To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga

by A Bertram Chandler

  She saw the Admiral again, and was passed on to the Director of Transport, a mere Commodore. He made one or two vague promises, and passed her on to his Deputy Director.

  So it went on.

  Meanwhile, she had been made an honorary member of one of the officers’ messes and had been given accommodation in the B. O. Q. (Female). The other members of the mess made it plain that she was far from being a welcome guest. Had she not been a Sky Marshal she would have been, as any attractive woman would be at a Naval Base. But the feeling was there—not voiced openly but all too obvious—that she was an outsider sent to teach the Survey Service its business.

  One night, after a lonely dinner, she went into the lounge to browse through the magazines from a score of worlds. The room was unoccupied save for an officer—she saw from his braid that he was a Lieutenant Commander—similarly engaged. He looked up from the table as she came in. His smile made his rugged face suddenly attractive. “Ah,” he said, “Miss Freeman.”

  “In person, singing and dancing,” she replied a little sourly. Then, bluntly, “Why aren’t you out playing with the rest of the boys and girls, Commander?”

  “Some games,” he said, “bore me. I’d sooner read a good book than watch two teams of muddied oafs chasing a ball up and down the field. It means nothing in my young life if the Marines or the Supply Branch win the Lindisfarne Cup.”

  “A good book?” she asked, looking down at the glossy magazine that lay open on the table.

  His prominent ears reddened. “Well, it’s educational. Quite remarkable how the people of some of the earlier colonies have diverged from what we regard as the physiological norm. And to some men that extra pair of breasts could be very attractive.”

  “And to you, Commander . . . ?”

  “Grimes, John Grimes.”

  She laughed. “I’ve heard about you, Commander Grimes. Now and again people do condescend to talk to me. You’re the one who’s always getting into trouble—getting out of it. . . .”

  Grimes chuckled. “Yes, I do have that reputation. As you may have guessed, at times I’m not overly popular.”

  “Shake,” she said, extending a long, capable hand. “That makes two of us.”

  “I think that this founding of the Pariahs’ Union calls for a drink,” he told her, pressing the button for the robowaiter. The machine trundled in. He asked her what she wanted, pushed the stud for two Scotch whiskies on the rocks. He scrawled his signature on the acceptance plate.

  She took her drink and said gravely, “Rear Admiral James has a much greater variety in his bar.”

  “He’s an admiral. The senior members of this mess are only lieutenant commanders. After all, rank has its privileges.”

  “There’s one privilege that rank didn’t have.” She sipped from her glass. “I suppose that that’s why I’m one of the local untouchables. All you junior officers are scared of getting into James’s bad books if you succeed where he failed.”

  Grimes looked at the girl over the rim of his tumbler. He wouldn’t mind succeeding, he thought. She was a mite hefty, perhaps—but that could be regarded as quantity and quality wrapped up in the same parcel. On the other hand—what if she made violent objections to any attempt at a pass? The unfortunate Rear Admiral was still walking with a pronounced limp. . . . And what about Maggie? Well, what about her? She was little more—or more than a little, perhaps—than just a good friend. But what she didn’t know about wouldn’t worry her.

  She said, “One newly minted Federation zinc alloy cent for them.”

  He was conscious of his burning ears. He said, “They’re not worth it.”

  “You insult me, Commander. Or, if you’d rather, John. You were thinking about me, weren’t you?”

  “Actually, yes, Una.”

  “Just a fool wanting to rush in where Rear Admirals, having learned by bitter experience, fear to tread.”

  “Frankly,” he told her, “I am tempted to rush in. But you’ve no idea of the amount of gossip there is around this Base. If I as much as kissed you the very guard dogs would be barking it around the top secret installations within half an hour.”

  “Faint heart . . .” she scoffed.

  “But you’re not fair. You’re a brunette.” He added, “A very attractive one.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She sat down in one of the deep, hide-covered chairs, affording him a generous glimpse of full thighs as her short skirt rode up. She said abruptly, “I think you can help me.”

  “How?” And then, to show that he could be as hard as the next man, “Why?”

  “Why?” she exploded. “Why? Because you brass-bound types are supposed to be as much guardians of law and order as we lowly policemen and policewomen. Because unless somebody around here dedigitates, and fast, putting a ship at my disposal, Delta Geminorum is going to whiffle past Lindisfarne, a mere couple of light months distant, three standard weeks from now. If I don’t intercept the bitch, I’ve lost her. And what is your precious Survey Service doing about it? Bugger all, that’s what!”

  “It’s not so simple,” said Grimes slowly. “Interservice jealousy comes into it, of course. . . .”

  “Don’t I know it! Don’t I bloody well know it! And male chauvinism. When are you people going to grow up and admit that women are at least as capable as men?”

  “But we already have two lady admirals. . . .”

  “Supply—” she sneered, making a dirty word of it “Psychiatry—” she added, making it sound even dirtier. “All right, all right. This is a man’s service. I have to accept that—reluctantly. But I think that you could help. You’ve been in command, haven’t you? Your last appointment was as captain of a Serpent Class courier. Such a little ship would be ideal for the job. Couldn’t you get your Adder—that was her name, wasn’t it?—back and go out after Delta Geminorum?”

