Upon a Sea of Stars

by A Bertram Chandler

  Sonya enjoyed herself too. She made friends with the other women aboard: with Mary Hales, with Sally Fielding, with the darkly opulent Vanessa Wilcox, who had joined just before departure from Port Stellar, with Tessa and Teena, the Assistant Stewardesses, with the massive Jemima Brown who was queen of the beautifully mechanized galley. This shipboard life—surface shipboard life—was all so new to her, in spite of its inevitable resemblances to life aboard a spaceship. There was so much to see, so much to inquire into . . .

  The weather was fine, mainly, with warm days and nights with just sufficient chill to provide a pleasant contrast. Grimes played with the sextant he had purchased in Port Stellar, became skilled in its use, taking altitude after altitude of the sun, of the planet’s two moons, of such stars, planets and artificial satellites as were visible at morning and evening twilight. His officers watched with a certain amusement as he plotted position after position on the working chart, congratulated him when these coincided with those for the same times shown on the chart that was displayed on the screen of the Purcell Navigator. And they, he was pleased to note, tended to ignore that contraption, consulting it only when there was a wide variance between positions taken by two observers.

  A shipmaster, however, is more than a navigator. Pilotage was not compulsory for the majority of the ports visited by Sonya Winneck, although in each one of them pilots were available. Grimes had taken a pilot sailing from Port Stellar, but after the six-day run between that harbor and Tallisport decided to try to berth the ship himself. After all, he had spent hours in the simulator and, since joining his ship, had read Ardley’s Harbor Pilotage from cover to cover.

  This book, a standard Terran twentieth-century work on the handling and mooring of ships, had been given him by the Havenmaster, who had said, “You should find this useful, John. Ardley was one of the authorities of his time. One thing I like about him—he says that anchors are there to be used. For maneuvering, I mean . . .” He laughed, then added, “But don’t go making too much of a habit of it. It annoys chief officers!”

  And so, having made a careful study of the large-scale chart, the plan and the “sailing directions,” Grimes stood in to Tallisport shortly after sunrise. The wheel was manned, the engines on standby. According to the Tide Tables it was just two hours after first high water, which meant that Sonya Winneck would be stemming the ebb on her way in. (But, Wilcox had told him, complications were bound to crop up in this river harbor. All wharfage was on the western bank of the river, on the starboard hand entering—and to berth starboard side to is to risk damage in a vessel with a right-handed single screw, especially when the master is an inexperienced ship handler. Sometimes, however, an eddy, a countercurrent, set strongly along the line of wharfage, giving the effect of flood tide. If this eddy were running—and only visual observation when approaching the berth would confirm this or not—Grimes would be able to bring the ship’s head to starboard, letting go the starboard anchor to stub her around, and then ease her alongside, port side to, with the anchor still on the bottom.)

  Grimes stood into Tallisport. With his naked eye he could now see the Main Leads, two white towers, nicely in line. He told the Harbor Quartermaster to steer for them, to keep them right ahead. Yes, and there was the breakwater to port, with its red beacon . . . The red beacon was abeam now, and Sonya Winneck was sweeping into the harbor in fine style.

  “Hadn’t you better reduce speed, sir?” suggested the Third Officer.

  “Mphm. Thank you, Mr. Viccini. Better make it slow—no, dead slow.” “Dead slow, sir.”

  The rhythmic thudding of the diesel generators was unchanged, but there was a subtle diminution of vibration as the propeller revolutions decreased. The Main Leads were still ahead, but coming abeam to starboard were the two white obelisks that were the Leads into the Swinging Basin. “Port ten degrees,” ordered Grimes. Would it be enough? Then he saw the ship’s head swinging easily, heard the clicking of the gyro repeater. “Midships. Steady!”

  He went out to the starboard wing of the bridge, looked aft. The Swinging Basin Leads were coming into line astern nicely. “Steady as you go!” he called.

