He said, “Welcome aboard, Commander Grimes! I beg your pardon, Commodore Grimes. But I always think of you as that boy scoutish Survey Service lieutenant commander who was captain of Seeker.”
Grimes removed his respirator with the hand that was not holding the gun. “Captain Kane,” he said, “you are under arrest, and your ship is seized.”
“Am I, now? Is she, now? Let’s not be hasty, Commander—Commodore, I mean. What will the Federation say when it hears that a breakaway colonial officer has arrested one of its shipmasters? Suppose we have a yarn about old times first, Commodore. Come on up to my dogbox to see how the poor live. This is Liberty Hall—you can spit on the mat an’ call the cat a bastard!”
“I’d rather not accept your hospitality, Captain Kane, in these circumstances. Or in any circumstances.”
“Still the same stuffy bastard, ain’t yer, Grimes? But if yer seizin’ Southerly Buster III—I still haven’t forgiven yer fer what yer did ter the first Southerly Buster—yer’ll have ter see her papers. Register, Articles o’ Agreement an’ all the rest of it.”
“He’s right,” said Billinghurst.
“Ain’t yer goin’ ter introduce me to yer cobbers, Commodore?”
“This is Mr. Billinghurst,” said Grimes curtly, “chief collector of customs for the Confederacy. And this is Commander Williams, of the Rim Worlds Navy.”
“The way I’m surrounded,” drawled Kane. “I suppose I should surrender. But I ain’t goin’ to. I . . .”
Whatever else he said was drowned by the sudden clamour of Southerly Buster’s inertial drive as she lifted with vicious acceleration, as she staggered under the sudden application of lateral thrust that threw the three unprepared men heavily to the deck.
Kane’s stungun was out, and a couple of tough-looking characters, similarly armed, had put in an appearance.
Speaking loudly to be heard above the irregular beat of the drive Kane said cheerfully, “An’ if he’s doin’ what he was told ter do, my gunnery boy’s just in the act o’ vaporizin’ your transport with his pet laser cannon. I hope none o’ your nongs are still inside that coach they came in.”
But he didn’t seem to be worrying much about it.
Chapter 31
“AN’ NOW,” drawled Drongo Kane, “what am I goin’ ter do with you bastards?”
“Return us to Inferno Valley!” snapped Grimes.
Kane lazily surveyed his prisoners—Clavering, Grimes, Billinghurst, and Williams, the officers from Rim Malemute, the customs sub-inspectors. He said, leering in Denise Dalgety’s direction, “Seems a cryin’ shame ter throw a good blonde back ter where she came from, don’t it?”
The girl flushed angrily and Williams snarled, “That’s enough o’ that, Kane!”
“Is it, now, Commander? Get it inter yer thick head—an’ that goes for all o’ yer—that there ain’t a thing any o’ yer can do.”
And there’s not, thought Grimes. Not until this paralysis wears off. And it won’t, as long as these goons keep giving us extra shots with their stunguns as soon as it looks like doing so.
“In fact,” Kane went on, “I think I deserve some reward for goin’ back, for not leavin’ Blondie an’ the others wanderin’ around in the desert.” He extricated a gnarled cigar from the breast pocket of his uniform coverall, ostentatiously lit it with his laser pistol. It stank as bad as it looked.
“Release us at once!” blustered Billinghurst.
“An’ wouldn’t yer be peeved if I did, Chief Collector? What if I took yer at yer word, an’ dumped yer down in the Painted Badlands, miles from anywhere, an’ with no transport but yer own bleedin’ hooves?” He exhaled a cloud of acrid smoke. “But yer dead lucky. Clavering here won’t play ball, so I have ter go all the way ter Inferno Valley in person, singin’ an’ dancin’, ter make me own deal with the boss cocky o’ that bunch o’ holy joes. Church o’ the Gateway, ain’t it? They want dreamy weed, I’ve got it. They can have it, at my price.” He fixed his attention on Grimes. “Ever hear o’ Australis, Commodore? Not Austral. Australis. A frontier planet like these worlds o’ yours, only ‘stead o’ bein’ on the Rim it’s way out to hell an’ gone beyond the south rotor bearin’ o’ the Galaxy. Did a sim’lar deal there, wi’ some bunch o’ religious nuts. They had a guru, too. Often wonder what happened. Been no news out o’ Australis fer quite some time. Could be that the world itself ain’t there any more. After I heard the guru’s advance spiel about what he said was goin ter be the final act o’ worship, acceptance an’ all the rest of it I decided ter get the hell out.” He grinned. “Tell yer what. I’ll return yer all ter Inferno Valley, an’ insist that this Guru William try ter make converts o’ yer. If he won’t play he gets no dreamy weed.”
