Gateway to Never (John Grimes)

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Thank you, Commodore.”

  He (they) excused himself (themselves), got to his (their) feet. Flandry and the wives were enjoying liqueurs with their coffee and hardly noticed their going. Grimes II led the way out of the dining saloon, which, as a public room in a much larger ship, was luxurious in comparison with that aboard Faraway Quest I. Indoor plants, the lush, flowering vines of Caribbea twining around every pillar. Holograms, brightly glowing, picture windows opening onto a score of alien worlds. Grimes paused before one that depicted a beach scene on Arcadia. Maggie was an Arcadian. He looked closely to see if she were among the naked, golden-skinned people on the sand and in the surf. But what if she was? He grunted, followed his counterpart into the axial shaft.

  The control room seemed bleak and cold after the warm luxury of the dining saloon. The officer of the watch got to his feet as the two commodores entered, looked doubtfully from one to the other before deciding which one to salute. But he got it right. Outside the viewports was—nothingness. To starboard, Grimes knew, were his own ship and Adler, and beyond them was Irene’s Wanderer—but unless temporal precession rates were synchronized they would remain invisible. One of the Carlotti screens was alive. It showed a bored-looking Tallentire slumped in his chair, his fingers busy with some sort of mathematical puzzle.

  “Any word from our tame telepaths yet, Mr. Grigsby?” asked Grimes II.

  “No, sir. Commander Mayhew did buzz me to tell me that he and the people aboard Wanderer are still trying but aren’t getting anywhere.”

  “Mphm.” Grimes slumped into an acceleration chair, motioning to Grimes to follow suit. He (they) filled and lit his (their) pipes. “Mphm.”

  “There must be a way,” said Grimes thoughtfully.

  “There always is,” agreed Grimes. “The only trouble is finding it.”

  The two men smoked in companionable silence. Grimes I was almost at ease but knew that he would be properly at ease only aboard his own Faraway Quest. He looked around him, noticing all the similarities—and all the differences. From the control room he went down, in his mind, deck by deck. And then . . . and then the idea came to him.

  “Commodore,” he said, “I think I have it. Do you mind if I borrow your O.O.W.?”

  “Help yourself, Commodore. This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.”

  Grimes winced. So that was the way it sounded when he said it. He caught the attention of the watch officer. “Mr. Grigsby . . .”

  “Sir?”

  “Ask Commander Mayhew to come up here, will you?”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  The young man spoke into a telephone, then said, “He’s on his way.”

  “Thank you.”

  When Mayhew came in the two commodores were wrapped in a pungent blue haze. “Sir?” asked the telepath doubtfully, looking from one to the other. “Sir?”

  “Damn it all, Ken,” growled Grimes. “You should know which one of us is which.”

  “There was a sort of . . . mingling.”

  “Don’t go all metaphysical on me. I take it that you’ve made no headway.”

  “No. We just can’t get through to Lassie. And it takes effort, considerable effort, to maintain Clarisse in a state approaching full awareness.”

  “But you are getting through to her.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now tell me, Ken, where is she? Yes, Yes—I know bloody well that she’s aboard my Faraway Quest—but where aboard the Quest? In your living quarters—or in your watch room?”

  “In . . . in the watch room, sir. She hates Lassie, as you know, but she went to the watch room to maintain better communications when we left the ship to go aboard the Shaara derelict. The watch room is fitted up as a living cabin, and Druthen and his crowd left her there after the take-over.”

  “That makes things easier, a lot easier. Now, get in touch with your cobbers aboard Wanderer. . . .”

  “I already am.” Mayhew’s voice was pained.

  “Punch this message through, the three of you. Stop Lassie’s life-support system.”

  “You can’t mean . . .”

  “I do mean. It’s the only way to quiet that helpless hound of yours. With that source of telepathic interference wiped out we might be able to learn something. After all, it’s only short-range work. You don’t need an amplifier.”

  “But . . .”

  “Do it!”

  “All right, Sir.” Mayhew’s face was white and strained. “But you don’t understand. If I could do it myself, kill Lassie, I mean, it wouldn’t be as bad. Because . . . because Clarisse has always hated Lassie. She’ll . . . she’ll enjoy it. . . .”

