The Dark Dimensions

by A Bertram Chandler

  Grimes was dressed, after a fashion. As he walked fast toward the door, he saw that Maggie was punching the buttons for another number on the ship's exchange. She called over her shoulder, "Wait a moment!"

  "Sorry. See you later."

  He went out into the alleyway. He hesitated outside the door to his own quarters. Dare he face Sonya? It would be obvious, too obvious, what he had been doing, and with whom.

  The door opened suddenly—and Grimes was staring at Flandry, and Flandry was staring at him, staring and smiling knowingly.

  "You bastard!" snarled Grimes, swinging wildly. The punch never connected, but Flandry's hand around Grimes' right wrist used the momentum of the blow to bring Grimes sprawling to the deck.

  "Gentlemen," said Grimes II coldly. "Gentlemen—if you will pardon my misuse of the word—I permit no brawling aboard my ship."

  Grimes I got groggily to his feet assisted by Flandry. They looked silently at the Commodore. He looked at them. He said, "Such conduct I expected from you, Captain Flandry. But as for you, Commodore Grimes, I am both surprised and pained to learn that your time track is apparently more permissive than mine."

  At last Grimes felt the beginnings of guilt. In a way it was himself whom he had cuckolded, but that was no excuse. And what hurt was that during this night's lovemaking it had been his own counterpart, himself although not himself, who had been the odd man out. He knew how this other Grimes must be feeling.

  He thought, I wish I were anywhere but here.

  He said, "Believe me, Commodore, I wish I were anywhere but here." Then he grinned incredulously, looking like a clown with that smile on a face besmeared with lip rouge. "And why the hell shouldn't I be?"

  "If I had any say in the matter you would be, Commodore. You and Captain Sir Dominic Flandry." He made it sound as though the honorific were a word of four letters, not three.

  "You just might have your wish, Commodore. Tell me, have you received any reports from Commander Mayhew and the other PCOs?"

  "This is no time to. . . ."

  "But it is. The success of our mission, the safety of our ships; these matters, surely, are of overriding importance. . . ."

  "He's right, you know," said Sonya, who had appeared in the doorway, looking as though butter would not melt in her mouth.

  "Shut up!" snapped Grimes. "You keep out of it."

  "He's right, you know," said Maggie, cool and unruffled, who had just joined the party.

  "Shut up!" snapped Grimes II. "You keep out of it."

  "He's right, you know," drawled Flandry.

  Grimes II snarled wordlessly. Then, "As a matter of fact, your Mayhew and his mates did get Clarisse to . . . to turn off the amplifier. They're trying to sort out the psionic impressions that they're getting from Adler and your Faraway Quest, now that the interference has been . . . switched off. I was thinking of calling you to let you know, but there was no urgency, and I thought you needed your sleep. Ha, ha."

  "So now we work out a plan of campaign . . ." murmured Grimes I.

  "Yes. In the control room. It'll be some time before I feel like setting foot in my own quarters again. And might I suggest that you two officers and gentlemen get yourselves looking like officers, at least, before you come up."

  Grimes looked doubtfully at Sonya. Then he turned to Flandry. "Do you mind if I make use of your toilet facilities, Sir Dominic?"

  "Be my guest, Commodore." Then, in almost a whisper, "After all, I was yours—and you were his."

  Grimes didn't want to laugh, but he did. If looks could have killed he would have died there and then. But women have no sense of humor.

  20

  Wanderer AND Faraway Quest II synchronized temporal precession rates, and Wanderer closed with the Quest, laying herself almost alongside her. It was a maneuver typical of Irene's spacemanship—or spacewomanship—and when it was over Grimes I looked closely at Grimes II's head to see if his counterpart had acquired any additional gray hairs. He thought wryly, Probably Maggie and I have put a few there ourselves.. . . It was essential, however, that the meeting of the leaders be held aboard one of the ships; Adler would do her best to monitor a conversation conducted over the Carlotti transceivers.

  So there they all were in Faraway Quest's control room: the two Grimeses, their wives, Sir Dominic, Irene, Trafford, Smith (inevitably), Mayhew and Metzenther. Somehow Grimes I found himself in the chair.

  Slowly and carefully, he filled and lit his pipe. (The other Grimes produced and lit a cigarette. Subtle, thought Grimes. Subtle. I didn't think you had it in you, John . . .) After he had it going well he said, "All right. I think we can take it as read that our PCOs have silenced the dog, and that they—including, of course, Clarisse—are now doing some snooping into the minds of our mutual enemies. Correct?"

  "Correct, sir," answered Mayhew.

  "Good. Then report, please, Commander."

  The telepath spoke in a toneless voice. "Clarisse is well, although her mind is not yet operating at full capacity. As far as she can determine, as far as we can determine, all the other members of Faraway Quest's crew are unharmed. As yet.

