Gateway to Never (John Grimes)

by A Bertram Chandler

  Grimes, however, loved improvising. Many years ago, when he had been Federation Survey Service lieutenant, commanding the courier Adder, he had made some missiles, using large plastic bottles as the casings and black powder as the propellant. After a browse through the chemical fertilizers in the “farm’s” storerooms he decided that he had the necessary ingredients for more black powder. He wanted something relatively slow-burning for the weapons he had in mind.

  He had seen Pamir’s manifest of cargo on the completion of loading. One item was a consignment of metal piping with a bore of 100 millimeters. Fortunately this was easily accessible in the hold. It was backbreaking work to lug the heavy sections out of their stowage and to the ship’s workshop, but Major Trent’s marines were able to accomplish this without too much grumbling. The pipe sections were cut to size, each two and a half meters in length. One end of each of the tubes was sealed with a heavy, welded flange. The crude cannon, eight of them, were beginning to take shape.

  There was no time to introduce too many refinements. Pamir had broken through the light barrier, was well away on the second leg of her voyage. It was when she decelerated, to complete the passage to Llanith under sail, that the pirate would strike. This was a probability if not a certainty. The evidence indicated that this was what had happened to Lord of the Isles and Sea Witch.

  Grimes discussed the prospect with Listowel, Willoughby, Major Trent and Sonya. He said, “Let’s face it. The principles of our lightjammers aren’t secret. We’re the only people who have had such ships simply because we’re the only people with inhabited antimatter systems in our sector of space. But there have been articles a-plenty in both scientific and shipping journals. And the Waldegrenese can read.”

  “Waldegren?” asked Trent.

  “Yes. Waldegren. The Duchy has a bad record of harboring pirates.” He spread a chart on Listowel’s desk. “Now, just suppose that Waldegren is monitoring our traffic with Llanith on the Carlotti bands. Oh, I know that the beam between our two systems doesn’t pass near any of the worlds of the Duchy—but a small relay station, possibly fully automated, could have been planted anywhere along the line of sight. If we knew just where to look for it we could find it. Mphm. Well, one of our lightjammers lifts off from Lorn. The routine message is sent. ETA and all the rest of it. Cargo such and such, consigned to so and so. Then the pirate—a lightjammer, of course—lifts off from Darnstadt . . . So far I’ve told only two people of the contents of the signal I received from Admiral Kravitz—Captain Listowel, of course, and Sonya. She helped with the decoding. But it all ties in. There has been lightjammer activity in the Duchy—and what would Waldegren want lightjammers for?”

  “Piracy,” said Listowel.

  “Still, we must be careful. We aren’t at war with Waldegren. The evidence indicates, however, that Waldegren has built at least one lightjammer. After all, the essential guts of such a ship, a sphere of antimatter, aren’t all that hard to come by. There are other antimatter systems besides the Llanithi Consortium. But where was I? Oh, yes. The pirate lifts off from Darnstadt, sets course and adjusts speed so as to intercept our ship as she decelerates to sublight velocity. She jams the Carlotti bands, attacks, seizes.”

  “And what about the passengers and crew?” asked Listowel.

  “If they’re lucky, Captain, they’ll be prisoners on Darnstadt. That’s why we want to take prisoners ourselves.”

  “The pirate,” said Trent, “will probably be armed with rockets, or projectile cannon. Not laser—unless the Waldegren scientists have worked out some way of making it effective at near-light speeds. Quick-firing cannon, I’d say.”

  “Quicker than your muzzle-loaders,” said Sonya to Grimes.

  Chapter 3

  AS PAMIR SPED THROUGH the nothingness the work of arming her progressed. Ahead of her blazed the stars, those toward which she was steering and those whose laggard light she was overhauling. Filters and shields protected her crew from the dangerous radiations that were a resultant of her velocity. Yet there was still visible light, harsh, intensely blue, light that should not have been seen but that, nonetheless, seemed to penetrate even opaque plating.

  But apart from the watch officers nobody had time to look out into space. Those cannon had to be finished and mounted. There was black powder to be mixed and tested, the charges to be packed in plastic bags. There were the springs to be contrived to carry and dampen the recoil of the guns. There were bags of shot to be made up.

