Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III

by A Bertram Chandler

  It was not all work and no play for the privateers, however. There was The Happy Kangaroo, the pleasure dome which Grimes and his people had first learned about at the Countess of Wilberforce’s prayer meeting. There were refreshments, solid and liquid, all of high quality. There was a gaming room. (Kane, in a jovial mood, told Grimes that the returns from this were almost sufficient to pay for the other entertainments.) Grimes was no gambler but he looked in one evening to watch O’Leary, Vishinsky and other officers, including his own Mr. Venner, playing vingt et un. The dealer and banker was the girl who had carried around the collection bag at the finish of that dreary evening in El Dorado City. She seemed to be doing far better for Drongo Kane than she had been doing for the missionaries. She was dressed differently, too, wearing a bunny uniform that showed her long, sleek legs to best advantage.

  But Grimes was watching Venner more than he was watching her. Rear Admiral Damien had warned him not to play cards with the man—yet he was losing heavily, as was everybody except the house.

  There was music, and there was dancing, and there was a cabaret whose underclad performers made up in enthusiasm for what they lacked in terpsichorean skill. And there was enthusiasm. Grimes knew, off stage. Slumming these girls might be but they were enjoying it. Sister Sue’s junior engineers were no longer fighting among themselves for Ms. Connellan’s favors; they had far better and tastier fish to fry.

  Grimes knew what was going on and felt the occasional stab of jealousy. He could have had his share of what was going—but he did not like sharing. He was a snob, and he knew it, but the thought of sampling delights that Denning, Singh or Paulus (his pet dislikes!) had already sampled repelled him. He wanted a captain’s lady, not an officers’ mess.

  Now and again he would call the Schloss Stolzberg to talk with Marlene. She was polite enough but that was all. He suggested that he come to the castle for a brief visit before departure; she told him that as a commodore he had far too many responsibilities. He asked her if she would come to Port Kane; after all, he told her, she would wish to see her son again before the privateers set off on their venture. She smiled rather sadly and said that she knew that Ferdinand was being very well looked after and that the young man might be embarrassed if his mother, a woman some years younger than Captain Prinn, made her appearance. Of course, Ferdinand would be spending his last night on El Dorado in his mother’s home and it certainly would not do for Grimes to be there too.

  He hoped that the El Dorado Corporation or Drongo Kane or whoever would soon decide that it was high time that the privateer fleet was underway.

  Chapter 37

  HE SAT AT A TABLE in The Happy Kangaroo, by himself, nursing his drink. He did not, unlike most of the other spacers, consider that free liquor was a valid excuse for getting drunk. Malleson and Mayhew had been with him but the Mannschenn Drive chief had wanted to try out a new system in the gaming room, where a roulette table was in operation. Mayhew had gone with the engineer. Was he a telekineticist as well as a telepath, Grimes had wondered idly. A few tables away the Green Hornet and the Countess of Walshingham were sitting. They were not actually hand in hand but conveyed the impression that they were. Elsewhere in the room were three kilted officers from Spaceways Princess, another trio from Pride of Erin in their green and gold finery and a quartet from Agatha’s Ark, their noisy behavior in contrast to the grey sobriety of their uniforms. A dozen of the volunteer bunnies were looking after them. He wondered briefly where most of his own people were. Williams, he knew, was staying on board, with Magda Granadu to keep him company. Neither Mr. Crumley nor Mr. Stewart was much of a shore-goer. And he had heard talk of a picnic and bathing party at a nearby ocean beach—a beer and bunnies orgy, he thought sourly. That would account for the absence of his junior officers.

