Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III

by A Bertram Chandler

How much did the old man suspect? The author, Grimes well knew, at times had telepathic flashes and, more than once, while Grimes was still a schoolboy, had seemed to be able almost to read his mind. And there were others possessing psychic talents. Magda Granadu was one such.

  She came to see Grimes as soon as he was back in his quarters aboard Sister Sue.

  “Captain,” she demanded, “what is happening?”

  “We shall be carrying a cargo of luxury goods to El Dorado. That’s common knowledge.”

  “But I feel uneasy. It’s not the first time that I’ve had such premonitions.”

  “It must be the time of the month,” said Grimes.

  She flushed angrily and snapped, “It is not!”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’ve brought the book,” she said. “And the coins.”

  “Oh, all right,” said Grimes. It would do no harm to humor the woman.

  He took from her the three metal discs, shook them in his cupped hands, let them drop to the deck of his day cabin.

  Two heads and a tail . . . Yang. Then another yang. And another. Then two tails and a head . . . Yin. Yang again, then a final yin.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  She consulted the book.

  “Hsu,” she murmured. “Biding one’s time. Sincerity will lead to brilliant success. Firmness will bring good fortune. It will be advantageous to cross the great water.”

  “And what the hell’s wrong with that?” asked Grimes.

  “I haven’t finished yet, Captain. Here’s the commentary. Peril lies ahead, but despite the urge toward activity which is shown, he will not allow himself to be involved in a dangerous situation. Firm persistence in a right course of action will ensure great success. But strength and determination are needed to make the most of the progressive trends now operating. It is an auspicious time to commence a major undertaking. The strong man’s inclination when faced with danger is to advance on it and combat it without delay; but here one would be wise to wait until success is assured.”

  Grimes laughed. “And what’s wrong with that for a prognostication?” he asked. “It’s an excellent weather forecast before the start of a voyage.”

  “But it counsels caution. It talks of danger.”

  “If we were afraid of danger, Ms. Granadu, we should not be spacers.”

  “My own reading,” she said, “was much more ominous. It was Po. It will not be advantageous for me to make a move in any direction. The forces operating against me will be too great for me to prevail against them. I have to wait for a change for the better.”

  “And do you want to wait here, on Earth? I can pay you off, you know, although you should have given me more notice. But I don’t want to lose you; you’re a good catering officer and a very good shipmate.”

  “And I don’t want to leave this ship, Captain. We shall just have to heed the warnings and be very, very careful.”

  You can say that again, thought Grimes. If all went as planned, he would find himself dealing with Drongo Kane—and he who sups with the devil needs a long spoon.

  His door buzzer sounded.

  “Come in,” he called.

  Damien was there, in uniform, and with him were two youngish men in civilian shirts and slacks. One of them was short, stocky, with close-cropped sandy hair over a broad, craggy face, with little, very pale blue eyes under almost nonexistent brows. The other was tall, weedy almost, with fair hair that was more than a little too long, with sensitive features just short of being effeminate and eyes that seemed to vary in color.

  “Here is your new third officer, Captain Grimes,” said Damien. “Mr. Venner.”

  The short man bowed slightly and then took the hand that Grimes extended to him. His grip was firm and, Grimes knew, would have been painful had full strength been exerted.

  “And this is Mr. Mayhew, an old friend of mine . . .” Like hell I am! the words formed themselves in Grimes’ mind. He looked at Mayhew suspiciously. “He asked me if I could arrange passage for him to El Dorado and beyond. He’s spending his Long Service Leave traveling . . .”

  “And what’s your line of business, Mr. Mayhew?” asked Grimes, genuinely curious as to what the cover story would be.

  “Senior clerk, Captain, with Pargeter and Crummins, Importers. You may have heard of them.”

  Grimes hadn’t—yet this Mayhew was suddenly looking like a senior clerk, like a man who had spent all his working life at a desk. Nobody would take him for a spaceman—nobody, that is, who was seeing the telepath as he wished to be seen.

  “Magda,” said Grimes, “will you see to it that the third officer’s cabin is ready? And one of the spare rooms for Mr. Mayhew.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  She left.

