The Big Black Mark

by A Bertram Chandler

  "How many times must I tell you that I am not Commander Tallis?"

  The intercom speaker crackled, then, "Dr. Brandt here. I'm speaking from my laboratory. What the hell is going on? Do you know that you've smashed thousands of credits worth of valuable equipment?"

  "You saw it stowed?" Grimes asked Brabham.

  "Yes, sir. There was no chance of its shifting."

  Grimes signaled to Tangye to take over the controls. "Keep her going as she is, pilot." Then he said into his microphone, "Captain here, Dr. Brandt. Did anything shift?"

  "No. But I heard glass breaking in the cases. Delicate apparatus can't stand up to your needlessly violent maneuvers."

  "Did you see the stuff packed, Doctor?"

  "Of course."

  "Then might I suggest that next time you see that your bits and pieces are packed properly? There are excellent padding materials available."

  "I hold you entirely responsible for the breakages, Captain."

  "You knew that you were embarking in a spaceship, Doctor."

  "Yes. I did. But rockets went out generations ago."

  "Reaction drive is still fitted to all Survey Service vessels, as you should have known, Commander Brandt."

  "Pah!"

  Grimes returned his attention to ship handling, taking over from Tangye. Overhead—or forward—the sky seen through the control room dome was a dark purple, almost black. In the periscope screen Lindisfarne was assuming a spherical aspect. Outside the ship there was still atmosphere—but atmosphere in the academic sense of the word only. On the dial of the radar altimeter the decades of kilometers were mounting up steadily and rapidly.

  There was nothing to do now but to run out and clear of the Van Allens, while the globe that was Lindisfarne dwindled steadily in the periscope screen, a diminishing half-moon, the sunlit hemisphere opalescently aglow.

  The stars were bright and unwinking in the black sky, and the polarizers were automatically dimming the harsh glare of the Lindisfarne sun on the beam. Grimes looked at the magnetometer. The bright red warning light was dimming. It gave one last flicker, then turned to green.

  "Clear of the Van Allens, sir," announced Tangye belatedly.

  Slow reaction time, thought Grimes. He said, "So I see. Cut the inertial drive and line her up on the target star, will you?"

  "Aye, aye, sir," replied the young man, smartly enough.

  The engines grumbled to a stammering halt. Only then did Tangye busy himself with a star chart, looking through the ports frequently to check the relative positions of the constellations. Grimes refrained from pointing out the sun that he wanted to head for, a second magnitude luminary in the constellation of The Bunny, as this grouping of stars had been dubbed by the first settlers on Lindisfarne. There was, if one had a strong imagination, a suggestion of rabbit's ears and woman's breasts, thought Grimes while his navigator fumbled and bumbled. If this were a real bunny, he thought sardonically, young Tangye'd be on target a damn sight sooner! And how long would it be before Brandt, the obnoxious fool, started to whine about being kept too long in a condition of free fall? Meanwhile, other people besides the navigator were exhibiting shortcomings.

  "Number One," Grimes said mildly, "you didn't make the usual announcement on the intercom. Stand by for free fall, setting trajectory and all the rest of it."

  "You never told me to, sir."

  "It's part of your job to look after these details," snapped Grimes.

  "Commander Tallis didn't want announcements made every five minutes. Sir."

  "Neither do I. But I want those announcements made that are required by Survey Service regulations."

  Then Brandt came through on the intercom. "Doctor Brandt here. What is going on up there?"

  "Stand by for setting trajectory," said Brabham sulkily into his microphone.

  "On target, sir," announced Tangye. "I mean, I've found the target."

  "Then get on to it."

  The directional gyroscopes rumbled into motion. Slowly the ship turned about her axes, centrifugal forces giving an off-center surrogate of gravity. Grimes, looking up into the cartwheel sight set into the dome, saw The Bunny swim slowly into view.

  The gyroscopes stopped.

  "On target, sir."

  "Mphm. Have you allowed for galactic drift, Mr. Tangye?"

  "Eh. . . no, sir."

  "Then please do so."

  There was more delay while Tangye fumbled through the ephemeris, fed data into the control room computer. All this should have been done before liftoff, thought Grimes disgustedly. Damn it all, this puppy couldn't navigate a plastic duck across a bathtub! He watched the nervous young man, glowering.

  "Allowance! applied, sir." The gyroscopes restarted as the navigator spoke.

  "Being applied, you mean. And are you sure that you're putting it on the right way? All right, all right. Leave it. I worked it out roughly before we pushed off."

  "On trajectory, sir."

  "Thank you." Grimes himself announced over the PA system that the Mannschenn Drive was about to be restarted and that acceleration would be resumed immediately thereafter.

  He pushed the button to start the interstellar drive. He could imagine those shining rotors starting to turn, spinning faster and faster, spinning, processing at right angles to all the dimensions of normal space, tumbling through the dark infinities, dragging the ship and all aboard her with them as the temporal precession field built up.