  Pamir, fortunately, was so designed as to make the mounting of archaic cannon practicable. As a lightjammer, handled inside a planetary atmosphere like an airship, she was fitted with ballast tanks which, of course, were emptied on lift-off. Grimes decided to place his batteries, each of four guns, in the port and starboard wing tanks. To begin with, two crude airlocks were made and welded to the manhole doors leading into the compartments. Spacesuited and carrying laser tools the chief officer and the engineer went into the tanks, first to cut the gunports, then to strengthen the frames to take the weight of the artillery, the thrust of the recoil. The gun mountings were then passed in and welded into place.

  The pieces themselves slid in cradles and, on being fired, would be driven back against powerful springs, locking in the fully recoiled position. Loading was fast enough—first the bag of powder, then the shot, with a ram-rod to shove all well home. Firing would have to be deferred until the guns were run out again. For firing Grimes had first considered electrical contacts, then some sort of flintlock. He was amused by his final solution—touch-hole and slow match. Even though hand lasers were the slow matches—within the confines of the ship they worked well enough—the principle was a reversion to the very earliest days of firearms.

  Then there was the drilling of Trent’s marines. They took it all cheerfully enough, making a game of it.

  Finally Grimes was satisfied with the rate of fire—although none of the guns had yet actually been fired—under simulated conditions.

  Grimes checked personally the ready-use lockers for the bagged charges, the lockers for the improvised shot, the arrangements for passing more ammunition through into the tanks should it become necessary, communications. But there was one more problem. A row of gunports, with the muzzles of guns protruding, is easily detectable. He decided that the cannon would be retained in the fully recoiled position until just before firing and the ports concealed by sheets of plastic. He ordered, too, that the laser batteries be withdrawn into their recesses. They were of no use, anyhow.

  “Deceleration stations,” Listowel ordered.

  “Make that action stations,” said Grimes quietly. “I’m taking over now, Captain.”

  “So I’m just your sailing master,” Listowel commented, but cheerfully enough. “At your service, Commodore.” He pressed the bell push. A coded clangor sounded and resounded, short long, short long, short long—the Morse A. Fowler fidgeted in his seat at the console, the one from which he would fire and, hopefully, direct the sounding rockets, each of which was now fitted with a high-explosive warhead. The batteries of muzzle loaders were manned. Spacesuited marines were standing by the drainpipe artillery, three to a gun. Handy to the airlocks over the manhole doors were the ammunition parties.

  “Cut reaction drive.”

  “Cut reaction drive, sir.”

  The muted thunder of the rockets suddenly ceased.

  Slowly, carefully, as though this were no more than a routine deceleration, Listowel trimmed his sails, pivoting them about the masts so that the light from the glaring Llanithi stars, almost dead ahead, was striking their reflecting surfaces at an oblique angle. It had to be done gradually. If Pamir were suddenly taken aback she would be dismasted. The Doppler Log was starting to wind down. 25.111111 . . . 25.111110 . . . 25.111109 . . . The lower courses were turned to exercise full braking effect. The lower topsails next—the upper topsails—the top gallants. Speed was dropping fast. Inside the inertialess ship there was no sensory hint of the titanic forces being brought in
to play, forces that in a normal vessel would have smeared ship and crew across the sky in a blaze of raw energy.

  The log was still winding down, although the count was slowing.

  1.000007 . . . 1.000005

  1.000003 . . . 1.000001 . . .

  1.000001

  1.000001

  1.000000

  Now there was sensation, a feeling of unbearable tension. Something had to give. Something, somewhere, snapped suddenly. Ahead the sparse scattering of stars diminished in number. The Rim suns—astern in actuality—suddenly flickered out, reappeared in their proper relative bearing.

  “Mr. Wallasey,” said Listowel, “make the routine ETA call to Llanith.”

  He looked inquiringly toward Grimes, who said, “Yes. We maintain routine—until somebody or something interferes with it.”

  Wallasey was having his troubles. From the switched-on Carlotti transceiver issued a continuous warbling note.

  “Interference—” he muttered.

