Ride the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

  “If I were qualified—which I am not. Master Astronaut, Orbital Only—that’s me.”

  “But you’re still a spaceman, Captain. I’d like to have a talk, spaceman to spaceman. But . . .”

  “Don’t worry about Pedro and Miguel, sir. They’re like me, members of the OAP, the Original Anarchist Party. We’re allowed by our gracious President to blow off steam as long as we don’t do anything. . . .”

  “What could we do, Raoul?” came a voice from behind Grimes.

  He turned to see that the other two crew members had taken seats at the rear of the control cab.

  He said softly, “What could you do? I don’t know. Yet. I spent the voyage from Earth running through all the official spools on Liberia . . .” (He remembered guiltily that there had been times when instead of watching and listening to the playmaster in his suite he had been doing other things.) “Before I left I was given a briefing of sorts. I still don’t know nearly as much as I should. You have the first-hand knowledge. I don’t.”

  “All right, sir,” said Raoul. “I’ll start at the top. There’s our revered President, Estrelita O’Higgins. . . .”

  “Mphm,” grunted Grimes. He remembered how she had looked in the screen of the playmaster. Tall, splendidly bosomed, black-haired and with rather too much jaw to be pretty. But she was undeniably handsome. In the right circumstances she might be beautiful.

  “Then there’s your boy, Colonel Bardon. . . .”

  “Not my boy,” said Grimes.

  “He’s Earth-appointed, isn’t he? Just as you are, sir. Most people say that he’s got Estrelita eating out of his hand—but it could well be the other way around.”

  “Or mutual,” said Grimes.

  They made a good pair, Estrelita and the Colonel, he had thought when he saw them in one of the sequences presented by the data spools. The tall, handsome woman in a superbly tailored blue denim suit, the tall, handsome man in his glittering full dress. Like her, he had too much jaw. In his case it was framed by black, mutton chop whiskers.

  “Whoever is eating out of whose hand,” Raoul went on, “it’s the Terran Garrison that really runs Liberia. They get first pick of everything. Then the Secret Police get their pickings. Then the ordinary police. The real Liberians don’t get picked on much. There’s some grumbling, of course, but we aren’t badly off. It’s the slaves who suffer. . . .”

  “The indentured labor,” corrected Grimes.

  “You’re hair-splitting, sir. When an indenture runs out the only way that a laborer can obtain further employment is to sign up again. All his wages, such as they are, have gone to the purchase of the little luxuries that make life bearable. And not only luxuries. There are habit-forming drugs, like Dassan dreamsticks. . . .”

  “They’re illegal,” said Grimes, “on all federated worlds.”

  The pilot laughed harshly. “Of course they are. But that doesn’t worry Bardon’s Bullies.” He returned his attention to his instruments and made minor adjustments; the beat of the tender’s inertial drive changed tempo. “I’ve time to tell you a story, sir, before we come in to Port Libertad. There was a girl, a refugee, from New Dallas. You must have heard about what happened there. An independent colony that thought that it could thumb its nose at the Federation and at everybody else. Then the Duchy of Waldegren wanted the planet—and took it. We took a few thousand refugees. A lot of the prettier girls finished up in the houses owned—not all that secretly—by Bardon. Mary Lou was one of them. That’s where I met her, in a dive called the Pink Pussy Cat. And—don’t laugh, please!—we . . . fell in love. I was going to buy her out of that place. But some bastard got her hooked on dreamsticks and. . . .”

  “She withered away to nothing,” said Miguel.

  Grimes said nothing. What could he say?

  Raoul broke the silence, speaking in a deliberately brisk voice. “There’s Port Libertad, sir. That statue you can see, just to the north of the spaceport, is Lady Liberty. She was copied from the old Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, on Earth. Those two big ships are bulkies, here to load grain. Some worlds, though, prefer to import the flour that’s been milled here, on Liberia. Don’t ask me why; I’m a spaceman, not an economist. Do you see that smaller ship? She’s a fairly regular visitor. Willy Willy, owned by Able Enterprises. The master’s Captain Aloysius Dreeble. A nasty little bastard on a nasty trade. He comes here to recruit entertainers—so called—for the brothels on quite a few of the frontier worlds.”

