The Big Black Mark (9 page)

"Er, yes. Please."

She handed him a steaming cup. He was uncomfortably aware of the closeness of her, and fidgeted in his chair. He was relieved when she retired to a chair of her own.

She said, "It was a good night, wasn't it?"

"Yes."

She went on, "I've known you for
years,
haven't I? When was it that we were first shipmates? In the old
Aries,
wasn't it?

"Yes."

"You know, John, I didn't much like you then."

"You didn't much like any of us in the wardroom. After all, you were the very first spacegoing female officer of the Supply Branch, and you were . . . prickly."

She laughed. "And you, a bright young lieutenant junior-grade, took pity on me, and made a pass at me out of the kindness of your heart."

Crimea's prominent ears were burning painfully. He could recall that scene all too well, could feel that stinging slap on his face and hear her furious voice:
Take your mucky paws off me, you insufferable puppy!

He thought,
And a commander, the captain of a ship, doesn't have mucky paws, of course. But whatever sort of paws I do have, now, I'm keeping them to myself. Why, oh why, you stupid bitch, did you have to rake up that particular episode from the murky past?

She was smiling softly. "We've come a long way since then, haven't we, John?"

"Mphm. Yes. Excellent coffee, this, Miss Russell. And these are very good sandwiches."

"Yes. You always liked your belly."

Again the memories:
you swaggering spacemen think that you're the Lord's anointed, but you aren't worth your keep, let alone your salaries.

"Gutsy Grimes, the stewards and stewardesses used to call you."

"Oh. Did they?" Grimes put down a sandwich half eaten.

"Gutsy Grimes, the human garbage chute," she reminisced sentimentally.

"Fascinating."

And what was that perfume that she was wearing? Whatever it was, he decided that he didn't like it. He looked at his watch. "A spot of shut-eye is indicated. We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow. Today, I mean."

She rose slowly to her feet, stretched and yawned like a lazy, graceful cat. Her robe fell open. Under the UV lamps in the ship's sun room she always freckled rather than tanned, and the effect was far from displeasing—yet Grimes, perversely, forced himself to think disparagingly of mutant leopards.

He yawned himself, then decisively drained his cup, set it down on the tray with a clatter. He said, "Thanks for the supper. I enjoyed it."

"I did, too."

Then, very firmly, "Good night, Miss Russell."

She flushed all over her body. "
Good night?
You don't mean. . .?"

"I do mean. I'm turning in. By myself. Good night."

Without looking again at her he went through into his bedroom. He was afraid that she would (would not?) follow him. She did not. As he undressed he heard a vicious clattering as she put the remaining supper things back on the tray, then heard the outer door open and close behind her.

You bloody fool!
he admonished himself.
You bloody, bloody fool!
But he thought (he hoped) that he had acted wisely. Vinegar Nell, as a
de facto
Captain's Lady, would very soon try to assume
de facto
command of the ship. On the other hand, because of his out-of-character puritanism, he could have made a dangerous enemy. He did not sleep at all well.

Discovery
did not stay long on New Maine, although most of her people, who had speedily made friends locally, would have welcomed a longer sojourn on that planet.

Grimes feared that some ship, deviating from the usual route might stumble upon Davinas' Lost Colonies at any moment. He had been given access to the up-to-the-minute Lloyd's Register in the Penobscot port captain's office and had discovered that the majority of the ships of the Waverley Royal Mail had not yet made the change-over from psionic Deep Space communications to the Carlotti system. And Ballchin 1716 and 1717 were almost within the territorial space of the Empire of Waverley. The ruling emperor—as was known to Grimes, as a naval officer of the Federation—was not averse to the expansion of his already considerable dominions.

Discovery
did not stay long on New Maine, which meant that her crew did not enjoy the shore leave that they had been expecting. It meant too that all hands, the senior officers especially, were obliged to dedigitate. Brabham, of whom it had been said that he had only two speeds, Dead Slow and Stop, was resentful. MacMorris, who had been looking forward to an orgy of taking apart and putting together, was resentful. Brandt, who had been given the run of the extensive library of the University of New Maine, was resentful. Vinegar Nell was resentful for more reasons than the short stay at the sub-Base.

