Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III

by A Bertram Chandler

  Grimes worked his way through the plate of stew while she was talking. It wasn’t too bad, although he, had he been cooking, would have programmed the autochef to be more generous with the seasonings. And the mug of coffee that came with the meal was deficient in sweetening.

  Susie’s story was interesting. He remembered, now, reading about the revolution on Dunlevin. The ruling house on that planet had not been at all popular and, as Dunlevin was of little strategic importance, had not been propped up by Federation weaponry. Even so the Popular Front had not enjoyed a walkover, mainly because the Royalists had been given support—arms and “volunteers”—by the Duchy of Waldegren. The Interstellar Federation, albeit reluctantly, had imposed a blockade on Dunlevin. The Federation did not like the Popular Front but liked Waldegren even less. And it was Federation presence that prevented too enthusiastic a massacre when the last Royalist stronghold fell; shiploads of refugees made their escape under the guns of the blockading Survey Service fleet.

  Some of those refugees, obviously, had found haven on Bronsonia.

  “So,” said Grimes after he had swallowed the last spoonful, “you people hope to mount a counterrevolution . . . I’m sorry to be a wet blanket—but you haven’t the hope of a snowball in hell. This rustbucket isn’t a warship, you know. Or hadn’t you noticed?”

  “Any ship,” she told him sweetly, “is a potential troop transport. And any merchant vessel is a potential auxiliary cruiser. It’s rather a pity, Grimes, that we shall be leaving you on Porlock. We could have used your Survey Service expertise.”

  He said, “I’m not a mercenary.”

  She said, “But certain episodes in your past career indicate that you’re willing to fight on the right side.”

  He said, “The right side isn’t necessarily the right side.”

  “Ha. Ha bloody ha. If you’ve ever lived under a left-wing tyranny you’d be talking differently.”

  “Have you ever lived under a left-wing tyranny, Susie?”

  “No. But we know how things are on Dunlevin.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes!” she snapped. “Have you finished your meal?” She snatched the tray off the desk. “We’ll leave you now. You’ll be told when you’re required again.”

  “There should be at least a once-daily check of position,” said Grimes.

  “You people,” she told him scornfully, “are always trying to kid us, those of us who aren’t members of the Grand Lodge of Navigators, that you’re indispensible.”

  And with those parting words she left him.

  Chapter 8

  THE VOYAGE WORE ON.

  It was a voyage such as Grimes had never experienced before, such as he hoped that he would never experience again. He was able to keep track of the passage of objective time only because, at irregular intervals, he was taken up to the control room to check the ship’s position. Finally he had target sun, the Porlock primary, and knew, with a combination of relief and apprehension, that the passage was almost over. Until Lania was able to replace him with a navigator who was one of her own people he was safe. Once his services were no longer required would he be set free on Porlock? And if he were, how would he make his way back from that planet to Bronsonia? And would he find Little Sister still there? Would she have been sold to pay his various debts and fines?

  The only one of the skyjackers who was at all friendly was Susie. Paul was becoming more and more the Crown Prince—the King, rather—and Lania a sort of hybrid, a cross between Queen and Grand Vizier. And Hodge, Grimes felt, was taking sadistic delight in the spectacle of a space captain at the receiving end of orders.

  Susie’s friendliness was due, partly, to missionary zeal. But whom was she trying to convince—herself or Grimes? He judged that she was beginning to regret having become involved in this enterprise, that she was realizing, although she would hate to admit it, that she had far more in common with Grimes, the apolitical outsider, than with her dedicated companions.

  Meanwhile she soon discovered that he was smoking in the cabin that was also his prison. Not only did she turn a blind eye—or insensitive nose—but actually brought him more tobacco from the ship’s stores when his own ran out. And she gave him a chess set, and reading matter. Most of this latter consisted of propaganda magazines; it seemed that there was quite a colony of refugees from Dunlevin on Bronsonia.

