Ride the Star Winds (38 page)

“Toy soldiers?” asked Grimes. “Oh, they probably wouldn’t be a match for an equal number of Federation Space Marines, but against ordinary troops they’d give a very good account of themselves.”

“You really think that?”

“I do.”

There was a brief silence, broken only by the happy squeals of the serving wench who had been looking after Paulus and Jason. Of the serving wenches, rather. The original girl had been joined by another, equally coarsely attractive. The pair of them were sitting on the bodyguards’ laps, fondling and being fondled. Grimes filled and lit his pipe, looking toward the door to the street as he did so. He saw the women enter, six of them. A fat blonde, a tall, skinny redhead, four very nondescript brunettes. They were dressed, all of them, in rather tawdry finery, with chaplets of imitation vine leaves intertwined with their tousled hair, latter-day bacchantes—or a sextet of working girls enjoying a night on the tiles. They did not seem to be sober, lurching and staggering as they made their way across the floor, giggling and nudging each other.

“Women,” muttered Brasidus, “cannot drink with dignity.”

Not only women,
thought Grimes, although he was inclined to the opinion that drunken men are somewhat less of a nuisance.

The fat blonde failed successfully to negotiate the quite generous space between Grimes’s table and that at which the two bodyguards were sitting. Her heavy, well-padded hip almost shoved Grimes off his chair. “Gerrout o’ my way, you barshtard . . .” she slurred, glaring at him out of piggy blue eyes that, the Commodore suddenly realized, looked more sober than otherwise. Two of the other women had gotten themselves entangled with Brasidus. Wine bottle and glasses were overset.

Simultaneously, Jason and Paulus were having their troubles. Their chairs had gone over backwards and they were sprawled on the floor, their limbs entangled with those of their female companions. They were trying to get their pistols out from the concealed holsters, but without success.

The corpulent innkeeper came bustling up. “Citizens! Citizens! I must implore you to keep the peace!”

“Keep a piece of this!” snarled the redhead, cracking him smartly across the brow with a wine bottle.

Grimes tried to get to his feet but two of the brunettes pounced on him, bore him to the floor. They were surprisingly well-muscled wenches. Their hard feet thudded into his ribs and belly. He had enough presence of mind to protect his testicles with his hands—but that left his head uncovered. A calloused heel struck him just behind the right ear and, briefly, he lost consciousness. Then dimly he was aware of the scuffling around him and the voice of the fat woman—no trace of drunkenness now—saying sharply, “Now! While he’s still out!”

But I’m not still out,
thought Grimes, not realizing at first that she was not talking about him.

He was no longer out but those two useless bodyguards were, jabbed with needles loaded with some kind of drug by the tavern wenches. He was no longer out and he raised himself on his hands and knees, in time to see the six women—no, the eight women; they had been joined by the two serving girls—hurrying through the door to the street with Brasidus supported between them. None of the inn’s patrons had made any move to interfere. Why should they? Drunken brawls were not uncommon.

Somehow he got to his feet. He started toward the door and then hesitated. Unarmed he was no match for no less than eight hefty, vicious wenches. He stumbled to where Paulus was sprawled, face down, on the floor. He fell to his knees, fumbled in the man’s clothing. He found the concealed holster almost at once, pulled out the pistol. He checked that it was loaded, cocked the weapon. He had by now recovered sufficiently to run, albeit painfully, to the door.

To his surprise he did not have to look far to find the kidnappers. They were standing there, all eight of them, in the middle of the poorly lighted street, still supporting the unconscious Archon between them.

“Freeze!” yelled Grimes, waving the Minetti.

They turned to look at him but otherwise made no move.

“Release him! At once!”

“If that’s the way you want it, buster,” said the fat blonde.

The women stepped away from Brasidus. Fantastically his body remained upright. Even more fantastically it seemed to elongate, as though the Archon were becoming taller with every passing second. Grimes stared incredulously. He heard, then, the faint humming of a winch. He looked up and saw, at no great altitude, a dark gray against the black of the night sky, the bulk of a small airship. He started to run forward, to try to grab the feet of his friend. Somebody tripped him. He fell heavily but, luckily for him, retained his grip on the pistol. He sensed that the kidnappers were closing in around him and fired at random, not a full, wasteful burst but spaced shots. Surely, in this scrum, he must get somebody in the legs.

