Chapter 16
IT WAS NOT A LONG PURSUIT, and it ended in stalemate.
Falling through the nonspace, nontime between the dimensions were the four ships: Adler, Wanderer, both versions of Faraway Quest. Trajectories had been matched, in spite of the initial efforts of Adler and Faraway Quest I to throw off their pursuers; but it was only those two vessels that had synchronized temporal precession rates.
Back toward The Outsider they ran, all four of them, a mismatched squadron. And they would run past their objective, and go on running, until somebody did something, somehow, to break the deadlock.
Meanwhile, Grimes had learned that his crew was safe, although they were now prisoners. At last, at long last, and with assistance from Metzenther and Trialanne, Mayhew had been able to reestablish his rapport with Clarisse. It had not been easy, but after many hours of concentrated effort the three telepaths had been able to drag her mind up out of its drugged sleep to a condition of full awareness. She was able, then, to supply the details of Druthen’s take-over of the ship. It had been done with surprising ease, merely by the introduction of an instantaneously anesthetic gas into the air circulatory system. In theory, this should have been impossible. Alarms should have sounded; pumps and fans should have stopped; baffle plates should automatically have sealed off the ducts. But Druthen was a scientist, and his people were scientists and technicians. He had a very well-equipped laboratory at his disposal. And, most important of all, Mayhew and Clarisse had obeyed that commandment of the Rhine Institute: Thou shalt not pry into the mind of a shipmate.
“It’s no use crying over spilt milk, Ken,” Grimes told his psionic communications officer. “At least we know that Clarisse and the others are unhurt. . . .”
“What the hell’s the use of having these talents if you don’t use ’em?” wondered Flandry, all too audibly.
“Some of us,” Grimes told him coldly, “subscribe to ethical codes.”
“Don’t we all, Commodore? Do unto others as they would do unto you—but do it first!”
“Captain Flandry is right, John,” said Sonya.
Yes, thought Grimes, I suppose the bastard is right. And, come to that, I’ve tried often enough, and sometimes successfully, to get PCOs to pry for me. . . . Like Spooky Deane, who loved his gin—or my gin. . . . Even so. . . .
Anyhow, there was now telepathic communication between the two Faraway Quests, and communication regarding which neither Druthen nor the captain of Adler was aware. Not that it would have worried them much if they had known about it. Clarisse was locked up in the quarters that she had shared with her husband. There was little that she could tell him, and nothing that she could do. She could not communicate with the other prisoners, who were nontelepaths. She could not even pry into the minds of Druthen and his people—and neither could Mayhew and Metzenther and Trialanne. The scientist had, somehow, succeeded in stimulating Mayhew’s psionic amplifier—it could, of course, have been just a side effect of the anesthetic gas that had been used during the takeover—and the continual howling of that hapless, disembodied dog’s brain blanketed all stray thoughts. Trained telepaths could punch their signals through the psionic interference, but that was all.
In any case, Druthen was willing enough to talk.
He, fat and slovenly as ever, glowered out at Grimes from the screen of the Carlotti transceiver. Grimes stared back at him, trying to keep his own face emotionless. It was all wrong that he should be looking into his own control room this way, from outside, that he should see the nerve center of his own ship in the hands of strangers, of enemies. With Druthen were two of the scientist’s own people, and in the background were three uniformed men: large, blond, obviously officers of the Waldegren Navy.
The senior among them, a full commander by his braid, came to stand beside Dr. Druthen. Druthen seemed to resent this, tried to push the officer out of the field of the iconoscope. He muttered, “Nehmen Sie mal Ihre Latschen weg.”
The other replied, “Sie sind zwar dick genug für zwei, aber Sie haben nur für einen Platz gezahlt Rücken Sie weiter.”
Sonya laughed. Grimes asked her, “What’s the joke?”
“Just that they don’t seem to love each other. Druthen told the commander to get his big feet out of his way, and the commander told him that even though he’s big enough to fill two seats he’s only paid for one. . . .”
“Paid?” asked Grimes.
“Obviously. He’s bought his way into the Duchy of Waldegren.”