  “And New Venusberg,” said Grimes. “That’s where I last met him.”

  “You know him, sir?”

  “All right, all right. I don’t like him. And he doesn’t like me.”

  Looking out and down Grimes could see the triangle of winking, bright, scarlet lights that marked the tender’s berth. He picked up a pair of binoculars and stared through them. He could make out a body of men drawn up in military formation, flags streaming from portable standards, the burnished metal of musical instruments from which the afternoon sun was brightly reflected. A guard of honor and a band. . . .

  From the speaker of the transceiver, through which the tender had been in communication from Aerospace Control, came a sudden blast of music, the drums almost drowning out the trumpets.

  “They’re warming up,” said Raoul sardonically. “Be prepared to be deafened by our glorious planetary anthem as soon as you set foot on Liberian soil.”

  “And a twenty-gun salute?” Grimes asked, half seriously.

  “No. I did hear some of the Terran Army officers discussing it before I boarded to lift off for the rendezvous with Sobraon. It seems that if you’d been landing in a Terran warship the Captain would have been able to accord the courtesy of a salute, in reply, to Madam President. But as you’ve no guns to fire you get none fired in your honor.”

  “This protocol,” said Grimes, “is a complicated business.”

  “Isn’t it, sir? We should never have strayed from the simple ways of our ancestors. They’d have given a gun salute to an Earth-appointed governor—and not with blanks, either!”

  Looking at Raoul’s face Grimes saw that the words had been spoken only in jest—but Miguel, when he spoke, was serious enough.

  “If all that we’ve heard of Governor Grimes is true, Raoul, Bardon’s Bullies would love to give him his twenty guns, each one loaded with H.E.!”

  “There are more subtle ways of getting rid of unpopular governors than that,” Raoul Sanchez said with sudden bitterness. Then, to Grimes, “My brother was the late Governor Wibberley’s personal pilot.”

  A man with motive, thought Grimes. A double motive. His girlfriend and his brother, both . . . murdered.

  He asked, “Are you qualified for atmosphere flight, Captain?”

  “Yes, sir. Both LTA and HTA.” He grinned. “Are you offering me a job, Your Excellency? I already have one, you know.”

  “I’m offering you a job. I warn you that it mightn’t be good for your health.”

  “It wasn’t good for my brother’s health, either. All right, I receive your signal, loud and clear. You think that I might be interested in . . . revenge?”

  “That thought had flickered across my mind.”

  “I am so interested. And now, sir, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll try to get this crate down in one piece.”

  And had he fallen into a trap? Grimes wondered. Wasn’t it too much of a coincidence that these young men in the shuttle should all be OAP members, opposed to the present regime on Liberia? Were Raoul’s stories, about his girl and his brother, true? (That could be checked.)

  But he would have to employ some personal staff and he would prefer, whenever possible, to make his own choices. Any made for him by Colonel Bardon would be suspect from the start. And, thought Grimes, if Captain Sanchez were Bardon’s man air travel, at least, would be safer for him than it had been for Governor Wibberley. Raoul didn’t look the type to commit suicide just to help somebody else commit murder.

  Chapter 8

  A
blast of sound assailed Grimes’s ears as he stepped out of the tender’s airlock, onto the top platform of the bunting-bedecked set of steps that had been wheeled into position. With an effort he identified it as music—the brass too strident and the drums too insistent—and with a further effort as the Terran Planetary Anthem, one of those forgettable songs with words and music composed to order by an untalented committee of lyricists and musicians. He stood to attention, his right hand holding his gray silk topper over his breast, his left hand grasping the cylindrical, gold-trimmed leather case in which was his Commission. It must look, he thought wryly, like a Field Marshal’s baton. But would Bardon give him the respect that he would accord to a Field Marshal?

  Sons of Terra, strong and free came to its blaring conclusion. Thankfully Grimes relaxed, put his hat back onto his head. Then there was a roll of drums, followed by more music—Liberia’s sons, let us rejoice . . . He whipped off his hat, came again to attention. That anthem was over at last and he took a step towards the edge of the platform—and again froze. This time it was Waltzing Matilda.

  The familiar words ran through his mind as he listened to the band.

