Ride the Star Winds (93 page)

She lay there, a great, gleaming torpedo shape, gently astir as the slight chop rolled her against the quietly protesting fenders. The hum of motors, the threshing of airscrews, suddenly ceased.

From an open window in his control room Listowel called, “Is this where you want me?”

“Make her fast as she is, Captain,” called the berthing master.

“As she is,” came the reply.

A few seconds later a side door opened and the brow extended from the wharf, stanchions coming erect and manropes tautening.

Grimes was first up the gangway. After all, as he had said to Sonya, the lightjammers were his babies.

Listowel received the boarding party in his day cabin. With him was Sandra Listowel, who was both his wife and his catering officer. Rim Runners did not, as a general rule, approve of wives traveling in their husband’s ships in any capacity, but Sandra was one of the original
Flying Cloud
crew and had undergone training in that peculiar mixture of seamanship and airmanship required for the efficient handling of a lightjammer. Grimes often wondered if she had, over the years, become like so many of the wives of the old-time windjammer masters, a captain
de facto
—though he did not think that Ralph Listowel would allow such a situation to develop.

Captain Listowel had changed little over the years. When he rose to greet his visitors he towered over them. He had put on no weight and his closely cut hair was still dark, save for a touch of gray at the temples. And Sandra was as gorgeous as ever, a radiant blonde, not quite as slim as she had been but none the worse for that. Her severe, short-skirted, black uniform suited her.

Listowel produced a bottle and glasses. He said, “You might like to try this. You look as though you need warming up. It’s something new. Our Llanithi friends acquired a taste for scotch and a local distiller thought he’d cash in on it. What he produced is not scotch. Even so, it’s good. It might go well on Lorn and the other Rim Worlds.”

Grimes sipped the clear, golden fluid experimentally, then enthusiastically, “Not bad at all.” Then “You’d better have some more yourself to soften the blow, Listowel.”

“What blow, Commodore?”

“You’ve a very quick turnaround this time. As you know
Herzogen Cecils
is tied up for repairs on Llanith—and I’d still like to know just how Captain Palmer got himself dismasted.”

“I have his report with me, Commodore.”

“Good. I’ll read it later. And when
Lord Of The Isles
comes in to Port Erikson she’s being withdrawn for survey. Which leaves you and
Sea Witch
to cope.” He grinned. “As they used to say back on Earth in the days of sail, ‘Growl you may, but go you must.’”

“But we’re still in the days of sail, Commodore,” said Listowel. “And as one of the sailing ship poets said, ‘All I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.’”

“Very touching, Ralph, very touching,” commented Sandra Listowel. “But I’m sure that the Chief Stewards of the oceangoing sailing ships had their problems, just as I have.” She turned to Grimes. “Last time we were in Port Erikson, Commodore, we enjoyed our usual two weeks alongside—but even then we sailed without all our stores. How will it be this time?”

“Better,” promised Grimes. “I’ll light a fire under the tail of the Provendore Department back at Port Forlorn.” He allowed Listowel to fill his glass. “Did you have a good trip, Captain?”

“Yes. Even so—”

“Even so what?”

“I think you might keep us informed, sir, of these other lightjammers, the experimental ones, cluttering up the route between Lorn and Llanith.”

Grimes stared. “What are you talking about, Listowel?”

“We averted collision by the thickness of a coat of paint. Captain Palmer, in
Herzogen Cecile
, also had a close shave. His emergency alteration of course was so violent that it carried away his N and E masts with all their sails. He limped to Port Listowel on Llanith on S and W only.”

“Why didn’t he report it? The circumstances, I mean.”

“He must have read your last circular, Commodore.”

Grimes’s prominent ears burned as he flushed angrily. But Listowel was right. He, Grimes, had written that circular under pressure from the Rim Worlds Admiralty—which body was, as he had put it, passing through a phase of acting like small boys playing at pirates. The fleet was out—or had been out or would be out—on deep space maneuvers. Masters and officers were reminded that the Carlotti bands were continually monitored by potentially hostile powers. Therefore no report of any sighting of Rim Worlds Navy warships was to be made over these channels, whatever the circumstances. And so forth.

