Provided that normal care is exercised, the interstellar drive may be employed within the confines of a planetary system. Grimes had no doubts as to the ability of his officers to handle such a not-very-exceptional feat of navigation. So, after the lapse of only one standard day of ship's time, Faraway Quest was hanging in orbit above the red planet Mars.
Looking out through the control-room viewports at the ruddy globe he wondered, at first, if there had been some further displacement in Time. Mars looked as it had looked when he had last seen it—how many years ago? There were cities, and irrigation canals with broad strips of greenery on either side of them, a gleaming icecap marking the north polar regions. There were the two little moons, scurrying around their primary.
Said Mayhew, "They know we're here . . ."
Demanded Grimes grumpily, "And who the hell are they, when they're up and dressed?"
"I . . . I don't know yet . . ."
"Doesn't much matter," contributed Williams, "as long as they tell us that this is Liberty Hall and that we can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
"Mphm," grunted Grimes around the stem of the empty pipe that he was holding between his teeth. "Mphm." Then, speaking almost to himself only, "What the hell happened—will happen—to those people? The cities, the canals—and damn all there when Man first landed but a very few dubious relics . . ."
"Perhaps we happened to them," said Sonya somberly.
"Come off it. We aren't as bad as all that."
"Speak for yourself," she told him, looking pointedly towards Hendriks, who was seated at the console of his battle organ.
Grimes laughed. "I don't think, somehow, that one ship, only a lightly armed auxiliary cruiser at that, could destroy a flourishing civilization with its own high level of technology." He gestured at the telescope screen, where Carnaby had succeeded in displaying a picture of one of the cities. It was as though they were hanging only a few hundred feet above the taller towers. "Look at that. The people who erected those buildings are at least our equals as engineers!"
Tall and graceful stood the buildings, the essential delicacy of their design possible only on a low-gravity planet. Glass and stone and glittering metal filigree, the materials blended in a harmony that, although alien, was undeniably beautiful . . . The sweeping catenaries of gleaming cables strung between the towers, some of which supported bridges, but most of which were ornamental only or filling some unguessable function . . . Green parks with explosions of blue and yellow and scarlet, and all the intermediate shades, that were flowering trees and shrubs . . . The emerald green of the parks, and the diamond spray of the fountains, arcing high and gracefully in shimmering rainbows . . . Surely, thought Grimes, an extravagance on this world of all worlds! The people, walking slowly along their streets and through their gardens, even from this foreshortened viewpoint undeniably humanoid, but with something about them that was not quite human . . .
"Carlotti antennae," said Daniels suddenly. "Odd that we didn't receive any signals from them while we were running under Mannschenn Drive . . ."
Yes, Carlotti antennae—or, if not Carlotti antennae, something indistinguishable from them. Mounted on the higher towers were the gleaming ovoids of metal, each like a Mobius strip distorted into elliptical shape. But they were motionless, not continually rotating about their long axes.
"Could be a religious symbol . . ." suggested Grimes at last. "After all, we have—or will have—crosses, and stars and crescents, and hammers and sickles, and what else only the Odd Gods of the Galaxy know . . . Why not a Mobius strip?"
Mayhew began to speak, slowly and tonelessly. "They have telepaths. They have a telepath. He . . . He is entering my mind. There is the problem of language, you understand. Of idiom. But his message is clear."
"And what is it?" the Commodore demanded.
"It is . . . It is that we are not wanted. It is that those people cannot be bothered with us. To them we are an unnecessary nuisance, and one that has cropped up at a most inconvenient time."
Grimes' prominent ears reddened. He growled, "All right, we're a nuisance. But surely we're entitled to tell our story, to ask for assistance."
"What . . . What shall I tell them, sir?"
"The truth, of course. That we're castaways in Time."
"I'll . . . I'll try," said Mayhew doubtfully.
There was silence in the control room while the Commodore and his officers looked at Mayhew and Clarisse. The two telepaths sat quietly in their chairs, the woman's right hand in her husband's left hand. The face of each of them wore a faraway expression. Their eyes were half closed. Clarisse's lips moved almost imperceptibly as she verbalized her thoughts.
Then Mayhew said, "It is no good. They want nothing at all to do with us. They tell me—how shall I put it?—they tell me that we are big enough and ugly enough to look after ourselves."
"Try to persuade them," ordered Grimes, "that it will be to their advantage to allow us to land. There must be some knowledge that they do not possess which they can gain from us—just as we hope to gain knowledge from them . . . ."
There was another long silence.
Mayhew said at last, "They say, 'Go away. Leave us to our own devices.' "
Grimes knew that he had often been referred to in his younger days as a stubborn bastard, and on many occasions latterly as a stubborn old bastard. He had never been offended by the epithet. It was his nature to be stubborn. He was prepared to hang there in the Martian sky, an artificial, uninvited satellite, until such time as these Martians condescended to talk to him. Surely there must be some among their number capable of curiosity, of wondering who these strangers were and where they had come from.
"They say," said Mayhew, " 'go away.' "
"Mphm," grunted Grimes.
"They say," said Mayhew after a long interval, " 'go away, or we will make you.' "
"Bluff," commented Grimes. "Tell them, or tell your telepathic boyfriend, that I want to talk to whoever's in charge down there. Whoever's really in charge."
"Go away," whispered Clarisse. "Go away. Go away. The message is still Go away."
"Tell them . . ." began Grimes—and, "Look!" shouted Williams.
Coming at them on an intersecting trajectory was a spacecraft. ("It isn't showing on the radar, it isn't showing on the radar!" Carnaby was saying to whoever would listen.) It appeared to be large, although, with no means of determining its range, this could have been an illusion. It was an odd-looking construction, with wide, graceful wings. There were no indications of rocket exhaust.
"Like a bird . . ." somebody murmured.
So they've finally condescended to notice us, thought Grimes smugly. Then another thought crossed his mind and he turned to Hendriks. But he was too late to give the order, Hold your fire! that trembled on his lips. Invisible but lethal, a laser beam slashed out from the Quest, shearing a wing from the Martian ship. She fell away from her trajectory, the severed plane tumbling after her. She spiraled away and down, down, falling like a leaf towards the distant planetary surface.
. . . With my crossbow
I shot the albatross . . .
But this was no time for quoting archaic poetry to oneself. While Mayhew whispered, unnecessarily, "They are annoyed . . ." the Commodore barked his orders. "Inertial Drive—maximum thrust!" Acceleration slammed him deep into the padding of his chair. "Mannschenn Drive—start!" He did not know what weaponry the Martians had at their disposal and had no intention of hanging around to find out.
The gyroscopes of the Mannschenn Drive whined querulously as their rate of revolution built up to its maximum. Precession was initiated. Outlines wavered and colors sagged down the spectrum as Faraway Quest lurched into the warped continuum engendered by her temporal precession field.
Astern of her, harmless yet spectacular, there was a great flare of actinic light, a near miss. Intentional or accidental? But Hendriks' shooting had been intentional enough.
"I saved the ship," the Gunnery Officer was saying. "I saved the ship."
"That will do, Mr. Hendriks," Grimes told him coldly. "I will see you after we've set trajectory."
"Hendriks saved the ship," Dalzell was saying, in a voice louder than a whisper.
I wish I had an albatross to hang around each of your bloody necks, thought Grimes viciously.