He heard a yelp of pain, then another.

He got to his feet.

Nobody stopped him.

There was nobody there to stop him.

He looked up.

The dirigible was gone, presumably with Brasidus a prisoner in its cabin.

He looked around.

The dirt of the road surface had been scuffed by the struggle. In two places there were dark, glistening stains. Blood. But the women had melted into the shadows, taking their wounded with them. He hoped that the fat bitch was among the casualties.

There was the sound of approaching, running feet. He turned in that direction, holding the pistol ready. He saw who was coming, three policemen, what little light there was reflected from their polished black leather and stainless steel.

Hastily Grimes put the gun into a pocket.

The leading police officer shone his torch full on Grimes’s face, although not before the Commodore had noticed that he was holding a stungun in his other hand.

He said disgustedly, “
You
again.” Grimes thought that he recognized the voice. He went on, “I heard shots. There has obviously been some sort of struggle here. What have you been doing?”

“I haven’t been doing anything,” said Grimes virtuously if not quite accurately. He tried to fit a name to the owner of the voice. “Sergeant Priam, isn’t it? Would you mind not shining that light into my eyes?”

“Certainly, sir. Commodore, sir. And now would you mind telling me what in Zeus’s name has been going on?”

“A kidnapping. The Archon. He was snatched by a gang of women, carried away in an airship. No, I didn’t get any registration marks or numbers. The thing wasn’t carrying lights.”

The beam of the sergeant’s torch was directed downward.

“And this blood. Whose is it? The Archon’s?”

“There was a struggle, as you can see. One or two of the women got hurt.”

“You shot them.”

“It was better,” said Grimes, “than having my head kicked in.”

“Let me have the weapon, sir.”

Grimes shrugged and passed the weapon over.

He said, “It’s not mine. It belongs to one of the Archon’s bodyguards.”

“And where are they?”

“Inside the inn. Unconscious.”

Sergeant Priam sighed heavily. “Why do these things always have to happen to me? You will have to come to the station, sir, to make your report.” He laughed. “But you’ll find it far easier to make your report to Colonel Xenophon than, eventually, to the Lady Ellena!”

Chapter 16

Grimes told his story.
Jason and Paulus, almost recovered, thanks to the administration of the antidote, from the effects of the drug with which they had been injected, told their story. The innkeeper, his head bandaged, told his story. Two witnesses, selected at random from the tavern’s customers, told their stories. Colonel Xenophon, a tall, thin, bald-headed man looking more like a schoolmaster—but a severe schoolmaster—than a policeman, listened.

He said, “I have known, for some time, of the Archon’s nocturnal adventures. I was foolish enough to believe that his professional bodyguards would be capable of protecting him.”

“On a normal planet,” said Jason hotly, “we should have been.”

Xenophon’s furry black eyebrows rose like back-arching caterpillars. “Indeed? How do you define normalcy? Is your precious Earth a
normal
planet? Among my reading of late have been recent Terran crime statistics. They have caused me to wonder why any citizen, male or female, is foolhardy enough to venture out after dark in any of the big cities.

“And now, Commodore, you are quite sure that the flying machine which removed the Archon was an airship? Could it not have been one of the inertial drive craft or helicopters that have been introduced from Earth?”

“It could not,” said Grimes definitely. “I know an airship when I see one.”

“Even in the dark?”

“There was enough light. And the thing was . . . quiet. Just a faint, very faint humming of electric motors.”

“So . . . . And in what direction did this mysterious airship fly after the pick-up?”

“I don’t know. Those blasted women jumped me. I was fully occupied trying to fight them off.”

“Ah, yes. The women. Did you recognize any of them, Commodore?”

“No. But I shall if I run across them again. But, damn it all, Colonel, what are you doing about this crime, this kidnapping? Dirigible airships aren’t as common as, say, motorcycles. There can be very few, if any, privately owned. Your Navy has a fleet of lighter-than-air craft. I’d have thought that you’d have started inquiries with the Admiralty, to find out what ships had been flying tonight.”

