Gateway to Never (John Grimes)

by A Bertram Chandler

  “But you’re flying over them, Pilot!” complained the old lady accusingly.

  “Not over, madam. Through. Just fine in our starboard bow, a little to the right of dead ahead, you’ll see the entrance to Dante’s Pass. Also, if you will look at the smoke from the volcanoes, you will see that the wind is nowhere near as bad as it is to the south’ard. The Smokies are in the lee of the highest part of Satan’s Barrier.”

  “But these mountains are only smoking,” muttered the old lady.

  “If we’d only known,” whispered Williams to Grimes, “we could have brought along a couple of nuclear devices just to keep the old dear happy.”

  “Mphm. Smoke or flame—this is a good place for a holiday, but I wouldn’t want to live here.”

  “Don’t mention holidays, Skipper. Glamorpuss up ahead might hear you.”

  Denise Dalgety turned in her seat, smiled sweetly at Williams. “I’m enjoying my holiday,” she said.

  “What was all that about, Denise?” asked Larwood.

  “Nothing much, Ron. Nothing much. Just something that Commander Williams said.”

  “Oh,” grunted Larwood. Then, into the microphone again, “Coming up to Dante’s Pass now, folks. To port, Mount Dante. To starboard, Mount Beatrice. Looks like Dante’s a heavy smoker still, but Beatrice seems to have kicked the habit. Ha, ha.”

  Ha, ha, thought Grimes. I’m rolling in the aisle in a paroxysm of uncontrollable mirth.

  But his irritation faded as he stared out at the spectacular scenery. The coach had dropped to an altitude well below that of the peaks, seemed to be barely skimming the numerous minor craters that pocked the valley floor. Smoke was issuing from almost all of them—in some cases a trickle, in others as a billowing cloud. And all up the steep, terraced side of Dante were similar small craters, most of them active. The slopes of Mount Beatrice were also pockmarked but, for some reason, only an occasional wisp of vapor was evident.

  “You could do better, Skipper,” whispered Williams.

  Grimes, who had brought out his pipe and was about to fill it, changed his mind and put the thing back in his pocket.

  On they flew, and on, the three coaches in line ahead, the Great Smokies to either side of their course and at last falling astern. On they flew, and the smoldering mountain range dropped astern, and the foothills, each of which was a volcano. Smoke eddied about them, restricting visibility, often blotting out the view of the tortured landscape below them. Turbulence buffeted them, and once the coaches had to make a wide alteration of course to avoid a huge red tornado.

  Desert was below them at last—huge dunes the faces of which displayed all colors from brown through red to a yellow that was almost white, with streaks of gray and silver and blue. Beyond the dunes was a region where great rock pillars towered like the ruins of some ancient devastated city, sculpted by wind and sand into fantastic shapes, glowing with raw color.

  “The Painted Badlands,” announced Larwood unnecessarily. “The wind’s from the west still, so it’s safe to land.”

  “What if the wind was from the east?” asked the old lady.

  “Then, madam, we shouldn’t have the protection of Satan’s Barrier. There’d be a sandstorm that’d strip us to our bare bones. You can see what wind and sand have done to those rocks down there.”

  The irregular hammering of the inertial drive became less insistent. The coach slowed, began losing altitude. It dropped at last to coarse red sand in what could have been a city square, a clear space with the eroded monoliths all about it. The second vehicle landed in a flurry of ruddy dust, then the third.

  “Welcome to Dis,” said Larwood. “You may disembark for sight-seeing. Respirators will be worn; I wouldn’t say that the atmosphere’s actually poisonous, but too much of it wouldn’t do your eyes, throat or lungs any good. You will all stay with me and not go wandering off by yourselves. You may pick up souvenirs—pretty pebbles and the like—within reason, but I warn you that this wagon doesn’t develop enough thrust to carry home one of the monoliths. Ha, ha.”

  One by one the passengers passed out through the airlock, jumped or clambered down to the windswept sand.

  “If it wasn’t for the easterlies,” said Williams to Grimes, his voice muffled by his breathing mask, “this’d be a good spot for a Base.”

