Saying nothing, Grimes carried on aft. The other engineer was dead already, killed by the first wild shot of the encounter. Grimes thought at first that the loud dripping noise was being made by his blood. But it was not. It came from the fuel tank, which had been pierced by a stray bullet. Before Grimes could do anything about it, the steam turbine ground to a halt.
The sun was up. It was a fine morning, calm insofar as those in the disabled airship were concerned, although the whitecaps on the sea were evidence of a strong breeze. To port was the coastline: rugged cliffs, orange beaches, blue-green vegetation inland, a sizable city far to the south’ard. It was receding quite rapidly as the aircraft, broadside on to the offshore wind, scudded to leeward.
The bodies of the airmen had been dragged into the cabin in which the Terrans had been imprisoned. Farrell and Sonya had wanted to throw them overside, but Grimes had talked them out of it. From his historical researches he knew something—not much, but something—about the handling of lighter-than-air flying machines. Until he had familiarized himself with the controls of this brute, he had no intention of dumping ballast.
He had succeeded in fixing the ship’s position. In the control room there was a binnacle, and there were sight vanes on the compass. There were charts, and presumably the one that had been in use at the time of the escape was the one that covered this section of coast. The compass was strange; it was divided into 400 degrees, not 360. The latitude and longitude divisions on the chart were strange, too, but it wasn’t hard to work out that the Esquelians worked on 100 minutes to a degree, 100 degrees to a right angle. There was a certain lack of logic involved—human beings, with their five-fingered hands, have a passion for reckoning things in twelves. The Esquelians, six-fingered, seemed to prefer reckoning by tens. Even so, compass, sight vanes and charts were a fine example of the parallel evolution of artifacts.
There was the compass rose, showing the variation (Grimes assumed) between True North and Magnetic North. There was that city to the south. There were two prominent mountain peaks, the mountains being shown by what were obviously contour lines. Grimes laid off his cross bearings, using a roller, ruler and a crayon. The cocked hat was a very small one. After fifteen minutes he did it again. The line between the two fixes coincided with the estimated wind direction. And where would that take them?
Transferring the position to a small scale chart presented no problems. Neither did extending the course line. The only trouble was that it missed the fly speck that represented Drarg Island by at least twenty miles, regarding one minute on the latitude scale as being a mile. Sonya, recruited in her linguistic capacity, confirmed that the (to Grimes) meaningless squiggles alongside the dot on the chart did translate to “Drarg.”
The trouble was that the unlucky shot that had immobilized the airship’s engines had also immobilized her generator. There were batteries—but they were flat. (During a revolution quite important matters tend to be neglected.) The radio telephone was, in consequence, quite useless. Had there been power it would have been possible to raise the party on the island, to get them to send the pinnace to pick them up when the aircraft was ditched, or, even, to tow them in.
“At least we’re drifting away from the land,” said Farrell, looking on the bright side. “I don’t think that we should be too popular if we came down ashore.” He added, rather petulantly, “Apart from anything else, my orders were that there was to be no intervention . . .” He implied that all the killing had been quite unnecessary.
“Self-defense,” Grimes told him. “Not intervention. But if you ever make it back to Lindisfame Base, James, you can tell the Admiral that it was the wicked Rim Worlders who played hell with a big stick.”
“We’re all in this, Commodore,” said Farrell stiffly. “And this expedition is under my command, after all.”
“This is no time for inessentials,” snapped Sonya. She straightened up from the chart, which she had been studying. “As I see it, they’ll sight us from the island, and assume that we’re just one of the rebel patrol craft. They might try to intercept us, trying to find out what’s happened to us. On the other hand . . .”
“On the other hand,” contributed Farrell, “my bright Exec does everything by the book. He’ll insist on getting direct orders from Lindisfarne before he does anything.”
“How does this thing work?” asked Sonya. “Can you do anything, John? The way that you were talking earlier you conveyed the impression that you knew something about airships.”
