Ride the Star Winds (61 page)

“Captain-san,” Tomoko was saying, “I regard your Seiko as a friend. She may be a robot but she is, somehow, a real woman, a real Japanese woman.” She giggled. “I have made up her face, like that of an olden time geisha, and put a wig upon her head, and dressed her in a kimono . . . .”

“I must see this some time,” said Grimes.

He looked out through the viewport to the stars that were not points of light but vague, pulsating nebulosities. He heard the thin, high whine of the Drive as
it engendered the temporal precession field, the warping of the continuum through which the ship was falling. He switched his attention to the control room clock. 2155:30 . . . 31 . . . 32 . . . Would that bulkhead blow
exactly
on time? Probably not. And would Calamity Cassie hit her alarm button as soon as the first trickle of water appeared? It could be just too bad if she didn’t.

“Is something worrying you, Captain-san?” asked Tomoko.

“I shouldn’t have had a second helping of Aunt Jemima’s jambalaya at dinner this evening,” lied Grimes.

2159:01 . . . .

He filled in time by playing with his pipe, stuffing the bowl with tobacco, making a major production of lighting it.

2200:00 . . .

“It would be rather pleasant,” said Tomoko, “if some time we had a Japanese catering officer . . . .”

“I’m very fond of sashimi myself,” said Grimes, “but I doubt if some of the others would care for raw fish.”

2201:03 . . . 04 . . . 05 . . .

“Seiko has told me,” said Tomoko, “that the preparation of sushi, sashimi and the like was in her original programming. And we have the carp in some of the algae tanks. Perhaps one night, just for a change, we could enjoy a sashimi dinner . . .”

2203:15 . . . 16 . . . 17

A red light suddenly sprang into being on the console of the inertial drive controls. An alarm klaxon uttered the beginnings of a squawk. Grimes’s hand flashed up to the Mannschenn Drive console, knocked the main switch to the off position. The thin, high whine deepened to a rumbling hum, faded into silence. Colors sagged down the spectrum, perspective was impossibly distorted. Outside the viewports the stars changed, coalescing from furry blobs into hard points of light. But, below decks, the inertial drive was still hammering away although its clangor was almost drowned by the hooting alarms. And then it, too, fell silent. Throughout the ship all the lights went out but there was less than a second of darkness before the power cells cut in to the major domestic circuits.

Grimes had been expecting what happened and had secured himself in his chair. Tomoko was unprepared. With the inertial drive off, the ship was in free fall and some involuntary movement had pushed her up from her seat and she was drifting, making rather futile swimming motions, above Grimes’s head. With his right hand he was just able to reach her ankle, pulled her down and then into the chair beside his.

“What happened, sir?” she gasped.

He said, “I suppose that somebody will eventually condescend to tell us.”

“Why did you shut the Mannschenn Drive off, sir?”

He told her—but it was less than the whole truth—“There was, and is, trouble with the inertial drive. Which meant, as we’ve just found out, a sudden transition from a comfortable one G to free fall. There was the risk that the MD engineer on watch—Mr. Siegel, isn’t it?—might blunder into the Drive and get himself turned inside out or something equally messy.”

She said admiringly, “You thought very fast, Captain-san. I hope that I can think as fast when I am a captain.”

Grimes never minded flattery, especially when it came from a pretty girl, even though in this case it was unearned. He supposed that if he had not been on the alert he would have acted as he had done, but not as fast.

He said to Tomoko, “Buzz the ID room, will you? Ask them what the hell’s going on.”

After an interval she reported, “The intercom seems to be out of order, sir.” (This was not surprising. The waterproofing of electrical systems is not considered necessary in spaceships.)

Steerforth pulled himself into the control room. He reported, almost cheerfully, “There’s all hell let loose down there, sir. As far as I can gather the after bulkhead of the main fresh water tank suddenly ruptured, flooding the ID room.” He laughed. “Of course, it would have to happen on Calamity Cassie’s watch. Then, according to Flo, what Cassie should have done was to drain the water into the engineers’ store and workshop space. But she went into a panic and opened the dump valves . . . .”

“It is indeed fortunate,” said Tomoko, “that the captain shut down the Mannschenn Drive before the loss of mass.”

