Ride the Star Winds (56 page)

“Just what I’ve been telling George,” said Matilda smugly.

“But from your experience, which is much greater than mine, how would you define a wild robot?” asked George.

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes. “Well, there are robots, not necessarily humanoid, which are designed to be intelligent and which acquire very real characters. There was Big Sister, the computer-pilot of the Baroness Michelle d’Estang’s space-yacht. There was a Mr. Adam, with whom I tangled, many, many years ago when I was a Survey Service courier captain. There have been others. All of them were designed to be rational, thinking beings. But a normal pilot-computer is no more than an automatic pilot. It does no more than what it’s been programmed to. If some emergency crops up that has not been included in its programming it just sits on its metaphorical backside and does nothing.”

“But the rogue robots,” persisted George. “The wild robots . . . .”

“I don’t know. But among spacemen there are all sorts of theories. One is that there has been some slight error made during the manufacture of the . . . the brain. May as well call it that. Some undetectable defect in a microchip. A defect that really isn’t a defect at all, since it achieves a result that would be hellishly expensive if done on purpose. Another theory is that exposure to radiation is the cause. And there’s one really farfetched one—association with humans of more than average intelligence and creativity.”

“I like that,” said George.

“You would, Herr Doktor Frankenstein,” sneered Matilda. “But, from what I’ve told you, do you think that we’ve a wild robot on our hands, John?”

“It seems like it,” said Grimes.

The next morning the carriers came to remove the crate into which Seiko had been packed. Grimes went with his father into the storeroom, watched with some regret as the spidery stowbot picked up the long, coffinlike box and carried it out to the waiting hover-van. He thought nothing of it when George ran out to the vehicle before it departed, to exchange a few words with the driver and, it seemed, to resecure the label on the crate, which must have come loose. George rejoined his son.

“Well,” he said, “that’s that. Luckily Matilda’s a good cook; like you, she can get the best out of an autochef. You and the girls won’t starve for the remainder of your stay here.”

Nor did they.

Chapter 7

The days passed
quickly. George Whitley Grimes had gotten over his sulks about being deprived of his glittering toy and Matilda Grimes had forgiven her husband for the damage done by Seiko. The two girls fitted into the family life well. “They’re much too nice for you, John,” his mother told him one morning over coffee. The two of them had gone into Alice Springs on a shopping expedition and were enjoying refreshment in one of the better cafes. (George was still working on his Eureka Stockade novel and Shirl and Darleen had gone off to practice with the traditional boomerangs that they had been given by Dr. Namatjira, whose calls now were social rather than professional.)

“They’re much too nice, for you,” she said. “And I’m not at all sure that I approve of their traveling in your ship as crew members, among all those brutal and licentious spacemen.”

“And spacewomen.” He laughed. “My third officer is Tomoko Suzuki, a real Japanese doll . . . .”

“Not like Seiko, I hope.”

“No. Her innards aren’t on display. And my radio officer is Cleo Jones, black and beautiful. Her nickname, of which she’s rather proud, is the Zulu Princess. The second Mannschenn Drive engineer is Sarah Smith. One of those tall, slim, handsome academic females. Three of the inertial/reaction drive engineers, the chief, second and fourth, are women. The chief’s name is Florence Scott. She looks like what she is, an extremely competent mechanic, and her sex somehow doesn’t register. The second is Juanita Garcia. If you were casting an amateur production of Carmen you’d try to get her for the title role. She has the voice as well as the looks. The fourth is Cassandra Perkins. Like Cleo, she’s a negress. But she’s short and plump and very jolly, so much so that she gets away with things that anybody else would be hauled over the coals for . . . .”

“Such as . . . ?”

“Such as the time when she was doing some minor repairs to the ship’s plumbing system and bungled some fantastic cross-connection so that the hot water taps ran ice water.”

“That might have been intentional. Her idea of a joke.”

“If it was, the laugh was on her. She was the first victim. She thought that she’d like a nice, hot shower after she came off watch at midnight, ship’s time. Her screams woke all hands.” Grimes sipped his coffee and then went on philosophically. “With all her faults, she’s a good shipmate. She’s fun. Even old Flo, her chief, admits it. What none of us can tolerate is somebody who’s highly inefficient
and
a bad shipmate.”

