The Big Black Mark - A. Bertram Chandler [71]
"Is that all?" asked Grimes coldly.
"That's all, Skipper. If it's any consolation to ye, Ned still likes ye. He's hopin' that ye don't go makin' the same mistake as Grimes was always afther makin'."
"Grimes?" asked Grimes bewilderedly.
"T'was Bligh I was meanin'."
"Damn Bligh!" swore Grimes. "This ship isn't HMS Bounty. This, in case you haven't noticed, is FSS Discovery, with communications equipment that can reach out across the galaxy. Bounty only had signal flags."
"Ye asked me, Skipper, an' I told ye." Flannery's manner was deliberately offhand. "Would there be anythin' else?"
"No!" snapped Grimes.
He went up to the main radio office, had a few words with the operator on duty. He was told there was very little traffic, and all of it signals from extremely distant stations and none of it concerning Discovery. He carried on to the control room, stared out through the viewports at the weirdly distorted universe observed from a ship running under Mannschenn Drive, tactfully turning his back while the officer of the watch hastily erased the three-dimensional ticktacktoe lattice from the plotting tank. Ride with a loose rein, Flannery had warned. He would do so. He looked at the arrays of telltale lights. All seemed to be in order.
He went down to the paymaster's office. Vinegar Nell was there, diligently filling in forms in quintuplicate. He tried to be nice to her, but she had no time for him. "Can't you see that I'm busy, Commander Grimes?" she asked coldly. "All this work was neglected while we were on Botany Bay." She contrived to imply that this was Grimes's fault.
Then Grimes, as he sometimes did, called in to the wardroom to have morning coffee with his officers. Their manner toward him was reserved, chilly. We were having a good time, their attitude implied, and this old bastard had to drag us away from it.
So went the day. There was something going on—of that he was sure. He was, once again, the outsider, the intruder into this micro-society, resented by all. And there was nothing he could do about it. (And if there were, should he do it?)
He was a man of regular habits. In space he required that he be called, by his steward, with a pot of morning coffee at precisely 0700 hours. This gave him an hour to make his leisurely toilet and to get dressed before breakfast. During this time, he would listen to a program of music, selected the previous night, from his little playmaster. It was the steward's duty to switch this on as soon as he entered the daycabin.
He awakened, this morning (as he always did) to the strains of music. Odd, he thought. He could not recall having put that particular tape into the machine. It was a sentimental song which, nonetheless, he had always liked—but it was not, somehow, the sort of melody to start the day with.
Spaceman, the stars are calling,
Spaceman, you have to roam,
Spaceman, through light-years falling,
Remember I wait at home. . . .
He heard Mullins come into the bedroom, the faint rattle of the coffee things on the tray. He smelled something. Was the man smoking? He jerked into wakefulness, his eyes wide open. It was not Mullins. It was the girl, Sally, who had been his predecessor's servant. She was not in uniform. She was wearing something diaphanous that concealed nothing and accentuated plenty. One of the thin cigars dangled from a comer of her full mouth. She took it out. "Here you are, Skipper. Have a drag. It'll put you in the mood."
Grimes slapped the smoldering cylinder away from his face. "In the mood for what?" he snapped.
"You mean to say that you don't know? Not after your carryings-on with the fat cow on Botany Bay, to say nothing of that scrawny bitch of a paymaster . . . ?" She let her robe drop open. "Look at me, Skipper. I'm better than both of 'em, aren't I?"
"Get out of here!" ordered Grimes. "I'll see you later."
"You can see me now, Skipper." Her robe had fallen from her. "Take a good look—an' then try to tell me that you don't like what you see!"
Grimes did like it; that was the trouble. The girl had