First Command (63 page)

Then
The Far Traveler
came to Botany Bay.

She was not a big ship but large for what she was, a deep-space yacht. Her home port—Grimes had ascertained during the preliminary radio conversations with her master—was Port Bluewater on El Dorado. That made sense. Only the filthy rich could afford space yachts—and El Dorado was known as the Planet of the Filthy Rich. Grimes had been there once, a junior officer in the Zodiac Class cruiser
Aries.
He had been made to feel like a snotty-nosed urchin from the wrong side of the tracks. He had been told, though, that he would be welcome to return—but only after he had made his first billion credits. He did not think it at all likely that he ever would return.

The Far Traveler
dropped down through the clear, early morning sky, the irregular beat of her inertial drive swelling from an irritable mutter to an almost deafening clatter as she fell. The rays of the rising sun were reflected dazzlingly from her burnished hull. There was a peculiarly yellow quality to the mirrored light

Grimes stood on the uppermost tier of the big grandstand watching her and, between times, casting an observant eye around his temporary domain. The triangle of scarlet beacons was there, well clear of the hapless
Vega,
the painfully bright flashers in vivid contrast to the dark green grass on which they stood. At the head of each of the tall flagstaffs around the Oval floated the flag of Botany Bay—blue, with red, white and blue superimposed crosses in the upper canton, a lopsided cruciform constellation of silver stars at the fly.

He was joined by the Deputy Port Captain. Skipper Wheeldon was not a spaceman—yet. He had been master of one of the big dirigibles that handled most of Botany Bay’s airborne commerce. But he wanted to learn and already possessed a good grasp of spaceport procedure.

He said, “She’s comin’ in nicely, sir.”

Grimes grunted dubiously. He made a major production of filling and lighting his pipe. He said, speaking around the stem, “If I were that captain I’d be applying more lateral thrust to compensate for windage. Can’t he see that he’s sagging badly to leeward? If he’s not careful he’ll be sitting down on top of
Vega . . .
”

He raised the wrist upon which he wore the portable transceiver to his mouth—but before he could speak it seemed almost as though the yacht master had overheard Grimes’ remarks to Wheeldon. The note of the inertial drive suddenly changed, the beat becoming more rapid as the incoming ship added a lateral component to her controlled descent

She was falling slowly now, very slowly, finally hovering a scant meter above the close-cropped grass. She dropped again, almost imperceptibly. Grimes wasn’t sure that she was actually down until the inertial drive was shut off. The silence was almost immediately broken by the shouts of the picketing, bat-brandishing cricketers—kept well clear of the landing area by slouch-hatted, khaki-clad police—bawling, “Terry, go home! Spacemen, go home!”

A telescopic mast extended itself from the needle prow of the golden ship. A flag broke out from its peak—dark purple and on it, in shining gold, the CR monogram. The Galactic Credit sign—and the ensign of El Dorado.

“I suppose we’d better go down to roll out the red carpet,” said Grimes.

Chapter 2

Grimes stood at the base
of the slender golden tower that was
The Far Traveler,
waiting for the after airlock door to open, for the ramp to be extended. With him were Wheeldon and Jock Tanner, the Paddington chief of police who, until things became properly organized, would be in charge of such matters as Customs, Immigration and Port Health formalities. And there was Shirley Townsend, the Mayor’s secretary. (Mavis herself was not present. She had said, “I just might get up at sparrowfart to see a king or a queen or a president comin’ in, but I’m damned if I’ll put meself out for some rich bitch . . .”)

“Takin’ their time,” complained Tanner.

“Perhaps we should have gone round to the servants’ entrance,” said Grimes half seriously.

The outer door of the airlock slowly opened at last and, as it did so, the ramp extruded itself, a long metal tongue stretching out to lick the dew that still glistened on the grass. Like the shell-plating of the ship it was gold—or, thought Grimes, gold-plated. Either way it was ostentatious.

A man stood in the airlock chamber to receive them. He was tall and thin, and his gorgeous uniform, festoons of gold braid on dark purple, made him look like a refugee from a Strauss operetta. His lean face bore what seemed to be a permanently sour expression. Among the other gleaming encrustations on his sleeve Grimes could distinguish four gold bands. So this had to be the captain . . . And why should the captain be doing a job—the reception of port officials—usually entrusted to, at best, a senior officer?