“It is indeed fortunate, Ms. Suzuki,” agreed Steerforth. “Perhaps it was just another example of his famous luck.”

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes, looking severely at his chief officer.

“Shall I go back down,” asked that gentleman, “to try to find out the extent of the damage?”

“No, Mr. Steerforth. Engineers don’t like control room ornaments getting into their hair when they’re trying to cope with some kind of emergency. Ms. Scott will keep us informed in her own good time.”

Kershaw, the second officer, made his entrance into the control room.
About bloody
well time,
thought Grimes.
Doesn’t the puppy know that there’s an emergency
? After him came Shirl and Darleen. There was some excuse for them; they were not real spacepersons. Finally Cleo Jones, the Zulu Princess, put in her appearance.

She reported, “I have been checking the main Carlotti transceiver, sir. Should it be necessary I can get out a Mayday using the power available.”

“Thank you, Ms. Jones.” Grimes looked around at his assembled people. They looked back at him, obviously awaiting orders. Well, he’d better start giving some.

“Ms. Kelly, Ms. Byrne,” he said, “report to Ms. Clay. Probably there are matters in her department needing attention. When the ID cut out nothing was secured for free fall.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the girls smartly.

Grimes watched them go. They handled themselves in the absence of gravity better than many a seasoned spaceman.

“Mr. Kershaw, since the intercom seems to be out of action you can report to Ms. Scott, to act as runner to carry messages to me from her.”

And she’ll probably chew his ears off,
he thought, with some satisfaction.

“Shall I find out what’s happened to Seiko, sir?” asked Tomoko. “She might have been hurt. Damaged, I mean . . . .”

Not her
, thought Grimes. He said, “She is a member of Ms. Clay’s department. Probably she is helping her to get things cleaned up.”

“Do you wish to send any messages, sir?” asked Cleo.

“Eventually,” Grimes told her. “But I want to know what I’m talking about before I start talking.” Then, to the third officer, “Get me a fix, will you? The navigational equipment is on the emergency circuit.”

The girl busied herself at the chart tank, taking bearings from three conveniently located Carlotti Beacon Stations. Grimes unbuckled himself from his chair, pulled himself to a position beside her. He looked down into the simulation of the blackness of interstellar space, at the intersection of the three glowing filaments, at the other filament this was the extrapolation of
Sister Sue
’
s
trajectory. At right angles to this, close, was the brilliant spark that was a star.

Grimes pointed the stem of his pipe at it.

“That sun?” he asked. “I may need to find a planet, one where there is fresh water available.”

She punched computer keys, read out from the screen, “Salema, sir, so called by the people of its own habitable planet, which is variously known as Salem or New Salem. Catalogue number. . . .”

“Never mind that. And the people? Of Terran origin, aren’t they?”

She punched more keys. “Yes, sir. Second Expansion stock.”

“Now get that tin brain to do some sums for me. Running at a steady one G, with standard temporal precession, how long from here to planetfall?”

“As from now, sir, six days, fourteen hours and forty-five minutes.”

“Mphm. We can survive that long on what water is left in the system, with rationing and recycling. There shouldn’t be any need to go thirsty or get really dirty.”

“Couldn’t we carry on to New Otago, sir?”

“I’d not like to risk it. And I was brought up in the Survey Service, as you know, Tomoko. We always liked to have plenty of reaction mass on hand so that we could use emergency rocket drive if we had to. So I think that a deviation to New Salem is justified. The insurance should cover it.”

And if it doesn’t,
he thought,
some Survey Service secret fund will be used to compensate me.

From below decks came the whine of a generator starting up. Lights flickered and then brightened as the emergency circuit cut out and the main circuit cut in. Steerforth said, “Flo seems to be getting things under control. I wonder why she hasn’t sent Mr. Kershaw up to keep us informed.”

Kershaw pulled himself into the control room. “Sir, Ms. Scott isn’t very communicative. So I checked up in the Mannschenn Drive room. The MD engineers are standing by, waiting to start up as soon as they have the power. Mr. Grey asked me to tell you that there is no damage.”

“Thank you.”

Finally Florence Scott made her appearance. Her once-white overalls were sweat-soaked and grease-stained, and more grease marked her broad, ruddy face.

