"I'm surprised that none of these deportees has talked. Their stories, sold to newspapers and magazines throughout the Galaxy, would bring in enough to maintain them in luxury for the rest of their lives."
She smiled. "Somebody must know what happens, but quite a few of us suspect. After all, not much engineering skill would be required to convert a perfectly functioning ship into a perfectly functioning time bomb."
"I suppose not. But tell me, Marlene, just what does anybody have to do to get slung off this, insofar as you all are concerned, perfect world?"
"There was one man who still lusted for power, direct, personal power. Working in secret he tried to form a Party, with himself as Leader, of course, on the same lines as the old Fascist and Communist Parties . . . ." She almost whispered, "I was lucky not to have been involved. Anyhow, he went. And there was another man . . . We still have the record. I'll show you."
She made a slight gesture with her right hand. There was the slightest of humming noises, a hesitant click, and then misty forms and colors swirled in the depths of the big screen, slowly coalesced. And there was sound, too, a woman's voice screaming, "No! Please! No!"
Horrified, yet obsessed by a fascination of which he was afterwards bitterly ashamed, Grimes stared at the picture. It showed the interior of a cellar, and there was a naked girl, her body dreadfully elongated, stretched out on a rack, and a pale, fat slug of a man, stripped to the waist, in the act of taking a white-hot iron from a glowing brazier.
Suddenly there was an ingress of men and women, all of them armed, one of them carrying a bell-mouthed pistol like the ones Grimes had seen in Marlene's room. The report, when it was fired, was no more than a soft chuff. At once the torturer was trapped, enmeshed in a net of metal strands that seemed to be alive, that working with a sort of mechanical intelligence bound his hands and arms and legs and feet, swiftly immobilizing him. He fell against his own brazier, and the others left him there while they attended to his victim. Grimes could see the smoke and the steam that rose from his burning body, could hear his wordless screams (until the net somehow gagged him), thought (although this could have been imagination) that he could smell charred flesh.
The screen went blank.
"And who was that?" asked Grimes, with feeble, cheap humor. "The Marquis de Sade?"
"No. Oddly enough, a Mr. Jones from New Detroit."
"And did he . . . die?"
"Probably. But not on El Dorado."
"And how did you suspect?"
"Oh, we knew. But his first victims were collaborators more than martyrs, and he did them no permanent damage. And that girl, for example, was experiencing nothing worse (or better?) than a mild, sexually stimulating whipping. However, the Monitor sees all, knows all, and gave the alarm, but on the rare occasions that arrests are necessary we prefer that they be made by ourselves, not by robots."
"But if your Monitor is so highly efficient, why the human Big Brothers?"
"We monitor the Monitor. That first man I told you about, the would-be dictator, almost succeeded in subverting it."
"I'm not sure that I'd like to live here, Marlene."
"I'm not sure that we'd have you, John, at least not until you've made your first billion or produced cast-iron documentary evidence of a family tree going back to Adam. Or both." But the words were spoken without malice. "And now, John, would you like to see how your lords and masters are behaving themselves?"
"No," he should have said.
"They are guests at the Duchess of Leckhampton's masked ball—the Captain and Surgeon Commander Passifern."
"That sounds innocuous enough," he said, disappointed.
Again there was the languid wave of her slim hand, again there was the coalescing swirl of light and form and color. Again there was sound, distorted at first, that reminded Grimes of Ravel's Waltz Dream. But it was not Ravel that poured from the concealed speakers when the picture clarified; it was Strauss, rich, creamy, sensual, unbearably sweet, and to it the dancers swayed and glided over the wide, wide expanse of mirror floor, and in the background there was red plush and gilt, and overhead blazed and sparkled the crystalline electroliers.
Grimes stared, shocked, incredulous.
Crinolines and hussars' uniforms would have added the final touch but not, relieved (accentuated) only by masks and sandals and jewellery, nudity.
And yet . . .
He shifted uneasily in his seat, acutely conscious of his telltale ears. He muttered, "Surely not the Old Man and the Chief Quack . . ."
And then, as though the Monitor had heard his words (perhaps it had), he was looking directly at Captain Daintree and Commander Passifern. The two officers were not among the naked dancers. They were seated at a table against the wall, stiff and incongruous in their dress uniforms. With them was a lady, elderly, elaborately clothed, one of the few people on this world of perpetual youth and near immortality showing her age and not ashamed of it. There was a silver ice bucket, bedewed with condensation; there were three goblets in which the wine sparkled.
Fascinated, Grimes stared at the faces of his superiors. Daintree—he would—was playing the part of the disapproving puritan, his mouth set in a grim line. But his eyes betrayed him, flickering avidly, almost in time to the music, as the nude men and women swirled past. Passifern was more honest, was making no pretence. A shiny film of perspiration covered his plump features. There was more than a suggestion of slobber about his thick lips.
"Your Grace," he muttered, "I . . . I almost wish that I could join them."
