To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga

by A Bertram Chandler

  And then Deane said to him, “She is tiring of her tasteless food.”

  She would be, thought Grimes dully. And then there was the urge to placate, to please. Although he had never made a deep study of the arthropedal race he knew, as did all spacemen, which Terran luxuries were appreciated by the Shaara. He went up to his quarters, found what he was looking for. He decanted the fluid from its own glass container into a squeeze bottle. Had it been intended for human consumption this would not have been necessary, now that the ship was accelerating, but Shaara queens do not, ever, feed themselves.

  He went back to the throne-room. Deane and the huge arthroped watched him. The Queen’s eyes were even brighter than usual. She lifted her forelimbs as though to take the bottle from Grimes, then let them fall to her side. Her gauzy wings were quivering in anticipation.

  Grimes approached her slowly. He knelt before her, holding the bottle before him. He raised it carefully, the nippled end towards the working mandibles. He squeezed, and a thin, amber stream shot out. Its odor was rich and heavy in the almost still air of the compartment.

  More! the word formed itself in his mind. More!

  He went on squeezing.

  But . . . You are not a worker . . . You are a drone . . .

  And that word “drone” denoted masculinity, not idleness.

  You are a drone . . . You shall be the first father of the new Hive . . .

  “Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker . . .” muttered Deane, struggling to maintain a straight face.

  Grimes glared at the telepath, What was so funny about this? He was feeling, strongly, the stirrings of desire. She was female, wasn’t she? She was female, and she was beautiful, and he was male. She was female—and in his mind’s eye those flimsy wings were transparent draperies enhancing, not concealing, the symmetry of the form of a lovely woman—slim, with high, firm breasts, with long, slender legs. She wanted him to be her mate, her consort.

  She wanted him.

  She . . .

  Suddenly the vision flickered out.

  This was no woman spread in alluring, naked abandon.

  This was no more than a repulsive insect sprawled in drunken untidiness, desecrating the flag that had been spread over the table that served it for a bed. The wings were crumpled, a dull film was over the faceted eyes. A yellowish ichor oozed from among the still-working mandibles.

  Grimes retched violently. To think that he had almost . . .

  “Captain!” Deane’s voice was urgent. “She’s out like a light! She’s drunk as a fiddler’s bitch!”

  “And we must keep her that way!” snapped Grimes. He was himself again. He strode to the nearest bulkhead pick-up. “Attention, all hands! This is the Captain speaking. Shut down inertial and interstellar drive units. Energize Carlotti transceiver. Contact any and all shipping in the vicinity, and request aid as soon as possible. Say that we are drifting, with main engines inoperable due to fuel shortage.” He turned to Deane. “I’m leaving you in charge, Spooky. If she shows signs of breaking surface, you know what to do.” He looked sternly at the telepath. “I suppose I can trust you . . .”

  “You can,” the psionic communications officer assured him. “You can. Indeed you can, captain. I wasn’t looking forward at all, at all, to ending my days as a worker in some peculiar Terran-Shaara Hive!” He stared at Grimes thoughtfully. “I wonder if the union would have been fertile?”

  “That will do, Mr. Deane,” growled Grimes.

  “Fantastic,” breathed Commodore Damien. “Fantastic. Almost, Mr. Grimes, I feel a certain envy. The things you get up to . . .”

  The aroma of good Scotch whisky hung heavily in the air of the Commodore’s office. Damien, although not an abstainer, never touched the stuff. Grimes’s tastes were catholic—but on an occasion such as this he preferred to be stone cold sober.

  “It is more than fantastic,” snarled the Shaara Queen-Emissary, the special envoy of the Empress herself. Had she not been using a voice-box her words would have been slurred. “It is . . . disgusting. Reprehensible. This officer forced liquor down the throat of a member of our Royal family. He . . .”

  “He twisted her arm?” suggested the Commodore.

  “I do not understand. But she is now Queen-Mother of Brooum. A drunken, even alcoholic Queen-Mother.”

