The Road to the Rim

by A Bertram Chandler

"Why shouldn't we be Adler?" asked Grimes.

  "What do you mean, Ensign?"

  "The Waldegren Navy's frigates are almost identical, in silhouette, with the Commission's Epsilon class freighters. We could disguise this ship a little by masking the dissimilarities by a rough patching of plating. After all, Adler was in action and sustained some damage—"

  "Complicated," mused the Captain. "Too complicated. And two Adlers—each, presumably, in encoded psionic communication with both Waldegren and Dartura . . . . You've a fine, devious mind, young Grimes—but I'm afraid you've out-fixed yourself on that one."

  "Let me talk, sir. Let me think out loud. To begin with—a ship running on Mannschenn Drive can put herself into orbit about a planet, but it's not, repeat not, recommended."

  "Damn right it's not."

  "But we have the heels of Adler? Yes? Then we could afford a slight delay to carry out the modifications—the disguise—that I've suggested. After all, forty odd light years is quite a long way."

  "But what do we gain, Mr. Grimes?"

  "The element of confusion, sir. Let me work it out. We disguise ourselves as well as we can. We find out, from intercepted and decoded signals, Adler's ETA—and the coordinates of her breakthrough into the normal continuum. We contrive matters to be more or less in the same place at exactly the same time. And when the shore batteries and the guardships see no less than two Adlers slugging it out, each of them yelling for help in the secret code, they won't know which of us to open fire on."

  "Grimes," said Craven slowly, "I didn't know you had it in you. All I can say is that I'm glad that you're on our side."

  "Am I?" asked Grimes wonderingly,. suddenly deflated. He looked at the Captain who, after all, was little better than a pirate, whose accomplice he had become. He looked at the girl, but for whom he would not be here. "Am I? Damn it all, whose side am I on?"

  "You'd better go below," Craven told him gently. "Go below and get some sleep. You need it. You've earned it."

  "Jeremy," said Jane Pentecost to Craven, "would you mind looking after the shop for half an hour or so? I'll go with John."

  "As you please, my dear. As you please."

  It was the assurance in the Captain's voice that hurt. It won't make any difference to us, it implied. It can't make any difference. Sure, Jane, go ahead. Throw the nice little doggie a bone . . . . we can spare it.

  "No thank you," said Grimes coldly, and left the Control Room.

  But he couldn't hate these people.

  XX

  AFTER A LONG SLEEP Grimes felt better. After a meal he felt better still. It was a good meal, even though the solid portion of it came from tins. Craven's standards were slipping, thought the Ensign. He was reasonably sure that such items as caviar, escargots, pâté de foie gras, Virginia ham, Brie, and remarkably alcoholic cherries were not included in the Commission's inventory of emergency stores. And neither would be the quite reasonable Montrachet, although it had lost a little by being decanted from its original bottles into standard squeeze bulbs. But if the Captain had decided that the laborer was worthy of his hire, with the consignees of the cargo making their contribution toward that hire, that was his privilege . . .? Responsibility?—call it what you will.

  Jane Pentecost watched him eat. As he was finishing his coffee she said, "Now that our young lion has fed, he is required in the Control Room."

  He looked at her both gratefully and warily. "What have I done now?"

  "Nothing, my dear. It is to discuss what you—we—will do. Next."

  He followed her to Control. Craven was there, of course, and so were Baxter and Summers. The Captain was enjoying one of his rank cigars, and a limp, roll-your-own cigarette dangled from the engineer's lower lip. The telepath coughed pointedly every time that acrid smoke expelled by either man drifted his way. Neither paid any attention to him, and neither did Grimes when he filled and lighted his own pipe.

  Craven said, "I've been giving that scheme of yours some thought. It's a good one."

  "Thank you, sir."

  "Don't thank me. I should thank you. Mr. Summers, here, has been maintaining a careful listening watch. Adler's ETA is such that we can afford to shut down the Drive to make the modifications that you suggest. To begin with, we'll fake patching plates with plastic sheets—we can't afford to cannibalize any more of the ship's structure—so as to obscure our name and identification letters. We'll use more plastic to simulate missile launchers and laser projectors—luckily there's plenty of it in the cargo."

  "We found more than plastic while we were lookin' for it," said the engineer, licking his lips.

  "That will do, Mr. Baxter. Never, in normal circumstances, should I have condoned . . ."

  "These circumstances ain't normal, Skipper, an' we all bloody well know it."

  "That will do, I say." Craven inhaled deeply, then filled the air of the Control Room with a cloud of smoke that, thought Grimes, would have reflected laser even at close range. Summers almost choked, and Jane snapped, "Jeremy!"

  "This, my dear, happens to be my Control Room." He turned again to the Ensign. "It will not be necessary, Mr. Grimes, to relocate the real weapons. They functioned quite efficiently where they are and, no doubt, will do so again. And now, as soon as I have shut down the Drive, I shall hand the watch over to you. You are well rested and refreshed."

  "Come on," said Jane to Baxter. "Let's get suited up and get that sheeting out of the airlock."

