The Big Black Mark - A. Bertram Chandler [73]
"You're pretty blatant about this, Number One," remarked Grimes.
"I hardly expected that the captain would be pawing through my personal possessions with his own fair hands. Sir."
"Not only me."
"Lindisfarne Base is not a commercial spaceport. Sir. There are no customs."
"But the dockyard police exercise the same function," snapped Grimes. But he knew, as well as Brabham did, that those same dockyard police would turn a blind eye to anything as long as they, personally, profited.
All the officers, Grimes discovered, had disobeyed his orders, working, on the good old principle of What he doesn't know won't bother him. Now he did know. Using his master key he went down through compartment after airtight compartment. Stewards and stewardesses . . . petty officers . . . Marines . . . general purpose ratings . . . it was even worse than he had thought. In the catering staff's general room he found butts in the ashtrays. They must, he thought, have enjoyed quite a nice little orgy last night—and he had been pulled in at the tail end of it.
He and a sullen Brabham rode the elevator up to the control room. Grimes went at once to the intercom microphone. He said harshly, "Attention, all hands. This is the captain speaking. It has come to my attention that large quantities of Botany Bay tobacco are being carried aboard this ship. All—I repeat all—stocks of this drug are to be taken to the after airlock, from which they will be dumped."
"You can't do that, Captain!" expostulated Brabham.
"I am doing it, mister."
"But it's private property."
"And this ship is the property of the Federation Survey Service. We are all the property of the Service, and are bound to abide by its regulations. See that my orders are carried out, Commander Brabham."
"But—"
"Jump to it!"
"You'll do the jumping, Commander Grimes!" It was Swinton who spoke. He had entered the control room unnoticed. He was carrying a twenty-millimeter projectile pistol, a nasty weapon designed for use inside a ship, its slug heavy and relatively slow moving, incapable of penetrating the shell plating or bulkheads of a ship. But it would make a very nasty mess of a human body.
"Swinton! Put that thing down!"
"Are you going to try to make me, Commander Grimes?"
Grimes looked at Brabham and the watch officer. Brabham said, "We're all in this, Captain. Almost all of us, that is. This business of the cigars pushed us past the point of no return."
"Mutiny?" asked Grimes quietly.
"Yes. Mutiny. We owe the Survey Service nothing. From now on we're looking after ourselves."
"You must be mad," Grimes told him. "The moment Lindisfarne gets word of this there'll be a fleet out after you."
"The Sparkses are with us," said Swinton. "There'll be no word sent out on Carlotti radio. As for that drunken bum Flannery—the first thing I did was to smash that dog's brain in aspic of his. Without his amplifier he's powerless."
"He'll never forgive you," said Grimes.
"The least of my worries," sneered Swinton.
"And just what do you intend to do?" Grimes asked quietly. If he could keep them talking there was a chance, a faint chance, that he might be able to grab that weapon.
"Return to Botany Bay of course," said Brabham.
"You bloody fool!" snarled Swinton.
"Why?" asked the first lieutenant calmly. "Dead men tell no tales."
"And even Botany Bay has laws and policemen," remarked Grimes.
"Do you think we haven't thought of that?" Brabham demanded. "We intend to loaf around a bit, and make our return to Botany Bay after an interval that should correspond roughly to the time taken by a voyage to Lindisfarne and back. Our story will be that you were relieved of your command on return to Base and that I was promoted."
"You'll have to do better than that," said Grimes. "You'll have Brandt to convince as well as the colonists."
"Oh, we'll polish our story until it gleams while we're cruising. We'll make it all as watertight as a duck's down."
"Down to the