First Command

by A Bertram Chandler

  “No, you won’t,” said Maggie. “It might affect your profits.”

  Grimes said, “I still think, Captain Danzellan, that you will ruin this world, whether or not you force the women into Mother Hubbards and the men into shirts and trousers.”

  Danzellan shrugged. “There’s ruin and ruin, Commander Grimes. Which is the lesser of two evils—a flourishing tourist trade, or the introduction of heavy industry? Come to that—will the tourist trade be an evil?”

  “And the tourists will pay?” asked Maya. “They will bring us things like the sun-powered cold boxes, and the clocks and the watches, and jewels like the ones that Captain Kane gave to Sabrina? Not that I want jewels,” she added virtuously, “but I should like a cold box, and a clock that does not have to have the weights wound up every night.”

  “Maya is talking sense,” said Danzellan.

  “Yes, I am talking sense. You people have so many things to make life comfortable that we cannot make for ourselves, that we should not care to go to the trouble of making for ourselves. If offworlders are willing to pay for the pleasure of breathing our air, basking in our sunshine—then let them pay!”

  “And there,” said Danzellan smugly, “you have the attitude of a typical Morrowvian.”

  “But she’s so simple,” expostulated Grimes. “Her people are so simple.”

  Before Maya could answer Maggie stepped in. She said, “Perhaps not so simple, John. Apart from anything else, they have The History and Morrow’s dictums to guide them. Too, there’s an odd streak in their makeup. . . . I wish I knew . . .”

  “I wish I knew what Kane was up to,” said Danzellan.

  “Don’t we all,” agreed Grimes.

  20

  They sat in the main cabin of Seeker’s pinnace—talking, smoking (even Maya tried one of Maggie’s cigarillos and said that she liked it) and waiting for something to happen. Danzellan was in touch with his own ship by his wrist transceiver and also, of course, with Mr. Delamere, who had piloted Schnauzer’s boat to Ballarat and was remaining inside the craft. Grimes used the pinnace’s radio to tell Mr. Saul what had happened so far and, meanwhile, all transceivers not otherwise in use were tuned to a variety of wavebands, in the hope that Drongo Kane’s messages (if any) to Southerly Buster could be monitored.

  At last Kane’s voice sounded from Maggie’s transceiver. He said simply, “Blackbird.” The reply was almost immediate. “Pinnace to Captain. Blackbird.” Then, “Pinnace to Southerly Buster. Blackbird.” Finally, faintly, “Southerly Buster to pinnace. Acknowledge Blackbird.”

  “Blackbird?” echoed Grimes.

  “I don’t like it,” said Maggie. “I don’t like it. That word rings some sort of a bell . . . .”

  “Captain to Seeker,” said Grimes into the microphone of the main transceiver. “Captain to Seeker. Do you read me?”

  “Loud and clear, Captain.”

  “That you, Mr. Saul? Keep your eyes open for any activities around Southerly Buster. Kane has just sent a message to his ship. It must be a code. Just one word. Blackbird.”

  “Blackbird . . .” repeated Saul. Then, “Have I your permission to use force?”

  “What are you talking about, Saul?”

  “Operation Blackbird, Captain. Didn’t you know that blackbirding was a euphemism for slave trading?”

  “He’s right . . .” whispered Maggie. “And there are worlds where women such as these would fetch a good price—some of the Waldegren mining colonies, for example . . . .”

  Grimes was thinking rapidly. If he departed at once it would be all of seven hours before he was back aboard Seeker. In seven hours a lot could happen. Saul, as second in command, was in full charge of the ship until her captain’s return. Saul, normally, was a most reliable officer—but could Saul, with all his racial prejudices and bitternesses, be trusted to deal with the situation that was developing? Kane would scream to high heaven if a single shot were fired at his precious Southerly Buster, and he would not be the first pirate to have friends in high places—although heaven would not be one of them. Even so, if Kane were about to do something illegal he would have to be stopped.

