Upon a Sea of Stars

by A Bertram Chandler

  She came in. She pulled the ugly white cap off her lustrous brown hair, tossed it on to the bunk. Then she turned back to the door, snapped on the spring lock. She tested its security, smiled, then flopped down into the one chair that the cabin possessed.

  Grimes looked at her, with raised eyebrows. “Yes, Sister Lane?” he asked.

  “Got a smoke, spaceman?” she growled.

  “There are some cigars . . .” he began doubtfully.

  “I didn’t expect pot. Although if you have any . . . ?”

  “I haven’t.” Then Grimes said virtuously, “In any case, such drugs are banned on the Rim Worlds.”

  “Are they? But what about the cigar you promised me?”

  Grimes got a box of panatellas out of his case, opened it, offered it to her. She took one, accepted his proffered light. She inhaled luxuriously. She said, “All I need now is a drink.”

  “I can supply that.”

  “Good on you, Admiral!”

  There was the bottle of absolute alcohol, and there was the case with its ranked phials of essences. “Scotch?” asked Grimes. “Rum? Brandy? Or . . . ?”

  “Scotch will do.”

  The Commodore measured alcohol into the two glasses over the washbasin, added to each a drop of essence, topped up with cold water from the tap. She murmured, “Here’s mud in your eye,” and gulped from hers as soon as he handed it to her.

  “Sister Lane,” said Grimes doubtfully.

  “You can call me Clarisse.”

  “Clarisse. . . . Should you be doing this?”

  “Don’t tell me that you’re a wowser, like all those Bible-punchers.”

  “I’m not. But this is not my ship. . . .”

  “And it’s not mine, either.”

  “Then what are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story, dearie. And if you ply me with liquor, I might just tell it to you.” She sighed and stretched. “You’ve no idea what a relief it is to enjoy a drink and a talk and a smoke with somebody who’s more or less human.”

  “Thank you,” said Grimes stiffly.

  She laughed. “Don’t be offended, duckie.” She put up her hands, pulled her hair back and away from her face. “Look at my ears.”

  Grimes looked. They were normal enough organs—save for the fact that were pointed, and were tufted with hair at the tips.

  “I’m only more or less human myself,” she told him. “More rather than less, perhaps. You know about the man Raul, the caveman, the Stone Age savage, who was pulled, somehow, from the remote past on Kinsolving’s Planet to what was then the present. He was my great-grandfather.”

  “He was humanoid,” said Grimes. “Not human.”

  “Human-schuman!” she mocked. “There is such a thing as parallel evolution, you know. And old Raul was made something of a pet by the scientists back on Earth, and when he evinced the desire to father a family the finest genetic engineers in the Galaxy were pressed into service. No, not the way that you’re thinking. Commodore. You’ve got a low mind.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I should think so. Just for that, you can pour me another drink.”

  And Grimes asked himself if his liquor ration would last out until his return to Lorn.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked bluntly. “In this ship?”

  “At this very moment I’m breaking at least ninety-nine percent of the regulations laid down by the Presbyter and enforced by the Rector. But I know what you mean.” Her voice deepened so that it was like Grimes’s own. “What is a nasty girl like you doing in a nice place like this?”

  “I wouldn’t call you nasty,” said Grimes.

  “Thank you, sir. Then stand by for the story of my life, complete and unexpurgated. I’ll start off with dear old great-granddaddy, the Noble Savage: He was an artist, you know, in his proper place and time, one of those specialists who practiced a form of sympathetic magic. He would paint or draw pictures of various animals, and the actual beasts would be drawn to the spot, there to be slaughtered by the hunters. He said that it worked, too. I can remember, when I was a little girl, that he’d put on demonstrations. He’d draw a picture of, say, the cat—and within seconds pussy would be in the room. Oh, yes—and he was a telepath, a very powerful transceiver.

  “After many years on Earth, where he was latterly an instructor at the Rhine Institute, he emigrated, with his wife and children, to Francisco, where he was psionic radio officer in charge of the Port Diego Signal Station. It was there that he got religion. And with all the religions to choose from, he had to become a Neo-Calvinist! His family was converted with him—and I often wonder how much part his undeniable psychic powers played in their conversion! And the wives of his sons had to become converts, and the husbands of his daughters—yea, even unto the third and fourth generations.”

