The Road to the Rim - A. Bertram Chandler [31]
XV
GRIMES CALLED Jane Pentecost on the intercom; after a minute or so she made her appearance in Control. Craven told her what Baxter had discovered and what he, Craven, intended doing about it. She nodded in emphatic agreement. "Yes," she said. "The thing's here to be used—and to be used the way that we want to use it. But I don't think that we should make it public."
"Why not, Miss Pentecost?"
"I could be wrong, Captain, but in my opinion there are quite a few people in this ship who'd welcome the chance of wriggling out of being the cheese in the mousetrap. When there's no alternative they're brave enough. When there's a face-saving alternative . . ."
Baxter's voice came from the intercom speaker. "Chief Reaction Drive Engineer to Control. Repairs completed. Please check your panel."
Yes, the circuit had been restored. The buzzer sounded, and on the board a glowing red light showed that the outer door to the cargo hold airlock was open. How much of the failure of the indicators was due to battle damage and how much to Baxter's sabotage would never be known. Craven's heavy eyebrows lifted ironically as he looked at Grimes, and Grimes shrugged in reply.
Then, the watch handed over to the girl, the two men made their way aft from the Control Room. Outside the airlock they found Baxter, already suited up save for his helmet. There had been only two suits in the locker, and the engineer had brought another one along for the Captain from somewhere.
The little compartment would take only two men at a time. Craven and Grimes went through first, then were joined by Baxter. There was no longer any need for secrecy, so the suit radios were switched on. The only person likely to be listening in was Jane Pentecost in Control.
Grimes heard Craven muttering angrily as they passed packages that obviously had been opened and pillaged, but the Captain did no more than mutter. He possessed the sense of proportion so essential to his rank—and a few bulbs of looted liquor were, after all, relatively unimportant.
They came to the bin in which the case allegedly containing caviar had been stowed, in which some secret agent of Waldegren had tapped the circuit supplying power to the beacon. Inside the box the gleaming machine was still motionless. Craven said, "I thought you told me the current was on."
"It is, Skipper." Baxter's voice was pained. "But I switched it off before I fixed the wiring." He extended a gloved finger, pressed a little toggle switch.
And nothing happened.
"Just a nudge." whispered the engineer.
The oddly convoluted rotor turned easily enough, and as it rotated it seemed almost to vanish in a mist of its own generating—a mist that was no more than an optical illusion.
It rotated, slowed—and stopped.
Baxter cast aspersions upon the legitimacy of its parenthood. Then, still grumbling, he produced a volt-meter. Any doubt that power was being delivered to the machine was soon dispelled. Power was being delivered—but it was not being used.
"Well, Mr. Baxter?" demanded Craven.
"I'm a fair mechanic, Skipper—but I'm no physicist."
"Mr. Grimes?"
"I specialized in gunnery, sir."
Craven snorted, the sound unpleasantly loud in the helmet phones. He said sarcastically, "I'm only the Captain, but I have some smatterings of Mannschenn Drive maintenance and operation. This thing isn't a Mannschenn Drive unit—but it's first cousin to one. As I recall it, some of the earlier models couldn't be started without the employment of a small, temporal precession field initiator. Furthermore, these initiators, although there is no longer any need for them, are still carried as engine room spares in the Commission's ships."
"And that gadget'll start this little time-twister, Skipper?" asked the engineer.
"It might, Mr. Baxter. It might. So, Mr. Grimes, will you go along to the Mannschenn Drive room and ask Mr. Wolverton for his initiator? No need to tell him what it's for."