The Makeshift Rocket

by Poul Anderson

  In the end, Rory McConnell did allow himself to be prevailed upon. For ten minutes only. Half an hour later, much refreshed, he mounted to the bridge and resumed acceleration.

  Grendel was little more than a tarnished farthing among the stars. New Winchester had swelled until it was a great green and gold moon. There would be warships in orbit around it, patrolling – McConnell dismissed the thought and gave himself to his search.

  After all this time, it was not easy. Space is big and even the largest beer keg is comparatively small. Since Herr Syrup had shifted the plane of his boat’s orbit by a trifle – an hour’s questing confirmed that this must be the case – the volume in which he might be was fantastically huge. Furthermore, drifting free, his vessel painted black, he would be hard to spot, even when you were almost on top of him.

  Another hour passed.

  ‘Poor darling,’ said Emily, reaching from her chair to rumple the major’s red locks. ‘You’ve tried so hard.’

  New Winchester continued to grow. Its towns were visible now, as blurred specks on a subtle tapestry of wood and field and ripening grain; the Royal Highroad was a thin streak across a cloud-softened dayface.

  ‘He’ll have to reveal himself soon,’ muttered McConnell from his telescope. ‘That beer blast is so weak—’

  ‘Dear me, I understood Mr. Sarmishkidu’s beer was rather strong,’ said Emily.

  McConnell chuckled. ‘Ah, they should have used Irish whisky in their jet. But what I meant, me beloved, was that in so cranky a boat, they could not hope to hit their target on the nose, so they must make course corrections as they approach it. And with so low an exhaust velocity, they’ll need a long time of blastin’ to – Hoy! I’ve got him!’

  The misty trail expanded in the viewfield, far and far away. McConnell’s hands danced on the control board. The spaceship turned about and leaped ahead. The crane, projecting out of the cargo hatch, flexed its talons hungrily.

  Fire burst!

  After a time of strangling on his own breath, McConnell saw the brightness break into rags before his dazzled eyes. He stared into night and constellations. ‘What the devil?’ he gasped. ‘Is there a Sassenach ship nearby? Has the auld squarehead a gun? That was a shot across our bows!’

  He zipped past the boat at a few kilometers’ distance while frantically scouring the sky. A massive shape crossed his telescopic field. It grew before his eyes as he stared – it couldn’t be—‘Our own ship!’ choked McConnell. ‘Our own Erse ship.’

  The converted freighter did not shoot again, for fear of attracting Anglian attention. It edged nearer, awkwardly seeking to match velocities and close in on the Mercury Girl. ‘Get away!’ shouted McConnell. ‘Get out of the way, ye idiots! ’Tis not meself ye want, ’tis auld Syrup, over there. Git out of me way!’ He avoided imminent collision by a wild backward spurt.

  The realization broke on him. ‘But how do they know ’tis me on board here?’ he asked aloud.

  ‘Telepathy!’ suggested the girl, fluttering her lashes at him.

  ‘They don’t know. They can’t even have noticed the keg boat, I’ll swear. So ’tis us they wish to board an’ – Get out of the way, ye son of a Scotchman!’

  The Erse ship rushed in, shark-like. Again McConnell had to accelerate backward to avoid being stove. New Winchester dwindled in his viewports.

  He slapped the console with a furious hand. ‘An’ me lackin’ a radio to tell ’em the truth,’ he groaned. ‘I’ll jist have to orbit free, an’ let ’em lay alongside an’ board, an’ explain the situation.’ His teeth grated together. ‘All of which, if I know any one thing about the Force’s high command, will cost us easy another hour.’

  Emily smiled. The Mercury Girl continued to recede from the goal.

  ‘I t’ink ve is in good broadcast range now,’ said Herr Syrup.

  His boat was again inert, having exhausted nearly all its final cask. New Winchester waxed, already spreading across several degrees of arc. If only some circling Navy ship would happen to see the vessel; but no, the odds were all against that. Ah, well. Weary, bleary, but justifiably triumphant, Herr Syrup tapped the oscillator key.

  Nothing happened.

  ‘Vere’s de spark?’ he complained.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Sarmishkidu. ‘I thought you would.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ screamed Claus.

  Herr Syrup snarled inarticulately and tapped some more. There was still no result. ‘It was okay ven I tested back at de ship,’ he pleaded. ‘Of course, I did not dare test much or de Ersers might overhear, but it did vork. Vat’s gone crazy since?’

