First Command (26 page)

There was some industry—the mining and smelting of metals, the manufacture of weapons and such few tools as were required, shipbuilding. Should more ever be required, said Maya, the library at Ballarat would furnish full instructions for doing everything, for making anything at all.

Government? There was, said the Morrowvian woman, government of a sort. Each town was autonomous, however, and each was ruled—although “ruled” was hardly the correct word—by an elected queen. No, there were no kings. (Maya had read The History and knew what kings were.) It was only natural that women, who were in charge of their own homes, should elect a woman to be in overall charge of an assemblage of homes. It was only natural that the men should be occupied with male pursuits such as hunting and fishing—although women, the younger ones especially, enjoyed the hunt as much as the men did. And it was only natural that men should employ the spear as their main weapon, while women favored the bow.

No, there were no women engaged in heavy industry, although they did work at such trades as the manufacture of cordage and what little cloth was used. And women tended the herb gardens.

Maya confirmed that there were only four families—although “tribes” would be the better word—on Morrowvia. There were Smiths, Cordwainers, Morrows and Wellses. There was intermarriage between the tribes, and in such cases the husband took his wife’s surname, which was passed on, also, to the children of such unions. It was not quite a matriarchal society, but it was not far from it.

Grimes steered the conversation on to the subject of communications. There had been radio—but many generations ago. It had never been required—“After all,” said Maya reasonably enough, “if I die and my people elect a new queen it is of no real concern to anybody except themselves. There is no need for the entire planet to be informed within seconds of the event.”—and transmitters and receivers had been allowed to fall into desuetude. There was a loosely organized system of postmen—men and women qualified by powers of endurance and fleetness of foot—but these carried only letters and very light articles of merchandise. Heavier articles were transported in the slow wherries, up and down the rivers—which meant that a consignment of goods would often have to be shipped along the two long sides of a triangle rather than over the short, overland side.

There was a more or less—rather less than more—regular service by schooner between the island continents. The seamen, Grimes gathered, were a race apart, males and females too incompetent to get by ashore—or, if not incompetent, too antisocial. Seafaring was a profession utterly devoid of either glamor or standing. Grimes was rather shocked when he heard this. He regarded himself as being in a direct line of descent from the seamen and explorers of Earth’s past, and was of the opinion that ships, ships of any kind, were the finest flower of human civilization.

The airmen—the balloonists—were much more highly thought of, though the service they provided was even more unreliable than that rendered by the sailors. Some of the airmen, Maya said, were wanting to fit their clumsy, unmaneuverable craft with engines—but Morrow (he must have been quite a man, this Morrow, thought Grimes) had warned his people, shortly before his death, of the overuse of machinery.

He had said (Maya quoted), “I am leaving you a good world. The land, the air and the sea are clean. Your own wastes go back into the soil and render it more fertile. The wastes of the machines will pollute everything—the sky, the sea and the very ground you walk upon. Beware of the machine. It pretends to be a good servant—but the wages that it exacts are far too high.”

“A machine brought you—your ancestors—here,” pointed out Grimes.

“If that machine had worked properly we should not be here,” said Maya. She smiled. “The breaking down of the machine was our good luck.”

“Mphm.” But this was a
good
world. It could be improved—and what planet could not? But would the reintroduction of machinery improve it? The reintroduction not only of machinery but of the servants of the machine, that peculiar breed of men who have sold their souls to false gods of steam and steel, of metal and burning oil, who tend, more and more, to degrade humanity to the status of slaves, to elevate the mindless automata to the status of masters.

Even so . . . what was that quotation he had used in a recent conversation with Maggie? “Transportation is civilization.”

More efficient transportation, communications in general, would improve Morrowvia. He said as much. He argued, “Suppose there’s some sort of natural catastrophe . . . a hurricane, say, or a fire, or a flood. . . . If you had radio again, or efficient aircraft, the survivors could call for help, almost at once, and the help would not be long in reaching them.”

