First Command

by A Bertram Chandler

  “You can say that again, Captain. And again. Cooped up with a snooty, rich bitch in a solid gold sardine can . . . .”

  “Gold-plated, surely,” interjected Grimes.

  “No. Gold. G-O-L-D. Gold.”

  “But gold’s not a structural material.”

  “It is after those eggheads on Electra have finished mucking about with it. They rearrange the molecules. Or the atoms. Or something.”

  “Fantastic,” commented Grimes.

  “The whole bloody ship’s fantastic. A miracle of automation or an automated miracle. A human captain is just a figurehead. You watched the set down yesterday?”

  “Of course. I am the Port Captain, you know. There was something a bit . . . odd about it. I can guess now what it must have been. The ship was coming down by herself without a human hand on the controls—and making a slight balls of it. And then you took over.”

  Billinger glared at Grimes. “Ha! Ha bloody ha! For your information, Port Captain, I was bringing her down. At first. Yes, I know damn well that there was drift but I was putting on speed. At the last possible moment I was going to make a spectacular lateral hedge-hop and sit down bang in the middle of the beacons. And then she had to stick her tits in. Take your ape’s paws off the controls!’ she told me. The computer may not be as old as you—but she knows more about ship-handling than you’ll ever learn in your entire, misspent life!’”

  The waitress brought two fresh pots of beer. Grimes could tell by the way that she looked at Billinger that she liked him. (She knew, of course, who he was—and would assume that he, as captain of a solid gold spaceship, would be rich.)

  “Thank you, dear,” said Billinger. He leered up at her and she simpered sweetly down at him. She took the bank note—the Baroness had traded a handful or so of precious stones for local currency—that he handed her, began to fumble in the sequined sporran that was, apart from high-heeled sandals, her only clothing for change.

  “That will be all right,” said Billinger grandly.

  Throwing money around like a drunken spaceman . . . thought Grimes.

  “And what are you doing tonight after you close, my dear?” went on Billinger.

  “If you wait around, sir, you’ll find out,” she promised, her simper replaced by a definitely encouraging smile.

  She left the table reluctantly, her firm buttocks seeming to beckon as she moved away.

  “I believe I’m on to something there,” murmured Billinger. “I do. I really do. And I deserve it. I’ve been too long confined to that space-going trinket box with bitchy Micky flaunting the body beautiful all over the whole damned ship—and making it quite plain that there was nothing doing. You can look—but you mustn’t touch. That’s her ladyship!”

  Grimes remembered his own experiences on El Dorado. He asked, however, “What exactly is she doing out here?”

  “Research. Or so she says. For her thesis for a doctorate in some damn science or other. Social Evolution In The Lost Colonies. Not that she’ll find much to interest her here. Not kinky enough. Mind you, this’d be a fine world for an honest working stiff like me. . .” He stiffened abruptly. “Talk of the devil . . .”

  “Of two devils . . .” corrected Grimes.

  She swept into the crowded bar-room, the gleaming length of her darkly tanned legs displayed by a skirt that was little more than a wide belt of gold mesh, topped by a blouse of the same material that was practically all décolletage. Her dark-gleaming hair was still arranged in a jewel-studded coronet. She was escorted by no less a person than Commander Frank Delamere. Handsome Frankie was attired for the occasion in mess full dress—spotless white linen, black and gold, a minor constellation of tinkling miniatures depending from rainbow ribbons on the left breast of his superbly cut jacket. They were no more than Good Attendance medals, Grimes well knew—but they looked impressive.

  The handsome couple paused briefly at the table at which Grimes and Billinger were seated.

  “Ah, Mr. Grimes . . .” said Delamere nastily.

  “Captain Grimes,” corrected the owner of that name.

  “A civilian, courtesy title,” sneered Delamere. “A . . . Port Captain.”

  He made it sound at least three grades lower than Spaceman, Fourth Class. (Grimes himself, come to that, had always held Port Captains in low esteem—but that was before he became one such.)

  “Perhaps we should not have come here, Francis,” said the Baroness.

  “Why shouldn’t you?” asked Grimes. “This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.” He knew that he was being childish but was deriving a perverse pleasure from the exchange.