  “Jamming,” amended Grimes. “This is it, Captain. Any moment now.” He looked around the control room. Fowler was tense over his console, as was Denby, the second officer, at the radar. Wallasey was still twiddling knobs at the Carlotti set. Sonya and Sandra were sitting quietly in their chairs, apparently taking only a mild interest in the proceedings—but either woman, Grimes well knew, could spring into action at an instant’s notice. And Sandra, after all, could handle a lightjammer almost as well as her husband.

  There was nobody else on the bridge. Willoughby was below, in charge of the damage control party, and Major Trent was looking after the guns manned by his men.

  “Target,” reported Denby. “Green seventy-five. Range fifty kilometers. Closing.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Denby. Keep us informed,” said Grimes.

  “Green now seventy-five, still. Positive altitude five degrees, increasing.”

  “Range?”

  “Forty—and closing.”

  Grimes spoke into the microphone that carried his voice through the ship and into the gunners’ helmet speakers. “This is the commodore. The enemy has been sighted. She is closing fast. From now on there will be frequent changes of trajectory. Stand by to open fire on command. Over.”

  Trent’s voice came in reply, “All is ready, sir. Guns loaded, but not yet run out.”

  “Don’t run them out until you get the order to fire, Major.”

  “Green seventy-four, sir. Range thirty, closing. Positive altitude seven degrees. Increasing slowly.”

  “Captain,” said Grimes, “roll us seven degrees to port. I want to keep our friend exactly on the plane of our ecliptic. We can’t aim the guns individually—we have to aim the ship. Understand?”

  “Understood, Commodore.” The directional gyroscopes rumbled briefly as Pamir was turned about her long axis.

  “And now, Captain, start altering course to port. Just behave as you would normally in trying to avoid a close quarters situation.”

  Looking through the viewports Grimes saw the sails being trimmed. With the light from the Llanith sun as the wind, Pamir was being steadied on to a starboard tack.

  “Green eighty-five, opening. Range twenty-five, holding. Altitude zero.”

  Grimes got up from his chair, went to the big binoculars on their universal mount. He had no trouble picking up the intruder. Her suit of sails made her a big enough target.

  He said, “Mr. Wallasey, don’t bother any more with the Carlotti set. Try calling on NST.”

  “Very good, sir.” The third officer turned to the normal space-time transceiver, equipment suitable for use only at short ranges. “What shall I say, sir?”

  “Pamir to unidentified vessel. What ship? What are your intentions? You know.”

  “Pamir to unidentified vessel,” said Wallasey, speaking slowly and distinctly. “Come in, please.”

  Almost immediately a voice replied, “Unidentified vessel to Pamir. Maintain your present course and speed. Open your airlocks to receive my boarding party.” There was a slight accent. Waldegren? It sounded like it.

  Listowel turned to Grimes, “What now, Commodore?”

  Grimes grinned. “If we didn’t have ladies present I’d tell him to get stuffed. Pass me the mike, Mr. Wallasey.” Then he said, in what Sonya referred to as his best quarterdeck voice, “Pamir to unidentified vessel. Identify yourself at once. And sheer off. You are getting in my way.”

  “Unidentified vessel to Pamir. Open your airlock doors. Prepare for boarding party. Do not offer resistance. Over.”

  “Mphm,” grunted Grimes, releasing the pressure of his thumb on the transmit button of the microphone. “I want you to turn away, Listowel. You are master of an unarmed merchant vessel. You can’t fight, so you run. Put the Llanith sun dead astern. As long as he sees us doing all the right things he’ll be lulled into a sense of security.”

  Driving surfaces pivoted about their masts, the east sails presenting their black sides to the source of light, the west sails their reflective sides. The ship came around fast. And then, on all four masts, the reflective surfaces were spread to catch the full force of the photon gale.

  “Bearing green one six five. Altitude zero. Range nineteen. Closing.”

  “Must have hung out the crew’s washing,” commented Listowel. “I’m afraid that I can’t squeeze any more out of Pamir.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Grimes told him. “We want her to catch up.” He looked astern through the binoculars. Pamir’s sails cut off the glare from the Llanith sun and the raider was clearly visible on the starboard quarter. Like Pamir she was a four-master, with a cruciform rig, but additional triangular sails had been set between the masts. Running free this would give her a decided advantage.

  “Range fifteen. Fourteen. Closing.”

  “Sir?” asked Fowler appealingly.

