The Big Black Mark

by A Bertram Chandler

  "Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't have done better in the merchant service," grumbled Brabham. "Even the Rim Worlds Merchant Service. I was having a yarn with Sundowner's chief officer. He tells me that the new government-owned shipping line, Rim Runners, is recruiting personnel. I've a good mind to apply."

  "Nobody in the Survey Service would miss you," said Vinegar Nell. Then, before Brabham could register angry protest, she continued, "Nobody in the Survey Service would miss any of us. We're the square pegs, who find that every hole's a round one." She turned to Grimes, who realized that she must have been drinking quite heavily. "Come on, Captain! Out with it! What was in your sealed orders? Instructions to lose us all down some dark crack in the continuum, yourself included?"

  "Mphm," grunted Grimes noncommittally, helping himself to more caviar. He noticed that the civilians in the vicinity had begun to flap their ears. He said firmly, "Things aren't as bad as they seem." He tried to make a joke of it. "In any case, I haven't lost a ship yet."

  "There has to be a first time for everything," she said darkly.

  "Some people are lucky," commented Brabham. "In the Survey Service, as everywhere else, luck counts for more than ability."

  "Some people have neither luck nor ability," said Vinegar Nell spitefully. The target for this barbed remark was obvious—and Brabham, feared Grimes, would be quite capable of emptying the bowl of caviar over her head if she continued to needle him. And the captain of a ship, justly or unjustly, is held responsible for the conduct of his officers in public places. His best course of action would be to separate his first lieutenant and his paymaster before they came to blows.

  "Shall we dance, Miss Russell?" he asked.

  She produced a surprisingly sweet smile. "But of course, Captain."

  The synthesizer was playing a song that he had heard before, probably a request from those of Sundowner's people who were still at the party. The tune was old, very old, but the words were new, and Rim Worlders had come to regard it as their very own.

  Good-bye, I'll run to find another sun

  Where I may find

  There are worlds more kind than the ones left behind . . .

  Vinegar Nell, fitting into his arms as though she belonged there, had always belonged there, was singing softly as she danced. And was he, Grimes, dancing as well as he thought he was? Probably not, he admitted to himself, but she made him feel that he was cutting a fine figure on the polished floor. And she was making him feel rather more than that. He was acutely conscious of the tightness of the crotch of his dress trousers.

  When the number was over he was pleased to see that Brabham had wandered off somewhere by himself, but he was not pleased when Commander Denny claimed Vinegar Nell for the next dance, and still less pleased when he found himself having to cope with Denny's wife. He suffered. It was like having to tow an unwieldy captive balloon through severe atmospheric turbulence. But then the Mayoress made a welcome change, although she chattered incessantly. After her, there were a few girls whose names he promptly forgot.

  Vinegar Nell again, and the last dance.

  Good night! ladies,

  Good night, ladies,

  Good night, ladies . . .

  We're bound to leave you now. . . .

  "But you don't have to leave me, John," she whispered.

  Mphm?

  And everybody was singing:

  Merrily we roll along,

  Roll along, roll along,

  Merrily we roll along

  O'er the bright blue sea. . . .

  He said, "We have to roll along back to the ship, after we've said our good nights, and thanked the mayor for his party."

  She said, her mood suddenly somber, "There's no place else to roll. Not for us."

  The synthesizer emitted a flourish of trumpets, a ruffle of drums. The dancers froze into attitudes of stiff—or not so stiff—attention. Blaring brass against a background of drumbeats, an attempt to make dreadfully trite melody sound important. It was one of those synthetic, utterly forgettable national anthems, the result, no doubt, of a competition, selected by the judges as the poor best of a bad lot. The words matched the music:

  New Maine, flower of the galaxy,

  New Maine, stronghold of liberty. . . .

  Then: "Good night, Mr. Mayor. On behalf of my officers I must thank you for a marvelous party."

  "Good night, Captain. It was a pleasure to have you aboard. Good night, Miss Russell. If the Survey Service had more paymasters like you, I'd be a spaceman myself. Ha, ha! Good night. . . good night."

  "Good night."

