Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (92 page)

Obviously Captain O’Leary’s Mannschenn Drive chief was neither so confident nor so competent.
Pride of Erin
straggled badly. She was well astern when the flagship and
Spaceways Princess
and
Agatha’s Ark
finally overhauled their fleeing quarry and stationed themselves about her, the three points of an equilateral triangle.

“Make to
Princess
and
Ark
,” ordered Grimes, “synchronize at will!”

He heard the Countess repeat the order into the Carlotti transceiver microphone as he pressed the button that had been installed among the other controls of the wide arms of his chair.

The thin, high keening of the Mannschenn Drive wavered, took on an odd, warbling quality. Inside the control room things . . . flickered. It was like watching one of the very earliest movies in some museum of the cinematic arts. It was like being inside such a movie.

Abruptly the flickering ceased and the whine of the drive resumed its normal quality. Looking through his viewports Grimes could see the hard, bright, colored sparks that were the recognition lights of the
Ark
and the
Princess
against the backdrop of blackness and stars that still had the semblance of vague nebulae. Of the Hallicheki ship there was, as yet, no visual sign although she was showing up on the radar screen as well as in the MPI. To all practical intents and purposes the four wheels were sharing their own tiny universe; relative to them the rest of the continuum was warped.

“Let us see the target, please, Mr. Venner,” said Grimes.

The laser cannon could be used as a searchlight. It came on now. Yes, there she was—a distant, silver egg sitting in a silver skeleton eggcup. She could not escape by throwing herself out of synchronization. She could not even stop her Mannschenn Drive so as to emerge into normal spacetime. To all intents and purposes her interstellar drive was a mere slave to the more powerful units aboard the privateers and would be so for as long as the synchronizers were in operation. But the Hallicheki captain still exercised full control over her inertial drive. Suddenly she reduced thrust and began to fall astern, out of the trap. Almost immediately, almost as one, the three raiders fell back with her, regained their stations. She applied a lateral component—but before she was dangerously close to
Agatha’s Ark
Captain Prinn was doing likewise and Grimes and MacWhirter were maintaining their distances off with contemptuous ease.

“Ms. Connellan, Ms. Walshingham,” ordered Grimes, “try to raise her on NST and Carlotti.”

The two women obeyed. It was the Green Hornet who got through on the normal spacetime radio. In the screen appeared a bird’s face—yellow beak, dun plumage, mad yellow eyes.

“Who are you? Who are you? What are you doing?”

Ms. Connellan passed a microphone to Grimes.

He said, “You are under arrest. You will complete your voyage to such port as we shall decide under escort. Do not attempt to escape.”

“But you are . . . human.” (She made it sound like a dirty word; in her language it most probably was.) “The Hegemony is not at war with Earth!”

“At the moment, no,” admitted Grimes smugly.

“You are pirates!”

“We are not,” Grimes told her. “We hold Letters of Marque issued by the Lord of the Roost on Kalla.”

“Rebel worm! We will pluck the feathers from his skin, the skin from his flesh and the flesh from his bones! We . . .”

“You’ll have to catch him first, Captain. Meanwhile, are you coming quietly?”

“No!” came the screeched reply. “No! No!”

And somebody must be playing with the Hellicheki ship’s inertial drive controls like a demented pianist; ahead and astern she darted, to one side and the other. It was all quite useless.

“This,” said Grimes, “is getting to be rather boring. Mr. Venner, tickle the lady, will you. Use the quickfirer. Reduced charges, of course, and solid shot. And for the love of all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy, don’t miss!”

This admonition was necessary. To diminish the mass of a ship running under interstellar drive is to ask for trouble and, almost certainly, to get it. But
Sister Sue
was now part of a four-ship system enclosed by a common precession field. As long as those projectiles hit and adhered to their target the overall mass of the system would not be changed.

The merchantman’s last application of lateral thrust had brought her almost dangerously close to
Sister Sue
. This suited Grimes. At this range not the most incompetent gunnery officer could miss his target—and Venner was highly competent. From the muzzle of the quickfirer issued a stream of bright tracer that, with apparent laziness, drifted across the black gulf between the two ships like a swarm of luminous bees, striking her in a ragged line from stem to stern.