“The users of it,” remarked Billinghurst, “claim that dreamy weed is nonaddictive.”
Keep out of it, you stupid, fat slob! thought Grimes.
“So ’t’is, Chief Collector. So ’t’is. Smoked it once myself—try anythin’ once, that’s me. Guess I’ve the wrong kind o’ mind. Didn’t see visions or dream dreams. But I’m a baddie, an’ you’re all goodies.”
Clavering said, “There will be no business transactions of any kind on my world.”
“An who’s goin’ ter stop me from doin’ business? Not you, fer a start. You were pleased enough ter take yer rake-off from my deals until that silly bitch got blown up, weren’t yer? Oh, well, go an’ stew in yer own juice with the other goodies.”
Grimes realized that sensation was coming back into his hands and feet, that he could move his fingers and toes. He mentally measured the distance between himself and the arrogant Drongo Kane, and between Kane and the three armed spacemen lounging negligently in the doorways of the ship’s saloon. There was a chance, he thought. There was a chance, and if he could use Kane’s body as a shield it might be a good one.
“Mr. Welland,” drawled Drongo Kane, “yer might give the . . . er . . . passengers a sprayin’ over with yer stungun. I noticed the commodore twitchin’ his pinkie just now.”
The weapon, set on low power, buzzed softly. Grimes’ nerves tingled, then went dead. He could breathe, he could move his eyes, he could speak, even, but that was all.
“I’ll give yer all a stronger dose before we land,” Kane promised them. “The guru an’ his boys an’ girls can carry yer off me ship.”
“You’ll be sorry for this,” promised Grimes.
“I shan’t be when I count the foldin’ money that Guru William’s goin’ ter hand over ter me,” Kane assured him. “Or, if I am, I shall cry all the way ter the bank.”
Chapter 32
KANE LEFT THEN, presumably to take over the pilotage of his ship. The three guards remained. They sneered at Billinghurst’s offer of a free pardon, a reward even, if they assisted the forces of law and order. They laughed loudly when Denise Dalgety made an appeal to their decency as human beings. Welland, who seemed to be Kane’s second mate, exclaimed, “We ain’t decent, lady; if we were we wouldn’t be in Drongo’s rustbucket. If yer want ter find out just how indecent we can be . . .”
“No!” she cried. “You wouldn’t!”
“Wouldn’t I, honey?”
But he didn’t, though it was obvious that it was fear of Kane that restrained him rather than any respect for the girl.
Grimes, listening to the varying beat of the inertial drive, was trying to work out where they were. They were flying through severe turbulence, that much was obvious. He said to Clavering, “Has Kane been to Inferno Valley before?”
“Only as a passenger, Commodore. And only in my flier, usually during the evening lull.”
“Mphm. Will he be able, do you think, to get down into the valley with the winds on top at gale force, at least?”
“You did, Commodore.”
“In a much smaller ship.”
Welland guffawed scornfully. “The Old Man could take this bitch through hell without singeing her hide! But stow the gab, will yer? Yer none o’ yer sparklin’ conv
ersationalists!”
“For the last time . . .” began Billinghurst, making a final attempt to enlist aid from this unlikely quarter.
“Aw, shaddup!”
The stunguns buzzed, and breathing became almost impossible, and talking quite impossible.
Grimes could still think, and he could hear. There were surges of power as lateral thrust was applied one way and the other, then a diminution of the irregular beat as vertical thrust was reduced.
Southerly Buster III was coming in for a landing.