  ‘I vould suggest that since most of the transmission apparatus is outside by the batteries, something has worked loose,’ answered Sarmishkidu. ‘We could easily have jarred a wire off its terminal or some such thing.’

  Herr Syrup swore and stuffed himself up into the space-suit and tried to see what was wrong. But the oscillator parts were not accessible, or even visible, from this position: another point overlooked in the haste of constructing the boat. So he would have to put on the complete suit and crawl back to attempt repairs; and that would expose the interior of the cabin, including poor old Claus, to raw space – ‘Oh, Yudas,’ he said.

  There was no possibility of landing on New Winchester; there never had been, in fact. Now the barrel didn’t even hold enough reaction mass to establish an orbit. The boat would drift by, the oxygen would be exhausted, unless first the enemy picked him up. Staring aft, Herr Syrup gulped. The enemy was about to do so.

  He had grinned when he saw the Erse-controlled ships nudge each other out of sight. But now one of them, yes, the Girl herself, with a grapnel out at the side, came back into view.

  His heart sagged. Well, he had striven. He might as well give up. Life in a yeast factory was at least life.

  No, by heaven!

  Herr Syrup struggled back into the box. ‘Qvick!’ he yelled. ‘Give me de popcorn!’

  ‘What?’ gaped Sarmishkidu.

  ‘Hand me up de carton vit’ popcorn t’rough the valve, an’ den give me about a minute of full acceleration forvard.’

  Sarmishkidu shrugged with all his tentacles, but obeyed. A quick pair of blasts faced the boat away from the approaching ship. Herr Syrup’s space-gauntleted hand closed on the small box as it was shoved up through the stovepipe diaphragm, and he hurled it from him as his vessel leaped ahead.

  The popcorn departed with a speed which, relative to the Girl, was not inconsiderable. Exposed to vacuum, it exploded from its pasteboard container as it gained full, puffy dimensions.

  Now one of the oldest space war tactics is to drop a mass of hard objects, such as ball bearings, in the path of a pursuing enemy. And then there are natural meteors. In either case, the speeds involved are often such as to wreak fearful damage on the craft. Rory McConnell saw a sudden ghastly vision of white spheroids hurtling toward him. Instinctively, he stopped forward acceleration and crammed on full thrust sideways.

  Almost, he dodged the swarm. A few pieces did strike the viewport. But they did not punch through, they did not even crater the tough plastic. They spattered. It took him several disgusted minutes to realize what they had been. By that time, the Erse ship had come into view with the plain intention of stopping him, laying alongside, and finding out what the devil was wrong now. When everything had been straightened out, a good half hour had passed.

  ‘Dere is for damn sure no time to fix de oscillator,’ said Herr Syrup. ‘Ve must do vat ve can.’

  Sarmishkidu worked busily, painting the large pretzel box with air-sealing gunk. ‘I trust the bird will survive,’ he said.

  ‘I t’ink so,’ said Herr Syrup. ‘I t’row him and de apparatus avay as hard as I can. Ve vill pass qvite close to de fringes of de asteriod’s atmosphere. He has not many minutes to fall, and de oxygen keeps him breat’ing all dat vile. Ven de whole t’ing hits de air envelope, dere vill be enough impact to tear open de pretzel box and Claus can fly out.’

 
The boat rumbled softly, blasting as straight toward New Winchester as its crew had been able to aim. It gave a feeble but most useful weight to objects within. Sarmishkidu finished painting the box and attached a tube connecting it with one of the oxygen flasks.

  ‘Now, den, Claus,’ said Herr Syrup, ‘I have tied a written message to your leg, but if I know you, you vill rip it off and eat it as soon as you are free. However, if I also know you, you vill fly straight for de nearest pub and try to bum a beer. So, repeat after me: “Help! Help!! Invaders on Grendel.” Dat’s all. “Help! Help! Invaders on Grendel.”’

  ‘McConnell is a skunk,’ said Claus.

  ‘No, no! “Help! Invaders on Grendel.”’

  ‘McConnell cheats at cards,’ said Claus. ‘McConnell is a teetotaller. McConnell is a barnacle on de nose of society. McConnell—’

  ‘No, no, no!’

  ‘No, no, no!’ echoed Claus agreeably.

  ‘Listen,’ said Herr Syrup after a deep breath. ‘Listen, Claus. Please say it. Yust say, “Help! Help! Invaders on Grendel.”’

  ‘Nevermore,’ said Claus.

  ‘We had best proceed,’ said Sarmishkidu.

