Upon a Sea of Stars (2 page)
Read Upon a Sea of Stars Online
Authors: A. Bertram Chandler
Chapter 2
SHE HASN’T CHANGED MUCH,
thought Grimes, as she strode into his office. She was wearing civilian clothes—a swirling, high-collared cloak in dark blue, tapered black slacks, a white jersey of a material so lustrous that it seemed almost luminous.
And that outfit,
went on the Commodore to himself,
would make a nasty hole in a year’s salary. Rob Roy tweed and Altairian crystal silk . . . The Survey Service looks after its own.
Even so, he looked at her with appreciation. She was a beautiful woman, and on her an old flour sack would have looked almost as glamorous as the luxurious materials that adorned her fine body. In her pale blonde hair the slowly melting snow crystals sparkled like diamonds.
“Welcome aboard, Commander,” said Grimes.
“Glad to be aboard, Commodore,” she replied softly.
She allowed him to take the cloak from her, accepted the chair that Miss Willoughby ushered her towards. She sat down gracefully, watching Grimes as he carefully hung up her outer garment.
“Coffee, Commander Verrill? Or something stronger?”
“Something stronger.” A smile flickered over her full lips. “As long as it’s not your local rot-gut, that is.”
“It’s not. I have my sources of supply. Nova Caledon Scotch-on-the-rocks?”
“That will do nicely. But please omit the rocks.” She shivered a little theatrically, “What a vile climate you have here, Commodore.”
“It’s the only one we have. Say when.”
“Right up, please. I need some central heating.”
And so you do,
thought Grimes, studying her face.
So you do. And it’s more than our weather that’s to blame. You did what had to be done insofar as that mess involving you and Jane and Derek Calver was concerned, but to every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction—especially once the glow of conscious nobility has worn off.
She said, “Down the hatch.”
“Down the hatch,” he replied. “A refill?”
“Thank you.”
He took his time about pouring the drinks, asking as he busied himself with glasses and ice cubes and bottle, “You must be here on important business, Commander. A courier ship all to yourself.”
“Very important,” she replied, looking rather pointedly towards Miss Willoughby, who was busying herself with the papers on her desk in a somewhat ostentatious manner.
“H’m. Yes. Oh, Miss Willoughby. I’d like you to run along to the Stores Superintendent, if you wouldn’t mind, to straighten up the mess about
Rim Falcon
’s requisition sheets.”
“But I still have to run through
Rim Kestrel
’s repair list, sir.”
“Rim Kestrel
’s not due in for a week yet, Miss Willoughby.”
“Very well, sir.”
The girl straightened the litter on her desk, got up and walked slowly and with dignity from the office.
Sonya Verrill chuckled. “Such sticky-beaking would never be tolerated in the Service, Commodore.”
“But you don’t have to put up with civilian secretarial staff. Commander. Come to that, I well recall that when I was in the Service myself an occasional gift of some out-world luxury to a certain Lieutenant Masson—she was old Admiral Hall’s secretary-could result in the premature release of all sorts of interesting information regarding promotions, transfers and the like.”
“Things are different now, Commodore.”
“Like hell they are. Anyhow, Sonya, you can talk freely now. This office is regularly debugged.”
“Debugged, John?”
“Yes. Every now and again high-ups in the various Ministries decide that they aren’t told enough of Rim Runners’ affairs—of course, the
Aeriel
business made me very unpopular, and if Ralph Listowel hadn’t got results, serendipitous ones at that, I’d have been out on my arse. And then
your
people manage to plant an occasional bug themselves.”
“Come off it, John.”
“Still playing the little wooly lamb, Sonya?”
She grinned. “It’s part of my job. Perhaps the most important part.”
“And what’s the job this time?”
“There won’t be any job unless our Ambassador to the Rim Confederation manages to talk your President into supplying help. But I think that he will. Relations have been fairly friendly since your autonomy was recognized.”
