The Winds of If
By A. BERTRAM CHANDLER
Things are bleak enough at the Edge of Darkness without looking for trouble. But this ship found trouble time and time again. And not the least of the problems was: which Time was it in? Another provocative saga of the men and women of The Rim Worlds.
CHAPTER 1
SHE was old and tired, was Rim Dragon—and after this, her final voyage, we were feeling just that way ourselves. It was as though she had known, somehow, that a drab and miserable end awaited her in the ungentle hands of the breakers, as though she had been determined to forestall the inevitable, to go out in a blaze of glory—or as much glory as would have been possible for a decrepit Epsilon Class tramp finishing her career, after many changes of ownership, at the very rim of the Galaxy, the edge of night.
Fortunately for us, she had overdone things.
Off Groller, for example, a malfunctioning of the control room computer had coincided with a breakdown of the main propellant pump. If the Second Mate hadn't got his sums wrong we should have been trapped in a series of grazing ellipses, with no alternative but to take to the boats in a hurry before too deep a descent into the atmosphere rendered this impossible. As things worked out, however, the mistakes made by our navigator (and his pet computer) resulted in our falling into a nice, stable orbit, with ample time at our disposal in which to make repairs.
Then there had been Pile trouble, and Mannschenn Drive trouble—and for the benefit of those of you who have never experienced this latter, all I can say is that it is somewhat hard to carry out normal shipboard duties when you're not certain if it's High Noon or last Thursday. It was during the Mannschenn Drive trouble that Cassidy, our Reaction Drive Chief Engineer, briefly lost control of his temperamental fissioning furnace. By some miracle the resultant flood of radiation seemed to miss all human personnel. It was the algae tanks that caught it—and this was all to the good, as a mutated virus had been running riot among the algae, throwing our air conditioning and sewage disposal entirely out of kilter. The virus died, and most of the algae died—but enough of the organisms survived to be the parents of a new and flourishing population.
There had been the occasions when she had not overdone things, but when her timing had been just a little out. There had been, for example, the tube lining that had cracked just a second or so too late (fortunately, from our viewpoint) but, nonetheless, had resulted in our sitting down on the concrete apron of Port Grimes, on Tharn, hard enough to buckle a vane.
There had been another propellant pump failure—this time on Mellise—that caused us to be grounded on that world for repairs at just the right time to be subjected to the full fury of a tropical hurricane. Luckily, the procedure for riding out such atmospheric disturbances is laid down in Rim Runners' Standing Orders and Regulations.
Anyhow, the voyage was now over—almost over, that is.
We were dropping down to Port Forlorn, on Lorn, falling slowly down the column of incandescence that was our Reaction Drive, drifting cautiously down to the circle of drab grey concrete that was the spaceport apron, to the grey concrete that was hardly distinguishable from the grey landscape, from the dreary flatlands over which drifted the thin rain and the grey smoke and the dirty fumes streaming from the stacks of the refineries.
We were glad to be back—but, even so ...
Ralph Listowel, the Mate, put into words the feeling that was, I think, in the minds of all but one of us. He quoted sardonically,
"Lives there a man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said
When returning from some foreign strand
This is my own, my native land ?"...
The only genuine, native-born Rim Worlder among us was the Old Man. He looked up from his console to scowl at his Chief Officer. And then I, of course, had to make matters worse by throwing in my own two bits' worth of archaic verse. I remarked, "The trouble with you, Ralph, is that you aren't romantic. Try to see things this way ...
"Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies with magic sails,
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales ..."
"What the hell's the bloody Purser doing in here?" roared the Captain, turning his glare on me. "Mr. Malcolm, will you please get the hell out of my control room? And you, Mr. Listowel, please attend to your duties."
I unstrapped myself from my chair and left, hastily. We carried no Third Mate, and I had been helping out at landings and blast-offs by looking after the R/T. Besides, I liked to be on top to see everything that was happening. Sulkily, I made my way down to the officers' flat, staggering a little as the ship lurched, let myself into the wardroom.