  “I saved my ship and my people,” stated Grimes woodenly.

  Damien grinned unpleasantly. “Isn’t this where we came in, Lieutenant? But no matter. There are affairs of far more pressing urgency. Not only do I have to cope with a direct complaint from the personal representative of Her Imperial Majesty . . .”

  Even though she was wearing a voice-box, the Queen-Emissary contrived to hiccough. And all this, Grimes knew, was going down on tape. It was unlikely that he would ever wear the ribbon of the Order of the Golden Honeyflower, but it was equally unlikely that he would be butchered to make a Shaara holiday.

  “He weaned her on Scotch . . .” persisted the Queen-Emissary.

  “Aren’t you, perhaps, a little jealous?” suggested Damien. He switched his attention back to Grimes. “Meanwhile, Lieutenant, I am being literally bombarded with Carlottigrams from Her not-so-Imperial Majesty on Brooum demanding that I dispatch to her, as soon as possible if not before, the only drone, in the Galaxy with whom she would dream of mating . . .”

  “No!” protested Grimes. “NO!”

  “Yes, mister. Yes. For two pins I’d accede to her demands.” He sighed regretfully. “But I suppose that one must draw some sort of a line somewhere . . .” He sighed again—then, “Get out, you drone!” he almost shouted. It was a pity that he had to spoil the effect by laughing.

  “We are not amused,” said the Shaara Queen.

  The Wandering Buoy

  It shouldn’t have been there.

  Nothing at all should have been there, save for the sparse drift of hydrogen atoms that did nothing at all to mitigate the hard vacuum of interstellar space, and save for the Courier Adder, proceeding on her lawful occasions.

  It shouldn’t have been there, but it was, and Grimes and his officers were pleased rather than otherwise that something had happened to break the monotony of the long voyage.

  “A definite contact, Captain,” said von Tannenbaum, peering into the spherical screen of the mass proximity indicator.

  “Mphm . . .” grunted Grimes. Then, to the Electronic Communications Officer. “You’re quite sure that there’s no traffic around, Sparks?”

  “Quite sure, Captain,” replied Slovotny. “Nothing within a thousand light years.”

  “Then get Spooky on the intercom, and ask him if he’s been in touch with anybody—or anything.”

  “Very good, Captain,” said Slovotny rather sulkily. There was always rivalry, sometimes far from friendly, between electronic and psionic communications officers.

  Grimes looked over the Navigator’s shoulder into the velvety blackness of the screen, at the tiny, blue-green spark that lay a little to one side of the glowing filament that was the ship’s extrapolated trajectory. Von Tannenbaum had set up the range and bearing markers, was quietly reading aloud the figures. He said, “At our present velocity we shall be up to it in just over three hours.”

  “Spooky says that there’s no psionic transmission at all from it, whatever it is,” reported Slovotny.

  “So if it’s a ship, it’s probably a derelict,” murmured Grimes.

  “Salvage . . .” muttered Beadle, looking almost happy.

  “You’ve a low, commercial mind, Number One,” Grimes told him. As I have myself, he thought. The captain’s share of a fat salvage award would make a very nice addition to his far from generous pay. “Oh, well, since you’ve raised the point you can check towing gear, spacesuits and all the rest of it. And you, Sparks, can raise Lindisfarne Base on the Carlotti. I’ll have the preliminary report ready in a couple of seconds . . .” He added, speaking as much to himself as to the others, “I suppose I’d better ask permission to deviate, although the G
alaxy won’t grind to a halt if a dozen bags of mail are delayed in transit . . .” He took the message pad that Slovotny handed him and wrote swiftly, To Officer Commanding Couriers. Sighted unidentified object coordinates A1763.5 x ZU97.75 x J222.0 approx. Request authority investigate. Grimes.

  By the time that the reply came Grimes was on the point of shutting down his Mannschenn Drive and initiating the maneuvers that would match trajectory and speed with the drifting object.

  It read, Authority granted, but please try to keep your nose clean for a change. Damien.