The noise inside that ovoid hull, thought Grimes, must be deafening—but, at the very worst, there would be no more than a very minor puncture or two that would be automatically sealed.

“Piracy!” the Hallicheki captain was screeching, her words almost drowned by the drumbeat of the striking shot.

“That was just a sample,” Grimes told her.

“Terry pirate! I demand . . .”

“You are in no position to do any demanding, Captain. You are a prize of war. Do you want another taste of gunfire? After all, it is your cargo that I want, not you and your crew. Your bodies, alive or dead, are of no importance.”

“Pirate! Filthy pirate! All right. I . . . surrender. But as soon as I can I will scream to the Hegemony!”

“And much good may it do you, Captain.”

Meanwhile, where the hell was
Pride of Erin
? Captain O’Leary had been told that he would be taking the first prize in. Captain O’Leary, Grimes saw, was no more than a dim spark right astern, just within range of the mass proximity indicator.

“Ms. Walshingham,” he said, “call
Pride of Erin
. Tell her to shake the lead out of her pants. Gods! She’d be late for her own fucking funeral!”

The Countess spoke into the microphone of the controlroom Carlotti transceiver. Her voice was cold and arrogant. It was that of the lady of the manor tearing a strip off a delinquent under gamekeeper, using what she would consider to be lower-class vocabulary for effect but retaining her upper-class diction.

“
Sister Sue
to
Pride of Erin
. . .”

“
Pride of Erin
I’ve been after havin’ me troubles . . .”

“
Sister Sue
to
Pride of Erin
. Shake the lead out of your pants. Gods! You’d be late for your own fucking funeral!”

“What did you say?”
shouted Grimes to the fourth officer. “That was no way to make a signal to another ship!”

“I said what
you
said, sir.”

Insolent bitch!
he thought.
I’ll deal with you later.

Captain O’Leary’s voice came from the speaker of the Carlotti set. It was obvious that the man was holding himself in with an effort. He, he was implying, could be correct even when his alleged superior could not.

“I’m doin’ me best, Commodore, but I’m not a miracle worker. I’ll be with you as soon as me time-twister can get me there. I’ll . . .”

There was a confused gabbling. There were yells.

There was nothing.

Grimes stared into the repeater screen. The Hallicheki ship and the
Ark
and the
Princess
were still there.
Pride of Erin
was not.

“Mr. Williams,” he said, “check the main MPI. See if you can find
Pride of Erin
.”

But he knew that O’Leary, his ship and his people were gone, rumbling down the temporal gulfs like a dead leaf whirled to oblivion by an autumnal gale.

If
the Walshingham bitch had not spoken as she had, the thin-skinned master of
Pride of Erin
would have taken no risks with his malfunctioning interstellar drive.

But why blame her?

I’m a fine commodore,
he thought.
My first action, with nothing fired but a few practice shells, and one of my ships lost . . .

He hoped that in the remote past or the distant future O’Leary and his crew would find a world do their liking. If they survived.

Chapter 48

SO IT WAS
SPACEWAYS PRINCESS
that took in the first prize while
Sister Sue
and
Agatha’s Ark
continued their cruise.

Shortly after Captain MacWhirter’s ship had been detached from the squadron Captain Prinn made a personal call to Grimes. He was glad that it was during Williams’ watch. It was bad enough that he should overhear what was said; it would have been far worse had it been any of the other officers.

She looked out at him from the screen of the controlroom Carlotti transceiver, her normally harsh face even harsher than usual. Behind her Grimes could see others of the
Ark’s
crew, among them the young Graf von Stolzberg. All of them were regarding him with condemnation.

“Commodore Grimes,” she said, “I am serving notice that after this cruise I shall refuse to put out again under your command. It is my opinion, and that of my officers, that you deliberately goaded Captain O’Leary into taking unjustifiable risks. Why could you not have done as you did eventually, ordering Captain MacWhirter to take charge of the prize? That would have given Captain O’Leary time to make the necessary adjustments or repairs to his Mannschenn Drive. But you were foolishly inflexible and insisted that he close the main body of the fleet without delay. Furthermore you couched your message in words of a kind that should never be used by a commanding officer to those serving under him. That brutal message was contributory to the disaster.”