  When the door had closed after her, Mayhew’s appearance underwent another subtle transformation. Now he looked like what he, in actuality, was—a Survey Service officer in one of that organization’s specialist branches, a typical commissioned teacup reader . . .

  “I have often wished,” said Mayhew, “that I could meet the man who first called us that.”

  “Probably an engineer,” said Grimes.

  “But you thought it, Captain. Just now.”

  “Don’t bother to say that you’re sorry, Captain Grimes,” said Damien. “He’ll know that you’re lying.”

  “If he does,” Grimes said, “he’ll be doing so in gross contravention of the Rhine Institute’s code of ethics.”

  Mayhew smiled. It was a likeable smile. He said, “There are some minds, Captain Grimes, into which I would no sooner probe than dive into a cesspit. Yours, sir, is not one of them.”

  “Thank you,” said Grimes. “But I’ll be greatly obliged if you don’t make a habit of invading my mental privacy.”

  “Mr. Mayhew will be doing his job, Captain,” said Damien. “I have no doubt that you will find his services extremely valuable. And Mr. Venner’s. But I’ll give you fair warning. Don’t ever play cards with him.”

  This appeared to be some kind of private joke.

  Grimes asked, “Does he cheat? Or is he just abnormally lucky?”

  Venner grinned while Damien said, “Neither. You’re the one who’s notorious for having luck.” He laughed. “Just stay that way.”

  “I hope I do,” said Grimes. “But some famous privateers, such as Captain Kidd, weren’t so lucky.”

  “Captain Morgan was,” said Damien.

  “Sir Henry Morgan,” Grimes said, “wasn’t a privateer. He was a pirate.”

  “What’s the difference?” asked Damien.

  Grimes sighed. It was all very well for the Rear Admiral to adopt such a could-hardly-care-less attitude. If things should go badly wrong it would not be he who would be left holding the baby.

  Chapter 18

  SISTER SUE lifted from Port Woomera.

  She had a full loading of commodities that even on their planet of origin were expensive, some of them hellishly so. Freight charges would make them even more costly. Beluga caviar, champagne, truffles, pate de foié gras . . . Guiness Stout from Ireland, cheeses from Holland, France, Switzerland and Italy . . . Whiskies from Scotland, Ireland, North America and Japan . . . Salami sausages—Italian, Polish and Hungarian . . . Smoked salmon, vintage sardines, anchovies, olives . . .

  To sit on top of such a cargo for a voyage of weeks’ duration, thought Grimes, would be to suffer the tortures of Tantalus. (He had not been nicknamed Gutsy Grimes for nothing.) In a ship with an uninspired catering officer and an ailing autochef the temptation to pilfer cargo would have been well nigh irresistible. Luckily Sister Sue was not in that class.

  The lift-off was uneventful.

  Venner, the new third officer, was obviously an experienced spaceman. Kate Connellan was slightly less surly than ususal; she must, thought Grimes, have been able to blow off steam in some way during the ship’s stay in port. Williams was cheerfully competent. Old Mr. Stewart, manning the control-room NST transceiver, knew the drill. (At his
age he should have.)

  Mayhew occupied one of the spare seats, a privilege now and again accorded to passengers. He had assumed his senior-clerk-on-vacation persona and was asking stupid questions as part of his cover.

  The ship drove up into the clear sky, her inertial drive thudding healthily. The altimeter readings displayed in the sternview screen shifted from meters to kilometers, mounted steadily. The picture of the spaceport diminished, faster and faster, became no more than white and silver specks on the ruddy desert. More desert, but with great green squares of artificial irrigation, came into view to the north while to the south were the dark waters of the Great Australian Blight. The horizon acquired curvature. Grimes looked out through the viewports. He thought that he could distinguish in the distance, the city of Alice Springs. In the opposite direction he could see the white glimmer of the Antarctic Ice Barrier.

  Sister Sue was in space, clear of the atmosphere, plunging through the Van Allens. It was almost time to set trajectory.