  Now Sonya Winneck was creeping up the last navigable reach of the river. To starboard was the line of wharfage, and behind it the clumps of greenery, spangled with blossoms like jewels, the white-walled houses, all clean and bright in the morning sun. But Grimes had no eye for scenery; he was too new to the game. Through his binoculars he studied the quay at which he was to berth, the furthest up river. Beyond it was a mess of dredging equipment, all part and parcel of the port expansion plan. Which side to would it be? He had still to make up his mind.

  “Sir,” said the Third Officer.

  “Yes?”

  “It doesn’t look as though the eddy, the countercurrent, is running, sir.”

  “What makes you think that, Mr. Viccini?”

  The young man pointed to the small craft—a yacht, two fishing vessels—past which they were sliding. Their upstream moorings were bar taut, their downstream lines hanging in bights. “Mphm,” grunted Grimes. So it was ebb all over the river. He made up his mind. “Tell the Chief and Second Officers it will be starboard side to. Tell Mr. Wilcox to have his port anchor ready.”

  He came to starboard, lined the ship’s head up on the up river end of the wharf. With his mouth whistle he blew one short, sharp blast. The chain cable of the port anchor rattled out through the pipe, the grip of the flukes in the mud acted as a brake. Sonya Winneck was still making way, but with the ebb against her and the drag of the anchor she was almost stopped.

  This, thought Grimes, is easy, as he nosed in toward his berth.

  But there was an eddy after all, and as soon as the ship was well inside it she was swept upstream toward the dredges, buoys and pipelines. “Hard a-starboard!” Grimes ordered. The anchor was still holding, luckily, and it acted as a fulcrum, checking the upstream motion of the stem while the stern was free to swing. The vessel was broadside on to the line of the river now, still approaching the wharf, but head on.

  “Swing her, sir,” suggested Viccini. “Get a headline ashore and tell the linesmen to run it to the down-river end of the berth . . .”

  Yes, thought Grimes, it’ll work. It’d better . . .

  A heaving line snaked ashore from the fo’c’sle head, was caught by one of the waiting linesmen. He and another man ran with it to the post indicated by the Chief Officer. Then the self-tensioning winch, whining, took the weight. Belatedly Grimes thought that he had better stop the engines, had better go astern before the ship’s stem crashed through the wharf stringer. But the order had been anticipated. A good lad, Viccini . . . he thought. But he’d better not make a habit of this sort of thing.

  Now Sonya Winneck’s bows were being pulled downriver against the countercurrent, her stern still only a few feet from the stringer, the stern swinging in easily. “Stop her,” Grimes ordered. She was alongside now, with the very gentlest of impacts, and the leading hand of the mooring gang was shouting up that she was in position.

  Grimes filled and lit his pipe. “Make fast fore and aft,” he said. “That’ll do the wheel. Finished with engines.” And then, “Mr. Viccini, I appreciate your help. Don’t get me wrong, I like an officer to show initiative. But I think you should try to remember there’s only one Master on the bridge.”

  “But, sir . . .”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Viccini. You did the right things, and I appreciate it. I’ll try to do the right things myself in future.”

  Probably the Third Officer would have made a full explanation to Grimes during the day, but as soon as the gangway was out the Winneck Line’s local agent came aboard with the mail, and among it was a letter saying that Viccini was to be paid off to commence his annual leave and would be relieved that morning by a Mr. Denham.

  Sonya Winneck continued her steady, round-the-planet progress, rarely straying north or south of the tropics. The met. screen in the chartroom rarely showed indicatio
ns of disturbed weather conditions, and when it did these were invariably hundreds of miles from the ship’s track. It was, Mr. Wilcox said to Grimes, the sort of weather you sign on for. The days and the nights passed pleasantly. At sea, there was sunbathing, swimming in the ship’s pool that, when inflated, occupied all the foredeck between the forward and after cranes of the main hatch, deck golf and, in the evenings, a variety of games or a wide selection of programs on the playmasters installed throughout the accommodation. In port, the day’s business over, there was so much to see, so much to do. There was real swimming from sun-washed, golden beaches, and surfing; and now and again Grimes was able to hire a small sailing yacht for the day and found this sport much more enjoyable than on the lakes of Lorn, where there was wind enough but it was always bitter. There were the waterfront taverns—and both Grimes and Sonya loved seafood. The Terran lobster, prawn, oyster and herring had all done well in the Aquarian seas, and there were the local delicacies: the sand crawlers, which were something like Earth’s trilobites must have been, the butterfly fish and the sea steaks.

