Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (73 page)

Venner, the new third officer, was obviously an experienced spaceman. Kate Connellan was slightly less surly than ususal; she must, thought Grimes, have been able to blow off steam in some way during the ship’s stay in port. Williams was cheerfully competent. Old Mr. Stewart, manning the control-room NST transceiver, knew the drill. (At his age he should have.)

Mayhew occupied one of the spare seats, a privilege now and again accorded to passengers. He had assumed his senior-clerk-on-vacation persona and was asking stupid questions as part of his cover.

The ship drove up into the clear sky, her inertial drive thudding healthily. The altimeter readings displayed in the sternview screen shifted from meters to kilometers, mounted steadily. The picture of the spaceport diminished, faster and faster, became no more than white and silver specks on the ruddy desert. More desert, but with great green squares of artificial irrigation, came into view to the north while to the south were the dark waters of the Great Australian Blight. The horizon acquired curvature. Grimes looked out through the viewports. He thought that he could distinguish in the distance, the city of Alice Springs. In the opposite direction he could see the white glimmer of the Antarctic Ice Barrier.

Sister Sue
was in space, clear of the atmosphere, plunging through the Van Allens. It was almost time to set trajectory.

The inertial drive was shut down; the ship had built enough velocity for her to continue to fall outward. The big directional gyroscopes turned her about her axes until the target star was lined up directly ahead. There was a small adjustment for galactic drift.

Grimes actuated the Mannschenn Drive.

There were the usual eerie effects as the temporal precession field built up—but, in Grimes’ case, with a difference. He did not see anything but he heard a voice. His? It could have been, although it was not tuneless enough. It was singing the old song, The Ballad of Captain Kidd, with which he had afflicted his father’s ears during that talk about privateers.

“I murdered William Moore as I sailed, as I sailed,

I murdered William Moore as I sailed,

I knocked him on the head

Till he bled the scuppers red

And I heaved him with the lead

As I sailed . . .”

The voice faded to a whisper as inside the control room colors returned to normal and the warped perspective straightened itself out. The only sound was the thin, high whine of the ever-precessing rotors of the interstellar drive. Grimes restarted the inertial drive machinery and again there were
up
and
down
and the sensation of weight engendered by the steady acceleration.

He realized that Mayhew was looking at him. An ironical smile quirked the telepath’s lips.

See you on Execution Dock, Captain . . .

The words formed themselves in Grimes’ mind.

He glared at Mayhew and thought, willing himself to transmit,
Very funny. Very bloody funny.

Mayhew grinned.

***

After watches had been set Grimes invited Mayhew down to his cabin for a drink.

Before either man could set glass to lip he demanded, “What did
you
see, Mr. Mayhew? What did
you
hear?”

“What you did, Captain. Oh, I wasn’t snooping. I wasn’t trying to get inside your mind. But you were . . . broadcasting so strongly that I couldn’t help picking up the words of that song. If it’s any comfort to you I’ve looked through your crew list and there aren’t any William Moores.”

“There could be,” said Grimes, “at some future date. But I hope not.”

Mayhew sipped his gin then said, “I’m assuming, sir, that you wish me to function as a PCO does aboard a Federation Survey Service warship.”

“I suppose that that’s one of the reasons why Admiral Damien seconded you to me. But snooping is part of a PCO’s duties of which I’ve never approved. Especially when it’s against my own crew, my own shipmates.”

“If you hadn’t been so squeamish, sir, the
Discovery
mutiny might never have happened.”

“You could be right, Mr. Mayhew. Mphm. But I still wish you to adhere to the Rhine Institute’s Code of Ethics, at least insofar as this ship is concerned.”

“If you insist, Captain.”

“And as for your real duties, Mr. Mayhew, how is it that you don’t have a psionic amplifier with you? I’ve never liked those naked dogs’ brains in their tanks of nutrient fluid but I know that you can’t function without them, not over any great range, that is.”

Mayhew smiled. “It would hardly do for a mere passenger, a chief clerk blowing his life’s savings on an interstellar voyage, to have such a pet. But I do have a psionic amplifier.” He tapped his forehead with a long index finger. “Here. You know, of course, that there are such things as telepathic robots. There aren’t many of them, mainly because they’re so fantastically expensive. And the tiny piece of miniaturized circuitry that I now carry was more expensive still. And it has a limited life.”