  He stuffed the indignant crow into the box and sealed it shut while Herr Syrup got back in the spacesuit: including, this time, its pants. And then, having aerated himself enough to stand vacuum for a while, Sarmishkidu unfastened the armor from the hatch cover. Herr Syrup popped inboard. Air rushed out. Herr Syrup pushed the oxygen cylinder, with Claus’ box, through the hole.

  New Winchester was so close it filled nearly half the sky. Herr Syrup made out towns and farms and orchards, through fleecy clouds. He sighed wistfully, shoved the tank from him as hard as he could, and watched it dwindle. A moment afterward, the asteroid itself began to recede; he had passed peri-New Winchester and was outward bound on a long cold orbit.

  ‘So,’ said Herr Syrup, ‘let de Erse come pick us up.’ He realized he was talking to himself: no radio, and anyhow Sarmishkidu had curled into a ball. There was no point in resealing the cabin – the other oxygen bottle was long exhausted.

  ‘I never t’ought de future of two nations could depend on vun old crow,’ sighed Herr Syrup.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘Tsk-Tsk-Tsk,’ said Rory McConnell. ‘An’ your radio didn’t work after all?’

  ‘No,’ wheezed Herr Syrup. He was still a little blue around the nose. It had been a grim wait of many hours, crouched in the spinning wreckage of his boat; his suit’s air supply had been low indeed when the Mercury Girl finally came to him.

  ‘An’ ye say your poor auld bird was lost as well?’

  ‘Blown out ven de gasket blew out dat I told you of.’ Herr Syrup accepted a cigar and leaned his weary frame gratefully back against the gymbal-swung acceleration bench in the saloon. There was still no functioning compensator and the Mercury Girl, with an Erse crew aboard, was pacing back to Grendel at a quarter gee.

  ‘Then all your trouble was for nothin’?’ McConnell did not gloat; if anything, he was too sympathetic.

  ‘I guess so,’ Herr Syrup answered rather bleakly, thinking of Claus. No doubt the crow would look at once for human society; but what was he likely to convey except a string of oaths? Too late, the engineer saw that he should have put some profanity into his message.

  ‘Well, ye were a brave foe, an’ ’tis daily I’ll come by Grendel gaol to cheer yez,’ said McConnell, clapping his shoulder. ‘For I fear the General will insist on lockin’ yez up for the duration. He was more than a little annoyed, I can tell yez; he was spittin’ rivets. He wanted for to leave you drift off to your fate, an’ we had quite an argument about it, wherefore I am now just another private soldier in the ranks.’ McConnell rubbed his large knuckles reminiscently. ‘However, I won me point. Himself went back hours ago in t’other ship, but he let me stay wi’ this one and pick yez up. But I dared not go close to the Anglian capital, but must wait until ye had orbited so far away that no chance Navy ship would see us an’ get curious. An’ so long a delay meant ye were hard to find. We were almost too late, eh, what?’

  ‘Ja,’ shuddered Herr Syrup. He tilted the proffered bottle of Irish to his lips.

  ‘But all’s well that ends well, even though ‘twas said by an Englishman,’ chuckled McConnell. He squeezed Emily’s hand. She smiled mistily back at him. ‘For I’ll regain me auld rank as soon as the swellin’ in the General’s eye has gone down so he can see how much I’m needed. An’ then ’twill be time to effect the glorious redemption of Laoighise, an’ then, Emily, you an’ I will be wed, an’ then – Well!’ He coughed. She blushed.

  ‘Ja,’ snorted Sarmishkidu. ‘Good ending, huh? With my business ruined, und me in jail, und maybe a war started, and that dummkopf of a Shalmuannusar claiming he proved the sub-unitary connectivity theorem before I did, as if publishing first had anything to do with priority – Ha!’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Emily compassionately.

  ‘Oh, darlin’,’ said McConnell.

  ‘Oh, sweetheart,’ cooed Emily, losing interest in Sarmishkidu.

  ‘Oh, me little turtle dove,’ whispered McConnell.

  Herr Syrup fought a strong desire to retch.

  A bell clanged. McConnell stood up. ‘That’s the signal,’ he said. ‘We’ve come to Grendel an’ I’ll be wanted on the bridge. ’Twill be an unendin’ few minutes till I see yez ag’in, me only one.’

  ‘Goodbye, my beloved,’ breathed the girl. Herr Syrup gritted his teeth.