Grimes prowled through the control compartment like a big cat in a small cupboard. He complained, “If I had power, I could get someplace. This wheel here, abaft the binnacle, is obviously for steering. This other wheel, with what looks like a crude altimeter above it, will be for the altitude coxswain. The first actuates a vertical steering surface, the rudder. The second actuates the horizontal control surfaces, for aerodynamic lift. . .”
“I thought that in an airship you dumped ballast or valved gas if you wanted to go up or down, “said Sonya.
“You can do that, too.” Grimes indicated toggled cords that ran down into the control room from above. “These, I think, open valves if you pull them. So we can come down.” He added grimly, “And we’ve plenty of ballast to throw out if we want to get upstairs in a hurry.”
“Then what’s all the bellyaching about?” asked Farrell. “We can control our altitude by either of two ways, and we can steer. If the rudder’s not working we can soon fix it.”
Grimes looked at him coldly. “Commander Farrell,” he said at last, “there is one helluva difference between a free balloon and a dirigible balloon. This brute, with no propulsive power, is a free balloon.” He paused while he sought for and found an analogy. “She’s like a surface ship, broken down, drifting wherever wind and current take her. The surface ship is part of the current if she has neither sails nor engines. A balloon is part of the wind. We can wiggle our rudder as much as we like and it will have no effect whatsoever . . .” Once again he tried to find a seamanlike analogy—and found something more important. He whispered, “Riverhead . . .”
“Riverhead?” echoed Farrell. “What’s that, Commodore?”
“Shut up, James,” murmured Sonya. “Let the man think.”
Grimes was thinking, and remembering. During his spell of command of Sonya Winneck, on Aquarius, he had been faced with an occasional knotty problem. One such had been the delivery of a consignment of earth-moving machinery to Riverhead, a new port miles inland—equipment which was to be used for the excavation of a swinging basin off the wharfage. The channel was deep enough—but at its upper end it was not as wide as Sonya Winneck was long. However, everything had been arranged nicely. Grimes was to come alongside, discharge his cargo and then, with the aid of a tug, proceed stern first down river until he had room to swing in Carradine’s Reach. Unfortunately the tug had suffered a major breakdown so that Sonya Winneck, if she waited for the repairs to be completed, would be at least ten days, idle, alongside at the new wharf.
Grimes had decided not to wait and had successfully dredged down river on the ebb.
He said slowly, “Yes, I think we could dredge . . .”
“Dredge?” asked Farrell.
Grimes decided that he would explain. People obey orders much more cheerfully when they know that what they are being told to do makes sense. He said, “Yes, I’ve done it before, but in a surface ship. I had to proceed five miles down a narrow channel, stern first . . .”
“But you had engines?”
“Yes, I had engines, but I didn’t use them. I couldn’t use them. Very few surface ships, only specialized vessels, will steer when going astern. The rudder, you see, must be in the screw race. Y’ou must have that motion of water past and around the rudder from forward to aft . . .
“The dredging technique is simple enough. You put an anchor on the bottom, not enough chain out so that it holds, but just enough so that it acts as a drag, keeping your head up into the current. You�
�re still drifting with the current, of course, but not as fast. So the water is sliding past your rudder in the right direction, from forward, so you can steer after a fashion.”
“It works?”
“Yes,” said Sonya. “It works all right But with all the ear bashing I got before and after I was inclined to think that John was the only man who’d ever made it work.”
“You can do it here?” asked Farrell.
“I think so. It’s worth trying.”
The hand winch was aft, in the engine compartment. To dismount it would have taken too much time, so Grimes had the rope fall run off it, brought forward and coiled down in the control room. To its end he made fast four large canvas buckets; what they had been used for he did not know, nor ever did know, but they formed an ideal drogue. Farrell, using the spanner that had been the dead engineer’s weapon, smashed outward the forward window. It was glass, and not heavy enough to offer much resistance. Grimes told him to make sure that there were no jagged pieces left on the sill to cut the dragline. Then, carefully, he lowered his cluster of buckets down toward the water. The line was not long enough to reach.
