Gateway to Never (John Grimes)

by A Bertram Chandler

  “We took the long way back,” said Grimes at last.

  Chapter 1

  GRIMES WAS PACKING his overnight bag without much enthusiasm.

  “Do you have to go?” asked Sonya.

  He replied rather testily, “I don’t have to do anything. But the lightjammers have always been my babies and I’ve always made a point of seeing them in and seeing them out.”

  “But Coldharbor Bay? And in midwinter? There are times, my dear, when I strongly suspect that I married a masochist.”

  “If only you were a sadist we’d live happily forever after,” he retorted. “And if you were a masochist you’d be coming with me to Port Ericson.”

  “Not bloody likely,” she told him. “Why you couldn’t have arranged for your precious lightjammers to berth somewhere in what passes for the Tropics on this dismal planet is beyond my comprehension.”

  “There were reasons,” he said.

  Yes, there were reasons, one of the most important being that a lightjammer is a potential superbomb with a yield greatly in excess of that of the most devastating nuclear fusion weapon. The essential guts of a star-sailor is the sphere of antimatter, contraterrene iron, held suspended in vacuum by powerful magnetic fields. In theory there is no possibility that the antimatter will ever come in contact with normal matter—but history has a long record of disasters giving dreadful proof that theory and practice do not always march hand in hand. The terminal port for the lightjammers, therefore, was located in a region of Lorn uninhabited save by a handful of fur trappers. It would have been at the South Pole itself but for the necessity for open water, relatively ice-free the year around, to afford landing facilities for the ships.

  The first of these weird vessels, Flying Cloud, had been an experimental job designed to go a long way in a long time, but with a very low power consumption. The most important characteristic of antimatter—apart from its terrifying explosive potential—is antimass. A ship with a sphere of contraterrene iron incorporated in her structure is weightless and inertialess. With her sails spread to the photon gale she can attain an extremely high percentage of the velocity of light but cannot, of course, exceed it.

  The crew of Flying Cloud had been, putting it mildly, a weird mob. Somehow they had become obsessed with the idea of turning the vessel into a real faster-than-light ship. (The conventional starship, proceeding under inertial drive and Mannschenn Drive, is not faster than light, strictly speaking; she makes light-years-long voyages in mere weeks by, as it has been put, going ahead in space while going astern in time.) This desirable end they attempted to achieve by means of a jury-rigged rocket drive, using home-made solid fuel, just to give Flying Cloud that extra nudge.

  Fantastically, the idea worked, although it should not have. Not only did it work, but there were economically advantageous side effects. The lightjammer finished up a long way off course, plunging down to apparently inevitable destruction on Llanith, one of the planets of the antimatter systems to the galactic west of the Rim Worlds. But a transposition of atomic charges had taken place. She now was antimatter herself, whereas that contraterrene iron sphere was now normal matter.

  Flying Cloud had landed on Llanith and had been welcomed by the people, human rather than merely humanoid, of that world. She had remained on Llanith until the Llanithian scientists and engineers had worked out just what had happened and why. (The attitude of the scientists at first had been that it couldn’t possibly have happened.) Then, after modifications had been made to her control systems and the makeshift rocket replaced by a properly designed reaction drive, she had returned to Lorn, carrying not only a sample shipment of trade goods but passengers from the Llanithi Consortium.

  And Rim Runners, the shipping line of the Rim Worlds Confederacy, had a new trade.

  Grimes sat in the forward cabin of the Rim Runners’ atmosphere ferry that somebody had called—the name had stuck—The Commodore’s Barge. He was not handling the controls himself. His old friend and shipmate Billy Williams, master of the deep space tug, Rim Malemute, was piloting. Grimes was admiring the scenery.

  The landscape unrolling beneath the barge was spectacular enough but cold and forbidding. Lake Misere was well astern now and the craft was threading its way over and through the Great Barrens, skirting the higher, jagged, snowcapped peaks, its inertial drive snarling as Williams fought to maintain altitude in the vicious downdrafts. The big man cursed softly to himself.

  Grimes said, “You would insist on coming along for the ride, Billy.”

  “I didn’t think you’d make me drive, Skipper.”