  “Well, Captain, we can try,” said Beadle, not too hopefully.

  With the Mannschenn Drive shut down radar, which gave far more accurate readings than the mass proximity indicator, was operable. Von Tannenbaum was able to determine the elements of the object’s trajectory relative to that of the ship, and after this had been done the task of closing it was easy.

  At first it was no more than a brightening blip in the screen and then, at last, it could be seen visually as Adder’s probing searchlight caught it and held it. To begin with it was no more than just another star among the stars, but as the ship gained on it an appreciable disc was visible through the binoculars, and then with the naked eye.

  Grimes studied it carefully through his powerful glasses. It was spherical, and appeared to be metallic. There were no projections on it anywhere, although there were markings that looked like painted letters or numerals. It was rotating slowly.

  “It could be a mine . . .” said Beadle, who was standing with Grimes at the viewport.

  “It could be . . .” agreed Grimes. “And it could be fitted with some sort of proximity fuse . . .” He turned to address von Tannenbaum. “You’d better maintain our present distance off, Pilot, until we know better what it is.” He stared out through the port again. Space mines are a defensive rather than offensive weapon, and Adder carried six of the things in her own magazine. They are a dreadfully effective weapon when the conditions for their use are ideal—which they rarely are. Dropped from a vessel being pursued by an enemy they are an excellent deterrent—provided that the pursuer is not proceeding under interstellar drive. Unless there is temporal synchronization there can be no physical contact.

  Out here, thought Grimes, in a region of space where some sort of interstellar drive must be used, a mine just didn’t make sense. On the other hand, it never hurt to be careful. He recalled the words of one of the Instructors at the Academy. “There are old spacemen, and there are bold spacemen, but there aren’t any old, bold spacemen.”

  “A sounding rocket . . .” he said.

  “All ready, Captain,” replied Beadle.

  “Thank you, Number One. After you launch it, maintain full control throughout its flight. Bring it to the buoy or the mine or whatever it is very gently—I don’t want you punching holes in it. Circle the target a few times, if you can manage it, and then make careful contact.” He paused. “Meanwhile, restart the Mannschenn Drive, but run it in neutral gear. If there is a big bang we might be able to start precessing before the shrapnel hits us.” He paused again, then, “Have any of you gentlemen any bright ideas?”

  “It might be an idea,” contributed Slovotny, “to clear away the laser cannon. Just in case.”

  “Do so, Sparks. And you, Number One, don’t launch your rocket until I give the word.”

  “Cannon trained on the target,” announced Slovotny after only a few seconds.

  “Good. All right, Number One. Now you can practice rocketship handling.”

  Beadle returned to the viewport, with binoculars strapped to his eyes and a portable control box in his hands. He pressed a button, and almost at once the sounding rocket swam into the field of view, a sleek, fishlike shape with a pale glimmer of fire at its tail, a ring of bright red lights mounted around its midsection to keep it visible at all times to the aimer. Slowly it drew away from the ship, heading towards the enigmatic ball that hung in the blaze of the searchlight. It veered to one side to pass the target at a respectable distance, circled it, went into orbit about it, a miniscule satellite about a tiny primary.

  Grimes started to get impatient. He had learned that one of the hardest parts of a captain’s job is to refrain from interfering—even so . . . “Number One,” he said at last, “don’t you think you could edge the rocket in a little closer?”

  “I’m trying, sir,” replied Beadle. “But the bloody thing won’t answer the controls.”

  “Do you mind if I have a go?” asked Grimes.

  “Of course not, Captain.” Implied but not spoken was, “And you’re bloody welcome!”

  Grimes strapped a set of binoculars to his head, then took the control box. First of all he brought the sounding rocket back towards the ship, then put it in a tight turn to get the feel of it. Before long he was satisfied that he had it; it was as though a tiny extension of himself was sitting in a control room in the miniature spaceship. It wasn’t so very different from a rocket-handling simulator.