Carefully Grimes belayed it to the base of the binnacle, which fitting seemed to be securely mounted. He went back forward, looked out and down. He called back, over his shoulder, “We have to valve gas . . .”
“Which control?” asked Sonya.
“Oh, the middle one, I suppose . . .”
That made sense, he thought. One of the others might have an effect on the airship’s trim, or give it a heavy list to port or starboard. And so, he told himself, might this one.
He was aware of a hissing noise coming from overhead. The airship was dropping rapidly, too rapidly. “That will do!” he ordered sharply.
“The bloody thing’s stuck!” he heard Sonya call. Then, “I’ve got it clear!”
The airship was still falling, and the drogue made its first contact with the waves—close now, too close below-skipping over them. The line tightened with a jerk and the flimsy structure of the gondola creaked in protest. The ship came round head to wind, and an icy gale swept through the broken window. The ship bounced upward and there was a brief period of relative calm, sagged, and once again was subjected to the atmospheric turbulence.
“Ballast!” gasped Grimes, clinging desperately to the sill. It seemed a long time before anything happened, and then the ship soared, lifting the drogue well clear of the water.
“Got rid . . . of one . . . of our late friends . . .” gasped Farrell.
“Justifiable, in the circumstances,” conceded Grimes grudgingly. “But before we go any further we have to rig a windscreen . . . I saw some canvas, or what looks like canvas, aft . . .”
“How will you keep a lookout?” asked Farrell.
“The lookout will be kept astern, from the engine compartment. That’s the way that we shall be going. Now give me a hand to get this hole plugged.”
They got the canvas over the empty window frame, lashed it and, with a hammer and nails from the engine room tool kit, tacked it into place. Grimes hoped that it would hold. He discovered that he could see the surface of the sea quite well from the side windows, so had no worries on that score. Before doing anything else he retrieved the crumpled chart from the corner into which it had blown, spread it out on the desk, made an estimation of the drift since the last observed position, laid off a course for Drarg Island. Once he had the ship under control he would steer a reciprocal of this course, send Sonya right aft to keep a lookout astern, with Farrell stationed amidships to relay information and orders. First of all, however, there was more juggling to be done with gas and ballast.
Grimes descended cautiously, calling instructions to Sonya as he watched the white-crested waves coming up to meet him. The drogue touched surface—and still the ship fell, jerkily, until the buckets bit and held, sinking as they filled. There was a vile draft in the control room as the wind whistled through chinks in the makeshift windshield.
“All right,” ordered Grimes. “Man the lookout!”
The others scrambled aft, while the Commodore took the wheel. He knew that he would have to keep the lubber’s line steady on a figure that looked like a misshapen, convoluted 7, saw that the ship’s head was all of twenty degrees to starboard off this heading. He applied port rudder, was surprised as well as pleased when she came round easily. He risked a sidewise glance at the altimeter. The needle was steady enough—but it could not possibly drop much lower. The instrument had not been designed for wave hopping.
He yelled, hoping that Farrell would be able to hear him, “If you think we’re getting too low, dump some more ballast!”
“Will do!” came the reply.
He concentrated on his steering. It was not as easy as he thought it would be. Now and again he had taken the wheel of Sonya Winneck, just to get the feel of her—but her wheel could be put over with one finger, all the real work being done by the powerful steering motors aft. Here it was a case of Armstrong Patent.
But he kept the lubber’s line on the course, his arms aching, his legs trembling, his clothing soaked with perspiration in spite of the freezing draft. He wished that he knew what speed the airship was making. He wanted a drink, badly, and thought longingly of ice-cold water. He wanted a smoke, and was tempted. He thought that the airship was helium filled, was almost certain that she was helium filled, but dared take no risks. But the stem of his cold, empty pipe between his teeth was some small comfort.
Faintly he heard Sonya call out something.
Farrell echoed her. “Land, ho!”