  “Come, Francis,” she said imperiously. “I think that I see a vacant table over there. A very good night to you, Acting Port Captain. And to . . . to you, Captain Billinger? Of course. Forgive me, but I did not recognize you in your civilian finery.”

  She glided away. Her rear view was no less enticing than that of the waitress had been but, nonetheless, she was the sort of woman who looked and walked like an aristocrat no matter what she was or was not wearing. Delamere, a fatuous smirk on his too regularly featured face, followed.

  “A lovely dollop of trollop,” muttered Grimes.

  Billinger scowled. “It’s all very well for you, Captain,” he complained, “but I have to work for that bitch!”

  “My nose fair bleeds for you,” said Grimes unfeelingly.

  So Delamere was a fast worker. And Delamere, as Grimes well knew, was the most notorious womanizer in the entire Survey Service. And he used women. His engagement to the very plain daughter of the Admiral Commanding Lindisfarne Base had brought him undeserved promotions. But Delamere and this El Doradan baroness? That was certainly intriguing. She was a sleek, potentially dangerous cat, not a silly kitten. Who would be using whom? Grimes, back in his quarters in the mayoral palace, lay awake in the wide bed pondering matters; in spite of the large quantities of beer he had consumed he was not sleepy. He was sorry that Mavis, the Mayor, had not come to him this night as she usually did. She was well endowed with the shrewdness essential in a successful politician and he would have liked to talk things over with her.

  Delamere and the Baroness . . .

  The Baroness and Delamere . . .

  He wished them joy of each other.

  He wished Billinger and his little blonde waitress joy of each other.

  But a vague premonition kept nagging at him. Something was cooking. He wished that he knew what it was.

  Chapter 4

  Two mornings later he found out.

  Billinger, his face almost as purple as the cloth of his gaudy uniform, stormed into Grimes’ little office atop the grandstand just as he was settling down to his morning tea, freshly brewed by Shirley who, by now, was working for him as much as for the Mayor, and hot buttered scones liberally spread with jam.

  “This is too much!” yelled The Far Traveler’s captain.

  Grimes blinked, thinking at first that the other was referring to the matutinal snack. But this was unlikely, he realized. “Calm down, calm down,” he soothed. “Take a pew. Have a cuppa. And a scone . . .”

  “Calm down, you say? How would you feel in my shoes? I was engaged as a yachtmaster, not a tugmaster. I should have been consulted. But she, as per bloody usual, has gone over my head!”

  “What is all this about?” demanded Grimes.

  “You mean that you don’t know either, Captain?”

  “No. Sit down, have some tea and tell me all about it. Shirley—a mug for Captain Billinger, please.”

  “She,” said Billinger after a tranquilizing sip, “is rolling in money—but that doesn’t inhibit her from grabbing every chance to make more of the filthy stuff. She has signed a contract with your pal Delamere, engaging to raise Vega to liftoff position. She just happened to mention it to me, casual like.”

  “You’re not a tugmaster,” agreed Grimes, “and a space-yacht is certainly not a tug. Looks to me as though she’s bitten o
ff more than she—or you—can chew.”

  “Maybe not,” said Billinger slowly, “maybe not. She’s a powerful little brute—The Far Traveler, I mean. She’s engines in her that wouldn’t be out of place in a battleship. But I should have been consulted.”’

  “So should I,” said Grimes. “So should I. After all, this is my spaceport, such as it is.” And then, more to himself than to the other, “But Frankie won’t be too popular, signing away a large hunk of the taxpayers’ money when the Survey Service’s own tugs are well on the way to here.”

  “They’re not,” said Billinger. “It seems that there’s been some indefinite delay. Delamere got a Carlottigram about it. Or so she says.”

  “And so Frankie keeps his jets clear,” murmured Grimes in a disappointed voice. “He would.”

  And just how would this affect him? he wondered. Vega lying helplessly on her side was one thing, Vega restored to the perpendicular, to the lift-off position, would be an altogether different and definitely dangerous kettle of fish. Even should her drives, inertial and reaction, require adjustments or repairs she would be able to deploy her quite considerable weaponry—her automatic cannon, missile launchers and lasers. The city of Paddington would lay at her mercy. And then?