The other two "idlers" were there—Sandra and Doc Jenkins. They were sprawled at ease in their acceleration chairs, each of them sipping a drink from a tall glass, dewy with condensation.
"So this is how the poor live," I remarked sourly.
"The way that the old bitch has been carrying on," said the Doc affably, "we have to assume that any given drink may be our last. But how come you're not in the greenhouse?"
"They gave me the bum's rush," I admitted, dropping into the nearest chair, strapping myself in. I was feeling extremely disgruntled. In well manned, well found ships Pursers are brought up to regard the control room as forbidden ground but, over the past few months, I had become used to playing my part in blastings-off and landings, had come to appreciate the risks that we were running all the time. If anything catastrophic happened I'd be dead, no matter where I was. But when I die I'd like to know the reason.
"So they gave you the bum's rush," said Sandra, not at all sympathetically. (She had been heard to complain that if the Purser was privileged to see all that was going on, a like privilege should be extended to the Catering Officer.) "Might I inquire why ?"
"You might," I told her absently, listening to the thunder of the rocket drive, muffled by the insulation but still loud in the confined space. It sounded healthy enough. They seemed to be getting along without me up there. But we weren't down yet.
"Why ?" she asked bluntly.
"Give me a drink, and I'll tell you."
She did not unstrap herself but extended a long, shapely arm, managed to shove the heavy decanter and a glass across the table so that they were within my reach.
"All right. If you must know, I was quoting poetry. Ralph started it. The Master did not, repeat not, approve ..."
"Poetry," said Sandra flatly, "and ship handling just don't mix. Especially at a time like this."
"She was riding down," I said, "sweetly and gently, on full automatic."
"And all of us," she pointed out, "at the mercy of a single fuse. I may be only the cook and bottle washer aboard this wagon, but even I know that it is essential for the officers in Control to be fully alert at all times."
"All right," I said. "All right."
I glared at her, and she glared at me. She was always handsome —but she was almost beautiful when she was in a bad temper. I wondered (as I had often wondered) what she would be like when the rather harsh planes and angles of her face were softened by some gentler passion. But she did her job well, and kept herself to herself—as I had learned, the hard way.
MEANWHILE, we were still falling, still dropping, the muffled thunder of our reaction drive steady and unfaltering. In view of the past events and near disasters of the voyage it was almost too good to be true. It was, I decided, too good to be true—and then, as though in support of my pessimism, the sudden silence gripped the hearts of all of us. Sandra's face was white under her coppery hair and Jenkins' normally ruddy complexion was a sickly green. We waited speechless for the last, the final crash.
The ship tilted gently, ever so gently, tilted and righted herself, and the stuffy air inside the wardroom was alive with the whispered complaints of the springs and cylinders of her landing gear. The bulkhead speaker crackled and we heard the Old Man's voice: "The set-down has been accomplished. All personnel may proceed on their arrival duties."
CHAPTER 2
WE all had work to do—but none of us was particularly keen on getting started on it. We were down, and still in one piece, and we were feeling that sense of utter relaxation that comes at the end of a voyage.
Breathing a hearty sigh of unashamed relief, Doc Jenkins unstrapped himself and poured a generous drink from the decanter into each of our glasses. "Journey's end," said Doc, making a toast of it.
"In lovers' meetings," I added, finishing the quotation.
"Is there anything left in the bottle?" demanded Ralph Listowel.
We hadn't seen or heard him come into the wardroom. We looked up at him in mild amazement as he stood there, awkward, gangling, his considerable height diminished (but ever so slightly) by his habitual slouch. There was a worried expression on his lined face. I wondered just what was wrong now.
"Here, Ralph," said Sandra, passing him a drink.
"Thanks." The Mate gulped. "H'm. Not bad." He gulped again. "Any more?"
"Building up your strength, Ralph ?" asked Sandra sweetly.
"Could be," he admitted. "Or, perhaps, this is an infusion of Dutch courage."
"What do you want it for ?" I asked. "The hazards of the voyage are over and done with."