  “At least,” said Grimes, “we shall be able to write some sort of report on this base business now. Just in case somebody actually asks for it.”

  Chapter 25

  IT WAS A LONG DAY, and a tiring one. A heavy protective suit complete with respirator is not the most comfortable wear for sight-seeing, and Larwood was determined that they should see everything.

  They looked at the Venus de Milo—which, if one used one’s imagination, just could have been a giant statue of a woman, carved from black basalt minus her arms. Their guide made the inevitable joke about the consequences of fingernail biting. They saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It did lean, but there all resemblance ceased. They saw the Sphynx, which was not too unlike a great, crouching cat if looked at from the right angle and the Great Pyramid. They returned to the comparative luxury of the coaches for a sandwich meal and very welcome cold drinks. After lunch a short flight took them away from the so-called City Square of Dis to another part of the Badlands. Here they saw the Colossus of Eblis, which vaguely resembled a man standing arrogantly with his legs apart, the Thinker (Larwood, of course, had to say that a huge stone toilet roll was being carved to hang alongside the seated, brooding figure), Mount Olga and Ayers Rock. Grimes made himself unpopular by saying that the originals of these last two named gained greatly in majesty by being situated in a vast empty desert with no surrounding clutter to distract attention from them.

  They saw the Devil’s Launching Pad, a low plateau surmounted by a remarkably regular row of what, from a distance, could have been archaic space rockets. They saw the Dinosaurs, and St. Paul’s Cathedral, and St. Bazil’s Cathedral, and the Rainbow Bridge. They saw . . . But it was all too much, much too much, at the finish. They stumbled through the surrealistic landscape, the rockscape, with its great contorted masses of garishly coloured stone, behind their guides. Even Larwood was running short of witticisms, although he did say that it just required one good crash to make the Lorelei look happy.

  Tired, perspiring in their suits and behind their masks, they stumbled back into the coaches, gratefully loosening clothing and removing respirators. The irregular blotch of brightness in the yellow sky that was the sun was low in the west when they lifted, but there was daylight enough for the coaches to negotiate Dante’s Pass without trouble, and Mount Beatrice honoured them with a salute, a huge, spectacular smoke ring, as they flew past. The sun was not yet down when they approached the western shores of the Bitter Sea and the white buildings of the bottling plant, on the bank of the River of Tears, stood out against the dusky red of the desert like a handful of white pebbles dropped there. As they approached they could see that these were of the by now familiar bubble construction—although, Larwood told them, the skins were centimeters instead of mere millimeters thick, and had frequently to be renewed.

  He announced, on his public address system, “We shall be staying here overnight, folks. One dome has been fitted out as a dormitory for tourists, and the one adjoining as a mess hall. At dark floodlights will be turned on so that you may all enjoy a swim in the Bitter Sea. You will have time for another one in the morning, before we leave for Inferno Valley. Oh, before forget, there are fresh water showering facilities at the Bottling Plant. I advise you all to take a shower after swimming in the Bitter Sea.”

  “Swimming, the man said,” complained Grimes, his voice muffled by the respirator that, now, was all that he was wearing.

  “Walkin’ on the water’s just the thing for a high an’ mighty Commodore,” laughed Williams.

  “But not for a mere commander, like you.”

  “I wonder if one could really walk on it,” murmured Williams. He managed a sitting posture and
then overbalanced, finishing up flat on his back. He said, “Any bastard tryin’ to commit suicide in this soup’d die o’ frustration.”

  “Mphm.” Grimes managed a kind of squat and looked around him. The other passengers were enjoying themselves, splashing and squealing in the harsh glare of the floodlights. But the one he was looking for—the only one who would have been worth looking at—was not there. Neither was Larwood, although the other two coach pilots were disporting themselves with their charges.

  “Mphm,” grunted Grimes again. So Billinghurst’s pet blonde spy was earning her keep whilst he and Williams were having a good time. But perhaps she was having a good time too.

  “Lookin’ for Denise?” asked Williams.

  “As a matter of fact, yes.”

  “She went off with that frosty-faced sidekick o’ Clavering’s just before we all got undressed for our dip. I suppose he’s showin’ her his etchings. Unless I get outer this hellbroth soon I’ll be able to show all the girls my itchings!”