  It was, for both of them, a holiday, but for Sonya it was a holiday that palled in time. It was all right for Grimes; he had his navigation to play with, his pilotage and, when he got around to it, research to carry out on the projected history and a chapter or so of it to write. His wife, however, was becoming bored.

  It was a longish run between Lynnhaven and Port Johnson, all of seven days. During it Sonya found stacks of magazines in one of the lockers in the ship’s office, back numbers of the Merchant Shipping Journal, dating back for years. She brought a pile of them up to the master’s day cabin. She said, “These could be useful to you, John.” Grimes picked one up, leafed through it. “Mphm. All rather dry stuff. At the moment I’m trying to get the essential feel of this planet.”

  “But they’re full of information.”

  “So’s a dictionary.”

  She said, “Suppose I go through them, making notes of anything that might be useful to you . . .”

  “That,” he told her, “is very sweet of you, Sonya.”

  She made a grimace at him, then settled down with the supply of factual reading matter. Everything was there: specifications of new tonnage, sales, breakings up, wrecks, strandings, collisions, courts of inquiry. These latter were of interest to her. She could see how, time and time again, the unfortunate Master was given only seconds to decide what to do, while learned judges, counsel and marine assessors had weeks to decide what should have been done. And then, as she read on, nagging hints of some sort of pattern began to form in her mind, her trained mind. After all, she had been an intelligence officer, and a good one, in the Federation’s Survey Service.

  It seemed to her that the Winneck Line ships were getting into more than their fair share of trouble, with Lone Star Line running a close second. She knew little about the Lone Star Line, although she had seen their ships often enough in various ports and, with Grimes, had been a guest aboard a few of them for drinks and meals. They were well-run, well-maintained vessels. She could speak with more authority regarding the Winneck Line; Sonya Winneck was typical of their newer tonnage. There wasn’t the same spit and polish as in the Lone Star, but there was a very real efficiency.

  She read again the details of one of the collision cases. Olga Winneck had been bound up the Great Muddy River to Steelport, Suzanne Winneck had been outbound. The ships had passed each other—or had attempted to pass each other—in Collier’s Reach, the navigable channel in that locality being both deep and wide. Suddenly Olga Winneck had taken a sheer to port and, in spite of the efforts of both Masters to avert collision, had struck Suzanne Winneck on her port quarter, holing her so badly that she was obliged to return to dock for repairs.

  There was the transcription of evidence:

  Mr. Younghusband (counsel for Havenmaster’s Office): Can you tell me, Mr. Margolies, what orders were given by Captain Hazzard?

  Mr. Margolies (Third Officer of Olga Winneck): Yes, sir. The Master ordered, “Hard a-starboard! Stop engines! Full astern!”

  Mr. Younghusband: And were these orders carried out?

  Mr. Margolies: Of course. I at once put the controls to full astern.

  Mr. Younghusband: And what about the wheel? Quartermasters have been known to put the helm the wrong way, especially in an emergency.

  Mr. Margolies: The quartermaster put the wheel hard to starboard.

  Mr. Younghusband: And did you look at the rudder indicator? It has been suggested that steering gear failure was a cause of the collision.

  Mr. Margolies: Yes, I looked. The pointer was hard over to starboard.

  And so it went on. It was established finally that both Masters had done all the right things, although Captain Hazzard should have realized that a delay was inevitable when switching directly from full ahead to full astern. It was thought that a tidal eddy had been responsible for the collision. The court recommended that ships passing in Collier’s Reach keep each well to their own sides of the channel, also that speed be reduced.

  That was one case. There were others, and Sonya made notes, drew up tables. There had been collisions in narrow channels and in the open sea. Some had been in clear weather, some in conditions of reduced visibility. The causes were various: tidal eddies, steering gear failure, radar breakdown and, inevitably, errors of judgment. And the Winneck Line and the Lone Star Line were having more than their fair share of marine casualties . . . It was odd, she thought. Odd. There was something rotten in the state of Aquarius.