"Those hazards," he said gloomily. "But there are worse hazards than those in Space. When mere Chief Officers are bidden to report to the Super's office, at once, there's something cooking—and, I shouldn't mind betting you a month's pay, something that stinks."
"Just a routine bawling out," I comforted him. "After all, you can't expect to get away with everything all the time."
A wintry grin did nothing to soften his harsh features. "But it's not only me he wants. He wants you, Sandra, and you, Doc, and you, Peter. And our commissioned clairvoyant. One of you had better go to shake him out of his habitual stupor."
"But what have we done?" asked Doc in a worried voice.
"My conscience is clear," I said. "At least, I think it is ..."
"My conscience is clear," stated Sandra firmly.
"Mine never is," admitted Doc Jenkins gloomily.
The Mate put his glass down on the table. "All right," he told us brusquely. "Go and get washed behind the ears and brush your hair. One of you drag the crystal gazer away from his dog's brain in aspic and try to get him looking something like an officer and a gentleman."
"Relax, Ralph," said Jenkins, pouring what was left in the decanter into his own glass.
"I wish I could. But it's damned odd the way the Commodore is yelling for all of us. I may not be a psionic radio officer, but I have my hunches."
Jenkins laughed. "One thing is certain, Ralph, he's not sending for us to fire us. Rim Runners are never that well off for officers. And once we've come out to the Rim, we've hit rock bottom." He began to warm up. "We've run away from ourselves as far as we can, to the very edge of night, and we can't run any further ..."
"Even so ..." said the Mate.
"Doc's right," said Sandra. "He'll just be handing out new appointments to all of us. With a bit of luck—or bad luck?—we might be shipping out together again."
"What about the Old Man?" I asked. "And the engineers? Are they bidden to the Presence?"
"No," said Ralph. "As far as I know, they'll just be going on leave." He added gloomily, "There's something in the wind as far as we're concerned. I wish I knew what it was ..."
"There's only one way to find out," said Sandra briskly, getting to her feet.
WE left the ship together—Ralph, Doc Jenkins, Sandra, Smethwick and myself. Ralph, who was inclined to take his Naval Reserve commission seriously, tried to make it a march across the dusty, scarred concrete to the low huddle of administration buildings. Both Sandra and I tried to play along with him—but Doc Jenkins and our tame telepath could turn any march into a straggle without even trying. For Smethwick there was, perhaps, some excuse; released from the discipline of watchkeeping he was renewing contact with his telepathic friends all over the planet. He wandered along like a man in a dream, always on the point of falling over his own feet. And Jenkins rolled happily beside him, a somewhat inane grin on his ruddy face. I guessed that in the privacy of his cabin he had depleted his stocks of Jungle Juice still further.
It was a relief to get into the office building, out of the insistent, nagging wind. The air was pleasantly warm, but my eyes were still stinging. I used my handkerchief to try to clear the gritty particles from them, saw, through tears, that the others were doing the same—all save Smethwick who, lost in some private world of his own, was oblivious to discomfort. Ralph in the lead, we started to ascend the stairs, paused to throw a beckoning nod at us. Not without reluctance we followed.
THERE was the familiar door at the end of the passageway, with Astronautical Superintendent inscribed on the translucent plastic. The door opened of itself as we approached. Through the doorway we could see the big, cluttered desk and, behind it, the slight, wiry figure of Commodore Grimes. He had risen to his feet, but he still looked small, dwarfed by the furnishings that must have been designed for a much larger man. I was relieved to see that his creased and pitted face was illumined by a genuinely friendly smile, his teeth startlingly white against the dark skin.
"Come in," he boomed. "Come in, all of you." He waved a hand to the chairs that had been set in a rough semi-circle before his desk. "Be seated."
