Chapter 12
SISTER SUE came to Port Woomera.
Grimes stared into the stern view screen, looking at what once had been a familiar view, the waters of the Great Australian Bight to the south and to the north the semi-desert, crisscrossed with irrigation canals, with huge squares of oddly glittering grey that were the solar energy collection screens, with here and there the assemblages of gleaming white domes that housed people and machinery and the all-the-year-round-producing orchards. Close inshore, confined in its pen of plastic sheeting, was a much diminished iceberg. Farther out to sea a much larger one, a small fleet of tugs in attendance, was slowly coming in toward what would be its last resting place.
Grimes applied lateral thrust to bring the ship directly above the spaceport. He could see clearly the white buildings, assemblages of bubbles, and the lofty control tower. And there were the smaller towers, metallically gleaming, that were the ships, great and small.
His berth had been allocated. He was to bring Sister Sue down to the Naval Station, about five kilometers to the east of the commercial spaceport. He could identify a Constellation Class cruiser, a couple of Star Class destroyers and what he thought was a Serpent Class courier. Adder? he wondered. That little ship had been his first command. But he doubted if the long arm of coincidence would be stretched to such an extent. It was extremely unlikely that there would be any ships or any people whom he had known, during his days in the Survey Service, at Port Woomera. He had never been attached to the Port Woomera Base.
The triangle of brightly flashing beacons marking his berth was clearly visible. It showed a tendency to drift away from the center of the screen. Grimes put on lateral thrust again to counteract the effect of the light breeze, decreased vertical thrust. On the screen the figures of the radar-altimeter display steadily diminished.
He allowed his attention to wander briefly, looked to the towers of Woomera City in the middle distance. He watched one of the big dirigibles of Trans-Australia Airlines coming into its mooring mast at the airfield at the city limits. Soon, he thought, he would be aboard one of those airships. His parents, in Alice Springs, would be looking forward to seeing him again after his long absence from Earth.
Looking back to the radar altimeter read-out he stepped up vertical thrust. Sister Sue was not a Federation Survey Service courier, or a deep space pinnace like Little Sister, in which a flashy landing would be relatively safe. It wouldn’t do for a ship of this tonnage to drop like a stone and then slam on thrust at the very last moment. Nonetheless, he thought, she would be able to take it. She was a sturdy enough brute.
One hundred meters to go . . .
Ninety-five . . . Ninety . . .
Slight drift, thought Grimes. Lateral thrust again . . .
He turned to look at his officers. Williams, he noted, was watching him approvingly. The Green Hornet hastily wiped a sneer from her face. Without his being a telepath Grimes knew what she was thinking, Anybody would think that the bloody ship was made of glass!
To hell with you, he thought. I won’t have to put up with you for much longer.
Deliberately he took his time over the final stages of the descent.
At last Sister Sue’s stern vanes made gentle, very gentle contact with the apron. She rocked ever so slightly, then was still. Shock absorbers sighed as they took the weight when the inertial drive was shut down.
“Finished with engines,” said Grimes smugly. He pulled his pipe from a pocket, filled it and lit it.
“Finished with engines, Skipper,” repeated Williams and passed this final order on to the inertial-drive room. Then, “Shall I go down to the airlock to receive the boarding party? I see them on the way out.”
“Do that,” said Grimes.
Through a viewport he watched the ground cars scurrying out across the apron. Customs, he supposed, and Port Health and Immigration. One of them, however, was a grey vehicle looking like a minor warship on wheels—probably the Survey Service officer responsible for arranging for the discharge of Sister Sue’s cargo. But what was that broad pennant fluttering from a short mast on the bonnet of the car? He got up from his seat, swung the big mounted binoculars to bear.
A black flag, with two golden stars . . .
Surely, he told himself, a Rear Admiral would not be concerning himself with the offloading of an unimportant consignment of outdated bumf.
Was the Survey Service still after his blood?
But if they were going to arrest him, he thought, they would have sent a squad of Marines, not a flag officer.
Nonetheless there was cause for worry. In his experience Admirals did not personally welcome minor vessels, minor merchant vessels especially.
He went down to his quarters to change hastily into the least shabby of his uniforms and to await developments. As he left the control room he heard Ms. Connellan singing softly to herself—and at him.
“Sheriff and police a-coming after me . . .”
Bitch! he thought.