To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga by A. Bertram Chandler Read Free Book Online

used.”
    “Hardly, considering that you’ve only been in Space a dog watch.” Her face froze suddenly. “Yes, Sue?”
    It was the girl whom Jane had relieved in the bar. “Miss Pentecost, will you report to the Captain in Control, please. At once.”
    “What have I done now?”
    “It’s some sort of emergency, Miss Pentecost. The Chief Officer’s up there with him, and he’s sent for the Doctor and the two Chief Engineers.”
    “Then I must away, John. Look after the bar again, Sue. Don’t let the Admiral have too many free drinks.”
    She moved fast and gracefully, was gone before Grimes could think of any suitable repartee. He said to the girl, “What is happening, Sue?”
    “I don’t know, Ad—” She flushed. “Sorry, Ensign. And, in any case, I’m not supposed to talk to the passengers about it.”
    “But I’m not a real passenger,” he said—and asked himself, Am I a real anything?
    “No, I suppose you’re not, Mr. Grimes. But you’re not on duty.”
    “An officer of the Survey Service is always on duty,” he told her, with some degree of truth. “Whatever happens on the spacelanes is our concern.” It sounded good.
    “Yes,” she agreed hesitantly. “That’s what my fiancé—he’s a Lieutenant J.G.—is always telling me.”
    “So what’s all the flap about?”
    “Promise not to tell anybody?”
    “Of course.”
    “Mr. Letourneau came wandering into the Saloon. He just stood there staring about, the way he does, then he spotted the Captain. He was actually dancing with me at the time. . . .” She smiled reminiscently, and added, “He’s a very good dancer.”
    “He would be. But go on.”
    “He came charging across the dance floor—Mr. Letourneau, I mean. He didn’t care whose toes he trod on or who he tripped over. I couldn’t help overhearing when he started babbling away to Captain Craven. It’s a distress call. From one of our ships— Epsilon Sextans.’” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “And it’s piracy.”
    “Piracy? Impossible.”
    “But, Mr. Grimes, it’s what he said.”
    “Psionic Radio Officers have been known to go around the bend before now,” Grimes told her, “and to send false alarm calls. And to receive non-existent ones.”
    “But the Sexy Eppy— sorry, Epsilon Sextans— has a cargo that’d be worth pirating. Or so I heard. The first big shipment of Antigeriatridine to Waverly. . . .”
    Antigeriatridine, the so-called Immortality Serum. Manufactured in limited, but increasing quantities only on Marina (often called by its colonists Submarina), a cold, unpleasantly watery world in orbit about Alpha Crucis. The fishlike creatures from which the drug was obtained bred and flourished only in the seas of their own world.
    But piracy . . . .
    But the old legends were full of stories of men who had sold their souls for eternal youth.
    The telephone behind the bar buzzed sharply. Sue answered it. She said, “It’s for you, Mr. Grimes.”
    Grimes took the instrument. “That you, Ensign?” It was Captain Craven’s voice. “Thought I’d find you there. Come up to Control, will you?” It was an order rather than a request.

    All the ship’s executive officers were in the Control Room, and the Doctor, the purser and the two Chief Engineers. As Grimes emerged from the hatch he heard Kennedy, the Mate, say, “Here’s the Ensign now.”
    “Good. Then dog down, Mr. Kennedy, so we get some privacy.” Craven turned to Grimes. ‘“You’re on the Active List of the Survey Service, Mister, so I suppose you’re entitled to know what’s going on. The situation is this. Epsilon Sextans, Marina to Waverley with a shipment of Antigeriatridine, has been pirated.” Grimes managed, with an effort, to refrain from saying “I know.” Craven went on. “Her esper is among the survivors. He says that the pirates were two frigates of the Waldegren Navy. Anyhow, the Interstellar Drive Engineers aboard Epsilon Sextans managed to put their box of tricks