  “Rank has its privileges.”

  “No need to rub it in. If it’s all the same to you I’ll take this little bitch down through the Blackall Pass. It’s putting on distance, but I don’t feel like risking the Valley of the Winds after what we’ve been getting already.”

  “As you’ve been saying, you’re driving.”

  Williams brought the Barge’s head around to port, making for the entrance to the pass. The opening was black in the dark gray of the cliff face, a mere slit that seemed to widen as the aircraft came on to the correct line of approach. And then they were plunging through the gloomy, winding canyon—the tortuousness of which was an effective wind baffle, although the eddies at every bend made pilotage difficult. The echoes of the irregular beat of the inertial drive, bouncing back from the sheer granite walls, inhibited conversation.

  They broke out at last into what passed for daylight in these high latitudes, under a sky which, on this side of the ranges, was thickly overcast. Only to the northwest, just above the featureless horizon of the Nullarbor Plain, was there a break in the cloud cover, a smear of sullen crimson to mark the setting of the Lorn sun.

  They flew steadily over the desolate tundra through the gathering darkness. The lights of Port Erikson came up at last, bright but cheerless. Beyond them Grimes could see the tiny moving sparks of white and red and green that must be the navigation lanterns of the small icebreaker that, in winter, was employed to keep Coldharbor Bay clear of floes and pack ice.

  “Too bloody much seamanship about this job, Skipper,” remarked Williams cheerfully.

  “No such thing as too much seamanship,” retorted Grimes huffily. He pulled the microphone of the VHF transceiver from its clip. “Astronautical Superintendent to Port Erikson. Can you read me? Over.”

  “Loud and clear, Commodore. Loud and clear. Pass your message. Over.”

  “My ETA Port Erikson is ten minutes from now. Over.”

  “We’re all ready and waiting for you, Commodore.”

  “What’s the latest on Pamir?”

  “ETA confirmed a few minutes ago. 2000 hours our time.”

  “Thank you, Port Erikson. Over and out.”

  Ahead was the scarlet blinker that marked the end of the airstrip. Williams maintained speed until the flashing light was almost directly beneath the barge, until it looked as though they must crash into the spaceport’s control tower. With only seconds to spare he brought the aircraft to a shuddering halt by application of full reverse thrust, let her fall, checked her descent a moment before she hit the concrete.

  Grimes decided to say nothing. After all, he himself was frequently guilty of such exhibitions and all his life he had deplored the all-too-common Don’t do as I do, do as I say, philosophy.

  Grimes and Williams waited in the control tower with Captain Rowse, the harbormaster. (In a normal spaceport his official title would have been port captain, but a normal spaceport does not run to a harbor, complete with wharfage and breakwaters.)

  “She’s showing up now,” announced the radar operator.

  “Thank you, Mr. Gorbels,” said Rowse.

  The VHF speaker came to life. “Pamir to Port Erikson, Pamir to Port Erikson. Am coming in. Over.”

  Grimes recognized the voice, of course. Listowel had been master of the experimental Flying Cloud and was now in command of Pamir. A good man, not easily panicked, one who would have been just as
at home on the poop of a windjammer as in the control room of a spaceship.

  The commodore moved so that he could look up through the transparent dome that roofed the control tower. Yes, there she was, her navigation lights bright sparks against the black overcast, white and ruby and emerald, masthead, port and starboard. (Her real masts were retracted, of course, and her sails furled. She was driving herself down through the atmosphere by negative dynamic lift, a dirigible airship rather than a spaceship.) Faintly Grimes could hear the throb of her airscrews, even above the thin whining of the wind that eddied about the tower.

  The ship was lower now, visible through the windows that overlooked Coldharbor Bay. Grimes lifted borrowed night glasses to his eyes, ignoring the TV screen that presented the infrared picture. The slim, graceful length of her was clearly visible, picked out by the line of lighted ports. Down she came—down, down, slowly circling, until she was only meters above the dark, white-flecked waters of the bay. From her belly extended hoses, and Grimes knew that the thirsty centrifugal pumps would be sucking in ballast.

  “Pamir waterborne,” announced Listowel from the VHF speaker. “Am proceeding to berth. Over.”