“Ja,” agreed the Waldegren commander. And then, speaking directly to Grimes, “And you the captain of this ship were? But . . .” His eyes widened. “Vich of you der kapitan vas?”
“I suppose we’re twins, of a sort,” grinned Grimes I. “The gentleman standing behind me is Commodore Grimes, commanding Faraway Quest. And I am Commodore Grimes, commanding Faraway Quest—the Faraway Quest aboard which you, sir, are trespassing.”
“But I am the captain now,” stated Druthen, smugly.
Grimes ignored this. He asked coldly, “Where are my people?” (There was no point in letting Druthen and the officers of the prize crew know that he was already fully informed on that subject.)
“Do you want them back?” countered Druthen, with an infuriating expression of deliberate incredulity.
“Yes. And my ship.”
Druthen laughed sneeringly. “You don’t want much, Commodore. Or should I say, ex-Commodore? Your masters will not be very pleased with you. The ship—I keep. Doubtless the Duchy will pay me a fair price for her. The crew . . . They are useful hostages. You and your allies dare make no hostile move for fear of hurting them.” The fat face was suddenly gloating, evil. “And, perhaps, I can use them to persuade you to call off this futile chase. Suppose I have them thrown, one by one, unsuited, out of the airlock . . . ?”
“Herr Doktor!” snapped the commander. “Enough. That I will never countenance. I am an officer, not an executioner.”
“Sie glauben wohl Sie sind als Schiffsoffizier was besonderes!”
“Hau’ab!” The commander struck rather than pushed Druthen away from the screen. Those in the control room of Quest II watched, fascinated, a brief scuffle in the control room of the other ship. And then the senior officer of the prize crew was addressing them again. “Herr Commodore, my apologies. But I my orders must follow, even when I am told to cooperate with schwein. Aber, my word I give. I, Erich von Donderberg, promise you that your crew will be treated well as long as I in this ship am.”
“Thank you, Commander,” said Grimes stiffly.
Druthen, with one eye puffed and almost shut, bleeding from the corner of his mouth, reappeared.
“Officers!” he spat. “Gold-braided nincompoops, survivals from a past age who should have become extinct millennia ago! I’m cutting you off, Grimes. I want the transceiver so that I can call Captain Blumenfeld in Adler. There’ll be some changes made in the composition of this so-called prize crew!”
The screen went blank.
“What now?” asked Flandry. “You know these Waldegren people. I don’t.”
“They’re naval officers,” said Grimes at last. “They’re professional naval officers. They can be ruthless bastards—but they do, at times, subscribe to a rather antique code of honor. . . .”
“I concur,” said Grimes II.
“Would you mind,” asked Grimes I, “passing the recording of this rather odd interview on to Wanderer? Irene and her people may have some comments.”
“Certainly, Commodore.”
“And you should be able to let us know, Ken, if Druthen is able to persuade Captain Blumenfeld to let him play the game his way?”
“I’ll try,” said Mayhew doubtfully. “I’ll try. With Clarisse alert and with Metzenther and Trialanne to help us. . . . Yes, I should manage.”
“And so,” commented Flandry, “we just, all of us, go on falling through sweet damn all until somebody condescends to make something happen.”
“That’s the way of
it,” agreed Grimes.
Chapter 17
THEY, ALL OF THEM, went on falling through sweet damn all.
They swept past The Outsider’s Ship, which was still dimly visible, although the derelicts in orbit about it were not. Neither was Flandry’s Vindictive. The imperial captain complained rather bitterly that he was unable to communicate with his ship. Both Grimeses growled, simultaneously, that it was the fault of his culture for developing neither psionic communications nor the Carlotti system. Both Mrs. Grimeses were inclined to commiserate with Flandry. Relations aboard Faraway Quest II were becoming strained. Aboard Wanderer there were not the same problems. There was only one of each person, and there were no outsiders.
Out they fell, the four ships, out into the ultimate night.
Druthen and Captain Blumenfeld made an occasional attempt at evasion, which was countered with ease by the pursuers. Once Blumenfeld, using the Carlotti equipment, tried to reason with Grimes—either or both of him—and with Irene, who had been hooked into the conversation.