  “Good for her,” said Grimes brutally. “And have Mr. Metzenther inform Captain Trafford of what’s going on.”

  He visualized Clarisse’s slim fingers switching off the tiny pumps that supplied oxygen and nutrient fluid to the tank in which floated that obscenely naked brain—but only a dog’s brain—and, suddenly, felt more than a little sick.

  He said, “I think I’ll go below, Commodore.”

  “As you please, Commodore,” replied Grimes II. “I shall stay up here. There should be information coming through at any time now. If things start happening, this is my place.”

  “Too right,” agreed Grimes. “And there’s an old saying about two women in the same kitchen. Two shipmasters in the same control room would be at least as bad.”

  Chapter 19

  HE MADE HIS WAY down from the control room to the deck upon which the master’s quarters and the V.I.P. suite—in which he and Sonya had been housed—were situated. The general layout was very similar to that of his own ship. There was no extra accommodation in this compartment; everything was on a larger scale.

  Absentmindedly he paused outside the door that had above it, in gold lettering, CAPTAIN. It was ajar. He had started to enter when he realized his error, but too late for him to pull back. He could see through into the bedroom. His wife was there, sitting up in bed, reading. The spectacles that she was wearing enhanced her nakedness.

  His wife?

  But she might have been. On another time track she was. “Come in,” she not quite snapped. “Don’t dither around outside.” He went in.

  She put down her book and looked at him gravely, but there was a quirk at the corners of her mouth. She was very beautiful, and she was . . . different. Her breasts were not so full as Sonya’s but were pointed. Her smooth shoulders were just a little broader.

  She said, “Long time no see, John.”

  He felt a wild, impossible hope, decided to bluff his way out—or in. He asked gruffly, “What the hell do you mean?”

  She replied, “Come off it, John. She’s put her mark on you, just as I’ve put my mark on him. Once you were identical, or there was only one of you. That must have been years ago, round about the time that we had the fun and games on Sparta. Remember?”

  Grimes remembered. It had been very shortly after the Spartan affair that he and Maggie had split brass rags.

  “Furthermore,” she went on, “my ever-loving had the decency to buzz down to tell me that he’d be in Control all night, and not to wait up for him . . .”

  “But Sonya . . .”

  “Damn Sonya. Not that I’ve anything against her, mind you. We’ve known each other for years and have always been good friends. But if you must know, John, she and I have just enjoyed a girlish natter on the telephone, and she’s under the impression that you’re sharing my John’s sleepless vigil.”

  Get the hell out of here, you lecherous rat! urged the rather priggish censor who inhabited an odd corner of Grimes’ brain.

  “Don’t just stand there,” she said.

  He sat down at the foot of the wide bed.

  “John! Look at me.”

  He looked. He went on looking. There was so much that he remembered vividly, so much that he had almost forgotten.

  “Have I got Denebian leprosy, or something?”

&n
bsp; He admitted that she had not. Her skin was sleek, golden gleaming, with the coppery pubic puff in delicious contrast, the pink nipples of her breasts prominent. He thought, To hell with it. Why not? He moved slowly toward her. Her wide, red mouth was inviting. He kissed her—for the first time in how many years? He kissed her and went on kissing her, until she managed to get her hands between their upper bodies and push him away.

  “Enough . . .” she gasped. “Enough . . . for the time being. Better shut the outer door . . . and snap on the lock. . . .”

  He broke away from her reluctantly. He said, “But suppose he . . .” he could not bring himself to say the name “. . . comes down from Control. . . .”

  “He won’t. I know him. I should, by this time. The only thing in his mind will be the safety of his precious ship.” She smiled. “And, after all, I am an ethologist, specializing in animal behavior, the human animal included . . . .”

  Grimes asked rather stiffly, “I suppose you knew that I would be coming in?”

  “I didn’t know, duckie, but I’d have been willing to bet on it. The outer door was left ajar on purpose.”

  “Mphm.” Grimes got up, went into the day cabin, shut and locked the door. He returned to the bedroom.

  She said, “You look hot. Better take off your shirt.”

  He took off his shirt. It was a borrowed one, of course. And so was the pair of trousers. So were the shoes. (He had boarded this ship, of course, with only the usual long johns under his space suit.)