  There was the disorientation in space and time to which no spaceman ever becomes inured. There was the uncanny sensation of déjà vu. There was, as far as Grimes was concerned, an unusually strong premonition of impending doom. It persisted after everything had returned to normal—to normal, that is, as long as one didn't look out through the viewports at the contorted nebulosities that glimmered eerily where the familiar stars had been. The ship, her restarted inertial drive noisily clattering, the thin, high whine of the Mannschenn Drive pervading every cubic millimeter of her, was speeding through the warped continuum toward her destination.

  "Thank you, gentlemen," said Grimes heavily. (Thank you for what?) "Normal Deep Space watches and routine, Number One."

  "Normal Deep Space watches and routine, sir," replied Brabham.

  Grimes unbuckled himself from his chair, got up and went down to his quarters. He poured himself a stiff brandy. Even if he hadn't earned it, he felt that he needed it.

  Chapter 7

  Nonetheless, Grimes was much happier now that the voyage had started.

  The ship was back in her natural element, and so were her people. As long as she was in port—at a major naval base especially—the captain was not the supreme authority. On Lindisfarne, for example, Grimes had come directly under the orders of the officer-in-charge-of-surveys, and of any of that rear admiral's officers who were senior to himself. Too, any rating, petty officer or officer of his own who considered that he had a grievance, could run, screaming, to one or another of the various Survey Service personnel protection societies, organizations analogous to the several guilds, unions, and whatever representing merchant spacemen. Of course, any complaint had to be justifiable—but it was amazing how many complaints, in these decadent days, were held to be warranted. Had MacMorris not been in such bad odor with the officials of the Engineer Officers' Association his tales about Grimes's alleged bullying would have been listened to; had they been, Discovery would never have got away from Lindisfarne.

  In Deep Space, everybody knew, a captain could do almost anything to anybody provided that he were willing to face a Board of Inquiry at some later date. He could even order people pushed out of the airlock without spacesuits as long as they were guilty of armed mutiny.

  All in all, Grimes was not too displeased with his new command. True, she was an old ship—but as an old ship should be (and sometimes is) she was as comfortable as a well-worn shoe. She was not a taut ship; she never would be or could be that. All of her people were too disheartened by slow, even nonexistent promotion,
by the knowledge that they had been passed over, would always be passed over. She was not a happy ship—but once she settled down to the old, familiar routine, once her crew realized that it was less trouble to do things Grimes's way than his predecessor's way, she was not actively unhappy.

  Grimes did not mix much with his officers. He would pass the time of day with the watchkeeper when he went up to the control room, he would, naturally, meet people when he made rounds, he took his seat at the head of the senior officers' table at meals, occasions at which scintillating conversation was conspicuous by its absence.

  Brabham was too morose, too full of his own woes. MacMorris was as he had been described more than once, an uncouth mechanic, incapable of conversation about anything but machinery. Vinegar Nell could have been good company—she was a highly intelligent, witty woman—but she could not forget that the last time she and Grimes had been shipmates she had been a lieutenant while Grimes was only a lowly ensign. The fact that he was now a commander and captain of a big ship she ascribed to sex and luck rather than ability.

  The medical officer, Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Rath, was universally unpopular. He was barely competent, and in civil life his lack of a bedside manner would have militated against financial success. He was a tall, dark, thin (almost skeletal) man and his nickname, to all ranks, was The Undertaker. Nobody liked him, and he liked nobody.

  And the Mad Major kept himself very much to himself. He was a Marine, and Marines were, in his opinion, the highest form of interstellar life.

  All in all, Grimes began to think as the voyage wore on, the only interesting member of his crew was Flannery. But was it Flannery himself who was interesting—or was it that unfortunate dingo's brain in its tank of nutrient solution? The thing was fascinating—that alleged racial memory, for example. Was it genuine, or was it merely the product of Flannery's fertile, liquor-stimulated imagination? After all, Grimes only had Flannery's word for what Ned was thinking . . . and, according to Flannery, Ned's thoughts were fantastic ones.

  "He thinks he remembers you, Captain," said the PCO one day when Grimes dropped in to see him after rounds.

  "Mphm. Don't tell me that I'm a reincarnation of the original jolly swagman."

  "Indeed ye're not, sorr! He's thinkin' o' you as Bligh!"

  "I suppose I should be flattered," admitted Grimes. "But I'm afraid that I shall never finish up as an admiral and as a colonial governor."

  "An' that's not what the black Captain Bligh was famous for, sorr!"

  "The mutiny? His first one? But during that, as during the subsequent ones, he was more sinned against than sinning!"

  "Not the way that Ned, here, recollects it, Captain."

  "Come off it, Mr. Flannery. There weren't any dogs of any kind aboard the Bounty]"

  The telepath stared at his grisly pet through bleary eyes, and his thick lips moved as he subvocalized his thoughts. Then: "Ned wasn't there himself, o' course, Captain, nor any of his blessed forefathers. But he still says as that was the way of it, that the wicked Captain Bligh drove his crew to mutiny, indeed he did."

  "Indeed he did not!" snapped Grimes, who had, his own ideas about what had happened aboard the ill-fated Bounty,

  "If that's the way ye feel about it, Captain," murmured Flannery diplomatically.

  "It is the way I feel about it." And then, a sudden, horrid suspicion forming in his mind: "What is all this about Bligh and the Bounty!" Are you suggesting. . . ?"