  “Yes, it does seem to be mildly corrosive. I’d hate to swallow any. Coming out?”

  “Too bleedin’ right, Skipper. When I want a swim I have a swim, when I want a walk I have a walk. What we’re doin’ now is just a compromise.”

  Clumsily the two men splashed ashore. Once they were through the airlock of the bottling plant they removed their respirators, handing them to attentive attendant devils. They followed one of the natives to the showers, where others of his kind were scampering around in the clouds of steam armed with long-handled brushes, enthusiastically scrubbing down the naked humans. The red lighting of the place made it all look like a scene from a mythological inferno—and, muttered Grimes, some of the tourists looked like refugees from the canvases of Hieronymus Bosch.

  After their showers—hot water and detergent to remove the salty scum, cold water for refreshment—the two men got into clean coveralls provided by the management, collected personal belongings from their lockers in the change room, then strolled into the dormitory. There was no sign of either Denise Dalgety or of Larwood. They walked into the mess hall, where a few people were sitting over cold drinks. The girl and Clavering’s assistant were not there either.

  Grimes wasn’t worried—what Billinghurst’s officers did with themselves, or had done to them, was none of his concern—but he was curious. Perhaps “curious” is not quite the right word. He had the feeling that the girl was finding out something and he would have liked very much to know what it was. Perhaps pride was involved. He could imagine Billinghurst telling his story to an appreciative audience: “There was the famous Commodore Grimes, and all that he did was to get his ship wrecked and then, with nothing at all that he could do, have one helluva good time like a tourist, at the taxpayer’s expense. One of my sub-inspectors, a girl at that, did much better than he did.”

  “Denise Dalgety, the Beautiful Blonde Spy,” muttered Williams.

  “Jealous, Commander?”

  “My oath, yes. I still haven’t forgiven that bastard Billinghurst for calling her off me. He ruined the beginnings of what promised to be a beautiful friendship. I wonder where he’s taken her? Larwood, I mean.”

  “Clavering has an office here. Presumably his second-in-command has a set of keys to it.”

  “An’ now he’s chasin’ her round the water cooler . . . or she’s chasin’ him round the water cooler.”

  “The chasing part,” said Grimes, “must be well over.”

  “Some people are slow starters. All right, then. He’s sittin’ there, with a silly smile on his face, while she photographs the plans of the fortifications with the miniature camera hidden in one of her ear clips, which are the only things she’s wearin’ at the moment. There’s a recorder in the other clip.”

  “Try to be serious, Williams.”

  “What about, Skipper? It’d be a lot easier for me if I knew which side you were on. Are you pro- or antismuggler? I know damn well that you’re anti-Billinghurst—but who’s not? Ever since we’ve been on this bloody job you’ve been obscuring the issue with a fog of moral principles. And we aren’t concerned with the moral side of it, only with the legal side.”

  “And that,” Grimes told him, “is even more obscure. Whose laws apply on this planet—the laws of the Confederacy or the laws that Clavering makes up as he goes along? The Confederacy, don’t forget, didn’t want Eblis. Clavering saw its possibilities.”

  “And so what? As planetary ruler he pays his taxes to the Confederacy rather than to the Federation—because that way he pays less. But, by so doing, he has admitted Confederate jurisdiction.”

  “Here she comes,” said Grimes in a low voice.

  Here she came. She saw Grimes and Williams, walked to the table where they were seated. An attentive devil clattered up to take her drink order. She waved the native away.

  “Commodore,” she said, smiling sweetly, “I understand that you’re attached to this investigation as an astronautical expert.”

  “Mphm. I suppose so.”

  “Ron showed me round the bottling plant. He said that I should see more if I had his undivided attention, that it would be better than going on the conducted tour of inspection later this evening.”

  “Mphm.”

  “It wasn’t very interesting really. Just machines doing things, washing bottles, filling bottles, sealing bottles. . . .”

  “Mphm.”

  “And then he took me into the office.”

  Grimes, looking at Williams’ face, had trouble in keeping his own straight.

