The Makeshift Rocket (6 page)

‘Look,’ said Herr Syrup, ‘ve is not got any deat’ rays to vorry about. Ve have yust got somet’ing to do vat should not be known to very many folks before ve do it. Now you run on home and vait till it is all over vit’.’

Emily clouded up. She sniffed a tiny sniff. ‘You don’t think I can be trusted,’ she accused.

‘Vy, I never said dat, I only said—’

‘You’re just like all the rest.’ She bent her golden head
and dabbed at her eyes. ‘All of you. You either call me crazy, and believe those horrible lies about Miss Duncan’s private life, and try to force things on me to calcify my liver, or you – you let me go on, I mean making a perfect ass of myself—’

‘I never said you vas a perfect ass!’ shouted Herr Syrup. He paused and reflected a moment. ‘Aldough,’ he murmured, ‘you do have—’

‘—and laugh at me behind my back, and, and, and, uh-h-h-h!’ Emily took her face out of her hands, swallowed, sniffled, and turned drooping toward the stairs. ‘Never mind,’ she said disconsolately. ‘I’ll go. I know I bother you, I mean to say I’m sorry I do.’

‘But –
pokker
, Miss Croft, I vas only—’

‘One moment,’squeaked Sarmishkidu. ‘Please! Wait a short interval of time dT, please, I have an idea.’

‘Yes?’ Emily pirouetted, smiling like sunshine through rain.

‘I think,’ said Sarmishkidu, ‘we will do well to take the young lady into our confidence. Her discretion may not be infinite but her patriotism will superimpose caution. And, while she has not unduly encouraged any young men of Grendel during the period of my residence here, I am sure she must be far better acquainted with a far larger circle thereof than foreigners like you and me could ever hope to become. She can recommend whom you should approach with your plan. Is that not good?’

‘By Yudas, J
a
!’ exclaimed Herr Syrup. ‘I am sorry, Miss Croft. You really can help us. Sit down and have a glass of pure spring vater on me.’

Emily listened raptly as he unfolded his scheme. At the end, she sprang to her feet, threw herself onto Herr Syrup’s lap, and embraced him heartily.

‘Hoy!’ he said, grabbing his pipe as it fell and brushing
hot coals off his jacket. ‘Hoy, dis is lots of fun, but—’

‘You have your crew right here already, you old silly,’ the girl told him. ‘Me.’

‘You
?’

‘And Herr von Himmelschmidt, of course.’ Emily beamed at the Martian.

‘Eep!’ said Sarmishkidu in horror.

Emily bounced back to her feet. ‘But of course!’ she warbled. ‘Of course! Don’t you see it? You can’t get reallytruly spacemen anyway, I mean a garageman or a chef couldn’t help you in your real work, so why let the secret go further than it has already? I mean, dear old Sarmishkidu and I could hand you your spanner and your ape wrench and your abacus or whatever that long thin calculating thing is called, just as well as Mr. Groggins down at the sweet shop, and if there are any secret messages, why, we can talk to each other in Attic Greek. And I do make tea competently, Mum admits it, even though I never drink tea myself because it tans the kidneys or something, and I can take along some dried apricots and bananas and apples for myself and won’t that terrible Major McConnell be just furious when he sees how we outsmarted him! Maybe then he will understand what all that whisky and bacon is doing to his brain, and will stop doing it and exercise himself in classical dance, because he really is quite graceful, don’t you know—’

‘Ooooh!’ said Sarmishkidu. ‘No, wait, wait, wait,
ach
, wait just one moment! We are not qualified spacemen anyhow so O’Toole does not accept us for a crew.’

‘I t’ought dat over,’ said Herr Syrup, ‘and checked in de law books to make sure. In an emergency like dis, de highest ranking officer available, me, can deputize non-certified personnel, and dey vill have regular spacemen’s standing vile de situation lasts. O’Toole vill eider have to let me raise
ship vit’ you two or else release two of my shipmates.’

‘Then you will take us along?’ pounced Emily.

Herr Syrup shrugged. He might as well have a crew worth looking at. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘You is velcome.’

Sarmishkidu rolled his eyes uneasily. ‘Better I stay on de ground. I got mine business to look after.’

‘Oh, nonsense!’ said Emily. ‘If I go, we just about have to have a Martian for a chaperone, not that I don’t trust Mr. Syrup because he really is a sweet old gentleman – oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Syrup, I didn’t mean to make you wince – well, I mean to say, of course I’ll have to go aboard without letting Father know or he would forbid me, but why distress the old dear afterward with the thought that even if I liberated Grendel I compromised my reputation? I mean, he is the vicar, you know, and it’s been hard enough for him, my bringing home Duncanite teachings from Miss Carruthers’ Select School for Young Ladies on Wilberforce. Though I didn’t learn about it in class but from a lecture in the town hall which I happened to attend, and – And your tavern business, Mr. Sarmishkidu, isn’t worth tuppence if we don’t get rid of the Erse before vacation season begins, so won’t you please come, there’s a dear, or else I’ll ask all my young men friends never to come in here again.’

