The Road to the Rim (11 page)

The Captain saw Grimes. "Give me that!" he snapped, and snatched the pistol from the Ensign's hand. Then, to the engineers, "Stand back!"

The little weapon rattled sharply and viciously. To the other smells was added the acridity of burned propellant. What had been Wolverton was driven to the deck by the impact of the tiny projectiles, and adhered there. There was surprisingly little blood, but the body had stopped twitching.

Craven handed the empty pistol back to the Ensign. He ordered, "You stay here, Mr. Grimes, and organize the disposal of the body." He went to the locker where he had put the initiator, took out the little instrument and, carrying it carefully, left the Mannschenn Drive room. Neither of the engineers, still staring with horrified fascination at their dead Chief, noticed.

"How . . . how did it happen?" asked the Second, after a long silence. "He fell into the field," said Grimes.

"But how? How? He was always getting on us about being careless, and telling us what was liable to happen to us, and now it's happened to him—"

"That's the way of it," contributed the Third, with a certain glum satisfaction. "Don't do as I do, do as I say."

"Have you a box?" asked Grimes.

"A box?" echoed the Second.

"Yes. A box." Now that he was doing something, doing something useful, Grimes was beginning to feel a little better. "We can't have a funeral while we're running under interstellar drive. We have to . . . to put him somewhere."
Out of sight,
he mentally added.

"That chest of spares?" muttered the Second.

"Just the right size," agreed the Third.

"Then get it," ordered Grimes.

The chest, once the spares and their packing had been removed and stowed elsewhere, was just the right size. Its dimensions were almost those of a coffin. It was made of steel, its bottom magnetized, and remained where placed on the deck while the three men, fighting down their recurring nausea, handled the body into it. All of them sighed audibly in relief when, at last, the close-fitting lid covered the remains. Finally, the Third ran a welding torch around the joint. As he was doing so the lights flickered.

Was it because of the torch? wondered Grimes. Or was it because the beacon in the hold had been reactivated?

Somehow he could not feel any real interest.

CLEANED UP after a fashion, but still feeling physically ill, he was back in the Control Room. Craven was there, and Baxter was with him. Jane Pentecost had been relieved so that she could attend to her duties in the galley. "Not that
I
feel like a meal," the Captain had said. "And I doubt very much that Mr. Grimes does either."

"Takes a lot ter put
me
off me tucker," the engineer declared cheerfully as he worked on the airlock door telltale panel.

"You didn't see Mr. Wolverton, Mr. Baxter," said Craven grimly.

"No, Skipper. An' I'm not sorry I didn't." He paused in his work to rummage in his tool bag. He produced bulbs of brandy. "But I thought you an' the Ensign might need some o' this."

Craven started to say something about cargo pillage, then changed his mind. He accepted the liquor without further quibbling. The three men sipped in silence.

Baxter carelessly tossed his squeezed empty bulb aside, continued with what he had been doing. The Captain said to Grimes, "Yes. We got the thing started again. And we've improved upon it."

"Improved upon it, sir? How?"

"It's no longer only a beacon. It's also an alarm. As soon as it picks up the radiation from the similar pieces of apparatus aboard the enemy frigates, the buzzer that Mr. Baxter is fitting up will sound, the red light will flash. We shall have ample warning . . . ."

"She'll be right, Skipper," said the engineer.

"Thank you, Mr. Baxter. And now; if you don't mind, I'd like a few words in private with Mr. Grimes."

"Don't be too hard on him, Skipper."

Baxter winked cheerfully at Grimes and left the control room.

"Mr. Grimes," Craven's voice was grave. "Mr. Grimes, today, early in your career, you have learned a lesson that some of us never have to learn. You have killed a man—yes, yes, I know that it was not intentional—and you have been privileged to see the end result of your actions.

"There are many of us who are, who have been, killers. There are many of us who have pushed buttons but who have never seen what happens at the other end of the trajectory. Perhaps people slaughtered by explosion or laser beam do not look quite so horrible as Wolverton—but, I assure you, they often look horrible enough, and often die as slowly and as agonizingly. You know, now, what violent death looks like, Mr. Grimes. So tell me, are you still willing to push your buttons, to play pretty tunes on your battle organ?"