  "Insofar as their captors are concerned, we have found it advisable to concentrate on key personnel: Dr. Druthen, Captain Blumenfeld and Commander von Donderberg, who is still the senior prize officer aboard Quest. Dr. Druthen is not quite sane. He is ambitious. He thinks that the Duchy of Waldegren will appreciate his brilliance, whereas the Confederacy does not. His mother, who exercised considerable influence over him during his formative years, was an expatriate Waldegrener. Druthen, too, has strong sadistic tendencies. Had it not been for the restraining influence of von Donderberg the lot of the prisoners would have been a sorry one. He is still urging Blumenfeld to use them to blackmail us into giving him a free hand with The Outsider.

  "Now, von Donderberg. The impression you gained from that talk with him over the Carlotti radio is a correct one. Like many—although not all—naval officers, he regards himself as a spaceman first and foremost. The prisoners happen to be wearing the wrong uniform, but they, as far as he is concerned, are also spacemen. He hates Druthen, and Druthen hates and despises him.

  "Finally, Captain Blumenfeld. Once again, sir, you summed him up rather neatly. He is essentially a politician, with a politician's lack of conscience. He would stand on his mother's grave to get two inches nearer to where he wants to be. As a spaceman he is, at best, merely competent—but the success of this mission would put him at least two steps up the promotion ladder. He would play along with Druthen if he thought that he could get away with it, but realizes that maltreatment, or even murder of Faraway Quest's rightful crew could lead to an outbreak of hostilities between the Duchy and the Confederacy. He knows that his government would welcome this rather than otherwise, but fears, as they fear, that the Confederacy's Big Brother might step in. Should he get the 'all clear' from Waldegren—we gained the impression that the Duchy's political experts are hard at work evaluating the possibility of Federation intervention—he will tell Druthen to go ahead."

  "Meanwhile, he is hoping that there will be dissension in our ranks. That was why he gave us time to think things over; not long, but long enough." He looked at Smith. "As you know, at least one of us present puts his own interests before the well-being of Faraway Quest's crew."

  "Mphm." Grimes puffed thoughtfully at his pipe. Then, "Do you concur, Mr. Metzenther?"

  "Yes, Commodore. Commander Mayhew has summarized the findings of all four of us."

  "And now you know," said Grimes II, who did not seem to be enjoying his cigarette, "what are you going to do about it? Not that you can do much. You haven't a ship of your own, even though. . . ."

  "Even though I'm carrying on as though this were my own ship ?" asked Grimes. "In a way, she is. Just as. . . ."

  "She's not. And neither is Maggie."

  "Shut up!" snapped the wife referred to. "Shut up! This is no time to let your personal feelings get in the way of important business."

/>   "You should have thought of that last night," her husband told her.

  Flandry laughed.

  "Just what has been going on aboard this rustbucket?" asked Irene curiously, looking at Sir Dominic speculatively.

  "It's a pity that you weren't here," he told her, while Sonya looked at him nastily.

  "Just a slight domestic problem," said Grimes airily.

  "Some people's idea of what's slight . . ." snarled Grimes II.

  "Don't forget that I, too, am an injured party." Flandry laughed again.

  "Please . . ." pleaded Grimes. "Please. We're getting no place at all with this petty squabbling." He turned to Mayhew. "You've given us the general background. It's obvious that we have to do something before Blumenfeld gives Druthen the okay, or before Druthen acts off his own bat. I've already thought of something that we—that Clarisse especially—can do. I take it that there are writing materials in your watch room aboard my Quest?"

  "Of course."

  "And writing materials are also drawing materials. . . ."

  "Yes. But to call up some peculiar deities or demons at this juncture could make the situation worse than it is now."

  "Who mentioned deities or demons?" Grimes saw that Flandry, Irene and Trafford were looking at him curiously, as were his alter ego and Maggie Lazenby. He said slowly, "I suppose I'd better put you in the picture. Clarisse is more than a mere telepath. She is descended from a caveman artist who, displaced in time, was found on Kinsolving's Planet many years ago. He, it seems, had specialized in painting pictures of various animals which, consequently, were drawn into the hunters' traps. Clarisse inherited his talent. . . ."

  "Impossible," said Grimes II flatly.

  "Not so, Commodore. I've seen it happen. Ken Mayhew has seen it happen. So has Sonya."

  "It's true," she agreed soberly.

  "So Clarisse could be a sort of Trojan horse . . ." murmured Flandry.

  "You're getting the idea. Of course, there's one snag. Each time that she's . . . performed she's been under the influence of some hallucinogenic drug."

  "And the rest of you," sneered Smith.

  "No. Most definitely not. The main problem now is to get her suitably high."

  "That's no problem," said Mayhew. A great load seemed suddenly to have dropped from his thin shoulders. He had something to do at last—something to help to save Clarisse. "That's no problem. Two telepaths who are married have more, much more in common than any pair of non-telepaths. There is far greater sensitivity, far more . . . sharing than in any common marriage. If I get high on anything at all, so will Clarisse. If I go on a trip, so will she."

  "Good," murmured Grimes. "Good. So buzz the quack and tell him what you need to put your mind in the proper state. Try to get instructions through to Clarisse. All she has to do is sketch us, one by one, and we'll be with her. . . ." He looked rapidly around the control room. "Not you, Ken. I'm sorry, but you'll be too muzzy with dope. What about you, Mr. Metzenther? Good. And you, Flandry? And myself, and Sonya. . . ."

