Gateway to Never (John Grimes)

by A Bertram Chandler

  “And ships,” said Grimes. “There must be ships. I hope that it’s not too late in the year to find any of them at sea . . .”

  “And where the hell else would you find ships?” demanded Sonya tartly.

  “In port, in snug harbors,” replied Grimes. “Sitting the winter months out in comfort. In the early days of navigation men always avoided coming to grips with the weather.”

  She said something unkind about wooden ships and iron men.

  Grimes, taking over the controls from his navigator, ignored her. Down he drove Faraway Quest, down, down. Carefully, he adjusted his line of descent, aiming for the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, for an imaginary dot on the sea roughly midway between Cyprus and the Palestinian coast. Were Tyre and Sidon in existence yet? Had the Phoenicians emerged as one of the pioneering seafaring nations?

  Down he drove the ship, down, down. She was in atmosphere now, falling through the first tenuous wisps of gas, but slowly, slowly. Faraway Quest shuddered and complained as the medium through which she was being driven became denser, as upper-atmosphere turbulence buffeted her. But she had been designed to withstand far greater stresses. Through the high cirrus, the filmy mares’ tails, she dropped, faster now, but still well under control. White-gleaming cumulus was below her now, a snowy complexity of rounded peaks and shadowy canyons—below her and then, seconds later, all about her, a pearly mist obscuring the viewports.

  They cleared suddenly—and there was the sea. Even from this height, white ridges of foam could be seen on the slate-blue surface. And . . . And what was that dark speck?

  Grimes checked Faraway Quest’s descent, held her where she was, then turned the controls over to Carnaby. Williams already had the big telescope trained and focused and the picture was showing on the screen. Grimes looked at it. Yes, it was a ship all right. Graceless, broad-beamed, with a single mast, stepped amidships, a low poop from which jutted a steering sweep. Other sweeps, six to a side, were flailing at the water. She seemed to be making heavy weather of it.

  “Keep her as she is,” said Grimes to Carnaby—and then, to Williams, “She’s all yours, commander. Look after her till I get back.” There was no need for any further orders. The Commodore had assumed that a solitary surface ship would be sighted and had planned accordingly. He, personally, would take one of Faraway Quest’s pinnaces down to make an inspection at closer range, accompanied only by Sonya and by Mayhew. The pinnace was capable of functioning as a submarine—after all, the Quest was a survey ship and carried the equipment necessary for the exploration of newly discovered planets. From the pinnace Grimes would be able to observe without being observed. And even if he were seen by a handful of ignorant seamen, what of it? The pinnace would merely be yet another sea monster to be added to the probably long list of those already reported.

  He left the control room and, followed by Sonya and Mayhew, made his way down to the boat bay.

  Slowly and carefully Grimes eased the little craft out and away from the parent ship. He looked at the Quest as she hung there, just below the cloud base. He had hoped that the dull silver of her hull would blend with the light gray of the cloud—but, at this range at any rate, she was glaringly obvious. It was unlikely that any of the mariners would look up and see her, but it was possible. The Commodore called Williams on the pinnace’s transceiver and, seconds later, the grumble of Faraway Quest’s inertial drive deepened to a muffled roar as she rose to hide herself in the vaporous cover.

  Grimes brought the pinnace around in a wide arc, intending to land in the sea astern of and to leeward of the laboring ship. It was unlikely that anybody would be looking aft. As he closed her he began to appreciate the situation. The mast was canted at a drunken angle; one or more stays must have parted. From the yard fluttered rags of canvas, untidy pennants in the gale. So her sail had been blown to shreds just before she was dismasted . . . And what was the primitive captain doing, or trying to do, now? Grimes put himself in that seaman’s place. Yes, he was hove to, doing his best to keep his bows to the wind and sea. All very well and good, thought the commodore, when you have reliable main engines, but not so easy when your only motive power consists of sweeps manned by exhausted rowers . . .