  Grimes, Williams and Rowse shrugged themselves into heavy overcoats, put on fur-lined caps. The harbormaster led the way to the elevator that would take them down to ground level. They dropped rapidly to the base of the tower. Outside it was bitterly cold and the wind carried thin flurries of snow. Grimes wondered why some genius could not devise earflaps that would not inhibit hearing—his own prominent ears felt as though they were going to snap off at any moment. But during berthing operations it was essential to hear as well as to see what was going on.

  The three men walked rapidly to the wharf, breasting the wind—little, fat Rowse in the lead, chunky Grimes and big, burly Williams a couple of steps in the rear. The shed lights were on now, as were the position-marker flashers. Beside each of the latter waited three linesmen, beating their arms across their chests in an endeavor to keep warm. The berthing master, electric megaphone in his gloved hand, was striding up and down energetically.

  Pamir came in slowly and carefully, almost hidden by the cloud of spray thrown up by the turbulence induced by her airscrews. She was accosting the wharf at a steep angle at first and then turned, so that she was parallel to the line of wharfage. The wind did the rest, so that it was hardly necessary for Listowel to use his line-throwers fore and aft. She fell gently alongside, with her offshore screws swiveled to provide transverse thrust against the persistent pressure of the southerly.

  She lay there, a great, gleaming torpedo shape, gently astir as the slight chop rolled her against the quietly protesting fenders. The hum of motors, the threshing of airscrews, suddenly ceased.

  From an open window in his control room Listowel called, “Is this where you want me?”

  “Make her fast as she is, Captain,” called the berthing master.

  “As she is,” came the reply.

  A few seconds later a side door opened and the brow extended from the wharf, stanchions coming erect and manropes tautening.

  Grimes was first up the gangway. After all, as he had said to Sonya, the lightjammers were his babies.

  Listowel received the boarding party in his day cabin. With him was Sandra Listowel, who was both his wife and his catering officer. Rim Runners did not, as a general rule, approve of wives traveling in their husband’s ships in any capacity, but Sandra was one of the original Flying Cloud crew and had undergone training in that peculiar mixture of seamanship and airmanship required for the efficient handling of a lightjammer. Grimes often wondered if she had, over the years, become like so many of the wives of the old-time windjammer masters, a captain de facto—though he did not think that Ralph Listowel would allow such a situation to develop.

  Captain Listowel had changed little over the years. When he rose to greet his visitors he towered over them. He had put on no weight and his closely cut hair was still dark, save for a touch of gray at the temples. And Sandra was as gorgeous as ever, a radiant blonde, not quite as slim as she had been but none the worse for that. Her severe, short-skirted, black uniform suited her.

  Listowel produced a bottle and glasses. He said, “You might like to try this. You look as though you need warming up. It’s something new. Our Llanithi friends acquired a taste for scotch and a local distiller thought he’d cash in on it. What he produced is not scotch. Even so, it’s good. It might go well on Lorn and the other Rim Worlds.”

  Grimes sipped the clear, golden fluid experimentally, then enthusiastically. “Not bad at all.” Then: “You’d better have some more yourself to soften the blow, Listowel.”

  “What blow, Commodore?”

  “You’ve a very quick turnaround this time. As you know, Herzogen Cecile is tied up for repairs on Llanith—and I’d still like to know just how Captain Palmer got himself dismasted.”

  “I have his report with me, Commodore.”

  “Good. I’ll read it later. And when Lord of the Isles comes in to Port Erikson she’s being withdrawn for survey. Which leaves you and Sea Witch to cope.” He grinned. “As they used to say back on Earth in the days of sail, ‘Growl you may, but go you must.’ ”

  “But we’re still in the days of sail, Commodore,” said Listowel. “And as one of the sailing ship poets said, ‘All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’ ”

  “Very touching, Ralph, very touching,” commented Sandra Listowel. “But I’m sure that the chief stewards of the oceangoing sailing ships had their problems, just as I have.” She turned to Grimes. “Last time we were in Port Erikson, Commodore, we enjoyed our usual two weeks alongside—but even then we sailed without all our stores. How will it be this time?”