“But why?” Maya asked. “But why? Why should
they
call for help, and why should
we
answer? Or why should
we
call for help, and why should
they
answer? We—how shall I put it? We go our ways, all of us, with neither help or hindrance, from anybody. We . . . cope. If disaster strikes, it is
our
disaster. We should not wish any interference from outsiders.”

“A passion for privacy,” remarked Maggie, “carried to extremes.”

“Privacy is our way of life,” Maya told her. “It is a good way of life.”

Grimes had been wondering how soon it would be before the pair of them clashed; now the clash had come. They glared at each other, the two handsome women, one naked, the other in her too-skimpy uniform, somehow alike—and yet very unlike each other. Claws were being unsheathed.

And then young Billard called out from the forward compartment. “Land on the radar, sir! Looks like the coastline, at four hundred kilometers!”

Rather thankfully Grimes got up and went into the pilot’s cabin. He looked into the screen of the radarscope, then studied the chart that had been made from the original survey data and from Maggie’s photographs of that quite accurate wall map in Maya’s “palace.” Yes, that looked like Port Phillip Bay, with the mighty Yarra flowing into it from the north. He thought,
North Australia,
here we come! Then, with an affection of the Terran Australian accent,
Norstrylia, here we come!

That corruption of words rang a faint but disturbing bell in his mind—but he had, as and from now, more important things to think about.

He said to the navigator, “A very nice landfall, Mr. Pitcher,” and to Billard, “Better put her back on manual. And keep her as she’s going.”

Maya was by his side, looking with pleased wonderment at the glowing picture in the radar screen. Grimes thought,
I
wish she wouldn’t rub up against me so much. Not in front of Pitcher and Billard, anyhow. And not in front of Maggie, especially.

14

It was summer
in the northern hemisphere, and when the pinnace arrived over Melbourne, having followed the winding course of the Yarra to the foothills of the Dandenongs, there were still half a dozen hours of daylight left. The town, as were all the towns, was a small one; Grimes estimated that its population would run to about four thousand people. As they made the approach he studied it through powerful binoculars. It was neatly laid out, and the houses seemed to be of wooden construction, with thatched roofs. Beyond the town, on a conveniently sited patch of level, tree-free ground, towered the unmistakable metal steeple of a starship. There was only one ship that it could be.

Suddenly the pinnace’s transceiver came to life.
“Schnauzer
calling strange aircraft.
Schnauzer
calling strange aircraft. Do you read me?”

“I read you,” replied Grimes laconically.

“Identify yourself, please.”

“Schnauzer,
this is Number One Pinnace of FSS
Seeker.
Over.”

There was a silence. Then, “You may land by me, Number One Pinnace.”

Grimes looked at Pitcher and Billard. They looked back at him. He raised an eyebrow sardonically. Pitcher said, “Uncommonly decent of him, sir, to give permission to land . . . .”

“Mphm. I suppose he was here first—although I don’t think that planting a shipping company’s flag makes a territorial claim legally valid.”

“They could rename this world Pomerania . . .” suggested Pitcher.

“Or Alsatia . . .” contributed Billard.

“Or NewPekin . . .” continued Pitcher. “Or some other son-of-a-bitching name . . . .”

“Or Dogpatch,” said Grimes, with an air of finality. And then, into the microphone, an edge of sarcasm to his voice. “Thank you,
Schnauzer.
I am coming in.”

Acting on his captain’s instructions Billard brought the pinnace low over the town. People stared up at them—some in the by now familiar state of nudity, some clothed. Those who were dressed were wearing uniform, obviously personnel from the Dog Star ship. The small craft almost grazed the peaked, thatched roofs, then settled down gently fifty meters to the west
of Schnauzer,
on the side from which her boarding ramp was extended.

“Well,” remarked Maggie, “we’re here. I don’t notice any red carpet out for us. What do we do now?”

“We disembark,” Grimes told her. “There’ll be no need to leave anybody aboard; the officers of major shipping companies are usually quite law-abiding people.”
Ususally,
he thought,
but not always.
He remembered suddenly the almost piratical exploits of one Captain Craven, the master
of Delta Orionis,
to which he, Grimes, had been an accessory.