  The situation, Grimes realized, was made to order for Drongo Kane. Seeker’s captain was hours away from his ship—and so was Southerly Buster’s captain, but it didn’t matter. The obnoxious Mr. Dreebly could embark the passengers, quote and unquote, and then lift ship into orbit, where Kane’s pinnace could rendezvous with her. And once the Morrowvians were aboard the Buster she would be virtually untouchable insofar as hostile action by Seeker was concerned.

  “Mr. Saul,” ordered Grimes, “do all you can to prevent the natives from boarding Southerly Buster. Do not use arms unless there is absolutely no alternative. I am returning at once.” He turned to Danzellan. “You heard all of that, Captain?”

  “Of course, Commander.”

  “Good. Then I’ll ask you to keep an eye on Drongo Kane for me.”

  “I’ll do that, with pleasure.” Maggie said, “I’ll stay with Captain Danzellan, John. I want to have another look at Lode Cougar’s records—if Janine will condescend to let me back into her palace after Kane has left. I have an idea that what I find may have some bearing on this situation. If it’s what I’m afraid it might be—then be careful. Be bloody careful.”

  “I’ll try,” said Grimes.

  “You always do, but . . .” She followed Danzellan as the shipmaster returned to his own pinnace.

  Pitcher asked, “Take her up, sir?”

  “Yes, Mr. Pitcher. And flog your horses. Put her on a direct Great Circle; we’ve no time for sightseeing.”

  While the navigator busied himself with charts and instruments Billard did his best to make the pinnace behave like a guided missile.

  They wasted no time, screaming southward high over the countryside, over the sea. Maya was awed, a little frightened, even, and sat there in silence. Pitcher and Billard exchanged occasional monosyllables, while Grimes stuck to the transceiver. Timmins, the senior radio officer, was at the other end. He reported, “Southerly Buster seems to be ready for immediate lift-off, sir. All ports, have for the main airlock, have been sealed.” Then, a little later, “Two officers have left the ship and are walking toward the town of Oxford. Mr. Saul and Captain Philby have followed them, with six Marines.” Later still, “Mr. Saul reports that the way was barred to him and his party by a dozen spearmen and a dozen archers. He is returning to the ship. I’ll put him on to you as soon as he’s here.”

  Grimes studied Saul’s face in the tiny screen. The man was struggling to repress his smoldering fury. “Captain,” he said, “these damned people don’t want to be helped. They were there on the river bank, with the spears and bows and arrows, and some damned woman, the deputy queen she said she was, ordered me back. She said, “We don’t want you and the likes of you here. Captain Kane warned Sabrina about you.”

  “So.”

  “So what are your instructions, Captain?”

  “Get a boat out, to keep a watch over the town and to report what the people are doing. Have Seeker in a state of instant readiness for lift-off . . . .”

  “I’ve already given the orders, sir. But the armament . . . “

  “I’ve already told you not to go firing guns off indiscriminately. But . . . mphm. Have the belts for the sixty millimeters loaded with sleep gas shells. And if you use ‘em—and you’ll have to justify their use to me—make bloody sure that you don’t hit anybody. Understood?”

  “Understood, Captain.”

  “Good. Then keep me informed.”

  Grimes turned to Maya. “Can you tell me,” he asked, what is going on?”

  “I don’t know. We have always kept ourselves to ourselves, Sabrina and I. We have never been close friends. We have never been friends. But Captain Kane gave many gifts to Sabrina’s people. There were books, with beautiful pictures of other worlds, with accounts of other worlds. There were . . . catalogues, giving details of all the goods that may be purchased
on other worlds . . . .”

  “First Lieutenant to Captain.” It was Saul again. “Number Three boat is in position over Oxford. We are trying to get a picture to you.”

  And there, on the screen, was the picture of the town as seen from the air. The boat was hanging almost directly over the central plaza and transmitting a magnified image. The two men from Southerly Buster, being clothed, were easily identifiable.

  They were busily marshaling about two hundred Morrowvians into an orderly column. Even from above it was obvious that they were all women. To one side of the plaza a half dozen light handcarts had been loaded with possessions—cushions, pieces of pottery, longbows and quivers of arrows. One of Kane’s men went to inspect the cart that was loaded with weapons, called a woman to him and was obviously telling her that these would have to be left. Then whoever was in charge of the boat got a long-range microphone working.