  An ultimatum to the Mayor?

  Deliver the deserter, ex-Commander Grimes, to Federation Survey Service custody so that he may be carried to Lindisfarne Base to stand trial—or else?

  Grimes shrugged away his apprehensions. Handsome Frankie wouldn’t dare. Botany Bay was almost in the backyard of the Empire of Waverley and, thanks to certain of Discovery’s technicians, now possessed its own deep-space radio equipment, the Time-Space-twisting Carlotti communications and direction-finding system. A squeal to the Emperor—who’d been getting far too uppish of late—and Imperial Navy cruisers would be piling on the lumes to this sector of space. There would be all the makings of a nasty interstellar incident with Frankie having to carry the can back. And, in any case, H.I.M.S. Robert Bruce was already en route to Botany Bay to show the Thistle Flag. But what was Billinger saying?

  “ . . . interesting problem, all the same. It wouldn’t be so bad if she’d let me handle it. But not her. It’ll either be that bloody computer or that popinjay of an FSS commander, or the pair of ‘em working in collusion. With her sticking her tits into everything, as always.”

  “And, of course,” Grimes pointed out just to cheer him up, “you, as master, will be legally responsible if anything goes wrong.”

  “Don’t I know it! For two pins I’d resign. I’d be quite happy waiting here for another ship to come along; after all, I’ve a pile of credits due in back pay.” He got to his feet. “Oh, well, I suppose I’d better get back to my noble vessel to see what else has been cooked up in my absence.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Grimes.

  The pair of them stood in the Baroness’ boudoir like two schoolboys summoned before a harsh headmistress. She did not ask them to sit down. And she, herself, was not reclining decoratively on her chaise longue but seated at a secretaire, a gracefully designed desk—excellent reproduction or genuine antique?—with rich ormolu decoration. It must be, thought Grimes, a reproduction. His mind was a repository for scraps of useless knowledge and he remembered that the original ormolu had been brass imitating gold. Only the genuine precious metal would do for the Baroness.

  She looked up from the papers before her. A pair of heavy, old-fashioned spectacles, black-framed, went oddly with her filmy gown—but somehow suited her. She said, “Captain Billinger, I believe that you, as master, are required to affix your signature to this document, this contract I, as owner, have already signed.”

  Sulkily Billinger went to stand by the ornate desk, produced a stylus from the breast pocket of his uniform, bent to scribble his name.

  “And Port Captain Grimes . . . I understand that I should ask your permission to engage in towage—if that is the correct word—within the spaceport limits.”

  “That is so, Your Excellency,” said Grimes.

  “I assume that the permission is granted.”

  Grimes was tempted to say no but decided against it. Commander Delamere represented the Survey Service and the Baroness d’Estang represented El Dorado, with its vast wealth and influence. There are times—and this was one of them— when it is futile to fart against thunder.

  He said, “Yes.”

  “Good. No doubt you gentlemen feel that you are entitled to be apprised as to what has been arranged between Commander Delamere and myself. The commander will supply the towing wires from his stores. It will be necessary to pierce The Far Traveler’s shell plating about the stern to secure the towing lugs. I am informed that the welding of steel onto gold is impracticable—and, of course, the modified gold that was used to build the ship on Electra is unobtainable here. Commander Delamere assures me, however, that his artificers will be able to make good the hull after the job has been completed. All dust and shavings will be carefully collected and melted down to plug the holes.” She turned in her chair to address Billinger. “All relevant data has been fed into the computer.” She permitted herself a smile. “You will be pleased to learn, Captain, that she does not feel herself competent to undertake what is, in effect, salvage work. Her programmers back on Electra did not envisage any circumstances such as those that have arisen now.” She looked positively happy. “The guarantee has not yet expired, so I shall be entitled to considerable financial redress from Electronics and Astronautics, Incorporated.” She paused, looked quizzically at Grimes, the heavy spectacles making her look like a schoolmistress condescending to share a joke with one of her pupils. “Commander Delamere did suggest that he assume temporary command of my ship during the operation but I decided not to avail myself of his kind offer.”

