First Command

by A Bertram Chandler

  She was what she was, just as he was what he was—and he had wallowed in the mire happily enough . . .

  He stooped and with both hands gently disengaged her fingers.

  He staggered on, finally out onto the ledge. The sunlight blinded him. Then at last he was able to see her, hanging above the valley, beautiful and brightly golden, The Far Traveler. It was from her that the music was blaring. It ceased suddenly, was replaced by the amplified voice of Big Sister.

  “I am sending the pinnace for you, Captain Grimes. It will come as closely alongside the cliff as possible. The robots will help you aboard.”

  He waited there, naked and filthy and ashamed, until the boat came for him.

  Chapter 21

  Grimes—clean, clothed, depilated but still shaky—sat in the Baroness’s salon telling his story. She listened in silence, as did the omnipresent Big Sister.

  When he was finished Big Sister said, “I must make a further analysis of the fungus specimens. Drug addiction among human and other intelligent life forms is not unusual, of course, but the symbiotic aspects of this case intrigue me.”

  “And the dreams,” said Grimes. ‘The dreams . . . I must have experienced the entire history of the Lost Colony . . .”

  “For years,” said Big Sister, “the fungus has been nourished by the waste products of the colonists’ bodies—and when they have died it has been nourished by the bodies themselves. It has become, in some way that I have yet to discover, the colonists. Is there not an old saying: A man is what he eats? This could be true for other living beings. And the symbiosis has been more, much more, than merely physical. By eating the fungus you, for a while, entered into the symbiotic relationship.”

  “Very interesting,” commented Grimes. “But you must have known what was happening to me, even if not why or how. You should have sent in the robots to drag me out by force.”

  “Command decisions are not my prerogative,” said Big Sister smugly. “Her Excellency did suggest that I attempt a forcible rescue but I dissuaded her. It was a matter for humans only, for humans to resolve for themselves, essentially for a human of your sort to resolve for himself. I know very well, Captain Grimes, how you hate robots, how your dislike for me has prevented you from being properly grateful for your rescue from Commander Delamere’s clutches.” There was a brief, almost human chuckle. “I did think that Her Excellency would be able to recapture you by the use of a very human bait, but her attempt was not successful . . .”

  Grimes looked at the Baroness, remembering her as he had seen her. His ears burned as he flushed miserably. If she were embarrassed by her own memory of the occasion she did not show it.

  “So,” went on Big Sister, “I made use of what I have learned of your peculiar psychology—your professional pride, your rather childish nationalism, your very real love of ships.” She paused, then said, “A man who loves ships can’t be all bad.”

  “A man,” said the Baroness coldly, “who could refuse what I offered can’t be all man.”

  He said, “I am sorry. I am truly sorry. But I was under the influence of the . . . manna . . .”

  She said, “In vino veritas, Captain Grimes. And worst of all is the knowledge that the cacophony of a ship’s engines, the trite music of a folksong about an Australian sheep stealer, succeeded where I failed. I will tell you now that I had intended that a relationship—not permanent but mutually satisfying—would develop between us. There is little likelihood now that this will come to pass. Our relations will remain as they have been since I first engaged you, those between employer and employee.”

  She turned away from Grimes, addressed the playmaster, ‘Take us up, Big Sister, up and away from this planet. I prefer not to remain on a world where I was unable successfully to compete with drug sodden degenerates or with an unhuman electronic intelligence.”

  Grimes wondered if Big Sister was feeling as resentful as he was himself. Probably not, he thought. Nonhuman electronic intelligences must surely be unemotional.

  Chapter 22

  So The Far Traveler lifted from Farhaven, with Grimes far less in actual command of the vessel than he ever had been, proceeding in the general direction of the Shakespearian Sector, out toward the rim of the galaxy.