Sarmishkidu groaned.

Herr Syrup halted his bicycle and Herr von Himmelschmidt untied his tentacles from around the baggage rack. A small bright sun shone through small bright clouds on Grendel’s spaceport, the air blew soft and sweet, and even the old
Mercury Girl
looked a trifle less discouraged than usual. Not far away a truckload of Erse soldiers was bowling toward the geegee site to work, and however much one desired to throw them off this planetoid, one had to admit their young voices soared miraculously sweet.

‘—
Ochone! Ochone! the men of Ulster cry
.

Ochone! Ochone! The lords an ladies weepin’!

Dear, dear the man that nivver, nivver more shall be. Hoy, there, Paddy, see the colleen, ah, the brave broight soight iv her, whee-ee-whee-ew
!’

The sentry at the ship berth slanted his rifle across Herr Syrup’s path. ‘Halt,’ he said.

‘Vat?’ asked the engineer.

‘Or I shoot,’ explained the guard earnestly.

‘Vat is dis?’ protested Herr Syrup. ‘I got a right on my own ship. I got de General’s written permission, by yiminy, to take her up.’

‘That’s as may be,’ said the guard, hefting his weapon, ‘but I’ve me orders too, which is that ye’re not trusted an’ ye don’t go aboard till your full crew
an’
the riprysintative of the Shamrock League is here.’

‘Oh, vell, if dat is all,’ said Herr Syrup, relieved, ‘den here comes Miss Croft now, and I see a Erser beside her too.’

Still trailed by a receding tide of whistles, Emily came with long indignant strides across the concrete. She bore an outsize picnic basket which her green-clad escort kept trying to take for her. She would snatch it from him, stamp her foot, and try to leave him behind. Unfortunately, he was so big that her half-running pace was an easy amble for him.

Sarmishkidu squinted. ‘By all warped Riemannian space,’ he said at last, ‘is that not Major McConnell?’

Herr Syrup’s heart hit the ground with a dull thud.

‘Ah, there, greetin’s an’ salutations!’ boomed the large young man. ‘An’ accept me congratulations, sir, on choosin’ the loveliest crew which ivver put to sky! Though truth ’tis, she might be just a trifle friendlier. Ah, but once up among the stars, who knows what may develop?’

‘You don’t mean you ban our guard?’ choked Herr Syrup.

‘Yes. An’ ’tis guardsmanlike I look, eh, what?’ beamed Rory McConnell, slapping the machine pistol and trench knife holstered at his belt, the tommy gun at his shoulder, and the rifle across his fifty-kilo field pack.

‘But you ban needed down here!’

‘Not so much, now that we’re organized an’ work is proceedin’ on schedule.’ McConnell winked. ‘An’ faith, when I heard what crew yez would have, sir, why, I knew at once where me real obligations lay. For ’tis five years an’ more that me aged mither on Caer Dubh has plagued me to marry, that she may have grandchilder to brighten her auld age; so I am but doin’ me filial duty.’ He nudged Herr Syrup with a confidential thumb.

When the engineer had been picked up, dusted off, and apologized to, he objected: ‘But does your chief, O’Toole,
know you ban doing dis? I t’ought he would not like you associating vit’ us.’

‘O’Toole is somewhat of a fanatic,’ admitted McConnell, ‘but he gave me this assignment whin I asked for it. For ye understand, sir, he is not easy in the heart of him, as long as ye are in orbit with any chance whatsoever to quare his plans. So ’tis happiest he’ll be, the soonest ye’ve finished your repairs an’ returned here. Now I am certificated more as a pilot an’ navigator than an injineer, but ye well know each department must be able to handle the work of t’other in emergency, so I will be able to give yez skilled assistance in your task. I’ve enough experience in geegees to know exactly what ye’re doin’.’

‘Guk,’ said Sarmishkidu.

‘What?’ asked McConnell.

‘I said, “Guk,”’ answered Sarmishkidu in a chill voice, ‘which was precisely my meaning.’

‘All aboard!’ bawled the Erseman, and went up the berth ladder two rungs at a time.