  He watched the stage more with censorious interest than with enthusiasm. Once he would have enjoyed a turn of this nature; now it rather repelled him. He thought that he knew why. Years ago, when he had been a watchkeeping officer aboard the Zodiac Class cruiser Aries, one of his shipmates had been a reservist, a lieutenant who, in civil life, was a second mate in Trans-Galactic Clippers. This young man had a fund of good stories about life in big passenger ships. There was one captain, he told his listeners, who was a notorious womanizer. “We even used to pimp for the old bastard,” said the storyteller. “If he got fixed up at the beginning of the voyage the ship was Liberty Hall . . . But if, for some reason, he failed to score it was hell . . . We all had to observe both letter and spirit of company regulations and a few extra ones that he thought up himself just to make our lives miserable!”

  Grimes had no real desire to emulate the TG captain, but . . .

  He looked morosely at the stage, at the naked girl who was dancing, an old-fashioned waltz, with a gleaming, humanoid robot. Great art it was not. It was not even good pornography. The girl was gawky and her movements were stiffer than those of the automaton. Her feet were too big.

  Somebody dropped into the chair that had been vacated by Malleson. He was dimly conscious of a white collar with a black bow tie, of smooth shoulders, of long, gleaming legs. A bunny, he thought. Another rich bitch putting on the Lady Bountiful act . . .

  She said, “You look as though you’d rather be in The Red Kangaroo, on Botany, John.”

  He turned his head to look at her properly.

  “Michelle,” he said.

  It was by no means the first time that he had seen her scantily clothed but this bunny rig imparted to her a tartiness. It suited her, he decided.

  She raised a slim hand commandingly and a robar glided up to their table on silent wheels. She said, “I can see what you’re drinking. I’ll have the same.” She addressed the frontal panel of the machine, gay with little winking lights, and ordered, “Two pink gins.”

  “Coming up,” the thing replied in a mechanical voice. A section of panel dropped down to form a shelf and on to it slid two misted goblets. Grimes reached out for them, put them on the table.

  He said, “And some little eats.”

  A dish of nuts of various kinds appeared on the shelf.

  “Still Gutsy Grimes,” murmured the Baroness.

  “Just blotting paper,” said Grimes, between nibbles.

  She raised her glass to him and said, “Here’s looking at you . . .”

  “And at you,” he replied.

  She sipped—not as daintily as had been her wont when he first knew her, thought Grimes—and then gestured toward the amateur performer on the stage.

  “Ashley,” she said scornfully, “thinks that she’s the best since Isadora Duncan, but . . .”

  “Who’s she?”

  “Lady Ashley Mortimer.”

  “No, not her. Isadora Duncan.”

  “Really, John, you are a peasant. She was a famous dancer who lived in the twentieth century, old style. But don’t you find the entertainment here boring?”

  “I do, frankly.”

  She said, “I’d rather like to see your ship.”

  He looked at her intently and asked, “Won’t Drongo mind?”

  “The Baron,” she said, with a subtle emphasis on the title, “is in El Dorado City, in conference with Baron Takada and others. It is my understanding that very soon now you will be given orders to lift for Kalla.” She tossed the remains of her drink down her throat. “Come on.” She rose to her feet.

  Grimes finished his drink, snatched up a last handful of the nuts and then extricated himself from his chair. Together they walked to the door, out into the warm night.

  ***

  The four ships stood there, floodlit towers of metal, three silvery in the glare, one a dull green. On the side of one of the silver ships a flag had been painted, a purple burgee with a gold ball in the upper canton, a commodore’s broad pennant.

  “That’s her,” said Grimes. “Sister Sue.”

  She said, “I wish that somebody would name a ship after me.”

  “You could always ask Drongo to do that
little thing.”

  “Him!” she snorted with such vehemence that Grimes was not only embarrassed but felt an upsurge of loyalty to his own sex.

  They strolled slowly over the apron to the foot of Sister Sue’s ramp. There was a sentry on duty there, one of the omnipresent robots, attired in approximation of the uniform of the Federation Survey Service Marines. The thing saluted with mechanical smartness. Grimes acknowledged with deliberate sloppiness.

