First Command (56 page)

“You’ll have to do better than that,” said Grimes. “You’ll have Brandt to convince as well as the colonists.”

“Oh, we’ll polish our story until it gleams while we’re cruising. We’ll make it all as watertight as a duck’s down.”

“Down to the airlock!” ordered Swinton, gesturing with his pistol.

“Better do as the major says,” came a deep voice from behind Grimes.

He turned. Sergeant Washington had come into the control room, and two other Marines with him. They were all armed.

So, he thought, this was it. This was the end of the penny section. His famous luck had at last deserted him. In any ship but this one there would be a fair number of loyalists—but whom could he count on in
Discovery!
Poor, drunken, useless Flannery, his one weapon, his ability to throw his thoughts across the light-years, destroyed with the killing to his psionic amplifier? Perhaps he was dead himself. He had never been popular with his shipmates. Dr. Rath, perhaps—but what could he do? Plenty, maybe—but nothing in time to save Grimes. And who else?

He tensed himself to spring at Swinton, to wrest the pistol from his grasp before it could be fired. Perhaps. It would be suicidal—but quicker and less painful than a spacewalk without a suit. Or would it be? He realized the truth, the bitter truth, of the old adage,
While there’s life, there’s hope.
Perhaps he hadn’t run out of luck. Perhaps something, anything, might happen between this moment and the final moment when, locked in the cell of the airlock chamber, he realized that the air was being evacuated prior to the opening of the outer door.

“All right,” he said. “I’m coming.”

“You’ll soon be going,” Brabham quipped grimly.

Chapter 32

There was a crowd by the airlock—
Langer, the bos’n; Mullins, who had been Grimes’s steward; the little slut Sally; MacMorris and several of his juniors; the radio officers. They made way for Grimes and his escorts, raised an ironic cheer. There were two men already in the chamber, facing the leveled pistols of Swinton’s Marines with pitiful defiance. One, surprisingly, was Dr. Rath; the other was Flannery. The PCO was bleeding about the face and one of his eyes was closed. No doubt he had made a vain attempt to save his macabre pet from destruction. The doctor looked, as always, as though he were on his way to a funeral.
And so he is,
thought Grimes with gallows humor.
His own.

Swinton painfully jabbed Grimes in the small of the back with his pistol. “Inside, you!” he snarled. Grimes tried hard to think of some fitting, cutting retort, but could not. Probably he would when it was too late, when there was no air left in his lungs to speak with.

“Inside, bastard!”

That pistol muzzle hurt. With what little dignity he could muster Grimes joined the two loyalists, then turned to face his tormentors. He said, reasonably, “I don’t know why you hate me so much.”

“Because you’ve achieved everything that we haven’t,” growled Brabham. “
Lucky
Grimes. But throughout your service career you’ve committed all the crimes that
we
have, and got away with them, while our promotions have been blocked. You’re no better than us. Just luckier, that’s all. I’ve always prayed that I’d be around when your luck finally ran out. It seems that the Odd Gods of the Galaxy have seen fit to answer my prayers.” He turned to MacMorris. “Chief, what about shutting down the time-twister? We can’t make any changes in the mass of the ship with the Mannschenn Drive running.”

So you thought of that,
commented Grimes to himself.
A pity.

Suddenly there was a commotion at the rear of the crowd. Vinegar Nell, followed by Tangye, was forcing her way through, using her sharp elbows vigorously.
So she wants to be in at the kill,
thought Grimes bitterly.

She demanded, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“What does it look like?” asked Brabham.

She snapped, “I’ll not stand for murder!”

“Now, isn’t that just too bad?” drawled Swinton. “Perhaps you’d like to take a little spacewalk yourself. Just as a personal favor we’ll let you do it in your birthday suit.”

One of the Marines put an eager hand out to the neck of her shirt. She slapped it away, glared at the man. “Keep your filthy paws off me, you ape!” Then, to Swinton and Brabham, “You can’t touch
me!
”

“Why not?” demanded the major.

“Try to use your brains—if you have any. How many people aboard this ship are trained as ecologists?” She pointed at Dr. Rath. “You’re about to dispose of one of them. And that leaves me. Without me to take care of the environment you’d all be poisoned or asphyxiated long before you got back to Botany Bay.” She added nastily, “And
with
me you could still meet the same fate if I had good reason not to feel happy.”