  "Couldn't Miss Pentecost hold the fort, sir?" asked Grimes. He added, "I've been through the camouflage course at the Academy."

  "And so have I, Mr. Grimes. Furthermore, Miss Pentecost has had experience in working outside, but I don't think that you have."

  "No, sir. But . . . "

  "That will be all, Mr. Grimes."

  At Craven's orders the Drive was shut down, and outside the viewports the sparse stars became stars again, were no longer pulsing spirals of multi-colored light. Then, alone in Control, Grimes actuated his scanners so that he could watch the progress of the work outside the hull, and switched on the transceiver that worked on the spacesuit frequency.

  This time he ran no risk of being accused of being a Peeping Tom.

  He had to admire the competence with which his shipmates worked. The plastic sheeting had no mass to speak of, but it was awkward stuff to handle. Torches glowed redly as it was cut, and radiated invisibly in the infrared as it was shaped and welded. The workers, in their bulky, clumsy suits, moved with a grace that was in startling contrast to their attire—a Deep Space ballet, thought Grimes, pleasurably surprised at his own way with words. From the speaker of the transceiver came Craven's curt orders, the brief replies of the others.

  "This way a little . . . that's it."

  "She'll do, Skipper."

  "No she won't. Look at the bend on it!"

  Then Jane's laughing voice. "Our secret weapon, Jeremy. A laser that fires around corners!"

  "That will do, Miss Pentecost. Straighten it, will you?"

  "Ay, ay, sir. Captain, sir."

  The two interstellar drive engineers were working in silence, but with efficiency. Aboard the ship were only Grimes and Summers, the telepath.

  Grimes felt out of it, but somebody had to mind the shop, he supposed. But the likelihood of any customers was remote.

  Then he stiffened in his chair. One of the spacesuited figures was falling away from the vessel, drifting out and away, a tiny, glittering satellite reflecting the harsh glare of the working floods, a little, luminous butterfly pinned to the black velvet of the Ultimate Night. Who was it? He didn't know for certain, but thought that it was Jane. The ship's interplanetary drives—reaction and inertial— were on remote control, but reaction drive was out; before employing it he would have to swing to the desired heading by use of the directional gyroscopes. But the inertial drive was versatile.

  He spoke into the microphone of the transceiver. "Secure yourselves. I am proceeding to rescue."

  At once Craven's voic
e snapped back, "Hold it, Grimes. Hold it! There's no danger."

  "But, sir . . . "

  "Hold it!"

  Grimes could see the distant figure now from a viewport, but it did not seem to be receding any longer. Hastily he checked with the radar. Range and bearing were not changing. Then, with relative bearing unaltered, the range was closing. He heard Jane call out, "Got it! I'm on the way back!"

  Craven replied, "Make it snappy—otherwise young Grimes'll be chasing you all over the Universe!"

  Grimes could see, now, the luminous flicker of a suit reaction unit from the lonely figure.

  Later, he and the others examined the photographs that Jane had taken.

  Epsilon Sextans looked as she was supposed to look—like a badly battle-scarred frigate of the Waldegren Navy.

  XXI

  IN TERMS OF SPACE and of time there was not much longer to go.

  The two ships—one knowing and one unknowing—raced toward their rendezvous. Had they been plunging through the normal continuum there would have been, toward the finish, hardly the thickness of a coat of paint between them, the adjustment of a microsecond in temporal precession rates would have brought inevitable collision. Craven knew this from the results of his own observations and from the encoded position reports, sent at six hourly intervals, by Adler. Worried, he allowed himself to fall astern, a mere half kilometer. It would be enough—and, too, it would mean that the frigate would mask him from the fire of planet-based batteries.

  Summers maintained his listening watch. Apart from the position reports he had little of interest to tell the Captain. Adler, once or twice, had tried to get in contact with the Main Base on Waldegren—but, other than from a curt directive to proceed as ordered there were no signals from the planet to the ship. Dartura Base was more talkative. That was understandable. There was no colony on the planet and the Base personnel must be bored, must be pining for the sight of fresh faces, the sound of fresh voices. They would have their excitement soon enough, promised Craven grimly.

  Through the warped continuum fell the two ships, and ahead the pulsating spiral that was the Dartura sun loomed ever brighter, ever larger. There were light years yet to go, but the Drive-induced distortions made it seem that tentacles of incandescent gas were already reaching out to clutch them, to drag them into the atomic furnace at the heart of the star.

  In both Control Rooms watch succeeded watch—but the thoughts and the anticipations of the watchkeepers were not the same. Aboard Adler there was the longing for rest, for relaxation—although Adler's Captain must have been busy with the composition of a report that would clear him (if possible) of blame for his defeat. Aboard Epsilon Sextans there was the anticipation of revenge—insofar as Craven, Baxter, Jane Pentecost and the survivors of the ship's original personnel were concerned. Grimes? As the hour of reckoning approached he was more and more dubious. He did not know what to think, what to feel. There was the strong personal loyalty to Craven—and, even now, to Jane Pentecost. There was the friendship and mutual respect that had come into being between himself and Baxter. There was the knowledge that Adler's crew were no better than pirates, were murderers beyond rehabilitation. There was the pride he felt in his own skill as a gunnery officer. (But, as such, was he, himself, any better than a pirate, a murderer? The exercise of his craft aboard a warship would be legal—but here, aboard a merchantman, and a disguised merchantman at that, the legality was doubtful. What had his motives been when he volunteered—and as a commissioned officer of the Survey Service he had had no right to do so—and what were his motives now?)

