The Broken Cycle - A. Bertram Chandler [11]
"So what do you intend to do?" asked Delamere.
"I suggest that you maintain your present station on Delta Geminorum; Commander Grimes and I will take a boat to board her. Then I shall defuse the bomb."
"All right," growled Delamere at last. "All right. Mr. Ballantyre, maintain station on the derelict." He turned to his First Lieutenant. "Mr. Tarban, have Lieutenant Commander Grimes' boat ready for ejection." He added, addressing nobody in particular, "I don't see why I should risk one of my boats . . . ." He addressed Grimes. "I hope you enjoy the trip. Better you than me, Buster!"
"I have the utmost confidence in Miss Freeman's abilities, Frankie," Grimes told him sweetly.
Delamere snarled wordlessly.
Una Freeman said, "You're the expert, John—for the first part of it, anyhow. Shall we require space-suits?"
"Too right we shall," said Grimes. "To begin with, Mr. Tarban has probably evacuated the atmosphere from the after hold by now. And we don't know whether or not there's any atmosphere inside the derelict or if it's breathable. We'd better get changed."
Before he left the control room he went to the binoculars for the last look at the abandoned liner. She looked innocent enough, a great, dull-gleaming torpedo shape. Suddenly she didn't look so innocent. The word "torpedo" has long possessed a sinister meaning.
Chapter 6
Everything was ready in the after hold when Grimes and Una got down there. The lashings had been removed from the boat and its outer airlock door was open. The inertial drive was ticking over, and somebody had started the mini-Mannschenn, synchronizing its temporal precession rates to those of the much bigger interstellar drive units in Skink and Delta Geminorum. A cargo port in the ship's side had been opened, and through it the liner was visible.
"She's all yours, sir," said the First Lieutenant.
"Thank you," replied Grimes.
Delamere's irritated voice came through the helmet phones, "Stow the social chit-chat, Mr. Tarban. We've wasted enough time already!"
"Shut up, Frankie!" snapped Una Freeman.
Grimes clambered into the boat, stood in the chamber of the little airlock. Una passed up a bag of tools and instruments. He put it down carefully by his feet, then helped the girl inboard. He pressed a stud, and the outer door shut, another stud and the inner door opened.
He went forward, followed by Una. He lowered himself into the pilot's seat. She took the co-pilot's chair. He ran a practiced eye over the control panel. All systems were GO.
"Officer commanding boarding party to officer commanding Skink," he said into his helmet microphone, "request permission to eject."
"Eject!" snarled Delamere.
"He might have wished us good luck," remarked Una.
"He's glad to see the back of us," Grimes told her.
"You can say that again!" contributed Delamere.
Grimes laughed as nastily as he could manage, then his gloved fingers found and manipulated the inertial drive controls. The little engine clattered tinnily but willingly. The boat was clear, barely clear of the chocks and sliding forward. She shot out through the open port, and Grimes made the small course correction that brought the liner dead ahead, and kept her there. She seemed to expand rapidly as the distance was covered.
"Careful," warned Una. "This is a boat we're in, not a missile . . . ."
"No back seat driving!" laughed Grimes.
Nonetheless, he adjusted trajectory slightly so that it would be a near miss and not a direct hit. At the last moment he took the quite considerable way off the boat by applying full