanks,” Samad said. “Is the captain on the flight deck?”

“Not at present. I think he’s in his cabin, getting some shuteye.”

“Poor captain,” Samad said.

“Captain, we’re forty tons over mass,” Samad said without preliminary. Michael Gilmore blinked, still a bit sleepy. His expression as he stepped off the lift had indicated that this had better be more than a misplaced decimal point. Samad hadn’t disappointed him.

“What?” he said.

“I’ve been running the same figures over and again, ever since we left L5,” Samad said. “They were all consistent until-”

“Yes?” Gilmore said.

“-until we docked with
Britannia
and picked up the prince,” Samad said.

“Ah,” Gilmore said. Samad was flattered his captain didn’t ask him to check the figures again. He knew Samad would have checked them into the ground.
Ark Royal
could not be forty tons over mass ... but it was. “How does it affect fuel consumption?” Gilmore said.

“We have enough to get us there. Not enough for the return trip unless we refuel.”

They looked at each other.

“I’m thinking,” Samad said, “of all the racket when we docked and undocked-”

Gilmore winced. “But
Britannia
would have alerted us if we were carrying off their docking mechanism ... and we used the attitude jets to manoeuvre! Why didn’t the systems pick the extra mass up then?”

“Julia was piloting us and she would have used the ship’s automatic systems. And the conclusion I draw from that is that the ship is programmed to take the extra mass into account.”

“Recommendations?” Gilmore said, after they had both paused to absorb the implications of the ship knowing about the extra forty tons when the crew did not.

“I’d like to suit up and conduct an external inspection.”

“What do you think you’ll find?”

Samad shrugged. “That will make it more of an adventure.”

“True,” Gilmore said. He looked grim and was heading back for the lift. “But you’re not going outside while we’re boosting and there may be an easier way of finding out. Come on, I need your expert testimony to support me.”

Prince James slowly reached out to shut off the display of his aide and then looked up at his visitors.

“Yes,” he said. “That’ll be the torpedoes.”

There was only what passed for silence. The muffled rumble of the engines, the whine of the centrifuge’s flywheel.

“Let’s hear it,” Gilmore said. Prince James settled back in his chair, hands behind his head.

“When you docked with
Britannia
,” he said, “you were fitted with torpedoes. You’ll find that the front end of the ship, forward of the flight deck, has two casings attached, one on either side. They’re curved, like the hull, and not much thicker, and they’re at the point where the hull tapers.”