Part 10 (1/2)

Grimes didn't argue, but pushed her out of the boat lock. He jumped after her, somersaulting slowly in the emptiness. He used his suit reaction unit to steady himself, and found himself facing the s.h.i.+p that he had just left. He saw an explosion at her bows, a billowing cloud of debris that expanded slowly broken gla.s.s, crystallizing atmosphere, a gradually separating ma.s.s of bodies, most of which ceased to struggle after a very few seconds.

But there were the larger bodies, seven of them, s.p.a.ce-suited and each of them sprouted a tail of incandescence as the Marines jetted back to their own s.h.i.+p. The Major used his laser pistol to break out through the control room ports but all the mutants would not be dead. There would be survivors, sealed off in their airtight compartments by the slamming of the emergency doors.

The survivors could be disposed of byCorsair's main armament.

XXIV.

”We were waiting for you, Skipper,” Williams told Grimes cheerfully as the Commodore re-entered his own control room.

”Very decent of you, Commander,” Grimes said, remembering how the Mate ofSundowner had realized his long standing ambition and clobbered his Captain. ”Very decent of you.”

He looked out of the viewports. The grain carrier was still close, at least as close as she had been when he had boarded her. The use of missiles would be dangerous to the vessel employing them and even later might touch off a mutually destructive explosion.

”You must still finish your task, man Grimes,” Serressor reminded him.

”I know. I know.” But there was no hurry. There was ample time to consider ways and means.

”All armament ready, sir.”

”Thank you. To begin with, Commander Williams, we'll open the range . . .”

Then suddenly, the outline ofSundowner s.h.i.+mmered, s.h.i.+mmered and faded. She flickered out like a candle in a puff of wind. Grimes cursed. He should have foreseen this. The mutants had access to the Mannschenn Drive machinery.and how much, by continuous eavesdropping, had they learned? How much did they know?

”Start M.D.,” he ordered. ”Standard precession.”

It took time but not too long a time. Bronson was already in the Mannschenn Drive room, and Bronson had been trained to the naval way of doing things rather than the relatively leisurely procedure of the merchant service. (Himself a merchant officer, a reservist, he had always made it his boast that he could beat the navy at its own game.) There was the brief period of temporal disorientation, the uncanny feeling that time was running backwards, the giddiness, the nausea. Outside the ports the Galactic Lens a.s.sumed the appearance of a distorted Klein flask, and the Lorn sun became a pulsing spiral of multi-colored light.

But there was no sign ofSundowner.

Grimes was speaking into the telephone. ”Commander Bronson! Can you synchronize?”

”Withwhat?” Then ”I'll try, sir. I'll try ...”

Grimes could visualize the engineer watching the flickering needles of his gauges, making adjustments measured in fractions of microseconds to his controls. Subtly the keening song of the spinning, precessing gyroscopes wavered and, as it did so, the outlines of the people and instruments in the control room lost their sharpness, while the colors of everything momentarily dulled and then became more vivid.

”There's the mucking b.a.s.t.a.r.d!” shouted Williams.

And there she was, close aboard them, a phantom s.h.i.+p adrift on a sea of impossible blackness, insubstantial, quivering on the very verge of invisibility.

”Fire at will!” ordered Grimes.

”But, sir,” protested one of the officers. ”If we interfere with the s.h.i.+p's ma.s.s while the Drive is in operation . . .”

”Fire at will!”repeated the Commodore.

”Ay, ay, sir!” acknowledged Carter happily.

But it was like shooting at a shadow. Missiles erupted from their launchers, laser beams stabbed out at the target and nothing happened. From the bulkhead speaker of the intercom Bronson snarled, ”What the h.e.l.l are you playing at up there? How the h.e.l.l can I hold her in synchronization?”

”Sorry, Commander,” said Grimes into his microphone. ”Just lock on, and hold her. Just hold her, that's all I ask.”