  It was quite a while before the after effects of the drug wore off and until they did so Grimes was treated as a convalescent. It was during this period that he noticed a subtle change in Big Sister’s attitude toward him. He had, almost from the start, envisaged her as a bossy, hard-featured woman, hating and despising men. Now the imaginary flesh with which he clothed the electronic intelligence was that of an aunt whom, during his childhood, he had liked rather than loved, feared slightly, obeyed (for most of the time) during a period when his parents, away traveling, had left him in her charge. He recalled the unsuspected soft side of her nature which she had exhibited when he had been confined to his bed for some days after he had made a crash landing in the hot-air balloon that he had constructed himself, suffering two broken ribs and a fractured ankle.

  She had pampered him then, just as Big Sister was pampering him now (and as the Baroness most certainly was not). Nonetheless, a year or so later, he had been very surprised when this aunt had embarked upon a whirlwind romance with a Dog Star Line second mate who was enjoying a spell of shore leave on Earth, returning with this spaceman to his home world. (Now, he thought, remembering, he would not have been surprised. As a child he had regarded the lady as a dragon but she had been the sort of tall, lean auburn-haired woman that the adult Grimes always fell for.)

  Much as Big Sister reminded him of this aunt, thought Grimes, he could not imagine her eloping with anybody or anything. He supposed that, having saved him, she regarded herself as being responsible for him.

  Eventually, when Big Sister decided that he was functioning as well as he ever would function, he was bidden to the Baroness’s presence.

  The lady said, “I am informed that I once again can enjoy the services of my yachtmaster. Can you, out of your long and wide experience in the Survey Service, suggest our next port of call?”

  He thought hard then said doubtfully, “Kinsolving?”

  “Kinsolving,” she stated, “is not a Lost Colony.” (She must have been having a good rummage in Big Sister’s memory bank.) “It is one of the Rim Worlds. For some reason the colony was abandoned. There are now no people there at all. The object of my research, as well you know, is social evolution in the Lost Colonies. How can there be social evolution when there is nobody to evolve?”

  Grimes tried not to sigh too audibly. He was never at home in this lushly appointed Owner’s Suite or in the comic opera uniform that he was obliged to wear during these audiences. He would have been far happier in his own quarters. At least there he could smoke his pipe in peace. But his employer did not approve of smoking. Fortunately she did not disapprove of the use of drugs other than tobacco, such as alcohol—and, Grimes was bound to admit, her robot butler mixed a superb dry martini. He was appreciating the one that he was sipping; Big Sister had at last given him permission to drink again.

  He looked at her over the frosted rim of his glass. She was reclining gracefully on her chaise longue, looking (as always) like a rather superior version of Goya’s Maja. She looked at him very coldly. He realized that the top tunic button of his gold and purple livery was undone. He did it up.

  She said, “You aren’t much use, Captain, are you? I thought, in my girlish innocence, that an ex-Commander of the Interstellar Federation’s Survey Service would have been the ideal captain for an expedition such as this. I know that you, before you resigned your commission, discovered at least three Lost Colonies. There were New Sparta and Morrowvia, both of which we shall, eventually, be visiting. And there was, of course, Botany Bay. With reference to the first two worlds it will be interesting to see what effects your clumsy meddlings have had upon the lives of the unspoiled peoples of those planets . . .”

  Grimes was acutely conscious of the burning
flush that suffused his prominent ears. He, personally, would hardly have classed either the New Spartans or the Morrowvians as unspoiled—and New Sparta had been on the brink of a devastating civil war at the time of his landing. As for Morrowvia—he had not been the only interfering outsider. There had been the Dog Star Line’s Captain Danzellan, looking after the commercial interests of his principals. There had been the piratical Drongo Kane in his own Southerly Buster, looking after his own interests.

  “And didn’t you enjoy a liaison with one of the local rulers on Morrowvia?” continued the Baroness. “I find it hard to understand—but then, I have never been enamored of cats.”