Swinton laughed. “I think, Miss Russell, that I could persuade you to cooperate. After all, such persuasion is part of
my
training.”

“Hold on,” put in Brabham. After all he, with all his faults, was a competent spaceman, was keenly aware that the blunder, intentional or otherwise, of one key technician can destroy a ship. He asked the paymaster, “What proposals do you have regarding the disposition of the . . . er . . . prisoners? You realize that we can’t take them back to Botany Bay. Not when Grimes and that fat cow of a mayor are eating out of each other’s hands.”

“Mr. Tangye will tell you,” she said.

“Well set them adrift in a boat,” stated the navigating officer.

“Are you quite mad, Tangye?” demanded Brabham.

“No, I’m not. We’re in no great hurry, are we? We have time on our hands, time to waste. It’ll be less than an hour’s work to remove the Carlotti transceiver and the mini-Mannschenn from whichever boat we’re letting them have.”

“
And
the inertial drive,” added Brabham thoughtfully.

“Hardly necessary. How far will they get, even at maximum acceleration, even with a long lifetime to do it in, on inertial drive only?”

“You’ve forgotten about Flannery,” objected Swinton.

“We haven’t,” Vinegar Nell assured him. “Without his horrid amplifier he couldn’t think his way out of a paper bag.”

“Murder,” admitted Brabham suddenly, “has never been my cup of tea.”

“Or mutiny?” asked Grimes hopefully, but everybody ignored him.

“It has mine,” asserted Swinton, far too cheerfully.

“I say, give the skipper an’ his pals a chance!” shouted Sally.

“I second that,” grunted Langer.

And what sort of chance will it be?
wondered Grimes.
A life sentence, instead of a death sentence. A life sentence, locked for years in a cell, with absolutely no chance of escape. And in company certainly not of my choosing.
He had, not so long ago, made a long boat voyage with an attractive girl as his only companion. It had started well, but had finished with himself and the wench hating each other’s guts.

He said, “Thank you, Miss Russell. And Mr. Tangye. I appreciate your efforts on my behalf. But I think I’d prefer the spacewalk.”

Swinton laughed, although it sounded more like a snarl. “So there is such a thing as a fate worse than death, after all. All right, Brabham, you’d better start getting one of the boats ready for the long passage. The long, long passage. Meanwhile, this airlock will do for a holding cell.”

The inner door sighed shut, sealing off the prisoners from the mutineers.

“You might have warned me!” Grimes said bitterly to Flannery.

The telepath looked at him mournfully from his one good eye. “I did so, Captain. Ride with a loose rein, I told ye. Don’t go puttin’ yer foot down with a firm hand. An’ don’t go makin’ the same mistakes as Bligh did. With him it was a squabble over coconuts or some such the first time, an’ rum the last time. With you it was cigars. I did so warn ye. I was a-goin’ to warn ye again, but it all flared up sudden like. An’ I had me poor hands full tryin’ to save Ned.”

“I hope,” said Grimes, “that you now appreciate the folly of trying to run with the fox and hunt with the hounds.” He turned to Rath. “And what brings you into this galley. Doctor?”

“I have my standards, Captain,” replied the medical officer stiffly.

“Mphm. Then don’t you think you’d better do something about Mr. Flannery? He seems in rather bad shape.”

“It’s only superficial damage,” said Rath briskly. “It can wait until we’re in the boat. The medicine chests in all the lifecraft are well stocked. I saw to that myself.”

“That’s a comfort,” said Grimes. “I suppose that you’ll do your damnedest to keep us all alive for the maximum time.”

“Of course. And when the boat
is
picked up—I presume that it will be eventually—my notes and journal will be of great value to the medical authorities of that future time. My journal may well become one of the standard works on space medicine.”

“What a pity,” sneered Grimes, “that you won’t be around to collect the royalties.”

The doctor assumed a dignity that made Grimes ashamed of his sarcasm, but said nothing further. And Flannery, who had long since lost any interest in the conversation of his companions, was huddled up on the deck and muttering, “Ned—Ned . . . what did they have to do that to ye for? The only livin’ bein’ in this accursed ship who never hurt anybody.”

Chapter 33

In little more than an hour’s time
the inner airlock door opened. During this period Grimes and Rath had talked things over, had decided that there was nothing at all that they could do. Flannery refused to be stirred from his grief-ridden apathy, muttering only, “Too much hate runnin’ loose in this ship . . . too much hate . . . an’ it’s all come to the top, all at once, like some filthy bubble.”

