The Big Black Mark (3 page)

"Mphm."

"An one cursed night me hand shook, an' I gave him half the bottle. But he went happy, a-dreamin' o' green fields an' soft green hills an' a blue sky with little, white fleecy clouds like the ewe lambs o' God himself. . . . I only hope that I go as happy when me time comes."

If
you have anything to do with it,
thought Grimes,
there's a very good chance of it.

"An' I've tried to get a replacement, Captain, I've tried, an' I've tried. I've haunted the communications equipment stores like a poor, shiverin' ghost until I thought they'd be callin' one o' the Fathers to exorcise me. But what have they got on their lousy shelves? I'll tell ye. The pickled brains o' English bulldogs, an' German shepherds an'—yell niver believe me!—an Australian dingo! But niver an honest Irish hound. Not so much as a terrier."

"You have to settle on something," Grimes said firmly.

"But you don't understand, Captain." Suddenly the heavy brogue was gone and Flannery seemed to be speaking quite soberly. "There must be absolute empathy between a telepath and his amplifier. And could
I
achieve empathy with an
English
dog?"

Balls!
thought Grimes.
I'll
order
the bastard to take the bulldog, and see what happens.
Then a solution to the problem suddenly occurred to him. He said, "And they have a dingo's brain in the store?"

"Oh, sure, sure. But—"

"But what? A dingo's a dog, isn't he? As a dog he possesses a dog's telepathic faculties. And he's a peculiarly Australian dog."

"Yes, but—"

"And what famous Australians can you call to mind? What about the Wild Colonial Boy? Weren't all the bushrangers—or most of 'em—Irish?"

"Bejabbers, Captain, I believe ye've got it!"

"You've got it, Mr. Flannery. Or you will get it. And you can call it Ned, for Ned Kelly."

And so that's that,
thought Grimes, when Flannery had shambled off.
For the time being, at least. It still remains to be seen if my departmental heads can deliver the goods.
But he was still far from happy. Unofficially and quite illegally a captain relies upon his psionic communications officer to keep him informed when trouble is brewing inside his ship. "Snooping' is the inelegant name for such conduct, Which runs counter to the Rhine Institute's code of ethics.

For such snooping to be carried out, however, there must be a genuine trust and friendship between captain and telepath. Grimes doubted that he could ever trust Flannery or that he could ever feel friendly toward him.

And, to judge by his experience to date, similar doubts applied to everybody in this unhappy ship.

Surprisingly, the ship was ready for liftoff in three days.

Had the Survey Service been a commercial shipping line the refitting operations would have been uneconomical, with swarms of assorted technicians working around the clock and a wasteful use of materials. It was still a very expensive operation in terms of goodwill.
Discovery's
people were robbed of the extra days at Lindisfarne Base to which they had all been looking forward, and the officers in charge of the various Base facilities grew thoroughly sick and tired of being worried by Grimes, all the time, about this, that, and the other.

But she was ready, spaceworthy in all respects, and then Grimes shook Brabham by saying that he was going to make an inspection.

"Commander Tallis only used to make inspections in Space," objected the first lieutenant.

"Damn Commander Tallis!" swore Grimes, who was becoming tired of hearing about his predecessor. "Do you really think that I'm mug enough to take this rustbucket upstairs without satisfying myself that she's not going to fall apart about my ears? Pass word to all departmental heads that I shall be making rounds at 1000 hours. You, Miss Russell, and Major Swinton will accompany me. Every other officer and petty officer will be standing by whatever he's responsible for."

"Ten hundred is morning smoko, sir."

"And so what? Smoko is a privilege, and not a right. Report to me at 1000 hours with Miss Russell and the major. Oh, and you might polish your shoes and put on a clean: uniform shirt."

If looks killed, Brabham would have had to organize a funeral, not captain's rounds. Had he been too harsh? Grimes asked himself as the first lieutenant walked stiffly out of the day cabin.
No,
he thought.
No. This ship needs shaking up, smartening up.
He grinned.
And I've always hated those captains who pride themselves on a taut ship. But I don't want a taut ship. All I want is something a few degrees superior to a flag of convenience star tramp.