"And what did the bodies in this ship look like, Captain?" asked Grimes. Then, remembering that one of the bodies had belonged to the woman whom Craven had loved, he bitterly regretted having asked the question.

"Not pretty," whispered Captain Craven. "Not at all pretty."

"I'll push your buttons for you," Grimes told him.

And for Jane Pentecost,
he thought.
And for the others. And for myself? The worst of it all is that I haven't got the excuse of saying that it's what I'm paid for . . .
.

DOWN THE DARK dimensions fell
Epsilon Sextans,
falling free through the warped continuum. But aboard the ship time still possessed meaning, the master chronometer still ticked away the seconds, minutes and hours; the little man-made world was still faithful to that puissant god of scientific intelligences everywhere in the universe—the Clock. Watch succeeded watch in Control Room and engine room. Meals were prepared and served on time. There was even, toward the end, a revival of off-duty social activities: a chess set was discovered and brought into use, playing cards were produced and a bridge school formed.

But there was one social activity that, to Grimes' disappointment was not resumed—the oldest social activity of them all. More than once he pleaded with Jane—and every time she laughed away his pleas. He insisted—and that made matters worse. He was (as he said), the donkey who had been allowed one nibble of the carrot and who could not understand why the carrot had been snatched away. He was (she said), a donkey. Period.

He should have guessed what was happening, but he did not. He was young, and inexperienced in the ways of women—of men
and
women. He just could not imagine that Jane would spare more than a casual glance for any of the engineers or for the flabby, pasty youth who was the psionic radio officer—and in this he was right.

Epsilon Sextans
was, for a ship of her class, very well equipped. In addition to the usual intercom system she was fitted with closed circuit television. In the event of emergency the Captain or watch officer, by the flip of a switch, could see what was happening in any compartment of the vessel. Over the control panel, in big, red letters, were the words: EMERGENCY USE ONLY. Grimes did not know what was the penalty for improper use of the apparatus in the Merchant Navy—but he did know that in the Survey Service officers had been cashiered and given an ignominious discharge for this offense. The more cramped and crowded the conditions in which men—and women—work and live, the more precious is privacy.

It was Grimes' watch.

When he had taken over, all the indications were that it would be as boring as all the previous watches. All that was required of the watchkeeper was that he stay awake. Grimes stayed awake. He had brought a book with him into Control, hiding it inside his uniform shirt, and it held his attention for a while. Then, following the example of generations of watch officers, he set up a game of three dimensional tic-tac-toe in the chart tank and played, right hand against left. The left hand was doing remarkably well when a buzzer sounded. The Ensign immediately cleared the tank and looked at the airlock indicator panel. But there were no lights on the board, and he realized that it was the intercom telephone.

"Control," he said into his microphone.

"P.R.O. here. I . . . I'm not happy, Mr. Grimes . . . ."

"Who is?" quipped Grimes.

"I . . . I feel . . . smothered."

"Something wrong with the ventilation in your shack?"

"No. NO. It's like . . . it's like a heavy blanket soaked in ice-cold water . . . . You can't move . . . you can't shout . . . you can't
hear . . . . It's like it was before . . . .
"

"Before what?"
snapped Grimes—and then as the other buzzer sounded, as the additional red light flashed on the telltale panel, he realized the stupidity of his question.

At once he pressed the alarm button. This was it, at last. Action Stations! Throughout the ship the bells were shrilling, the klaxons squawking. Hastily Grimes vacated the pilot's chair, slipped into the one from which he could control his weapons—and from which he could reach out to other controls. But where was the Old Man? Where was Captain Craven? This was the moment that he had longed for, this was the consummation toward which all his illegalities had been directed. Damn it all,
where was he?

Perhaps he was floating stunned in his quarters—starting up hurriedly from sleep he could have struck his head upon some projection, knocked himself out. If this were the case he, Grimes, would have to call Jane from her own battle station in Sick Bay to render first aid. But there was no time to lose.