“Where away?” yelled Grimes over his shoulder, his pipe clattering unheeded to the deck.
“Astern! To port! About fifteen degrees!”
Carefully, Grimes brought the ship round to the new course. She held it, almost without attention on his part. There must, he thought, have been a shift of wind.
“As she goes!” came the hail. “Steady as she goes!”
“Steady,” grunted Grimes. “Steady . . .”
How much longer? He concentrated on his steering, on the swaying compass card, on the outlandish numerals that seemed to writhe as he watched them, How much longer?
He heard Sonya scream, “We’re coming in fast! Too low! The cliffs!”
“Ballast!” yelled Grimes.
Farrell had not waited for the order, already had the trap in the cabin deck open, was pushing out another of the dead Esquelians, then another. The deck lifted under Grimes’s feet, lifted and tilted, throwing him forward onto his now useless wheel. A violent jerk flung him aft, breaking his grip on the spokes.
After what seemed a very long time he tried to get to his feet. Suddenly Sonya was with him, helping him up, supporting him in his uphill scramble toward the stern of the ship, over decking that canted and swayed uneasily. They stumbled over the dead bodies, skirting the open hatch. Grimes was surprised to see bare rock only a foot or so below the aperture. They came to the engine room, jumped down through the door to the ground. It was only a short drop.
“We were lucky,” said Grimes, assessing the situation. The airship had barely cleared the cliff edge, had been brought up short by its dragline a few feet short of the Carlotti beacon.
“Bloody lucky!” Farrell said. “Some Execs would have opened fire first and waited for orders afterward . . .”
His Executive Officer flushed. “Well, sir, I thought it might be you.” He added, tactlessly, “After all, we’ve heard so many stories about Commodore Grimes . . .”
Farrell was generous. He said, “Excellent airmanship, Commodore.”
“Seamanship,” corrected Grimes huffily.
Sonya laughed—but it was with him, not at him.
The voyage between Esquel and Tallis, where the King and his entourage were disembarked, was not a pleasant one. Insofar as the Terrans were concerned, the Esquelians stank. Insofar as the Esquelians were concerned, the Terrans stank—and that verb could be used both literally and metaphorically. Co
mmander Farrell thought, oddly enough, that the King should be humbly grateful. The King, not so oddly, was of the opinion that he had been let down, badly, by his allies. Grimes, on one occasion when he allowed himself to be drawn into an argument, made himself unpopular with both sides by saying that the universe would be a far happier place if people did not permit political expediency to influence their choice of friends.
But at last, and none too soon, Star Pioneer dropped gently down to her berth between the marker beacons at Tallisport, and the ramp was extended, and, gibbering dejectedly, the Esquelians filed down it to be received by the Terran High Commissioner.
Farrell, watching from a control room viewport, turned to Grimes and Sonya. He said thankfully, “My first order will be ‘Clean ship.’ And there’ll be no shore leave for anybody until it’s done.”
“And don’t economize on the disinfectant, Jimmy,” Sonya told him.
The Rub
SLOWLY GRIMES awakened from his nightmare.
It had been so real, too real, and the worst part of it was always the deep sense of loss. There was that shocking contrast between the dreary life that he was living (in the dream) and the rich and full life that he somehow knew that he should be living. There was his wife—that drab, unimaginative woman with her irritating mannerisms—and that memory of somebody else, somebody whom he had never met, never would meet, somebody elegant and slim, somebody with whom he had far more in common than just the physical side of marriage, somebody who knew books and music and the visual arts and yet evinced a deep appreciation of the peculiar psychology of the spaceman.
Slowly Grimes awakened.
Slowly he realized that he was not in his bedroom in the Base Commander’s quarters on Zetland. He listened to the small, comforting noises: the irregular throbbing of the inertial drive, the sobbing of pumps, the soughing of the ventilation system, the thin, high whine of the Mannschenn Drive unit. And there was the soft, steady breathing of the woman in the bed with him. (That other one snored.)
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