Red Heroin

by Jerry Pournelle

  There was the usual quota of pleasure boats out on the Sound, but they were mostly as big as we were. The wind and sea was just too much for most of the small sailboats that usually dot the Sound, but we passed two guys in a little twenty-foot sloop, a real beauty of a boat but small for my taste. They were headed for Admiralty Inlet too, and as we went by to their leeward I called out, "Headed for Victoria?"

  The man at the tiller waved and shouted, "No, all the way down. Monterey."

  "Good sailing," I told him. Carole had got everything on the stove tied down, and was sitting in the companionway. "Isn't that a tiny little boat to be going that far?" she asked.

  "Yeah," I told her. "But the boat will be all right; that kind of boat will take you farther than you want to go. Whether the guys will go nuts from cramped space and the pounding they'll get out on the Coast is another story. Some people will do anything for laughs, I guess." Actually, I envied them. Not enough to change places with one, you understand, but still there's something great about taking a tiny little boat out in a big ocean like the Pacific. One of these days, I thought, I'll take a little bigger one—the Witch maybe—down that route myself.

  It was great sailing. The sun came down, and a big yellow-gold moon came up, and the wind started to fall off. I taught Carole how to handle the tiller, and rested in the cockpit. I could see she was getting tired, which didn't surprise me. She hadn't done any work, but there's more effort required to sail than most people think. The boat pitches and rolls with the sea, and if you sit erect you have to keep adjusting your weight or you'll fall over. Do that for a couple of hours, and you've had a workout. When I do any sailing at all, I stop worrying about how much I eat, because I always lose weight.

  After a couple more hours the wind fell off, and I knew that by midnight there wouldn't be any at all. I couldn't see any point in hurrying, and it was far too nice a night for that damn noisy motor, so I took over and brought Witch to the south coast of Whidbey Island. It's shallow there, and although there is a strong tide you can anchor if the weather's good. I got the small anchor out and dropped it, and tied the sails up so we could raise them in a hurry if we needed to.

  The wind was just about dead, and the island protected us from any sea that might be left over. There weren't any clouds, just that bright moon and little ripples in the water. Living in a city, you forget just how many stars there are until you get out away from the lights and haze. We sat in the cockpit and smoked, and had a glass of Cointreau, and enjoyed the night for a while.

  When we went below I was grateful for the unknown owner who had put in that double bunk. There was only one thing wrong with the night—the point on Whidbey we were anchored off was called Double Bluff. Somehow it was just too damn appropriate.

  We made a dawn start but there wasn't any wind until after noon. Then it started to come up. I let Carole take over until it got stronger, but when I offered to take the tiller she didn't want to quit. I let her steer until the wind backed around, but finally it got almost dead aft.

  "Better let me take it, Carole," I said.

  "Oh, why? I'm not tired, and this is fun. It's really great, Paul."

  "Yeah, I know, sweetheart, but it could get tricky now."

  "I don't see why. The wind isn't as strong as it was yesterday when you let me steer."

  "Yes it is. It's coming from behind us, so it doesn't feel as strong, that's all. See, when we go into the wind it feels like there's more wind because you add the boat's speed to the wind speed to get what you feel. When we run away from the wind, the boat is going fast enough to make it feel like there's less wind." I took the tiller, and she moved forward a little, still sitting close to me. "Then there's this." I pointed to the boom. "If you steer too far away from the wind, it will get on the other side of the boom and push it right across the boat. If you happened to have your head sticking up when that happened it would probably tear it off. Even if the boom didn't hit anybody there's a chance it would slam across so hard it would dismast the boat. Running downwind seems real easy, but it can be dangerous."

  Witch tore across the water. It doesn't feel like you're going fast, running downwind, because you don't get the wind in your face, but that's the best point of sailing for a lot of boats. It seemed to be for Witch. In an hour or so the sea really built up, and the wind got up to 25 knots, and Witch would surf down the face of a wave, almost tearing my arm off as I hung on to the tiller. She had too much weather helm, and I couldn't seem to balance it off with the foresails for quite a while. I finally got everything sheeted properly, and it started being fun again.

  We made Victoria before dark. It took until after the sun was down to round the twists and turns of the channel, but there was still enough light to see when we tied up to the visitors' pier in downtown Victoria. They have a very nice facility for visiting yachts, in a protected harbor, with a view of some of the best parts of the city. It's in walking distance of the Empress Hotel, and the Parliament Building, and most of the downtown stores, so there's no reason why you shouldn't stay aboard your boat if she's big enough.

  Carole cleaned up the visitors' facilities while I reported who we were to the harbor master, and then I shaved and showered so we could eat ashore. When Carole first got off the boat she could hardly stand. It usually gets to me at first, too. Once I took a five-day trip out to Neah Bay at the Pacific Ocean end of the Straits of Juan de Fuca, and when I got off, the land moved around so much I almost fell off a dock. Land-sickness is not a myth.