The Ensign reached out, flipped the switches that would give him the picture of the interior of the Captain's accommodation. The screen brightened, came alive. Grimes stared at the luminous presentation in sick horror. Luminous it was—with that peculiar luminosity of naked female flesh. Jane was dressing herself with almost ludicrous haste. Of the Captain there was no sign—
on the screen.

Craven snarled, with cold ferocity, "You damned, sneaking, prurient puppy!" Then, in a louder voice, "Switch that damn thing off! I'll deal with you when this is over."

"But, sir . . ."

"Switch it off, I say!"

Cheeks burning, Grimes obeyed. Then he sat staring at his armament controls, fighting down his nausea, his physical sickness. Somehow, he found time to think bitterly,
So I was the knight, all set and ready to slay dragons for his lady. And all the time, she . . .
He did not finish the thought.

He heard a voice calling over the intercom, one of the engineers. "Captain, they're trying to lock on! Same as last time. Random precession, sir?"

"No. Cut the Drive!"

"Cut the Drive?" Incredulously. "You heard me.
Cut
!" Then, to Grimes, "And what the hell are
you
waiting for?"

The Ensign knew what he had to do; he had rehearsed it often enough. He did it. From the nozzles that pierced the outer shell spouted the cloud of reflective vapor, just in time, just as the enemy's lasers lashed out at their target. It seemed that the ship's internal temperature rose suddenly and sharply—although that could have been illusion, fostered by the sight of the fiery fog glimpsed through the viewports before the armored shutters slammed home.

There were targets now on Grimes' fire control screen, two of them, but he could not loose a missile until the tumbling rotors of the Drive had ceased to spin, to precess. The use of the anti-laser vapor screen had been risky enough. Abruptly the screens went blank—which signified that the temporal precession rates of hunted and hunters were no longer in synchronization, that the fields of the pirates had failed to lock on. In normal spacetime there would be no need to synchronize—and then the hunters would discover that their quarry had claws and teeth.

Aboard
Epsilon Sextans
the keening note of the Drive died to a whisper, a barely audible murmur, fading to silence. There was the inevitable second or so of utter disorientation when, as soon as it was safe, the engineers braked the gyroscopes.

Craven acted without hesitation, giving his ship headway and acceleration with Inertial Drive. He was not running—although this was the impression that he wished to convey. He was inviting rather than evading combat—but if the Waldegren captains chose to assume that
Epsilon Sextans
was, as she had been, an unarmed merchantman (after all, the anti-laser screen could have been jury rigged from normal ship's stores and equipment), taking evasive action, that was
their
error of judgment.

Grimes watched his screens intently. Suddenly the two blips reappeared, astern, all of a hundred kilos distant, but closing. This he reported.

"Stand by for acceleration!" ordered Craven. "Reaction Drive—stand by!"

It was all part of the pattern—a last, frantic squandering of reaction mass that could do no more than delay the inevitable. It would look good from the enemy control rooms.

"Reaction Drive ready!" reported Baxter over the intercom.

"Thank you. Captain to all hands, there will be no countdown.
Fire
!"

From the corner of his eye Grimes saw Craven's hand slam down on the key. Acceleration slammed him brutally back into his chair. There was a roar that was more like an explosion than a normal rocket firing, a shock that jarred and rattled every fitting in the Control Room.

Craven remarked quietly. "That must have looked convincing enough—but I hope that Baxter didn't really blow a chamber."

There was only the Inertial Drive now, and the two blips that, very briefly, had fallen astern, were now creeping up again, closing the range. "Anti-laser," ordered Craven briefly. "But, sir, it'll just be wasting it. They'll not be using laser outside twenty kilometers."

"They'll not be expecting a gunnery specialist aboard this wagon, either."

Once again the nozzles spouted, pouring out a cloud that fell rapidly astern of the running ship, dissipating uselessly.

Craven looked at his own screens, frowned, muttered, "They're taking their sweet time about it . . . probably low on reaction mass themselves." He turned to Grimes. "I think a slight breakdown of the I.D.'s in order."

"As you say, sir." The Ensign could not forget having been called a damned, sneaking, prurient puppy. Let Craven make his own decisions.