First Command (55 page)

He went down to the farm deck to have a yarn with Flannery. The PCO had recovered slightly from his excesses but, as usual, was in the process of taking several hairs of the dog that had bitten him. The bottle, Grimes noted, contained rum, distilled on Botany Bay.

“Oh, t’is you, Skipper. Could I persuade ye? No? I was hopin’ ye’d be takin’ a drop with me. I have to finish this rotgut afore I can get back to me own tipple.”

“So you enjoyed yourself on Botany Bay,” remarked Grimes.

“An’ didn’t we all, each in his own way? But the good times are all gone, an’ we have to travel on.”

“That seems to be the general attitude, Mr. Flannery.”

“Yours included, Skipper. How iver did ye manage to make yer own flight from the mayor’s nest?”

“Mphm.”

“Iverybody had the time of his life but poor ould Ned.” Flannery gestured toward the canine brain suspended in its sphere of murky nutrient fluid. “He’d’ve loved to have been out, in a body, runnin’ over the green grass of a world so like his own native land.”

“I didn’t think the dingo ever did much running over green grass,” remarked Grimes sourly. “Through the bush, over the desert, yes. But green grass, no.”

“Ye know what I’m meanin’.” Flannery suddenly became serious. “What are ye wantin’ from me, Skipper?”
It always used to be
“
Captain,
”
thought Grimes.
Flannery’s been tainted by Botany Bay as much as anybody else.
“Don’t tell me. I know. Ye’re wonderin’ how things are in this rustbucket. I don’t snoop on me shipmates, as well ye know. But I can give ye some advice, if ye’ll only listen. Ride with a loose rein. Don’t go puttin’ yer foot down with a firm hand. An’ it might help if ye let it be known that ye’re not bringin’ charges against the Mad Major when we’re back on Lindisfarne. Oh—an’ ye could try bein’ nice to Vinegar Nell.”

“Is that all?” asked Grimes coldly.

“That’s all, Skipper. If it’s any consolation to ye, Ned still likes ye. He’s hopin’ that ye don’t go makin’ the same mistake as Grimes was always afther makin’.”

“
Grimes?
”
asked Grimes bewilderedly.

“T’was Bligh I was meanin’.”

“Damn Bligh!” swore Grimes. “This ship isn’t HMS
Bounty.
This, in case you haven’t noticed, is FSS
Discovery,
with communications equipment that can reach out across the galaxy.
Bounty
only had signal flags.”

“Ye asked me, Skipper, an’ I told ye.” Flannery’s manner was deliberately offhand. “Would there be anythin’ else?”

“No!” snapped Grimes.

He went up to the main radio office, had a few words with the operator on duty. He was told there was very little traffic, and all of it signals from extremely distant stations and none of it concerning
Discovery.
He carried on to the control room, stared out through the viewports at the weirdly distorted universe observed from a ship running under Mannschenn Drive, tactfully turning his back while the officer of the watch hastily erased the three-dimensional ticktacktoe lattice from the plotting tank.
Ride with a loose rein,
Flannery had warned. He would do so. He looked at the arrays of telltale lights. All seemed to be in order.

He went down to the paymaster’s office. Vinegar Nell was there, diligently filling in forms in quintuplicate. He tried to be nice to her, but she had no time for him. “Can’t you see that I’m busy, Commander Grimes?” she asked coldly. “All this work was neglected while we were on Botany Bay.” She contrived to imply that this was Grimes’s fault.

Then Grimes, as he sometimes did, called in to the wardroom to have morning coffee with his officers. Their manner toward him was reserved, chilly.
We were having a good time,
their attitude implied, and this old
bastard had to drag us away from it.

So went the day. There was something going on—of that he was sure. He was, once again, the outsider, the intruder into this micro-society, resented by all. And there was nothing he could do about it. (And if there were, should he do it?)

He was a man of regular habits. In space he required that he be called, by his steward, with a pot of morning coffee at precisely 0700 hours. This gave him an hour to make his leisurely toilet and to get dressed before breakfast. During this time, he would listen to a program of music, selected the previous night, from his little playmaster. It was the steward’s duty to switch this on as soon as he entered the daycabin.

He awakened, this morning (as he always did) to the strains of music.
Odd,
he thought. He could not recall having put that particular tape into the machine. It was a sentimental song which, nonetheless, he had always liked—but it was not, somehow, the sort of melody to start the day with.

