The Big Black Mark - A. Bertram Chandler [51]
"I saw the airship go down in flames," said Brabham. He added, speaking very reasonably, "You have to admit, sir, that you're as guilty—or as innocent—as the major. You acted as you thought best. If you'd made a normal liftoff, using inertial drive only, there wouldn't have been any back-blast. Or turbulence. But you decided to get upstairs in a hurry."
"If I hadn't got upstairs in a hurry," stated Grimes, "I'd never have got upstairs at all. None of us would. The next round—or salvo—would have been right on."
"We are not all gunnery experts, Captain," said Dr. Rath. "Whether or not we should have been hit is a matter for conjecture. But the fact remains that the airship was destroyed by your action."
"Too right it was!" agreed MacMorris. "An' the way you flogged my engines it's a miracle this ship wasn't destroyed as well."
"Gah!" expostulated Grimes. Reasonable complaints he was always prepared to listen to, but this was too much. He would regret the destruction of the second dirigible to his dying day, but a captain's responsibility is always to his own vessel, not to any other. Nonetheless he was not, like Swinton, a murderer.
Or was he?
"You acted as you thought best," murmured Brabham. "So did the major."
"Major Swinton deliberately disobeyed orders," stated Grimes.
"I seem to remember, Captain," went on Brabham, "that you were ordered to make a sweep out toward the Rim."
"If you ever achieve a command of your own," Grimes told him coldly, "you will discover that the captain of a ship is entitled—expected, in fact—to use his own discretion. It was suggested that I make my sweep out toward the Rim—but the Admiralty would take a very dim view of me if-I failed to follow up useful leads taking me in another direction."
"All that has been achieved to date by this following of useful leads," said Rath, "is the probable ruin of a zealous officer's career."
"Which should have been ruined before he ever set foot aboard this ship!" flared Grimes.
"Then I take it, sir," said Brabham, "that you are not prepared to stretch a point or two in the major's favor."
"You may take it that way," agreed Grimes.
"Then, sir," went on the first lieutenant, speaking slowly and carefully, "we respectfully serve notice that we shall continue to obey your legal commands during the remainder of this cruise, but I wish to make it clear that we shall complain to the proper authorities regarding your conduct and actions as soon as we are back on Lindisfarne."
"The inference being," said Grimes, "that if Swinton is for the high jump, I am too."
"You said it, Commander Grimes," put in Vinegar Nell. "The days when a captain was a little—or not so little—tin god are long dead. You're only a human being, like the rest of us, although you don't seem to think so. But you'll learn, the hard way!"
"Careful, you silly cow!" growled MacMorris.
Grimes forced himself to smile. "I am all too aware of my fallible humanity, Miss Russell. I'm human enough to sympathize with you, and to warn you of the consequences of sticking your necks out. But what puzzles me is why you're doing it for Major Swinton. The Marines have always been a pain in the neck to honest spacemen, and Swinton has all a Marine's faults and precious few of the virtues. And I know that all of you hate his guts."
"He is a son of a bitch," admitted the woman, "but he's our son of a bitch. But you, Commander Grimes, are the outsider aboard this ship. Lucky Grimes, always on the winning side, while the rest of us, Swinton included, are the born losers. Just pray to all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy that your luck doesn't run out, that's all!"
"Amen," intoned Rath, surprisingly and sardonically.
Grimes kept his temper. He said, "This is neither the time nor the place for a prayer meeting. I suggest that you all return to your duties."
"Then you won't reconsider the action you're taking against the major, Captain?" asked Brabham politely.
"No."
"Then I guess this is all we can do," said the first lieutenant, getting up to leave.
"For the