  We ate at one of the little restaurants that you find all over Victoria. They're just like the guidebooks tell you about for London or any part of England, and they specialize in steak and kidney pie, a favorite of mine, or roast beef with Yorkshire pudding, and that sort of thing. Victoria is really more English than most of England. We walked around looking in the windows of closed shops, and dropped into a pub that had a ladies lounge—many don't. In Victoria, even where they do allow ladies, they can't come in through the same door as the men. It may be a bit Victorian, but it's better than trying to pretend that women are just soft men. I like customs that emphasize the differences. Maybe that's why I like girls in skirts. But then, I like kilts too. I decided to buy one the next day. The Cranes are lowland, but supposedly the name is Britonic-Celtic in origin, which doesn't really mean anything except that if you look hard enough you can find a tartan to match the name. Come to think of it, in some of those shops, if you look hard enough you can find a tartan to match any name you come up with.

  Before we set out for our great expedition the next morning—we were going to take a tour to Butchart's Gardens, which you have to see if you go to Victoria—we had a second coffee on deck and watched the harbor traffic. Victoria is a busy port for being on an almost uninhabited island. Wakes from passing boats rocked Witch, not too hard, and splashed against the pier, and the morning was bright.

  "Paul," Carole said, "I—well, thank you for bringing me."

  "Sure, sweetheart. It's a lot more fun with you along."

  "I've had fun too. I—will you promise not to get mad if I ask you to do something for me?"

  "That's not too bright, hon. If it's going to make me mad, getting my promise in advance not to do something I can't control won't help,."

  "Yes, but please," she said, taking my hand, "try not to get mad, will you?"

  "Sure. I'll try."

  "I'd like you to do something for me. You remember we talked about films of the war and how hard they are to get into the United States?"

  "Yes." I got a whisper of an electric shock up my backbone.

  "Well, there are some in Canada. I know how to get some. Can I take a few back with us? It will be smuggling and illegal, and you could get in trouble, but will you do it for me? You said you'd watch them when we got some, and this may be the only way we'll get them."

  I kissed her. "Carole, sweetheart, you don't know me as well as you think you do. Hell, smuggling's no crime, I don't care what the sovereign people
say about it. As for your propaganda films, if you think they're honest enough to show, that's good enough for me. Where do we get these lurid scenes of American atrocities?"

  She laughed, more with relief than at my graveyard humor. "I have to call somebody this afternoon. You know, I think I love you, Mr. Crane."

  "I thought we weren't going to say things like that, except maybe when we couldn't help it. Come on, kid, before I carry you below where you can prove it."

  She stood up and kissed me, then said, "How do you know I don't want to do just that?"

  "Time for that later. Although I will admit it could be more attractive than Butchart's Gardens, we didn't have to come all the way to Victoria for just that."

  She laughed again, and smoothed her skirts out. "Yes," she said, "but you'll have to admit that the motion of the boat adds a certain something. Let's go."

  The gardens were lovely, and indescribable. Every conceivable variety of blooming plant and color is blended into that place, so that it makes your eyes hurt to look at it after a while. We ate lunch in a little outdoor pavilion there, with a view of hills covered with brilliant reds. I was sorry when the bus began to fill up and it was time to go.

  Carole made her phone call when we got back to harbor, and she told me she could get the films at six thirty, it then being four. The man with the films would meet her outside the Canadian Express office. We walked to the Empress for a drink.

  The Empress is another reason for going to Victoria. It was built before people decided hotels were money-making enterprises, and takes up a couple of acres with grounds alone. The building is huge, and there are terrace rooms, nearly formal rooms, lounges off the lobbies, and a complete collection of little and big places where you can drink in decadent gentility. It reminds you of Empire and the White Man's Burden, when the sun never set on lands where the Queen's writ ran, and no matter where you were some shadow of law and maybe even justice followed. It reminds you of Cecil Rhodes and Warren Hastings, the thin red line, and the Widow of Windsor. "Walk wide of the Widow o' Windsor, for half of creation she owns," Kipling said. It may be a good idea that the old Empire is no more, but I'm sorry there's so little left of the grand tradition that built the Empress.

  We had gin and tonics on the terrace, sitting in chairs that younger sons had sat in before they made the big jump to the Klondike. They had a last drink and went off to incredible adventure, and here I was, acting like I was in love with a twenty-year-old kid for my great entry into the world of counterespionage. It wasn't a favorable contrast.

  I was in a blue reverie, and Carole noticed it. "What's the matter, sweetheart?" she asked.

  I tried to explain it, but her whole outlook is geared against that sort of thing, so I didn't get far. It might scare her to hear me talk about deeds of derring-do and so forth. But I tried. Of course I couldn't even hint at what my real problem was.

  "Paul, you're an incurable romantic, just like me. I don't think it's silly to wish there were peace and order and justice everywhere."

  I didn't even try to explain that it was more than that. She looked at me again and said, "I know what's wrong with you, and I know just what to do about it. You wait right here. No, better, meet me at the boat in about an hour. I want to get something to surprise you."

  "What?"