  The inertial drive was shut down; the ship had built enough velocity for her to continue to fall outward. The big directional gyroscopes turned her about her axes until the target star was lined up directly ahead. There was a small adjustment for galactic drift.

  Grimes actuated the Mannschenn Drive.

  There were the usual eerie effects as the temporal precession field built up—but, in Grimes’ case, with a difference. He did not see anything but he heard a voice. His? It could have been, although it was not tuneless enough. It was singing the old song, The Ballad of Captain Kidd, with which he had afflicted his father’s ears during that talk about privateers.

  “I murdered William Moore as I sailed, as I sailed,

  I murdered William Moore as I sailed,

  I knocked him on the head

  Till he bled the scuppers red

  And I heaved him with the lead

  As I sailed . . .”

  The voice faded to a whisper as inside the control room colors returned to normal and the warped perspective straightened itself out. The only sound was the thin, high whine of the ever-precessing rotors of the interstellar drive. Grimes restarted the inertial drive machinery and again there were up and down and the sensation of weight engendered by the steady acceleration.

  He realized that Mayhew was looking at him. An ironical smile quirked the telepath’s lips.

  See you on Execution Dock, Captain . . .

  The words formed themselves in Grimes’ mind.

  He glared at Mayhew and thought, willing himself to transmit, Very funny. Very bloody funny.

  Mayhew grinned.

  ***

  After watches had been set Grimes invited Mayhew down to his cabin for a drink.

  Before either man could set glass to lip he demanded, “What did you see, Mr. Mayhew? What did you hear?”

  “What you did, Captain. Oh, I wasn’t snooping. I wasn’t trying to get inside your mind. But you were . . . broadcasting so strongly that I couldn’t help picking up the words of that song. If it’s any comfort to you I’ve looked through your crew list and there aren’t any William Moores.”

  “There could be,” said Grimes, “at some future date. But I hope not.”

  Mayhew sipped his gin then said, “I’m assuming, sir, that you wish me to function as a PCO does aboard a Federation Survey Service warship.”

  “I suppose that that’s one of the reasons why Admiral Damien seconded you to me. But snooping is part of a PCO’s duties of which I’ve never approved. Especially when it’s against my own crew, my own shipmates.”

  “If you hadn’t been so squeamish, sir, the Discovery mutiny might never have happened.”

  “You could be right, Mr. Mayhew. Mphm. But I still wish you to adhere to the Rhine Institute’s Code of Ethics, at least insofar as this ship is concerned.”

  “If you insist, Captain.”

  “And as for your real duties, Mr. Mayhew, how is it that you don’t have a psionic amplifier with you? I’ve never liked those naked dogs’ brains in their tanks of nutrient fluid but I know that you can’t function without them, not over any great range, that is.”

  Mayhew smiled. “It would hardly do for a mere passenger, a chief clerk blowing his life’s savings on an interstellar voyage, to have such a pet. But I do have a psionic amplifier.” He tapped his forehead with a long index finger. “Here. You know, of course, that there are such things as telepathic robots. There aren’t many of them, mainly because they’re so fantastically expensive. And the tiny piece of miniaturized circuitry that I now carry was more expensive still. And it has a limited life.”

  “Will it last until such time as you have to get in touch with your colleague aboard the . . . incident ship?”

  “I hope so.” Mayhew held out his empty glass. Grimes refilled it, topped up his own. “I hope so.”

  “Now, Mr. Mayhew,” said Grimes, “I’m going to break one of my own rules. Your mention of the Discovery mutiny is why. I’m going to ask you what you, as a professional telepath, think of this ship, of her people.”

  For what seemed a long time Mayhew said nothing, sipping his drink thoughtfully.

  Then he murmured, “You’ve a good second in command, sir. He’s one of those men who must have a leader to whom to be loyal—and now you’re it. But he’s loyal, too, to his principles. Never forget that.

  “Your second officer. The Green Hornet. She’s a vicious bitch. Her only loyalty is to herself. Watch her.

