"Then prove it, mister!"
Slowly the Commodore raised his gloved hands, turning them to show that they were empty. He said, "I am going to remove my helmet—unless one of you gentlemen would care to do it for me."
"Not bloody likely. Keep your distance."
"As you please." Grimes manipulated fastenings, gave the regulation half turn and lifted. At once he noticed the smell—it was like the stink that had hung around his own wardroom for days after the attempted interrogation of the prisoner.
"All right," said one of the men. "You can come in."
Grimes shuffled into the ship. The light was out of his eyes now and he could see the two men. He did not have to ask who or what they were. Uniform regulations change far more slowly than do civilian appearance. He addressed the grizzled, unshaven man with the four tarnished gold bars on his shoulder boards, "We have already spoken with each other by radio, Captain. I am Commodore Grimes…"
"Of the Rim Worlds Confederacy’s Navy. But what’s the idea of the fancy dress, Commodore?"
"The fancy dress?" Then Grimes realized that the man was referring to his spacesuit, so obviously designed for a nonhuman. What would be his reaction to what Grimes was wearing underneath it—the scanty rags and the rank marks painted on to his skin? But it was of no importance. He said, "It’s a long story, Captain, and I haven’t time to tell it now. What I am telling you is that you must not, repeat not, attempt a landing on Lorn until I have given you clearance."
"And who the hell do you think you are, Mister so-called Commodore? We’ve had troubles enough this trip. What is your authority?"
"My authority?" Grimes grinned. "In my own space and time, the commission I hold, signed by the President of the Confederacy…"
"What did I say?" demanded the Mate. "And I’ll say it again. He’s some sort of bloody pirate."
"And, in the here-and-now," continued Grimes, "my missile batteries and my laser projectors."
"If you attempt to hinder me from proceeding on my lawful occasions," said the tramp Master stubbornly, "that will be piracy."
Grimes looked at him, not without sympathy. It was obvious that this man had been pushed to the very limits of human endurance—the lined face and the red-rimmed eyes told of many, too many, hours without sleep. And he had seen at least one of his officers killed. By this time he would be regarding the enemies infesting his ship as mutineers rather than mutants, and, no longer quite rational, would be determined to bring his cargo to port come Hell or High Water.
And that he must not do.
Grimes lifted his helmet to put it back on. In spite of the metal with which he was surrounded he might be able to get through to Williams in Corsair’s control room, to Williams and to Carter, to give the order that would call a laser beam to slice off Sundowner’s main venturi. But the Mate guessed his intention, swung viciously with his right arm and knocked the helmet out of the Commodore’s hand. He growled to his Captain, "We don’t want the bastard callin' his little friends do we, sir?"
"It is essential that I keep in communication with my own ship," said Grimes stiffly.
"So you can do somethin' with all the fancy ironmongery you were tellin' us about!" The Mate viciously swatted the helmet which, haying rebounded from a bulkhead, was now drifting through the air.
"Gentlemen," said Grimes reasonably, looking at the two men and at the weapons they carried, automatic pistols, no more than five millimeter calibre but deadly enough. He might disarm one but the other would fire. "Gentlemen, I have come to help you…"
"More of a hindrance than a bloody help," snarled the Mate. "We’ve enough on our plates already without having to listen to your fairy stories about some non-existent Confederacy." He turned to the Master. "What say we start up the reaction drive an' set course for Lorn? This bloke’s cobbers’ll not open fire so long as he’s aboard."
"Yes. Do that, Mr. Holt. And then we’ll put this man in irons."
So this was it, thought Grimes dully. So this was the immutability of the Past, of which he had so often read. This was the inertia of the flow of events. He had come to where and when he could best stick a finger into the pie—but the crust was too tough, too hard. He couldn’t blame the tramp Captain. He, as a good shipmaster, was displaying the utmost loyalty to his charterers. And (Grimes remembered his Rim Worlds history) those consignments of seed grain had been urgently needed on Lorn.
And, more and more, every word was an effort, every action. It was as though he were immersed in some fluid, fathoms deep. He was trying to swim against the Time Stream—and it was too much for him.
Why not just drift? After all, there would be time to do something after the landing at Port Forlorn. Or would there? Hadn’t somebody told him that this ship had crashed in mountainous country?
He was aroused from his despairing lethargy by a sudden clangor of alarm bells, by a frightened, distorted voice that yammered from a bulkhead speaker, "Captain! Where are you, Captain? They’re attacking the control room!"
More as the result of years of training than of conscious thought he snatched his drifting helmet as he followed the Captain and his Mate when they dived into the axial shaft, as they pulled themselves hand over hand along the guidelines to the bows of the ship.
XXII
"They’re attacking the control room!"
The words echoed through Grimes' mind. They must be Sonya and the Major and his men. They must have breached the ports. So far there was no diminishing of air pressure—but even such a sorry rustbucket as Sundowner would have her airtight doors in reasonably good working order. All the same, he deemed it prudent to pause in his negotiation of the axial shaft to put his helmet back on. Luckily the rough treatment that it had received at the hands of the Mate did not seem to have damaged it.
Ahead of him, the two Sundowner officers were making rapid progress. It was obvious that they were not being slowed down by emergency doors and locks. The Commodore tried to catch up with them, but he was hampered by a spacesuit.
Then, faintly through his helmet diaphragm, he heard the sounds of a struggle, a fight. There were shots—by the sharpness of the cracks fired from small calibre pistols such as the Captain and his Mate had been carrying. There were shouts and screams. And there was a dreadful, high squeaking that was familiar, too familiar. He thought that he could make out words—or the repetition of one word only:
"Kill! Kill!"
He knew, then, who They were, and pulled himself along the guideline with the utmost speed of which he was capable. Glancing ahead, he saw that Sundowner’s Master and his second in command were scrambling through the open hatch at the end of the shaft, the hatch that must give access, in a ship of this type, to Control. He heard more shots, more shouts and screams. He reached the hatch himself, pulled himself through, floundered wildly for long seconds until his magnetized boot soles made contact with the deck.
They ignored him at first. Perhaps it was that they took him—in his tailed suit with its snouted helmet—for one of their own kind, although, by their standards, a giant. They were small, no larger than a terrier dog, but there were many of them. They were fighting with claws and teeth and pieces of sharpened metal that They were using as knives. A fine mist of blood fogged the face plate of Grimes' helmet, half blinding him. But he could see at least two human bodies, obviously dead, their throats torn out, and at least a dozen of the smaller corpses.