- Chapter 28






p {text-indent:2em;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:2px}
h1 {page-break-before:left}





Back | NextContents
28
The Carlotti transceiver was dead insofar as Wanderer, Faraway Quest II, and Adler were concerned. There were no psionic transmissions from Wanderer, no unintentional emanations from the crews of the other ships.
What had happened? Had the allies launched their Sunday punch against Adler, and had Adler's retaliatory Sunday punch connected on all three of them? It was possible, Grimes supposed, just barely possible—but wildly improbable.
"Are you sure you can pick up absolutely nothing?" he demanded of Mayhew and Clarisse. (There are usually some survivors, even when a ship is totally destroyed, even though they may not survive for long.)
"Nothing," she replied flatly. And then—"But I'm picking up an emanation. . . . It's more an emotion than actual thought. . . ."
"I get it too," agreed Mayhew. "It's . . . it's a sense of strong disapproval."
"Mphm. I think that I'd disapprove strongly if my ship were shot from under me," said Grimes.
"But. . . but it's not human . . ." insisted the girl.
"Mr. Carnaby," Grimes barked at his navigator. "What do you get in the MPI? Is the Outsiders' Ship still there?"
"Still there, sir. And, as far as I can make out, only four vessels in orbit about her. . . . There could be a cloud of wreckage."
Possibly a couple of the derelicts, thought Grimes. Possibly Adler, or Wanderer, or the other Quest, or Vindictive. Possibly a large hunk blown off the Outsiders' Ship herself. Possibly anything.
He said, "We will stand in cautiously, proceeding under Mannschenn Drive until we are reasonably sure that it is safe to reenter normal space time. Meanwhile, Mr. Hendrikson, have all weaponry in a state of instant readiness. And you, Major Dalzell, have your men standing by for boarding operations. Commander Williams, see that the boats are all cleared away."
"What is a killer ape?" asked Clarisse suddenly.
"This is hardly the time or place to speculate about our probable ancestry!" snapped Grimes.
"I am not speculating, Commodore. It is just that I picked up a scrap of coherent thought. It was as though a voice—not a human voice—said, 'Nothing but killer apes.' "
"It's a pity we haven't an ethologist along," remarked Grimes. And where was Maggie Lazenby, the Survey Service ethologist whom he had known, years ago, whom he knew, now—but when was now?—as the other Grimes, captain of the other Faraway Quest? Where was Grimes? Where was Irene? Where was Flandry? He didn't worry about Blumenfeld.
He went to look at the MPI screen. It was a pity that it showed no details. But that large, rapidly expanding blob of luminescence must be The Outsider; those small sparks the derelicts. Carnaby said, in that tone of voice used by junior officers who doubt the wisdom of the procedures of their superiors, "We're close, sir."
"Yes, Mr. Carnaby. Mphm." He took his time filling and lighting his pipe. "All right, you may stand by the intercom to the engine room. Stop inertial drive. Half-astern. Stop her. Mannschenn Drive—stop! Mr. Hendrikson—stand by all weapons!"
And there, plain beyond the viewports, was The Outsider, coldly luminescent, unscarred, not so much a ship as a castle out of some fairy tale told when Man was very young: with towers and turrets, cupolas and minarets and gables and buttresses, awe-inspiring rather than grotesque. And drifting by, tumbling over and over, came one of the derelicts, the Shaara vessel aboard which the conference had been held. It had been neatly bisected, so that each of its halves looked like one of those models of passenger liners in booking agents' display windows, cut down the midship line to show every deck, every compartment.
"We will continue to orbit The Outsider," said Grimes. "We will search for survivors."
"Commodore," said Mayhew. "There are no survivors. They are all . . . gone."
"Dead, you mean?"
"No, sir. Just . . . gone."
Back | NextFramed