Spaceman, the stars are calling,

Spaceman, you have to roam,

Spaceman, through light-years falling,

Remember I wait at home. . . .

He heard Mullins come into the bedroom, the faint rattle of the coffee things on the tray. He smelled something.
Was the man smoking?
He jerked into wakefulness, his eyes wide open. It was not Mullins. It was the girl, Sally, who had been his predecessor’s servant. She was not in uniform. She was wearing something diaphanous that concealed nothing and accentuated plenty. One of the thin cigars dangled from a comer of her full mouth. She took it out. “Here you are, Skipper. Have a drag. It’ll put you in the mood.”

Grimes slapped the smoldering cylinder away from his face. “In the mood for what?” he snapped.

“You mean to say that you don’t know? Not after your carryings-on with the fat cow on Botany Bay, to say nothing of that scrawny bitch of a paymaster . . . ?” She let her robe drop open. “Look at me, Skipper. I’m better than both of ‘em, aren’t I?”

“Get out of here!” ordered Grimes. “I’ll see you later.”

“You can see me now, Skipper.” Her robe had fallen from her. “Take a good look—an’ then try to tell me that you don’t like what you see!”

Grimes did like it; that was the trouble. The girl had an excellent figure, although a little on the plump side. He thought of getting on to his telephone to demand the immediate presence of both Vinegar Nell and Brabham, then decided against it. Both of them would be quite capable of putting the worst possible construction on the situation. On the other hand, he had no intention of letting things go too far.

Decisively he threw aside the covers, jumped out of the bed. The girl opened her arms, smiling suggestively. He said, “Not yet, Sally. I always like a shower first.”

She said, “I’ll wash your back, Skipper.”

“Good.”

He pushed her into the shower cubicle before she could change her mind. And would it work? he wondered. On Botany Bay a swim in the warm sea had led to no diminishment of the effects of the smoke of the mutated tobacco—but the sea had always been warm. The shower would not be. When Grimes turned on the water he made sure that she did not see the setting. She screamed when the icy torrent hit her warm skin. Grimes felt like screaming too. He was not and never had been a cold shower addict. She struggled in his arms, even tried to bring her knee up into his crotch. He thought, as he blocked the attack,
You’d have a job finding anything!

She squeaked, “Turn on the hot, you stupid bastard!”

He muttered, through chattering teeth, “This is hurting me at least as much as it’s hurting you. Now, tell me. What’s all this about?”

Her struggles were weaker now. The cold water was draining her of strength. She whispered, “If you turn on the hot, I’ll tell you.”

“You’ll tell me first.”

“It—it was just a bet . . . with the other tabbies. An’ the hunks. That—that I’d get in with you, same as I was in with Commander Tallis.”

“Where did you get the cigar? Out of my safe?”

“I’m not a thief, Skipper. The—the snip’s lousy with the things. They’ll be worth a helluva lot back on Lindisfarne. You know how people will pay.”

Grimes shook her. “Anything else?”

“No, no. Please, Skipper, please. I’ll never be warm again.”

Gratefully, Grimes adjusted the shower control. He felt at first as though he were being boiled alive. When he was sufficiently thawed he left the cubicle, with the naked girl still luxuriating in the gloriously hot water. He dressed hastily. He phoned up to the control room, got the officer of the watch. “Mr. Farrell, ring the alarm for boat stations.”

“
Boat stations,
sir? But—”

“There’s nothing like a drill at an unexpected time to make sure that all hands are on the ball. Make it boat stations. Now.”

There was a delay of about three seconds, then the clangor of alarm bells echoed through the ship, drowning out the irregular beat of the inertial drive, the thin, high whine of the Mannschenn Drive. A taped voice repeated loudly, “All hands to boat stations! All hands to boat stations!”

Sally emerged from the shower cubicle, dripping, her hair plastered to her head. She looked frightened. She snatched up her robe, threw it over her wet body. “Captain, what’s wrong?” she cried.

“It’s an emergency,” Grimes told her. “Get to your station.”

In the doorway to the dayroom she almost collided with Brabham on his way in.

“What’s going on, sir?” demanded the first lieutenant harshly.