“If you want a ship,” said Grimes, “the charter rates will be favorable to ourselves. But surely the Federation has tonnage to spare. There are all the Commission’s vessels as well as your own Survey Service wagons.”
“Yes, we’ve plenty of ships,” she admitted. “And plenty of personnel. But it’s know-how that we’re after. You hardly need to be told that your people have converted this sector of Space into your own backyard, and put up a big sign,
No Trespassing
. Even so, we hear things. Such as Rim Ghosts, and the winds of it that blew your pet
Aeriel
through about half a dozen alternative time tracks. And there was that business of the wet paint on Kinsolving’s Planet years ago—but that, of course, was before you became autonomous, so
we
had the job of handling it. . . .”
“And the Outsider’s ship . . .” supplied Grimes.
“No. Not in the same class, John. She’d drifted in, or been placed there, by visitors from another Galaxy. And, in any case, we’re already in on that.” She held out her glass for a refill.
“You’re welcome, Sonya, but . . .”
“Don’t worry, John. Olga Popovsky, the Beautiful Spy with hollow legs—that’s me.”
“You know your own capacity.”
“Of course. Thank you. Now, as I was saying, our top brass is interested in all the odd things that seem to happen only in this sector of Space, and the Rhine Institute boys are interested too. It was decided that there was only one Intelligence Officer in the Service with anything approaching an intimate knowledge of the Rim. I needn’t tell you who that is. It was decided, too, that I’d work better if allowed to beg, borrow or steal Rim Worlds’ personnel. Oh, the Service can afford to pay Award rates, and above. Frankly, when I was offered the job I almost turned it down. I know the Rim—but my memories of this sector of Space aren’t all too happy . . .” She leaned forward in her chair, put her slim hand on Grimes’ knee. “But . . .”
“But what, Sonya?”
“All this business of Rim Ghosts, all these theories about the curtains between the alternative universes wearing thin here, on the very edge of the expanding Galaxy . . . You know something of my history, John. You know that there have only been two men, real men, in my life. Bill Maudsley, who found the Outsiders’ quarantine station, and who paid for the discovery with his life. And Derek Calver, whose first loyalties were, after all, to Jane . . . Damn it all, John, I’m no chicken. I’m rather tired of playing the part of a lone wolf—or a lone bitch, if you like. I want me a man—but the right man—and I want to settle down. I shall be due a very handsome gratuity from the Service when I retire, and there are still sparsely settled systems in this Galaxy where a little, one-ship company could provide its owners and operators with a very comfortable living. . . .”
“So?”
“So it’s bloody obvious. I’ve been put in charge of this wild goose chase—and with any luck at all I shall catch me my own wild gander. Surely there must be some alternative Universe in which I shall find either Bill or Derek, with no strings attached.”
“And what if you find them both at once?” asked Grimes.
“As long as it’s in a culture that approves of polyandry,” she grinned. Then she was serious again. “You can see, John, that this—this research may well fantastically advance the frontiers of human knowledge.”
“And it may well,” he told her, “bring you to the haven where you would be.” He raised his glass to her. “And for that reason, Sonya, I shall do everything within my power to help you.”
Chapter 3
AFTER SONYA HAD LEFT
he pottered around his office for a while, doing jobs that could have been done faster and better by Miss Willoughby. When his secretary returned from her visit to the Stores Superintendent and, with a display of efficiency, tried to take the work from his hands, he dismissed her for the day. Finally, realizing that he was accomplishing nothing of any value, he put the papers back in their files and, having drawn himself a cup of coffee from the automatic dispenser, sat down to smoke his battered pipe.
He felt sorry for Sonya Verrill. He knew much of her past history—more, in fact, than she had told him. He was sorry for her, and yet he envied her. She had been given fresh hope, a new goal towards which to strive. Whether or not she met with success was not of real importance. If she failed, there would be other goals, and still others. As an officer of the Survey Service Intelligence Branch she was given opportunities for travel denied even to the majority of professional spacemen and women. Grimes smiled at the corniness of the thought and muttered, “Someday her prince will come . . .”