  "Count me in," Irene said gruffly. "I still don't believe it, but if it works I'd like to be in the party."

  "And me," said Trafford, although not overenthusiastically. "Tallentire can look after the ship."

  Smith did not volunteer.

  Maggie Lazenby was about to, Grimes thought, but lapsed into silence as her husband looked at her long and coldly.

  And Grimes II said, "I'll not be sorry to see some of you off my vessel and back aboard your own ships."

  21

  This shouldn't be happening, thought Grimes. Magic—and what else can it be called? in the control room of an interstellar ship. . . . But this was the Rim, where the laws of nature, although not repealed, were not enforced with any stringency. This was beyond the Rim.

  He looked at Mayhew as the telepath regarded dubiously the little glass of some colorless fluid that he was holding. "This," the too jovial ship's doctor had assured him, "will give you hallucinations in glorious technicolor and at least seven dimensions. . . ." Grimes looked at Mayhew, and everybody else looked at Mayhew. The PCO quipped, "Now I know how Socrates must have felt."

  "Get on with it, Ken," urged Grimes.

  "I'm drinking this muck, not you. All right, then. Down the hatch." He suited the action to the words.

  His prominent Adam's apple wobbled as the draught went down. He licked his lips, enunciated slowly, "Not . . . bad. Not . . . too . . . bad." An odd sort of vagueness crept over his face. His eyes went out of focus. He wavered on his feet, groped almost aimlessly for a chair, slumped down into it.

  Grimes whispered to Metzenther, "Clarisse—is she ready? Are you and Trialanne standing by to help?"

  "Of course, Commodore."

  Mayhew said with surprising clarity, "The black lambs of Damballa. But they shouldn't. No."

  Never mind the bloody black lambs, thought Grimes testily.

  "Clarisse . . ." Mayhew's voice was very soft, almost inaudible. "Clarisse. You shouldn't have killed Lassie."

  "Damn Lassie," muttered Grimes.

  "A man's best friend is his . . . is his . . . is his . . .? But the black lambs. And no sheep dog. Yes."

  Metzenther looked toward Grimes. He whispered reassuringly, "It'll not be long now, Commodore. She's started on her pictures. And they won't be of black lambs. Black sheep, more likely."

  "You can say that again," grunted Grimes II. Grimes I allowed himself a smile. Let Metzenther enjoy his play on words, and let the other Grimes make what he liked of it. It didn't matter. He would soon be back aboard his own ship. He looked down at the Minetti automatic pistol that he was holding, ready, in his right hand. (Luckily, his counterpart shared his taste in personal weaponry—as in other things.) He, he was sure, would be the first to be pulled aboard the Quest. After all, he knew Clarisse, had known her before Mayhew had. He took one last look around at the other members of the boarding party. All were armed. Sonya, Trafford and Metzenther wore holstered laser handguns; and Irene, two ugly looking pistols of .50 caliber. Flandry had something that looked as though it had been dreamed up by an illustrator of juvenile science fiction thrillers.

  Grimes remembered the two occasions on which he had seen Clarisse at work. He recalled, vividly, that bare, windswept mountaintop on Kinsolving, with the black sky overhead, the Galactic Lens a misty shimmer low on the horizon. He visualized, without any effort on his part, the floodlit easel with its square of canvas, the pots of pigment, the girl, naked save for a scanty scrap of some animal pelt, working with swift, sure strokes on her brushes.

  Sudden doubt assailed him.

  Those had been ideal conditions. Would conditions aboard the hijacked Faraway Quest be as ideal?

  Mayhew seemed to be completely out, sprawled loosely in his chair, his eyes closed, his mouth slack. A thin dribble of spittle crawled down his chin. Had the telepath taken too much of whatever concoction it was that the doctor had prepared? Was Clarisse similarly unconscious?

  Metzenther smiled reassuringly at the Commodore, whispered, "Any time now. . . ."

  Flandry, overhearing, snorted his disbelief.

  Grimes turned to admonish him, and. . . .

  Flandry was gone.

  22

  Flandry was gone.

  Grimes wondered why there had been no miniature clap of thunder as the air rushed in to fill the vacuum caused by his abrupt departure. Had the exactly correct volume of atmosphere been teleported from the room in which Clarisse was imprisoned to fill the space that the Imperial Captain had occupied? What did it matter, anyhow? Magic is an art, not a science.

  Flandry was gone—and who next?

  Grimes was more than a little hurt. He had known Clarisse for years. Sonya had known her for almost as long. And yet she called a stranger to her. She had met Sir Dominic only once; he must have made an impression on her.

  He turned to the others. "Well, it seems to be working. But why him?"

  "Why not?" asked Sonya sweetly. "He's resourceful. He'
s tough."

  "And he's out of my hair," added Grimes II. He did not say aloud that he hoped that other people would soon be out of his hair. He did not need to.