  Grimes rather doubted that the accounts of life on Dunlevin, as printed in these journals, were altogether accurate. He did know, from his reading of recent history during his Survey Service days, that life on that world had been far from pleasant for the common people during the monarchy. They must have welcomed the transition of power from kings to commissars. And were the commissars as bad as the kings had been? Grimes doubted it. Dunlevin aristocracy and royalty were descended from the notorious Free Brotherhood, pirates who, as a prelude to the erection of a facade of respectability, had taken over a newly colonized planet, virtually enslaving its inhabitants.

  He argued with Susie during his meal times. It passed the time although it was all rather pointless; neither of them possessed first-hand knowledge of conditions on Dunlevin.

  He asked her, “Why should you, an attractive girl who had a secure and reasonably happy future on Bronsonia—where you were born—throw away everything to play a part in this—your word, Susie—caper?”

  She was frank with him.

  “Partly,” she admitted, “because of the way that I was brought up. Father—even though he manages a restaurant—is still very much the Royal Dunlevin Navy officer. Mother—customers refer to her as the Duchess—is still the aristocrat. They believe, sincerely, that it is my duty to help to restore the House of Carling to the throne and to destroy the socialist usurpers . . .”

  “While they stay put in their hash house, raking in the profits.”

  “They’re no longer young, Captain. And they have contributed, substantially, to the Restoration Fund.”

  “And so,” said Grimes, “when Their Royal Highnesses raise a tattered banner and beat a battered drum your parents are proud and happy to see their darling daughter falling into step, risking her neck . . .”

  “They are proud. Of course they’re proud.”

  “But how come there’re so few of you? Just Paul and Lania and Hodge and yourself—and whoever it was that got himself killed in the met. satellite?”

  “Because we were the only ones able to be in the right place at the right time to seize this ship. And it took lots of undercover organizing to get us all aboard Beta at the same time. But on Porlock . . .”

  “That’s enough yapping,” grumbled Hodge. “Come on, Susie. I’ve work to do, even if some other people haven’t.”

  Chapter 9

  GRIMES BROUGHT Bronson Star down to Porlock.

  He sat in the control room, with Their Royal Highnesses and Susie in other chairs so situated that they could cover him with their pistols without risk of shooting each other. He told them that if they did kill him they, in all probability, would die too. Lania told him that even she knew enough to use the inertial drive to reverse the vessel’s fall. He said that the NST transceiver should be used to request permission from Aerospace Control to make entry. She told him that this was not only unnecessary but impossible since the Aerospace Controllers were on strike—a stoppage, thought Grimes, conveniently timed to coincide with Bronson Star’s planetfall. Doubtless a coded message had been sent to somebody by means of the Carlotti Deep Space radio.

  In any case the landing was not to be made at Port Coleridge. Grimes had been supplied with charts and told that he was to set the ship down at the point indicated at precisely 2000 local time for that locality. (Porlock, like many worlds with a period of rotation less than that of Earth, found it convenient to adopt a twenty-hour day.) The set-down site, ringed in red on the map, was in one of the deserts that occupied most of the land space of the southern continent of this world. It was, Grimes estimated, at least five hundred Porlock miles (one thou
sand kilometers) from the nearest town. Noisy as the inertial drive inevitably is, the midnight landing should go unheard in any center of population.

  Grimes always enjoyed ship handling and, in spite of the circumstances, he found pleasure in this test of his skill. There was no Aerospace Control to keep him informed as to what the wind was doing at the various levels of the atmosphere. Even if Bronson Star had been equipped with sounding rockets he would not have been allowed to use them. But there was a beacon, a bright red light visible only from above, that he was able to pick up from a great altitude; fortunately it was a cloudless night.

  That ruddy spark, as soon as he had it in the stern-vision screen, allowed him to estimate drift, which was easily compensated for by lateral thrust although requiring frequent adjustment. Grimes quite forgot that he was acting under duress except when Paul, superciliously obnoxious, remarked that professional spacemen always seem to suffer from the delusion that their ships are made of glass.