Blumenfeld was an older and stouter version of von Donderberg, and he was more of the politician and less of the space officer. His accent was not so heavy. He appeared in the screens of Faraway Quest II and Wanderer by himself, a fatherly-grandfatherly, almost, figure, smoking an elaborate pipe with a porcelain bowl. It was a pity that his cold, very cold, blue eyes spoiled the effect.
“Come now, Commodore,” he said, “we are both reasonable men. And you, Kaiserin, are a reasonable lady. What do any of us gain by this pointless chase?”
“You gain nothing,” Grimes told him. “Furthermore, you are intruding in Rim Worlds’ territorial space. I order you, legally, to hand my ship and my personnel back to me, and also Dr. Druthen and his people so that they may be dealt with by our courts. . . .”
“You order, Commodore?” asked the other Grimes softly.
“Yes. I order, Commodore. Faraway Quest I is mine, and Druthen and his accomplices will be my prisoners.”
“Speak up, Commodores,” put in Blumenfeld jovially. “Do I detect a slight dissension in your ranks? And you, Kaiserin, do you acknowledge the right of these gentlemen to give orders? And you, Captain Sir Dominic Flandry? What is your view?”
“We’ll settle our own differences after you have been disposed of,” growled Irene.
“I second that,” said Flandry.
Captain Blumenfeld puffed placidly at his pipe. Grimes wondered what tobacco it was that he was smoking. The man seemed to be enjoying it. At last he said, through a wreathing blue cloud, “My patience is not inexhaustible, Commodore. Or Commodores. I am addressing, however, whichever one of you it is who commanded the Faraway Quest aboard which I have placed my prize crew. The good Herr Doktor Druthen has made certain proposals to me regarding the prisoners. I was horrified, and told him so, in no uncertain terms. But . . .” There was a great exhalation of smoke. “But . . . I have thought about what he said to me. I still do not like it.” He shrugged heavily.
“Nonetheless, my loyalty is to the Duchy, not to citizens of a Confederacy that the Duchy still has not recognized. It may—note that I say ‘may,’ Commodore, not ‘will’—it may be expedient to use those prisoners as a lever to force a certain degree of compliance from you.” Again he shrugged. “I shall not like doing it—assuming, that is, that I am obliged to do it. And I shall not resort to painful or . . . messy methods. Just a simple shooting, to be watched by all of you. And then, after a suitable interval, another. And then, if it is necessary, another.” He smiled coldly. “But there is no real urgency. You will be given time to think it over, to talk it over. Three days’ subjective time, shall we say? Call me on this frequency. Over. And out.”
The screen went blank, but the other screen, that showing Wanderer’s control room, stayed alive.
“Well?” demanded Irene harshly. “Well?”
“Suppose,” said Grimes, “just suppose that I do knuckle under, to get my people back, my ship back. Suppose that I, as the ranking officer of the Rim Worlds Confederacy, do allow him prior rights to The Outsider. . . . What about you and you, Commodore Grimes, and you, Captain Flandry?”
“I shall abide by your decision, John,” said the other Grimes.
“Speaking for the Federation,” said Sonya, “I shall be with you.”
“You beat me to it,” said Maggie Lazenby.
“I’ll have to think about it,” stated Irene.
“As tour charterer,” Smith told her, “I have some say. A great deal of say. I sympathize with Commodore Grimes. But it’s a matter of evaluation. Are the lives of a handful of people of greater importance than the lives of the millions of oppressed men and women and children who look to GLASS for help?”
“Anybody mind if I shove in my two bits’ worth?” asked Flandry. “I owe allegiance neither to the Federation nor to the Confederacy and certainly not to GLASS. I swore an oath of fealty to the emperor.” He looked at Irene’s face in the screen, and added, “My emperor. But my sympathies are with the commodore.”
“Thank you, Sir Dominic,” said Grimes.
“Wait till you see the bill. Furthermore, sir, I would remind you that you have at your disposal equipment and personnel which I have not. The same applies to you, ma’am. You have your espers. Can’t you make full use of them?”
“I would remind you, Sir Dominic,” said Mayhew, “that my wife is among the prisoners aboard the Quest.”
“All the more reason why you should pull your finger out. All of you.”