  She grinned. “One member of the fourth generation kicked over the traces. Me. From the Neo-Calvinists to the Blossom People was a logical step. Like most new converts I overdid things. Drinks, drugs, promiscuity—the works. The Neo-Calvinists picked me up, literally, from the gutter and nursed me back to health in their sanatorium—and, at the same time, made it quite clear that if I was predestined to go to Hell I should go there. And then, when they checked up on great-grandfather’s autobiographical papers, they realized that I was predestined for something really important—especially since I, alone of his descendants, possess something of his powers.”

  “You mean that you can . . . ?”

  There was a violent knocking on the door, and a voice shouting, “Open up! Open up, I say!”

  “They know I’m here,” muttered Clarisse sullenly. She got out of her chair, operated the sliding panel herself.

  Rector Smith was standing outside, and with him was a tall, gaunt woman. She stared at Sister Lane in horror and snarled, “Cover your nakedness, you shameless hussy!”

  Clarisse shrugged, picked up the ugly cap from where it was lying on the bunk, adjusted it over her hair, tucking all loose strands out of sight.

  “Will you deal with Sister Lane, Deaconess?” asked Smith.

  “That I shall, Rector.”

  “Miss Lane and I were merely enjoying a friendly talk,” said Grimes.

  “A friendly talk!” The Deaconess’ voice dripped scorn. “Smoking! Wine-bibbing! You—you gilded popinjay!”

  Smith had picked up the bottle of alcohol, his obvious intention being to empty it into the washbasin. “Hold it!”

  Smith hesitated. Unhurriedly Grimes took the bottle from his hand, restoppered it, put it in the rack over the basin.

  Then the Rector started to bluster. “Sir. I must remind you that you are a guest aboard my ship. A passenger. You are obliged to comply with ship’s regulations.”

  “Sir,” replied Grimes coldly, “I have signed no articles of agreement, and no ticket with the back covered with small print has been issued to me. I am surprised that a shipmaster should have been so neglectful of the essential legalities, and were you in the employ of the company of which I am astronautical superintendent I should find it my duty to reprimand you.”

  “Not only a gilded popinjay,” observed the Deaconess harshly, “but a space lawyer.”

  “Yes, madam, a space lawyer—as any master astronaut should be.” He was warming up nicely. “But I must remind you, both of you, that I do have legal standing aboard this vessel. I am here in my capacity as official observer for the Rim Worlds Confederacy. Furthermore, I was called back to active duty in the Rim Worlds Naval Reserve, with the rank of Commodore.”

  “Meaningless titles,” sneered the Deaconess. “A Commodore without a fleet!”

  “Perhaps, madam. Perhaps. But I must remind you that we are proceeding through Rim Worlds’ territorial space. And I must make it plain that any interference with my own personal liberties—and the infliction by yourselves of any harsh punishment on Miss Lane—will mean that Piety will be intercepted and seized by one of our warships.” He thought, I hope the bluff isn’t c
alled.

  Called it was.

  “And just how, Mr. Commodore Grimes, do you propose to call a warship to your aid?” asked the woman.

  “Easily, Deaconess, easily,” said Clarisse Lane. “Have you forgotten that I am a telepath—and a good one? While this ship was on Lorn I made contact with Mr. Mayhew, Senior Psionic Radio Officer of the Rim World Navy. Even though we never met physically we became close friends. He is an old friend and shipmate of the Commodore, and asked me to keep in touch to let him know if Commodore Grimes was in any danger.”

  “And you will tell him, of course,” said Grimes, “if you are subjected to any harm, or even discomfort.”

  “He will know,” she said quietly.

  “Yes,” agreed Grimes. “He will know.”

