Ride the Star Winds (80 page)

“Down the hatch,” I said.

“Down the hatch,” she repeated. Then she demanded suddenly, “What haven’t I got, Peter?”

I knew what she meant. “As far as I can see,” I told her, “you have all the standard equipment. As far as I can see.”

She said abruptly, “
She’s
with him. In his cabin.”

I felt a stab of jealousy. “Who?” I asked.

“Sandra.”

So they managed to keep it a secret in
Rim Dragon, I thought.
Not that there was any need to. There’s nothing in the regulations that says that officers shall not sleep with each other, provided that it doesn’t get in the way of their duties . . .

I said, “But they’ve known each other for years.”

“And I’m just the small girl around the ship. The newcomer. The outsider.”

“Miss Simmons,” I said severely, “people who affix their autographs to the articles of agreement are engaged for one reason only: to take the ship from point A to point B as required by the lawful commands of the master. Who sleeps with whom—or who doesn’t sleep with whom—is entirely outside the scope of the Merchant Shipping Act.”

Her robe had somehow become unfastened, and I could see that she did, in fact, possess the usual equipment and that it was in no way substandard. She knew that I was looking at her, but she made no attempt to cover herself. Instead she got to her feet and stood there for a moment or so, posing rather self-consciously and awkwardly, before going to the locker for the brandy bottle. She refilled our glasses, the rosy nipple of her right breast almost brushing my face as she stooped. I restrained myself from pulling her down to me.

“One for the road,” I said firmly.

“For the road?” she echoed.

“For the road, Peggy. We’re both of us tired, and we have another heavy day ahead of us tomorrow.”

“But . . .” She might just as well not have been wearing the robe.

“Damn it all, girl,” I exploded, “I may be only the mate, and an ex-purser at that, but I have my pride. You’ve been making it bloody obvious all day that you were just dying to serve yourself up to Ralph on a silver tray and trimmed with parsley. Sandra beat you to Ralph’s bed, so I’m second choice. Or do you think that you’re hurting him in some obscure way by giving me what he didn’t take? Either way, I’m not playing. So finish your drink like a good girl and go and turn in. By yourself.”

“If that’s the way you want it,” she said coldly.

“That’s the way that I want it,” I said coldly.

“Good night,” she said.

“Good night,” I said.

She set her empty glass down gently on the table. Her face was pale and a tiny muscle was twitching in her left cheek. With her robe again belted securely around her she looked once more like a small girl—like a small girl who is convinced she has been unjustly spanked.

She said, “I’m sorry to have troubled you.”

I said, “And I’m sorry that . . . oh, never mind.”

“Good night,” she said again.

“Good night,” I replied again.

She left then, closing the door quietly behind her. I finished my drink and switched out the light. But I didn’t get to sleep for a long time. And I should have slept well, I knew, had I taken the opportunity for the loosening of nervous tension in the most effective way there is. My absurdly puritanical attitude (a hangover from that sordid affair on
Duchess of Atholl
?) had done no good to anybody at all, including myself.

And it was—although this was unforeseeable—to have far-reaching consequences.

Chapter 10

The next morning
Sandra was in one of her house wifely moods; these had been the occasion for jocular comment now and again in
Rim Dragon
. She called each of us individually, with tea and toast. Now that I knew the reasons for these spasms of domesticity I wasn’t any happier. “Good morning, Peter,” she said brightly (too brightly) as she switched on my light. “Rise and shine for the Cluster Line.” (She had served in that outfit before joining Rim Runners.) “I hope you slept well.”

“I didn’t,” I growled. I glowered at her from eyes that probably looked as bleary as they felt. “I hope that
you
slept well.”

“But of course,” she said sweetly, and left me to my tea.

By the time the breakfast gong sounded, I had showered and shaved and dressed in the rig of the day and was feeling a little better. This was our first real meal aboard the ship and something of a ceremonious occasion. Ralph was at the head of the table and rather conscious, I could see, of the gleaming new braid on his epaulettes. I sat down at his right, with Sandra, when she wasn’t bustling to and from the pantry, opposite me. The others took their places, with Peggy Simmons, as the most junior member of the ship’s company, sitting at the foot of the table. She blushed when I said good morning to her. I hoped that none of the others noticed, although Doc Jenkins, who never missed much of what was going on, leered in my direction.