When the handshaking and the exchange of courtesies were over we sat down. There was a period of silence while Miss Hallows busied herself with the percolator and the cups. My attention was drawn by an odd looking model on the Commodore's desk, and I saw that the others, too, were looking at it curiously and that old Grimes was watching us with a certain degree of amusement. It was a ship, that was obvious, but it could not possibly be a spaceship. It was, I guessed, some sort of aircraft; there was a cigar-shaped hull and, protruding from it, a fantastically complicated array of spars and vanes. I know even less about aeronautics than I do about astronautics—after all, I'm just the spacefaring office boy—but even I doubted if such a contraption could ever fly. I turned my head to look at Ralph; he was staring at the thing with a sort of amused and amazed contempt.
"Admiring my new toy ?" asked the Commodore with a knowing smile.
"It's rather ... It's rather odd, sir," said Ralph.
"Go on," chuckled Grimes. "Why don't you ask?"
There was an embarrassed silence, broken by Sandra. "All right, Commodore. What is it?"
"That, my dear," he told her, "is your new ship."
CHAPTER 3
WE looked at the Commodore, and he looked back at us. I tried to read his expression, came to the reluctant conclusion that he wasn't joking. We looked at the weird contraption on his desk. Speaking for myself—the more I stared at it, the less like a ship it seemed. Have you ever seen those fantastic ornamental carp that are bred on Earth, their bodies surrounded by an ornate tracery of filmy fins, utility sacrificed to appearance? That's what the thing reminded me of. It was pretty, beautiful, even, in a baroque kind of way, but quite useless. And Grimes had told us, quite seriously, that it was a model of our new ship.
Ralph cleared his throat. He said, "Excuse me, sir, but I don't quite understand. That ... that model doesn't seem to represent a conventional vessel. I can't see any signs of a venturi ..." He was on his feet now, bending over the desk. "And are those propellers? Or should I say airscrews?" He straightened up. "And she's not a gaussjammer, one of the old Ehrenhaft Drive jobs. That's certain."
Old Grimes was smiling again. "Sit down, Captain Listowel. There's no need to get excited."
"Captain Listowel?" asked Ralph.
"Yes." The smile vanished as though switched off. "But only if you agree to sail in command of ..." he gestured towards the model ... "Flying Cloud."
"Flying Cloud? But that's a Trans-Galactic Clipper name ..."
Grimes smiled again. "The first Flying Cloud was a clipper on Earth's seas, in the days of wooden ships and iron men. This Flying Cloud is a clipper, too—but not a Trans-Galactic Clipper. She is the latest addition to Rim Runners' fleet, the first of her kind."
"But ..." Ralph was looking really worried now. "But, sir, there are many senior Masters in this employ. Come to that, there are quite a few Chief Officers senior to me ..."
"And all of them," said Grimes, "old and set in their ways, knowing only one way of getting from Point A to Point B, and not wanting to know any other. Lift on Reaction Drive. Aim for the target star. Accelerate. Cut Reaction Drive. Switch on Mannschenn Drive. A child could do it. And while all this is going on you have the ship overmanned with a pack of engineers, eating their heads off and pulling down high salaries, and getting to the stage where they regard the ship merely as a platform upon which to mount their precious machinery ..."
I couldn't help grinning. It was common knowledge that Grimes didn't like engineers and was hardly on speaking terms with the Engineer Superintendents.
But Ralph, once he had smelled a rat, was stubborn. And he was frank. He said, "I appreciate the promotion, sir. But there must be a catch in it."
"Of course there is. Life is just one long series of catches.
Ralph was persistent. This ..." he nodded towards the model ... "is obviously something new, something highly experimental. As you know, I hold my Master's Certificate—but it's valid in respect of conventional drives only ..."
"But you, Captain Listowel, are the only officer we have with any qualifications at all in respect of the Erikson Drive." He pulled a folder out of the top drawer of his desk, opened it. "Like most of our personnel, you made your way out to the Rim by easy stages. You were four years on Atlantia. You shipped in tops'l schooners as navigator—it seems that the Atlantian Ministry of Transport recognizes astronautical certificates of competency insofar as navigation is concerned. You thought of settling permanently on the planet and becoming a professional seaman. You sat for, and obtained, your Second Mate's Certificate in Sail ..."
...
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