“And the other way around?” Matilda asked. “Somebody who’s highly efficient but a bad shipmate?”

Grimes sighed. “One just has to suffer such people. My new chief officer seems to be one such. Lieutenant Commander Harald Steerforth, Survey Service Reserve. Harald, with an ‘a’ Steerforth. The last of the vikings. Give him a blond beard to match his hair and a horned helmet and he’d look the part. And he’s indicated that, as my second in command, he intends to run a taut ship . . .”

“My nose fair bleeds for you,” said Matilda inelegantly. “But you haven’t mentioned your catering officer yet. Aren’t spaceship catering officers almost invariably women?”

“They are. But when I left Port Woomera I still hadn’t got a replacement for Magda, who’s on leave.”

“You should have asked your father for Seiko, and signed it—I refuse to call that thing her—on.”

Shopping done—mainly pieces of Aboriginal artwork as gifts for Shirl and Darleen—Grimes and his mother returned home. When George heard them enter the house he came out from his study and said, “There was a call for you, John. From your ship. Your chief officer, a Mr. Steerforth. He seemed rather annoyed to learn that you hadn’t been sitting hunched over the phone all day and every day waiting for him to get in touch.” He gave his son a slip of paper. “He asked me—no, damn it, he practically ordered me—to ask you to call him at this number.”

The number Grimes recognized. It was the one that had been allocated to his ship at Port Woomera.

“And I shall be greatly obliged,” said the old man, “if you will reverse charges.”

“Don’t be a tightwad, George!” admonished Matilda.

“I’m not a tightwad. This is obviously ship’s business. John is a wealthy shipowner; I’m only a poor, struggling writer. And after I’ve paid for Dame Mabel’s hat I shall be even poorer!”

“It was your absurdly expensive mechanical toy that destroyed the hat!”

Grimes left them to it, went to the extention telephone in his bedroom. He got through without trouble, telling the roboperator to charge the call to his business credit card account. The screen came alive and the pretty face of Tomoko Suzuki appeared. She smiled as she saw Grimes in the screen at her end and said brightly, “Ah, Captain-san . . . .”

“Yes, it’s me, Tomoko-san. Can you get Mr. Steerforth for me, please?”

“One moment, Captain-san.”

In a remarkably short space of time Tomoko’s face in the screen was replaced by that of the chief officer.

“Sir!” said that gentleman smartly.

“Yes, Mr. Steerforth?” asked Grimes.

“Discharge has commenced, sir. I have been informed by Admiral Damien that the Survey Service wishes to charter the ship for a one-way voyage to Pleth, with a cargo of stores and equipment for the sub-base on that planet. He wishes to discuss with you details of further employment and intimated that your return to Woomera as soon as possible will be appreciated . . . .”

Not only appreciated by Damien, thought Grimes, but necessary. He had his living to earn.

He said, “I shall return by the first flight tomorrow. Meanwhile, how are things aboard the ship?”

“We have a new catering officer, sir. A Ms. Melinda Clay. She appears to be quite competent. There is some mail for you, of course. I have opened the business letters and, in accordance with your instructions, dealt with such matters, small accounts and such, as came within my provenance as second in command. Personal correspondence has been untouched.”

“Thank you, Mr. Steerforth. I shall see you early tomorrow afternoon.”

He hung up, rejoined his parents in the lounge.

“My holiday’s over,” he announced regretfully. “It was far too short.”

“It certainly has been,” said Matilda.

“And where are you off to this time, John?” asked his father.

“Pleth. A one-voyage charter. Survey Service stores. Probably a full load of forms to be filled out in quintuplicate.”

“And after that? Back to Earth with a full load of similar forms filled in?”

“I don’t know, George. The mate told me that Damien has some further employment in mind for me.”

“No more privateering?” asked the old man a little wistfully. “No more appointments as governor general?”

“I hope not,” Grimes told him. “But, knowing Damien, and knowing something of the huge number of pies that he has a finger in, I suspect that it will be something . . . interesting.”

“And disreputable, no doubt,” snapped Matilda. “When you were a regular officer in the Service you never used to get into all these scrapes.”

“Mphm?” grunted Grimes dubiously. He’d been getting into scrapes for as long as he could remember.

