The Dark Dimensions

by A Bertram Chandler

  Grimes looked up from the sketch to stare at the emptiness where Flandry had been standing. He was . . . gone. But not entirely; his uniform, a small bundle of black and gold, of rainbow ribbons, was all that remained of him.

  Irene said—was it to Sonya or to Clarisse?—"At least you've something to remember him by, dearie."

  Clarisse, her face cold and hard, snatched the sheet with the sketch off the table, screwed it up into a ball, threw it toward the disposal chute. She did not miss. She moved swiftly around the table, picked up the empty uniform, then stuffed it down the chute after the crumpled paper. Grimes made as though to stop her—after all, an analysis of the cloth from which Flandry's clothing had been cut could have told a great deal about the technology of his culture—then decided against it. He would be able to swap information with Sir Dominic after Adler had been disposed of. Nonetheless, he was sorry that he had not said goodbye properly to the man, thanked him for all his help. (But Flandry had helped himself, in more ways than one. . . .)

  The witch girl was ready to resume operations. A fresh sheet of paper was on the table. She said nothing aloud to Metzenther, but the two telepaths must have been in communication. He came to stand beside her, was obviously feeding into her mind the details of Wanderer's control room. Again the detailed picture grew.

  Irene asked. "Would you mind if I kept my clothes on. Clarisse? Public nudism never appealed to me."

  Sonya said, cattily, "I don't think female nakedness interests her."

  Nor did it. When Irene vanished she left nothing behind—and neither did Trafford nor Metzenther.

  And now, at last, Clarisse was working for herself. For the last time the lights dimmed, the temperature dropped, the shipboard sounds were muffled. Grimes looked at the flattering portrait of Mayhew that had appeared, then at Sonya. He said, "I think we'll see what's happening topside, my dear." And, as Mayhew materialized, just as they were leaving, "It's good to have our ship to ourselves again."

  27

  They had their ship to themselves again, but she was a ship alone. Far ahead of them now were their allies—allies only as long as it was expedient for them to be so—and their enemies. There was communication still with Faraway Quest II and with Wanderer, by Carlotti radio and through the telepaths. There was no word from Vindictive; but as Irene, Trafford and Metzenther were safely back aboard their own vessel, it could be assumed that Flandry was safely back in his.

  Grimes, pacing his control room (three steps one way, three steps the other unless he wished to make complicated detours around chairs and banked instruments) was becoming more and more impatient. For many years he had thought of himself as a man of peace—but in his younger days, in the Federation's Survey Service, he had specialized in gunnery. If there was to be a fight he wanted to be in it. Apart from anything else, should he not be present at the moment of victory over Adler his prior claim to The Outsider would be laughed at by Irene, by Smith, by Flandry and even by his other self. And his engines were not developing their full capacity.

  The emergency shutdown of the Mannschenn Drive had affected the smooth running of that delicate, complex mechanism. It was nothing serious, but recalibration was necessary. Recalibration can be carried out only on the surface of a planet. And even if there had been any planets in the vicinity—which, of course, there were not—Grimes could not afford the time.

  So Faraway Quest limped on while, at last, the reports started coming in from ahead of her. Wanderer thought the Vindictive was engaging Adler. One of the officers aboard Faraway Quest II had broken the code that Adler was using in her Carlotti transmissions to base, and Grimes II reported that Blumenfeld was screaming for reinforcements.

  Wanderer and Faraway Quest II were now within extreme missile range of the engagement but had not yet opened fire. To do so they would have to revert to normal space time. Metzenther, aboard Wanderer, reported through Clarisse that he and Trialanne were monitoring the involuntary psionic transmissions of the personnel of both ships presently engaged in the fighting, and that Flandry was emanating confidence, and Blumenfeld a growing doubt as to the outcome of the battle. Each ship, however, was finding it difficult to counter the unfamiliar weapons being used by the other, and each ship was making maximum use of the cover of the derelicts in orbit about The Outsider.

  Wanderer had emerged into the normal continuum and had launched missiles.

  Faraway Quest II was engaging Adler with long range laser.

  Somebody had scored a direct hit on the Outsiders' Ship itself. And that was all.

  28

  The Carlotti transceiver was dead insofar as Wanderer, Faraway Quest II, and Adler were concerned. There were no psionic transmissions from Wanderer, no unintentional emanations from the crews of the other ships.

  What had happened? Had the allies launched their Sunday punch against Adler, and had Adler's retaliatory Sunday punch connected on all three of them? It was possible, Grimes supposed, just barely possible—but wildly improbable.

  "Are you sure you can pick up absolutely nothing?" he demanded of Mayhew and Clarisse. (There are usually some survivors, even when a ship is totally destroyed, even though they may not survive for long.)

  "Nothing," she replied flatly. And then—"But I'm picking up an emanation. . . . It's more an emotion than actual thought. . . ."

  "I get it too," agreed Mayhew. "It's . . . it's a sense of strong disapproval."

  "Mphm. I think that I'd disapprove strongly if my ship were shot from under me," said Grimes.

  "But. . . but it's not human . . ." insisted the girl.