You arrogant bastard, thought Grimes.
“Sir Dominic’s talking sense,” said Sonya. “We have the telepaths. Adler hasn’t. Furthermore, one of our telepaths is aboard your Quest, John. There must be something that Clarisse can do to help herself. And the others.”
“It’s all we can do to get through to her,” objected Mayhew. “There’s too much interference from Lassie. . . .”
Sonya muttered something about a poodle’s brain in aspic. Then she said, “Why don’t you silence the bitch? Lassie, I mean. There’s three of you here: Metzenther and Trialanne aboard Wanderer, and yourself. You told us once—remember?—that thoughts can kill.”
“I . . . I couldn’t, Sonya. . . .”
“Damn it all!” exploded Grimes. “Do you put that animal brain before your wife? What sort of man are you?”
“But . . . but Lassie’s so . . . helpless.”
“So is Clarisse, unless we do something to help her—and fast. It is essential that she be able to keep us informed as to what Druthen is thinking, and von Donderberg . . . and with that psionic interference snuffed out you should be able to keep us informed as to Captain Blumenfeld’s intentions. You must do it, Ken.”
“Yes,” agreed the telepath slowly. “I . . . must. Metzenther and Trialanne will help. They have already told me that.”
“Then go to it,” ordered Grimes.
Not for the first time he thought, They’re odd people. Too bloody odd. But I suppose when you live inside your pet’s brain, and it lives inside yours, you feel more intensely for and about it than any normal man feels for his dog. . . . There’ll be guilt involved, too. . . . You’ll blame yourself for its absolute helplessness. . . .
He watched Mayhew stumbling out of the control room, his features stiff, too stiff. He saw the sympathy on the face of Grimes II, and rather more than a hint of a sneer on that of Flandry.
Grimes II looked at his watch. He said, “There’s nothing much that we can do, Commodore, until your Commander Mayhew reports results. I suggest that we all adjourn for dinner.”
“An army marches on its stomach,” quipped Flandry. “I suppose that the same saying applies to a space navy.”
“I’ve never known John to miss a meal,” Sonya told him, “no matter what the circumstances.”
Women . . . thought Grimes—both of him.
“You said it,” agreed Maggie Lazenby.
Chapter 18
THIS WAS THE FIRST PROPER, sit-down meal t
hat anybody had enjoyed for quite a while. Not that Grimes really enjoyed it. He was used to eating at the captain’s table—but at the head of the board. To see himself sitting there, a replica of himself, was . . . odd. He derived a certain wry pleasure from the fact that this other Grimes, like himself, was not one to let conversation interfere with the serious business of feeding. He did not think, somehow, that Maggie appreciated this trait any more than Sonya did.
There were five of them at the commodore’s table. Grimes II was at the head of it, of course, with Maggie Lazenby at his right and Sonya at his left. Grimes I sat beside Maggie, and Flandry beside Sonya. The imperial captain was a brilliant conversationalist, and the two women were lapping it up. He made his own time track sound so much more glamorous than the time tracks of the two Grimeses—which, in any case, differed only very slightly from each other. He made the two commodores seem very dull dogs in comparison with his flamboyant, charming self. And, in spite of the nonstop flow of outrageous anecdotes, his plate was clean before any of the others.
The meal, Grimes admitted, was a good one. Grimes II kept an excellent table, and the service, provided by two neatly uniformed little stewardesses, matched the quality of the food. There was wine, of which Grimes II partook sparingly, of which the others partook not so sparingly. Grimes thought, with disapproval, That man Flandry is gulping it down as though it were lager . . . then realized that he was doing the same.
At last they were finished, sipping their coffee. Grimes—both of him—pulled out his pipe. His wife—both of her—objected, saying, “John! You know that the air conditioners can’t cope with the stink!” Flandry, sleek and smug, lit a cigar that one of the stewardesses brought him. The ladies accepted lights from him for their cigarillos.
Grimes, from the head of the table, looked at Grimes with slightly raised eyebrows. He said, “I’m going up to Control, Commodore, to enjoy my pipe in peace. The officer of the watch mightn’t like it, but he daren’t say so. Coming?”
Gateway to Never (John Grimes) Page 22
