Ride the Star Winds (94 page)

“Take her out,
Bustler
,” ordered Listowel into his VHF microphone.

“Take her out, Captain,” came the cheerful acknowledgment.

The towline grew taut, scattering a glittering spray in the thin sunlight.
Bustler
’s diesels thumped noisily and black smoke shot from her squat funnel to be shredded by the stiff breeze. Grimes went to an open window on the port side of the control room, looked out and down. There was a gap now between the wharf fenders and the side of the ship forward, a gap that was slowly widening. But what was happening aft? What about the projecting venturi of the reaction drive, the after control surfaces? Wasn’t there a possibility—a probability—of their fouling the wharf gantries? But Listowel, standing in the middle of his control room, didn’t seem to be worrying about it. And, after all, the ship was his.

The stern was coming off, too, under the tug of the airscrews, although not so rapidly. There was clearance between the tail fins and the nearest wharf structure—not much, but enough. And then the port propellers, unpivoted, whirled into motion, giving headway and accentuating the swinging moment.
Pamir
turned to starboard slowly but determinedly, a white and green jumble of brash ice piling up along that side. She came around into the wind and the starboard screws pivoted as she turned, giving headway instead of lateral thrust.

Astern the distance between ship and wharf was widening rapidly.

“Let go,
Bustler
,” ordered Listowel and then, to Grimes, “I’m always afraid that one day I’ll forget and drag that poor little bitch with me all the way to Llanith.”

“Is there any market there for used tugs or icebreakers?”

“Button her up, Mr. Wallasey,” said Listowel.

The third officer pressed buttons. The wheelhouse windows slid shut.

And about time.
Grimes thought. Icy drafts had begun to eddy about the compartment.

“Dump ballast.”

The ship lifted as the tons of water gushed out from her tanks, rising faster and faster, stemming the wind, until Coldharbor Bay, directly beneath her, seemed a puddle beside which a child had set a huddle of toy buildings—until far to the south the ice barrier, a coldly gleaming wall of pearly white, lifted over the black sea horizon.

She lifted like a rocket, but without noise and without crushing acceleration effects. She soared into the clear sky, the color of which deepened from blue to purple, to black. Below her the planet was no longer a vast, spread-out map—it was a globe, with seas and continents half-glimpsed through the swirling cloud formations, with the dark shadow of the terminator drifting slowly across it from the west.

The chief officer came into the control room to report all secured for space. Other reports came over the intercom. Listowel acknowledged them and then, smiling, turned to his guests. “Well, Commodore and Mrs. Grimes, how do you like it so far?”

“I envy you, Listowel. You’ve a fine ship and you know how to handle her.”

“Thank you, Commodore.” He said to the third officer, “Make the usual warning, Mr. Wallasey.” Then, to Grimes, “Seats and seat belts, sir. I have to swing her to the right heading now.”

The maneuver was routine enough in any interstellar ship, the turning of a vessel about her axes until she was lined up with the target star. Somewhere amidships the big directional gyroscopes grumbled, hummed and then whined, and centrifugal force gave the illusion of off-center gravity. The great globe that was Lorn seemed to fall away and to one side, and its sun drifted aft. Ahead now was only the blackness of intergalactic space, although the misty Lens was swimming slowly into view through the side ports. Then, coming gradually toward the center of the cartwheel sights, appeared the distant cluster of bright sparks that were the anti-matter stars. The gyroscopes slowed almost to a stop, grumbling, as Captain Listowel made the last fine adjustments. They halted at last.

The master looked up from his sighting telescope, murmured, “She’ll do.” Both hands went to the console before him. He said, “Look out through the side ports and aft, Commodore. This is worth watching.”

It was.

From the control room—which, like the bridge of a seagoing ship or the conning tower of a submarine, was a superstructure—there was a good view astern. Grimes could see the engine pods, four to a side, their now motionless four-bladed airscrews gleaming in the harsh sunlight. He could see the stubs of three of the masts—W to port, N on the centerline and E to starboard. S, of course, was beneath the hull and not visible, except in the periscope screen. But those stubs were stubs no longer. They were elongating, extending, stretching like impossibly fast growing, straight-stemmed trees. And as they grew they sprouted branches, foliage—the yards and the sails. The royals at the head of each mast were fully spread before the process of telescopic elongation was completed.