  Borrowed clothing, a borrowed wife. . . . But was it adultery?

  Grimes grinned. What were the legalities of the situation? Or, come to that, the ethics?

  “What the hell are you laughing at?” she demanded.

  “Nothing,” he told her. “Everything.”

  She said, “I’ll do my best to make this a happy occasion.”

  It was. There was no guilt, although perhaps there should have been. There was no guilt—after all, Grimes rationalized, he had known Maggie for years; he (or one of him) had been married to her for years. It was a wild, sweet mixture of the soothing familiar and the stimulating unfamiliar. It was—right.

  They were together on the now rumpled bed, their bodies just touching, each of them savoring a fragrant cigarillo.

  Grimes said lazily, “After all that, I’d better have a shower before I leave. I don’t suppose I—he—will mind if I use his bathroom. . . .”

  She said, “There’s no hurry. . . .”

  And then the telephone buzzed.

  She picked up the handset. “Mrs. Grimes . . .” she said drowsily, with simulated drowsiness. “Yes, John. It’s me, of course. Maggie. . . . Yes, I did lock the door. . . .” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand, whispered, “Get dressed, and out. Quickly. I’ll try to stall him off.” Speaking into the telephone again, “Yes, yes. I know that I’m the Commodore’s wife and that nobody would dream of making a pass at me. But have you forgotten that wolf, Sir Dominic Flandry, who’s aboard at your invitation, duckie, is prowling around your ship seeking whom he may devour? And you left me all by myself, to sit and brood, or whatever it is you do up there in your bloody control room. . . . No, Sir Dominic didn’t make a pass at me, but I could tell by the way he was looking at me. . . . All right, then. . . .”

  Grimes was dressed, after a fashion. As he walked fast toward the door, he saw that Maggie was punching the buttons for another number on the ship’s exchange. She called over her shoulder, “Wait a moment!”

  “Sorry. See you later.”

  He went out into the alleyway. He hesitated outside the door to his own quarters. Dare he face Sonya? It would be obvious, too obvious, what he had been doing, and with whom.

  The door opened suddenly—and Grimes was staring at Flandry, and Flandry was staring at him, staring and smiling knowingly.

  “You bastard!” snarled Grimes, swinging wildly. The punch never connected, but Flandry’s hand around Grimes’ right wrist used the momentum of the blow to bring Grimes sprawling to the deck.

  “Gentlemen,” said Grimes II coldly. “Gentlemen—if you will pardon my misuse of the word—I permit no brawling aboard my ship.”

  Grimes I got groggily to his feet assisted by Flandry. They looked silently at the commodore. He looked at them. He said, “Such conduct I expected from you, Captain Flandry. But as for you, Commodore Grimes, I am both surprised and pained to learn that your time track is apparently more permissive than mine.”

  At last Grimes felt the beginnings of guilt. In a way it was himself whom he had cuckolded, but that was no excuse. And what hurt was that during this night’s lovemaking it had been his own counterpart, himself although not himself, who had been the odd man out. He knew how this other Grimes must be feeling.

  He thought, I wish I were anywhere but here.

  He said, “Believe me, Commodore, I wish I were anywhere but here.” Then he grinned incredulously, looking like a clown with that smile on a face besmeared with lip rouge. “And why the hell shouldn’t I be?”

  “If I had any say in the matter you would be, Commodore. You and Captain Sir Dominic Flandry.” He made it sound as though the honorific were a word of four letters, not three.

  “You just might have your wish, Commodore. Tell me, have you received any reports from Commander Mayhew and the other PCOs?”

  “This is no time to . . .”

  “But it is. The success of our mission, the safety of our ships; these matters, surely, are of overriding importance. . . .”

  “He’s right, you know,” said Sonya, who had appeared in the doorway, looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth.

  “Shut up!” snapped Grimes. “You keep out of it.”

  “He’s right, you know,” said Maggie, cool and unruffled, who had just joined the party.

  “Shut up!” snapped Grimes II. “You keep out of it.”

  “He’s right, you know,” drawled Flandry.