“What about Drongo Kane?” asked Maggie.

“You can hardly call
him
a major shipping company,” said Grimes.

Three men were walking slowly down the merchant ship’s ramp. In the lead was a bareheaded, yellow-haired giant, heavily muscled. Following him was a tall and slender, too slender, young man. Finally—last ashore and first to board—was a portly gentleman, clothed in dignity and respectability as well as in master’s uniform. All of them wore sidearms. Grimes frowned. As a naval officer he did not like to see merchant officers going about armed to the teeth—but he knew that the Dog Star Line held quite strong views on the desirability of the ability of its ships and its personnel to defend themselves.

The door of the pinnace opened and the short ladder extended itself to the grassy ground. Grimes buckled on his belt with the holstered pistol, put on his cap and, ignoring the steps, jumped out of the small craft. He turned to assist Maggie but she ignored his hand, jumped also. Maya followed her, leaping down with feline grace. Pitcher was next, then Billard, who spoiled the effect by tripping and sprawling untidily.

Schnauzer’
s master had taken leading place now, and was advancing slowly, with his two officers a couple of paces to the rear. Unlike them he was not wearing the comfortable, utilitarian gray shorts, shirt and stockings but a white uniform, with tunic and long trousers—but portly men look their best in clothing that conceals most of the body.

He acknowledged Grimes’s salute stiffly, while his rather protuberant brown eyes flickered over the young man’s insignia of rank. He said, in a rather reedy voice, “Good afternoon, Commander.” Then, “You are the commanding officer of
Seeker?”

“Yes, Captain. Lieutenant Commander Grimes. And you, sir, are Captain Roger Danzellan, and the two gentlemen with you are Mr. Oscar Eklund, chief officer, and Mr. Francis Delamere, second officer.”

“How right you are, Commander. I realize that there is no need for me to introduce myself and my people. But as a mere merchant captain I do not have the resources of an Intelligence Service to draw upon. . . .”

Grimes took the hint and introduced Maggie, Maya, Pitcher and Billard.

“And now, Commander,” asked Danzellan, “what can I do for you?”

“If you would, sir, you can tell me what you are doing here.”

“Trade, Commander, trade. This is a competitive galaxy, although you ladies and gentlemen in the Survey Service may not find it so. My employers are not in business for the state of their health . . . .”

“Aren’t they?” inquired Maggie. “I would have thought that the state of their
financial
health was their main concern.”

“A point well taken, Commander Lazenby. Anyhow, the Dog Star Line is always ready and willing to expand its sphere of operations. When a Dog Star ship,
Corgi—
but
I imagine that you know all about
that
—stumbled upon this world, quite by chance, the reports made by her master, myself, were read with great interest by the Board of Directors. It was realized that we, as it were, have one foot well inside the door. It was decided to strike the iron while it is hot. Do you read me, Commander Grimes?”

“Loud and clear, Captain Danzellan. But tell me, what sort of trade do you hope to establish with the people of Morrowvia?”

“There are manufactured goods from a score of planets on our established routes for which there will be a demand here. For example, I have in my hold a large consignment of solar-powered refrigerators, and one of solar cookers. On the occasion of my first visit here a refrigerator was left with the, er, Queen of Melbourne. I was pleased to discover on my return that it is still working well, and even more pleased to learn that other, er, queens have seen it, and that still others have heard about it . . . .”

“You will remember, Commander Grimes,” said Maya, “that I told you about the cold box.”

“So even this lady, from Cambridge, many miles from here, has heard about it.”

“Mphm. But how are the people going to pay the freight on these quite unnecessary luxuries—and for the luxuries themselves?”

“Unnecessary luxuries, Commander? I put it to you—would
you
be prepared to sip your pre-prandial pink gin without an ice cube to make it more potable? Do
you
enjoy lukewarm beer?”

“Frankly, no, Captain. But—the question of payment . . . .”

“These are sordid details, Commander. But I have no doubt that something will be worked out.”

“No doubt at all,” commented Maggie Lazenby. “When people want something badly enough they find some way of paying for it.”