  Up came the squatter, riding on his thoroughbred.

  Down came the troopers, one, two, three. . .

  And there were the troopers, and there were more than three of them. There were Bardon’s Bullies, drawn up for his inspection, resplendent in their dress uniforms of blue and gold and scarlet.

  Up jumped the swagman, sprang into the billabong . . .

  Grimes thought, And this is one helluva billabong that I’ve sprung into this time . . .

  After Matilda there were no more anthems, but Grimes was in no hurry to descend the steps to the ground. He made a slow survey of his immediate surroundings. That must be Bardon down there, waiting to receive him, even more splendidly attired than his soldiers, his finery topped by a plumed helmet. And the tall woman with him, in a superbly tailored suit of faded blue denim, had to be Madam President.

  There was a crowd, but only a small one. There was a group of men and women, attired as was their President. There were the inevitable schoolchildren waving their little flags—the Federation star cluster on a black field, the Terran opalescent sphere on dark blue, the Australian national ensign with the British union flag in the upper canton and the Southern Cross constellation in the fly. There were spaceport workers in shabby, dirty, white overalls, small statured men and women, dark skinned and with Mongoloid features. There were officers from the ships in port. Grimes recognized one of these men—the weedy, ferret-faced Aloysius Dreeble, master of Willy Willy. Dreeble recognized him, grinned and raised two fingers in a gesture that would have been, had his palm been outward, V for Victory.

  Grimes looked coldly at his old enemy and then turned away. He descended the steps with dignity. At the foot of them stood Bardon. The Colonel saluted smartly. Grimes raised his hat. The Colonel said, “Glad to have you aboard, Your Excellency.” Grimes said, swapping lie for lie, “I’m happy to be here, Colonel Bardon.”

  “Your Excellency, may I introduce you to Madam President?”

  Grimes removed his hat, put it to his chest and bowed. She inclined her head graciously. When they had both resumed normal posture they stood facing each other. Her eyes, gleaming black under heavy black brows, were level with his and looking at him appraisingly. The skin of her face was smooth and pale, her lips wide, full and very red. Her jaw was too heavy for a woman. But her smile, revealing strong white teeth, was quite pleasant.

  She said, “I never dreamed that I should one day welcome a famous pirate as Governor of Liberia.”

  “Not a pirate, Madam President. A privateer.”

  “Pirate or privateer, Captain Grimes, you are bound to be an improvement over your predecessor.”

  “Indeed?”

  “Yes. He was a psalm-singing do-gooder. You must know the type.”

  “I have met such people.”

  “Your Excellency,” interrupted Bardon, “may I suggest that we inspect the Guard of Honor?”

  The President shrugged and, with that well-fitting jacket of soft denim, the effect was spectacular.

  She said with a smile that was not altogether malicious, “The Colonel wants us to help him play with his toy soldiers, Captain Grimes.”

  Bardon scowled, but not fiercely, and said, “My men are not toys, Madam.”

  It was, thought Grimes, very like an essentially light-hearted exchange of insults between husband and wife. But sometimes such apparently friendly gibes are symptomatic of well-hidden hostilities.

  He walked with the President and the Colonel along the ranks of the Honor Guard, preceded by a Lieutenant with a drawn sword, with other officers bringing up the rear. At close quarters the men were not so impressive as they had seemed from a distance. Even so, Grimes could not fault the uniforms, well-tailored from spotlessly clean and sharply pressed cloth, with gleaming natural leather and brightly burnished metal. The archaic rifles, weapons brought out only for ceremonial occasions, held now at Present Arms, were beautifully maintained. On the features of each man the facial hair, a down-sweeping moustache, was brushed and trimmed into exact uniformity with the whiskers to right and to left. But even those tailored scarlet jackets could not hide the paunches or the wide, gleaming cross-straps and belts hold them in. And there were the sagging jowls and the shifty eyes, some of them bloodshot.

  Bardon’s Bullies, thought Grimes. They look it.

  He said, “Thank you, Colonel. A fine body of men.”

  “I am pleased that you found them so, Your Excellency. You can rely upon them for loyal service.”

  “Thank you, Colonel.”