  “We can’t do things that way in the Survey Service,” said Grimes stiffly. He thought, I wish that we could. Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine, and all that. Aboard my own ship I could make a pass at her. Here, in the Base, old James’d never forgive me if I did, and succeeded. Mere two-and-a-half-ringers just can’t afford to antagonize rear admirals—not if they want any further promotion. . . .

  “Couldn’t you see Commodore Damien, the O.I.C. Couriers?”

  “Mphm . . .” grunted Grimes dubiously. During his tour of duty in Adder the Commodore had become his bête noir, just as he had become the Commodore’s.

  “He might give you your command back.”

  “That,” stated Grimes definitely, “would be the sunny Friday! In any case, I’m no longer under Commodore Damien’s jurisdiction. When I got my promotion from lieutenant to lieutenant commander he threw me into the Officers’ Pool. No, not the sort you swim in. The sort you loaf around in waiting for somebody to find you a job. I might get away as senior watch-keeper or, possibly, executive officer in a Constellation Class cruiser—or, with my command experience, I might be appointed to something smaller as captain. I hope it’s the latter.”

  “A Serpent Class courier,” she said.

  “I’m afraid not. They’re little ships, and never have anybody above the rank of lieutenant as captain. Commodore Damien saw my promotion as a golden opportunity for getting rid of me.”

  “You can see him. He might give you your command back.”

  “Not a hope in hell.”

  “You can ask him. After all, he can’t shoot you.”

  “But wouldn’t he just like to!” Even so, why not give it a go? Grimes asked himself. After all, he can’t shoot me. And he did say, the last time that I ran into him, that he was sick and tired of seeing me hanging around the Base like a bad smell. . . . He said aloud, “All right I’ll see the Commodore tomorrow morning.”

  “We will see the Commodore tomorrow morning,” she corrected him.

  She ignored his offer of assistance, pulled herself up out of the deep chair. She allowed him to walk her back to the B. O. Q. (Female). It was a fine ni
ght, warm and clear, with Lindisfarne’s two moons riding high in the black, star-strewn sky. It was a night for romantic dalliance—and surely Rear Admiral James would not sink so low as to have spies out to watch Una Freeman. But she resisted, gently but firmly, Grimes’ efforts to steer her toward the little park, with its smooth, springy grass and sheltering clumps of trees. She permitted him a good-night kiss at the door to her lodgings—and it was one of those kisses that promise more, much more. He tried to collect a further advance payment but a quite painful jab from a stiff, strong finger warned him not to persist.

  But there would be time, plenty of time, later, to carry things through to their right and proper—or improper—conclusion. It all depended on that crotchety old bastard Damien.

  When Grimes retired for the night he was feeling not unhopeful.

  Chapter 3

  Apart from a baleful glare Commodore Damien ignored Grimes. His eyes, bright in his skull-like face, regarded Una steadily over his skeletal, steepled fingers. He asked, pleasantly enough for him, “And what can I do for you, Miss Freeman?”

  She replied tartly, “I’ve seen everybody else, Commodore.”

  Damien allowed himself a strictly rationed dry chuckle. He remarked, “You must have realized by this time that our masters do not like your masters. Apart from anything else, they feel, most strongly, that you people are trespassing on our territory. But there are wheels within wheels, and all sorts of dickering behind the scenes, and the Admiralty—albeit with a certain reluctance—has let it be known that a degree of cooperation on our part with you, personally, will not be frowned upon too heavily. His Nibs received a Carlottigram last night from the First Lord, to that effect. He passed the buck to Intelligence. Intelligence, for some reason known only to itself—” again there was the dry chuckle and the suggestion of a leer on Damien’s face—“passed the buck to O. I. C. Couriers. Myself.”

  “Nobody told me!” snapped the girl.

  The Commodore bared his long, yellow teeth. “You’ve been told now, Miss Freeman.” He waited for her to say something in reply, but she remained silent and darkly glowering. “Unfortunately I have no couriers available at the moment. None, that is, to place at your full disposal. However. . . .”

  “Go on, Commodore.”

  “I am not a suspect whom you are interrogating, young lady. I have been requested rather than ordered by my superiors to render you whatever assistance lies within my unfortunately limited power. It so happens that the Lizard Class courier Skink will be lifting from Base in four days’ time, carrying dispatches and other assorted bumfodder to Olgana. You may take passage in her if you so desire.”

  “But I don’t want to go to Olgana. You people have been furnished with the elements of Delta Geminorum’s extrapolated trajectory. My orders are to board her, with a prize crew, and bring her in to port.”

  “I am aware of that, Miss Freeman. The captain of Skink will have his orders too. They will be, firstly, to carry such additional personnel as will be required for your prize crew and, secondly, to make whatever deviation from trajectory is required to put the prize crew aboard the derelict.”

  “And will John be the captain of this . . . this Skink?”

  “John?” Damien registered bewilderment “John?” Then slow comprehension dawned. “Oh, you mean young Grimes, here. No, John will not be commanding any vessels under my jurisdiction. I honestly regret having to disappoint you, Miss Freeman, but Skink is Lieutenant Commander Delamere’s ship.”