There was disorientation then, visual confusion, upset balance as the star wind filled the sails. What had been up was up no longer. Aft was still aft, but it was also “down.” Chairs swung in their gimbals, as did some of the instruments. Other equipment was cunningly designed so that it could be used from almost any angle.

Grimes realized what was happening but, twisting his body awkwardly in the chair, still stared in fascination aft and down through the polarized glass of the viewports. He had seen the sail plan of this ship, of course, had helped to draw it up; but this was the first time he had watched a lightjammer actually making sail. He mentally recited the names of the courses. He had insisted the old nomenclature be used. Northsail, lower topsail, upper topsail, topgallant, royal . . .

He turned away at last, asked, “Do you usually make sail all in one operation, Captain?”

Listowel laughed. “Only when I have guests in the control room.”

Sonya laughed, too. “John would prefer to see all hands out in spacesuits, clambering in the rigging like monkeys.”

“The good old days, eh?” Listowel unsnapped his seat belt. “Roll and go. Hell or Llanith in ninety days—and the sun’s over the yardarm.”

Grimes took one last look at that splendid suit of sails, black against the glare of the Lorn sun, before he got up to follow Listowel and Sonya from the control room. He realized that he would have to get his spacelegs back. In this inertialess ship, in spite of the already fantastic acceleration, the distinction between up and down was a matter of faith rather than of knowledge.

They enjoyed their drinks—more of the Llanithian whisky—in Listowel’s comfortable day room, where Sandra joined them.

“How are the customers?” her husband asked her.

“There’s only one this trip,” she told him. She flashed a smile at the guests. “I don’t count the commodore and Mrs. Grimes as real passengers.”

“Who is it?” asked Grimes. “Anybody I know—or should know?”

“Perhaps you should know her, sir. She’s a missionary.”

“Why wasn’t I warned?” demanded Listowel.

“I’m warning you now, Ralph.”

“What’s her name? What nut cult is she trying to peddle?”

“She’s the Reverend Madam Swithin. Rather an old dear, actually. She’s a missionary for the United Primitive Spiritualist Church.”

“And she thinks she’ll be able to convert the Llanithi?”

“She’ll probably convert some of them. After all, given the right conditions you can convert anybody to anything.”

“But United Primitive Spiritualism—” muttered Listowel disgustedly.

“They have something,” Sonya told him. “I’ve had some odd experiences and so has John.”

“I only hope she’s not at my table,” said the master.

“Where else could I put her, Ralph? After all, she is a person of some importance in her church. I couldn’t put her with the junior officers.”

“I’m sorry about this, Commodore,” Listowel said.

“Don’t worry, Captain. We’ll survive somehow,” Grimes told him.

The Reverend Madam Swithin was, as Sandra had said, rather an old dear, but the sort of old dear whose idea of conversation is asking endless questions. Yet it could be said in her favor that she enjoyed the excellent food prepared by Sandra and served by the efficient stewardess and that she did not belong to one of those sects that regard alcoholic beverages as sinful. It took her some little time to get things sorted out, however. She knew that a commodore is superior to a captain and so assumed that Grimes was master of
Pamir.
She asked him why he wasn’t wearing a uniform. Then she asked why
Pamir
wasn’t named according the general Rim Runners principle, with the “Rim” prefix.

Grimes told her, “In these vessels we’ve tried to revive the names of the old sailing ships, the Terran windjammers. Unluckily most, if not all, of the most famous names are being used by Trans-Galactic Clippers—
Thermopylae
and
Cutty Sark
and so on.”

“Are Trans-Galactic Clippers lightjammers like this one, Commodore?”

“No, Madam Swithin. But the original clippers were very fast sailing ships and long after sail had vanished from the seas the name ‘clipper’ was still being used by the operators of other forms of transport—road services, airlines and so forth. One of the first little ships to fly to Earth’s moon was called
Yankee Clipper
.”

“How interesting, Commodore. The usage gives one a sense of continuity, don’t you think? And now, Captain, when do you think you’re getting this clipper of yours to Llanith?”