Shirl and Alice came in, accompanied by Dr. Namatjira. The doctor, who had joined them at their boomerang practice, was glowing with admiration. “If only I had a time machine!” he exclaimed. “If only I could send them back to the early days of my people in this country, before the white man came! They could have instructed us in the martial arts, especially those involved with the use of flung missiles.” He grinned whitely. “Captain Cook, and all those who followed him, would have been driven back into the sea!”

“I might just use that,” murmured Grimes senior. “It sounds much more fun that what I’m doing now. That boring Peter Lalor and his bunch of drunken roughnecks. . . .”

Matilda served afternoon tea. After this the doctor said his farewells and made his departure. He expressed the sincere hope that he would be meeting Shirl and Darleen again in the not too distant future.

“Bring them back, John,” he admonished. “They belong here. They are like beings from our Dream Time, spirits made flesh . . .”

And then there was what would be the last family dinner for quite some time, with talk lasting long into the night. It would have lasted much longer but Grimes and the girls had an early morning flight to catch.

Chapter 8

It was a pleasant
enough flight back to Port Woomera. Again Grimes, and with him the two girls, were guests in the airship’s control cab. On this occasion, however, the captain, a different one, did not say anything to antagonize his privileged passengers. The three of them made their way from the airport to the spaceport by monorail and then by robocab to the ship.

The efficient Mr. Steerforth was waiting by the ramp as the cab pulled up, saluted with Survey Service big ship smartness as his captain got out. He said, “Leave your baggage, sir, I’ll have it brought up.” He followed Grimes into the after airlock, but not before he had ordered sharply, “Ms. Kelly, Ms. Byrne, look after the master’s gear, will you?”

Grimes heard a not quite suppressed animal growl from either Shirl or Darleen and with an effort managed not to laugh aloud. Well, he thought, the two New Alicians would have to start learning that, as cadets, they were the lowest form of life aboard
Sister Sue
. . . .

He and the chief officer took the elevator up to the captain’s flat. He let himself into his day cabin, thinking that, much as he had enjoyed the break, it was good to be back. But had somebody been interfering with the layout of the furniture? Had something been added?

Something had—a long case, standing on end.

Steerforth saw him looking at it and said, “This came for you, sir. Special delivery, from Alice Springs. Probably something you purchased there, sir, too heavy and cumbersome to carry with you on your flight.”

“Probably,” said Grimes. “But I’ll catch up with my mail, Mr. Steerforth, before I unpack it. I’ll yell for you as soon as I’m through.”

“Very good, sir.”

His curiosity unsatisfied, Steerforth left the cabin. He said to Shirl and Darleen, who were about to enter with Grimes’s baggage, “Report to me as soon as the captain’s finished with you.”

Shirl said, “I liked Billy Williams.”

Darleen said, “So did I.”

Grimes said, “Billy Williams earned his long service leave. And try to remember, young ladies, that when you knew Billy Williams you were passengers in this ship, and privileged. Now you are very junior officers and Mr. Steerforth is a senior officer, my second in command. Meanwhile, I still have a job for you. To help me unpack this.”

Like most spacemen he always carried on his person a multi-purpose implement that was called, for some forgotten reason, a Swiss Army Knife. (Once Grimes had asked his father about it and had been told that there was, a long time ago, a Swiss Army and that a special pocketknife had been invented for the use of its officers, incorporating a variety of tools, so that they would never lack the means to open a bottle of wine or beer.)

Anyhow, Grimes’s pocket tool chest had a suitable screwdriver. He used it while Shirl and Darleen held the long box steady. At last he had all the securing screws out of the lid and gently pried it away from the body of the case, put it to one side on the deck. And then there was the foam plastic packing to be dealt with. He knew what he would find as he pulled it away.

She stood there in her box, her transparent skin glistening, the ornamental complexity of shining wheels on their jeweled pivots motionless. And he stood there looking at her, hesitant. He knew the simple procedure for activation—but should he?

Why not?

He inserted the index finger of his right hand into her navel, pressed. He heard the sharp click. He saw the transparent eyelids—a rather absurd refinement!—open and a faint flicker of light in the curiously blank eyes. He saw the wheels of the spurious clockwork mechanism begin to turn, some slowly, some spinning rapidly. There was a barely audible ticking.