  She asked Grimes if she could browse through the ship’s files of correspondence. He said, “Of course. They aren’t top secret.” She found the one labeled Damage Reports. It wasn’t especially bulky. But its contents were interesting.

  “Sir, (she read)

  I regret to have to report that whilst berthing this morning at No.3 Inner East, Port Kantor, the stem of the vessel came into heavy contact with the starboard side of the Lone Star Line’s Canopic. Damage to Sonya Winneck was superficial only—please see enclosed sketch—but that to the other ship was considerable and, I am informed by Canopic’s master, will necessitate dry-docking.

  I entered the harbor at 0545 hrs., standing in on the Main Leads. When clear of the breakwaters I reduced to dead slow and altered course to port, steering for the shore end of No.3 Jetty. Visibility was good, wind was ENE at about 10 knots, tidal influence, it being just after low water slack, was negligible.

  When my bridge was just abeam of Canopic’s stern, however, Sonya Winneck took a sudden sheer to port. I at once ordered a hard a-starboard, stopped the engines and ordered full astern. Also I signaled to the Chief Officer to let go the starboard anchor, but unfortunately it jammed in the pipe, and was released too late to have any effect. In spite of the application of full starboard rudder and full stern power, contact occurred at 0555 hrs.

  It is possible that I underestimated the force of the wind while standing in to my berth, but, even so, find it hard to account for the sudden sheer to port . . .”

  But Sonya Winneck was sometimes at the receiving end.

  “Sir,

  I have to report that this afternoon, at 1327 hrs., the vessel was struck by the Company’s Elizabeth Winneck, which same was proceeding down river, bound for sea. Unfortunately, it being Saturday afternoon, with no work in progress, no officers were on deck at the time of the contact, and the Company’s gangway watchman was at his place of duty, at the head of the gangway, on the inshore side of the vessel.

  Damage, fortunately, was not extensive and all above the waterline. My Chief Officer’s report is enclosed herewith. No doubt you will be hearing from Captain Pardoe of Elizabeth Winneck . . .”

  There were several more letters, some going into great detail, others composed on the good old principle of “least said, soonest mended.” With two exceptions the other ships concerned were units of either the Winneck or the Lone Star fleets. One of the exceptions was the contact with Iron Duchess. On that occa
sion Captain Harrell, Grimes’s predecessor, had been trying to berth his ship during a howling gale. The other occasion was a collision with a ferry steamer in Carrington Harbor, with fortunately no loss of life.

  So, Sonya wondered, just what was the connection between the Winneck Line and the Lone Star Line? She borrowed from the Chief Officer’s office the bulky Aquarian Registry in which was listed comprehensive details of all the commercial shipping of the planet. Against the name of each ship were the lines of information: tonnage, gross, net and deadweight; propulsion; speed; length overall, length between posts, breadth . . . And builders.

  She looked up her namesake first. She had been built by the Carrington State Dockyard. She looked up Canopic. Her builders were Varley’s Dockyard, in Steelport. She looked up Elizabeth Winneck—another Varley’s job. So it went on. The majority of the collisions had occurred between ships constructed at those two yards.

  And what about the contact that her husband, Grimes, had so narrowly averted, that time coming into Newhaven? What was the name of the ship that he had almost (but not quite) hit? Orionic . . . She looked it up. Carrington State Dockyard. She murmured, “All us Carrington girls must stick together . . .”

  “What was that?” demanded Grimes, looking up from his book.

  “Just a thought,” she told him. “Just a passing thought.”

  “Mphm.”

  “Do ships really have personalities?” she asked.

  He grinned. “Spacemen and seamen like to kid themselves that they do. Look at it this way. You’re bringing a ship in—a spaceship or a surface ship—and you’ve failed to allow for all the factors affecting her handling. Your landing or berthing isn’t up to your usual standard. But you kid yourself, and your officers that it wasn’t your fault. You say, ‘She was a proper little bitch, wasn’t she? Wouldn’t do a thing right . . .’ But you were the one who wasn’t doing a thing right.”