  He, Grimes, was not happy. He had far too much time to ponder the implications. He was an accessory before, during and after the fact. He had started off correctly enough, when he had tried to prevent Craven from requisitioning the Survey Service cargo aboard Delta Orionis, but after that . . . after he and Jane . . . (that, he admitted, was a memory that he wanted to keep, always, just as that other memory, of the bright picture of naked female flesh on the screen, he wished he could lose forever.)

  He had started off correctly enough—and then, not only had he helped install the purloined armament but had used it. (And used it well, he told himself with a brief resurgence of pride.) Furthermore, the disguise of Epsilon Sextans had been his idea.

  Oh, he was in it, all right. He was in up to his neck. What the final outcome of it all would be he did not care to contemplate.

  But it would soon be over. He had no fears as to the outcome of the battle. The element of surprise would be worth at least a dozen missile launchers. Adler would never have the chance to use her laser.

  ADLER, REPORTED SUMMERS, had shut down her Mannschenn Drive and emerged briefly into normal spacetime to make her final course adjustment. She was now headed not for the Dartura Sun but for the planet itself—or where the planet would be at the time of her final—and fatal— reemergence into the continuum. The last ETA was sent, together with the coordinates of her planetfall. Epsilon Sextans made her own course adjustment—simultaneity in time and a half kilometer's divergence in space being Craven's objective. It was finicky work, even with the use of the ship's computer, but the Captain seemed satisfied.

  The race—the race that would culminate in a dead heat—continued. Aboard the frigate there was, reported Summers, a lessening of tension, the loosening up that comes when a voyage is almost over. Aboard the merchantman the tension increased. The interstellar drive engineers, Grimes knew, were no happier about it all than he was—but they could no more back out than he could. Craven was calm and confident, and Baxter was beginning to gloat. Jane Pentecost assumed the air of dedication that in women can be so infuriating. Grimes glumly checked and rechecked his weaponry. It passed the time.

  Dartura itself was visible now—not as tiny disk of light but as a glowing annulus about its distorted primary. The thin ring of luminescence broadened, broadened. The time to go dwindled to a week, to days, to a day, and then to hours . . .

  To minutes . . .

  To seconds . . . .

  Craven and Grimes were in the Control Room; the others were at their various stations. From the intercom came the telepath's voice, "He's cutting the Drive—"

  "Cut the Drive!" ordered the Captain.

  In the Mannschenn Drive room the spinning, precessing gyroscopes slowed, slowed, ceased their endless tumbling, assumed the solidity that they exhibited only when at rest. For perhaps two seconds there was temporal confusion in the minds of all on board as the precession field died, and past, present and future inextricably mingled. Then there was a sun glaring through the viewports, bright in spite of the polarization—a sun, and, directly ahead, a great, green-orange planet. There was a ship . . . .

  There were ships—ahead of them, astern, on all sides.

  There were ships—and, booming from the intership transceiver, the transceiver that was neither tuned nor switched on (but navies could afford induction transmitters with their fantastic power consumption), came the authorative voice: "Inflexible to Adler! Heave to for search and seizure ! Do not attempt to escape—our massed fields will hold you!"

  The effect was rather spoiled when the same voice added, in bewilderment, "Must be seeing double . . . there's two of the bastards." The bewilderment did not last long. "Inflexible to Adler and to unidentified vessel. Heave to for search and seizure!"

  "Hold your fire, Mr. Grimes," ordered Craven, quietly and bitterly. "It's the Survey Service."

  "I know," replied Grimes—and pressed the button.

  XXII

  HE NEVER KNEW just why he had done so.

  Talking it over afterward, thinking about it, he was able to evolve a theory that fitted the facts. During the brief period immediately after the shutting down of the Drive, during the short session of temporal disorientation, there had been prescience, of a sort. He had known that Adler, come what may, would attempt one last act of defiance and revenge, just as Adler's Captain or Gunnery Officer must have known, in that last split second,
that Nemesis was treading close upon his heels.

  He pushed the button—and from the nozzles in the shell plating poured the reflective vapor, the protective screen that glowed ruddily as Adler's lasers slashed out at it.

  From the speaker of the dead transceiver, the transceiver that should have been dead, roared the voice of the Survey Service Admiral. "Adler! Cease fire! Cease fire, damn you!" There was a pause, then: "You've asked for it!"

  She had asked for it—and now she got it. Suddenly the blip on Grimes' screen that represented the Waldegren frigate became two smaller blips, and then four. The rolling fog outside Epsilon Sextans' viewports lost its luminosity, faded suddenly to drab grayness. The voice from the transceiver said coldly, "And now you, whoever you are, had better identify yourself. And fast."