The inner airlock door opened, and Swinton stood there, backed by Sergeant Washington and six of his men. All were armed, and all were trained in the use of arms. They said nothing, merely gestured with their pistols. Grimes and his companions said nothing either; what was there to say? They walked slowly out of the chamber, and were hustled onto the spiral staircase running up and around the axial shaft. In the cramped confines of the elevator cage, Grimes realized, it would have been possible—although not probable—for weapons to be seized and turned upon their owners.

Grimes slowly climbed the staircase, with Rath behind him, and Flannery bringing up the dejected rear. Behind them were the Marines. They came at last to one of the after boat bays. The boat was ready for them. The mini-Mannschenn unit and the Carlotti transceiver, each removed in its entirety, were standing on the deck well clear of the airlock hatch.

Brabham was there, and Tangye, and Vinegar Nell, with other officers and ratings. Grimes tried to read the expressions on their faces. There were flickers of doubt, perhaps, and a growing realization of the enormity of their crime—but also an unwavering resolution. After all, it would be many, many years (if ever) before the Admiralty learned that there had been a mutiny. Or would it be? Grimes suddenly remembered what he should have remembered before—that Captain Davinas, in his
Sundowner,
would, provided that his owners were agreeable, soon be dropping down on Botany Bay. But what could Davinas do? He commanded an unarmed ship with a small crew. The mutineers would see to it that Davinas and his people did not survive long enough to tell any sort of tale. But if he told Swinton and Brabham about his coded message to the tramp captain, then
Sundowner’s
fate would surely be sealed. If he kept his knowledge to himself there was just a chance, a faint chance, that Davinas would be able to punch out some sort of distress message before being silenced.

“The carriage waits, my lord,” announced Swinton sardonically.

“So I see,” replied Grimes mildly.

“Then get in the bloody thing!” snarled the Mad Major.

Flannery was first through the little airlock. Then Rath. Grimes was about to follow, when Vinegar Nell put out a hand to stop him. With the other she thrust at him what she had been carrying—his favorite pipe, a large tin of tobacco. Grimes accepted the gift. “Thank you,” he said simply. “Think nothing of it,” she replied. Her face was expressionless.

“Very touching,” sneered Swinton. Then, to one of his men, “Take that stinking rubbish away from him!”

“Let him keep it,” said Vinegar Nell. “Don’t forget, Major, that you have to keep me happy.”

“She’s right,” concurred Brabham, adding, in a whisper, “
The bitch!
”

“All right. Inside, Grimes, and take your baby’s comforter with you. You can button up the boat if you feel like it. But it’s all one to me if you don’t.”

Grimes obeyed, clambering into and through the little airlock. He thought briefly of starting the inertial drive at once and slamming out through the hull before the door could be opened. It would be suicide—but all those in the boat bay would die with him. But—of course—the small hydrogen fusion power unit had not yet been actuated, and there would be no power for any of the boat’s machinery until it was. The fuel cells supplied current—but that was sufficient only for closing the airlock doors and then, eventually, for starting the fusion process. So he went to the forward cabin, sat in the pilot’s seat, strapped himself in. He told the others to secure themselves. He sealed the airlock.

The needle of the external pressure gauge flickered, then turned rapidly anti-clockwise to zero. So the boat bay was now clear of people and its atmosphere pumped back into the ship. Yet the noise of
Discovery’s
propulsive machinery was still audible, transmitted into the boat through the metal of the cradle on which it was resting. The high, thin note of the Mannschenn Drive faded, however, dying, dying—and with the shutting down of the temporal precession field came the uncanny disorientation in time and space. Grimes, looking at his reflection in the polished transparency of the forward viewscreen, saw briefly an image of himself, much older and wearing a uniform with strange insignia.

The boat bay doors opened. Beyond them was the interstellar night, bright with a myriad stars and hazy drifts of cosmic dust.
Any moment now,
thought Grimes—but the shock of the firing of the catapult took him unawares, pressing him deep into the padding of his seat. When he had recovered, the first thing to be done was the starting of the fusion power unit, without which the life-support systems would not function. And those same life-support systems, cycling and recycling all wastes, using sewage as nutriment for the specialized algae, would go on working long beyond the normal lifetimes of the three men in the boat.