  The ground cars were waiting outside, in the portico. As before, Grimes rode in the lead vehicle with Vinegar Nell and Dr. Brandt. With them, this time, was the chief engineer.

  "A waste of valuable time, these social functions," complained the scientist as they sped back toward the Base.

  "Ye were nae darin' sae bad on the free booze an' tucker," pointed out MacMorris.

  "And neither were you, Chief," put in Vinegar Nell.

  "Ah'm no' a dancin' man, not like our gallant captain. An' as for the, booze an' tucker—it's aye a pleasure to tak' a bite an sup wi'oot havin' you begrudgin' every mouthful!"

  "I still say that it was a waste of time," stated Brandt. "Commander Grimes, for example, could have spent the evening going through the port captain's records to see if there are any reports of Lost Colonies."

  "Mphm," grunted Grimes smugly, happily conscious of the folded copy of the chart that Davinas had given him, stiff in the inside breast pocket of his mess jacket.

  They were approaching the Base now. There stood Discovery, a tall metal steeple, dull-gleaming in the wan light of the huge, high, lopsided moon. And there were great dark shapes, sluglike, oozing slowly over the concrete apron of the spaceport.

  "Filthy brutes!" exclaimed the driver, breaking the morose silence that he had maintained all the way from the mayor's palace.

  "Great snakes?" asked Grimes.

  "What else, Captain? Whoever decided that those bloody things should be protected should have his bloody head read!"

  "You, man!" snapped Brandt. "Take us in close to one of them! Put your spotlight on it!"

  "Not on your bloody life, mister! If anything scares those bastards, they squirt. And they squirt all over what scares 'em! I have to keep this car clean, not you. Now, here you are, lady and gentlemen. I've brought you right back to your own front door. A very good night to you—what's left of it!"

  They got out of the car, which had stopped at the foot of Discovery's ramp. The air was heavy with the sweet-sour stench of fresh ordure. Something splattered loudly not far from them. Their vehicle, its motor whining shrilly, made a hasty departure.

  "Are you waiting outside to study the great snakes at close quarters, Doctor?" asked Grimes. "I'm not." He started up the ramp, as hastily as possible without loss of dignity, Vinegar Nell beside him. MacMorris came after and then, after only a second's hesitation, Brandt At the outer airlock door the Marine sentry came to attention, saluted. Grimes wondered if the man would be as alert after Major Swinton was back safely on board.

  The elevator cage was waiting for them. They got into it, were lifted through the various levels. Vinegar Nell, Brandt, and MacMorris got out at the officers' deck. Grimes carried on to Control, found the duty officer looking out through the viewport at the lights of the cars still coming in from Penobscot.

  "Oh, good morning, sir." Then, a little wistfully, "Was it a good party?"

  "It was, Mr. Farrow. Quite good." Grimes yawned. "If any of those . . . things try to climb up the side of the ship to do their business, let me know. Good night, or good morning, or whatever."

  He went down to his quarters. He did not, he realized with some surprise, feel all that tired. He subsided into an armchair, pulled out from his pocket the copy of the star chart, unfolded it. Yes, it was certainly a good lead, and Captain Davinas was entitled to some reward for having given it to him.

  Ther
e was a knock at the door.

  "Come in!" he called, wondering whom it could be. Not Brabham, he hoped, with some trifling but irritating worry that could well wait until a more civilized hour.

  It was Vinegar Nell. She was carrying a tray upon which were a coffeepot, a cup—no, two cups—and a plate of sandwiches. She had changed out of her evening dress uniform into something that was nothing much over nothing at all. Grimes had seen her naked often enough in the sauna adjoining the ship's gymnasium, but this was . . . different. The spectacle of a heavily perspiring female body is not very aphrodisiac; that same body suggestively and almost transparently clad is.

  She said, "I thought you'd like a snack before turning in, John."

  "Thank you—er—Miss Russell."

  She stooped to set the tray on the coffee table. The top of her filmy robe fell open. Her pink-nippled breasts were high and firm.

  "Shall I pour?" she asked.

  "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.

  Chapter 12

  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 th
at 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."