  "Indeed I'm not, Captain. An' as for Ned, here"—the waving hand just missed the tank and its gruesome contents—"would he be after tellin' ye, if he could? He would not. He would niver be on the side o' the oppressor."

  "Good for him," remarked Grimes sardonically. He got up to leave. "And, Mr. Flannery, you might get this—this mess cleaned up a bit. I did mention it to Miss Russell, but she said that her girls aren't kennelmaids. Those empty bottles . . . and that. . . bone."

  "But t'is only an old bone, Captain, with niver a shred o' meat nor gristle left on it. Poor Terry—may the blessed saints be kind to the soul of him—knew it was there, an' imagined it like it used to be. An' Ned's the same."

  "So it is essential to the efficient working of the amplifier?"

  "Indeed it is, sorr."

  Grimes stirred the greasy, dog-eared playing cards, spread out on the table for a game of Canfield, with a gingerly forefinger. "And I suppose that these are essential to your efficient working?"

  "Ye said it, Captain. An' would ye deprive me of an innocent game of patience? An' don't the watch officers in the control room, when ye're not around, set up games o' three-dimensional noughts an' crosses in the plottin' tank, just to while away the weary hours? Ye've done it yerself, like enough."

  Grimes's prominent ears flushed. He could not deny it—and if he did this telepath would know that he was lying.

  "An' I can do more wi' these than play patience, Captain. Did I iver tell ye that I have Gypsy blood in me veins? Back in the Quid Isle me great, great granny lifted her skirts to a wanderin' tinker. From him, an' through her, I have the gift." The grimy pudgy hands stacked the cards, shuffled them, and then began to rearrange them. "Would ye like a readin? Now?"

  "No, thank you," said Grimes as he left.

  Chapter 8

  Discovery came to New Maine.

  New Maine is not a major colony; its overall population barely tops the ten million mark. It is not an unpleasant world, although, even on the equator, it is a little on the chilly side. It has three moons, one so large as to be almost a sister planet, the other two little more than oversized boulders. It is orbited by the usual system of artificial satellites—communication, meteorological, and all the rest of it. The important industries are fisheries and fish processing; the so-called New Maine cod (which, actually, is more of a reptile than a true fish) is a sufficiently popular delicacy on some worlds to make its smoking, packaging, and export worthwhile.

  A not very substantial contribution to the local economy is made by the Federation Survey Service sub-Base, which is not important enough to require a high ranking officer-in-charge, these duties being discharged by a mere commander, a passed-over one at that. At the time of Discovery's visit this was a Commander Denny, a flabby, portly gentleman who looked and acted older than he actually was and who, obviously, had lost all interest in the job long since.

  Shortly after berthing at the small, badly run-down naval spaceport, Grimes paid the usual courtesy call on the officer-commanding-base. It was not an occasion demanding full dress, with fore-and-aft hat, frock coat, sword, and all the rest of the anachronistic finery; nonetheless an OCB is an OCB, regardless of his actual rank. The temperature outside the ship was 17°, cool enough to make what Grimes thought of as his "grown-up trousers" comfortable. He changed from his shipboard shorts and shirt into his brass-buttoned, gold-braided black, put on his cap with the scrambled egg on its peak still undimmed by time, made his way down to the after airlock. The Marine on gangway duty, he was pleased to note, was smartly attired; obviously Major Swinton had taken the hints regarding the appearance of his men and, equally obviously, Sergeant Washington had cooperated to the full with his commanding officer in this respect.

  The man saluted crisply. "Captain, sir!"

  Grimes returned the salute. "Yes?"

  "Are you expecting a ground car, sir? If one hasn't been arranged, I'll call one."

  "I'll walk," said Grimes. "The exercise will do me good."

  Discovery's ramp was still battered and shabby, although a few repairs had been made before departure from Lindisfarne. The ship herself was still showing her many years, the ineradicable signs of neglect as well as of age. But even she, who on her pad at the Main Base had looked like an elderly poor relation, here had the appearance of a rich aunt come a-visiting. Nobody expects to be obliged to eat his meals off a spaceport apron—but there are minimal standards of cleanliness that should be maintained. These were certainly not being maintained here. It was obvious that during the n
ight some large animals had wandered across the expanse of concrete and treated it as a convenience. It was equally obvious that they had done the same during the previous night, and the night before. In addition, there were tall, straggling, ugly weeds thrusting up through ragged cracks, with dirty scraps of plastic and paper piling up around them, entangled with them.

  The block of administration buildings toward which Grimes was heading, treading carefully to avoid getting his well-polished shoes dirty, was plain, functional—and like most functional constructions would have been pleasant enough in appearance if only it had been clean. But the wide windows were dull with an accumulation of dust and the entire facade was badly stained. Were there, Grimes wondered, flying creatures on this world as big as the animals that had fouled the apron? He looked up at the dull sky apprehensively. If there were, he hoped that they came out only at night. As he elevated his regard he noticed that the flagstaff atop the office block was not quite vertical and that the Survey Service ensign, flapping lazily in the light breeze, was ragged and dirty, and was not right up to the truck.