Бертрам Чандлер - Contraband From Otherspace

They were all very quiet in the control room, all shaken by the period of temporal disorientation through which they had passed. Grimes went first to Williams, hunched in his co-pilot’s chair. He said softly, "You are ready, Commander?"

"Ready," answered the Executive Officer tonelessly.

Then the Commodore went to sit beside his wife. She was pale, subdued. She looked at him carefully, and a faint smile curved her lips. She murmured, "You aren’t changed, John. I’m pleased about that. I’ve remembered too much, things that I thought I’d forgotten, and even though it was all backwards it was… shattering. I’m pleased to have you to hold on to, and I’m pleased that it is you, and not some puppy. …"

"I shouldn’t have minded losing a few years in the wash," grunted Grimes.

He looked at the officers at their stations—radar, gunnery, electronic radio. He stared out of the ports at the Lorn sun, its brightness dimmed by polarization, at the great, dim-glowing Galactic lens. Here, at the very edge of the Universe, the passage of years, of centuries was not obvious to a casual glance. There were no constellations in the Rim sky that, by their slow distortions, could play the part of clocks.

"Contact," announced the radar officer softly.

The Commodore looked into his own repeater screen, saw the tiny spark that had appeared in the blackness of the tank.

The radio officer was speaking into his microphone. " Corsair to Sundowner . Corsair to Sundowner . Do you read me? Over."

The voice that answered was that of a tired man, a man who had been subjected to considerable strain. It was unsteady, seemed on the edge of hysteria. "I hear you, whoever you are. What the hell did you say your name was?"

" Corsair . This is Corsair , calling Sundowner . Over."

"Never heard of you. What sort of name is that, anyhow?" And there was another, fainter voice, saying, " Corsair? Don’t like the sound of it, Captain. Could be a pirate."

"A pirate? Out here, on the Rim? Don’t be so bloody silly. There just aren’t the pickings to make it worth while." A pause. "If she is a pirate, she’s welcome to our bloody cargo."

" Corsair to Sundowner . Corsair to Sundowner . Come in, please. Over."

"Yes, Corsair . I hear you. What the hell do you want?"

"Permission to board."

"Permission to board? Who the bloody hell do you think you are?"

"R.W.C.S. Corsair …"

"R.W.C.S.?" It was obvious that Sundowner’s Captain was addressing his Mate without bothering either to switch off or to cover his microphone. "What the hell is that , Joe?" "Haven’t got a clue," came the reply.

Grimes switched in his own microphone. He did not want to alarm Sundowner , did not want to send her scurrying back into the twisted continuum generated by her Mannschenn Drive. He knew that he could blow the unarmed merchantman to a puff of incandescent vapor, and that such an action would have the desired result. But he did not want to play it that way. He was acutely conscious that he was about to commit the crime of genocide—and who could say that the mutated rats were less deserving of life than the humans whom, but for Grimes' intervention, they would replace?—and did not wish, also, to have the murder of his own kind on his conscience.

"Captain," he said urgently, "this is Commodore Grimes speaking, of the naval forces of the Rim Worlds Confederacy. It is vitally important mat you allow us to board your ship. We know about the trouble you are having. We wish to help you."

"You wish to help us?"

"If we wished you ill," said Grimes patiently, "we could have opened fire on you as soon as you broke through into normal Space-Time." He paused. "You have a cargo of seed grain. There were rats in the grain. And these rats have been multiplying. Am I correct?"

"You are. But how do you know?"

"Never mind that. And these rats—there are mutants among them, aren’t there? You’ve been coming a long time from Elsinore, haven’t you? Mannschenn Drive breakdowns… and fluctuations in the temporal precession fields to speed up the rate of mutation."

"But, sir, how do you know? We have sent no messages. Our psionic radio officer was killed by the… the mutants."

"We know, Captain. And now—may we board?"

From the speaker came the faint voice of Sundowner’s Mate. "Rim Ghosts are bad enough—but when they take over Quarantine it’s a bit rough."

"Yes," said Grimes. "You may regard us as Rim Ghosts. But we’re solid ones."

His big hands playing over his console like those of a master pianist, Williams, with short, carefully timed bursts from the auxiliary jets, jockeyed Corsair into a position only yards from Sundowner , used his braking rockets to match velocities. Grimes and his people stared out through the ports at the star tramp. She was old, old. Even now, at a time that was centuries in the past of Corsair’s people, she was obsolete. Her hull plating was dull, pitted by years of exposure to micrometeorites. Two of the embossed letters of her name had been broken off and never replaced, although somebody had replaced the missing U and W with crudely painted characters. Grimes could guess what conditions must be like on board. She would be one of those ships in which, to give greater lift for cargo, the pile shielding had been cut to a minimum, the contents of her holds affording, in theory, protection from radiation. And her holds were full of grain, and this grain supported pests that, through rapid breeding and mutation, had become a menace rather than a mere nuisance.

"Boarders away, sir?" asked the Marine officer.

"Yes, Major. Yourself and six men should do. I and Mrs. Grimes will be coming with you."

"Side arms, sir?"

"No. That crate’ll have paper-thin bulkheads and shell plating, and we can’t afford any playing around with laser."

"Then knives and clubs, sir?"

"It might be advisable. Yes."

Grimes and Sonya left Control for their quarters. There, helping each other, they shrugged into their modified spacesuits. These still had the tail sheaths and helmets designed to accommodate a long-muzzled head. This had its advantages, providing stowage for a full beard. But Grimes wondered what Sundowner’s people would think when they saw a parry of seeming aliens jetting from Cosair to their airlock. Anyhow, it was their own fault. They should have had their vision transmitter and receiver in order.

The boarding party assembled at the main airlock which, although it was cramped, was big enough to hold all of them. The inner door slowly closed and then, after the pumps had done their work ( Corsair could not afford to throw away atmosphere) the outer door opened, Grimes could see, then, that an aperture had appeared in the shell plating of the other ship, only twenty feet or so distant. But it was small. It must be only an auxiliary airlock. The Captain of Sundowner , thought Grimes, must be a cautious man: must have determined to let the boarding party into his ship one by one instead of in a body. And he’ll be more cautious still, thought Grimes, when he sees these spacesuits.

He shuffled to the door sill. He said into his helmet microphone, "There’s room for only one at a time in that airlock of theirs. I’ll go first."

He heard the Major acknowledge, and then he jumped, giving himself the slightest possible push-off from his own ship. He had judged well and did not have to use his suit reaction unit. Slowly, but not too slowly, he drifted across the chasm between the two vessels, extended his arms to break his fall and, with one hand, caught hold of the projecting rung above Sundowner’s airlock door.