“This,” said Ralph rather stuffily before we could make a start on the eggs and bacon, “is a momentous occasion.”

“We still have to get this bitch off the ground,” Jenkins told him.

“Off the water, you mean,” I amended.

“Even so . . .” began Ralph severely.

“Good morning to you all,” said a familiar voice. We turned to see that Grimes had just entered the wardroom.

We got to our feet.

“Carry on,” he said. “Don’t mind me.”

“Some breakfast, sir?” asked Ralph.

“No thank you. But some coffee, if I may, Captain.”

He pulled up a chair and Sandra attended to his needs.

He said, “You’ll forgive me for talking shop, but I take it that you’re secured for space?”

“We are, sir,” Ralph told him.

“Good. Well, I have no wish to interfere with your arrangements, but there must be no delay.”

“We can take off now, sir, if you wish,” said Ralph, pushing away his plate with the half-eaten food.

“For the love of all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy,” pleaded Grimes, “finish your breakfast. I intend to enjoy at least one more cup of this excellent coffee. But, while you’re eating, I’ll put you in the picture.” He patted his lips with the napkin Sandra had given him. “Throughout my career I’ve never been overly fussy about treading on corns, but I seem to have been trampling on some very tender ones of late. This is the way of it. My spies inform me that this very morning, Metropolitan Standard Time, the
Flying Cloud
issue is going to be raised in the Senate. The Honorable Member for Spelterville will demand an inquiry into the squandering of public money on the construction of an utterly impracticable spaceship. And his crony, the Honorable Member for Ironhill East, will back him up and demand that the ship be held pending the inquiry . . .”

“Amalgamated Rockets,” said Martha Wayne. “And Interstellar Drives, Incorporated.”

“Precisely,” agreed Grimes. “Well, I don’t think that they’ll be able to get things moving prior to your takeoff, Captain—but if you should have to return to surface for any reason, or even if you hang in orbit, there’s a grave risk that you’ll be held. I want there to be no hitches.”

“There will be none,” said Ralph stiffly.

“Good. And when do you intend getting upstairs?”

“At the advertised time, sir, 0900 hours.”

“And you’re quite happy about everything?”

“Yes, sir. Even so . . .”

“Every spaceman always feels that ‘even so’—otherwise he wouldn’t be worth a damn as a spaceman. (Some more coffee, please, if you’ll be so good. Excellent.) I suppose that I’ll still be around when you return. I hope so. But I shall be getting your voyage reports by way of the psionic radio . . .”

“I’m surprised, Commodore,” said Martha Wayne, “that the ship hasn’t been fitted with the Carlotti equipment.”

“It wouldn’t work,” Grimes told her. “It will run only in conjunction with the Mannschenn Drive.” He turned to the telepath. “So you’re the key man, Mr. Smethwick.”

Claude grinned feebly and said, “As long as you don’t expect me to bash a key, sir.”

We all laughed. His ineptitude with anything mechanical was notorious.

Grimes got to his feet reluctantly. “I’ll not get in your hair any longer. You all have jobs to do.” He said, as he shook hands with Ralph, “You’ve a good ship, Listowel. And a good crew. Look after them both.”

“I’ll do that,” promised Ralph.

“I won’t say good-bye,” said Grimes. “
Au revoir
is better.”

He swung away abruptly and walked quickly out of the wardroom. I hurried after him to escort him to the gangway.

At the airlock he shook hands with me again. He said quietly, “I envy you, Mr. Malcolm. I envy you. If things had been different I’d have been sailing in her. But . . .”

“There are times,” I said, “when I envy those who have family ties.”

He allowed himself to grin. “You have something there, young man. After all, one can’t have everything. I’ve a wife and a son, and you have the first of the interstellar lightjammers. I guess that we shall each of us have to make the best of what we’ve got. Anyhow, look after yourself.”

I assured him that I would, and, as soon as he was ashore, I went back inside the ship.

The takeoff was a remarkably painless procedure.

