Dragons? Fairies? Frog Princes? Sir Dominik Flandry? In a John Grimes Rim Adventure? Strange things happen out where the stellar medium grows thin, out where it is difficult to say if you remain within the galxay or you’re falling through the intergalactic void. Add to that strangeness an Outsider ship filled with technology so far in advance of the human as to appear magical, and the catalytic presence of Commodore John Grimes, and anything can happen - anything at all.
Release date:
December 17, 2015
Publisher:
Audible Studios
Print pages:
320
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Pathfinder’s Captain was not a happy man, and made this glaringly obvious.
Young Lieutenant Grimes, newly appointed to the Survey Service cruiser, was also far from happy. During his few years in Space he had served under strict commanding officers as well as easy going ones, but never under one like Captain Tolliver.
“You must make allowances, John,” Paymaster Lieutenant Beagle told him as the two young men were discussing matters over a couple or three drinks in Grimes’s cabin.
“It’s all very well for you to talk, Peter—but you idlers can keep out of his way. We watchkeepers can’t.”
“But he’s a Worrallian,” said Beagle. “Didn’t you know?”
“No,” admitted Grimes. “I didn’t.”
He knew now. He knew, too, that there were only a hundred or so Worrallians throughout the entire Galaxy. Not so long ago the population of Worrall had been nudging the thirty million mark. Worrall had been a prosperous planet—also it had been among the few Man-colonised worlds of the Interstellar Federation upon which the concepts of race and nationality had been allowed to take hold and develop. “It makes for healthy competition,” had been the claim of the Worrallian delegations—three of them—whenever the subject came up at the meetings of the Federation Grand Council. And so they had competed happily among themselves on their little ball of mud and rock and water—North Worrall, and South Worrall, and Equatorial Worrall—until all three nations laid simultaneous claim to a chain of hitherto worthless islands upon which flourished the stinkbird colonies. The stinkbird—it was more of a flying reptile really, although with certain mammalian characteristics—had always been regarded as more unpleasant than useful, and if anybody had wanted those barren, precipitous rocks lashed by the perpetually stormy seas the stinkbird would soon have gone the way of many another species unlucky enough to get in Man’s way. The stinkbird—along with everything and everybody else on Worrall—finally was unlucky, this being when a bright young chemist discovered that a remarkably effective rejuvenating compound was secreted by certain glands in its body. Worrall, although a prosperous enough closed economy, had always been lacking, until this time, in exports that would fetch high prices on the interstellar market.
So there was a squabble—with words at first, and then with weapons. In its ultimate stage somebody pushed some sort of button—or, quite possibly, three buttons were pushed. The only Worrallians to survive were those who were elsewhere at the time of the button-pushing.
And Captain Tolliver was a Worrallian.
Grimes sighed. He felt sorry for the man. He could visualise, but dimly, what it must be like to have no place in the entire Galaxy to call home, to know that everything, but everything had been vaporised in one hellish blast of fusion flame—parents, friends, lovers, the house in which one was brought up, the school in which one was educated, the bars in which one used to drink. Grimes shuddered.
But he still felt sorry for himself.
Grimes realised that Captain Tolliver had come into the control room. But, as the commanding officer had not announced his presence, the young man went on with what he was doing—the midwatch check of the ship’s position. Carefully, trying hard not to fumble, Grimes manipulated the Carlotti Direction Finder—an instrument with which he was not yet familiar—lining up the antenna, an elliptical Mobius Strip rotating about its long axis, with the Willishaven beacon, finally jotting down the angle relative to the fore-and-aft line of the ship. Then, still working slowly and carefully, he took a reading on Brownsworld and, finally, on Carlyon. By this time he was perspiring heavily and his shirt was sticking to his body, and his prominent ears were flushed and burning painfully. He swivelled his chair so that he could reach the chart tank, laid off the bearings. The three filaments of luminescence intersected nicely, exactly on the brighter filament that marked Pathfinder’s trajectory. Decisively Grimes punched the keys that caused the time of the observation, in tiny, glowing figures, to appear alongside the position.
“Hrrmph.”
Grimes simulated a start of surprise, swung round in his chair to face the Captain. “Sir?”