  “I’m sorry, Peggy. These will have to be left behind.”

  “But the girls must have them, Bill. What will they do for sport on Caribbea if they have no bows?”

  Caribbea? wondered Grimes. Probably it was the most glamorous world depicted in the brochures that Kane had distributed—but Essen would be a more likely destination for this shipment of female slaves.

  “You can’t use bows and arrows underwater,” explained the man Bill patiently. “In the seas of Caribbea they use spear guns.”

  “But we don’t like water. None of us likes water. Nobody will make us go into the water, will they?”

  There’s not much water on Essen, thought Grimes. Only enough for washing and drinking—not that those Waldegren miners wash much, and they don’t believe in diluting their schnapps . . . .

  “Nobody will make you do anything,” lied Bill.

  His companion called to him, “Dump that junk, and we’ll get the show on the road!”

  “Our ETA, Mr. Pitcher?” asked Grimes.

  “We’re doing the best we can, sir, but we can’t make it before nineteen-hundred Local—another four and a half hours.”

  “Mr. Saul, do you read me?”

  “Sir?”

  “Lay a barrage of sleep gas on the bank of the river as soon as that column from Oxford gets under way.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  “And be careful.”

  “Of course, sir.” Saul’s voice was hurt.

  “Let me know as soon as you open fire, and give me a picture if you can.”

  “Very good sir.” Grimes could almost read the first lieutenant’s thoughts: Get off my back, Whitey!

  It is not only the black races who hate slavery, thought Grimes, and it is not only the black races who’ve been enslaved. But what the hell is Kane playing at? Pressing ahead with his blackbirding under the very nose of a Survey Service ship . . . He’s always prided himself on being able to keep just on the right side of the law.

  He said, “Get me Mr. Hayakawa, please.”

  “Yes, Captain?” asked the psionicist at last. His picture did not appear on the screen; that was being reserved for the transmissions from the lookout boat. “Yes, Captain?”

  “Mr. Hayakawa, I know that your opposite number aboard the Buster is maintaining a block, but have you been able to pick up anything?”

  “Yes, Captain. A few minutes ago there were stray thoughts from the mate of Southerly Buster. They ran like this, ‘And the beauty of it is that the stupid Space Scouts can’t touch us!’ “

  “That remains to be seen, Mr. Hayakawa,” said Grimes. “That remains to be seen.”

  21

  The trouble with radio as a means of communication is that anybody can listen. Grimes, in his later conversations with his ship, had employed a scrambler. He did not know whether or not Southerly Buster ran to a descrambling device. Apparently she did not. Dreebly appeared to be proceeding with his embarkation procedure as planned.

  In an orderly march the two hundred young women streamed out of Oxford, a score of spearmen at the head of the column, another twenty male warriors bringing up the rear, behind the carts laden with small possessions. Kane’s two men were in the lead. Grimes, remembering the general layout of the country, knew that once the van of the procession passed a low, tree-crowned hill it would be in the field of fire of Seeker’s guns. With an effort he restrained himself from taking over the fire control from Saul. He knew that a direct hit from a nonlethal gas shell can kill just as surely—and messily—as one from a high explosive projectile. But Saul was on the spot, and he was not. All he could do was to watch the marchers proceeding slowly along the bank of the winding river.

  He heard Saul say quietly, “Bearing one hundred and seventy-five true. Range three thousand. Shoot.”

  “Bearing one hundred and seventy-five. Range three thousand. Fire!”

  Even over the radio the hammering of the heavy automatics was deafening. Watching the screen Grimes saw a neat seam of explosions stitched across the line of advance of the Morrowvian women, saw the billowing clouds of greenish vapor pouring from each bursting shell.

  “Traverse, traverse! Now—ladder!”

  Nice gunnery, thought Grimes. Saul was boxing his targets in with the gas shells.

  A new voice came from the transceiver. It was Dreebly’s. “Southerly Buster to Seeker. What the hell are you playing at?”

  “Seeker to Southerly Buster. What the hell are you playing at?”

  Grimes decided that he had better intervene; Mr. Saul was not in a diplomatic mood. He said quietly, “Commander Grimes to Southerly Buster. What is the nature of your complaint, please?”

