- Chapter 3






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3
She was an old ship, was Faraway Quest, but in first class condition. She had started life as an Epsilon Class tramp, one of those sturdy workhorses of the Federation's Interstellar Transport Commission. Sold to Rim Runners during the days when practically all of the tonnage out on the Rim was at best secondhand, she had been converted into a survey ship. In her, Grimes had discovered and explored the worlds of the Eastern Circuit: Tharn, Mellise, Grollor and Stree. In her he had made the first contact with the antimatter systems to the galactic west.
After secession, the setting up of the Rim Worlds Confederacy, she had been subject to further conversion, this time being fitted out as an auxiliary cruiser. Even though the Rim Worlds Navy now possessed a sizable fleet built to its own specifications, this was still her official status. Nonetheless, Commodore Grimes regarded her as his ship.
As Admiral Kravitz had told him, she was practically ready to lift off at once to where The Outsider drifted in the intergalactic nothingness. She was almost fully stored. Her "farm" was in a flourishing state; her tissue culture, yeast and algae tanks were well stocked and healthy. Main and auxiliary machinery were almost fresh from thorough overhaul. Sundry weaponry had been mounted so that she could play her part in the fleet maneuvers, and this Grimes decided to retain. He liked to think of himself as a man of peace these days but was willing to admit that it is much easier to be peaceful behind laser projectors and rocket batteries than in an unarmed ship.
The selection of personnel for the expedition posed no great problems. Billy Williams, normally skipper of the deep space tug Rim Mamelute, was available. On more than one occasion he had served as Grimes' second-in-command. James Carnaby, second officer with Rim Runners and an outstandingly competent navigator, had just come off leave and was awaiting reappointment. Like Williams, he held a commission in the Reserve, as did Hendrikson, another Rim Runners' second officer, just paid off from Rim Griffon. There was Davis, an engineer whom Grimes knew quite well and liked, and who was qualified in all three Drives: Mannschenn, inertial and reaction. There was Sparky Daniels, currently officer in charge of the Port Forlorn Carlotti Station but who frequently pined for a deep space appointment. And there was Major Dalzell of the Rim Worlds Marines. Grimes had heard good reports of this young space soldier and, on being introduced to him, had liked him at once.
There was what Grimes described as a brain trust of buffoons from the University of Lorn. There was a team of technicians.
There was an officer of the Intelligence Branch of the Federation's Survey Service—just along, as she said, "to see how the poor live." This, of course, was Commander Sonya Verrill, otherwise Mrs. Grimes, who, in spite of her marriage to a Rim Worlder, had retained both her Federation citizenship and her Survey Service commission.
There were the psionicists—Ken Mayhew, one of the last of the psionic communications officers, and Clarisse, his wife. He was a highly trained and qualified telepath. She, born on Francisco, was a descendant of that caveman artist from the remote past who, somehow, on Kinsolving's Planet, had been dragged through time to what was, to him, the far future. Like her ancestor, Clarisse was an artist. Like him, she was a specialist. Inborn in her was the talent to lure victims to the hunter's snare. Twice, on Kinsolving itself, she had exercised this talent—and on each occasion the hunters had become the victims.
The work of preparing the ship for her voyage went well and swiftly. There was little to be done, actually, save for the rearranging of her accommodations for the personnel that she was to carry, the conversion of a few of her compartments into laboratories for the scientists. Toward the end of the refit Grimes was wishing that on that long ago day when the Rim Worlds had decided that they should have their own survey ship somebody had put up a convincing case for the purchase of an obsolescent Alpha Class liner! Not that there was anything wrong with Faraway Quest—save for her relative smallness. And it was not only the civilians who demanded space and yet more space. Officer Hendrikson—who, as a Reserve officer had specialized in gunnery—sulked hard when he was told that he could not have the recreation rooms as magazines for his missiles. (Dr. Druthen, leader of the scientists, was already sulking because he had not been allowed to take them over as workshops.)
Grimes knew that he could not hasten matters, but he chafed at every delay. As long as the Quest was sitting on her pad in Port Forlorn far too many people were getting into every act. Once she was up and outward bound he would be king of his own little spaceborne castle, an absolute monarch. Admiral Kravitz had made it clear to him that he would be on his own, that he was to act as he saw fit. It was a game in which he was to make up the rules as he went along.
It was a game that Grimes had always enjoyed playing.
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