"She’s a tough little bitch, the old Mamelute," announced the objectionable young man with pride.
"Yes, Mr. Williams," enunciated Grimes with difficulty. "But there are some of us who aren’t as tough as the ship. And, talking of lady dogs, I don’t think that Mr. Mayhew’s amplifier can stand much acceleration… ."
"That pickled poodle’s brain, Skip? The bastard’s better off than we are, floatin' in its nice warm bath o' thick soup." He grinned again. "But I was forgettin'. We haven’t the regular crew this time. What say we maintain a nice, steady one and a half Gs? That do yer?"
One G would be better, thought Grimes. After all, those people, whoever they are, are in no immediate danger of falling into the sun. But perhaps even a few minutes' delay might make all the difference between life and death to them… Even so, we must be capable of doing work, heavy, physical work, when we catch them.
"Yes, Mr. Williams," he said slowly. "Maintain one and a half gravities. You’ve fed the elements of the trajectory into the computer, of course?"
"Of course, Skip. Soon as I have her round I’ll put her on auto. She’ll be right."
When the tug had settled down on her long chase, Grimes left Williams in the control room, went down into the body of the ship. He made his rounds, satisfied himself that all was well in engine room, surgery, the two communications offices and, finally, the galley. Sonya was standing up to acceleration as though she had been born and bred on a high gravity planet. He looked at her with envy as she poured him a cup of coffee, handing it to him without any obvious compensation for its increased weight. Then she snapped at him, "Sit down, John. If you’re as tired as you look you’d better lie down."
He said, "I’m all right."
"You’re not," she told him. "And there’s no need for you to put on the big, tough space captain act in front of me."
"If you can stand it…"
"What if I can, my dear? I haven’t led such a sheltered life as you have. I’ve knocked around in little ships more than I have in big ones, and I’m far more used to going places in a hurry than you."
He lowered himself to a bench and she sat beside him. He sipped his coffee, then asked her, "Do you think, then, that we should be in more of a hurry?"
"Frankly, no. Salvage work is heavy work, and if we maintain more than one and a half Gs over a quite long period we shall all of us be too tired to function properly, even that tough Mate of yours." She smiled. "I mean the Mate who’s on Articles as such, not the one you’re married to."
He chuckled. "But she’s tough, too."
"Only when I have to be, my dear."
Grimes looked at her, and thought of the old proverb which says that there is many a true word spoken in jest.
IV
The strange vessel was a slowly expanding speck of light in the globular screen of the Mass Proximity Indicator; it was a gradually brightening blip on Mamelute’s radar display that seemed as though it were being drawn in towards the tug by the ever decreasing spiral of the range marker. Clearly it showed up on the instruments, although it was still too far distant for visual sighting, and it was obvious that the extrapolation of trajectory made by Station 3 was an accurate one. It was falling free, neither accelerating nor decelerating, its course determined only by the gravitational forces within the Lorn Star’s planetary system, and left to itself must inevitably fall into the sun. But long before its shell plating began to heat it would be overhauled by the salvage ship and dragged away and clear from its suicide orbit.
And it was silent. It made no reply to the signals beamed at it from Rim Mamelute’s powerful transmitter. Bennett, the Radio Officer, complained to Grimes, "I’ve tried every frequency known to civilized man, and a few that aren’t. But, so far, no joy."
"Keep on trying," Grimes told him, then went to the cabin that Mayhew, the telepath, shared with his organic amplifier.
The Psionic Radio Officer was slumped in his chair, staring vacantly at the glass tank in which, immersed in its cloudy nutrient fluid, floated the obscenely naked brain. The Commodore tried to ignore the thing. It made him uneasy. Every time that he saw one of the amplifiers he could not help wondering what it would be like to be, as it were, disembodied, to be deprived of all external stimuli but the stray thoughts of other, more fortunate (or less unfortunate) beings—and those thoughts, as like as not, on an incomprehensible level. What would a man do, were he so used, his brain removed from his skull and employed by some race of superior beings for their own fantastic purpose? Go mad, probably. And did the dogs sacrificed so that Man could communicate with his fellows over the light years ever go mad?
"Mr. Mayhew," he said.
"Sir?" muttered the telepath.
"As far as electronic radio is concerned, that ship is dead."
"Dead?" repeated Mayhew in a thin whisper.
"Then you think that there’s nobody alive on board her?"
"I… I don’t know. I told you before we started that Lassie’s not a well dog. She’s old, Commodore. She’s old, and she dreams most of the time, almost all of the time. She… she just ignores me…" His voice was louder as he defended his weird pet against the implied imputation that he had made himself. "It’s just that she’s old, and her mind is getting very dim. Just vague dreams and ghostly memories, and the past more real than the present, even so."
"What sort of dreams?" asked Grimes, stirred to pity for the naked canine brain in its glass cannister.
"Hunting dreams, mainly. She was a terrier, you know, before she was . . . conscripted. Hunting dreams. Chasing small animals, like rats. They’re good dreams, except when they turn to nightmares. And then I have to wake her up—but she’s in such a state of terror that she’s no good for anything."
"I didn’t think that dogs have nightmares," remarked Grimes.
"Oh, but they do, sir, they do. Poor Lassie always has the same one—about an enormous rat that’s just about to kill her. It must be some old memory of her puppy days, when she ran up against such an animal, a big one, bigger than she was…"
"H’m. And, meanwhile, nothing from the ship."
"Nothing at all, sir."
"Have you tried transmitting, as well as just maintaining a listening watch?"
"Of course, sir." Mayhew’s voice was pained. "During Lassie’s lucid moments I’ve been punching out a strong signal, strong enough even to be picked up by non-telepaths. You must have felt it yourself, sir. Help is on the way. But there’s been no indication of mental acknowledgement."
"All we know about the ship, Mayhew, is that she seems to be a derelict. We don’t know who built her. We don’t know who mans her—or manned her."
"Anybody who builds a ship, sir, must be able to think."
Grimes, remembering some of the unhandier vessels in which he had served in his youth, said, "Not necessarily."
Mayhew, not getting the point, insisted, "But they must be able to think. And, in order to think, you must have a brain to think with. And any brain at all, emits psionic radiation. Furthermore, sir, such radiation sets up secondary radiation in the inanimate surrounding of the brain. What is the average haunt but a psionic record on the walls of a house in which strong emotions have been let loose? A record that is played back given the right conditions."
"H’m. But you say that the derelict is psionically dead, that there’s not even a record left by her builders, or her crew, to be played back to you."