"Commander Grimes," complained Brandt, "even though
you
are doing nothing to turn up possible leads,
I
, in the little time that I shall be given, am sifting through
years
of records."

But Grimes kept Davinas' information to himself. He knew what would happen if it leaked, just as Davinas himself had known. There would be an urgent Carlottigram from New Maine—where the empire maintained a trade commissioner—to Waverley, and long before
Discovery
arrived off those Lost Colonies some Imperial cruiser would have planted the thistle flag.

Brabham sulked, MacMorris sulked, Brandt sulked, Swinton snarled, and Vinegar Nell was positively vicious. "I suppose you know what you're doing, Captain."

"I hope you realize the consequences if the algae tanks go bad on us, Captain."

"I suppose you know that it's practically impossible to replenish the beef tissue culture in the time you've given me, Captain."

"I'm afraid that I just can't accept responsibility if things go wrong in my department, Captain."

At least, Grimes consoled himself, he had one satisfied customer. That was Denny. The elderly commander clearly did not approve of the flurry of activity into which his normally sleepy Base had been plunged. He knew that this flurry would continue as long as
Discovery
was sitting on the apron. He knew, too—Mrs. Denny made sure that he knew—that the outsiders were interfering with the local ecology. They had attached hoses to
his
hydrants and washed down the entire spaceport area. They had rigged a wire fence with a carefully calculated low voltage trickling through it on a wide perimeter about their vessel. When Denny had objected, Grimes had told him that his crew did not like working in a latrine and that, furthermore, the materials used for the fence came from ship's stores, and the current in the wires from the ship's generators.

"I shall report this to Lindisfarne Base, Commander Grimes," said Denny stiffly.

"I shall be making
my
report too," Grimes told him. "And so will my medical officer. Meanwhile, my chief engineer tells me that he's not getting much help from your workshops."

"I'll see that he gets all the help he wants," promised Denny. His manner suddenly softened. "You're not married, Commander, but you will be. Then you'll find out what it's like, especially if your wife has a weird taste in pets."

"One man's pets are another man's pests," cracked Grimes.

"One woman's pets are, strictly between ourselves, her husband's pests. Rest assured that I shall get your rustbucket off my Base as soon as is humanly possible. Anything for a quiet life."

And so the activity continued, with work around the clock.

"There's hardly been any shore leave, sir," complained Brabham.

"Growl you may, but go you must," countered Grimes cheerfully.

"But what's the
hurry,
sir?"

"There is a valid reason for it, Number One," Grimes told him.

"More sealed orders, I suppose," said Brabham, with as near to a sneer as he dared.

"Maybe, maybe not," replied Grimes, with what he knew must be infuriating smugness. There were times when he did not quite like himself, and this was one of them—but his officers were bringing out the worst in him. "Just take it from me that I know what I'm doing, and why. That's all."

"Very good, sir," said Brabham, conveying the impression that, as far as he was concerned, it wasn't.

Rather to Grimes's surprise the target date was met.

A cheerless dawn was breaking over the Base as the ramp was retracted, as the last of
Discovery's
airtight doors sighed shut. The old ship was as spaceworthy as she ever would be, and she had somewhere to go.

Grimes, in the control room, spoke into the microphone. "
Discovery
to New Maine Aerospace Control. Request outward clearance. Over."

"All clear for your liftoff,
Discovery.
No air traffic in vicinity of Base. No space traffic whatsoever. Good hunting. Over."

"Thank you, Aerospace Control. Over."

"Base to
Discovery.
"
This was Benny's voice. "Good hunting. Over."

"Thank you, Commander Denny. Give my regards to the great snakes. They can have their public convenience back now. Over."

"I wish you were taking the bastards with you, Grimes. Over."

