The Makeshift Rocket

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Tsk-Tsk-Tsk," said Rory McConnell. "An' your radio didn't work after all?"

"No," wheezed Herr Syrup. He was still a little blue around the nose. It had been a grim wait of many hours, crouched in the spinning wreckage of his boat; his suit's air supply had been low indeed when the Mercury Girl finally came to him.

"An' ye say your poor auld bird was lost as well?"

"Blown out ven de gasket blew out dat I told you of." Hen-Syrup accepted a cigar and leaned his weary frame gratefully back against the gymbal-swung acceleration bench in the saloon. There was still no functioning compensator and the Mercury Girl, with an Erse crew aboard, was pacing back to Grendel at a quarter gee.

"Then all your trouble was for nothin'?" McConnell did not gloat; if anything, he was too sympathetic. "I guess so," Herr Syrup answered rather bleakly, thinking of Claus. No doubt the crow would look at once for human society; but what was he likely to convey except a string of oaths? Too late, the engineer saw that he should have put some profanity into his message.

"Well, ye were a brave foe, an' 'tis daily I'll come by Grendel gaol to cheer yez," said McConnell, clapping his shoulder. "For I fear the General will insist on lockin' yez up for the duration. He was more than a little annoyed, I can tell yez; he was spittin' rivets. He wanted for to leave you drift off to your fate, an' we had quite an argument about it, wherefore I am now just another private @solther in the ranks." Mc-Connell rubbed his large knuckles reminiscently. "However, I won me point. Himself went back hours ago in t'other ship, but he let me stay wi' this one and pick yez up. But I dared not go close to the Anglian capital, but must wait until ye had orbited so far away @diat no chance Navy ship would see us an' get curious. An' so long a delay meant ye were hard to find. We were almost too late, eh, what?"

"Ja," shuddered Herr Syrup. He tilted the proffered bottle of Irish to his lips.

"But all's well that ends well, even though 'twas said by an Englishman," chuckled McConnell. He squeezed Emily's hand. She smiled mistily back at him. "For I'll regain me auld rank as soon as the swellin' in the General's eye has gone down so he can see how much I'm needed. An' then 'twill be time to effect the glorious redemption of Laoighise, an' then, Emily, you an' I will be wed, an' then—Well!" He coughed. She blushed.

"Ja," snorted Sarmishkidu. "Good ending, huh? With my business ruined, und me in jail, und maybe a war started, and that dummkopf of a Shalmuannusar claiming he proved the sub-unitary connectivity theorem before I did, as if publishing first had anything to do with priority—Ha!"

"Oh, dear," said Emily compassionately.

"Oh, darlin"," said McConnell.

"Oh, sweetheart," cooed Emily, losing interest in Sarmishkidu. "Oh, me little turtle dove," whispered McConnell.

Herr Syrup fought a strong desire to retch.

A bell clanged. McConnell stood up. "That's the signal," he said. "We've come to Grendel an' I'll be wanted on the bridge. "Twill be an unendin' few minutes till I see yez ag'in, me only one."

"Goodbye, my beloved," breathed the girl. Herr Syrup gritted his teeth.

Her manner changed as soon as the Erseman had left. She leaned over toward the engineer and asked tensely: "Do you think we succeeded? I mean, do you?"

"I doubt it," he sighed. "In de end, only Claus vas left to carry de vord." He explained what had happened. "Even supposing he does repeat vat he vas supposed to, I doubt many people vould believe a crow dat has not even been introduced."

"Well—" Emily bit her lip. "We tried, didn't we? But if a war does come - between Rory's country and mine. No! I won't think about it!" She rubbed small fists across her eyes.

Uncompensated forces churned Herr Syrup on his seat. At last they quieted; the engine mumble thed; a steady one gee informed him that the Mercury Girl was again berthed on Grendel. "I'm going to Rory," said Emily. Almost, she fled from the saloon.

Herr Syrup puffed his cigar, waiting for the Erse to come take him to prison. The first thing he would do there, he thought dully, was sleep for about fifty hours … He grew aware that several minutes had passed. Sarmishkidu sat brooding in a spaghetti-like nest of tentacles. The ship had grown oddly quiet,

no feet along the passageways. Shrugging, Herr Syrup got up, strolled out of the saloon and down a corridor, entered the open main passenger airlock and looked upon the spacefield.

The cigar dropped from his mouth.

The Erse flag was down off the staff and the Anglian banner was back. A long, subdued line of green-clad men shuffled past a heap of their own weapons. Trucks were bringing more every minute. They trailed one by one into a military transport craft berthed nearby, accompanied by hoots and jeers—and an occasional tearful au revoir—from the Grendelian townspeople crowded against the port fence. A troop of redcoats with bayoneted rifles was urging the prisoners along, and the gigantic guns of H.M.S. Inhospitable shadowed the entire scene.

