Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (80 page)

“What?” demanded Grimes.

Mayhew smiled and said softly, “You were thinking very strongly on the subject of the Princess’s privacy, sir. I respect that privacy, since it is your wish. But . . . No matter. Just don’t go looking gift horses in the mouth.”

“And what about Trojan horses?” asked Grimes. “What about the El Doradan puppies, with their lethal pets, who’ll be infesting our ships?”

“Those who have invested in the project,” said Mayhew, “not unnaturally wish their investment to be protected. The Trojan horses, as you refer to them, are one means of doing this. There are other methods, less immediate but effective nonetheless. Baron Takada’s net is flung wide, very wide. Should a liaison officer defect or be rendered ineffective, should his deadly pet be somehow destroyed without the subsequent destruction of all around it, then the lucky ship would find itself to be an extremely unlucky one, unable to find a market for its stolen goods, harried by officialdom throughout the galaxy.”

“Perhaps,” said Grimes. “Oh, you didn’t include the Baroness in your run-down . . .”

Mayhew laughed. “You have a friend there, John. A very good one. But like all the other El Doradans she loves money. Too, she is a jealous woman. For whose benefit did she dress the way she did for Her Grace’s dinner party? And then—with whom did you go for a swim—sorry, walk—in the conservatory?”

“She was playing cards,” said Grimes. “
And
she had her husband in tow.”

“And as I said, she is a jealous woman. And now, sir, there are matters of immediate concern. The natives are becoming restless.”

“What natives?”

“Your own crew, Captain. Oh, I didn’t have to do any snooping. I just flapped my ears in what you would describe as the normal, human manner. The Green Hornet’s the most outspoken. At dinner tonight she went off at the deep end. ‘What about shore leave? It’s all right for His Survey Service High and Mightiness, and his two pets, to go wining and dining with the snobocracy, but what about
us
! Stuck aboard this stinking ship and told that the entire bloody planet’s off limits to us. I’ve a good mind to take one of the boats to fly to that city of theirs!’ The junior engineers, both departments, were with her. Venner told her to shut up. She tried to pull rank on him. Then Malleson and Crumley ordered their people to have nothing to do with getting a boat ready. But even they are resentful at being confined to the ship. So is old Mr. Stewart.”

“I’ll see what I can do about it in the morning,” said Grimes.

“You’d better, Captain. One of the things that the Green Hornet shouted was, ‘If he’s not bloody careful he’ll have another bloody mutiny on his hands!’ “

“Mutinies,” said Grimes coldly, “are usually a result of too much shore leave. It happened to Bligh. It happened to me, in
Discovery
. But I admit that I should have raised the point with Kane. It’d be useless talking to that tin Port Captain about it.”

Chapter 28

THE NEXT MORNING,
after a leisurely breakfast in his quarters, Grimes went ashore to the Port Office to make his telephone calls. First he got through to the Duchess, thanking her for a very enjoyable evening and apologizing for any inconvenience that he may have caused. She thanked him for the pleasure of his company and assured him that no great damage had been done to the lilies and told him that his evening clothes, cleaned and pressed, would very shortly be sent out to him. She hoped that she would be seeing him again shortly and asked him to present her best wishes to Mr. Williams and Ms. Granadu.

Then he called Kane.

“Yes, Grimesy-boy? Are you dried out yet?”

Grimes ignored this. He said, “You’re the naval authority on this world, Commodore. I’m asking you if it would be possible for my crew to have any shore leave.”

“It’s a pity that you aren’t at Port Kane, Grimesy. I’ve set up some quite good entertainment facilities there for the privateers. A bar, a cabaret . . . manned—or womanned—by volunteers. It’s surprising how many of the local ladies don’t mind a night’s slumming among the drunken and licentious spacemen. But Port Kane’s a long way from Port Bluewater, isn’t it? Oh, how’s your discharge going, by the way?”

“It isn’t,” said Grimes.

“Too bad. Haven’t you made your mind up yet? If you did,
the right way, that is
, you and your boys would soon be wallowing in the fleshpots of Port Kane.
And
you’d be a commodore, like me. Doesn’t that tempt you?”

“Not especially,” Grimes said.

“Stubborn bastard, aren’t you?” remarked Kane. “Face the facts, Grimes. As an owner-master you’re finished—unless you charter your ship and hire your services to me. You don’t like the Hallicheki. (Who does?) Why not turn your dislike into money?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Grimes. “Meanwhile, what about shore leave for my personnel?”

