The Big Black Mark - A. Bertram Chandler [40]
"Sir!" It was Tangye again. "The screen's gone blank. We've lost the picture!"
"And the telemetering?"
"Still working—most of it. But she's going up like a rocket. I can't stop her. She's—Sir! She's had it! She must have blown up!"
Grimes broke the uneasy silence in the control room. "Write off one probe," he said at last. "Luckily the taxpayer has a deep pocket. Unluckily I'm a taxpayer myself. And so are all of you."
"One would never think so," sneered Brandt.
"Send down the other probe, sir?" asked Brabham sulkily.
"What is its service history?" countered Grimes.
"The same as the one Mr. Tangye just lost."
"It lost itself!" the navigator objected hotly.
Grimes ignored the exchange. He went on, "It has, I suppose, received the same loving attention aboard this ship as its mate?"
Brabham made no reply.
"Then it stays in its bay until such time as it has been subjected to a thorough—and I mean thorough—overhaul. Meanwhile, I think that we shall be able to run a fair preliminary survey of this planet if we put the ship into a circumpolar orbit. We might even be able to find out for sure if there are any wars actually in progress at this moment. I must confess that the existence of readily available antiaircraft artillery rather shook me."
"What are you saying in your preliminary report to Base, Commander Grimes?" asked Brandt,
"There's not going to be one," Grimes told him.
"And why not?" demanded the scientist incredulously.
One reason why not, thought Grimes, is that I'm not where I'm supposed to be. I'll wait until I have a fait accompli before I break radio silence. He said, "We're far too close to the territorial limits of the Empire of Waverley. If the emperor's monitors pick up a signal from us and learn that there are Earth-type planets in their back yard we shall have an Imperial battle cruiser squadron getting into our hair in less time than it takes to think about it."
"But a coded message—" began Brandt.
"Codes are always being broken. And the message would have to be a long one, which means that it would be easy to get a fix on the source of transmission. There will be no leakage of information insofar as this planet is concerned until we have a cast-iron treaty, signed, sealed, and witnessed, with its ruler or rulers. And, in any case, we still have another world to investigate. Mphm."
He turned to the executive officer. "Commander Brabham, you will organize a working party and take the remaining probe down completely. You will reassemble it only when you are quite satisfied that it will work the way it should." Then it was the navigator's turn. "Mr. Tangye, please calculate the maneuvers required to put us in the circumpolar orbit. Let me know when you've finished doing your sums."
He left the control room, well aware that if the hostile eyes directed at his back were laser projectors he would be a well-cooked corpse.
Back in his own quarters he considered sending an initial message to Captain Davinas, then decided against it, even though such a code could never be broken and it would be extremely difficult for anybody to get a fix on such a short transmission. He would wait, he told himself, until he saw which way the cat was going to jump.
Chapter 17
It was an unexpected cat that jumped.
It took the form of suddenly fracturing welding when the old ship was nudged out of her equatorial orbit into the trajectory that, had all gone well, would have been developed into one taking her over north and south poles while the planet rotated beneath her. With the rupturing of her pressure hull airtight doors slammed shut, and nobody was so unfortunate as to be caught in any of the directly affected compartments. But atmosphere was lost, as were many tons of fresh water from a burst tank. Repairs could be carried out in orbit, but the air and water could be replenished only on a planetary surface.
A landing would have to be made.
A landing—and a preliminary