  He was familiar with telepaths, was Grimes, having commenced his spacefaring career before the Carlotti direction finding and communications systems began to replace the psionic radio officers with its space- and time-twisting beamed radiations. He was familiar with telepaths, and knew how it was with them when, infrequently, one of them found a member of the opposite sex with the same talents attractive. Until this happened—and it rarely did—they would lavish all their affection on the disembodied canine brains that they used as amplifiers.

  Rector Smith was the first to weaken. He muttered, “Very well, Commodore.”

  “And is this harlot to go unpunished?” flared the Deaconess.

  “That’s right, she is,” Grimes told her.

  She glared at him—and Grimes glared back. He regretted deeply that this was not his ship, that he had no authority aboard her.

  “Rector Smith . . .” she appealed.

  “I’m sorry, Deaconess,” Smith told her. “But you have heard what these people have told us.”

  “And you will allow them to flout your authority?”

  “It is better than causing the success of our mission to be jeopardized.” He stiffened. “Furthermore, I order you not to lay hands upon Sister Lane, and not to order any of the other sisters to do so.”

  “And I suppose she’s to be free to visit this—this vile seducer any time that she sees fit.”

  “No,” said Smith at last. “No. That I will not sanction. Commodore Grimes claims that I cannot give orders to him, but my authority is still absolute insofar as all other persons aboard this vessel are concerned. Sister Lane will not be ill-treated, but she will be confined to the women’s quarters until such time as her services are required.”

  “The Presbyter shall hear of this,” said the woman.

  “Indeed he shall. I shall be making my own report to him. Meanwhile, he is not, repeat not, to be disturbed.” He added, “And those are his orders.”

  “Very well, then,” snapped the Deaconess. And to Clarisse Lane, “Come.”

  “It was a good try, Commodore,” said the girl, looking back wistfully at her unfinished drink, her still smoldering cigar. “It was a good try, but it could have been a better one, as far as I’m concerned. Good night.”

  It was a good try, thought Grimes. Period. He had gone as far as he could go without undermining the Master’s—the Rector’s—authority too much. As for the girl, he was sure that she would not, now, be maltreated, and it would do her no harm to revert to the abstemious routine of this aptly named ship.

  “Good night,” he said.

  “May I have a word with you, sir?” asked Smith when the two women were gone.

  “Surely. Stick around, Rector. This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.”

  Smith looked, but did not voice, his disapproval of the figure of speech. He shut the door, snapped the lock on. Then, with a penknife taken from his pocket, he made a little adjustment to one of the securing screws of the mirror over the washbasin.

  “Bugged?” asked Grimes interestedly.

  “Of course—as is every compartment in the ship. But there are speakers and screens in only two cabins—my own and the Presbyter’s. His Reverence, I know, took sleeping pills before retiring, but he might awaken.”

  “I suppose the ladies’ showers are bugged, too?” asked Grimes.

  A dull flush covered what little of the Rector’s face was not hidden by his beard. He growled. “That, sir, is none of your business.”

  “And what, sir, is your business with me?”

  “I feel, Commodore Grimes, that you should know how important that unhappy woman is to the success of our mission; then, perhaps, you will be less inclined, should the opportunity present itself again, to pander to her whims.” Smith cleared his throat; then he went on. “This business upsets me, sir. You will know, as you, yourself, were once a shipmaster, how unpleasant it is to have to assert your authority.”

  “And talking,” said Grimes, who had his telepath moments, “is thirsty work.”

  “If you would be so kind, sir,” said Smith, after a long moment of hesitation. “I believe that brandy has always been regarded as a medicine.”

  Grimes sighed, and mixed fresh drinks. He motioned Smith to the single chair, sat down on the bunk. He thought of shocking the other man with one of the more obscene toasts, but merely said, “Down the hatch.” The Rector said, “I needed that.”

  “Another, Rector Smith?”

  “No, thank you, sir.”

  You want me to twist your arm, you sanctimonious bastard, thought Grimes, but I’m not going to do it. He put the bottle of alcohol and the little case of essences away. “And now,” he said, “about Miss Lane. . . .”