“We are the only people with the Erikson-Charge-Reversing Drive,” went on Listowel. “So we assumed that what we saw was an experimental warship. One of ours. Palmer assumed likewise.”

Grimes made a major production of filling and lighting his pipe. He said through the swirling cloud of acrid blue smoke, “The Navy doesn’t have any lightjammers, yet. They want some, just in case we ever fail to see eye to eye with the Llanithi Consortium. But the first ships of the line, as they are to be called, are still on the drawing board.”

Listowel murmured thoughtfully, “Nevertheless we saw something—and it as near as dammit hit us. What was it, Commodore?”

“You tell me,” said Grimes. “I’m listening.”

II

Listowel was saying,
“We were bowling along under a full press of sail and the Doppler Log was reading point eight nine seven, so it was nowhere near time to light the fire under our arse—” He coughed apologetically. “That, sir, is the expression we use for starting the reaction drive—”

“I gathered as much,” said Grimes. “But go on.”

“We were just finishing dinner in the main salon. I had Llawissen and his two wives—he’s the new Llanithi trade commissioner, as you know—at my table. We were making the usual small talk when I noticed that the little red warning light in the chandelier had come on.”

“Sounds very fancy,” commented Williams.

“You should have done more time in passenger ships, Billy,” Grimes told him. “That signal is to tell the master that he’s wanted in control, but for something short of a full-scale emergency. Carry on, Captain.”

“So I excused myself, but didn’t leave the table in a hurry. Still, I lost no time in getting to the control room. Young Wallasey, the third mate, was O.O.W. He said, ‘We’ve got company, sir.’ I said, ‘Impossible.’ He pointed and said, ‘Look.’

“So I looked.

“We had company all right. She was out on the starboard beam, just clear of E topmast. She was only a light at first, a blueish glimmer, a star where we knew damn well no star should be, could be, hanging just above the distant mistiness of the Lens.

“‘Anything on the radar?’” I asked.

“There wasn’t—and these ships aren’t fitted with Mass Proximity Indicators.”

“No need for them,” grunted Grimes, “unless you have Mannschenn Drive.”

“So—there was nothing on the radar, which is what made me think afterward that this vessel must have been an experimental warship. The light was getting brighter and brighter, suggesting that the ship—I had already decided that it must be a ship—was getting closer.

“I got the big mounted binoculars trained on it. After I got them focused I could make out details, although that fuzzy, greenish light didn’t help any. Some sort of force field? But no matter. I’d say that it—she—wasn’t as big as
Pamir
or any of the other commercial lightjammers. She had an odd sort of rig, too. Instead of having four masts arranged in a cruciform pattern she had three, in series. And the sails—what I could see of them—had reflective surfaces on both sides instead of on one side only, as is the case with ours.

“And she was getting too bloody close on a convergent course. That was obvious, radar or no radar. Wallasey was calling her, first on the Carlotti set and then on NST, but getting no reply. There wasn’t time to break out the Morse lamp. Whoever dreamed that we’d need it in deep space?

“So I said to hell with this and altered course, turning my W sails edge on to the Llanith sun. It was only just in time. That bastard was so near that I could see a line of ports with what looked like the muzzles of weapons sticking out of them. If she’d opened fire I wouldn’t be here to tell the tale.”

“Nor would any of us,” commented Sandra Listowel.

“And only you and the officer of the watch saw this—thing?” asked Grimes.

“I’m not in the habit of throwing tea parties in my control room during emergencies, Commodore.”

“Sorry. And presumably Captain Palmer saw something similar?”

“He did.”

“But finish your story, Captain. What happened next?”

“Nothing. As I’ve told you, I altered course. And when next I was able to snatch a glance out of the ports she was gone. Like a snuffed candle, Wallasey told me.”

Grimes grunted. He was thinking matters over. While he had discovered the anti-matter systems to the Galactic West he had never visited their worlds. And he had never sailed in the lightjammers—though these ships were his brain children. He could afford the time for a voyage to Llanith—although his best policy would be to make all arrangements for the conduct of affairs during his absence first and to inform Rim Runners’ management afterward.