Tolliver was a tall, gangling scarecrow of a man, and even though his uniform was clean and correct in every detail it hung on him like a penitent’s sackcloth and ashes. He stared down at his officer from bleak grey eyes. He said coldly, “Mr. Grimes, I checked the time it took you to put a position in the tank. It was no less than eleven minutes, forty-three point five seconds. Objective speed is thirty-five point seven six lumes. Over what distance did this ship travel from start to finish of your painfully slow operations?”
“I can work it out, sir …” Grimes half got up from his chair to go to the control room computer.
“Don’t bother, Mr. Grimes. Don’t bother. I realise that watchkeepers have more important things with which to exercise their tiny minds than the boresome details of navigation—the girl in the last port, perhaps, or the girl you hope to meet in the next one …”
More than Grimes’s ears was flushed now. A great proportion of his watch had been spent reminiscing over the details of his shore leave on New Capri.
“This cross of yours looks suspiciously good. I would have expected an inexpert navigator such as yourself to produce more of a cocked hat. I suppose you did allow for distance run between bearings?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Hrrmph. Well, Mr. Grimes, we will assume that this fix of yours is reasonably accurate. Put down a D.R. from it for 1200 hours, then lay off a trajectory from there to Delta Sextans.”
“Delta Sextans, sir?”
“You heard me.”
“But aren’t we bound for Carlyon?”
“We were bound for Carlyon, Mr. Grimes. But—although it may well have escaped your notice—the arm of our lords and masters in Admiralty House is a long one, extending over many multiples of light years. For your information, we have been ordered to conduct a survey of the planetary system of Delta Sextans.”
“Will there be landings, sir?” asked Grimes hopefully.
“Should it concern you, Mr. Grimes, you will be informed when the time comes. Please lay off the trajectory.”
Lieutenant Commander Wanger, the ship’s Executive Officer, was more informative than the Captain had been. Convening off-duty officers in the wardroom he gave them a run-down on the situation. He said, “No matter what the biologists, sociologists and all the rest of ’em come up with, population keeps on exploding. And so we, as well as most of the other survey cruisers presently in commission, have been ordered to make more thorough inspections of habitable planets which, in the past, were filed away, as it were, for future reference.
“Delta Sextans has a planetary family of 10 worlds. Of these, only two—Delta Sextans IV and Delta Sextans V—could possibly meet our requirements. According to Captain Lovell’s initial survey IV could be rather too hot, and V more than a little too cold. Both support oxygen-breathing life forms, although V, with its mineral wealth, has greater industrial potential than IV. In any case it is doubtful if IV will be selected as the site for the Delta Sextans colony; Captain Lovell said that in his opinion, and in that of his biologists, at least one of the indigenous species comes into the third category.”
“And what is that?” asked a junior engineer.
“Any being in the third category,” explained the Executive Officer, “is considered capable of evolving into the second category.”
“And what is the second category?” persisted the engineer.
“The likes of us. And the first category is what we might become—or, if we’re very unlucky, run into. Anyhow, the ruling is that third category beings may be observed, but not interfered with. And taking somebody else’s world is classed as interference. Will somebody pour me some more coffee?”
Somebody did, and after lubricating his throat Wanger went on. “The drill will be this. We establish a camp of observers on IV—according to the initial surveys there’s nothing there that could be at all dangerous to well-equipped humans—and then the ship shoves off for V to get on with the real work. There’s no doubt that V will be selected for the new colony—but it will be as well if the colonists know something about their next-door neighbours.”
“Any idea who’ll be landed on IV?” asked Grimes.
“Haven’t a clue, John. There’ll be a team of biologists, ethologists, cartographers, geologists, and whatever. If the Old Man abides by Regulations—and he will—there’ll be an officer of the military branch officially in charge of the camp. Frankly, it’s not a job that I’d care for—I’ve had experience of it. Whoever goes with the boggins will soon find that he’s no more than chief cook and bottle washer—quite literally.”
Nonetheless, Grimes was pleased when he was told, some days later, that he was to be in charge of the landing party.