“I’ll fix it,” said Kane. “I’m a spaceman myself and I know what it’s like being stuck aboard the ship when you’re in port.”

***

Grimes called the Schloss Stolzberg.

The face of a pewter-visaged servitor appeared on the screen. Then the Princess put in her appearance. Grimes wondered how it had been that he had thought her dowdy. She had matured—but why should she not have done so? Her blue eyes were far from cold. (Whatever had given him the idea that they were?) She smiled at him from inside the screen.

“John! It was fun last night, wasn’t it?”

“I trust that you suffered no ill effects, Your Highness.”

She laughed. “Shall we forget the titles? I’ll call you John, not Captain. You may call me Marlene. When can you come out to stay with me again?”

“My time is my own,” said Grimes. “I’m owner as well as master.”

Her expression clouded briefly. She said, “At the moment I’m rather tied up. Perhaps after you’ve shifted your ship from Port Bluewater to Port Kane . . .”

He said, “I have to finish discharge first. In any case I still haven’t said that I’m willing to join Drongo Kane’s private navy.”

“But you’ve no option,” she said. “Have you? There is nobody else whom I can trust to look after Ferdinand.”

Grimes winced. “Tell me,” he asked, “why
that
name?”

“Don’t you like it, John?”

“Frankly, no.”

“It is one that has been in my family, on my mother’s side, for a very long time. Even you will admit that the Graf Ferdinand von Zeppelin was illustrious. My Ferdinand—
your
Ferdinand—is descended from an aeronaut. He is an astronaut.

“Is it not, somehow, fitting?”

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes.

Chapter 29

SHORE LEAVE WAS ARRANGED
for that evening.

“You’d better go with the boys, Captain,” said Mayhew. “If it’s going to be as grim as I think that it will be you’ll have to be seen sharing the vicissitudes of your gallant crew. I’ll come along too. I’m not officially on your Articles but I don’t think that anybody will notice.”

“Very noble of you,” grunted Grimes.

“I shall find it interesting,” said the telepath.

Williams—lucky man, although he did not know it yet—was shipkeeping. Magda Granadu had elected to keep him company. Mr. Singh, sulking hard, was remaining on board to look after the essential services. There was small likelihood that anything would fail, but Grimes had modeled his own, Far Traveler Couriers, regulations on those of the Federation Survey Service.

The liberty party, attired in a variety of civilian clothing, was waiting at the foot of the ramp when the Wilberforce air car came to pick them up.
Not the sort of company I’d choose for a night ashore,
thought Grimes snobbishly. The Green Hornet, in an outfit of slightly soiled scarlet flounces, was talking with Denning and Paulus, the first in a suit of garish plaid, the other in a shirt of poisonous green with a bright orange kilt and sagging socks of the same color. A not very high-class tart, Grimes thought, trying to entice two honest mechanics enjoying a night out in the big city into her brothel . . . And Venner, in rusty black, could have been a bouncer from the same establishment. Trantor and Giddings, Malleson’s juniors, were holding themselves aloof from the others, already trying to put the message across,
We don’t really belong with this mob.
They were neatly, too neatly attired in conservative dark grey with gleaming white shirts and black cravats. Malleson was every inch the tweedy, absent-minded professor. Old Mr. Crumley and old Mr. Stewart, both coincidentally rigged out in dusty brown, looked as though they should be occupying rocking chairs on the porch of a senior citizens’ home. Mayhew, grey-clad, was also wearing his senior clerk persona. Grimes himself was looking smart enough in sharply creased white trousers over which was a high-collared black tunic with, on its left breast, his own badge, the horse and rider worked in gold.

The big air car, almost an air bus, came bumbling in from the north. This was no fantastically silent, superbly styled, pseudo Rolls Royce. It was, essentially, only an oblong box on wheels. It dropped down for a clumping, graceless landing. The robot chauffeur remained in his seat although he did condescend to press the button that opened the doors. The officers boarded the vehicle, Grimes last of all. He sat with Malleson and Mayhew on the rear transverse seat. Before he was properly settled the air car lifted. The sonic insulation was of very poor quality and the cacophony of the inertial drive unit inhibited conversation. Nonetheless Malleson tried to talk.

“This Countess of Wilberforce, Captain . . . Do you know her?”

“No,” Grimes almost shouted. “But I know of her.”

“What’s she like?”