The yachtmaster looked down at the boarding party. He seemed to decide that Grimes—wearing a slightly modified airship captain’s uniform, light blue, with four black stripes on each shoulderboard, with a cap badge on which the silver dirigible had been turned through ninety degrees to make it look like a spaceship—was in charge. He said, “Will you come aboard, please? The Baroness d’Estang will receive you in her sitting room.”

Grimes led the way up the ramp. He introduced himself. “Grimes, Acting Port Captain,” he said, extending his hand.

“Billinger—Master
de jure
but not
de facto,”
replied the other with a wry grin.

Grimes wondered what was meant by this, but discreet inquiries could be made later. He introduced his companions. Then Captain Billinger led the party into an elevator cage. He pushed no buttons—there were no buttons to push—but merely said, “Her Excellency’s suite.”

The locals were obviously impressed. Grimes was not; such voice-actuated mechanisms were common enough on the worlds with which he was familiar. The ascent was smooth, the stop without even the suspicion of a jolt. They disembarked into a vestibule, on to a thick-piled purple carpet that made a rich contrast to the golden bulkheads. A door before them slid silently open. Billinger led the way through it. He bowed to the tall, slim woman reclining on a
chaise longue
and announced, “The port officials, Your Excellency.”

“Thank you, Captain,” she replied in a silvery voice, adding, “You may go.”

Billinger bowed again, then went.

Grimes looked down at the Baroness and she up at him. She was slim yet rounded, the contours of her body revealed rather than hidden by the filmy white translucency that enrobed her. There was a hint of pink-nippled breasts, of dark pubic shadow. Her cheekbones were high, her mouth wide and firm and scarlet, her chin not overly prominent but definitely firm, her nose just short of being prominent and delicately arched. Her lustrous bronze hair was braided into a natural coronet in which flashed not-so-small diamonds. Even larger stones, in ornate gold settings, depended from the lobes of her ears.

She reminded Grimes of Goya’s
Maja—
the draped version—although her legs were much longer. And the furnishings of her sitting room must be like—he thought—the appointments of the boudoir in which that long ago and far away Spanish aristocrat had posed for the artist. Certainly there was nothing in these surroundings that even remotely suggested a spaceship.

He was abruptly conscious of his off-the-peg uniform, of his far from handsome face, his prominent ears. He felt these blushing hotly, a sure sign of embarrassment.

She said sweetly, “Please sit down, Acting Port Captain. I assume that the rank is both
de facto
and
de jure. . .”
She smiled fleetingly. “And you, Deputy Port Captain. And you, City Constable. And, of course, Miss Townsend . . .”

“How did you . . . ?” began Shirley. (It came out as “ ‘Ow did yer . . . ?”) “That
de facto
and
de jure
business, I mean . . .”

“I heard, and watched, the introductions at the airlock,” said the Baroness, waving a slim, long hand toward what looked like a normal although ornately gold-framed mirror.

The police officer fidgeted on the edge of a spindly-legged chair that looked as though it was about to collapse, at any moment, under his weight. He said, “If you’ll excuse me, Baroness, I’ll go an’ see the skipper about the port formalities. . .”

“They will be handled here,” said the Baroness firmly. She did not actually finish the sentence with “my man” but the unspoken words hung in the faintly scented air. She went on, “I have always considered any of my business too important to be left to underlings.” She clapped her hands. A man dressed in archaic servant’s livery—white, frilled shirt, scarlet, brass-buttoned waistcoat, black knee-breeches, white stockings, black, gold-buckled shoes—entered silently. A man? No. He was, Grimes realized, one of those uncannily humanoid serving robots with which he had become familiar during his visit to El Dorado, years ago. He—it?—was carrying folders of documents—clearances, crew and passenger lists, declarations, store lists and manifests. Without hesitation he handed the papers to the City Constable.

“Is he
all
gold?” asked Shirley in an awed voice. “Under his clothes and all?”

“Yes,” the Baroness told her. Then, speaking generally, “Will you take refreshment? There is coffee, if you wish, or tea, or wine. I know that, by your time, it is early in the day—but I have never known Spumante Vitelli to come amiss at any hour of the clock.”

“Spumante Vitelli?” asked Shirley Townsend, determinedly talkative. “Sounds like an emetic . . .”

“It’s an El Doradan sparkling wine,” Grimes said hastily. “From Count Vitelli’s vineyards.”