  She’s shrewd, thought Grimes. She’s got him weighed up.

  She turned again to Billinger. “You are the master, Captain. I am paying you a handsome salary. I expect you to begin earning it. And I am sure that Port Captain Grimes will be willing to oversee the entire exercise from the ground.”

  “I shall be pleased to, Your Excellency,” said Grimes.

  “Your pleasure,” she told him, “is of little consequence. After all, this is your spaceport, even though it is normally used for archaic Australian religious rites. Thank you, gentlemen.”

  They were dismissed.

  Chapter 5

  “I don’t like it, John,” said Mavis.

  The Lady Mayor of Paddington, President of the Council of Mayors of Botany Bay, was sprawled in an easy chair in Grimes’ sitting room, regarding him solemnly over the rim of her beer mug. She was a big woman, although too firm-bodied to be considered obese, older than him but still sexually attractive. She was wearing a gaudy sarong that displayed her deeply tanned, sturdy legs almost to the crotch, that left bare her strong but smooth arms and shoulders. Her lustrous, almost white hair made a startling contrast to the warm bronze of her face, as did the pale gray eyes, the very serious eyes. Of late she had been too much the mother and too little the lover for Grimes’ taste.

  He said, “We have to get that bloody Vega off your cricket pitch some time.”

  She said, “That’s as may be—but I wouldn’t trust your cobber Delamere as far as I could throw him.”

  “No cobber of mine,” Grimes assured her. “He never was and never will be.” He laughed. “Anyhow, you could throw him quite a fair way.”

  She chuckled. “An’ wouldn’t I like to! Right into one o’ those stinkin’ tanks out at the sewage farm!”

  Grimes said, “But he’d never dare to use his guns to threaten you, to demand that you turn me over to him. He knows damn well that if he sparked off an incident he’d be as much in the shit with the Survey Service as I am.”

  She did not need to be a telepath to sense his mood. She said softly, “That Service of yours has been more a mistress—and a mother—to you than I have ever been, ever could be.”

  “No,” he s
aid, after too long a pause. “Not so.”

  “Don’t lie to me, John. Don’t worry about hurtin’ my feelings. I’m just an old bag who’s been around for so long that emotionally I’m mostly scar tissue. . .” She lit one of the cigars rolled from the leaves of the mutated tobacco of Botany Bay, deeply inhaled the fragrant, aphrodisiac smoke, exhaled. Grimes, whether he wanted to or not, got his share of the potent fumes. In his eyes she became more and more attractive, Junoesque. The sarong slipped to reveal her big, firm, brown-gleaming breasts with their erect, startlingly pink nipples. He got up from his own chair, took a step toward her.

  But she hadn’t finished talking. Raising a hand to fend him off she said, “An’ it’s not only the Service. It’s space itself. I’ve been through this sorta tiling before. My late husband was a seaman—an’ he thought more o’ the sea an’ his blasted ships than he ever did o’ me. An’ the airship skippers are just as bad, their wives tell me. Sea, Air—an’ Space . . . The great mistresses with whom we mere human women can never compete . . .

  “You don’t haveter tell me, Johnnie boy, but you’re pinin’. It’s a space-goin’ command you really want, not the captaincy of a cricket field that just happens to be cluttered up with spaceships. I wish I could help—but it’ll be years before we have any spaceships of our own. An’ I wish I could get you off Botany Bay—for your sake, not mine! I hear things an’ I hear of things. That Delamere was sayin’—never mind who to—“The Survey Service has a long arm—an’ if that bastard Grimes thinks he’s safe here, he’s got another thing comin’.”

  “Delamere!” sneered Grimes.

  “He’s a weak man,” said Mavis, “but he’s vain. An’ cunning as a shit-house rat. An’ dangerous.”

  “He couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag,” said Grimes.

  “He has men—an’ he’ll soon have a ship—to do his fightin’ for him,” Mavis said.

  “It’s up to me whether he has a ship or not,” said Grimes. “And now let’s forget about him, shall we?”