The Road to the Rim - A. Bertram Chandler [41]
Grimes knew that Jane Pentecost was not for him—and wished Craven joy of her and she of the Captain. Perhaps they had achieved a permanent relationship, perhaps not—but, either way, his best wishes were with them.
Craven unbuckled his seat strap.
"Deep Space routine, Mr. Grimes. It is your watch, I believe."
"Deep Space routine it is, sir."
Yes, it was still his watch (although so much had happened). It was still his watch, although there were barely fifteen minutes to go before relief. He was tired, more tired than he had ever been in his life before. He was tired, but not unhappy. He knew that the fact that he had killed men should be weighing heavily upon his conscience—but it did not. They, themselves, had been killers—and they had had a far better chance than any of their own victims had enjoyed.
He would shed no tears for them.
XIX
CRAVEN CAME BACK to the Control Room at the change of watch, when Grimes was handing over to Jane Pentecost. He waited until the routine had been completed, then said, "We know where our friends are headed. They were, like us, running for Waldegren—but they're having to change course." He laughed harshly. "There must be all hell let loose on their home planet."
"Why? What's happened?" asked Grimes.
"I'll tell you later. But, first of all, we have an alteration of course ourselves. Look up Dartura in the Directory, will you, while I get the Drive shut down."
Epsilon Sextans was falling free through normal spacetime before Grimes had found the necessary information. And then there was the hunt for and the final identification of the target star, followed by the lining up by the use of the directional gyroscopes. There was the brief burst of acceleration and then, finally, the interstellar drive was cut in once more.
The Captain made a business of selecting and lighting a cigar. When the pungent combustion was well under way he said, "Our young Mr. Summers is a good snooper. Not as good as some people I know, perhaps." Grimes flushed and Jane Pentecost looked puzzled. "He's a super-sensitive. He let me have a full transcript of all the signals, out and in. It took us a little time to get them sorted out—but not too long, considering. Adler—that's the name of the surviving frigate— was running for home. Her Captain sent a rather heavily edited report of the action to his Admiral. It seems that Adler and the unfortunate Albatross were set upon and beaten up by a heavily armed Survey Service cruiser masquerading as an innocent merchantman. The Admiral, oddly enough, doesn't want a squadron of Survey Service battlewagons laying nuclear eggs on his base. So Adler has been told to run away and lose herself until the flap's over . . . ."
"And did they send all that en clair?" demanded Grimes. "They must be mad!"
"No, they aren't mad. The signal's weren't en clair."
"But . . ."
"Reliable merchant captains," said Craven, "are often entrusted with highly confidential naval documents. There were some such in my safe aboard Delta Orionis, consigned to the Commanding Officer of Lindisfarne Base. The officer who delivered them to me is an old friend and shipmate of mine, and he told me that among them was the complete psionic code used by the Waldegren Navy. Well, when I had decided to take over this ship, I'd have been a bloody fool not to have Photostatted the whole damned issue.
"So that's the way of it. Herr Kapitan von Leidnitz thinks he can say what he likes to his superiors without anybody else knowing what he's saying. And all the while . . ." Craven grinned wolfishly. "It seems that there's a minor base, of sorts, on Dartura. Little more than repair yards, although I suppose that there'll be a few batteries for their protection. I can imagine the sort of personnel they have running the show—passed-over commanders and the like, not overly bright. By the time that we get there we shall have concocted a convincing story—convincing enough to let us hang