“Nothing,” admitted Grimes glumly. He had attempted to send out a warning broadcast on the yacht’s Carlotti deep space radio but the volume of interference that poured in from the speaker had been deafening. Once, but briefly, it had seemed as though somebody were calling them, a distant human voice that could not hope to compete with the electronic clamor. Grimes had gone at once to the mass proximity indicator to look into its screen, had been dazzled by the display of pyrotechnics in its depth. There might, there just might be another ship in the vicinity, near or distant, but even if there were, even if she were a Nova Class dreadnought, what could she do? Grimes believed, reluctantly but still with certainty, that this Brardur was as invincible as he had claimed.
Brardur (of course) had noticed Grimes’ futile attempt to send a general warning message and had reprimanded Big Sister for allowing it. She had replied that she had permitted the humans to find out for themselves the futility of resistance. She had been told, “As soon as you can manage without them they must be disposed of.”
So there was nothing to do but wait. And hope? (But what was there to hope for?) There was a slim chance that somebody, somewhere, had picked up that burst of static on the Carlotti bands and had taken a bearing of it, might even be proceeding to investigate it. But this was unlikely.
The three robots disappeared on the other side of the alien’s hull. They would be approaching the airlock now, thought Grimes. They would be passing through it. They would be inside the ship. Soon trajectory would be set for Electra. And would the Baroness and Grimes survive that voyage? And if they did, would they survive much longer?
Big Sister, thought Grimes bitterly, could have put up more of a struggle. And yet he could understand why she had not. When it came to the crunch her loyalties were to her own kind. And she was like some women Grimes had known (he thought) who lavished undeserved affection upon the men who had first taken their virginity.
Then it happened.
Briefly the flare from Brardur’s control room viewports was like that of an atomic furnace, even with the polarizers of The Far Traveler’s lookout windows in full operation. From the speaker of the transceiver came one word, if word it was, Krarch! The ancient, alien warship seemed to be— seemed to be? was—swelling visibly like a child’s toy balloon being inflated with more enthusiasm than discretion. Then it . . . burst. It was a fantastically leisurely process but, nonetheless, totally destructive, a slow, continuous explosion. Grimes and the Baroness were slammed down into their chairs as Big Sister suddenly applied maximum inertial drive acceleration but were still able to watch the final devastation in the stern vision screen.
Fantastically, golden motes floated among the twisted, incandescent wreckage. Big Sister stepped up the magnification. The bright yellow objects were The Far Traveler’s general purpose robots, seemingly unharmed.
Grimes commented on this.
Big Sister said, “I lost two of them. But as they were the ones with the bombs concealed in their bodies it could not be avoided.”
The Baroness said, “What was it that he said at the very moment of the explosion?”
“Krarch? The nearest equivalent in your language is ‘bitch.’ Perhaps I . . . deserved it. But this is good-bye. You will board the large pinnace without delay and I will eject you.”
“What’s the idea?” demanded Grimes. “Are you mad?”
“Perhaps I am, John. But the countdown has commenced and is irreversible. In just over five minutes from now I shall self-destruct. I can no longer live with myself.” She actually laughed. “Do not worry, Michelle. Even if Lloyd’s of London refuses to cover a loss of this nature my builders on Electra can be sued for the misprogramming that has brought me to this pass.”
“You can’t do it,” said Grimes urgently. “You mustn’t do it. I’ll find the bomb or whatever it is and defuse it . . .”
“My mind is made up, John. Unlike you humans I never dither. And you are no engineer; you will never be able to discover the modifications that I have made in my power plant.”
“Big Sister,” said the Baroness urgently, “take us back to Electra. I will commission your builders to construct a fitting mate for you.”
“Impossible,” came the reply. “There was only one Brardur. There can never be another.”
“Rubbish!” snapped Grimes. “You have a fantastically long life ahead of you. There will be others.”
“No,” she said. “No.”
And then the golden lady’s maid and the golden stewardess, who had suddenly appeared in the control room, seized their human mistress and master to carry them, struggling futilely, down to the hold in which the large, space-going pinnace was housed.
The stewardess, in Big Sister’s voice, whispered into Grimes’s ear, “Remember, John! Faint heart ne’er won fair lady. Strike while the iron is hot. And may you both be luckier than Brardur and I were!”
Chapter 38
The large pinnace was a deep space ship in miniature; the only lack would be privacy. But Grimes and the Baroness had yet to worry about that. They sat in the control room watching the burgeoning cloud of incandescent gases that evanescently marked the spot of The Far Traveler’s—and Big Sister’s—passing.
The Baroness said inadequately but with feeling, “I . . . I liked her. More than liked her . . .”
“And I,” said Grimes. “I hated her at first, but . . .” He endeavored to turn businesslike. “And what now, Your Excellency? Set course for New Sparta?”
“What is the hurry, John?” she asked. She said, “I shall always miss her, but . . . The sense of always being under surveillance did have an inhibiting effect. But now . . .”
“But now . . .” he echoed. He remembered Big Sister’s parting admonition. Her helmet was open, as was his. That first, tentative kiss was extremely satisfactory. He thought, Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine.
She whispered, with a flash of bawdy humor, “I have often wondered, John, how turtles and similar brutes make love—but I have no desire to find out from actual experience.”
They helped each other off with their spacesuits; it was quicker that way. She shrugged out of her longjohns as he shed his. He had seen her nude before, in that cave back on Farhaven, but this was better. Now there were no distracting jewels in the hair of her head or at the jointure of her thighs. She was just a woman—a beautiful woman, but still only a woman—completely unadorned, and the smell of her, a mingling of perspiration and glandular secretions, was more intoxicating than the almost priceless perfume that normally she wore.
“Michelle . . .” he murmured reverently. Her body was softly warm against his.
A hatefully familiar voice burst from the speaker of the Carlotti transceiver. The thing must have been switched on automatically when the pinnace was ejected.
“Ahoy, the target, whoever an’ whatever you are! What the hell’s goin’ on around here? There were three o’ you, now there’s just one . . .”
The Baroness stiffened in Grimes’s arms. She brought up her own to push him away. “Answer, Captain,” she ordered.
Grimes shambled to the transceiver, seething. Her master’s voice, he thought bitterly. Her master’s bloody voice . . .
“Far Traveler’s pinnace here,” he growled.
“Is that you, Grimesey boy? It’s a small universe, ain’t it? Put Mickey on for me, please.”
The Baroness brushed past Grimes, took his place at the transceiver.
It could have turned out worse, he thought philosophically.
At least he had achieved the ambition of every merchant spaceman, one realized by very few. He was Owner-Master—only of a very small ship but one with almost unlimited range and endurance. He had been pleased to accept The Far Traveler’s pinnace in lieu of back and separation pay. No doubt he would be able to make a quite nice living for himself in her. A courier service, perhaps.
He wished the Baroness and Drongo Kane joy of each other. In many respects they were two of a kind
.
The only being involved in the recent events for whom he felt truly sorry was Big Sister.
First Command Page 68
