The Inheritors - A. Bertram Chandler [11]
"There she is!" shouted Pitcher suddenly.
There she was, in the radar screen, a tiny yet bright blip. There she was, a new star lifting above the dark limb of the planet, a tiny planetoid reflecting the rays of Gamma Argo.
"If we can see her, she can see us," commented Grimes. He went to the transceiver, ordered, "Put me on to him, Mr. Timmins." He said sternly,"FSS Seeker to Southerly Buster. FSS Seeker to Southerly Buster. Come in, please, on audio-visual."
"Comin' in, Seeker, comin' in . . ." drawled the voice. There was a swirl of light and color in the little screen, coalescing into a clear picture. Grimes and his officers looked into a control room not unlike their own—even to a weapons control console situated as it would have been in the nerve center of a warship. And this Southerly Buster was a merchantman . . . . Drongo Kane calmly regarded Grimes from the screen—bleak yet not altogether humorless blue eyes under a thatch of straw colored hair, in a face that looked as though at some time it had been completely smashed and then reassembled not over carefully. He said, "I see you, Seeker. Can you see me?"
" I see you," snapped Grimes.
"Identify yourself, please, Seeker. Can't be too careful once you're off the beaten tracks, y'know."
"Grimes," said the owner of that name at last. "Lieutenant Commander in command of FSS Seeker, Survey Vessel."
"Pleased to meet you, Commander Grimes. An' what, may I ask, brings you out to this neck o' the woods?"
"You mayn't ask. That's Federation business, Captain Kane."
The pale eyebrows lifted in mock surprise. "So you know me, Commander! Well, well. Such is fame."
"Or notoriety . . ." murmured Maggie Lazenby.
"Did I hear the lady behind you say somethin'?" inquired Kane.
Grimes ignored this. "What are your intentions, Captain Kane?" he demanded.
"Well, now, that all depends, Commander Grimes. Nobody owns this world 'cepting its people. I've asked if I could make a landing, but got no reply. I s'pose you heard me. But nobody's told me not to land . . . ."
"What are your intentions?" demanded Grimes again.
"Oh, to set the old Buster's arse down onto some-thin' safe an' solid. An' after that . . . Fossick around. See what we can buy or barter that's worth liftin'. There're some spacemen, Commander—an' I'm one of 'em—who have to earn their livin's . . . ."
"It is my duty—and the way that I earn my living—to afford protection to all Federation citizens in deep space, interplanetary space, in planetary atmospheres and on planetary surfaces," said Grimes, with deliberate pomposity.
"You needn't put yourself out, Commander."
"I insist, Captain. After all, as you said, one can't be too careful when off the beaten track."
Kane's lips moved. Grimes was no lip-reader, but he would have been willing to bet a month's salary that grave doubts were being cast upon his legitimacy—and, were this a less tolerant day and age, his morals. "Suit yourself," said Kane aloud. "But you're only wastin' your time."
"I'm the best judge of that."
"Suit yourself," growled Kane again.
Meanwhile, Seeker's inertial drive had stammered into life and the ship was both slowing and lifting under the application of thrust, being driven into a powered, unnatural orbit so that Southerly Buster could pass beneath her.
"I thought you'd be landing first," complained Kane.
"After you, Captain," Grimes told him politely.
And just where would Kane be setting his ship down? If Seeker had arrived by herself Grimes would have adhered to orthodox Survey Service practice—a dawn landing at the terminator, with the full period of daylight for the initial exploration. And should it be considered safe to establish contact with the indigenes at once, a landing near to an obvious center of population.
Kane had never been an officer in the Survey Service, but he had done his share of exploring, had made first landings on planets upon which he had been the first man to set foot. Slowly, steadily Southerly Buster dropped through the atmosphere, with Seeker following