  But there was the sea, only a few feet below the pinnace, and a very nasty sea it looked, too. Grimes put the little craft into a steep dive, felt his seat belt bite deeply into his body as her forward momentum was checked, as she plunged into the curling crest of a wave. But he had to get down; only a few feet under, the surface conditions would be much calmer. The whine of the pumps was audible above the hammering of the inertial drive as water was sucked into the ballast tanks. Briefly the control cabin viewports were obscured by a smother of white spray that was replaced by a blue-green translucency. The violent rocking motion eased to a gentle swaying.

  Grimes extruded the periscope on its long mast. The screen came alive, showing the white-crested seas and, finally, the squattering hulk of the little surface ship. I’d rather be here than there, thought Grimes. He put the laboring vessel right ahead, then rapidly closed the range. As he watched, exasperation began to take the place of sympathy. Didn’t that shipmaster know the rudiments of seamanship? These might be very early days in the history of sea transport but, even so, several millennia must have elapsed since the first men ventured out from the shore in coracles or dugout canoes. He muttered something about people who would be incapable of navigating a plastic duck across a bathtub.

  “And what has he done wrong—or what isn’t he doing right?” asked Sonya who, although no telepath, possessed more than her fair share of wifely intuition.

  “It’s a case of what he isn’t doing at all,” grumbled Grimes.

  “All right. You’re the expert. What should he be doing?”

  “He’s in trouble,” Grimes told her.

  “A blinding glimpse of the obvious.”

  “Let me finish. He’s in trouble. Unless he can keep that unhandy little bitch’s head to the sea he’ll be swamped . . .”

  “I’m no seaman, my dear, but even I can see that that is what he’s doing.”

  “Yes, yes. But there’s a way of doing it that does not involve his oarsmen pulling their hearts out. I thought that the technique was as old as ships, but I must be wrong. Oh, well, I suppose that somebody had to invent it.”

  “And what is this famous technique?”

  “The sea anchor, of course.”

  “Isn’t the sea too deep here to use an anchor?”

  Grimes sighed. “A sea anchor is not the sort of anchor you were thinking of. It’s not a hunk of iron or, as it probably is in these times, stone. Ideally it’s a canvas drogue, not unlike the wind-sock you still see used on some primitive air-landing strips. It’s paid out from the bows of a ship on the end of a long line. It is, or should be, completely submerged and not affected by the wind. The ship, of course, is so affected and is blown to leeward of the sea anchor, which has sufficient grip on the water to keep her head up to wind and sea. If you haven’t a proper drogue, of course, almost anything will do, as long as it’s only just buoyant and has sufficient surface to act as a drag.” He glared at the periscope screen. “And there’s that nong, sweating his guts out on his steering oar while his crew, at the sweeps, must be on the point of dropping dead with exhaustion. Damn it all, I hate to see a ship, any ship, in trouble! If only I could tell the stupid bastard what to do . . .”

  “You can, John,” said Mayhew quietly.

  Grimes laughed. “All right, all right, so that skipper’s not the only stupid bastard around here. I forgot that you can transmit as well as receive. Do you think you can get a message to him?”

  “I’m . . . I’m trying now. I’m . . . inside his mind. I don’t like it much. He’s terrified, of course. And it’s not only a healthy fear of the elements, but also a superstitious dread . . . He didn’t make the proper sacrifices before pushing out on this voyage, and he knows it. The wine that he poured out on to the altar was very cheap
and inferior stuff, almost vinegar . . . And the goat that had its throat cut was diseased and no good for anything else . . .”

  “Mphm. So if you’re going to do anything, do it properly or not at all. But can you get through to him, Ken?”

  “I’m . . . I’m trying. He feels something. He’s rationalizing, if you can call it that. He thinks, if you can call it thinking, that the sea god is condescending to answer his grovelling prayers. But the superstition . . . It’s sickening!”

  “Never mind that. He’s typical of his day and age. Be a sea god! Prod him up the arse with your trident and make him do something!”

  Mayhew managed a sickly smile. He said, “I don’t like doing it, but it’s the only way . . .” He whispered, vocalizing the thoughts that he was striving to transmit, “Hear, and ye shall be saved . . . Heed, and ye shall be saved . . .”