“Will it last until such time as you have to get in touch with your colleague aboard the . . . incident ship?”

“I hope so.” Mayhew held out his empty glass. Grimes refilled it, topped up his own. “I hope so.”

“Now, Mr. Mayhew,” said Grimes, “I’m going to break one of my own rules. Your mention of the
Discovery
mutiny is why. I’m going to ask you what you, as a professional telepath, think of this ship, of her people.”

For what seemed a long time Mayhew said nothing, sipping his drink thoughtfully.

Then he murmured, “You’ve a good second in command, sir. He’s one of those men who must have a leader to whom to be loyal—and now you’re it. But he’s loyal, too, to his principles. Never forget that.

“Your second officer. The Green Hornet. She’s a vicious bitch. Her only loyalty is to herself. Watch her.

“Your third, Venner, I know him personally. He’s not really a Reservist, you know. That’s just part of his cover. Oh, he ships out as a merchant spaceman, just as he has with you, but he’s really employed, full time, by the Intelligence Branch of the Survey Service. As a hit man. His loyalties are to his real employers, not to you. If he were ordered to terminate you with extreme prejudice he would do just that.”

“I’d guessed as much,” said Grimes.

“And now, your catering officer,” went on Mayhew. “In her you have a gem. Like Williams, she’s loyal. And—this could be of real value—she has the power.”

“What power?”

“Prevision. Some of her kind use cards, either ordinary playing cards or the Tarot pack. Some read teacups. Some look into crystal balls. Oh, as you know, there are all sorts of lenses that can be used to focus attention on the future, on to the most probable of an infinitude of possible futures. She uses the
I Ching
.”

“I know. She threw the coins for herself before this voyage started. She told me about it. Something about it’s not being advantageous to make a move in any direction. And small men multiplying and having far too much to say for themselves. And the only course of action being just to ride it out and to hope for better times . . .”

Mayhew laughed. “And it’s true—but in a funny, quite trivial way. She’s a good catering officer but the way that she programs the autochef the meals are too fancy for some of the juniors. And every time that she tried to turn out something plain it’s . . . uninspired. For example . . .” He frowned in concentration and said, “I’m snooping, Captain. With your permission, I hope. Two of your junior engineers are wondering what they’re going to get for lunch. One of them has just said to the other, ‘I suppose that the Romany Queen will be giving us more of her foreign, mucked-up tucker!’ And the other’s replied, ‘I must have lost at least ten kilograms since I joined this bloody ship!’”

“If that’s who I think it is,” growled Grimes, “he’s as fat as a pig. And getting fatter.”

“It could be glandular,” said Mayhew.

“Once you’ve seen him eating you’ll not think that.”

“And now he’s saying, ‘Of course, she’s the Old Man’s pet . . .’”

“Enough,” said Grimes. “Enough. Carry on with the rundown, please.”

“All right, sir. Listeners seldom hear good of themselves, do they? Now, old Mr. Stewart. My electronic rival. As long as he has his toys to play with, he’s happy. He’d be radio officer for anybody, in any ship in any service, and ask no questions. If Sir Henry Morgan had been blessed with radio your Mr. Stewart would have been as content in his ship as he is here, just sending and receiving as ordered.

“The other old-timer, Mr. Crumley, your inertial/reaction chief . . . A rather similar type to Stewart. A ship, any ship on any trade, is no more than a platform on which his precious engines are mounted.

“Now, his juniors. Denning, Singh and Paulus. They’re all little men. Not physically little necessarily—but
little
. They resent having to take orders—yours, their chief’s, anybody’s. They hate having to wear a uniform and mutter about your Survey Service bullshit. But I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with them on El Dorado when—if?—Drongo Kane recruits you and the ship for his privateer navy. Privateering can be a very lucrative business and, when the victims are unarmed merchantmen, almost without risk.

