A. Bertram Chandler by Up to the Sky in Ships

Author:Up to the Sky in Ships [Ships, Up to the Sky in]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2012-01-17T14:49:29+00:00

Standing on the boat deck, by number three hatch, the archaeologist saw the Third Officer walk to the wing of the bridge. What he was carrying was, indubitably, a gin bottle. The Third threw the bottle out and away, watched it until it fell into the water well clear of the ship's side, then returned to the wheelhouse.

"Really, Chief," said the professor, "your junior officers go altogether too far—"

"What do you mean?" asked the Chief Officer.

"Drinking on watch. I saw the Third dumping the empties just now."

"It was an empty all right," said the Mate. "But it wasn't emptied on the bridge. It was one of mine, as a matter of fact. And it had a message in it."

"I'd no idea that the Twentieth Century was so romantic. Pirates? Buried treasure?"

"No, professor. Just date and time and position of dumping. We do it for the Hydrographic office. It gives 'em data—if the bottles ever are picked up—for their current charts and such.

Drift, and all that."

"I see," said the scientist. "It reminds me rather of a queer business I was mixed up in some years ago— It was near Wainham, the Air Force Station, you know. It—" He paused. "I'm not sure that I can tell you. It was all very much Top Secret at the time."

"Near Wainham—" said the Chief Officer slowly. "Would it have been a sort of guided missile from— Outside?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you."

"Come up to my room," said the Mate. "We'll start to empty another gin bottle, and I'll show you something."

He led the way up the ladder, into his cabin. After he had seated his guest he opened his wine locker, took out the necessary bottles and glasses, poured two drinks. He went to his desk, then, pulled out a drawer, took from it a small, gleaming object. He handed it to the archaeologist.

"Did they show you any of these?" he asked.

The scientist looked at the coin—at the helmeted head, and bireme.

"How did you get it? It can't have all been a hoax, not—"

"I saw the missile land. Then I was there at the site . . . Sir Humphrey Williams, although he wasn't Sir Humphrey then, had sent for me to tell him all that I'd seen when the thing came in ...

when it broke open. One of his assistants handed me this coin, and then some cove from one of the Ministries took charge and 1 was hustled away pronto. I never found out what it was all about."

"Neither did they," chuckled the archaeologist, "until they thought of calling in those more concerned with the past than with the future. Oh ... it was tough. I had to work back from the comparatively modern Greek of Homer. Grimm's Law came into it, of course—but you wouldn't know anything about that. I had to make allowances for periods of absolute savagery during which only a handful of scholarly priests kept the written word alive."

He held the coin on the palm of his left hand, pointed to the script around its circumference with a gnarled forefinger.

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