  "Mr. Carnaby," Grimes barked at his navigator. "What do you get in the MPI? Is the Outsiders' Ship still there?"

  "Still there, sir. And, as far as I can make out, only four vessels in orbit about her. . . . There could be a cloud of wreckage."

  Possibly a couple of the derelicts, thought Grimes. Possibly Adler, or Wanderer, or the other Quest, or Vindictive. Possibly a large hunk blown off the Outsiders' Ship herself. Possibly anything.

  He said, "We will stand in cautiously, proceeding under Mannschenn Drive until we are reasonably sure that it is safe to reenter normal space time. Meanwhile, Mr. Hendrikson, have all weaponry in a state of instant readiness. And you, Major Dalzell, have your men standing by for boarding operations. Commander Williams, see that the boats are all cleared away."

  "What is a killer ape?" asked Clarisse suddenly.

  "This is hardly the time or place to speculate about our probable ancestry!" snapped Grimes.

  "I am not speculating, Commodore. It is just that I picked up a scrap of coherent thought. It was as though a voice—not a human voice—said, 'Nothing but killer apes.' "

  "It's a pity we haven't an ethologist along," remarked Grimes. And where was Maggie Lazenby, the Survey Service ethologist whom he had known, years ago, whom he knew, now—but when was now?—as the other Grimes, captain of the other Faraway Quest? Where was Grimes? Where was Irene? Where was Flandry? He didn't worry about Blumenfeld.

  He went to look at the MPI screen. It was a pity that it showed no details. But that large, rapidly expanding blob of luminescence must be The Outsider; those small sparks the derelicts. Carnaby said, in that tone of voice used by junior officers who doubt the wisdom of the procedures of their superiors, "We're close, sir."

  "Yes, Mr. Carnaby. Mphm." He took his time filling and lighting his pipe. "All right, you may stand by the intercom to the engine room. Stop inertial drive. Half-astern. Stop her. Mannschenn Drive—stop! Mr. Hendrikson—stand by all weapons!"

  And there, plain beyond the viewports, was The Outsider, coldly luminescent, unscarred, not so much a ship as a castle out of some fairy tale told when Man was very young: with towers and turrets, cupolas and minarets and gables and buttresses, awe-inspiring rather than grotesque. And drifting by, tumbling over and over, came one of the derelicts, the Shaara vessel aboard which the conference had been held. It had been neatly bisected, so that each of its halves looked l
ike one of those models of passenger liners in booking agents' display windows, cut down the midship line to show every deck, every compartment.

  "We will continue to orbit The Outsider," said Grimes. "We will search for survivors."

  "Commodore," said Mayhew. "There are no survivors. They are all . . . gone."

  "Dead, you mean?"

  "No, sir. Just . . . gone."

  29

  They were . . . gone: Wanderer and Adler, Faraway Quest II and Vindictive. They were gone, without a trace, as though they had never been. (But had they ever been?) There was wreckage in orbit about The Outsider—the shattered and fused remains of the Dring cruiser: a whirling cloud of fragments that could have come only from that weird, archaic and alien ship that had never been investigated, that would never now be investigated. And Grimes' flag, the banner of the Rim Worlds Confederacy that he had planted on the Outsiders' Ship, was gone too. This was a small matter and was not noticed until, at last, Grimes decided to send away his boarding party. Until then the search for survivors had occupied all his attention.

  Faraway Quest had the field to herself.

  "We will carry on," said Grimes heavily, "with what we came out here to do." And his conscience was nagging him. Surely there was something that he could have done for Flandry, for Irene, for the other Grimes. All of them had helped him. What had he done to help them? What had he done to help Maggie? But space was so vast, and space time, with its infinitude of dimensions, vaster still; and the lost ships and their people were no more than microscopic needles in a macrocosmic haystack. Too, he told himself, some clue to their fates might be found within that enormous, utterly alien hull.

  So it was that Grimes, suited up, stood in the airlock of the Quest with Sonya and Williams and Major Dalzell. The Outsider had . . . permitted the ship to approach much closer than she had before; there would be no need to use the boats for the boarding party. The door slowly opened, revealing beyond itself that huge, gleaming construction. It looked neither friendly nor menacing. It was . . . neutral.

  Grimes made the little jump required to break magnetic contact between boot soles and deck plating, at the same time actuating his suit propulsion unit. He knew, without turning to watch, that the others were following him. Swiftly he crossed the narrow moat of nothingness, turning himself about his short axis at just the right time, coming in to a landing on an area of The Outsider's hull that was clear of turrets and antennae. He felt rather than heard the muffled clang as his feet hit the flat metal surface. Sonya came down beside him, then Williams, then Dalzell.

  The commodore looked up at his ship, hanging there in the absolute blackness, faint light showing from her control room viewports, a circle of brighter light marking the reopened airlock door. He could see four figures jumping from it—the sergeant of marines and three privates. Next would be Mayhew, with Engineer Commander Davis, Brenda Coles, the assistant biochemist and Ruth Macoby, assistant radio officer. It was a pity, thought Grimes, that he had not crewed his ship with more specialist officers; but it had been assumed, of course, that Dr. Druthen and his scientists and technicians would fill this need. But Druthen and his people, together with von Donderberg and his surviving junior officer, were prisoners in the empty cargo hold in which Faraway Quest's crew had been confined.

