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XIX

CRAVEN CAME BACK to the Control Room at the change of watch, when Grimes was handing over to Jane Pentecost. He waited until the routine had been completed, then said, "We know where our friends are headed. They were, like us, running for Waldegren—but they're having to change course." He laughed harshly. "There must be all hell let loose on their home planet."

"Why? What's happened?" asked Grimes.

"I'll tell you later. But, first of all, we have an alteration of course ourselves. Look up Dartura in the Directory, will you, while I get the Drive shut down."

Epsilon Sextans was falling free through normal spacetime before Grimes had found the necessary information. And then there was the hunt for and the final identification of the target star, followed by the lining up by the use of the directional gyroscopes. There was the brief burst of acceleration and then, finally, the interstellar drive was cut in once more.

The Captain made a business of selecting and lighting a cigar. When the pungent combustion was well under way he said, "Our young Mr. Summers is a good snooper. Not as good as some people I know, perhaps." Grimes flushed and Jane Pentecost looked puzzled. "He's a super-sensitive. He let me have a full transcript of all the signals, out and in. It took us a little time to get them sorted out—but not too long, considering. Adler—that's the name of the surviving frigate— was running for home. Her Captain sent a rather heavily edited report of the action to his Admiral. It seems that Adler and the unfortunate Albatross were set upon and beaten up by a heavily armed Survey Service cruiser masquerading as an innocent merchantman. The Admiral, oddly enough, doesn't want a squadron of Survey Service battlewagons laying nuclear eggs on his base. So Adler has been told to run away and lose herself until the flap's over . . . ."

"And did they send all that en clair?" demanded Grimes. "They must be mad!"

"No, they aren't mad. The signal's weren't en clair."

"But . . ."

"Reliable merchant captains," said Craven, "are often entrusted with highly confidential naval documents. There were some such in my safe aboard Delta Orionis, consigned to the Commanding Officer of Lindisfarne Base. The officer who delivered them to me is an old friend and shipmate of mine, and he told me that among them was the complete psionic code used by the Waldegren Navy. Well, when I had decided to take over this ship, I'd have been a bloody fool not to have Photostatted the whole damned issue.

"So that's the way of it. Herr Kapitan von Leidnitz thinks he can say what he likes to his superiors without anybody else knowing what he's saying. And all the while . . ." Craven grinned wolfishly. "It seems that there's a minor base, of sorts, on Dartura. Little more than repair yards, although I suppose that there'll be a few batteries for their protection. I can imagine the sort of personnel they have running the show—passed-over commanders and the like, not overly bright. By the time that we get there we shall have concocted a convincing story—convincing enough to let us hang off in orbit until Adler appears on the scene. After all, we have their precious code. Why should they suspect us?"

"Why shouldn't we be Adler?" asked Grimes.

"What do you mean, Ensign?"

"The Waldegren Navy's frigates are almost identical, in silhouette, with the Commission's Epsilon class freighters. We could disguise this ship a little by masking the dissimilarities by a rough patching of plating. After all, Adler was in action and sustained some damage—"

"Complicated," mused the Captain. "Too complicated. And two Adlers—each, presumably, in encoded psionic communication with both Waldegren and Dartura . . . . You've a fine, devious mind, young Grimes—but I'm afraid you've out-fixed yourself on that one."

"Let me talk, sir. Let me think out loud. To begin with—a ship running on Mannschenn Drive can put herself into orbit about a planet, but it's not, repeat not, recommended."

"Damn right it's not."

"But we have the heels of Adler? Yes? Then we could afford a slight delay to carry out the modifications—the disguise—that I've suggested. After all, forty odd light years is quite a long way."

"But what do we gain, Mr. Grimes?"

"The element of confusion, sir. Let me work it out. We disguise ourselves as well as we can. We find out, from intercepted and decoded signals, Adler's ETA—and the coordinates of her breakthrough into the normal continuum. We contrive matters to be more or less in the same place at exactly the same time. And when the shore batteries and the guardships see no less than two Adlers slugging it out, each of them yelling for help in the secret code, they won't know which of us to open fire on."

"Grimes," said Craven slowly, "I didn't know you had it in you. All I can say is that I'm glad that you're on our side."

"Am I?" asked Grimes wonderingly,. suddenly deflated. He looked at the Captain who, after all, was little better than a pirate, whose accomplice he had become. He looked at the girl, but for whom he would not be here. "Am I? Damn it all, whose side am I on?"

"You'd better go below," Craven told him gently. "Go below and get some sleep. You need it. You've earned it."

"Jeremy," said Jane Pentecost to Craven, "would you mind looking after the shop for half an hour or so? I'll go with John."

"As you please, my dear. As you please."

It was the assurance in the Captain's voice that hurt. It won't make any difference to us, it implied. It can't make any difference. Sure, Jane, go ahead. Throw the nice little doggie a bone . . . . we can spare it.

"No thank you," said Grimes coldly, and left the Control Room.

But he couldn't hate these people.

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Framed