“Sit down,” ordered Grimes. He waited until he was sure that Sally was out of earshot. Then he said, “I gave orders, Commander Brabham, that none of that mutated tobacco, in any form, was to be brought aboard the ship.”

“You were smoking enough of it yourself on Botany Bay, Captain.”

“I was. In those circumstances it was quite harmless.”

“It will be quite harmless at parties back at Lindisfarne Base, Captain.”

“So you’re in it, too.”

“I didn’t say so, sir.”

Grimes snarled. “Did you consider the effects of smoking the muck aboard this ship, with the sexes in such gross disproportion?”

“Nobody would be so stupid—”

“You passed that stewardess on her way out when you came in. She’s one of the stupid ones. And now, with all hands at their stations, you and I are going to make a search of the accommodation.”

“If that’s the way you want it. Sir.”

They started in the officers’ flat, in Brabham’s cabin. The first drawer that Grimes pulled out was full of neatly packed boxes. And the second.

“You’re pretty blatant about this, Number One,” remarked Grimes.

“I hardly expected that the captain would be pawing through my personal possessions with his own fair hands. Sir.”

“Not only me.”

“Lindisfarne Base is not a commercial spaceport, Sir. There are no customs.”

“But the dockyard police exercise the same function,” snapped Grimes. But he knew, as well as Brabham did, that those same dockyard police would turn a blind eye to anything as long as they, personally, profited.

All the officers, Grimes discovered, had disobeyed his orders, working on the good old principle of
What he doesn’t know won’t bother him.
Now he did know. Using his master key he went down through compartment after airtight compartment. Stewards and stewardesses . . . petty officers . . . Marines . . . general purpose ratings . . . it was even worse than he had thought. In the catering staff’s general room he found butts in the ashtrays. They must, he thought, have enjoyed quite a nice little orgy last night—and he had been pulled in at the tail end of it.

He and a sullen Brabham rode the elevator up to the control room. Grimes went at once to the intercom microphone. He said harshly, “Attention, all hands. This is the captain speaking. It has come to my attention that large quantities of Botany Bay tobacco are being carried aboard this ship. All—I repeat
all—
stocks of this drug are to be taken to the after airlock, from which they will be dumped.”

“You can’t do that, Captain!” expostulated Brabham.

“I am doing it, mister.”

“But it’s private property.”

“And this ship is the property of the Federation Survey Service. We are all the property of the Service, and are bound to abide by its regulations. See that my orders are carried out, Commander Brabham.”

“But—”

“Jump to it!”

“You’ll do the jumping, Commander Grimes!” It was Swinton who spoke. He had entered the control room unnoticed. He was carrying a twenty-millimeter projectile pistol, a nasty weapon designed for use inside a ship, its slug heavy and relatively slow moving, incapable of penetrating the shell plating or bulkheads of a ship. But it would make a very nasty mess of a human body.

“Swinton! Put that thing down!”

“Are you going to try to make me, Commander Grimes?”

Grimes looked at Brabham and the watch officer. Brabham said, “We’re all in this, Captain. Almost all of us, that is. This business of the cigars pushed us past the point of no return.”

“Mutiny?” asked Grimes quietly.

“Yes. Mutiny. We owe the Survey Service nothing. From now on we’re looking after ourselves.”

“You must be mad,” Grimes told him. “The moment Lindisfarne gets word of this there’ll be a fleet out after you.”

“The Sparkses are with us,” said Swinton. “There’ll be no word sent out on Carlotti radio. As for that drunken bum Flannery—the first thing I did was to smash that dog’s brain in aspic of his. Without his amplifier he’s powerless.”

“He’ll never forgive you,” said Grimes.

“The least of my worries,” sneered Swinton.

“And just what do you intend to do?” Grimes asked quietly. If he could keep them talking there was a chance, a faint chance, that he might be able to grab that weapon.

“Return to Botany Bay, of course,” said Brabham.

“You bloody fool!” snarled Swinton.

“Why?” asked the first lieutenant calmly. “Dead men tell no tales.”

“And even Botany Bay has laws and policemen,” remarked Grimes.

“Do you think we haven’t thought of that?” Brabham demanded. “We intend to loaf around a bit, and make our return to Botany Bay after an interval that should correspond roughly to the time taken by a voyage to Lindisfarne and back. Our story will be that you were relieved of your command on return to Base and that I was promoted.”