  “Better,” promised Grimes. “I’ll light a fire under the tail of the Provedore Department back at Port Forlorn.” He allowed Listowel to fill his glass. “Did you have a good trip, Captain?”

  “Yes. Even so—”

  “Even so what?”

  “I think you might keep us informed, sir, of these other lightjammers, the experimental ones, cluttering up the route between Lorn and Llanith.”

  Grimes stared. “What are you talking about, Listowel?”

  “We averted collision by the thickness of a coat of paint. Captain Palmer, in Herzogen Cecile, also had a close shave. His emergency alteration of course was so violent that it carried away his N and E masts with all their sails. He limped to Port Listowel on Llanith on S and W only.”

  “Why didn’t he report it? The circumstances, I mean.”

  “He must have read your last circular, Commodore.”

  Grimes’ prominent ears burned as he flushed angrily. But Listowel was right. He, Grimes, had written that circular under pressure from the Rim Worlds Admiralty—which body was, as he had put it, passing through a phase of acting like small boys playing at pirates. The fleet was out—or had been out or would be out—on deep space maneuvers. Masters and officers were reminded that the Carlotti bands were continually monitored by potentially hostile powers. Therefore no report of any sighting of Rim Worlds Navy warships was to be made over these channels, whatever the circumstances. And so forth.

  “We are the only people with the Erikson-Charge-Reversing Drive,” went on Listowel. “So we assumed that what we saw was an experimental warship. One of ours. Palmer assumed likewise.”

  Grimes made a major production of filling and lighting his pipe. He said through the swirling cloud of acrid blue smoke, “The Navy doesn’t have any lightjammers, yet. They want some, just in case we ever fail to see eye to eye with the Llanithi Consortium. But the first ships of the line, as they are to be called, are still on the drawing board.”

  Listowel murmured thoughtfully, “Nevertheless we saw something—and it as near as dammit hit us. What was it, Commodore?”

  “You tell me,” said Grimes. “I’m listening.”

  Chapter 2

  LISTOWEL WAS SAYING, “We were bowling along under a f
ull press of sail and the Doppler Log was reading point eight nine seven, so it was nowhere near time to light the fire under our arse—” He coughed apologetically. “That, sir, is the expression we use for starting the reaction drive—”

  “I gathered as much,” said Grimes. “But go on.”

  “We were just finishing dinner in the main salon. I had Llawissen and his two wives—he’s the new Llanithi trade commissioner, as you know—at my table. We were making the usual small talk when I noticed that the little red warning light in the chandelier had come on.”

  “Sounds very fancy,” commented Williams.

  “You should have done more time in passenger ships, Billy,” Grimes told him. “That signal is to tell the master that he’s wanted in control, but for something short of a full-scale emergency. Carry on, Captain.”

  “So I excused myself, but didn’t leave the table in a hurry. Still, I lost no time in getting to the control room. Young Wallasey, the third mate, was O.O.W. He said, ‘We’ve got company, sir.’ I said, ‘Impossible.’ He pointed and said, ‘Look.’

  “So I looked.

  “We had company all right. She was out on the starboard beam, just clear of E topmast. She was only a light at first, a blueish glimmer, a star where we knew damn well no star should be, could be, hanging just above the distant mistiness of the Lens.

  “ ‘Anything on the radar?’ I asked.

  “There wasn’t—and these ships aren’t fitted with Mass Proximity Indicators.”

  “No need for them,” grunted Grimes, “unless you have Mannschenn Drive.”

  “So—there was nothing on the radar, which is what made me think afterward that this vessel must have been an experimental warship. The light was getting brighter and brighter, suggesting that the ship—I had already decided that it must be a ship—was getting closer.

  “I got the big mounted binoculars trained on it. After I got them focused I could make out details, although that fuzzy, greenish light didn’t help any. Some sort of force field? But no matter. I’d say that it—she—wasn’t as big as Pamir or any of the other commercial lightjammers. She had an odd sort of rig, too. Instead of having four masts arranged in a cruciform pattern she had three, in series. And the sails—what I could see of them—had reflective surfaces on both sides instead of on one side only, as is the case with ours.