  Her manner changed as soon as the Erseman had left. She leaned over toward the engineer and asked tensely: ‘Do you think we succeeded? I mean, do you?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ he sighed. ‘In de end, only Claus vas left to carry de vord.’ He explained what had happened. ‘Even supposing he does repeat vat he vas supposed to, I doubt many people vould believe a crow dat has not even been introduced.’

  ‘Well—’ Emily bit her lip. ‘We tried, didn’t we? But if a war does come – between Rory’s country and mine. No! I won’t think about it!’ She rubbed small fists across her eyes.

  Uncompensated forces churned Herr Syrup on his seat. At last they quieted; the engine mumble died; a steady one gee informed him that the Mercury Girl was again berthed on Grendel. Tm going to Rory,’ said Emily. Almost, she fled from the saloon.

  Herr Syrup puffed his cigar, waiting for the Erse to come take him to prison. The first thing he would do there, he thought dully, was sleep for about fifty hours…. He grew aware that several minutes had passed. Sarmishkidu sat brooding in a spaghetti-like nest of tentacles. The ship had grown oddly quiet, no feet along the passageways. Shrugging, Herr Syrup got up, strolled out of the saloon and down a corridor, entered the open main passenger airlock and looked upon the spacefield.

  The cigar dropped from his mouth.

  The Erse flag was down off the staff and the Anglian banner was back. A long, subdued line of green-clad men shuffled past a heap of their own weapons. Trucks were bringing more every minute. They trailed one by one into a military transport craft berthed nearby, accompanied by hoots and jeers – and an occasional tearful au revoir – from the Grendelian townspeople crowded against the port fence. A troop of redcoats with bayoneted rifles was urging the prisoners along, and the gigantic guns of H.M.S. Inhospitable shadowed the entire scene.

  ‘Yudas priest!’ said Herr Syrup.

  He stumbled down onto the ground. A brisk young officer surveyed him through a monocle, sketched a salute, and extended an arm. ‘Mr Syrup? I understand you were aboard. Your crow, sir.’

  ‘Hell and damnation!’ said Claus, hopping from the Anglian wrist to the Danish shoulder.

  ‘Pers’nally,’ said the young man, ‘I go for falcons.’

  ‘You come!’ whispered Herr Syrup. ‘You come!’

  ‘Just a short hop, don’t y’ know. We arrived hours back. No resistance, except – er—’ The officer blushed. ‘I say, don’t look now, but that young lady in the, ah, rather brief costume and, er, passionate embrace with
the large chappie – d’ you know anything about ’em? Mean to say, she claims she’s the vicar’s daughter and he’s her fiance and she goes where he goes, and really, sir, I jolly well don’t know whether to evacuate her with the invaders or give him a permit to remain here or, or what, damn!’

  Herr Syrup stole a glance. ‘Do vatever seems easiest,’ he said. ‘I don’t t’ink to dem it makes mush difference.’

  ‘No. I suppose not.’ The officer sighed.

  ‘How did you find out vat vas happening here? Did de crow really give somevun my message?’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘Go sputz yourself!’ rasped Claus.

  ‘No, not dat vun,’ said Herr Syrup quickly.

  ‘My dear sir,’ said the officer, ‘when a half-ruined oxygen bottle, with the name Mercury Girl still identifiable on it, lands in a barley field … and we’ve been wirelessed that I that ship is under quarantine … and then when this black I bird flies in a farmer’s window and steals a scone off his tea I table and says, ah, uncomplimentary things about one Major McConnell … well, really, my dear chap, the farmer will I phone the police and the police will phone Newer Scotland I Yard and the Yard will check with Naval Intelligence and, I well, I mean to say it’s obvious, eh, what, what, what?’

  ‘ja,’ said Herr Syrup weakly. ‘I suppose so.’ He hesitated. ‘Vat you ban going to do vit’ de Ersers? Dey vas pretty decent, considering. I vould hate to see dem serving yail sentences.’

  ‘Oh, don’t worry about that, sir. Mean to say, well, it’s a bally embarrassing situation all around, eh? We don’t want to admit that a band of half-cocked extremists stole one of our shires right out from under our noses, so to speak, what? We can’t suppress the fact, of course, but we aren’t exactly anxious to advertise it all over the Solar System, y’ know. As for the Erse government, it doesn’t want trouble with us – Gaelic Socialists, y’ know, peaceful chappies – and certainly doesn’t want to give the opposition party a leg up; so they won’t support this crazy attempt in any way. At the same time, popular sentiment at home won’t let ’em punish the attempt either. Eh?‘