First Command (76 page)

He looked at her over the frosted rim of his glass. She was reclining gracefully on her
chaise longue
, looking (as always) like a rather superior version of Goya’s
Maja
. She looked at him very coldly. He realized that the top tunic button of his gold and purple livery was undone. He did it up.

She said, “You aren’t much use, Captain, are you? I thought, in my girlish innocence, that an ex-Commander of the Interstellar Federation’s Survey Service would have been the ideal captain for an expedition such as this. I know that you, before you resigned your commission, discovered at least three Lost Colonies. There were New Sparta and Morrowvia, both of which we shall, eventually, be visiting. And there was, of course, Botany Bay. With reference to the first two worlds it will be interesting to see what effects your clumsy meddlings have had upon the lives of the unspoiled peoples of those planets . . .”

Grimes was acutely conscious of the burning flush that suffused his prominent ears. He, personally, would hardly have classed either the New Spartans or the Morrowvians as unspoiled—and New Sparta had been on the brink of a devastating civil war at the time of his landing. As for Morrowvia—he had not been the only interfering outsider. There had been the Dog Star Line’s Captain Danzellan, looking after the commercial interests of his principals. There had been the piratical Drongo Kane in his own
Southerly Buster,
looking after his own interests.

“And didn’t you enjoy a liaison with one of the local rulers on Morrowvia?” continued the Baroness. “I find it hard to understand—but then, I have never been enamored of cats.”

Maya,
remembered Grimes.
Feline ancestry but very much a woman—not like this cold, rich bitch . . .
Then he hated himself for the uncharitable thought. He owed the Baroness much. Had it not been for her intervention he would have been called back to Lindisfarne to stand trial. And to have done what she had done in that vile cave on Farhaven must have required considerable resolution. He could hardly blame her for blaming him for the failure of that second rescue attempt.

Nonetheless he said, with some indignation, “I was under the impression, Your Excellency, that my full and frank report on the happenings on Morrowvia was not to be released to the general public.”

“I am not the general public,” she said. “Money, Captain Grimes, is the key that will open the door to any vault in the Galaxy. Your friend, Commander Delamere, was, I think, more impressed by my wealth than my beauty. There are many others like him.”

Grimes missed the chance of saying something gallant.

“Your Excellency, may I interrupt?” asked Big Sister, her voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

“You have already interrupted,” said the Baroness. “But continue.”

“Your Excellency, I have monitored Carlotti transmissions from the Admiralty, on Earth, to all Survey Service ships and bases . . .”

Have you!
thought Grimes.
Restricted wavebands, unbreakable codes . . . And what are they against the power of money!

“A distress message capsule was picked up off Lentimure by the Survey Service destroyer
Acrux.
It originated from a ship called
Lode Ranger.
Text is as follows: Pile dead. Proceeding under diesel power. Intend landing on apparently habitable planet . . .”

There was more—a listing of crew and passengers, what astronomical data might just possibly be of use to future rescuers. In very few cases, Grimes knew, was such information of any value—but a modern computer, given the elements of a capsule’s trajectory, could determine with some accuracy its departure point. And then the rescue ship, arriving a few centuries after the call for assistance, would find either a thriving Lost Colony or, after a search, the eroded wreckage of the lost ship and, possibly, a few human skeletons.

Grimes asked, “Do you have the coordinates of the departure point?”

Big Sister replied, “Apparently they are yet to be determined, Captain. As soon as they are transmitted by the Admiralty I shall inform you.”

The Baroness said, “It just could happen that we shall be the nearest ship to the Lost Colony. It would be interesting to make the first landing upon such a world, before the clumsy boots of oafish spacemen have trampled all sorts of valuable evidence into the dust.”

Grimes said, “Probably the Lost Colony, if there is one, is halfway across the Galaxy from here.”

She said, “You are unduly pessimistic, Captain. Never forget that chance plays a great part in human life. And now, while we are waiting, could you refresh my memory regarding the gaussjammers and how it was that so many of them originated Lost Colonies?”

You probably know more about it than I do,
thought Grimes.
After all, it’s you that’s writing the thesis.