Emily hung back. ‘I couldn’t
do
anything about it,’ she whispered, white-faced. ‘He just insisted. I mean, I even hit him on the chest as hard as I could, and he grinned, you have to admit he’s as strong as Herakles and if he would only study classical dance to improve his gait he would be nearly perfect’ She flushed. ‘Physically, I mean, of course! But what I wanted to say is, shall we give up our plan?’

‘No,’ said Herr Syrup glumly, ‘ve ban committed now. And maybe a chance comes to carry it out. Let’s go.’ He took his bicycle by the seat bar and dragged it up into the ship. No Dane is ever quite himself without a bicycle, though it is not true that all of them sleep with their machines. Fewer than ten percent do this.

He had been prepared to pilot the
Girl
into orbit himself, which was not beyond his training; but McConnell did it with so expert a touch that even the transition from geegee field to free fall was smooth. Once established in path, Herr Syrup jury-rigged a polarity reverser in the ship’s propulsive circuits, to furnish weight again inside the hull. It was against regulations, since it immobilized the drive; and, of course, it lacked the self-adjustment of a true compensator. But this was a meteor-swept region, so there was no danger in floating inert; and, though neither spacemen nor asterites mind weightlessness
per se
, an attractive field always simplifies work. No one who has not toiled in free fall, swatting gobs of molten solder from his face while a mislaid screwdriver bobs off on its own merry way, has experienced the full perversity of matter.

‘Ve can turn off de pull ven ve vish to test repairs,’ said Herr Syrup.

Rory McConnell looked around the crowded engine room and the adjacent workshop. ‘I envy yez this,’ he said, with a bare touch of wistful ness. ‘’Tis spaceships are me proper place, an’ not all this hellin’ about wi’ guns an’ drums.’

‘Er –
ja!
Herr Syrup hesitated. ‘Vell, you know, dere is really no reason to bodder you vit’ de yob in here. Yust leave me to do it alone and – hm –
ja
,’ he finished in a blaze of genius, ‘go talk at Miss Croft.’

‘Oh, I’ll be doin’ that, all right,’ grinned McConnell, ‘but I’d not be dallyin’ about all the time whin another man was laborin’. No, I’ll sweat over that slut of a machine right along wi’ yez, Pop.’ He raised one ruddy eyebrow above a wickedly blue sidelong glance. ‘Also, I’ll not be makin’ of unsubstantiated accusations, but ’tis conceivable ye might not work on it yourself at all, at all, if left alone. Some might even imagine ye – oh – makin’ a radio to call his bloody
majesty. So, just to keep evil tongues from waggin’, we’ll retain all electrical equipment in here, an’ here I meself .will work an’ sleep. Eh?’ He gave Herr Syrup a comradely slap on the back.

‘
Gott in Himmel
!’ yelped Sarmishkidu from the passageway outside. ‘What exploded in there?’

An arbitrary pattern of watches had been established to give the
Mercury Girl
some equivalent of night and day. After supper, which she had cooked, Emily Croft wandered up to the bridge while Sarmishkidu was simultaneously washing the dishes and mopping the galley floor. She stood gazing out the viewports for a long time.

Only feebly accelerated by Grendel’s weak natural gravity, the ship would take more than a hundred hours to complete one orbit. At this distance, the asteroid filled seven degrees of sky, a clear and lovely half-moon, though only approximately spherical. On the dark part lay tiny twinkles of light, scattered farms and hamlets, the starlit sheen of Lake Alfred the Great. The town, its church on the doll-like edge of naked-eye visibility, its roofs making a ruddy blur, lay serene a bit west of the sunset line: tea time, she thought sentimentally, scones and marmalade before a crackling fire, and Dad and Mum trying not to show their worry about her. Then, dayward, marched the wide sweep of fields and woods under shifting cloud bands, the intense green of the fens, the Cotswolds and rustling Sherwood beyond. Grendel turned slowly against a crystal blackness set with stars, so many and so icily beautiful that she wanted to cry.

When she actually felt tears and saw the vision blur, she bit her lip. Crying wouldn’t be British. It wouldn’t even be Duncanite. Then she realized that the tears were due to a whiff from Herr Syrup’s pipe.

The engineer slipped through the door and closed it behind him. ‘Hist!’ he warned hoarsely.

‘Oh, go hist yourself!’ snapped the girl. And then, in contrition: ‘No, I’m sorry. A bad mood. I just don’t know what to think.’

‘
Ja
. I feel I am up in an alley myself.’

‘Maybe it’s the water aboard ship. It’s tanked, isn’t it? I mean, it doesn’t come bubbling up from some mossy spring, does it?’

‘No.’

‘I thought not. I guess that’s it. I mean, why I feel so mixed up inside, all sad and yet not really sad. Do you know what I mean? I’m afraid I don’t myself.’