“Malleson, your Mannschenn Drive king . . . Similar to Crumley and Stewart but—he kids himself—on a far higher plane. He’s a master mathematician whereas the other two are mere mechanics. He likes money, so he’ll not object to privateering. His loyalty? Essentially only to that weird, time-twisting contraption in the Mannschenn Drive room.

“Trantor and Giddings . . . Little men again, hating authority, intellectual snobs who look down on rough, half-educated spacemen such as yourself. And Malleson they regard as an old has-been. But for all their intellectual veneer they’re out of the same barrel as Denning, Singh and Paulus.

“All in all, Captain, not the best of crews to go privateering with.”

Grimes laughed. “Competence at their jobs is all I can ask. As for their characters—well, the average privateersman must have been actuated by greed rather than by patriotism. But Billy Williams and Magda . . .
They
have principles . . .”

“As you do. You’ll just have to convince them that we shall be fighting on the right side.”

“I shall have to convince myself as well.”

“No. You, sir, will just be taking orders—as Venner and myself will be. You’re an officer of the Reserve recalled to active duty. You should have thought of all the implications when you accepted that commission.”

“It seemed a good idea at the time,” said Grimes.

Chapter 19

THE VOYAGE FROM AUSTRAL
to Earth had been a short one, barely long enough for
Sister Sue’s
people to get to know the ship and each other. That from Earth to El Dorado occupied all of two standard months. Dislikes that had been engendered on that initial trip now had ample time to develop, to fester. Grimes did not need Mayhew’s psionic snooping to make him aware of the lack of harmony. Continually, it seemed, there was somebody at his door to complain about somebody else. The Green Hornet was a frequent visitor. According to her everybody aboard the ship was a male chauvinist pig, with the obvious exception of Magda Granadu. She was even more contemptible; she had sold out to the enemy, was a traitor to her sex. Then there were the inertial/reaction drive juniors with their never-ending whinges about the food, and the Mannschenn Drive juniors to lay complaint about the table manners, in the duty engineers’ mess, of those whom they despised as mere mechanics. There were squabbles all the time about what programs should be shown on the playmaster. Even Williams—and it took a lot to ruffle him—said his piece. He practically demanded that Kate Connellan be paid off on El Dorado.

“I’d like to do it, Billy,” said Grimes. “By all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy I’d like to do it! But she’s a Guild member, just as you and I and Mr. Venner are. Unless she does something justifying instant dismissal we’re stuck with her. Even then, I doubt if the El Doradans would allow us to turn her loose on their precious planet. They’re very fussy.”

“You’ve been there, Skipper, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Once, years ago. When I was a very junior lieutenant in the cruiser
Aries
. The El Doradans were polite enough but they made it quite plain that we, from the Old Man down, were no more than snotty-nosed kids from the wrong side of the tracks . . .”

That wasn’t quite true, thought Grimes, remembering. The old Duchess of Leckhampton had been kind enough to him—and the Princess Marlene von Stolzberg rather more than kind. But they had used him, nonetheless. Still, he had been told that he could return to El Dorado to become a citizen once he had made his first billion credits . . . The two main requirements for citizenship were noble ancestry and money—and of them money was by far the more important. Titles can be purchased. Grimes wondered how much Drongo Kane, Commodore Baron Kane, had paid for his . . .

“But you’re a shipowner, now, Skipper,” said Williams, “not a mere hairy-arsed spaceman.”

“But I’m not a
rich
shipowner, Billy . . .”

And Drongo Kane, of course, was a rich shipowner. And, being Drongo Kane, wanted to be richer still.

“What’s El Dorado
like
, Skipper?”

“It’s a garden world, Billy. Huge estates, with mansions and even castles. At least one of those castles was shipped, stone by stone, from Earth. Schloss Stolzberg. I was a guest there.”

“And who was your host? Some crusty old Prussian baron?”

“No. As a matter of fact it was a very charming princess.”

“And yet you say that you were treated like a snotty-nosed kid from the wrong side of the tracks?”

“No. Not
treated
like. After all, aristocrats have very good manners when they care to exercise them.
Regarded as
would be a better way of putting it. And we were welcome only because they wanted something from us. Once they got it, it was on your bicycle, spaceman!”

The telephone on Grimes’ desk buzzed sharply.

“Yes?” he demanded.