  “Yes, Sister Lane. As she has told you, she was one of us. But she backslid, and consorted with the fornicators and wine-bibbers who call themselves the Blossom People. But even this was in accordance with the Divine scheme of things. Whilst consorting with those—those pagans she became accustomed to the use and the abuse—but surely the use is also abuse!—of the psychedelic drugs. Already she possessed considerable psychic powers, but those vile potions enhanced them.

  “You will realize, sir, that it would have been out of the question for any of our own Elect to imperil his immortal soul by tampering with such powerful, unseen and unseeable forces, but—”

  “But,” said Grimes, “Clarisse Lane has already demonstrated that she is damned, so you don’t mind using her as your cat’s-paw.”

  “You put it very concisely, sir,” agreed Smith.

  “I could say more, but I won’t. I just might lose my temper. But go on.”

  “Sister Lane is not entirely human. She is descended from that Raul, the Stone Age savage who was brought to Earth from Kinsolving’s Planet. Many factors were involved in his appearance. It could be that the very fabric of the Continuum is worn thin, here on the Rim, and that lines of force, or fault lines, intersect at that world. It could be, as the Rhine Institute claimed at the time, that the loneliness and the fear of all the dwellers on the colonized Rim Worlds are somehow focused on Kinsolving. Be that as it may, it happened. And it happened too that, in the fullness of time, this Raul was accepted into the bosom of our Church.

  “Raul, as you may know, was more than a mere telepath. Much more. He was a wizard, one of those who, in his own age, drew animals to the hunters’ spears by limning their likenesses on rock.”

  Grimes interrupted. “Doesn’t the Bible say, somewhere, that thou shalt not suffer a witch to live?”

  “Yes. It is so written. But we did not know of the full extent of Raul’s talents when he was admitted into our Fold. We did not know of them until after his death, when his papers came into our possession.”

  “But what are you playing at?” demanded Grimes. “Just what you are playing at in our back garden?” He had the bottle out again, and the little phial of cognac-flavored essence, and was mixing two more drinks. He held out one of them, the stronger, to Smith, who absentmindedly took it and raised it to his lips.

  The Rector said, “Sir, I do not approve of your choice of words. Life is not a game. Life, death and the hereafter are not a game. We are not pla
ying. We are working. Is it not written. ‘Work, for the night is coming?’ And you, sir, and I, as spacemen, know that the night is coming—the inevitable heat death of the Universe. . . .” He gulped more of his drink.

  “You should visit Darsha some time,” said Grimes, “and their Tower of Darkness. You should see the huge clock that is the symbol of their God.” He added softly, “The clock is running down.”

  “Yes, the clock is running down, the sands of time are running out. And there is much to be done, so much to be done. . . .”

  “Such as?”

  “To reestablish the eternal verities. To build a new Sinai, to see the Commandments graven afresh on imperishable stone. And then, perhaps, the heathen, the idolators, will take heed and tremble. And then, surely, the rule of Jehovah will come again, before the End.”

  Grimes said reasonably enough, “But you people believe in predestination, don’t you? Either we’re damned or we aren’t, and nothing we do makes any difference.”

  “I have learned by bitter experience,” Smith told him, “that it is impossible to argue with a heretic—especially one who is foredoomed to eternal damnation. But even you must see that if the Commandments are given anew to Man then we, the Elect, shall be elevated to our rightful place in the Universe.”

  “Then God save us all,” said Grimes.

  Smith looked at him suspiciously, but went on. “It is perhaps necessary that there should be a sacrifice, and, if that be so, the Lord has already delivered her into our hands. No, sir, do not look at me like that. We shall not kill her, neither by knife nor fire shall we slay her. But, inevitably, she will be the plaything of supernal powers when she, on the planet of her ancestral origin, her inherited talents intensified by drugs, calls to Jehovah, the true God, the God of the Old Testament, to make Himself known again to sinful men.”

  There were flecks of white froth on Smith’s beard around his lips, a dribble of saliva down the hair on his chin. His eyes were glaring and bloodshot. Grimes thought, in vino veritas. He said, with a gentleness he did not feel, actuated only by self-interest, “Don’t you think that you’ve had enough, Rector? Isn’t it time that we both turned in?”