Free The Big Black Mark by A. Bertram Chandler

promise you that."

    "Thank you," said Davinas. "Thank you, "said Grimes.

Chapter 11

    Davinas phoned down to the night watchman to ask him to order a cab for Grimes. While they were waiting for the car he poured glasses of an excellent Scotch whiskey from Rob Roy. They were finishing their drinks when the night watchman reported that the car was at the ramp.

    Grimes was feeling smugly satisfied when he left Sundowner. It certainly looked as though he had been handed his Lost Colony—correction, two Lost Colonies—on a silver tray. And this Davinas was a very decent bloke, and deserved any help that Grimes would be able to give him.

    The ride back to the mayor's palace was uneventful. The party was still in progress in the huge ballroom; the girl at the synthesizer controls was maintaining a steady flow of dance music, although only the young were still on the floor. The older people were gathered around the buffet tables, at which the supplies of food and drink were being replenished as fast as they dwindled.

    Grimes joined Brabham and Vinegar Nell, who were tucking into a bowl of caviar as though neither of them had eaten for a week, washing it down with locally made vodka,

    "Be with us, sir," said Brabham expansively. "A pity they didn't bring this stuff out earlier. If I'd known this was going to come up, I'd not have ruined my appetite on fishcakes and sausage rolls!"

    Grimes spread a buttered biscuit with the tiny, black, glistening eggs, topped it up with a hint of chopped onion and a squeeze of lemon juice. "You aren't doing too badly now. Mphm. Not bad, not bad."

    "Been seeing how the poor live, sir?" asked the first lieutenant.

    "What do you mean?"

    "You went off with Sundowner's old man."

    "Oh, yes. He has quite a nice ship. Old, but very well looked after."

    "Sometimes I wonder if I wouldn't have done better in the merchant service," grumbled Brabham. "Even the Rim Worlds Merchant Service. I was having a yarn with Sundowner's chief officer. He tells me that the new government-owned shipping line, Rim Runners, is recruiting personnel. I've a good mind to apply."

    "Nobody in the Survey Service would miss you," said Vinegar Nell. Then, before Brabham could register angry protest, she continued, "Nobody in the Survey Service would miss any of us. We're the square pegs, who find that every hole's a round one." She turned to Grimes, who realized that she must have been drinking quite heavily. "Come on, Captain! Out with it! What was in your sealed orders? Instructions to lose us all down some dark crack in the continuum, yourself included?"

    "Mphm," grunted Grimes noncommittally, helping himself to more caviar. He noticed that the civilians in the vicinity had begun to flap their ears. He said firmly, "Things aren't as bad as they seem." He tried to make a joke of it. "In any case, I haven't lost a ship yet."

    "There has to be a first time for everything," she said darkly.

    " Some people are lucky," commented Brabham. "In the Survey Service, as everywhere else, luck counts for more than ability."

    "Some people have neither luck nor ability," said Vinegar Nell spitefully. The target for this barbed remark was obvious—and Brabham, feared Grimes, would be quite capable of emptying the bowl of caviar over her head if she continued to needle him. And the captain of a ship, justly or unjustly, is held responsible for the conduct of his officers in public places. His best course of action would be to separate his first lieutenant and his paymaster before they came to blows.

    "Shall we dance, Miss Russell?" he asked.

    She produced a surprisingly sweet smile. "But of course, Captain."

    The synthesizer was playing a song that he had heard before, probably a request from those of Sundowner's people who were still at the party. The tune was old, very old, but the words were new, and Rim Worlders had come to regard it as their very own.
 
Good-bye, I'll run to find another sun
Where I may find
There are