The Big Black Mark (14 page)

"I demand an explanation, Captain!" she flared. "
And
an apology. "Was it you who ordered these"—she gestured with a slim, freckled arm toward the armored Marines—"enlisted men to attack me?"

"To save you," said Grimes coldly, "from the consequences of your own stupidity." He grinned without humor. "Your job is to provide meals for the personnel of this vessel, not for whatever carnivores are lurking in the lake."

"Ha!" she snorted. "Ha!" She brushed past Grimes to stand at the viewport. "What carnivores?"

The surface of the water was placid again. But there had been something there.

"Sir!" called the officer of the watch suddenly, "I have a target on the radar. Bearing 047. Range thirty kilometers. Bearing steady, range closing."

"Sound the recall," ordered Grimes. He went to the intercom. "Captain here. Mr. Flannery to the control room. At once."

Flannery came into the control room, trailing a cloud of whiskey fumes, as Vinegar Nell and Tangye were hastily leaving. He guffawed, "An' what's goin' on, Captain? An orgy, no less!"

"Out of my way, you drunken bum!" snarled the paymaster, pushing past him.

Grimes ignored this. Vinegar Nell and Tangye would keep until later, as could the junior engineers who had followed their bad example. Looking out through the ports he saw that the last members of the shore parties were almost at the foot of the ramp, with Sergeant Washington and his Marines chivying them like sheepdogs. But the end of one hose had been placed in the lake; there was no reason why the pump should not be started. He told the officer of the watch to pass the order down to the engine room.

"Ye wished for me, Captain?" the telepath was asking.

"Yes, Mr. Flannery. Something, some kind of flying machine, is approaching."

"Bearing 047. Range twenty. Closing," reported the OOW.

"It must be an aircraft," went on Grimes. "The mountains cut off our line of sight to the sea. Could you get inside the minds of the crew? Are their intentions hostile?"

"I'll do me best, Captain. But as I've told ye an' told ye—these people must be the lousiest telepathic transmitters in the entoire universe!"

"All hands on board, sir," reported Brabham, coming into the control room. "Shall we reel in the hoses?"

"No. I've already told the engineers to start pumping. If I want to get upstairs in a hurry I shall be using the rockets, and I'll want plenty of reaction mass. But you can retract the ramp and close the after airlock door." Tangye—clothed,' sheepish—made a reappearance. "Pilot, put the engines—inertial drive
and
reaction drive—on standby. Warn the chief that I may be wanting them at any second."

"Range fifteen. Closing."

Grimes raised his glasses to his eyes and looked along the 047 bearing. Yes, there it was in the sky, a black spot against a backdrop of towering, snowy cumulus. An aircraft, all right—but what sort of aircraft? Friendly or hostile? And how armed?

"All possible weaponry trained on target, sir," reported Swinton.

"Thank you, Major. What do you have to report, Mr. Flannery?"

"I'm tryin', Captain, indeed I'm tryin'. T'is like lookin' for truth at the bottom of a well full o' mud. The odd thought comes bubblin' up through the ooze—an' then it bursts, like a bubble, when I try to get ahold of it. But—but I'm gettin' somethin'. They're a bit scared—an' why shouldn't they be? They're a bit scared, but they're determined. They mayn't look much like us—but they're
men.
"

"Range ten. Closing."

"Ship buttoned up, apart from the hoses," reported Brabham.

"All engines on standby," said Tangye. "Enough reaction mass in the tanks for limited use."

"How limited?" demanded Grimes testily.

"He didn't say, sir. But the pump is still sucking in water."

"They're comin' on," muttered Flannery, "although they're not likin' the idea of it at all, at all. But—but they—they trust? Yes. They trust us, somehow, not to swat 'em down out o' the sky like flies."

"Ha!" barked Swinton, hunched eagerly over his fire control console.

"Watch it, Major!" warned Grimes sharply.

"Range five. Closing."

Grimes studied the thing in the visual pickup screen, which gave far greater magnification than his binoculars. It looked like a big balloon, with a car hanging from the spherical gas bag. But a balloon would never be capable of that sort of speed. Then the thing turned to make a circuit of the valley, presenting its broadside to the human observers. The shape of it made sense—a long, fabric-covered torpedo with a control cabin forward, a quartet of engine pods aft. The outlines of frames and longerons were visible through the covering.
A rigid airship,
thought Grimes.
A dirigible.