When the ship was buttoned up and we were at our stations, the linesmen let go our moorings fore and aft. The little winches, obedient to the pressing of buttons in the control room, functioned perfectly. On the screen of the closed-circuit TV I watched the lines snaking in through the fair-leads, saw the cover plates slide into place as the eyes vanished inside our hull. There was no need for any fancy maneuvers; the wind pushed us gently away from the wharf.

“Ballast,” ordered Ralph. “Pump 3 and 5.”

“Pump 3 and 5,” I repeated, opening valves and pressing the starter buttons.

I heard the throbbing of the pumps, watched the mercury fall in the graduated columns of the draft indicator, a twin to the one in the supercargo’s office. But we still had negative lift, although we were now floating on the surface like a huge bubble. There was a new feel to the ship, an uneasiness, an expectancy as she stirred and rolled to the low swell. And still the mercury dropped in the transparent tubes until, abruptly, the pulsation of the pumps cut out.

“Number 4, sir?” I asked.

“No, Peter. Not yet. Extrude atmospheric control surfaces.”

“Extrude atmospheric control surfaces, sir.”

On the screen I saw the stubby wings extend telescopically from the shining hull.

“I thought that you just pumped all ballast and went straight up,” said Martha Wayne, who was seated at the radio telephone.

“We could,” said Ralph, “we could; but, as I see it, the secret of handling these ships is always to keep some weight up your sleeve. After all, we shall have to make a landing on Grollor. I intend to see if I can get her upstairs on aerodynamic lift.” He turned to me. “I don’t think that it’s really necessary to keep Sandra and Doc on stations in the storeroom and the farm. After all, this isn’t a rocket blastoff, and they’re supposed to be learning how to handle this scow. Get them up here, will you?”

“And Claude and Peggy?” I asked.

“No. Claude is hopeless at anything but his job, and Miss Simmons had better keep her eye on her mechanical toys.”

I gave the necessary orders on the intercom, and while I was doing so the speaker of the RT crackled into life. “Spaceport control to
Flying Cloud
,” we heard. “Spaceport control to
Flying Cloud.
What is the delay? I repeat: what is the delay?”

The voice was familiar; it belonged to Commodore Grimes. And it was anxious.

“Pass me the mike,” said Ralph. He reported quietly, “
Flying Cloud
to spaceport control. There is no delay. Request permission to take off.”

“Take off then, before the barnacles start growing on your bottom!” blustered Grimes.

Ralph grinned and handed the microphone back to Martha. He waited until Sandra and Doc, who had just come into the control room, had belted themselves into their chairs; then he put both hands on the large wheel. “Full ahead port,” he ordered. I pressed the starting button, moved the handle hard over, and Ralph turned his wheel to starboard. “Full ahead starboard,” he ordered.

The ship came round easily, heading out for the open sea. From the transparent bubble that was the control room we could now see nothing but gray water and gray sky, and the dark line of the horizon towards which we were steering; but on the screen of the closed circuit TV we could watch the huddle of spaceport buildings and the wharf, to which the little blimp was still moored, receding.

With his left hand Ralph held
Flying Cloud
steady on course; his right moved over the controls on the steering column. And the motion was different now. The ship was no longer rolling or pitching, but, from under us, came the rhythmic
slap, slap
of the small waves striking our bottom as we lifted clear of the surface. And then that was gone and there was only the clicking of our compass and the muffled, almost inaudible throbbing of our screws.

From the RT came Grimes’s voice, “Good sailing,
Flying Cloud
. Good sailing!”

“Tell him thank you,” said Ralph to Martha. Then, characteristically, “Even so, we haven’t started to
sail
yet.”

Chapter 11

We should have spent
more time in the atmosphere than we did, getting the feel of the ship. But there was the broadcast that Martha picked up on the RT, the daily transmission of proceedings in the Senate. The Honorable Member for Spelterville was in good form. We heard
Flying Cloud
described in one sentence as a futuristic fictioneer’s nightmare, and in the next as an anachronistic reversion to the dark ages of ocean transport. And then, just to make his listeners’ blood run cold, he described in great detail what would happen should she chance to crash in a densely populated area. The casing around the sphere of anti-iron would be ruptured and, the anti-matter coming into contact with normal matter, there would be one hell of a big bang. Furthermore, he went on, there was the strong possibility of a chain reaction that would destroy the entire planet.