  “Good,” said Grimes. “Keep it up. As soon as you’re through to him, tell him. You heard me explaining the sea-anchor technique. He won’t have a drogue, of course, but anything at all will do. Anything.”

  There was a long silence, broken at last by the telepath. “It’s hard, John, trying to explain modern seamanship to that primitive savage.”

  “Modern seamanship?” scoffed Grimes. “This is going back to the first, the very first beginnings of seamanship!”

  “Perhaps the idea of a sacrifice . . .” whispered Mayhew.

  “General Average!” laughed the commodore. “A pity we haven’t got a Lloyd’s underwriter along to sort it out!” Then, “You are getting through, Ken. One of the two men on the steering oar has just gone below . . . Yes. And a sweep on either side has been shipped . . .”

  He watched the periscope screen with gleeful anticipation. So the primitive shipmaster was experiencing a long overdue rush of brains to the head—and he, Grimes, Honorary Admiral of one of the surface navies of Tharn, holder of an Aquarian Master Mariner’s Certificate of Competency, was responsible. Sonya glared at him as he began to sing, softly and tunelessly, an archaic Terran sea chantey:

  “Blow the man down, bullies, blow the man down. Way, hey, blow the man down! Blow him away right to Liverpool town—Oh, give us the time to blow the man down!”

  Yes, here they came on deck, a half dozen of them, dragging something. Take it for’ard, you unseamanlike cows, muttered Grimes. Not aft . . . Then he decided that the skipper probably knew what he was doing; it could be that his clumsy vessel would ride better, would ship less water if brought up to the sea anchor with the weather astern. But what was happening in the poop? Mutiny? There seemed to be some sort of scrimmage in progress.

  Ah, at last. The seamen, acting as one, were lifting what looked like a bundle of rags. “Not big enough . . .” muttered Grimes. “Not nearly big enough . . .” They lifted the bundle of rags and dropped it over the stern. “And where the hell’s your sea-anchor line?” demanded Grimes furiously.

  Then, just before a hissing rain squall blotted out all vision, the commodore and his companions saw that the thing jettisoned was a man.

  Chapter 11

  THERE WAS ONLY ONE THING to do, and Grimes did it. But he could not be too hasty; for him to surface right alongside the laboring ship would be out of the question. She was making slow headway against the sea, however, gradually pulling away from that small, dark figure struggling in the water. The periscope was useless in the heavy, driving rain, so the pinnace’s fantastically sensitive radar was brought into operation.

  On the screen were two targets, one large and one small, and the smaller target was showing only intermittently in the clutter. The range between the two blips was opening. The commodore adjusted his speed to maintain his distance off from the larger target, steered so as to come directly beneath the smaller one. It was tricky work, but somehow he managed it. Suddenly there was a distinct shock, a continued vibration. Grimes guessed what it was. A drowning man will clutch at a straw—and a periscope standard is considerably more substantial.

  Grimes started to blow his tanks, but as soon as the pinnace rose into the layer of turbulence just below the sea surface the motion was dangerously violent. He tried to correct it with the pinnace’s control surfaces, but it was impossible to do so. Hastily he turned to the inertial drive controls, switched from Ahead to Lift. The unrhythmic hammering of the engine was deafening in the confined space of the little vessel’s cabin and she went up like a rocket, lurching far over as a sea caught her, but recovering. Was the man still there? The lens of the periscope could be swivelled so that the upper hull could be inspected. This was done—and the screen showed a huddled mass of dark rags wrapped around the base of the standard.

  “We have to bring him in,” said Grimes.

  “By ‘we,’” said Sonya, “you imply ‘you.’” She unstrapped herself from her seat, and Mayhew followed suit.

  “Be careful,” warned Grimes.

  “Good and careful,” she said.