Pathfinder hung in orbit about Delta Sextans IV until the boat was safely down, until Grimes reported that the camp was established. To start with, Grimes enjoyed his authority and responsibility—then found that once the turbulent atmospheric approach had been negotiated and the landing craft was sitting solidly and safely on the bank of a river it was responsibility only. The scientists—not at all offensively—soon made it clear that once they were away from the ship gold braid and brass buttons meant less than nothing. When the stores and equipment were unloaded each of them was concerned only with his own treasures. They cooperated, after a fashion, in setting up the inflatable tents that were living quarters and laboratory. Reluctantly they agreed to defer their initial explorations until the following morning. (The boat, following the Survey Service’s standard practice, had landed at local dawn, but by the time that Grimes had things organised to his liking the sun, a blur of light and heat heavily veiled by the overcast, was almost set.)
It was Grimes who cooked the evening meal—and even though the most important tool employed in its preparation was a can opener he rather resented it. Three of the six scientists were women, and if anybody had ever told them that a woman’s place is in the kitchen they had promptly forgotten it. He resented it, too, when nobody showed any appreciation of his efforts. His charges gobbled their food without noticing what it was, intent upon their shop talk. The only remark addressed to Grimes was a casual suggestion that he have the flitters ready for use at first light.
The Lieutenant left the surveying party, still talking nineteen to the dozen, in the mess tent, hoping that they would eventually get around to stacking the dishes and washing up. (They didn’t.) Outside it was almost dark and, in spite of the heat of the past day, there was a damp chill in the air. Something was howling in the forest of cabbagelike trees back from the river bank, and something else flapped overhead on wide, clattering wings. There were insects, too—or things analogous to insects. They did not bite, but they were a nuisance. They were attracted, Grimes decided, by his body heat. He muttered to himself, “If the bastards like warmth so much, why the hell can’t they come out in the daytime?”
He decided to switch on the floods. With this perpetual overcast he might have trouble recharging the batteries during the hours of daylight, but they should hold out until Pathfinder’s return. He was able to work easily in the harsh glare and made a thorough check of the alarm system. Anything trying to get into the camp would either be electrocuted or get a nasty shock, according to size. (The same applied, of course, to anything or anybody trying to get out—but he had warned the scientists.) Finally he opened the boxes in which the flitters were stowed, started to assemble the first of the machines. He did not like them much himself—they were flimsy, one-person helicopters, with a gas bag for greater lift—but he doubted that he would get the chance to use one. Already he could see that he would be confined to camp for the duration of the party’s stay on IV.
With the camp secure for the night and the flitters assembled he returned to the mess tent—to find that the scientists had retired to their sleeping tents and left him with all the washing up.
Came the dawn, such as it was, and Grimes was rudely awakened by Dr. Kortsoff, one of the biologists. “Hey, young Grimes,” shouted the bearded, burly scientist. “Rise and shine! What about some breakfast? Some of us have to work for our livings, you know!”
“I know,” grumbled Grimes, “That’s what I was doing most of last night.”
He extricated himself from his sleeping bag, pulled on yesterday’s shirt and shorts (still stiff with dried sweat, but they would have to do until he got himself organised) and thrust his feet into sandals, stumbled out of his tent—and was surrounded by a mob of naked women. There were only three of them, as a matter of fact, but they were making enough noise for a mob. One of them, at least—the red-haired Dr. Margaret Lazenby—possessed the sort of good looks enhanced by anger, but Grimes was not in an appreciative mood.
“Mr. Grimes!” she snapped. “Do you want to kill us?”
“What do you mean, Dr. Lazenby?” he asked meekly.
“That bloody force field of yours, or whatever it is. When we were trying to go down to the river for our morning swim Jenny and I were nearly electrocuted. Turn the bloody thing off, will you?”
“I warned you last night that I’d set it up …”
“We never heard you. In any case, there aren’t any dangerous animals here …”
“Never take anything for granted …” Grimes began.
“You can say that again, Grimes. Never take it for granted, for example, that everybody knows all about the odd things you do during the night when sensible people are sleeping. Setting up force fields on a world where there’s nothing more dangerous than a domestic cat!”
“What about some coffee, Mr. Grimes?” somebody else was yelling.
“I’ve only one pair of hands,” muttered Grimes as he went to switch off the force field.
And so it went on throughout the day—fetch this, fix that, do this, don’t do that, lend a hand here, there’s a good fellow … Grimes remembered, during a very brief smoke, what Maggie Lazenby had told him once about the pecking order, claiming that what was true for barnyard fowls was also true for human beings. “There’s the boss bird,” she had said, “and she’s entitled to peck everybody. There’s the number two bird—and she’s pecked by the boss, and pecks . . .
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