Not that this last mattered really. The Rim Worlds Navy would be interested in this story of alien light-jammers on the Lorn-Llanith trade route—and Grimes, as a Commodore of the Naval Reserve, had often in the past been called back to active duty to investigate strange occurrences. He had been called the Confederacy’s odd-job man for reasons. And Sonya would be in this too—she still held her commission in the Intelligence Branch of the Federation Survey Service.

Grimes said to Rowse, “I’d like to borrow your office, Captain. I’ve a pile of telephoning to do. Oh, Captain Listowel, would you mind having accommodation ready for Mrs. Grimes and myself? We shall be making the next round trip with you.”

“And what about me, Skipper?” asked Williams plaintively.

“I’m sorry, Bill, but there just aren’t any senior masters kicking around loose at the moment. So, as of right now, you’re appointed Port Forlorn astronautical superintendent, acting, temporary.”

“Not unpaid?” demanded the big man.

“Not unpaid,” agreed Grimes.

Williams’s manner brightened.

Grimes called Admiral Kravitz first. The Officer Commanding Rim Worlds Navy was not pleased at being awakened from a sound sleep, but after he had listened to Grimes’s story he was alert and businesslike. He glowered at Grimes from the telephone screen. “These reports. They’re utterly fantastic. Can you trust these masters of yours? Couldn’t they have been seeing things?”

“They saw something,” said Grimes. “In the case of
Pamir
, the intruder was seen by Captain Listowel and his third officer, Mr. Wallasey. In the case of
Herzogen Cecile
, the chief and second officers were in the control room as well as Captain Palmer. All the stories tally, even to minor details.”

“Is there any—ah—excessive drinking aboard your ships? Any addiction to hallucinogenic drugs?”

“No.” Grimes’s ears were reddening. He countered with: “Are you sure that the Navy hasn’t any experimental lightjammers?”

“You know bloody well we haven’t, Grimes. Oh, all right, all right. Have your free trip at the taxpayers’ expense. Don’t forget to send the bill for your fare in to the Rim Worlds Navy.”

“And my commodore’s pay and allowances, sir?”

“Take that up with the accounts department, Grimes. You know how to look after yourself. Call me again at a civilized hour tomorrow morning after you’ve got things organized.”

“Good night.”

Grimes allowed himself a small grin. He was in an if-I’m-up-everybody’s-up mood. He called Sonya. She, too, exhibited extreme displeasure at being disturbed at, as she put it, a jesusless hour. But her displeasure was replaced by enthusiasm. By the time the call was concluded she had decided what she would pack for herself and for Grimes and assured him that she would be at Port Erikson within twenty-four hours.

There was another call Grimes would have liked to have made, but unluckily Ken Mayhew, one of the few remaining psionic communication officers in the Rim Worlds, was not on Lorn. He was spending a long holiday on Francisco, of which planet his wife was a native. A good PCO, Grimes often said, was worth his weight in Carlotti transceivers—but not all PCOs were good and in the vast majority of interstellar ships the temperamental telepaths had been replaced by the Time-Space-twisting Carlotti radio equipment. But a Carlotti transceiver could not read minds, was incapable of that practice, frowned upon by the Rhine Institute but exercised nonetheless and known variously as snooping and prying. If
Pamir
had carried a psionic radio officer much could have been learned about the strange lightjammer. As it was, nothing—apart from the details of her appearance—was known.

Grimes went to the guest bedroom that had been provided for him in the Port Erikson staff accommodation block and settled down to read the reports—Listowel’s as well as Palmer’s. He would have liked to have discussed them with Rowse and Williams, but the port captain was organizing the round-the-clock stevedoring activities and Williams, who loved ships, was no doubt making a nuisance of himself to
Pamir
’
s
officers.

The reports told Grimes little more than he had already learned from Captain Listowel’s spoken account.

Grimes and Sonya were guests in
Pamir
’
s
control room when she sailed from Port Erikson at local noon, three days later. The southerly had persisted, had freshened and was holding the ship against the wharf. The pivoting airscrews would be hard put to it to provide sufficient transverse thrust to pull her out bodily from the berth. But the little icebreaker was also a tug and was given a forward towline by
Pamir
.

Mooring lines were let go fore and aft, were swiftly winched inboard. The pivoted offshore airscrews began to spin faster and faster, their whirling blades flickering into invisibility—but they were doing little more than holding the ship against the wind.