  Maya, remembered Grimes. Feline ancestry but very much a woman—not like this cold, rich bitch . . . Then he hated himself for the uncharitable thought. He owed the Baroness much. Had it not been for her intervention he would have been called back to Lindisfarne to stand trial. And to have done what she had done in that vile cave on Farhaven must have required considerable resolution. He could hardly blame her for blaming him for the failure of that second rescue attempt.

  Nonetheless he said, with some indignation, “I was under the impression, Your Excellency, that my full and frank report on the happenings on Morrowvia was not to be released to the general public.”

  “I am not the general public,” she said. “Money, Captain Grimes, is the key that will open the door to any vault in the Galaxy. Your friend, Commander Delamere, was, I think, more impressed by my wealth than my beauty. There are many others like him.”

  Grimes missed the chance of saying something gallant.

  “Your Excellency, may I interrupt?” asked Big Sister, her voice coming from everywhere and nowhere.

  “You have already interrupted,” said the Baroness. “But continue.”

  “Your Excellency, I have monitored Carlotti transmissions from the Admiralty, on Earth, to all Survey Service ships and bases . . .”

  Have you! thought Grimes. Restricted wavebands, unbreakable codes . . . And what are they against the power of money!

  “A distress message capsule was picked up off Lentimure by the Survey Service destroyer Acrux. It originated from a ship called Lode Ranger. Text is as follows: Pile dead. Proceeding under diesel power. Intend landing on apparently habitable planet . . .”

  There was more—a listing of crew and passengers, what astronomical data might just possibly be of use to future rescuers. In very few cases, Grimes knew, was such information of any value—but a modern computer, given the elements of a capsule’s trajectory, could determine with some accuracy its departure point. And then the rescue ship, arriving a few centuries after the call for assistance, would find either a thriving Lost Colony or, after a search, the eroded wreckage of the lost ship and, possibly, a few human skeletons.

  Grimes asked, “Do you have the coordinates of the departure point?”

  Big Sister replied, “Apparently they are yet to be determined, Captain. As soon as they are transmitted by the Admiralty I shall inform you.”

  The Baroness said, “It just could happen that we shall be the nearest ship to the Lost Colony. It would be interesting to make the first landing upon such a world, before the clumsy boots of oafish spacemen have trampled all sorts of valuable evidence into the dust.”

  Grimes said, “Probably the Lost Colony, if there is one, is halfway across the Galaxy from here.”

  She said, “You are unduly pessimistic, Captain. Never forget that chance plays a great part in human life. And now, while we are waiting, could you refresh my memory regarding the gaussjammers and how it was that so many of them originated Lost Colonies?”

  You probably know more about it than I do, thought Grimes. After all, it’s you that’s writing the thesis.

  He said, “The gaussjammers, using the Ehrenhaft Drive, were the ships of the Second Expansion. Prior to them were the so-called Deep Freeze ships which, of course, were not faster than light. The gaussjammers, though, were FTL. With the Ehrenhaft generators in operation they were, essentially, huge monopoles. They tried to be in two places at once along a line of magnetic force, proceeding along such tramlines to their destinations. They were extremely vulnerable to magnetic storms; a really severe one could fling them thousands of light-years off course. There was another effect, too. The micro-piles upon which they relied for power would be drained of all energy. The captain of a gaussjammer lost in space, his pile dead, had only one course of action open to him. He used his emergency diesels to power the Ehrenhaft generators. He proceeded in what he hoped would be the right direction. When he ran out of diesel fuel his biochemist would convert what should have been food for the ship’s company into more fuel.

  “Finally, if he was lucky, he found a planet before food and fuel ran out. If his luck still held he managed to land in one piece. And then, if conditions were not too impossible, he and his people stood a fair chance of founding a Lost Colony.”

  Big Sister spoke again. “I have intercepted and decoded more signals. I estimate that we can be in orbit about Lode Ranger’s planet no more than ten standard days from now. As far as I can ascertain there are no Survey Service vessels in our vicinity; it is a reasonable assumption that we shall make the first landing. Have I your permission to adjust trajectory?”

