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23

Yes . . . but.

Yes . . . but.

But what?

Meanwhile, Mr. Saul had made the terrain between the landing site and Oxford quite impassable to any ground vehicle, and would have to be restrained before he blew away all Seeker's 60 mm ammunition. Grimes told the first lieutenant to cease fire, at once.

But what loophole in Federation law had Kane discovered? What possible means of stopping that loophole had Maggie discovered? Where did Francis Delamere's local girlfriend, Tabitha, come into it?

Grimes decided that Southerly Buster's lift-off from Morrowvia must be, at the very least, delayed. Could he stop the Buster's boat from ferrying, a dozen or so at a time, the unconscious women to the ship? Yes, he could—but only at grave risk to the boat's passengers. Embarkation would have to be allowed to continue; by the time that it was complete he, Grimes, would be back aboard Seeker and would be able to take full charge.

Seeker's cannon were silent now, and Southerly Buster's one remaining boat had nosed cautiously out of its bay and was flying to where the victims of the gas shell barrage were sprawled in the long grass. Seeker's boat transmitted pictures of all that was going on. The small craft from the Buster dropped to a landing among the sleeping bodies and two men, wearing respirators, scrambled out of it. Working fast, they dragged fifteen of the women into the boat, careless of any abrasions or contusions they might inflict. They were equally careless with their two anesthetized mates—but that was no excuse. Kane's men were clothed and the risk of painful damage to their skins was so much less.

"Do I have to watch this, Captain?" the first lieutenant was raging.

"I'm afraid you have to, Mr. Saul," Grimes told him. "Of course, if you can think of any way of stopping it without hurting any innocent people . . ."

Saul did not reply.

The first load was carried to Southerly Buster, the boat landing at the foot of the boarding ramp. Its passengers were dragged out and dumped on the ground, and almost immediately the boat began its return journey. Meanwhile a cargo hatch had been opened high on the side of the ship and the arm of a crane swung out. A net was lowered and the women, together with the two unconscious men, were piled into it, swiftly hoisted up an inboard. It was obvious that Kane was blessed with an efficient second-in-command.

Seeker's boat followed the one from Southerly Buster back to her loading site. There was a repetition of the callously efficient handling of the unknowing passengers—and then another, and then another.

But Grimes's pinnace had crossed the coastline now, was rushing inland. Grimes hoped to be back aboard Seeker before Southerly Buster's embarkation was completed, although he could not hope to make it before sunset. Dusk was sweeping over the countryside as the two ships came into view, Kane's vessel towering brightly in the harsh glare of working lights. Saul had the hatch of the pinnace's bay open and waiting, and Billard expertly jockeyed the craft into the opening. Grimes was out through the door and running up to the control room before the pinnace had settled to her chocks. He found Saul staring sullenly out of a viewport.

"That's the last boatload," said the first lieutenant morosely. "Recall our boat, sir?"

"Do just that, Mr. Saul. I want the ship buttoned up for lift-off."

"Yes . . . ." Saul gestured toward the Buster. "She's buttoning up."

The boom of the crane was withdrawn, the cargo hatch was shut. Southerly Buster's boat lifted from the ground where she had discharged her last load, nosed up the mother ship's side to her bay. The ramp folded up and inward. The airlock door slid shut. Faintly there came the clangor of starting machinery, the unmistakable broken rhythm of the inertial drive.

Grimes ordered, "Use your sixty millimeters again, Mr. Saul. Tracer, time fused. I want every shell bursting directly over her—not too close, but close enough so they can hear the shrapnel rattling around their control room."

"Aye, sir!"

The automatics rattled deafeningly, the tracer streaked out from the muzzles in a flat trajectory, the bursting shells were spectacular orange flowers briefly blossoming against the dark sky.

Not at all surprisingly Dreebly's voice came screaming from the transceiver. "Stop firing! Stop firing, you idiots, before you hurt somebody!"

"Then shut down your engines!" commanded Grimes. "I am grounding you."

"By what authority? You have no authority here. This is not a Federated world."

"Shut down your engines!"

"I refuse."