  "Oh, I'm not going to tell you. You have another couple of drinks and meet me at the boat. Bye." She blew me a kiss and was off, and I sat there for a minute thinking about how nice she was. I had ordered another drink when it came to me I was supposed to be doing a job. I left my drink on the table, set down the bag of cookies we had bought from a little bakery, so the waiter would know I'd be back, and went to the men's room. Talk about sybaritic luxury, that place had enough marble to make a fair-sized courthouse all by itself. I left the men's room and turned the wrong way to reach the terrace, and ended up in a telephone booth I'd noticed when we walked around the hotel. This telephone had the advantage of being nestled in a corner so that you couldn't see into it without whoever was in it seeing you.

  I called the local number Shearing had given me.

  "Yes," a voice answered. It sounded vaguely Canadian.

  "Larry," I answered.

  "Did you have a good trip? See any whales?" he asked. It didn't sound very Canadian, but it didn't sound American either.

  "No whales, but three seals swimming in a circle."

  "Yes, Larry."

  "She's gone off. Said she was to meet a man about getting some films of the war to smuggle into the U.S., but wasn't supposed to get them until six tonight. But she gave me a story about how she was going to get me a present for a surprise and took off. Not two minutes ago, from the Empress. She's wearing a yellow and pink afternoon dress. Flat shoes."

  "Right. Just a minute." He was off the line a while, then came back on. "Anything else?"

  "Nothing important. Do I carry the cargo?"

  "Oh my, yes. Be sure you mark the lock papers the way we told you to when you arrive in Seattle, so we can have somebody meet you. Did you like the gardens?"

  "Sure. Who was he?"

  "That would be telling. You haven't spotted our man, have you?"

  "No. I thought there'd been a slip. He's good. I haven't seen him."

  "If it's any interest to you," he told me, "we don't think anybody is paying you any attention. All right, where are you supposed to meet her?"

  "At the boat in about forty-five minutes. I have a drink warming on the terrace."

  "Right. Ah, here it is now. She was followed from the Empress. You don't have to worry. Let the harbor master know when you're leaving, will you?"

  "Sure. Good-bye." The connection went, and I went back to finish my drink. There was still ice in it, but the mood was gone and it didn't taste nearly as good. Hell, I'd almost let her get to me, with her off to buy me a present bit. What would make it worse would be if that's all she had done.

  She had an armful of boxes when she came aboard. Four were big, flat square-shaped things, but one was about the size of a small shoebox. She set the stuff down and said, "I'm sorry, Paul, I really did go out to get you a present, but I ran into my friend with the films. He's a little worried about doing this, and he'd rather not meet you, so I brought them from his office. Can you put them somewhere?"

  "Sure. Bit sneaky, aren't you?"

  "Oh, please don't get mad, Paul. I know it seems like a dirty trick, but don't look like that. .." She broke off when she saw I was laughing.

  "Princess," I told her, "I don't blame your mysterious friend a bit. If I was smuggling something embarrassing I sure wouldn't want a total stranger to know it, no matter how much you might tell me about what a great fellow he was." I took the boxes, which seemed to be ordinary film mailing boxes with heavy paper around them, and stowed them under one of the berths. This particular space had a hasp and staple, and I dug out a padlock from the tool kit and snapped it on. Then I handed her the key.

  "Here, kid," I told her. "It's your film, so you take it. The less I have to do with this operation the less I have to keep secret, huh? Now let's go have a good time."

  I was still in the cabin. She climbed down from on deck with the other box in her hand, put it down, and pulled me to her. "Maybe you don't like me to say I love you out there on deck, but there's nothing to stop me from proving it in here, is there?" She kissed me and pulled me down on the bunk. I sat on the box she had put there. "Blast!"

  "What's wrong?" she asked. "Oh, you sat on the present. Good thing it was wrapped. Look."

  I tore off the paper and opened it. Inside was another box, an old leather one, with a brass catch. I opened that, and there was a short knife in a sheath. The hilt was black leather with silver embossing, and had a silver crest at the tip.

  "Hey, Carole, that's beautiful. A real skean dhu. You know, we always say the same thing, but it's really just what I've always wanted. It's great."

  "I thought that would cheer your romantic heart. Now, where were we?" She lay
back on the bunk and opened her arms.

  Chapter Eight

  For dinner, I had reservations at a place I'd been told about out toward Esquimault. I forget the name, but it's owned by a former RAF wing commander, and it's more like being invited to dinner at his house than eating at a restaurant. I made a big thing out of locking the boat before we left, but I couldn't help thinking how futile that was. I didn't know, but it was a fair guess that the Reds had somebody watching the boat now that those boxes were aboard. I didn't have to guess that one of Shearing's people, and maybe the Canadian Police, were watching. All in all, I could feel sorry for some little thief who had a bit of honest burglary in mind that night.

  The taxi took us around the harbor and sea wall on the way, and I had the driver stop so we could walk out to the edge where the waves rolled in. I don't know what it was, but there's something different about that sea wall. Maybe it's because the waves roll right down the Straits from the Pacific, and the tide rips are strong so that the swirls and patterns in the water are not like anywhere else.