The Big Black Mark by A. Bertram Chandler Page B

complain that he should have been given more time to get his innies into proper working order. Then the beat of the engines became louder, more enthusiastic. Grimes relaxed a little. He took a side-wise glance at Tangye, in the co-pilot's seat. This time, he noted, the navigator had done his sums before departure; a loosely folded sheet of paper was peeping out of the breast pocket of his uniform shirt. And what target star would he have selected? Hamlet, probably, in the Shakespearean System, out toward the Rim Worlds. It was a pity that Discovery would not be heading that way.

    The ship pushed through the low overcast as though she really meant it, emerged into the clear stratum between it and the high cirrus. Blinding sunlight, almost immediately dimmed as the viewports automatically polarized, smote through into the control room, and, outside, made haloes of iridescence in the clouds of ice particles through which the vessel was driving. She lifted rapidly through the last tenuous shreds of atmosphere.

    "Clear of the Van Allens, sir," reported Tangye at last. "Thank you, pilot," acknowledged Grimes. Then, to Brabham, "Make the usual announcements, Number One. Free fall, setting trajectory, all the rest of it."

    "Take over now, sir?" asked Tangye, pulling the sheet of notes from his breast pocket.

    Grimes grinned at him. "Oh, I think I'll keep myself in practice, pilot. It's time I did some work."

    The ship was in orbit now, falling free about New Maine. Grimes produced his own sheet of paper, glanced at it, then at the constellations patterned on the blackness outside the viewports. He soon found the one that he was looking for, although why the first settlers on this planet had called it The Mermaid he could not imagine. Their imaginations must have been far more vivid than his. His fingers played over the controls and the directional gyroscopes began to spin, and the hull turned about them. "Sir," said Tangye urgently. "Sir!"

    "Yes, pilot?"

    "Sir, Hamlet's in The Elephant. From here, that is—"

    "How right you are, Mr. Tangye. But why should we be heading toward Elsinore?"

    "But, sir, the orders said that we were to make a sweep out toward the Rim."

    "That's right," put in Brabham.

    "I have steadied this ship," said Grimes coldly, "on to Delta Mermaid. We shall run on that trajectory until further orders—orders from myself, that is. Number One, pass the word that I am about to start the Mannschenn Drive."

    "As you say, sir," replied Brabham sulkily.

    Deep in the bowels of the vessel the gleaming rotors began to turn, to spin and to tumble, to precess out of normal space-time, pulling the ship and all her people with them down the dark dimensions, through the warped continuum. There was the usual fleeting second or so of temporal disorientation, while shapes wavered and colors sagged down the spectrum, while all sound was distorted, with familiar noises either impossibly high in pitch or so low as to be almost inaudible.

    There was, as always, the uncanny sensation of déjà vu.

    Grimes experienced no previsions but felt, as he had when setting trajectory off Lindisfarne, a deep and disturbing premonition of impending doom.

    Perhaps, he thought, he should adhere to his original orders. Perhaps he should observe the golden rule for modest success in any service: Do what you're told, and volunteer for nothing.

    But whatever he did, he knew from harsh experience, he always ran into trouble.

Chapter 13

    The ship settled down into her normal Deep Space routine—regular watches, regular mealtimes, regular exercise periods in the gymnasium, and regular inspections. In many ways, in almost all ways, she was like any other ship; what made her different, too different, was the resentment that was making itself felt more and more by her captain. The short stay on New Maine, with hardly any shore leave, was in part responsible. But there was more than that. Everybody aboard knew what Grimes's original orders