Chapter 33
THOSE WHO HAD BEEN KANE’S PRISONERS were seated in a group to one side of the huge dining hall, and with them were Sally Clavering and the members of Clavering’s staff. These, too, had been incapacitated by judicious use of the stunguns. Drongo Kane had collected his payment from the Guru William and had gone, the noisy hammering of his inertial drive echoing back and forth between the sheer cliffs of the valley’s walls until it had suddenly faded into silence.
Kane was gone—but the Guru William remained.
He was a harmless man—to judge by his appearance—saintly, even. He had stood over the nonbelievers after they had been dragged and carried into his temple and had looked at them for long minutes, a faint smile curving his mouth, his huge, brown eyes looking through and beyond the helpless men and women. He murmured, “Peace.”
Grimes tried to say something, anything, but could not. He would be voiceless until the paralysis wore off.
“Peace,” murmured the guru again, but in a louder tone. “Peace. The last, the everlasting, peace. And you, my sons and my daughters, are blessed, for you shall see, with us, the cessation of all that is harsh, all that is discordant.”
Billinghurst managed to make some sort of noise. “Blahh . . . blahh.”
“I must leave you, my sons and my daughters, my brethren, my sisters. The worship, the last act of worship, of acceptance, is to begin. Surrender yourselves. Join with us, the People of the Gateway. The gateway is about to be opened.”
On to what? Grimes demanded of himself desperately. On to what? More than any of the others, with the possible exception of Williams, he was starting to realize the implications of it all. He tried to hold his breath as he smelled the sweet yet acrid taint that was beginning to pervade the air in the dome, reasoning that the smoke of burning dreamy weed was being blown in through the air-conditioning system. He wondered how much the Guru William had paid for the consignment. A small fortune—or a large one—must be smoldering away somewhere behind the scenes.
William had mounted the dais and, surrounded by acolytes, was squatting there in the lotus posture. The bald heads of the women glimmered eerily in the dim light. Their eyes, and the eyes of the men, seemed to be self-luminous. Drifting streamers of gray fog curled about them.
“We accept . . .” intoned the Guru.
“We accept . . .” repeated his flock. The words had a faraway sound, like a thin, cold wind rustling the detritus of long dead years.
“The nothingness . . .”
“The nothingness . . .”
“Beyond the stars.”
“Beyond the stars.”
The nothingness, or the otherness, thought Grimes. Here, out on the Rim, on the very edge of the expanding galaxy, the skin of the bubble that held the continuum was stretched almost to bursting, the barriers between the dimensions were flimsy, almost nonexistent. There were, Grimes knew all too well, the other time tracks, the alternate universes. And what—if anything—lay between the time tracks, the universes?
“Open the Gateway . . .”
“The Gateway to Never . . .”
I will not believe, Grimes told himself. I will not believe.
The effects of the last stungun shock were wearing off now, but the fumes of the consciousness-expanding drug were taking effect. On the dais the guru’s form was outlined by an aura, not of light, nor yet of darkness, but of nothingness.
And the word beat in the Commodore’s mind, Never . . . never . . . never. . . . Those about him were becoming insubstantial, filmy. . . . He lifted his hand—and realized with horror that he could see through it, that he was looking through skin and flesh and bone at the calm, the impossibly calm face of Pahvani.
“Nirvana . . .” the young sub-inspector was murmuring. “Nirvana. . . .”
And was this what had happened on Australis, to Australis? Was this why Drongo Kane had gotten away and clear like a bat out of hell? The picture that formed in Grimes’ mind of a huge, black, winged mammal beating its way through and between towering columns of crimson fire was as real as though he were actually seeing it—and it was better than that nothingness which was showing through the widening rents in the very continuum.
“Open the Gateway . . .”
“The Gateway to Never . . .”
“Accept, accept . . .”
I’m damned if I’ll accept, thought Grimes.
Light was beating upwards in waves—red, orange, dazzling blue-white—from the core of the planet, washing over and through Grimes’ body like cool water, dissipating itself in the utterly starless dark, the dark that was a negation of everything, all around, light that fought a losing battle against the nothingness, that faded, faster and faster, to a faint, ashy glimmer. He put out his hand, or thought that he put out his hand, to catch one of the last, feeble photons, held it in his cupped palm, stared at the dying, weakly pulsating thing and willed it to survive. It flared fitfully, and . . .