  “I prefer soldiers in undress uniform,” said the President, turning her sultry gaze on Bardon. And then, to his rather embarrassed surprise, Grimes was treated to a similar, lingering glance. “And I am sure, Your Excellency, that you would feel far happier in something less formal.”

  “Too right,” said Grimes.

  She said, “You may dismiss your troops, Colonel Bardon.”

  Bardon turned to Grimes and asked, “Permission to dismiss the Guard, Your Excellency?”

  Who gives orders to whom on this bloody planet? Grimes asked himself.

  He said, “Dismiss the Guard, Colonel.”

  Orders were barked. Colonel to Lieutenant, Lieutenant to Sergeant, Sergeant to the enlisted men. Smartly, with a jingle of accoutrements, the detachment formed fours and, behind the band, stepping in time to the thud and rattle of the drums, marched toward the spaceport’s boundary fence. Chattering shrilly, the schoolchildren followed their teachers in the wake of the departing military. The ground staff drifted back to their jobs. The spacemen strolled toward their ships.

  Vehicles drove up—a huge, scarlet-enameled limousine for the President with the symbol of a clenched fist, holding a torch, in black, on each of its doors, an olive-drab-painted armored car for the Colonel and one of the Lieutenants, a superb RR Whispering Ghost, gleaming black and shining silver with the forward-leaning nymph on its bonnet holding a staff from which flew a Terran ensign, for Grimes. There was a civilian chauffeur, a young man with a full beard, denim-clad and with a scarlet neckerchief. Beside him, on the front seat, were two soldiers in drab battle dress.

  Bardon said to Grimes, “Your ADC will look after you, Your Excellency, and will . . . er . . . show you the ropes at the Governor’s Residence. Lieutenant Smith, please see that His Excellency is at the President’s Reception, at 2000 hours. this evening.”

  Smith saluted. He was old for his rank, his face both pudgy and sulky. The decorations on the left breast of his tunic were of the variety that Grimes referred to as Good Attendance Medals. If he had ever been in a war, even a police action, he had failed to distinguish himself.

  “Until this evening, Your Excellency,” said Estrelita O’Higgins.

  “Until this evening, Madam President,” said Grimes.

  “Until this evening, Your Excellency,”
said Bardon, saluting.

  “Until this evening, Colonel,” said Grimes, raising his hat.

  He had to take it off again when he climbed into the car, through the door which the ADC had opened for him. Smith followed him into the vehicle.

  Chapter 9

  Rather to Grimes’s disappointment the drive out to the Residence did not take him through the city of Libertad but through countryside that, in a natural state, could have been beautiful but, with its too orderly orchards, was rather boring. He remembered that although cereals were Liberia’s main exports here was also a considerable trade in various processed fruit products. Working in the aisles between the trees were the laborers, small, dark-skinned people, clad only in loincloths, picking the golden fruit and filling baskets with the gleaming globes. It was not the first orange plantation that Grimes had seen—but it was the first one in which machines had not been doing the harvesting.

  Then there were terraced rice paddies, and more orchards and, eventually, a low hill on which stood the Governor’s Residence. It was a low, rambling building, white-walled, its shallowly pitched roofs red-tiled. The main entrance was an imposing portico, with white pillars and a proliferation of intricately patterned iron lace. There was a wide, velvety lawn fringed with flowering bushes—plants indigenous to Liberia, thought Grimes, who was no botanist. There was a tall flagstaff at the peak of which the starry banner of the Federation stirred lazily in the light, uncertain breeze.

  A small detachment of Terran Army troops—a Sergeant and six men—was drawn up before the portico. Unlike the Honor Guard at the spaceport they were wearing khaki, not full dress uniform, and were armed not with archaic, aesthetically pleasing rifles but with modern, ugly and viciously effective sprayguns. Like the Honor Guard, however, they looked far better from a distance.

  Behind the soldiers were the liveried civilians, men and women in long, white trousers or skirts under high-necked, royal blue jackets. Some of these jackets were absolutely plain, others were decorated with silver buttons and varying quantities of silver braid. One man was wearing a chef’s high, white hat. There was a civilian who was not in uniform, a short man, stocky, bald-headed, wearing a plain gray suit.