  The beacon light grew brighter and brighter, so much so that Grimes was obliged to reduce the brilliance of the screen. He watched the radar altimeter and when there were only one hundred and fifty meters to go allowed the target to drift away from the center of the bull’s-eye sight.

  “Watch it, Grimes!” ordered Lania sharply. “Watch your aim!”

  He said, “I’m looking after your property, or somebody’s property, Highness. Those laser beacons are quite expensive, you know . . .”

  “You’re not paying for it!” she snapped but refrained from any further interference.

  One hundred . . . Fifty . . . Grimes increased vertical thrust to slow the rate of descent. Forty . . . Thirty . . . Bronson Star was drifting down like a huge balloon with barely negative buoyancy. Five . . . Four . . . Three . . . Two . . . One . . .

  And they were down, with hardly a jar. Grimes stopped the drive and the ship sighed as she adjusted her great weight within the cradle of her tripedal landing gear. The clinometer indicated that she was only a fraction of a degree off the vertical.

  Grimes felt for his pipe then remembered that he had left it in his cabin. In any case Their Royal Highnesses would not have tolerated smoking in their presence.

  He said, “We’re here.”

  “A blinding glimpse of the obvious, Grimes,” said Lania.

  “They’re waiting for us, Highness,” said Susie.

  “It would be strange if they were not, girl. Mortdale is a good organizer.”

  Grimes asked, “May I ring off the engines, Highness?”

  “No. Leave everything on Stand By. We just might have to—what is the expression?—get upstairs in a hurry. So remain at your controls.”

  Without leaving his chair Grimes was able to look out through the wide viewports. There was activity outside the ship—dark shapes in the darkness, flashing lights, the occasional flashing reflection from bright metal.

  “Susie,” ordered Lania, “go down to the airlock to receive General Mortdale. You should recognize him from his photographs and you have the password.”

  “Yes, Highness.”

  Susie vanished down the hatch.

  Grimes started to ask, “Shall I be . . . ?”

  “Speak when you’re spoken to,” he was told.

  ***

  Eventually Susie returned.

  She was accompanied by three men, clad in drab, insignialess coveralls. Their leader—Mortdale?—was small, compact, terrier-like, with a stubble of grey hair and a close-cropped moustache. Grimes had known officers like him in the Federation Survey Service Marines, had never cared for them. Terriers—stupidly pugnacious at best, vicious at worst—were not his favorite dogs. The other two were taller than their leader. One had yellow hair, the other was bald but they could almost have been twins. Looking at their hard, reckless faces Grimes categorized them as bad bastards.

  Mortdale drew himself to attention, so sharply that Grimes was surprised not to hear vertebrae cracking. “Highness!” he snapped.

  “General,” acknowledged Paul with a languid nod of his head.

  “May I present Major Briggs and Captain Polanski?”

  The two men bowed stiffly.

  “Captain Polanski, I suppose,” said Paul, “is the spaceman who will be taking over from our unwilling . . . chauffeur.”

  “No, Highness. The captain is a member of my staff.”

  “Then may I suggest, General, that you get your qualified spaceman aboard as soon as possible? There are the holds to convert into troop accommodation, the stores and the weapons to load, the troops to embark. This work must be supervised.”

  “It can be supervised by an army officer, Highness,” said Mortdale.

  “What about the man you were supposed to have for us?” demand Lania sharply.

  “Him?” The general’s voice was contemptuous. “He backed out. There was some star tramp here short of an officer and so he got himself signed on as Third Mate without letting me know. By this time he’s halfway to Ultimo.”

  “I would have expected you to exercise better control over your people, General Mortdale,” said Lania coldly. “Thanks to your negligence the success of the operation has been jeopardized. The work of conversion, the loading, the embarkation must inevitably be delayed. It will not be long before the planetary authorities realize that something odd is going on out here in the desert.”

  “The World Manager and his ministers are sympathetic to our cause, Highness. They hope for a favorable trade agreement with the new government on Dunlevin . . .”

  “And who gave you the authority to negotiate such deals?” demanded Paul hotly. “Who . . .”

  Lania silenced him with an imperious wave of her hand.