  “I’m not very well up on ships’ instruments. Usually I’m concerned with passengers’ baggage. Tell me, Commodore, that radio with an antenna like a Mobius Strip, formed as a long ellipse, universally mounted, is a Carlotti transceiver, isn’t it?”

  “It is.” (But he knew already that there was one in the bottling plant.)

  “And it’s never used for short-range signalings? Only ship to ship, ship to planet, planet to ship, planet to planet?”

  “As a general rule.”

  “A message came through while we were . . .” She blushed. “Well, a message came through. Ron said that I’d have to leave the office, as it was probably Captain Clavering calling about some important business and, even though he trusted me, some matters regarding the bottling of the River of Tears water were a commercial secret. Luckily I’d taken my ear clips off, and left them behind when I went out. And then, after . . .” She blushed again. “And then after I left Ron—he let me back inside when whoever it was had finished sending—I played it back when I went into the toilet.”

  She detached the ornament of interlocking golden rings from her right ear, put it on the table. She said, “I have it set for the lowest volume. You’ll have to pretend to be looking at it closely. Press the spring clip.”

  “An interesting piece of jewelry,” commented Grimes, picking it up. “Very fine workmanship.”

  He heard, “Damn! The Old Man’s calling from Inferno Valley!” (Presumably earlier conversation had been censored by one of those involved.) “Let him call.” “But darling, it could be important.” “Answer it then, and get it over.” “Denise, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but it could be something confidential.” “All right then, I’ll go out into the main office. Give me time to put something on.” “There’s no need, all the doors are locked.” “Do you think more of your boss than you do of me?” “Please, Denise, just leave me and let me answer this call.” “All right, all right. I bet Billy Williams wouldn’t drop me like a hot cake and come a-running if Commodore Grimes whistled for him!” A hissing silence, then, “SB Three calling IC. Anyone there? I repeat, anyone there?” The voice was oddly familiar. “IC answering SB Three. This is RL receiving you.” “I’ve a shipment for you, IC. Will advise later when. Presumably usual place. Over.” “But, SB Three, the heat’s on.” “You’ll want this shipment for the Convention, won’t you? Over, and most definitely out.” Silence, then Ron Larwood’s voice again, presumably on
a normal telephone. “That you, Sally? Can I get hold of the captain? I’ll call later then. No, no trouble with the tour. Very well-behaved bunch of customers. See you tomorrow. Goodnight.”

  And that was all. There are more secrets than commercial ones.

  Chapter 26

  BEFORE THEY COULD ALL SIT DOWN to their evening meal there was the conducted tour of the bottling plant—all very boring unless one happened to be an engineer. Larwood pointed out with pride the way in which the machinery was mounted on floating platforms so that it would suffer no damage, and even go on functioning, in the event of an earth tremor. There were free samplings of the mineral-rich water, from which Grimes and Williams abstained. What had happened during their first night on Eblis had put them off the stuff.

  Grimes, more out of spite than from any desire to know, asked, “And what’s behind that door, Mr. Larwood?”

  “Just the office, Commodore Grimes. Nothing of any interest whatsoever.”

  “I’d rather like to see it, Mr. Larwood. As I spend most of my days behind an office desk I might get some ideas as to how to make myself more comfortable. If your office is like the plant it’ll be up to the minute.”

  “I’m sorry, Commodore. Only Captain Clavering has the keys. In any case, there’s nothing at all to see.”

  “Some other day, perhaps?” said Grimes vaguely.

  “Yes, Commodore. Some other day.”

  And then they were all sitting down at the tables in the mess hall, and the devils were bringing in steaming platters of food and bottles of cold wine, and everybody was tucking in to the bouillabaisse made from various denizens of the Bitter Sea as though none of them had eaten for at least a week. Even Williams enjoyed it, leaving nothing in his bowl but empty shells and cracked claws. Denise Dalgety, who was at the next table, was eating with a very good appetite, but Larwood was off his feed.

  It was bedtime then, and the tourists retired to the dormitory. The air mattresses were very comfortable, and even the chorus of snores from all around him could not keep the commodore awake. He was vaguely conscious of a slight earth tremor just before he dropped off, but it did not worry him.