  “No,” said Grimes. “Not yet. We must consider the legalities. She must fire the first shot.”

  “But those legalities would only apply, sir, if we were a merchant vessel. But we aren’t. We’re an auxiliary cruiser of the Rim Worlds Navy—”

  “A space lawyer yet!” commented Grimes admiringly. The young man was right, of course. He, Grimes, should have played heavy commodore as soon as contact had been made with the pirate, demanding her unconditional surrender. He might have done just that if he had a real warship under his feet. He decided that, after all, his own way of playing it was the best, especially since the other ship obviously had the heels of Pamir. He said, “You can play with your rockets as soon as I give the word, not before. And when you do use them, try for the enemy’s rigging, his masts and sails.”

  “Bearing green one five oh. Closing. Range nine. Closing.”

  “This is the commodore. Action will be opened shortly. It seems likely that the starboard broadside will be the first to be used.”

  “Unidentified ship to Pamir. You’ve been asking for trouble. You are about to get it. Over.”

  “You have our permission to tell him to get stuffed, John,” said Sonya sweetly.

  “Bearing green one two five. Range seven. Closing.”

  Shortening sail, thought Grimes, watching through the binoculars. There’re those tri-s’ls or whatever he calls ’em coming in. And I can see ports opening. Boat bays? Or gunports?

  A gout of yellow flame spurted from one of the openings in the raider’s hull, just abaft the masts. A long time later, it seemed, there was an explosion ahead of Pamir, about half a kilometer distant, a sudden rose of pale fire burgeoning in the blackness. So the pirate was using projectile weapons.

  “Unidentified vessel—” the joke was wearing thin—“to Pamir. That was the last warning. Surrender or take the consequences.”

  “Bearing green ninety. Range five, four, three—closing.”

  No identification marks, thought Grimes, studying the other vessel through the powerful glasses. Could be one of ours, save for a few, subtle points of difference . . .

  He said to Fowler, “All right,
Lieutenant. You may open fire.”

  He saw the first rocket flash from its launching tube, trailing a wake of blue flame, spinning a flimsy filament of incandescence over the shortening distance between the two ships. It got a little over halfway, and then a stream of tracer came hosepiping from a gunport, met it, eroded it into ragged and harmless fragments of spinning debris. The warhead didn’t explode.

  “Rapid fire!” ordered Grimes. “Get the other five rockets out and on the way as quickly as possible. Don’t bother guiding them in. One might get through.”

  None did. The pirate’s machine gunners were fast.

  “Range one. Point seven five. Point five.”

  “Resistance is useless,” came the voice from the NST transceiver.

  “Starboard broadside, fire,” said Grimes into the intercom microphone.

  He was not altogether prepared for what happened. He was expecting to see the enemy’s sails shredded, his masts cut down, by the shot that he had prepared, the same sort of shot that had been used so effectively during the days of sail on Earth, the bags of scrap metal, nuts and bolts, lengths of metal chain. He had forgotten, though, that one of the old men-o’-war never, when firing a broadside, fired all guns simultaneously—they were fired in quick succession.

  Pamir lurched. It was more than a mere lurch. It was as though a giant palm had swatted her on her starboard side. The north and south masts were carried away, each of them falling to starboard as the ship was driven to port by the recoil, the yards of each of them ripping the sails of the east mast, becoming inextricably entangled with the rigging.

  “You got her, sir!” Fowler was yelling. “You got her!”

  Grimes, who had been knocked down by the violent lateral acceleration, got groggily to his feet, staggered to the starboard viewports. The raider was, indeed, in a sorrier state than Pamir. In addition to the damage to her rigging there were gaping holes in her shell plating, through some of which smoke and flame flared explosively, like rocket exhausts. Her control room ports were bright with the ruddy glare of an internal fire. She was spinning slowly about her long axis. The one undamaged main spar, the east mast, which had been on her starboard side, shielded from Pamir’s guns, lifted into view as she rolled, lifted, then dipped toward the other ship—and held steady, a long, metal lance. Freakishly, then, the rotary motion ceased. Perhaps a survivor was still exercising some sort of control, was determined to exact vengeance before his death. And on the far side air, mixed with the gases of combustion, was still escaping into the vacuum, inexorably driving the total wreck on to the near-wreck.