Meanwhile his own quarters were, at least, clean. The steward who had replaced Commander Tallis' pet, Sally, was a taciturn lout who had to be told everything, but once he was told anything, he did it. And the service of meals in the wardroom had been improved, as had been the standard of cookery. Also, under Grimes's prodding, Brabham was beginning to take a little pride in his appearance and was even seeing to it that his juniors did likewise. MacMorris, however, was incorrigible. The first time that Grimes put in an appearance in the wardroom, for dinner on the evening of his first day aboard, the engineer was already seated at the table, still wearing his filthy coveralls. On being taken to task he told the captain that
he
had to work for a living. Grimes ordered him either to go and get cleaned up or to take his meal in the duty engineers' mess. Rather surprisingly, MacMorris knuckled under, although with bad grace. But was it, after all, so surprising? Like all the other people in this ship he was regarded as being almost unemployable. If he were paid off from
Discovery
he would find it hard, if not impossible, to obtain another spacegoing appointment in the Survey Service. In a ship, any ship, he was still a big frog in a small puddle and, too, was in receipt of the active-duty allowance in addition to the pay for his rank. As one of the many technicians loafing around a big Base he would be a not too generously paid nobody.

The steward brought in Grimes's coffee. It was the way that he liked it, very hot and strong. He poured a cup of the steaming brew, sipped it appreciatively. There was a knock at the door. It was Brabham, accompanied by Major Swinton and Vinegar Nell.

"Rounds, sir?" asked the first lieutenant.

Grimes glanced at the bulkhead clock. "A little early yet. Be seated, all of you. Coffee?"

"No, thank you, sir. We have just finished ours."

The three officers sat in a stiff line on the settee, the woman in the middle. Grimes regarded them over the rim of his cup. Brabham looked, he thought, like a morose bloodhound.

The Mad Major, with his wiry gray hair and bristling moustache, his hot yellow eyes, looked like a vicious terrier. Grimes had never liked terriers. And Vinegar Nell? More cat than dog, he decided. A certain sleekness . . . but sleek cats can be as bad tempered as the rougher ones. He finished his coffee, got to his feet, reached for his cap. "All right," he said. "We'll get the show on the road."

They started in the control room. There was little to find fault with there. Lieutenant Tangye, the navigator, was a man who believed in maintaining all his instruments in a highly polished state. Whether or not Tangye was capable of using these instruments Grimes had yet to discover. Not that he worried much about it; he was quite prepared to do his own navigation. (He, while serving as navigator in a cruiser, had been quite notorious for his general untidiness, but no captain had ever been able to complain about any lack of ability to fix the ship's position speedily and accurately.)

The next deck down was Grimes's own accommodation, with which he was already familiar. He devoted more time to the two decks below in which the officers, of all departments, were accommodated. The cabins and public rooms were clean, although not excessively so. The furnishings were definitely shabby. Miss Russell said, before he could make any comment, "
They
won't supply anything new for this ship."

Perhaps They wouldn't, thought Grimes, but had anybody bothered to find out for sure?

The Marines' quarters were next, housing twenty men. Here, as in the control room, there was some evidence of spit and polish. Grimes decided that the sergeant, a rugged, hairless black giant whose name was Washington, was responsible. Whatever the crimes that had led to his appointment to
Discovery
had been, he was an old-timer, convinced that the space soldiers were superior to any mere spaceman, ships' captains included. The trouble with such men was that, in a pinch, they would be loyal only to their own branch of the Survey Service, to their own officers.

Petty officers' quarters next, with the bos'n—another old-timer—coming to stiff attention as the inspection party entered the compartment. Grimes decided that he wouldn't trust the man any farther than he could throw him—and, as the bos'n was decidedly corpulent, that would not be very far. Langer . . . yes, that was his name. Hadn't he been implicated in the flogging of ship's stores when the heavy cruiser
Draconis
had been grounded on Dingaan for Mannschenn Drive recalibration?

Provedore ratings, deck ratings, engine room ratings . . . everything just not quite clean, with the faint yet unmistakable taint of too-long-unwashed clothing and bedding permeating the ship's atmosphere.

Storerooms—now well stocked.

The farm decks, with their hydroponic tanks, the yeast and algae and tissue culture vats—everything looked healthy enough. Grimes expressed the hope that it would all stay that way.