"Yudas priest!" said Herr Syrup.

He stumbled down onto the ground. A brisk young officer surveyed him through a monocle, sketched a salute, and extended an arm. "Mr. Syrup? I understand you were aboard. Your crow, sir."

"Hell and damnation!" said Claus, hopping from the Anglian wrist to the Danish shoulder. "Pers'nally," said the young man, "I go for falcons."

"You come!" whispered Herr Syrup. "You come!"

"Just a short hop, don't y' know. We arrived hours back. No resistance, except—er—" The officer blushed. "I say, don't look now, but that young lady in the, ah, rather brief costume and, er, passionate embrace with the large chappie—d' you know anything about "em? Mean to say, she claims she's the vicar's daughter and he's her fiance and she goes where he goes, and really, sir, I jolly well don't know whether to evacuate her with the invaders or give him a permit to remain here or, or what, damn!"

Herr Syrup stole a glance. "Do vatever seems easiest," he said. "I don't t'ink to dem it makes mush difference."

"No. I suppose not." The officer sighed.

"How did you find out vat vas happening here? Did de crow really give somevun my message?"

"What message?"

"Go sputz yourself!" rasped Claus.

"No, not dat vun," said Herr Syrup quickly.

"My dear sir," said the officer, "when a half-ruined oxygen bottle, with the name Mercury Girl still identifiable on it, lands in a barley field … and we've been wirelessed that that ship is under quarantine … and then when this black bird flies in a farmer's window and steals a scone off his tea table and says, ah, uncomplimentary things about one Major McConnell . .. well, really, my dear chap, the farmer will phone the police and the police will phone Newer Scotland Yard and the Yard will check with Naval Intelligence and, well, I mean to say it's obvious, eh, what, what, what?"

"Ja," said Herr Syrup weakly. "I suppose so." He hesitated. "Vat you ban going to do vit' de Ersers? Dey vas pretty decent, considering. I vould hate to see dem serving yail sentences."

"Oh, don't worry about that, sir. Mean to say, well, it's a bally embarrassing situation all around, eh? We don't want to admit that a band of half-cocked extremists stole one of our shires right out from under our noses, so to speak, what? We can't suppress the fact, of course, but we aren't exactly anxious to advertise it all over the Solar System, y'know. As for the Erse government, it doesn't want trouble with us—Gaelic Socialists, y'know, peaceful chappies—and certainly doesn't want to give the opposition party a leg up; so they won't support this crazy attempt in any way. At the same time, popular sentiment at home won't let 'em punish the attempt either. Eh?

"Jolly ticklish situation. Delicate. All we can do is ship these fellows home with our compliments, where their own government will doubtless give 'em a talking to and let 'em go. And then, very much on the Q.T., I'm jolly well sure the Erse Republic will pay whatever damage claims there are. Your own ship ought to collect a goodly share of that, eh, what?"

By this time Sarmishkidu von Himmelschmidt had reached the foot of the ladder. "I'll have you know I have thousands of pounds in damages coming!" he whistled in outrage. "Maybe millions! Why, just the loss of business during occupation, at a rate of easy five hundred pounds a day—let's call it a t'ousand pounds a day to put it in round figures—dot adds up to—"

"Oh, come now, old chap, come now. Tut-tut!" The officer adjusted his monocle. "It isn't all that bad. Really it isn't, don't y'know. After all, even if nothing is done officially, word will get around. People will come in jolly old floods to see that place where all this happened. I'll wager my own missus makes me vacation here this season. Cloak and dagger stuff, excitin', all that sort of piffle, eh, what, what? Why, it'll be the busiest tourist season in your history, by Jove."

"Hmmmm." Sarmishkidu stroked his nose thoughtfully. A gleam waxed in one bulging eye. "Hmmm. Yes. The atmosphere of international intrigue; sinister spies, double agents, beautiful females luring away secret papers. Yes, the first place on Grendel to furnish that kind of atmosphere will—Hmmm. I must make some alterations, I see. To hell with Gemutlichkeit. I want my tavern to have an uncertain reputation. Yes, that's it, uncertain." He drew himself up and flourished a dramatic tentacle. "Gentlemen, you are now looking upon the proprietor of der Alt Heisenberg Rathskeller!"

ISBN 0 600 37609 5

Copyright© 1962 by Ace Books, Inc. Magazine serial version, copyright, 1958 by Street and Smith Publications Inc. Harnlyn Paperbacks are published by The Harnlyn Publishing Group Ltd, Astronaut House, Feltharn, Middlesex, England. Made and printed in Great Britain by Hazell Watson Viney Ltd, Aylesbury, Bucks.