He said, “The gaussjammers, using the Ehrenhaft Drive, were the ships of the Second Expansion. Prior to them were the so-called Deep Freeze ships which, of course, were not faster than light. The gaussjammers, though, were FTL. With the Ehrenhaft generators in operation they were, essentially, huge monopoles. They tried to be in two places at once along a line of magnetic force, proceeding along such tramlines to their destinations. They were extremely vulnerable to magnetic storms; a really severe one could fling them thousands of light-years off course. There was another effect, too. The micro-piles upon which they relied for power would be drained of all energy. The captain of a gaussjammer lost in space, his pile dead, had only one course of action open to him. He used his emergency diesels to power the Ehrenhaft generators. He proceeded in what he hoped would be the right direction. When he ran out of diesel fuel his biochemist would convert what should have been food for the ship’s company into more fuel.

“Finally, if he was lucky, he found a planet before food and fuel ran out. If his luck still held he managed to land in one piece. And then, if conditions were not too impossible, he and his people stood a fair chance of founding a Lost Colony.”

Big Sister spoke again. “I have intercepted and decoded more signals. I estimate that we can be in orbit about
Lode Ranger’s
planet no more than ten standard days from now. As far as I can ascertain there are no Survey Service vessels in our vicinity; it is a reasonable assumption that we shall make the first landing. Have I your permission to adjust trajectory?”

“Of course,” said the Baroness. “Adjust trajectory as soon as the captain and myself are in our couches.”

“I should be in the control room,” said Grimes.

“Is that really necessary?” asked the Baroness.

Big Sister adjusted trajectory, shutting down inertial drive and Mannschenn Drive, using the directional gyroscopes to swing the ship about her axes, lining her up on the target star. Grimes, sweating it out in his bunk, did not doubt that due and proper allowance was being made for galactic drift. He was obliged to admit that Big Sister could do everything that he could do, and at least as well—but
he
should have been doing it (That aunt of his who had run away with the Sirian spaceman had annoyed the young Grimes more than once by doing the things that he thought that he should have been doing.) He listened to the cold yet not altogether mechanical voice making the routine announcements: “Stopping inertial drive. Stand by for free fall . . . Mannschenn Drive—
off.”
There was the usual sensation of spatial and temporal disorientation. “Directional gyroscopes—
on.
Prepare for centrifugal effects . . . Directional gyroscopes—
off.
Mannschenn Drive—restarting.” And the low hum, rising to a thin, high whine as the spinning rotors built up speed, precessing, tumbling down the dark dimensions . . . And the colors, sagging down the spectrum, and the distorted, warped perspective . . . And, as often happened, the transitory flash of déjà vu . . . This was happening now, had happened before, would happen again but . . . differently. In some other Universe, on a previous coil of time—or, perhaps, on a coil of time yet to be experienced—he had married the Princess Marlene, the father of whose sons he was, on El Dorado, had been accepted by the aristocratic and opulent inhabitants of that planet as one of the family, a member of the club and, eventually, using his wife’s money, had caused the spaceyacht,
The Far Traveler,
to be built to his own specifications. He was both Owner and Master. He was—but briefly, briefly, in that alternate universe—a truly contented man.

And then outlines ceased to waver, colors to fade, intensify and shift, and he was . . . himself.

He was John Grimes, disgraced ex-Commander, late of the Federation’s Survey Service, Master
de jure
but not
de facto of
a ship that was no more—or was she more, much more, but not in any way that conceivably could benefit him?—than the glittering toy of an overly rich, discontented woman.

“On trajectory,” said Big Sister, “for
Lode Ranger’s
planet. Normal routine may be resumed.”

“I am coming up to Control,” said Grimes.

“You may come up to Control,” said Big Sister, making it sound as though she was granting a great favor.

Chapter 23

The Far Traveler
fell through the warped continuum toward the yellow sun on one of whose planets
Lode Ranger’s
people had found refuge. She was alone and lonely, with no traffic whatsoever within range of her mass proximity indicator. Distant Carlotti signals were monitored by Big Sister and, according to her, no ship was closer than the destroyer
Acrux—
and she was one helluva long way away.