“Captain,” she announced, “we’ll have the phones working again in a couple o’ minutes but I thought I’d report the situation in person, not through your messenger boy.” Kershaw flushed and scowled. “As ye already know, the engineroom got flooded. Anybody’d think that this was some tramp steamer on Earth’s seas way back in the twentieth century, old style. Cassie didn’t think; all she wanted to do was to get rid of all that water in a hurry. She could ha’ let it drain into the store and workshop flat—but no. Not her. She opened the dump valves.

“There’s nothing wrong with the innies that a little minor rewiring won’t fix. I should be able to restart in half an hour. An’ then you can restart the time twister an’ we can be on our way. You may as well restart it now.”

“What about fresh water?” asked Grimes.

“Enough. We’ll not die o’ thirst or go unwashed as long as we’re careful.”

“What about the emergency reaction drive?”

“There’s no reaction mass. But emergency reaction drive was phased out years ago in the merchant service. It’s not required by law.”

Grimes said, “I may be old-fashioned, but I like to know that I have rockets under my arse should I feel the need for them in a hurry. I’m deviating to the nearest port of refuge, which is on New Salem. There we’ll get the bulkhead patched and refill the tank.”

“A needless expense and waste of time,” sneered the chief engineer. “Oh, well, you’re the captain.”

“
And
the owner,” Grimes reminded her firmly.

Chapter 15

There was Aerospace Control
on New Salem, although its name was somewhat misleading. There was no aerial traffic, either lighter than or heavier than air, in the planet’s atmosphere. (“If God had meant us to fly He would have given us wings.”) But at Port Salem there was a Carlotti radio station with rather limited range and also an NST transceiver. Grimes got in touch while he was still proceeding toward the planet under Mannschenn Drive, using his Carlotti radio. This was an unusually troublesome procedure. According to the data in
Sister Sue
’
s
library bank New Salem Aerospace Control maintained a listening watch for the first five minutes of every hour, daylight hours only and never on Sunday. The first time that Cleo Jones tried to get through it must have been Sunday on New Salem. During the next twenty-four-hour period, ship’s time, the trouble was trying to get the ship’s clocks synchronized with those at the spaceport. Finally Cleo arranged for a continuous automatic transmission with an alarm to sound as soon as there was a reply.

Grimes happened to be in the control room when this happened.

An irritable female voice came from the Carlotti speaker. “Port Salem Aerospace Control to unknown vessel. Identify yourself. Pass your message.”

“
Sister Sue
to Port Salem,” said Grimes. “Request permission to land to effect essential repairs.”

“Stand by,
Sister Sue
. I shall come back to you.”

Grimes stood by for a long time, having his lunch, served by the faithful Seiko, in the control room. At last the speaker crackled into life.

“Port Salem to
Sister Sue
. What is the nature of the repairs that you will require? I must warn you that our workshop facilities are limited.”

“The patching of a ruptured bulkhead,” said Grimes. “My own engineers can carry out the work as long as suitable plating is available. The replenishment of my fresh water supply.”

“Stand by,
Sister Sue
.”

There was another long wait.

Finally, “Materials will be made available to you. Fresh water will be obtainable from Lake Beulah. What is your ETA please?”

Clocks and calendar were synchronized and Grimes was able to give day and time for his return to the normal continuum and, not too approximately, for his eventual setting down at Port Salem.

Eventually
Sister Sue
was dropping through the twilight towards the huddle of yellowish lights that was New Salem. He would have preferred to have made a dawn approach but, after all, he was supposed to be in some sort of distress and, therefore, in some sort of hurry. The traffic control officer, whose sour featured face was visible in the screen of the NST radio transceiver, instructed him to set down in the center of the triangle formed by the berth markers. What berth markers? Grimes asked himself irritably. What did they use for berth marking beacons on this benighted planet? Candles? He stepped up magnification and definition in the stern vision screen. At last he saw them as he continued his cautious descent, three feeble, ruddy sparks.

He hoped that Cassandra Perkins fully understood what was expected of her. If she acted too soon, clumsily (but on purpose) tripping over her own feet and clutching at a lubrication line for support, bending it but not breaking it, throttling the supply of oil to the governor bearings,
Sister Sue
would fall for far too many meters, damaging herself irreparably. The governor would have to seize up almost immediately after Grimes applied that final surge of thrust to cushion the landing.