She moved to one side. Marlene’s son (Grimes’ son) came forward.

“Commodore Grimes, speaking as the El Doradan representative aboard this vessel, I put myself as being in complete agreement with what has been said by Captain Prinn. I shall report to Commodore Kane and to the El Dorado Corporation upon your unfitness to command any further privateering expeditions.”

And what about your fellow El Doradan?
Grimes thought but did not say.
What about the El Doradan representative aboard
my
vessel? She’s one of
your
lot, Ferdinand my boy.
She
made O’Leary blow his top . . .

He asked coldly, ignoring the young officer, “Is that all, Captain Prinn?”

“That is all, Commodore Grimes. Over and out.”

“She’s got it in for you, Skipper,” said Williams sympathetically.

“And rightly so, Billy. Rightly so.”

“It was that bloody Wally’s fault!”

“Everything that happens aboard a ship,” said Grimes tiredly, “is the captain’s fault. And everything that happens in a squadron is the commodore’s fault.” He laughed without much humor. “It’s a pity that O’Leary’s given names were Patrick Joseph, not William Moore. That would have taken one weight off my mind . . .”

“But
I’m
William Moore, Skipper,” said the mate. “William Moore Williams.”

“I know,” said Grimes.

He went down to his day cabin, sent for the Countess of Walshingham.

***

When she came her cat was with her. The animal (?) sat down on the deck and stared, in an oddly hungry manner, at the golden figurine of Una mounted on her golden bicycle. It ignored Grimes—which was just as well. Did it, he wondered, recognize a fellow robot? Did the mini-Una possess some sort of organic brain, just as the evil black and white beast did?

“Must you bring that creature with you?” Grimes demanded irritably.

The tall girl stood there, superb in her tailored uniform, looking down at him disdainfully as he sat behind his desk.

“I thought you knew, sir,” she said, “that all El Doradans have their guardians, their watch animals. Felix is my protector. Should anybody attempt to do me harm he will attack.”

“And you think that I might attempt to do you harm?”

“You would like to, sir, wouldn’t you? You wish that you possessed the punitive powers of the old-time captains on Earth’s seas.”

“Frankly, Ms. Walshingham, I do wish just that. What you did merits a flogging, if nothing worse. How are you people trained—if at all!—in the El Doradan Navy? Don’t you know that an officer passing on a message from his captain to another captain is supposed, if necessary, to . . . to
edit
the message, to put it into the proper Service terminology?”

“Since when, sir, was this armed rabble a Service?”

Grimes kept his temper. He said slowly, “It may interest you to know, Ms. Walshingham, that Captain Prinn, blaming me for what happened to Captain O’Leary . . .”

“That bog-Irish slob!”

“Quiet, damn you! Captain Prinn put through a personal call to me. She holds me responsible for what happened to
Pride of Erin
and condemns me for it. So do all her officers—including
your
compatriot the Graf von Stolzberg.”

“That mother’s boy!”

“I have not yet written my report on your conduct and capabilities. When I do so I shall see that you read it. I do not think that Commodore Kane will continue to think highly of you when
he
has done so.”

“I could hardly care less, sir. The Commodore is not a true El Doradan.”

“He is your commanding officer. So, come to that, am I as long as you are on my books.”

She flushed. “As the representative, aboard this ship, of both the El Doradan Navy and the El Dorado Corporation . . .”

“You are still my fourth mate. That will do, Ms. Walshingham. Get out, and take that animal with you!”

“With pleasure, sir.”

When they were gone Grimes sent for Mayhew.

***

“That
bitch
,” he said. “That arrogant
bitch
! Did she realize what she was doing, what the results were likely to be, when she passed that message?”

“I don’t think so, sir. She is, as you say, arrogant. Captain O’Leary was a member of the lower orders. She feels no more sorry for him and his crew than she would for a dog or a cat belonging to somebody else and not to her.”

“But there was an El Doradan officer aboard
Pride of Erin
.”