“ETA is just three weeks subjective from now.”

“You said ‘Hell or Llanith in ninety days’,” Sonya reminded him.

“Ninety days objective,” He told her. “But only three weeks as we shall live them, Mrs. Grimes.”

“And is there really any danger of the ship’s getting wrecked? Not that I’m frightened, of course. I know that there is no death.”

Sandra joined them at the table, bringing coffee. “Don’t worry, Madam Swithin. That ‘Hell or Llanith’ is just an expression that Captain Listowel picked up from a book about the famous windjammers. There was a captain on the trade between England and Australia who used to say, ‘Hell or Melbourne in ninety days!’”

“And as
I
was saying, dear, such a sense of continuity. So fascinating to think that you sailing ship captains are reincarnations of the old sailing ship captains. The wheel has come full circle and you have been reborn—”

Listowel was beginning to squirm uncomfortably in his chair. The junior officers at their tables—obviously listening—were starting to look amused. Grimes endeavoured to steer the conversation on to a fresh tack.

“And when, Captain,” he asked, “do you start the reaction drive?”

“A week from now, Commodore, as soon as we have point nine recurring on the Doppler Log. Then we have a week of full acceleration and FTL flight. Then we have to decelerate. And then, all being well, we’re there.”

All being well,
thought Grimes.
But if all is well, I shall have made this trip for nothing.

III

She was a fine ship,
this
Pamir
, and most efficiently run—but, to one accustomed to a conventional starship, uncannily quiet. Grimes missed the incessant, noisy, arhythmic hammering of the inertial drive, the continuous thin, high keening of the Mannschenn Drive. Here the only mechanical noises were the occasional sobbing of a pump, the soft susurrus of the forced ventilation.

On she drove, running free before the photon gale. The Rim Stars astern were ruddily dim—the suns of the Llanithi Consortium blazed intensely blue ahead. And on the beam, mast and sails in black silhouette against it, glowed the great Lens of the Galaxy, unaffected by either red or blue shift.

The needle of the Doppler Log, after its initial rapid jump, crept slowly around its dial.
Point eight, point eight five, point eight seven five . . .
Grimes tried to imagine what the ship must look like to an outside observer, tried to visualize the compression along the fore and aft line. But to see her at all that mythical outside observer would have to be in another ship traveling in the same direction at the same speed—and then, of course, he would observe nothing abnormal.

And what would happen if
Pamir
hit something—even only a small piece of cosmic debris—at this fantastic velocity? So far the lightjammers had been lucky—but what if their luck suddenly ran out? The question, as far as her crew was concerned, was purely academic. They would never know what hit them—although after weeks or months or years the brief flare would be visible in the night skies of Lorn and Llanith.

At last came the time for the final acceleration—and the reversal of atomic charges. Again Grimes and Sonya were guests in the control room, watching with fascination. Listowel explained, “This isn’t half as bad as that moment when the temporal precession field of the Mannschenn Drive is initiated. Oh, you’ll feel something. We all do. Just a microsecond of tension and, at the same time—as the charges are reversed—what we call a scrambled spectrum. But there’s none of the dithering about in and on alternate time tracks that we experienced when we first discovered the effect.”

“Just as well,” grunted Grimes. “Alternate time tracks are among my pet allergies.”

Listowel was watching the log screen, which gave him far finer readings than the dial, to six places of decimals. Grimes and Sonya watched, too.

999993 . . .
The crimson numerals glowed brightly.
999994 . . . 999995 . . .
The
6
was a long time coming up . . . .
Ah, here it was.
999997 . . . 999998 . . .
There was another long delay. Then the final
9
appeared briefly but flickered back to
8
.

“Go, you bitch, go,” Listowel was whispering.
999999 . . .

“It’s holding, sir,” whispered one of the officers.

“I have to be sure . . . Now!” After the long days of quiet sailing the screaming roar of the rocket drive, carried by and through the metal structure of the ship, was startingly loud. There should have been brutal acceleration, but there was not. There was not a physical sense of acceleration. Yet Grimes felt as though he, personally, were striving to lift some impossibly heavy weight. He felt as though he were pressing against some thin yet enormously tough film that stubbornly refused to break.