• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 581 0

It would not be, he was well aware, the only report. Brandt would be putting one in, probably arguing during the course of it that expeditions such as this should be under the command of scientists, not mere spacemen. The disgraced Swinton would be writing his, addressed to the General Officer Commanding Federation Space Marines, claiming, most certainly, that by his prompt action he had saved the ship. And officers, petty officers, and ratings would be deciding among themselves what stories they would tell at the inevitable Court of Inquiry when Discovery returned to Lindisfarne Base.

Grimes was still working on his first, rough draft when his senior officers—with the exception of the Mad Major—came to see him.

"Yes?" he demanded, swiveling his chair away from the paper-strewn desk.

"We'd like a word with you, sir," said Brabham. The first lieutenant looked as morose as ever, but Grimes noted that the man's heavy face bore a stubbornly determined expression.

"Take the weight off your feet," Grimes ordered, with forced affability. "Smoke, if you wish." He set the example by filling and lighting his pipe.

Brabham sat stiffly at one end of the settee. Vinegar Nell, her looks matching her nickname, took her place beside him. Dr. Rath, who could have been going to or coming from a funeral on a cold, wet day, sat beside her. MacMorris, oafishly sullen, lowered his bulk into a chair. The four of them stared at him in hostile silence.

"What is it you want?" snapped Grimes at last.

"I see you're writing a report, sir," said Brabham, breaking the ominous quiet.

"I am writing. And it is a report, if you must know."

"I suppose you're putting the rope around Major Swinton's neck," sneered Vinegar Nell.

"If there's any rope around his neck," growled Grimes, "he put it there himself."

"Aren't you being . . . unfair, Captain?" asked Brabham.

"Unfair? Everybody knows the man's no more than a uniformed murderer."

"Do they?" demanded MacMorris. "He was cleared by that court-martial."

And a gross miscarriage of justice that was, thought Grimes. He said, "I'm not concerned with what Major Swinton did in the past. What I'm concerned about is what he did under my command, on the world we've just left."

"And what did he do?" persisted Brabham.

"Opened fire against my orders. Murdered the entire crew of an airship bound on a peaceful mission."

"He did what he thought best, Commander Grimes. He acted in the best interests of the ship, of us all. He deserves better than to be put under arrest, with a court-martial awaiting him on Lindisfarne."

"Does he, Lieutenant Commander Brabham?"

"Yes. Damn it all, sir, all of us in this rustbucket are in the same boat. We should stick together."

"Cover up for each other?" asked Grimes quietly. "Lie for each other, if necessary? Present a united front against the common enemy, the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty?"

"I wouldn't have put it quite in those words, Captain, but you're getting the idea."

"Am I?" exploded Grimes. "Am I? This isn't a matter of bending Survey Service regulations, Brabham! This is a matter of crime and punishment. I may be an easygoing sort of bastard in many ways, too many ways—but I do like to see real criminals, such as Swinton, get what's coming to them!"

"And is Major Swinton the only real criminal in this ship?" asked Vinegar Nell coldly.

"Yes, Miss Russell—unless some of you are guilty of crimes I haven't found out about yet."

"What about yourself, Commander Grimes?"

"What about myself?"

"I understand that two airships were destroyed. One by the major, when he opened fire perhaps—perhaps!—a little prematurely. The second by . . . yourself. Didn't you maneuver this vessel so that the backblast of your rockets blew the airship out of the sky?"

Grimes glared at her. "You were not a witness of the occurrence, the accident, Miss Russell."

"I know what I've been told," she snapped. "I see no reason to disbelieve it."

"It was an accident. The airship was well beneath us when it crossed our trajectory. It was not backblast that destroyed it, but turbulence."