Yes, he envied her. She, even within the framework of regulations that governed her Service, had far more freedom of movement than he had. He strongly suspected that she was in a position to be able to select her own assignments.
And I,
he thought,
am marooned for the rest of my natural—or, if I so desire, unnatural—life on this dead-end world at the bitter end of sweet damn’ all . . .
Come off it, Grimes,
he told himself.
Come off it, Grimes, Commodore Grimes, Rim Worlds Naval Reserve. Don’t be so bloody sorry for yourself. You’ve climbed to the top of your own private tree.
Even so . . .
He finished his coffee, poured himself another cup. He thought,
I should have offered to put her up during her stay on Lorn.
And then he was glad that he had not made the offer. She was used to luxury—luxury on a government expense account, but luxury nonetheless—and surely would have been appalled by his messy widower’s establishment. His children were grown up, and had their own homes and, in any case, incurable planetlubbers that they were, would have little in common with one who, after all, was a professional adventuress.
So . . .
So I can enjoy adventures—although not in the same sense—vicariously,
he thought.
I’ll do what I can for Sonya, and hope to receive in return a firsthand account of all that happens to her. She said that she would want a ship—well, she shall have
Faraway Quest.
It’s time that the poor old girl was taken for another gallop. And she’ll be wanting a crew. I’ll put out the call for volunteers before I get definite word that the expedition has been approved—just quietly, there’s no need to get the politicians’ backs up. Rimworlders, she specified. Rimworlders born and bred. I can see why. People raised on the Rim are far more likely to have counterparts in the alternative Universes than those of us who have, like myself, drifted out here, driven out here by the winds of chance. I shouldn’t have much trouble in raising a team of officers, but a Master will be the problem. Practically all our Captains are refugees from the big, Earth-based companies, or from the Survey Service.
But there was no urgency, he told himself.
He drew yet another cup of coffee and, carrying it, walked to the wide window. Night had fallen and the sky had cleared and, work having ceased for the day, there was no dazzle of lights from the spaceport to rob the vision of keenness.
Overhead in the blackness was one bright star, the Faraway sun, and beyond it lay the faint, far nebulosities. Low in the east the Lens was rising, the upper limb only visible, a parabola of misty light. Grimes looked away from it to the zenith, to the dark immensities through which Calver in his
Outsider
was falling, perhaps never to return. And soon Sonya Verrill would be falling—but would she? could she?—through and across even stranger, even more fantastic gulfs, of Time as well as of Space.
Grimes shivered. Suddenly he felt old and alone, although he loathed himself for his self pity.
He left his office, fell down the dropshaft (what irony!) to the ground floor, got out his monocar from the executives’ garage and drove home.
Home was a large house on the outskirts of Port Forlorn. Home was a villa, and well kept—the maintenance service to which Grimes subscribed was highly efficient—but sadly lacking in the touches of individuality, or imagination, that only a woman can supply.
The commodore drove his car into his garage and, after having shut off the engine, entered the house proper directly from the outbuilding. He did not, as he usually did, linger for a few minutes in the conservatory that housed his collection of exotic plants from a century of worlds. He went straight to his lounge, where he helped himself to a strong whisky from the bar. Then he sat down before his telephone console and, with his free hand, punched the number for library service.
The screen lit up, and in it appeared the head and shoulders of a girl who contrived to look both efficient and beautiful. Grimes smiled, as he always did, at the old-fashioned horn-rimmed spectacles that, some genius had decided, made the humanoid robot look like a real human librarian. A melodious contralto asked, “May I be of service, sir?”
“You may, my dear,” answered Grimes. (A little subtle—or not so subtle—flattery worked wonders with often temperamental robots.) “I’d like whatever available data you have on Rim Ghosts.”
“Visual sir, or
viva voce?
”
“
Viva voce
, please.” (Even this tin blonde, with her phony femininity, was better than no woman at all in the house.)