  "We're being watched," whispered Sonya, her voice faint from the helmet transceiver.

  They were being watched. Two of the antennae on the border of the clear area were turning, twisting. They looked unpleasantly like cobras poised to strike.

  "Not to worry," Grimes assured her. "Calver mentioned the very same thing in his report."

  The sergeant and his men were down now. The eight humans were tending to huddle. "Break it up!" Dalzell was barking. "Break it up! We're too good a target like this!"

  "So is the ship, Major." Grimes told him.

  "Sorry, sir." The young marine did not sound very penitent. "But I think we should take all precautions."

  "All right," said Grimes. "Scatter—within reason." But he and Sonya stayed very close together.

  Mayhew, Davis, Coles and Macoby came in. The telepath identified Grimes by the badges of rank on his space suit, came to stand with him and Sonya.

  "Well, Ken?" asked the Commodore.

  "It . . . it knows we're here. It. . . it is deciding. . . ."

  "If it doesn't make its mind up soon," said Grimes, "I'll burn my way in."

  "Sir!" Mayhew sounded horrifed.

  "Don't worry," Sonya told him. "It's opening up for us."

  Smoothly, with no vibrations, a circular door was sliding to one side. Those standing on it had ample time to get clear of the opening, to group themselves about its rim. They looked down into a chamber, lit from no discernible source, that was obviously an airlock. From one of its walls, rungs spaced for the convenience of human beings extruded themselves. (And would those rungs have been differently spaced for other, intelligent, space-faring beings? Almost certainly.)

  Grimes reported briefly by his suit radio to Hendrikson who had been left in charge. He knew without asking that Mayhew would be making a similar report to Clarisse. Then he said, "All right. We'll accept the invitation." He lowered himself over the rim, a foot on the first rung of the ladder.

  The Outsider's artificial gravity field was functioning, and down was down.

  There was ample room in the chamber for all twelve of them. They stood there silently, watching the door slide back into place over their heads. Dalzell and his marines kept their hands just over the butts of their handguns. Grimes realized that he was doing the same. He was wearing at his belt a pair of laser pistols. He spoke again into his helmet microphone. His companions could hear him, but it became obvious that they were now cut off from communication with the ship. Captain Calver, he remembered, had reported the same phenomenon. It didn't really matter. Mayhew said that he could still reach Clarisse and that she could reach him.

  "Atmosphere, Commodore," said the biochemist, looking at the gauge among the other gauges on her wrist. "Oxygen helium mixture. It would be safe to remove our helmets."

  "We keep them on," said Grimes.

  Another door in the curving wall was opening. Beyond it was an alleyway, a tunnel that seemed to run for miles and flooded with light. As was the case in the chamber there were no globes or tubes visible. There was nothing but that shadowless illumination and that long, long metallic tube, like the smooth bore of some fantastically huge cannon.

  Grimes hesitated only briefly, then began to stride along the alleyway. Sonya stayed at his side. The others followed. Consciously or unconsciously they fell into step. The regular crash of their boots on the metal floor was echoed, reechoed, amplified. They could have been a regiment of the Brigade of Guards, or of Roman legionaries. They marched on and on, along that tunnel with no end. And as they marched the ghosts of those who had been there before them kept pace with them—the spirits of men and of not-men, from only yesterday and from ages before the Terran killer ape realized that an antelope humerus made an effective tool for murder.

  It was wrong to march, Grimes dimly realized. It was wrong to tramp into this . . . this temple in military formation, keeping military step. But millennia of martial tradition were too strong for him, were too strong for the others to resist (even if they wanted to do so). They were Men, uniformed men, members of a crew, proud of their uniforms, their weapons and their ability to use them. Before them—unseen, unheard, but almost tangible—marched the phalanxes of Alexander, Napoleon's infantry, Rommel's Afrika Korps. Behind them marched the armies yet to come.

  Damn it all! thought Grimes desperately, we're spacemen, not soldiers. Even Dalzell and his Pongoes are more spacemen than soldiers.

  But a gun doesn't worry about the color of the uniform of the man who fires it.

  "Stop!" Mayhew was shouting urgently. "Stop!" He caught Grimes' swinging right arm, dragged on it.

  Grimes stopped. Those behind him stopped, in a milling huddle—but th
e hypnotic spell of marching feet, of phantom drum and fife and bugle, was broken.

  "Yes, Commander Mayhew?" asked Grimes.

  "It's . . . Clarisse. A message. . . . Important. I couldn't receive until we stopped marching. . . ."

  "What is it?" demanded Grimes.

  "The . . . ship . . . and Clarisse and Hendrikson and the others. . . . They're prisoners again!"

  "Druthen? Von Donderberg?"

  "Yes."

  Grimes turned to his second-in-command. "You heard that, Commander Williams?"

  "Yair. But it ain't possible, Skipper. Nary a tool or a weapon among Druthen an' his mob. We stripped 'em all to their skivvies before we locked 'em up, just to make sure."