Nonetheless Grimes was not happy. He said, “I know, Your Excellency, that with the advent of Carlotti Radio it is no longer mandatory to carry a Psionic Communications Officer—but I think that you should have shipped one.”

“Have a prying telepath aboard my ship, Captain Grimes?” she flared. “Out of the question! It is bad enough being compelled by archaic legislation to employ a human yachtmaster.”

Grimes sighed. He said, “As you know, PCOs are carried aboard all Survey Service vessels and in the ships of most other navies. They are required to observe the code of ethics formulated by the Rhine Institute. But today their function is not that of ship to ship or ship to planet communication. They are, primarily, a sort of psychic radar. How shall I put it? This way, perhaps. You’re making a landing on a strange world. Are the natives likely to be friendly or hostile? Unless the indigenes’ way of thinking is too alien your PCO will be able to come up with the answer. If
The Far Traveler
carried a PCO we should already have some sort of idea of what we shall find on
Lode Ranger’s
planet. Come to that, a PCO would have put us wise to the state of affairs on Farhaven and saved us from a degrading experience.”

“I would prefer that you did not remind me of it,” she said. “Meanwhile we shall just have to rely upon the highly efficient electronic equipment with which this ship is furnished.”

She finished her drink. Grimes finished his. Obviously there was not going to be another.

She said, “Don’t let me keep you from your dinner, Captain.”

Grimes left her boudoir and went up to his own spartan—but only relatively so—quarters.

Not very long afterward
The Far Traveler
hung in orbit about
Lode Ranger’s
world. It was inhabited without doubt; the lights of cities could be seen through the murky atmosphere of the night hemisphere and on the daylit face were features too regular to be natural, almost certainly roads and railways and canals. And those people had radio; the spaceship’s NST receivers picked up an unceasing stream of signals. There was music. There were talks.

But . . .

But the music bore no resemblance to anything composed by Terrans for Terran ears and the instruments were exclusively percussion. There were complex rhythms, frail, tinkling melodies, not displeasing but alien, alien . . .

And the voices . . .

Guttural croaks, strident squeals, speaking no language known to Grimes or the Baroness, no tongue included in Big Sister’s fantastically comprehensive data bank.

But that wasn’t all.

The active element of the planet’s atmosphere was chlorine.

“There will be no Lost Colony here, Your Excellency,” said Grimes.
“Lode Ranger’s
captain would never have landed once his spectroscopic analysis told him what to expect. He must have carried on.”

“Even so,” she said, “I have found a new world. I have ensured for myself a place in history.” She smiled in self mockery. “For what it is worth. Now that we are here our task will be to carry out a preliminary survey.”

“Do you intend to land, Your Excellency?” asked Big Sister.

“Of course.”

“Then I must advise against it. You assumed, as did my builders, that my golden hull would be immune to corrosion. But somehow nobody took into account the possibility of a landing on a planet with a chlorine atmosphere. I have already detected traces of nitrohydrochloric acid which, I need hardly remind you, is a solvent for both gold and platinum.”

“Only traces,” said Grimes.

“Only traces, Captain,” agreed Big Sister. “But would
you
care to run naked through a forest in which there might be pockets of dichlorethyl sulfide?”

Grimes looked blank.

“Mustard gas,” said Big Sister.

“Oh,” said Grimes.

The Baroness said, “I am rich, as you know. Nonetheless this ship is a considerable investment. I do not wish her shell plating to be corroded, thus detracting from her value.”

“Yes, it would spoil her good looks,” admitted Grimes. But the main function of a ship, any ship, is not to look pretty. He remembered that long-ago English admiral who had frowned upon gunnery practice because it discolored the gleaming paintwork of the warcraft under his command.

He asked, “Couldn’t you devise some sort of protective coating? A spray-on plastic . . .”

Big Sister replied, “I have already done so. And, anticipating that you and Her Excellency would wish to make a landing, the smaller pinnace has been treated, also your spacesuits and six of the general purpose robots. Meanwhile I have processed the photographs taken during our circumpolar orbits and, if you will watch the playmaster, I shall exhibit one that seems of especial interest.”