“Condensed or detailed, sir?”
“Condensed, please. I can always ask you to elaborate as and if necessary.”
“Very good, sir. The phenomenon of the Rim Ghosts occurs, as the name implies, only on the Rim. Sightings are not confined to single individuals, so therefore cannot be assumed to be subjective in nature. A pattern has been established regarding these sightings. One member of a party of people will see himself, and be seen by his companions, in surroundings and company differing, sometimes only subtly, from those of actuality. Cases have been known in which an entire group of people has seen its Rim Ghost counterpart.
“For a while it was thought that the apparitions were prophetic in character, and the orthodox explanation was that of precognition. With the collection of a substantial body of data, however, it became obvious that prophetic visions comprised only about 30% of the total. Another 30% seemed to be recapitulations of past events, 20% had a definite here-and-now flavor, while the remaining 20% depicted situations that, in our society, can never arise.
“It was in the year 313 A.G. that Dr. Foulsham, of the Terran Rhine Institute, advanced his Alternative Universe Theory. This, of course, was no more than the reformulation of the idea played around with for centuries by speculative thinkers and writers, that of an infinitude of almost parallel Time Tracks, the so-called Worlds of If. According to Dr. Foulsham, on Earth and on the worlds that have been colonized for many generations, the barriers between the individual tracks are . . .” The robot paused.
“Go on, my dear,” encouraged Grimes. “This is only a condensation. You needn’t bother trying to break down fancy scientific terminology.”
“Thank you, sir. The barriers, as I was trying to say in suitable language, are both high and thick, so that a break-through is almost impossible. But on the very rim of the expanding Galaxy these barriers are . . . tenuous, so that very often a fortuitous breakthrough does occur.
“An example of such a breakthrough, but visual only, was that achieved by Captain Derek Calver and his shipmates when he was serving as Chief Officer of the freighter
Lorn Lady
. The ship was proceeding through deep space, under Mannschenn Drive, when another vessel was sighted close alongside. In the control room of the other spacecraft Calver saw himself—but he was wearing Master’s uniform—and most of the others who were with him in
Lorn Lady
’s control compartment. He was able, too, to make out the name of the strange ship. It was the
Outsider
. Some months later, having become the recipient of a handsome salvage award, Calver and his shipmates were able to buy a secondhand ship and to operate as a small tramp shipping company. They christened her the
Outsider
. This, then, was obviously one of the precognitive apparitions, and can be explained by the assumption that the Alternative Universe in which Calver’s career runs almost parallel to his career in
this
Universe possesses a slightly different time scale.
“Physical breakthrough was inadvertently achieved by Captain Ralph Listowel in his experimental light jammer
Aeriel
. Various members of his crew unwisely attempted to ‘break the light barrier’ and, when the ship was proceeding at a velocity only fractionally less than that of light, discharged a jury-rigged rocket hoping thereby to outrun the photon gale. They did not, of course, and
Aeriel
’s crew became Rim Ghosts themselves, experiencing life in a succession of utterly strange cultures before, more by luck than judgment, returning to their own. The unexpected result of this ill-advised experiment was the developing of a method whereby atomic signs may be reversed, thereby making possible intercourse between our planets and the anti-matter worlds.
“There is no doubt that the Rim Ghost phenomenon is one deserving of thorough investigation, but with the breakaway of the Rim Worlds from the Federation it has not been possible to maintain full contact with either the Survey Service or the Rhine Institute, which bodies, working in conjunction, would be eminently capable of carrying out the necessary research . . .”
“You’re out of date, duckie,” chuckled Grimes.
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“You’re out of date. But don’t let it worry you; it’s not your fault. It’s we poor, inefficient humans who’re to blame, for failing to feed new data into your memory tanks.”
“And may I ask, sir, the nature of the new data?”
“Just stick around,” said Grimes, “and some day, soon, I may be able to pass it on to you.”
If Sonya comes back to tell me,
he thought, and his odd mood of elevation evaporated.