  The upper hatch slid open and fresh air—cool, humid, salty—gusted in, and with it a spatter of chilly rain. But after the weeks of canned atmosphere, it was like sparkling wine after flat water. Grimes inhaled deeply and gratefully, watched Sonya clamber up the short ladder and vanish, followed by Mayhew. He heard her voice, faint but clear over the whining of the wind, the drumming of the rain, “Don’t be afraid. Nobody’s going to hurt you . . .” Surely that pitiful heap of human jetsam would understand the tone if not the words themselves.

  Then, from Mayhew, “He’s terrified . . .”

  “And so would you be. Help me, Ken. Get into his mind or whatever it is you do, and tranquilize him . . .”

  “I’m . . . I’m trying, Sonya . . .”

  “Then try a little harder. His hands are frozen onto the periscope . . .” She continued in a crooning voice, “You’re safe now . . . Just relax . . . We’ve got you . . .”

  Another voice replied—high-pitched, gabbling. Grimes thought that he distinguished the word elohim.

  “Yes . . . yes . . . hold on to me . . . Give me a hand, Ken, or we’ll both be overboard! Yes . . . yes . . . hold on now . . . Carefully . . . Carefully . . . This way . . .”

  First one of Sonya’s shapely legs appeared through the circular hatch, then the other. Her feet sought and found the ladder rungs. Her buttocks in her rain-soaked skirt came into view, descended slowly. Between her upper body and the ladder, moving feebly, were a pair of bare feet under skinny calves. She was holding the man so that he could not fall, and Mayhew, above her, had a tight grip on the castaway’s wrists and was lowering him as required.

  They got him down at last. He collapsed onto the deck, huddling there in the pool of sea water that ran from his ragged clothing. Grimes turned in his chair to look at him. He was obviously a Semite; in this part of the world that was to be expected. He was paralyzed with terror—and that was not surprising. He stared up at his rescuers while his hands clawed at his black, straggling beard. He was trying to say something, but words would not, could not come.

  Mayhew said, “I’m getting some sense out of his mind, John, but not much. He’s too frightened. He thinks we’re angels or something . . .”

  “Mphm.” Grimes turned back to his controls, shutting the hatch then cutting the lift. The pinnace fell to the sea, submerged rapidly to periscope depth as the pumps sucked water into the ballast tanks. It was not a moment too soon. The rain squall was almost over; in another two or three seconds the little spacecraft would have been clearly visible from the surface ship.

  Yes, she was still there, clearly visible through the thinning veils of rain. She was still there, and riding much more easily. This must have been the clearing squall. The wind was dropping and the sea was much less rough and, very soon in this land-enclosed expanse of water the swell would be diminishing. The shipmaster would not be needing a sea anchor now.

  “I’ve got . . . something . . .” said Mayhew. There was something odd about his voice.

  “Out with it, Ken,” ordered Grimes.

  �
�He . . . he was a passenger aboard that ship. Some kind of preacher. He was bound for . . . Ninevah. His name . . .”

  “I don’t think you need to tell me,” said the commodore. And he thought, But we have a temporal reference point. Once we get back on board the Quest, with her data banks, we shall be able to pinpoint ourselves in Time.

  Chapter 12

  “WELL,” demanded Grimes irritably, “what have you found out? We haven’t much time left, you know. Sonya insists that our friend be put ashore on a deserted beach not one second later than three days after his rescue . . .”

  “We must keep to the script,” stated Sonya firmly.

  “Script? What script? Damn it all, I hoped that by rescuing Jonah we should be able to find out just when we are—and what do we find? What does our data bank, our fabulous electronic encyclopedia have to tell us? Just that the Book of Jonah is only a legend, a piece of allegorical fiction, and that the Great Fish symbolizes Dagon or some other ichthyological deity. What does it matter if we keep him aboard the Quest three days, three weeks, or three months? Or three years . . .”

  “We mustn’t tamper with history,” she said.

  “History is always being tampered with,” he grumbled.

  “Yes. But not at the time when it’s actually happening.”

  “There has to be a first time for everything,” he said. But he realized that they were all against him. None of the Quest’s crew was religious—but they all had their superstitions. Holy Writ is Holy Writ. And here, under heavy sedation in the ship’s sick bay, was living proof that there is more to the Bible than mere mythology.