They went in through the main entrance, picking their way carefully through the wreckage of the gate. Grimes cried out in dismay. Vega was there still, but no longer illumined by the glare of her own floodlights, no longer proudly erect. She was on her side, the great length of her picked out by the headlights of at least two dozen heavy-duty vehicles. Externally she seemed undamaged. Internally? She would be a mess, Grimes knew.
"The cricket season's well an' truly buggered," said Mavis cheerfully. "Never could see anythin' in the game me self."
"What happened?" demanded Grimes.
"That bloody Brabham . . . or it could've been Jonesy's idea. It was as much airmanship as spacemanship."
"Jones? He's with the mutineers?"
"An' quite a few more. I couldn't stop 'em. Not that I wanted to."
"But what happened?"
"Oh, they all made a rush for your Discovery after the breakout. Your crew, an' Jones, an' . . . oh, we'll have ter sort it out later, how many darlin' daughters an' even wives are missin'. Where was I? Oh, yes. Discovery lifted off. But she didn't go straight up. She sorta drifted across the city, her engines goin' like the hammers o' Hell, just scrapin' the rooftops. Then she lifted, but only a little, just so's her backside was nuzzlin' Vega's nose. Like two dogs, it was. An' she sorta wriggled, an' Vega wriggled too, more an' more, until. . . Crash! An' then Brabham went upstairs as though the sheriff an' his posse were after him."
"Delamere was lucky," said Grimes.
"Bloody unlucky, if you ask me."
"No. Lucky. Brabham could have used his weaponry. Or he could have sat on top of Vega and cooked her with the auxiliary rocket drive." He managed a grin. "I guess you people must have had a civilizing influence on him. Oh, one more thing. How was it that the mutineers weren't affected by the gas?"
"They were all immune, that's why. Ain't many people can resist the goodies that come out o' my kitchen! But we made sure that none o' the popsies deliverin' the pies an' cakes knew the secret ingredient. Not with a nasty, pryin' telepath pickin' up every thought. But that'll have ter do. Here come the mug coppers wi' yer pal Frankie. He's under arrest, same as you are."
Delamere, battered and bruised, held up by the two men of his police escort, staggered toward the mayor. He saw Grimes, stiffened.
"I might have known that you'd be at the bottom of this, you bastard!"
"How the hell could he be?" asked Mavis. "My police found him sprawled, unconscious, by the main entrance."
"You're in this too, you bitch! You'll laugh on the other side of your face when this world is under Federation military occupation!"
"An' is your precious Federation willin' ter fight a war over Botany Bay, specially at the end o' long supply lines? Dr. Brandt showed us how ter build a Carlotti set. We used it, ternight. We got through ter Waverley without any trouble at all. The emperor's willin' to put us under his protection."
"Grimes, you'll pay for this. This is a big black mark on your Service record that'll never be erased!"
This was so, Grimes knew. It would be extremely unwise for him to return to Lindisfarne to face court-martial. He would resign, here and now, by Carlottigram. After that? The Imperial Navy, if they'd have him? With his record, probably not.
The Rim Worlds? Rim Runners would take anybody, as long as he had some qualifications and rigor mortis hadn't set in.
The implications of it all he would work out later. The full appreciation of the desperate situation into which he had been maneuvered—by Mavis as much as by anybody—would sink in slowly.
He looked up at the night sky, at the distant stars.
Would Discovery find her Pitcairn Island?
Would the fate of her people be happier than that of those other, long ago and faraway, mutineers?
In spite of all that had been done to him by them, in spite of all that had happened because of them, he rather hoped so.
THE END
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The Big Black Mark Page 24