  Delamere, thought Grimes disgustedly. Handsome Frankie Delamere, who could make a living posing for Survey Service recruiting posters. . . . And that’s about all that he’s fit for—that and screwing anything in skirts that comes his way. Good-bye, Una. It was nice knowing you.

  Damien switched his regard to Grimes. “And you are still unemployed, Lieutenant Commander,” he stated rather than asked.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It distresses me to have to watch officers doing nothing and getting paid for it, handsomely.” So he’s giving me Skink after all, thought Grimes. I did hear that Delamere was overdue for leave. Damien went on, “‘Unfortunately, you passed out of my immediate ambit on your promotion to your present rank.” That’s right. Rub it in, you sadistic old bastard! Grimes’ spirits, temporarily raised, were plummeting again. “However, I am on quite amicable terms with Commodore Browning, of the Appointments Bureau.” He raised a skinny hand. “No, I am not, repeat and underscore not, going to give you another command under my jurisdiction. I learned my lesson, all too well, during that harrowing period when you were captain of Adder. But somebody—preferably somebody with spacegoing command experience, has to be in charge of the prize crew. I shall press for your appointment to that position.” He grinned nastily and added, “After all, whatever happens will have nothing to do with me.”

  “Thank you, sir,” said Grimes.

  “You haven’t got the job yet,” Damien told him.

  After they had left the Commodore’s office Una said, “But he must like you, John. You told me that he hated your guts.”

  “Oh, he does, he does. But he hates Frankie Delamere’s guts still more.”

  “Then how is it that this Delamere is still one of his courier captains?”

  “Because,” Grimes told her, “dear Frankie knows all the right people. Including the Admiral’s very plain daughter.”

  “Oh.”

  “Precisely,” said Grimes.

  Chapter 4

  All navies find it necessary to maintain several classes of vessel. The Federation Survey Service had its specialized ships, among which were the couriers. These were relatively small (in the case of the Insect Class, definitely small) spacecraft, analogous to the dispatch boats of the seaborne navies of Earth’s past. There were the already mentioned Insect Class, the Serpent Class (one of which Grimes had commanded) and the Lizard Class. The one thing that all three classes had in common was speed. The Insect Class couriers were little more than long range pinnaces, whereas the Lizard Class ships were as large as corvettes, but without a corvette’s armament, and with far greater cargo and passenger carrying capacity than the Serpent Class vessels.

  Skink was a typical Lizard Class courier. She carried a crew of twenty, including the commanding officer. She had accommodation for twenty-five passengers—or, with the utilization of her cargo spaces for living freight, seventy-five. Her main engines comprised inertial drive and Mannschenn Drive, with auxiliary reaction drive. Her armament consisted of one battery of laser cannon together with the usual missiles and guidance system. She would have been capable of fighting another ship of the same class; anything heavier she could show a clean pair of heels to.

  Lieutenant Commander Delamere did not expect to have to do any fighting—or running—on this perfectly routine paper run to Olgana. He was more than a little annoyed when he was told by Commodore Damien that there would have to be a deviation from routine. He had his private reasons for wishing to make a quick passage; after a week or so of the company of the Admiral’s plain, fat daughter he wanted a break, a change of bedmates. There was one such awaiting him at his journey’s end.

  “Sir,” he asked Commodore Damien in a pained voice, “Must I act as chauffeur to this frosty-faced female fuzz?”

  “You must, Delamere.”

  “But it will put at least three days on to my passage.”

  “You’re a spaceman, aren’t you?” Damien permitted himself a slight sneer. “Or supposed to be one.”

  “But, sir. A policewoman. Aboard my ship.”

  “A Sky Marshal, Lieutenant Commander. Let us accord the lady her glamorous title. Come to that, she’s not unglamorous herself . . .”

  “Rear Admiral James doesn’t think so, sir. He told me about her when I picked up the Top Secret bumf from his office. He said, ‘Take that butch trollop out of here, and never bring her back!’”

  “Rear Admiral James is . . . er . . . slightly biased. Do you mean to tell me that you hav
e never met Miss Freeman?”

  “No, sir. My time has been fully occupied by my duties.”

  Commodore Damien stared up at the tall, fair-haired young man in sardonic wonderment until Delamere, who had a hide like a rhinoceros, blushed. He said, “She must keep you on a tight leash.”

  “I don’t understand what you mean, sir.”

  “Don’t you? Oh, skip it, skip it. Where was I before you obliged me to become engaged in a discussion of your morals?” Delamere blushed again. “Oh, yes. Miss Freeman will be taking passage with you, until such time as you have intercepted the derelict. With her will be a boarding party of Survey Service personnel, under Lieutenant Commander Grimes.”

  “Not Grimes, sir! That Jonah!”

  “Jonah or not, Delamere, during his time in command of one of my couriers there has never been any serious damage to his ship—which is more than I can say about you. As I was saying, before you so rudely interrupted, Lieutenant Commander Grimes will be in charge of the boarding party, which will consist of three spacemen lieutenants, four engineer lieutenants, one electronic communications officer, six petty officer mechanics, one petty officer cook and three wardroom attendants.”