“Filthy rich, like everybody else here.”

“Why has she invited us to her bunstruggle?”

“Charity.”

“Charity?”

“She’s a notorious do-gooder.”

“What have you got us into, Captain?”

“You all wanted shore leave, Chief. This was the only way that I could arrange it.”

Conversation lapsed.

Grimes looked glumly out of the window, at the twilit landscape below, sliding rapidly astern. He could not see ahead but he could tell that the car was now descending. Jarring contact was made with the road surface and the vehicle rolled along the broad avenue with the mansions, each in its own extensive grounds, on either side. It turned into a driveway, shuddered to a halt.

Wilberforce Hall was a red brick building of three stories, graceless but without enough character to be actually ugly. Inside the open main doorway stood one of the inevitable robot butlers and with him a tall, thin woman, black-gowned but with touches of white at throat and wrists. Her dark hair was scraped back from a high, pale forehead. Her bulging, pale grey eyes were set too close together over a beaky nose. Her mouth was small, the lips wrinkled. Her chin was almost nonexistent.

“Come in, boys and girls!” she cried in a high, sickeningly playful voice. She tittered. “Sorry. Boys and
girl
I should have said!”

Grimes made the introductions. He and the others were led into a chilly hall where there were hard chairs and little tables, where a few girls, mercifully prettier than their hostess, brought them weak tea and plates of uninteresting sandwiches and hard little cakes.

Grimes, with Malleson, Crumley and Stewart, sat at a table with the Countess.

“It is so good to have you here, Captain,” she gushed. “I have been blessed with wealth and I feel that it is my responsibility to bring joy to others.”

“Mphm.” Grimes pulled out his pipe and tobacco pouch from a pocket, began to fill the former.

“Please don’t think me stuffy,” said the Countess, “but I would be so pleased if you wouldn’t smoke, Captain. You are doing your lungs no good, you know, and there is even the possibility of brain damage . . .”

Grimes put his pipe away.

“And we have such a treat for you this evening. As you may know I am the patroness of a number of missionary societies. Bishop Davis has very kindly sent me records of the work of his people among the Carolines . . .”

The Carolines? Yes, Grimes recalled having read about them. They were a lost colony, descended from the survivors of a long-ago wreck, that of the gaussjammer
Lode Caroline
. They had been fortunate enough to make their landing on an almost paradisal world, one on which nature was kind, too kind perhaps. They had lived there happily, latter day lotus-eaters, until the Survey Service’s exploration ship
Starfinder
had stumbled upon their planet. Their “lotus,” a fleshy leaved plant which was their staple diet, had been investigated by
Starfinder’s
scientists. Its organic chemistry was such that synthesis of the complex amino acids would be almost impossible. Daily ingestion of the leaves—raw, or cooked in various ways, or mashed and fermented to make a sort of sweet beer—ensured longevity, freedom from all minor and some major ills and, as a not unpleasant side effect, a state of continuous mild euphoria.

New Caroline was now a commercially important world.

And, thought Grimes, almost certainly the El Dorado Corporation had a dirty finger in that financial pie.

Two robot servants pulled aside the heavy drapes that covered one of the walls of the hall, revealing a huge playmaster screen. As this came to glowing life, depicting a green, blue and gold sphere slowly spinning in space, the lights in the room dimmed.

A sonorous voice announced, “New Caroline—where every prospect pleases but only man is vile. Where only man
was
vile until our coming, until we, of the New Reformed Missionary Alliance were able to bring to the unhappy people the Way, the Truth and the Light . . .

“The Federation Survey Service has made available to us records taken by the personnel of
Starfinder
. These we show you so that you may judge for yourselves the depravity of the Lost Colonists, the degradation from which we have rescued them.”

The planetary globe faded from the screen, was replaced by a village by a wide river, huts of adobe, grass roofed. The time seemed to be late afternoon. A woman emerged from one of the huts, raised her arms and yawned widely. Her teeth were very white against the red of her mouth, the dark, golden tan of her face. She was naked, firmly plump rather than fat. (The Countess looked reprovingly at Grimes as, at one of the other tables, Denning whistled loudly and Paulus remarked, in a carrying whisper, “A lovely dollop of trollop . . .”) She sauntered to a clump of purplish vegetation, almost like a huge artichoke, growing between her hut and its neighbor. She broke off the tip of a succulent leaf, brought it to her mouth, chewed slowly. She spat out a wad of fibrous pulp.