  He straightened out the trajectory of the sounding rocket, sent it back towards the mysterious globe and then, as Beadle had done, put it in orbit. So far, so good. He cut the drive and the thing, of course, continued circling the metallic sphere. A brief blast from a braking jet—that should do the trick. With its velocity drastically reduced the missile should fall gently towards its target. But it did not—as von Tannenbaum, manning the radar, reported.

  There was something wrong here, thought Grimes. The thing had considerable mass, otherwise it would never have shown so strongly in the screen of the MPI. The greater the mass, the greater the gravitational field. But, he told himself, there are more ways than one of skinning a cat. He actuated the steering jets, tried to nudge the rocket in towards its objective. “How am I doing, Pilot?” he asked.

  “What are you trying to do, Captain?” countered von Tannenbaum. “The elements of the orbit are unchanged.”

  “Mphm.” Perhaps more than a gentle nudge was required. Grimes gave more than a gentle nudge—and with no result whatsoever. He did not need to look at Beadle to know that the First Lieutenant was wearing his best I-told-you-so expression.

  So . . .

  So the situation called for brute strength and ignorance, a combination that usually gets results.

  Grimes pulled the rocket away from the sphere, almost back to the ship. He turned it—and then, at full acceleration, sent it driving straight for the target. He hoped that he would be able to apply the braking jets before it came into damaging contact—but the main thing was to make contact, of any kind.

  He need not have worried.

  With its driving jet flaring ineffectually the rocket was streaking back towards Adder, tail first. The control box-was useless. “Slovotny!” barked Grimes. “Fire!”

  There was a blinding flare, and then only a cloud of incandescent but harmless gases, still drifting towards the ship.

  “And what do we do now, Captain?” asked Beadle. “Might I suggest that we make a full report to Base and resume our voyage?”

  “You might, Number One. There’s no law against it. But we continue our investigations.”

  Grimes was in a stubborn mood. He was glad that Adder was not engaged upon a mission of real urgency. These bags of Fleet Mail were not important. Revised Regulations, Promotion Lists, Appointments . . . If they never reached their destination it would not matter. But a drifting menace to navigation was important. Perhaps, he thought, it would be named after him. Grimes’s Folly . . . He grinned at the thought. There were better ways of achieving immortality.

  But what to do?

  Adder hung there, and the thing hung there, rates and directions of drift nicely synchronized, and in one thousand seven hundred and fifty-three Standard years they would fall into or around Algol, assuming that Grimes was willing to wait that long—which, of course, he was not. He looked at the faces of his officers, who were strapped into their chairs around the wardroom table. They looked back at him. Von Tannenbaum—the Blond Be
ast—grinned cheerfully. He remarked, “It’s a tough nut to crack, Captain—but I’d just hate to shove off without cracking it.” Slovotny, darkly serious, said, “I concur. And I’d like to find out how that repulsor field works.” Vitelli, not yet quite a member of the family, said nothing. Deane complained, “If the thing had a mind that I could read it’d all be so much easier . . .”

  “Perhaps it’s allergic to metal . . .” suggested von Tannenbaum. “We could try to bring the ship in towards it, to see what happens . . .”

  “Not bloody likely, Pilot,” growled Grimes. “Not yet, anyhow. Mphm . . . you might have something. It shouldn’t be too hard to cook up, with our resources, a sounding rocket of all-plastic construction . . .”

  “There has to be metal in the guidance system . . .” objected Slovotny.

  “There won’t be any guidance systems, Sparks. It will be a solid fuel affair, and we just aim it and fire it, and see what happens . . .”

  “Solid fuel?” demurred Beadle. “Even if we had the formula we’d never be able to cook up a batch of cordite or anything similar . . .”

  “There’d be no need to, Number One. We should be able to get enough from the cartridges for our projectile small arms. But I don’t intend to do that.”

  “Then what do you intend, Captain?”

  “We have graphite—and that’s carbon. We’ve all sorts of fancy chemicals in our stores, especially those required for the maintenance of our hydroponics system. Charcoal, sulphur, saltpeter . . . Or we could use potassium chlorate instead of that . . .”