"They're havin' a good look at us," said Flannery unnecessarily. "They know that we're from . . . outside."

The airship flew in a circle with
Discovery
at its center, maintaining its distance but well within the range of the spaceship's weaponry. Perhaps its crew, knowing only the capabilities of their own artillery, thought they were out of range.

"Another target," reported the officer at the radar. "Bearing 047. Range thirty-five. Closing."

"Holdin' the first one's hand, like," volunteered Flannery.

Swinton, tracking the dirigible within visual sight, complained, "The bloody thing's making me dizzy."

"It's stopped," said Brabham. "No. It's turning. Toward us."

Toward, or away? wondered Grimes. Yes, toward it was.

"They've made their minds up," whispered Flannery. "They're thinkin'—may the Saints preserve 'em!—that there's no harm in us."

The airship drove in steadily. On its new course it would pass directly over
Discovery.
It approached with a stately deliberation. Then, suddenly, from the gondola, a half dozen relatively tiny objects fell in succession.

Swinton cried out—in exultation, not fear. And Flannery screamed, "No! No!" Grimes, belatedly recognizing the falling things for what they were, shouted, "Check! Check! Check!" But the major ignored the order to hold his fire. The slashing, stabbing beam of his laser was a ghostly, almost invisible sword. Each of the falling bodies exploded smokily, even as the parachutes started to blossom above them, and as they did so there was the deafening rattle of
Discovery's
forty millimeter battery and a torrent of bright tracer. The airship disintegrated, her twisted, black skeleton in brief silhouette against the fireball of blazing hydrogen. The blast rocked the spaceship on her landing gear and a strip of burning fabric drifted down across her stem, blotting out the control room viewports with writhing blue and yellow flames.

"You bloody pongo murderer!" screamed Flannery, beating at the major with his fists.

"Call this lunatic off me," shouted Swinton, "before I have to kill him!"

Grimes grabbed the telepath by the shoulder, yanked him away from the Marine. He said, trying to keep his voice under some sort of control, "You bloody murderer, Swinton. You'll face another court-martial when we get back to Base!"

"I saved the ship!" Swinton was on his feet now. "I saved your precious ship for you. I call upon you all as witnesses. That was a stick of bombs."

"Bombs don't explode the way those bodies did," said Grimes coldly. "But living flesh does, when a laser beam at wide aperture hits it. The parachutes were just starting to open when you killed the poor bastards wearing them."

"Parachutists, then," admitted the major. "Paratroopers."

"Emissaries," corrected Flannery. "Comin' in peace, wantin' to make our acquaintance. An' didn't they just, you murtherin' swine?"

"Target number two," said the officer at the radar in a shaky voice, "bearing 047. Range twenty, opening. Twenty-one, opening . . . twenty-two . . . twenty-three."

"They know now what to expect from Earthmen," said Flannery bitterly.

There had been an unfortunate misunderstanding, and men had died because of it, but Grimes was still responsible for the safety of his own ship, his own crew. He ordered that the replenishment of essential air and water be resumed as soon as the wreckage of the dirigible was cleared from around
Discovery.
He allowed Brandt, assisted by a squad of Marines, to pick over the charred remains of the airship and her hapless people—a filthy, gruesome task but, viewed cold-bloodedly and scientifically, a most useful one. One of the least badly damaged bodies—it did not look as though it had ever been a living, sentient being, but it exuded the sickly smell of death—was brought on board for dissection at some later date. The other corpses were interred in a common grave, marked by an almost intact four-bladed wooden airscrew. "We'll try to show these people that we're civilized," growled Grimes to the giant, black sullen Sergeant Washington, who had been ordered to take charge of the burial and who had protested that his men weren't gravediggers. "Although it's rather late in the day for that."

It was obvious that the man resented having to take orders from anybody but his own officer, even from the ship's captain, but Major Swinton had been suspended from duty-and sent down to his quarters in disgrace. Brabham had taken over fire-control, and managed to convey the impression that he hoped he would not be required to function as gunnery officer. Tangye had the radar watch.