  “Of course,” said the Baroness. “Adjust trajectory as soon as the captain and myself are in our couches.”

  “I should be in the control room,” said Grimes.

  “Is that really necessary?” asked the Baroness.

  Big Sister adjusted trajectory, shutting down inertial drive and Mannschenn Drive, using the directional gyroscopes to swing the ship about her axes, lining her up on the target star. Grimes, sweating it out in his bunk, did not doubt that due and proper allowance was being made for galactic drift. He was obliged to admit that Big Sister could do everything that he could do, and at least as well—but he should have been doing it (That aunt of his who had run away with the Sirian spaceman had annoyed the young Grimes more than once by doing the things that he thought that he should have been doing.) He listened to the cold yet not altogether mechanical voice making the routine announcements: “Stopping inertial drive. Stand by for free fall . . . Mannschenn Drive—off.” There was the usual sensation of spatial and temporal disorientation. “Directional gyroscopes—on. Prepare for centrifugal effects . . . Directional gyroscopes—off. Mannschenn Drive—restarting.” And the low hum, rising to a thin, high whine as the spinning rotors built up speed, precessing, tumbling down the dark dimensions . . . And the colors, sagging down the spectrum, and the distorted, warped perspective . . . And, as often happened, the transitory flash of déjà vu . . . This was happening now, had happened before, would happen again but . . . differently. In some other Universe, on a previous coil of time—or, perhaps, on a coil of time yet to be experienced—he had married the Princess Marlene, the father of whose sons he was, on El Dorado, had been accepted by the aristocratic and opulent inhabitants of that planet as one of the family, a member of the club and, eventually, using his wife’s money, had caused the spaceyacht, The Far Traveler, to be built to his own specifications. He was both Owner and Master. He was—but briefly, briefly, in that alternate universe—a truly contented man.

  And then outlines ceased to waver, colors to fade, intensify and shift, and he was . . . himself.

  He was John Grimes, disgraced ex-Commander, late of the Federation’s Survey Service, Master de jure but not de facto of a ship that was no more—or was she more, much more, but not in any way that conceivably could benefit him?—than the glittering toy of an overly rich, discontented woman.

  “On trajectory,” said Big Sister, “for Lode Ranger’s planet. Normal routine may be resumed.”

  “I am coming up to Control,” said Grimes.

  “You may come up to Control,” said Big Sister, making it sound as though she was granting a great favor.

  Chapter 23

  The Far Traveler fell through the warped continuum toward the yellow
sun on one of whose planets Lode Ranger’s people had found refuge. She was alone and lonely, with no traffic whatsoever within range of her mass proximity indicator. Distant Carlotti signals were monitored by Big Sister and, according to her, no ship was closer than the destroyer Acrux—and she was one helluva long way away.

  Nonetheless Grimes was not happy. He said, “I know, Your Excellency, that with the advent of Carlotti Radio it is no longer mandatory to carry a Psionic Communications Officer—but I think that you should have shipped one.”

  “Have a prying telepath aboard my ship, Captain Grimes?” she flared. “Out of the question! It is bad enough being compelled by archaic legislation to employ a human yachtmaster.”

  Grimes sighed. He said, “As you know, PCOs are carried aboard all Survey Service vessels and in the ships of most other navies. They are required to observe the code of ethics formulated by the Rhine Institute. But today their function is not that of ship to ship or ship to planet communication. They are, primarily, a sort of psychic radar. How shall I put it? This way, perhaps. You’re making a landing on a strange world. Are the natives likely to be friendly or hostile? Unless the indigenes’ way of thinking is too alien your PCO will be able to come up with the answer. If The Far Traveler carried a PCO we should already have some sort of idea of what we shall find on Lode Ranger’s planet. Come to that, a PCO would have put us wise to the state of affairs on Farhaven and saved us from a degrading experience.”

  “I would prefer that you did not remind me of it,” she said. “Meanwhile we shall just have to rely upon the highly efficient electronic equipment with which this ship is furnished.”