Xenophon smiled coldly. “I should not presume, Commodore, to instruct you in the arts and sciences of spacemanship. Please do not try to tell me how I should do my job. Already inquiries have been made. All the Navy’s ships are either in their hangars or swinging at their mooring masts. All Trans-Sparta Airlines’ ships, passenger carriers and freight carriers, have been accounted for. And that’s all the airships on New Sparta.”

“So the ship I saw must either have belonged to the Navy or to Trans-Sparta.”

“If you saw such a ship, Commodore. You may have thought that you did. But drugs had been used during the kidnapping. It is possible that during your first struggle with the women an attempt may have been made to put you out by such means and that you may have received a partial dosage, enough to induce hallucinations. Or a blow on the head might have had the same effect.”

“If there were no flying machine involved,” persisted Grimes, “how was it that the Archon was spirited away from the inn without trace?”

“I think,” said the colonel, “that the quarter of the city in which you and the Archon were . . . er . . . conducting your researches is known to Terrans as a rabbit warren. I didn’t appreciate the aptness of that expression until I read one of your classics,
Watership Down
. But if you want to lose a needle in a haystack, a rabbit warren is a good place to do it.”

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes.

“And now, Commodore, may I suggest—may I urge—that you and your two companions return to the Palace; transport will be provided for you. I do not envy your having to tell the story of this night’s happenings to the Lady Ellena. She has already been notified, of course, that the Archon is missing. She is a lady of iron self-control but I could tell that she was deeply moved. Please assure her that I and my men will return her husband to her, unharmed, as soon as is humanly possible.”

Grimes turned to follow Sergeant Priam from Xenophon’s plainly furnished office. The colonel checked him.

“Oh, Commodore, I advise you, strongly, not to try to conduct any sort of rescue operation yourself. Please leave matters in the hands of the experts, such as myself and my people.”

“I shouldn’t know where to start,” said Grimes.

But I shall find out,
he thought.

His confrontation with Ellena was bad enough, although not as bad as he had dreaded that it would be.

“Much as I should wish to,” she said coldly, “I cannot hold you responsible, Commodore. The Archon was having his ‘nights out’ . . .” she contrived to apostrophize the phrase . . . “long before you returned to this world.

“Meanwhile, all that I can do is wait. Presumably the kidnappers will present their demands shortly, and then there will be decisions to be made. Until then . . .” She smiled bleakly. “Until then, the show must go on. I shall function as acting Archon until the return of my husband. There will be no disruption of the affairs of state, not even the minor ones such as the Marathon next week.”

She is enjoying this . . .
thought Grimes.

He asked, “What about the Council, Lady?”

She said, “The Council will do as they are told.”

Or else?
he wondered.

She said, “That will be all, Commodore.”

Grimes considered backing out of the presence but decided not to.

“Who were those women?” asked Maggie.

“I’ll know them if I meet them again,” said Grimes.

“Could they,” she went on, “have been members of the Amazon Guard?”

“No. The Amazon Guard, apart from exceptions such as Shirl and Darleen, goes in for uniformity. Apart from hair coloring all those wenches could be cast from the same mold. The Amazon Guard, I mean. It was a very mixed bunch that we got tangled with last night. The long and the short and the tall.”

“And you’re sure about the airship?”

“Of course I’m sure.” He paused for thought. “You were snooping around for quite a while before I got here and, as a Survey Service commander, meeting officers in the various New Spartan armed forces. Does the Navy run to any female personnel?”

“No.”

“Trans-Sparta Airlines?”

She said, “You might have something. Not only do they have women in their ground staff but even token female flight crews. Not in the passenger ships, yet, but in the smaller freight carriers.”

“Do they do any night flying?”

“I don’t know, John. You’re far more of an expert on such matters than I am. Making an arrival or a departure in a spaceship you always have to check up with Aerospace Control, don’t you?”

“And on most worlds there’re always some aircraft up and about, at any hour of the day or night. The Aerospace Control computers keep track of them.”