Grimes stayed in the control room, taking his sandwich lunch there, although the other officers were relieved for their meal. He continually refilled and rekindled a pipe that became ever fouler and fouler. He listened patiently to Brandt when the scientist reported on the findings that he, aided by the ship's technical staff, had made. There had been very little metal in the structure of the airship, he said. The framework, control cabin, and engine pods had been made from a light but very strong wood. Stays and control cables, however, were of stranded wire, indicative of a certain degree of technological sophistication. The engines, which had survived the crash almost intact, seemed to be similar to Terran diesels. Unfortunately no fuel remained, but analysis of the deposits in the cylinders would provide clues as to the nature of what had been burned in them.

The pieces of the jigsaw puzzle were beginning to fall into place—and Grimes regretted that he would not be able to complete the picture. After Swinton's trigger-happy effort any and all visitors to this world would be received with hostility. It was a pity, as this would have been an interesting planet for detailed study, a world upon which the industrial revolution had taken place or was, at the very least, well under way. And there were political and sociological aspects as well as the technological ones which Grimes would have liked to have investigated. That obvious state of war—or, at least, a warmish cold war—between nations. Anti-aircraft artillery and a willingness to use it—as witness the reception of
Discovery's
probe outside that city. But at least one of the powers, whoever it was that had owned the ill-fated airship, was less apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward. Or, he told himself glumly, they had been less apt to shoot first and ask questions afterward. Now they had learned their lesson.
That bloody, bloody Swinton!

"Of course," said Brandt, with whom Grimes had been talking things over, "the major ruined everything."

"He's ruined himself as well, this time!" snapped Grimes. "I told the man, before witnesses, not to open fire unless ordered by myself to do so." He laughed grimly. "I'm afraid you won't get the chance to give away your picture books and educational toys on this planet, Doctor. Thanks to the Mad Major we got off on the wrong foot."

He pushed himself up from his chair, made a circuit of the viewports. Shadow was creeping over the valley from the West, but the rugged country to the east of the tarn was Still brightly illuminated by the slowly setting sun—the pearly gray and glowing ocher of the cliffs, the static explosions of vividly green foliage, spangled with the scarlet and purple of huge gaudy blossoms.

Where every prospect pleases,
he thought,
but only Man is vile. Man, with a large, black, capital
"
M.
"

"Target," called Tangye suddenly. "Aerial. Bearing 050. Range thirty-five."

"General standby," ordered Grimes. Then, more to himself than to anybody else, "I'll not make it 'action stations' yet. If I do, the work'll never get finished. I doubt if that gas bag'll be keen to close us." He turned to Brabham. "If it does, Number One, you can pump a few rounds of HETF across its bows, as a deterrent. You will not, repeat not, shoot to hit."

Brabham gave him a sour look of acknowledgment, as though to say,
You don't need to tell
me
my job!

Grimes looked down at the hoses, still out, still writhing rhythmically as the pumps drew in water from the lake. He thought,
I'll let the old bitch drink her fill.
He watched the sullen Marines, ash-bedaubed, still at their grisly work, their morbid scavenging. He rather regretted that he had not put Major Swinton in personal charge of the operation.

"Bearing 050. Range thirty. Closing," intoned Tangye.

"The poor brave, stupid bastards!" whispered Grimes. That flimsy ship, flammable as all hell, against
Discovery's
weaponry. He went to the intercom, called for Flannery.

"An
^'
what would ye be wantin', Captain?" asked the telepath when he reported to the control room.

"Don't waste my time!" snapped Grimes testily. "You know damn well what I'm wanting!"

"Then I'll be tellin' ye, Captain. I'm receivin' 'em—loud, but not all that clear. Just raw emotions, like. Frightenin', it is. Hate. Revenge. Anybody'd think ye were the black Cromwell himself, payin' another visit to the Emerald Isle."

"But what can they hope to do against us?" demanded Grimes.

"I can't tell ye. But they are hopin' to do something that'll not be improvin' the state of our health."

"Range twenty-five. Closing."

Grimes called the engine room. "Captain here, Chief. How's that water coming in?"