The old lady smiled, tapped the Doctor on the arm with her fan. "Naughty, naughty, Commander. You may look but you mustn't touch."
"I wish that I could . . ." sighed Passifern, while Daintree glared at him.
The scene shifted again to an overall view of the ballroom. The scene shifted and, once more, the music seemed to Grimes to carry the subtle discordancies of Ravel's distortion of the traditional Viennese waltz.
The scene faded.
"Decadent," whispered Grimes to himself. "Decadent."
"Do you think so, John?" asked the Princess. She answered herself, "Yes, I suppose that it is. But erotic stimulation carried to extremes is one of the ways that we have tried to deal with our . . . problem. And there are other ways . . ."
Although the screen was still dark, from the speakers drifted a throb and grumble of little drums. Gradually there was light, faint at first then flaring to brilliant reds and oranges. It came from a fire and from torches held aloft by white-robed men and women. It grew steadily brighter, illuminating the clearing in the forest, in the jungle, rather. It shone on the altar, on the squatting, naked drummers, on the rough-hewn wooden cross that stood behind the altar, its arms thrust through the sleeves of a ragged black coat, a band of white cloth, like a clerical collar, where a human neck would have been, the whole surmounted by a battered black hat.
Grimes was an agnostic, but this apparent blasphemy shocked him. He turned to look at the girl. "John!" she whispered, "if you could only see your face! That cross is the symbol of a religion at least as valid as any of the others. It represents Baron Samedi, the Lord of Graveyards. But watch!"
A huge man, black and glistening, was bowing before the altar, before the . . . the idol? He was bowing low before the altar and the frightening effigy of Baron Samedi. He straightened, and Grimes saw that he carried a long, gleaming knife in his right hand. He turned to face the celebrants. His eyes and his teeth were very white in his ebony face. Grimes recognized him, saw that it was the Hereditary Chief Lobenga. Lobenga, the exile from New Katanga, the dabbler in black magic, in voodoo.
The enormous Negro called, his voice a resonant baritone, "De woman! Bring out de woman! "Prepare de sacrifice!"
"The woman!" a chorus of voices echoed him. "The woman!"
And while the drums throbbed and muttered, a figure, wrapped in an all-enveloping black cloak and hood, was led to the altar by four of the white-robed worshippers. Their clothing made it i
mpossible for Grimes to determine their sex, but he thought that two of them were men, two of them women. Lobenga faced the victim, towering over her. She seemed to cringe. His left hand went out to her throat, did something, and as the stuttering of the drums rose to a staccato roar, her cloak fell away from her. Beneath it she was naked, her flesh gleaming golden in the fire-lit darkness, her hair reflecting the ruddy flames.
She did not resist. As Lobenga moved to a position directly behind the altar, between it and the cross, she allowed herself to be led forward and then, quite willingly it seemed, lay down upon the dark, gold-embroidered altar cloth. She was beautiful of face, her body perfectly formed. Even in this supine posture her breasts did not sag. She was young, or was she? On this world, thought Grimes, she could be any age at all.
Lobenga had raised his knife. Above the now-muted drums rose the voices of the communicants. "The sacrifice! The sacrifice!"
Grimes was half out of his seat. "Marlene! What's your bloody Monitor doing about it? What are you doing?"
"Be quiet, damn you!" she snarled.
"The sacrifice!" cried the people on the screen.
And those about the altar laid hands upon the girl, one to each ankle, one to each-wrist, spread-eagling her.
"The sacrifice!"
"De white goat!" shouted Lobenga, knife upraised.
The white goat . . . the goat without horns . . .
"Marlene!" Grimes' hand was on her arm. "Marlene, we must do something. Now. Before it's too late."
She shook him off. "Be quiet!"
And suddenly there was a white goat, bleating, struggling. Two men threw the animal on its side to the ground, grasping its feet, lifting it. They set it down on the girl's naked body, its back to her breasts and belly, its head between her legs. The drums throbbed softly, insistently. The priest's knife swept down; the animal's cries ceased in mid-bleat, although its now released limbs kicked spasmodically. The girl, free herself from restraining hands, held the dying body to her.
The drums were clamorous now, ecstatic, yet maintaining a compelling rhythm. All over the clearing men and women were throwing aside their white robes, had begun to dance, to prance, rather, and there was no doubt as to what the outcome would be. Lobenga had lifted the blood-spattered woman off the altar, was carrying her into the darkness. The way that her arms were twined about his neck was proof of her willingness.
"I think," said Grimes, "that I'm going to be sick."
"Karl will escort you to your quarters," said Marlene.
As he walked unsteadily through the doorway of the Monitor Vault he looked back. The girl was still staring raptly into the screen.
Chapter 19
Not surprisingly he dreamed that night, when at last he fell into an uneasy sleep.
There was the nightmare in which naked women and huge white goats, erect on their hind legs, danced to the music of Ravel's Waltz Dream, while across the mirror floor, scattering the dancers, stalked Baron Samedi.
There was that other dream, even more frightening.