Grimes laughed, and started the inertial drive.
Discovery
shuddered, heaving herself clear of the apron. She clambered upward like an elderly mountaineer overburdened with equipment. No doubt MacMorris would complain that he should have been given more time to get his innies into proper working order. Then the beat of the engines became louder, more enthusiastic. Grimes relaxed a little. He took a side-wise glance at Tangye, in the co-pilot's seat. This time, he noted, the navigator had done his sums before departure; a loosely folded sheet of paper was peeping out of the breast pocket of his uniform shirt. And what target star would he have selected? Hamlet, probably, in the Shakespearean System, out toward the Rim Worlds. It was a pity that
Discovery
would not be heading that way.

The ship pushed through the low overcast as though she really meant it, emerged into the clear stratum between it and the high cirrus. Blinding sunlight, almost immediately dimmed as the viewports automatically polarized, smote through into the control room, and, outside, made haloes of iridescence in the clouds of ice particles through which the vessel was driving. She lifted rapidly through the last tenuous shreds of atmosphere.

"Clear of the Van Allens, sir," reported Tangye at last. "Thank you, pilot," acknowledged Grimes. Then, to Brabham, "Make the usual announcements, Number One. Free fall, setting trajectory, all the rest of it."

"Take over now, sir?" asked Tangye, pulling the sheet of notes from his breast pocket.

Grimes grinned at him. "Oh, I think I'll keep myself in practice, pilot. It's time I did some work."

The ship was in orbit now, falling free about New Maine. Grimes produced his own sheet of paper, glanced at it, then at the constellations patterned on the blackness outside the viewports. He soon found the one that he was looking for, although why the first settlers on this planet had called it The Mermaid he could not imagine. Their imaginations must have been far more vivid than his. His fingers played over the controls and the directional gyroscopes began to spin, and the hull turned about them. "Sir," said Tangye urgently. "Sir!"

"Yes, pilot?"

"Sir, Hamlet's in The Elephant. From here, that is—"

"How right you are, Mr. Tangye. But why should we be heading toward Elsinore?"

"But, sir, the orders said that we were to make a sweep out toward the Rim."

"That's right," put in Brabham.

"I have steadied this ship," said Grimes coldly, "on to Delta Mermaid. We shall run on that trajectory until further orders—orders from myself, that is. Number One, pass the word that I am about to start the Mannschenn Drive."

"As you say, sir," replied Brabham sulkily.

Deep in the bowels of the vessel the gleaming rotors began to turn, to spin and to tumble, to precess out of normal space-time, pulling the ship and all her people with them down the dark dimensions, through the warped continuum. There was the usual fleeting second or so of temporal disorientation, while shapes wavered and colors sagged down the spectrum, while all sound was distorted, with familiar noises either impossibly high in pitch or so low as to be almost inaudible.

There was, as always, the uncanny sensation of
déjà vu.

Grimes experienced no previsions but felt, as he had when setting trajectory off Lindisfarne, a deep and disturbing premonition of impending doom.

Perhaps, he thought, he should adhere to his original orders. Perhaps he should observe the golden rule for modest success in any service: Do what you're told, and volunteer for nothing.

But whatever he did, he knew from harsh experience, he always ran into trouble.

The ship settled down into her normal Deep Space routine—regular watches, regular mealtimes, regular exercise periods in the gymnasium, and regular inspections. In many ways, in almost all ways, she was like any other ship; what made her different, too different, was the resentment that was making itself felt more and more by her captain. The short stay on New Maine, with hardly any shore leave, was in part responsible. But there was more than that. Everybody aboard knew what Grimes's original orders had been—to use New Maine as a base and to make a sweep out toward the Rim without intruding into what the Rim Worlds already were referring to as
their
territorial space. (It was not Federation policy to do anything that might annoy those touchy colonials, who, for some time, had been talking loudly about secession.) And now everybody aboard knew that
Discovery
was headed not toward the Rim but in the general direction of the Waverley sector. Grimes, of course, was the captain, and presumably knew what he was doing. Grimes was notoriously lucky—but luck has a habit of running out. If this cruise, carried out in contravention to admiralty orders—vague though those orders had been—turned out to be fruitless, Grimes would have to carry the can back—but his officers, none of them at all popular with high authority, would be even less likely to achieve any further promotion.