Dreebly did more than merely refuse. Winking points of blue flame appeared from a turret on Southerly Buster's side. The streams of tracer from the two ships intersected, forming a lethal arch. Freakishly there were explosions at its apex as time-and impact-fused projectiles came into violent contact with each other—but the majority of Seeker's shells still burst over Southerly Buster, and those from the Buster's guns burst directly over Seeker.

"The bastard's hosepiping!" exclaimed Saul.

Yes, Dreebly was hosepiping, slowly and deliberately lowering the trajectory of his stream of fire. Would he have the nerve to fire at rather than over a Federation ship? Grimes knew that he did not have the nerve to fire directly at Southerly Buster. Should he do so there would inevitably be casualties—and those casualties might well be among the Buster's innocent passengers.

He said to Saul, "Cease fire."

"But, sir, I could put that turret out of action . . . ."

"I said, cease fire."

Seeker's hammering guns fell silent. There was a last burst from the Buster's automatics, a last noisy rattle of shrapnel around Seeker's control room. From the transceiver came Dreebly's taunting voice, "Chicken!"

"She's lifting," said Pitcher.

"She's lifting," echoed Saul disgustedly.

"Secure all," ordered Grimes, hurrying to the pilot's chair. "Secure all! There will be no further warning!"

He heard the coded shrilling of the alarms as he belted himself in. He checked the telltale lights on the control panel before him. By the time that the inertial drive was ready to lift Seeker clear of the ground Southerly Buster would be beyond pursuit range.

Was everything secure? It would be just too bad if it wasn't. The trained spacemen he could trust to obey orders promptly, the scientists were a different kettle of fish. But he couldn't afford to worry about them now, could not afford to indulge in the archaic, time-consuming, regulation ritual of the countdown.

He pushed the button for full emergency rocket power—and almost immediately tons of reaction mass exploded from the Venturis in incandescent steam. The giant hand of acceleration slammed him deep down into the padding of his seat. Seeker was lifting. Seeker was up and away, shooting skyward like a shell fired from some gigantic cannon. She overtook the slow-climbing Southerly Buster, roared past her as though she were standing still, left her well astern.

On the console the telltale light of the inertial drive was now glowing green. Grimes cut his rockets and the ship dropped sickening until the I.D. took hold, then brought up with a jar. She shuddered in every member as Grimes applied lateral thrust, as she lurched sideways across the sky. Pitcher, who had realized what the captain was trying to do, was doing, had stationed himself by the radar. "A little more, sir," he called. "Easy, now, easy . . . ." Then, "hold her at that!"

"Hold her!" repeated Grimes.

The ship shuddered and groaned again, but he was holding her in position relative to the ground below, to the still-climbing Southerly Buster. Then—slowly, but not so slowly as to conceal his intentions—he reduced vertical thrust. Dreebly tried, but in vain, to wriggle past Seeker. Grimes anticipated every move. (Later he learned that Hayakawa had been feeding him information, that Myra Bracegirdle, loyal rather to her sex than to her ship, had worked with and not against her fellow telepath.) It seemed that he could not go wrong—and every time that Dreebly attempted a lateral shift Southerly Buster fell victim to the parallelogram of forces, inevitably lost altitude.

At last it was obvious to Mr. Dreebly that he had only two choices. Either he could return to the surface, or he could commit suicide by crushing his control room and everybody in it against Seeker's far less vulnerable stern. He was not in a suicidal mood.

Grimes could not resist the temptation. He called for a microphone and for a hookup to the Buster's transceiver. He said just one word, and that with insufferable smugness.

"Chicken!"

Slowly the two ships dropped through the night—Southerly Buster cowed and inferior. Apart from that one taunt there had been no exchange of signals. Slowly they dropped, the defeated Dreebly and the overconfident Grimes.

It was this overconfidence that led, at the finish, to disaster. Just before Dreebly's landing Grimes miscalculated, and his stern made brief contact with the Buster's stem, doing her no great damage but throwing her off balance. With all his faults, Dreebly was a superb shiphandler. He fought to correct the topple, and had he not been inhibited by the ominous bulk of the other vessel hanging immediately above his control room he might well have done so. Southerly Buster's fall was not completely catastrophic, but it was a fall, nonetheless. Visibly shuddering, she tilted, further and further, until her long axis was parallel to the ground.

It was then that Dreebly lost control, and there was a tinny crash as she dropped the last half meter.

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Framed