  “And as I have already said, Highness,” went on the general, “my officers can oversee the work at least as well as any spaceman. As for the lift-off and the navigation to Dunlevin . . .” Grimes realized that Mortdale’s rather mad, yellow eyes were staring directly at him . . . “he, whoever he is, got you here. He must be competent. He can take us away from here.”

  “He will do as he’s told,” said Lania, “if he values his health.”

  Grimes said, “I understood that I was to be released on this world. Highness.”

  “Did you?” Then, to Mortdale, “Have your officers put him back in his kennel until we need him again. Susie will show them where it is.”

  Chapter 10

  LOCKED IN HIS CABIN once more Grimes stretched out on his bunk. He had never felt so helpless before in his entire life. He listened to the sounds that told him of the work in progress—hammerings, occasional muffled shouts, the rattle of ground vehicles being driven up the loading ramp to the cargo port. He could visualize what was being done; among the courses that he had sat through during his Survey Service career was one dealing with the conversion of commercial vessels to military purposes. If he’d been doing the job, he thought, he would have utilized inflatable troop-deck fittings—but that presupposed the availability of the necessary materials. Failing that, tiers of bunks could be knocked up from timber or fabricated from metal.

  He wondered which technique was being used. Although this was not his ship—he had been little more than a caretaker and now was a prisoner—he still felt responsible for her. And, at brief intervals, when handling a lift-off or set-down or when adjusting trajectory, he would be, after a fashion, in actual command.

  Susie came in briefly, escorted by one of Mortdale’s men. She brought him a packet of sandwiches and a plastic mug of coffee. She said little, was obviously reluctant to speak in front of the stranger.

  Grimes enjoyed the light meal; it took a lot to put him off his food. He enjoyed the pipe afterward. While smoking it he tried to think things out. He would have to play along, he decided. Even though he owed no loyalty to the Royal House of Dunlevin he owed none to the Council of Commissars who were that planet’s present rulers. Voluntarily he would serve neither. Under duress he would do what he was told until—and that would, indeed, be the s
unny Friday—a chance presented itself for him to make his escape.

  And meanwhile—what was happening back on Bronsonia? Had his case been brought before the court yet? And if so, how had it gone? Had he lost his ship—his ship—the golden Little Sister? His worries about his legal affairs did, at least, help to take his mind off his present predicament.

  And then, telling himself that there was nothing that he could do about anything at this present moment, he allowed himself to drift into a troubled sleep.

  ***

  The period of his incarceration passed slowly.

  Susie, always accompanied by an armed man, brought him his meals at what seemed to be regular intervals. He asked her how the work of conversion into a troop transport was going. She answered him shortly on each occasion, noncommitally, obviously inhibited by the presence of her escort.

  Then, at last, she was able to tell him that lift-off would be as soon as he got himself up to Control. Grimes welcomed this intelligence. Given recreational facilities he did not object to a period of idleness but with no playmaster and no reading matter apart from those two novels (which he had finished long since and that were not worth reading) and the propaganda magazines he was becoming bored.

  Paul and Lania were in the control room, as was General Mortdale. The soldier was still wearing his drab coveralls but shoulder straps, bearing the now familiar silver stars and golden crown insignia, had been added.

  “Take her up,” ordered Lania.

  “Where to?” asked Grimes. “Or need I ask? Highness.”

  She looked at him coldly. “As you said, need you ask? And now, what are you waiting for?”

  Grimes said, “First I have to do some checking. Highness.”

  He looked out of the ports. He saw nothing but darkness. This was to be a midnight lift-off just as it had been a midnight set-down. A glance at the chronometer and a minor conversion calculation confirmed this. He walked to the big panel presenting information regarding the current state of the ship, noted from the indicators that her mass had been considerably increased but not to the extent to place any undue strain upon the inertial drive. He wished that he knew the makeup of this extra weight—how many men, how many armed vehicles, what weapons, what stores? But the question was an academic one. All life-support systems were functioning. Airlock doors were closed.