Somebody had hold of his sleeve, was shaking it. Somebody was saying, almost hissing, “Sir, sir!”
Grimes stared at the intrusive being. So this was what lay in the nothingness between the time tracks. It was hell, the old-fashioned hell of the fundamentalist faiths at which he had always sneered, a hell peopled by horrendous, horned and tailed demons. . . .
“Sir! Sir! Come back, please!”
Come back? What the hell was this stupid devil yapping about? How could he come back when he was only just getting there?
“Sir! Earthquake. Bad one!”
“Go away . . . go away. . . .”
The scaled, clawed hands were at his face, were forcing something over his head. Grimes drew in a panicky breath, and the sudden inhalation of almost pure oxygen nearly choked him. He put up his hands to try to tear off the respirator, but there were devils all around him, restraining him. He was aware that the floor was heaving underfoot, and he was fighting as much to retain his balance as to throw off his assailants.
His assailants?
His saviors.
The floor was like a calm sea over which a long, low swell was rolling, and the walls of the dome were bellying inwards. But only Grimes and his attendant demons were aware of this—and he still wondered if this were actuality or some drug-induced vision. Billinghurst squatted there like a Buddha, and beside him young Pahvani was staring into—or at—nothingness, a supernaturally sweet smile on his thin face. Williams was muttering, “The Outback. The last Outback . . .” And Sally Clavering . . . was that a halo faint-gleaming about her head, or was it merely a wreathing streamer of dreamy weed smoke?
And were Billinghurst and Williams and the others as insubstantial as the guru and his people? They were all fading, fading fast, as they swayed in time to the waves that swept across the floor in regular undulations. They were fading—and again, through rents in the very fabric of space-time, that ultimate, horrifying nothingness was increasingly evident.
If only the simple, three-dimensional fabric of the dome would rend, to release the hallucinogenic fumes. . . .
What was hallucination, and what was not?
“Sir, sir!” It was the devil who had first pulled Grimes back to reality, or to what passed for reality. “Sir, sir! Do something, please! We are frightened.”
You aren’t the only one, thought Grimes.
He looked at the native. He must have been a kitchen helper of some kind. He was wearing an incongruous white apron, and a belt with a pouch into which were thrust
various tools.
“Give me your knife,” ordered the commodore.
He grabbed the implement, used it to tear away the black hangings shrouding the interior wall of the dome. Behind these the plastic was tough, too tough, even though the knife was razor-sharp. And then . . . and then the wall bellied inwards as there was a particularly severe tremor and the skin was stretched almost to bursting.
The knife penetrated, and tore the outer skin as well. There was a great whoosh as the air rushed out, and Grimes and his helpers were blown through the opening into the night, into the night that was blessedly normal despite the earthquake shocks that continued, with increasing severity. He stood there, keeping his balance somehow, and watched in fascination as the fantastic bubble structure that was the Lucifer Arms collapsed upon itself, as balloon after glowing balloon deflated, some with explosive suddenness, some slowly. The generators kept working until the very end, and the darkness—the real darkness, the natural darkness—did not sweep in until the last bubble had burst.
Grimes had battery powered emergency lights brought from Rim Malemute, and then the rescue work began.
Chapter 34
“I’VE JUST HEARD FROM CLAVERING,” said Grimes to Sonya. “He and Sally didn’t come out of it too badly. The Lucifer Arms was insured against earthquake damage, and Lloyd’s paid up.”
“Earthquake damage!” she scoffed. “Earthquake damage! When you were running amok with a long knife!”
“It wasn’t all that long. And there was an earthquake, after all.”
“Joking apart, John, what do you make of it all?”
“You’ve read my report.”
“Yes. But I sort of gained the impression that you were too scared, still, to write what you really thought.”
“Could be. Could be. You know, I keep thinking of the Lucifer Arms as a microcosm of the universe in which we live, our space-time continuum. What would have happened if the Guru William had succeeded in bursting the bubble of what we think of as reality, just as I burst that bubble of inflated plastic?”
Gateway to Never (John Grimes) Page 14