  “Your third, Venner, I know him personally. He’s not really a Reservist, you know. That’s just part of his cover. Oh, he ships out as a merchant spaceman, just as he has with you, but he’s really employed, full time, by the Intelligence Branch of the Survey Service. As a hit man. His loyalties are to his real employers, not to you. If he were ordered to terminate you with extreme prejudice he would do just that.”

  “I’d guessed as much,” said Grimes.

  “And now, your catering officer,” went on Mayhew. “In her you have a gem. Like Williams, she’s loyal. And—this could be of real value—she has the power.”

  “What power?”

  “Prevision. Some of her kind use cards, either ordinary playing cards or the Tarot pack. Some read teacups. Some look into crystal balls. Oh, as you know, there are all sorts of lenses that can be used to focus attention on the future, on to the most probable of an infinitude of possible futures. She uses the I Ching.”

  “I know. She threw the coins for herself before this voyage started. She told me about it. Something about it’s not being advantageous to make a move in any direction. And small men multiplying and having far too much to say for themselves. And the only course of action being just to ride it out and to hope for better times . . .”

  Mayhew laughed. “And it’s true—but in a funny, quite trivial way. She’s a good catering officer but the way that she programs the autochef the meals are too fancy for some of the juniors. And every time that she tried to turn out something plain it’s . . . uninspired. For example . . .” He frowned in concentration and said, “I’m snooping, Captain. With your permission, I hope. Two of your junior engineers are wondering what they’re going to get for lunch. One of them has just said to the other, ‘I suppose that the Romany Queen will be giving us more of her foreign, mucked-up tucker!’ And the other’s replied, ‘I must have lost at least ten kilograms since I joined this bloody ship!’”

  “If that’s who I think it is,” growled Grimes, “he’s as fat as a pig. And getting fatter.”

  “It could be glandular,” said Mayhew.

  “Once you’ve seen him eating you’ll not think that.”

  “And now he’s saying, ‘Of course, she’s the Old Man’s pet . . .’”

  “Enough,” said Grimes. “Enough. Carry on with the rundown, please.”

  “All right, sir. Listeners seldom hear good of themselves, do they? Now, old Mr. Stewart. My electronic rival. As long as he has his toys to play with, he’s happy. He’d be radio officer for anyb
ody, in any ship in any service, and ask no questions. If Sir Henry Morgan had been blessed with radio your Mr. Stewart would have been as content in his ship as he is here, just sending and receiving as ordered.

  “The other old-timer, Mr. Crumley, your inertial/reaction chief . . . A rather similar type to Stewart. A ship, any ship on any trade, is no more than a platform on which his precious engines are mounted.

  “Now, his juniors. Denning, Singh and Paulus. They’re all little men. Not physically little necessarily—but little. They resent having to take orders—yours, their chief’s, anybody’s. They hate having to wear a uniform and mutter about your Survey Service bullshit. But I don’t think you’ll have any trouble with them on El Dorado when—if?—Drongo Kane recruits you and the ship for his privateer navy. Privateering can be a very lucrative business and, when the victims are unarmed merchantmen, almost without risk.

  “Malleson, your Mannschenn Drive king . . . Similar to Crumley and Stewart but—he kids himself—on a far higher plane. He’s a master mathematician whereas the other two are mere mechanics. He likes money, so he’ll not object to privateering. His loyalty? Essentially only to that weird, time-twisting contraption in the Mannschenn Drive room.

  “Trantor and Giddings . . . Little men again, hating authority, intellectual snobs who look down on rough, half-educated spacemen such as yourself. And Malleson they regard as an old has-been. But for all their intellectual veneer they’re out of the same barrel as Denning, Singh and Paulus.

  “All in all, Captain, not the best of crews to go privateering with.”

  Grimes laughed. “Competence at their jobs is all I can ask. As for their characters—well, the average privateersman must have been actuated by greed rather than by patriotism. But Billy Williams and Magda . . . They have principles . . .”

  “As you do. You’ll just have to convince them that we shall be fighting on the right side.”

  “I shall have to convince myself as well.”

  “No. You, sir, will just be taking orders—as Venner and myself will be. You’re an officer of the Reserve recalled to active duty. You should have thought of all the implications when you accepted that commission.”