“You know El Dorado, Port Captain?” asked the Baroness, polite but condescending surprise in her voice.

“I was there,” said Grimes. “Some years ago.”

“But this is a Lost Colony. You have had no facilities for space travel since the founders made their chance landing.”

“Commander Grimes is out of the Federation’s Survey Service,” said Jock Tanner.

“Indeed?” The fine eyebrows arched over the dark violet eyes. “Indeed?
Commander
Grimes? There was—I recall—a Lieutenant Grimes . . .”

“There was,” said Grimes. “Me.” Then—the memories were flooding back—“You must know the Princess Marlene von Stoizberg, Your Excellency.”

The Baroness laughed. “Not intimately, Port Captain or Commander. She’s too much of the hausfrau, fat and dowdy, for my taste.”

“Hausfrau?” echoed Grimes bewilderedly. That was not how he recalled Marlene.

“Many women change,” said the Baroness, “and not always for the better when they become mothers.” She went on maliciously, “And what about the father of the child? As I recall it, there was quite a scandal. You, and dear Marlene, and that mad old Duchess, and poor Henri . . . It’s a small universe, John Grimes, but I never did meet you on El Dorado and I never dreamed that I should meet you here.

The robot servitor was back, bearing a golden (of course) tray on which was a golden ice bucket, in it a magnum of the Spumante, and gold-rimmed crystal goblets. He poured, serving his mistress first. Glasses of the sparkling, pale golden wine were raised in salute; sipped from.

“Not a bad drop o’ plonk,” said Shirley, speaking with deliberate coarseness.

Jock Tanner, doing his best to divert attention from her, put his glass down on the richly carpeted deck, picked up a sheaf of the papers. “John,” he said, “You know more about these things than I do . . . This clearance from Tallifer . . . Shouldn’t it have been signed by the Chief Medical Officer?”

“Not necessarily,” said Grimes, putting down his own glass and getting up from his chair, walking across to the police officers. “But I think we’d better get Shirley—she’s used to wading through bumf—to make sure that everything has been signed by a responsible official.”

“Orl right,” grumbled the girl. “Orl right.” She drained her glass, belched delicately, joined Grimes and Tanner. The hapless Wheeldon, out of his social depth and floundering, was left to make polite conversation with the Baroness.

Shortly thereafter
The Far Traveler
was granted her Inward Clearance and the boarding party trooped down the golden gangway to the honest turf.

Chapter 3

“You do have posh friends,
John,” said Shirley Townsend as soon as they were down and off the ramp.

“I didn’t have any friends on El Dorado,” said Grimes, not altogether truthfully and with a note of bitterness in his voice.

Captain Billinger was relaxing. He still looked far from happy but his long face had lost some of the lines of strain. He had changed from his fancy dress uniform into more or less sober civilian attire—a bright orange shirt tucked into a kilt displaying an improbable looking tartan in which a poisonous green predominated, highly polished scarlet knee-boots. He was sitting with Grimes at a table in the saloon bar of the Red Kangaroo.

He gulped beer noisily. “Boy,” he said, “boy, oh boy!. Am I ever glad to get off that rich bitch’s toy ship!”

“But you’re rich yourself, surely,” said Grimes. “You must be, to be an El Doradan . . .”

“Ha! Me an El Doradan! That’d be the sunny Friday! No, Captain, I’m just a poor but reasonably honest Dog Star Line second mate.
Beagle
happened to be on Electra when her ladyship was there to take delivery of her super-duper yacht. Seems that she came there in an El Doradan ship—they do have ships, you know, and a few playboy spacemen to run ‘em—and assumed that she’d be allowed to lift off in her own fully automated vessel without having a qualified human master on board. But Lloyds’—may the Odd Gods of the Galaxy rot them—cotton socks!—got into the act. No duly certificated master astronaut on the Register, no insurance cover. But money talks, as always. More than a couple or three Dog Star line shares are held by her high and mightiness. So the Old Man got an urgent Carlottigram from Head Office—I’d like to know what it said!—and, immediately after receipt, yelled for me and then turned on the hard sell. Not that there was any need for it. The offer of a Master’s berth at well above
our
Award rates for the rank . . . Only a yachtmaster, it’s true—but master nonetheless and bloody well paid. Like a mug, I jumped at it. Little did I know . . .” He slurped down the remains of his beer and waved two fingers at the near-naked, plumply attractive blonde waitress to order refills.