- Chapter 21






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21
This shouldn't be happening, thought Grimes. Magic—and what else can it be called? in the control room of an interstellar ship. . . . But this was the Rim, where the laws of nature, although not repealed, were not enforced with any stringency. This was beyond the Rim.
He looked at Mayhew as the telepath regarded dubiously the little glass of some colorless fluid that he was holding. "This," the too jovial ship's doctor had assured him, "will give you hallucinations in glorious technicolor and at least seven dimensions. . . ." Grimes looked at Mayhew, and everybody else looked at Mayhew. The PCO quipped, "Now I know how Socrates must have felt."
"Get on with it, Ken," urged Grimes.
"I'm drinking this muck, not you. All right, then. Down the hatch." He suited the action to the words.
His prominent Adam's apple wobbled as the draught went down. He licked his lips, enunciated slowly, "Not . . . bad. Not . . . too . . . bad." An odd sort of vagueness crept over his face. His eyes went out of focus. He wavered on his feet, groped almost aimlessly for a chair, slumped down into it.
Grimes whispered to Metzenther, "Clarisse—is she ready? Are you and Trialanne standing by to help?"
"Of course, Commodore."
Mayhew said with surprising clarity, "The black lambs of Damballa. But they shouldn't. No."
Never mind the bloody black lambs, thought Grimes testily.
"Clarisse . . ." Mayhew's voice was very soft, almost inaudible. "Clarisse. You shouldn't have killed Lassie."
"Damn Lassie," muttered Grimes.
"A man's best friend is his . . . is his . . . is his . . .? But the black lambs. And no sheep dog. Yes."
Metzenther looked toward Grimes. He whispered reassuringly, "It'll not be long now, Commodore. She's started on her pictures. And they won't be of black lambs. Black sheep, more likely."
"You can say that again," grunted Grimes II. Grimes I allowed himself a smile. Let Metzenther enjoy his play on words, and let the other Grimes make what he liked of it. It didn't matter. He would soon be back aboard his own ship. He looked down at the Minetti automatic pistol that he was holding, ready, in his right hand. (Luckily, his counterpart shared his taste in personal weaponry—as in other things.) He, he was sure, would be the first to be pulled aboard the Quest. After all, he knew Clarisse, had known her before Mayhew had. He took one last look around at the other members of the boarding party. All were armed. Sonya, Trafford and Metzenther wore holstered laser handguns; and Irene, two ugly looking pistols of .50 caliber. Flandry had something that looked as though it had been dreamed up by an illustrator of juvenile science fiction thrillers.
Grimes remembered the two occasions on which he had seen Clarisse at work. He recalled, vividly, that bare, windswept mountaintop on Kinsolving, with the black sky overhead, the Galactic Lens a misty shimmer low on the horizon. He visualized, without any effort on his part, the floodlit easel with its square of canvas, the pots of pigment, the girl, naked save for a scanty scrap of some animal pelt, working with swift, sure strokes on her brushes.
Sudden doubt assailed him.
Those had been ideal conditions. Would conditions aboard the hijacked Faraway Quest be as ideal?
Mayhew seemed to be completely out, sprawled loosely in his chair, his eyes closed, his mouth slack. A thin dribble of spittle crawled down his chin. Had the telepath taken too much of whatever concoction it was that the doctor had prepared? Was Clarisse similarly unconscious?
Metzenther smiled reassuringly at the Commodore, whispered, "Any time now. . . ."
Flandry, overhearing, snorted his disbelief.
Grimes turned to admonish him, and. . . .
Flandry was gone.
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