It seemed that he half woke up but was unable to stir a muscle, to open his eyes more than the merest slit. There was a strange, acridly sweet smell in the air. There were low voices of a man and a woman. He could just see them, standing there by his bed. He thought that, in spite of the darkness, he could recognize them.
"Are you sure?" asked the woman.
"I am sure," replied the man. Although there was now no trace of accent, that deep, rolling baritone was unmistakable. "The white goat."
"The goat without horns." Then, "But I do not like it."
"It must be done."
"Then do it now. Get it over with."
"No. The . . . conditions must be right. You do know enough about these matters."
"After what I watched on the Monitor, I am not sure that I want to know any more than I know already."
"But you watched."
"Yes. I watched."
"Did he?"
"Some of it."
"Come." The larger of the two figures was already out of range of Grimes' vision.
"All right."
And then both of them were gone, and Grimes slept deeply until morning.
Chapter 20
He was awakened by the inevitable disembodied voice calling softly at first, then louder, "Lord, it is time to arise . . ."
It took a considerable effort to force his gummy eyelids open. His head was fuzzy, his mouth dry and stale-tasting. The uneasy memory of that last nightmare persisted.
There was a condensation-clouded glass on the table beside his bed. He picked it up in a rather shaky hand, drained it gratefully. The chilled, unidentifiable fruit juice was tart and refreshing. After it he began to feel a little better.
"And what's on today, I wonder?" he muttered, more to himself than to any possible listener.
"You will perform your ablutions, Lord," replied the irritating unseen speaker. "Then you will partake of breakfast. And then you will join Her Highness at the hunt." There was a pause. "And would you care to place your order for the meal now?"
"What's on?" asked Grimes, feeling faint stirrings of appetite.
"Anything that you may desire, Lord."
"No stipulations about 'reasonable orders'?"
"Of course not, Lord." The voice was mildly reproachful. "As a guest of Schloss Stolzberg you may command what you will."
"As a Lord, acting, temporary, unpaid, you mean. It was a different story when I was a mere spaceman. But you wouldn't know about that, would you?"
There was the suggestion of a smirk in the reply. "Lord, to the Monitor all things are known."
"Are you part of the Monitor, then?"
"I am not permitted to answer that question, Lord."
"Oh, all right. Skip it. Now, breakfast. A pot of coffee, black, hot and strong. Sugar, but no milk or cream. Two four-minute eggs. Hens' eggs, that is. Plenty of toast. Butter. Honey."
"It will be awaiting you, Lord."
Grimes went through to the bathroom, performed his morning ritual. When he came out, in his dressing gown, he noted that clothing had been laid out on the already made bed. He looked at it curiously; it was nothing that he had brought with him, but he had no doubt that it would prove a perfect fit. His breakfast was waiting on the table in the bedroom, and with it a crisp newspaper. THE ELDORADO CHRONICLE he read as he picked it up. Curious, he skimmed through it over his first cup of coffee. It contained little more than social gossip, although its editor had condescended to notice the presence of Aries at the spaceport, and there were even some photographs of the ship's personnel. Grimes chuckled over one of Captain Daintree and Surgeon Commander Passifern at the Duchess of Leckhampton's masked ball, at another one that showed a conducted party of the ship's ratings, looking acutely uncomfortable in their uniforms, at an ocean beach on which the rig of the day was the only sensible one for swimming, and sunbathing. He found a brief item which informed anybody who might be interested that Lieutenant Grimes was the house guest of the Princess Marlene von Stolzberg. On the back page there was Galactic news, but most of it was financial.
Grimes put the paper down and applied himself to his breakfast, which was excellent. After one last cup of coffee he went back to the bedroom and examined curiously the heavy shirt, the tough breeches, the thick stockings and the heavy boots before putting them on. A tweed cap completed the ensemble. He was admiring himself in the mirror when, unannounced, Marlene came in. He removed his hat, turned to look at her. She was dressed as he was, but on her the rough clothing looked extremely feminine.
He said, "Good morning, Marlene."
She said, "Good morning, John." Then, "I trust that you slept well."
"Yes," he lied.
"Good." Her mood seemed to be that of a small girl setting out on a long-promised outing. "Then shall we make a start? The woods are so much better in the morning."
"Your tin butler said something about a hunt."
"Yes. There is a boar, a great
, cunning brute that I have promised myself the pleasure of despatching for many a day."
"I don't know anything about hunting."
"But you must. As an officer of an armed service you must, at times, have been a hunter—and, at times, the hunted."
"That's not quite the same."
"No. I suppose it's not. Didn't somebody say once that Man is the most dangerous game of all?"
"But I'm not sure that I approve of blood sports."
She was amusedly contemptuous. "John, John, you typical Terran petty bourgeois! You approved of that roast of wild boar at dinner last night. And that animal was killed by me, not in some sterile, allegedly humane abattoir. There is a big difference between killing for sport and mere butchering."
To Prime the Pump Page 10