  Dreebly spluttered, then, “What is the nature of my complaint, you ask? Some butterfly-brained ape aboard your ship is firing off guns. There’re shells whistling past our control room.”

  “Routine weekly practice shoot, Mr. Dreebly,” said Grimes. “Don’t worry; we never hit anything unless we want to.”

  “But you’re firing toward Oxford!”

  “Are we? But our range setting is well short of the town.”

  “I know what you’re firing at, Commander Grimes. You’ve a boat up, spotting for you!”

  “What am I firing at, Mr. Dreebly?”

  “Pah! You make me sick!” Dreebly broke off the conversation. Grimes returned his attention to the screen. The gas was slowly thinning, and through its translucent veil he could see the untidily sprawling figures of the Morrowvians—and of Kane’s two officers.

  Maya demanded, “You haven’t killed them? You haven’t killed them?”

  “Of course not!” Grimes told her. “They’ll wake in a few hours’ time, without even a headache. I’ve just put them to sleep, that’s all. . . .”

  Meanwhile Timmins had succeeded in tuning in to the conversation between Dreebly and Kane. Kane was saying, “Get them aboard, and then get off-planet! Yes, I know they can’t walk—but you’ve ground cars, haven’t you? And there are respirators in the stores. Pull your finger out, Dreebly, and get cracking! What do you think I pay you for?”

  Saul was back on the air. “Sir, you heard all that. What do I do now?”

  I could answer that question a lot more easily, thought Grimes, if I knew that Kane was breaking Federation law. But he seems to have the idea that he is not . . . .

  “What do I do now?” repeated Saul.

  “Mphm. Carry on with your practice shoot, Mr. Saul. Use H.E. Chew up the ground between Southerly Buster and the . . . er . . . intending emigrants.”

  “Emigrants! The slaves, you mean, Captain.”

  “They aren’t slaves yet. Just make a mess of the terrain so that it’s impassable to Kane’s ground cars.”

  “But he’s got boats, sir. He can use them.”

  “He has two boats—a pinnace, which is still at Ballarat, and one lifeboat. The lifeboat is just big enough for his crew. It will take it a long time to ferry two hundred people—especially as they will have to be lifted aboard it, and lifted off.”

  “I see, sir. . . . But what if Southerly Buster fires
at us?”

  “They won’t dare, Mr. Saul. At least, I hope they won’t. If they do—if they do—it is your duty to take every possible measure for the protection of Seeker.”

  No, he thought, Kane won’t open fire, or order his mate to do so. Apart from anything else, he’s the injured, innocent citizen and I’m the big, bad, gun-toting villain. I’m not happy about things at all, at all. But I must stop him.

  Meanwhile, he wished that he were back aboard his ship. He liked guns. He knew that this was childish of him, and that it was high time that mankind outgrew its love for noisy pyrotechnics. He knew that a gun pleads to be pointed at something—and then begs to have its trigger pulled. He hoped that Saul would remain content merely to wreak havoc on the landscape.

  22

  Saul wreaked havoc on the landscape. Grimes, watching on his screen, thought, relishing the play on words, He’s wrecking the landscape. What had been grassland was now a crater-pitted desolation over which drifted acrid fumes, and the copses had been reduced to jagged, blackened stumps.

  Kane came on the air. His voice, despite the fact that it had been relayed through at least two stations, was loud and clear. He said, “Commander Grimes, this is Captain Kane. My mate tells me that your first lieutenant’s runnin’ amok.”

  “Running amok, Captain Kane? What do you mean?”

  “He’s shootin’ off his guns—your guns—like a madman. Wastin’ the taxpayers’ money. He’s interferin’ with the embarkation of my passengers.”

  “Passengers, Captain Kane?”

  “Yeah. Passengers. I own me own ship, an’ if I decide to go into the passenger trade, that’s my business.”

  “I’m sure it is, Captain. I’m sorry that my arrangements clashed with yours, but we were due for a practice shoot. . . .”

  “Oh, you were, were you? An’ did you promulgate a warnin’?”

  “Unfortunately the facilities for so doing don’t exist on this planet.”