The Big Black Mark - A. Bertram Chandler [80]
Gratefully Grimes jumped down from the airlock door to the deck; Davinas had restarted his inertial drive and the ship had resumed acceleration. He was greeted by Sundowner's chief officer, still spacesuited but with his helmet visor open. "Good to have you aboard, Commander Grimes."
"And it's good to be aboard."
"The master is waiting for you in the control room, sir. I'll lead the way."
"Thank you."
Grimes and his companions followed the officer to the doorway into the axial shaft. They rode up to control in the elevator. Davinas was waiting in the control room. After the handshakings and the introductions he said, "Now, Commander, I'd like some information from you. With all due respect to your Mr. Flannery and my Mr. Parley, I got a rather confused picture. I was proceeding to Botany Bay, as I learn that the Lost Colony is called. At the moment I'm heading nowhere in particular; the inertial drive's on only to give us gravity. Do you want me to set course for the Lost Colony again?"
"No," said Grimes at last. Discovery, he knew, would be deliberately wasting time before her return to Botany Bay, and there was quite a good chance that Sundowner would get there first. But what could she do? She was not armed, and on the world itself there was a paucity of weaponry. There was no army, only a minimal constabulary. There was no navy, no air force. He had no doubt that the colonists would have no trouble manufacturing weapons, and very effective ones, if given time—but time was what they would not have. And if they tried to arrest the mutineers, knowing them to be criminals, immediately after their landing a massacre would be the result. (Swinton tended to specialize in massacres.) "I could pile on the lumes," said Davinas. "No, Captain. This is not a warship, and Botany Bay has nothing in the way of arms beyond a few sporting rifles. I think you'd better take us straight to Lindisfarne Base." He added, seeing the disappointment on the other's face, "You'll not lose by it. Your owners will be in pocket. The cost of your deviation, freight on the boat, passages for myself and Dr. Rath and Mr. Flannery. And I'll do my damnedest to see that you get your charter as a liaison ship as soon as this mess is cleared up."
"I see your point," admitted Davinas at last. "And do you want me to get off a Carlottigram to your bosses on Lindisfarne, reporting the mutiny and all the rest of it?"
"No. I don't have my code books with me, and I've no desire to broadcast to the whole bloody galaxy that the Survey Service has a mutiny on its hands. And I don't want Discovery to know that I've been picked up. It's strict radio silence, I'm afraid, until we start talking on NST before we land on Lindisfarne. That's the only safe way."
Davinas agreed, then gave orders to his navigator. That young man, Grimes noted, was far more efficient than Tangye. (But Tangye was one of those to whom he owed his continued existence.) The change of trajectory was carried out with no fuss and bother, and in a very short time Sundowner was lined up on the target star. Davinas went down then, asking Grimes to accompany him.
Over drinks Grimes filled Davinas in on all (well, not quite all) that had happened since their last meeting. The tramp captain asked, "And what will happen to your mutineers, John?"
"Plenty," replied Grimes grimly. "There are two crimes of which the Survey Service takes a very dim view—piracy is one, and mutiny is the other. The penalty for both is the same—a spacewalk without a spacesuit."
"Even when there was nobody killed during the mutiny?"
"Even then." Grimes stared thoughtfully at the trickle of smoke issuing from the bowl of his pipe. "Somehow, I wish it weren't so. There's only one man among 'em who's really bad, all the way through. That's Swinton, of course. The others . . . I can sympathize with them. They'd reached the stage, all of them, when they felt that they owed the Service no loyalty."
"Poor, stupid bastards," murmured Davinas. Then, "I thought your paymaster was a very attractive woman. I'd never have thought that