The cargo hold, its bins empty, but ready for any odds and ends that
Discovery
might pick up during the forthcoming voyage.

The boat bays . . . Grimes selected a boat at random, had it opened up. He satisfied himself that all equipment was in good order, that the provisions and other supplies were according to scale. He ran the inertial drive-unit for a few seconds in neutral gear. The irregular beat of it sounded healthy enough.

Engine spaces, with the glowering MacMorris in close attendance. In the Mannschenn Drive room, ignoring the engineer's scowl, Grimes put out a ringer to one of the finely balanced rotors. It began to turn at the slightest touch and the other rotors, on their oddly angled spindles, moved in sympathy. There was the merest hint of temporal disorientation, a fleeting giddiness. MacMorris growled, "An' does he want us all to finish up in the middle o' last week?" Grimes pretended not to have heard him.

The inertial drive room, with the drive-units now reassembled, their working parts concealed beneath the casings .. . reaction drive . . . nothing to see there but a few pumps. And there was nothing to see in the compartment that housed the hydrogen fusion power plant; everything of any importance was hidden beneath layers of insulation. But if MacMorris said that it was all right, it must be.

"Thank you," said Grimes to his officers. "She'll do." He thought,
She'll have to do.

"You missed the dogbox, sir," Brabham reminded him, with ill-concealed satisfaction.

"I know," said Grimes. "I'm going there now. No, you needn't come with me."

Alone, he made his way to the axial shaft, entered the elevator cage. He pushed the button for the farm deck. It was there that the psionic amplifier was housed, for no other reason than to cut down on the' plumbing requirements. Pumps and pipes were essential to the maintenance of the tissue culture vats; some of the piping and one of the pumps were used to provide the flow of nutrient solution through the tank in which floated the disembodied canine brain.

On the farm deck he made his way through the assemblage of vats and tanks and found, tucked away in a corner, a small, boxlike compartment. Some wit had taped a crudely printed notice to the door: BEWARE OF THE DOG.
Very funny,
thought Grimes.
When I was a first trip cadet it always had me rolling on the deck in uncontrollable paroxysms of mirth.
But what was that noise from inside the room? Someone singing? Flannery, presumably.

"
I'll die but not surrender
Cried the Wild Colonial Boy. . . .
"

Grimes grinned. It sounded as though the psionic communications officer had already established rapport with his new pet. But wouldn't a dingo prefer the eerie music of a didgeridoo? What if he were to indent for one? He grinned again.

He knocked at the door, slid it open. Flannery was sitting—sprawling, rather—at and over his worktable. There was a bottle, open, ready to hand, with a green label on which shone a golden harp. There was no glass. The PCO, still crooning softly, was staring at the spherical tank, at the obscene, pallid, wrinkled shape suspended in translucent brown fluid.

"Mr. Flannery!"

Flannery went on singing.

"
Mr. Flannery!
"

"Sorr!" The man got unsteadily to his feet, almost knocked himself down again with a flamboyant parody of a salute. "Sorr!"

"Sit down before you fall down!" Grimes ordered sharply. Flannery subsided gratefully. He picked up the bottle, offered it to Grimes, who said, "No, thank you," thinking,
I daren't antagonize this fat, drunken slob. I might need him.
He remarked, "I see you have your new amplifier."

"Indeed I have, Captain. An' he's good, as God's me witness. Inspired, ye were, when ye said I should be takin' Ned."

"Mphm. So you don't anticipate any trouble?"

"Indeed I do not. Ask me to punch a message through to the Great Nebula of Andromeda itself, an' me an' Ned'll do it."

"Mphm." Grimes wondered how he should phrase the next question. He was on delicate ground. But if he had Flannery on his side, working for him, he would have his own, private espionage system, the Rhine Institute's code of ethics notwithstanding. "So you've got yourself another pal. Ha, ha. I wonder what he thinks of the rest of us in this ship . . . me, for example."

"Ye want the God's own truth, Captain?"

"Yes."

"He hates you. If he had his teeth still, he'd be after bitin' you. It's the uniform, ye see, an' the way ye're wearin' it. He remembers the cowardly troopers what did for the Ned who's his blessed namesake."