  Grimes II snarled wordlessly. Then, “As a matter of fact, your Mayhew and his mates did get Clarisse to . . . to turn off the amplifier. They’re trying to sort out the psionic impressions that they’re getting from Adler and your Faraway Quest, now that the interference has been . . . switched off. I was thinking of calling you to let you know, but there was no urgency, and I thought you needed your sleep. Ha, ha.”

  “So now we work out a plan of campaign . . .” murmured Grimes I.

  “Yes. In the control room. It’ll be some time before I feel like setting foot in my own quarters again. And might I suggest that you two officers and gentlemen get yourselves looking like officers, at least, before you come up.”

  Grimes looked doubtfully at Sonya. Then he turned to Flandry. “Do you mind if I make use of your toilet facilities, Sir Dominic?”

  “Be my guest, Commodore.” Then, in almost a whisper, “After all, I was yours—and you were his.”

  Grimes didn’t want to laugh, but he did. If looks could have killed he would have died there and then. But women have no sense of humor.

  Chapter 20

  WANDERER AND FARAWAY QUEST II synchronized temporal precession rates, and Wanderer closed with the Quest, laying herself almost alongside her. It was a maneuver typical of Irene’s spacemanship—or spacewomanship—and when it was over Grimes I looked closely at Grimes II’s head to see if his counterpart had acquired any additional gray hairs. He thought wryly, Probably Maggie and I have put a few there ourselves . . . It was essential, however, that the meeting of the leaders be held aboard one of the ships; Adler would do her best to monitor a conversation conducted over the Carlotti transceivers.

  So there they all were in Faraway Quest’s control room: the two Grimeses, their wives, Sir Dominic, Irene, Trafford, Smith (inevitably), Mayhew and Metzenther. Somehow Grimes I found himself in the chair.

  Slowly and carefully, he filled and lit his pipe. (The other Grimes produced and lit a cigarette. Subtle, thought Grimes. Subtle. I didn’t think you had it in you, John . . .) After he had
it going well he said, “All right. I think we can take it as read that our PCOs have silenced the dog, and that they—including, of course, Clarisse—are now doing some snooping into the minds of our mutual enemies. Correct?”

  “Correct, sir,” answered Mayhew.

  “Good. Then report, please, Commander.”

  The telepath spoke in a toneless voice. “Clarisse is well, although her mind is not yet operating at full capacity. As far as she can determine, as far as we can determine, all the other members of Faraway Quest’s crew are unharmed. As yet.

  “Insofar as their captors are concerned, we have found it advisable to concentrate on key personnel: Dr. Druthen, Captain Blumenfeld and Commander von Donderberg, who is still the senior prize officer aboard Quest. Dr. Druthen is not quite sane. He is ambitious. He thinks that the Duchy of Waldegren will appreciate his brilliance, whereas the Confederacy does not. His mother, who exercised considerable influence over him during his formative years, was an expatriate Waldegrener. Druthen, too, has strong sadistic tendencies. Had it not been for the restraining influence of von Donderberg the lot of the prisoners would have been a sorry one. He is still urging Blumenfeld to use them to blackmail us into giving him a free hand with The Outsider.

  “Now, von Donderberg. The impression you gained from that talk with him over the Carlotti radio is a correct one. Like many—although not all—naval officers, he regards himself as a spaceman first and foremost. The prisoners happen to be wearing the wrong uniform, but they, as far as he is concerned, are also spacemen. He hates Druthen, and Druthen hates and despises him.

  “Finally, Captain Blumenfeld. Once again, sir, you summed him up rather neatly. He is essentially a politician, with a politician’s lack of conscience. He would stand on his mother’s grave to get two inches nearer to where he wants to be. As a spaceman he is, at best, merely competent—but the success of this mission would put him at least two steps up the promotion ladder. He would play along with Druthen if he thought that he could get away with it, but realizes that maltreatment, or even murder of Faraway Quest’s rightful crew could lead to an outbreak of hostilities between the Duchy and the Confederacy. He knows that his government would welcome this rather than otherwise, but fears, as they fear, that the Confederacy’s Big Brother might step in. Should he get the ‘all clear’ from Waldegren—we gained the impression that the Duchy’s political experts are hard at work evaluating the possibility of Federation intervention—he will tell Druthen to go ahead.”