  He and Michelle walked up the gangway to the open airlock door, into the vestibule. The elevator cage, already at this lower level, carried them swiftly and smoothly up to the captain’s flat. Grimes ushered his guest into his sitting room. She sprawled with elegant inelegance in one of the armchairs by the coffee table, her long, slender legs stretched out before her. Grimes took the seat facing her. He saw that Magda had laid out his usual supper—a thermopot of coffee, a large dish of napkin-covered sandwiches. Michelle, too, noted this offering. She bent forward and lifted the napkin. The sandwiches were of new bread, with the crust left on, cut thick—as was the pink ham that was the filling.

  She smiled. “You have a female catering officer, don’t you? It looks as though she spoils you as thoroughly as Big Sister used to . . .” Her expression clouded slightly. “I hope that I am not . . . trespassing. Or poaching.”

  “No, Michelle. She’s already spoken for.”

  “Oh. Do you think I could have some coffee?”

  “Of course.”

  There was only one mug on the tray but there were others in a locker. Grimes got one out. He filled both vessels with the steaming, aromatic brew, remembered that she preferred hers unsweetened. He added sugar liberally to his own drink.

  She nibbled a sandwich.

  She said, “Marriage—or marriage to Baron Kane—seems to have coarsened me. Once I would sneer at this sort of food. Now I enjoy it.”

  “Mphm,” grunted Grimes through a mouthful.

  “This cabin,” she said, “is more you than your quarters aboard The Far Traveler . . . And even if you don’t have a golden stewardess you do have a golden girl . . .” She waved a half-eaten sandwich toward the miniature Una, astride her gleaming bicycle, on the shelf. “Rather pretty. Or even beautiful.”

  Grimes got up and lifted the figurine and her wheeled steed down to the deck. “Ride,” he ordered. “Ride. Round and round and round . . .”

  She clapped her hands gleefully. “One of Yosarian’s toys, isn’t she? But aren’t they rather expensive?”

  “I didn’t buy her,” said Grimes stiffly. “She was a gift. From Mr. Yosarian and . . .”

  “And from the lady who was the model?” She laughed. “No doubt one of your ex—or not so ex—girl friends. You know, I’ve always been sorry that you were so overawed by me when you were my yachtmaster. But now that you’re an owner-master, and a commodore . . .”

  “But not a baron,” said Grimes.

  “But still a privateer,” she told him, “as the first Baron d’Estang was . . .”

  There was something more than a little sluttish about her posture. Her bodice had become unbuttoned. The pink nipple of one firm breast seemed to be winking at him. The invitation was unmistakable.

  Yet when he got up from his chair and moved toward her she put up a hand to fend him away.

  “Wait,” she said. “I have to use your bathroom first. Through there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  She rose sinuously from her seat, walked, with swaying buttocks, to the bedroom, through which were the toilet facilities. Grimes poured himself the last of the coffee from the thermopot. He was still sipping it when she came back, standing in the doorway between day and sleeping cabins.

  The glossy white Eton collar and the black bow accentuated her nakedness. A highborn lady she might be—and, at this moment, a tart she most certainly was.

  But a high-class tart, thought Grimes, as he got up and went to join her in the bedroom.

  In the day cabin the miniature Una Freeman continued her tireless rounds while the solidograph of Maggie Lazenby looked down disapprovingly.

  ***

  “And now,” he whispered, “what was all this about, darling?”

  She murmured, “The laborer is worthy of his hire.”

  He said, “But this was a bonus.”

  “And for me, John. And for me. Besides . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t pretend to possess the faculty of prevision . . . But . . . But I don’t think that you’ll be coming back here, ever. I just had to take this chance to do with you what we should have done a long time ago.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She kissed him a last time, her lips moist and warm on his, then gently disengaged herself from his embrace. She swung her long, long legs down to the deck, swayed gracefully into the bathroom. When she came out she was dressed again in her bunny costume.

  “Don’t get up,” she told him. “I can see myself ashore.”

  “But . . .”

  “Don’t get up, John.” She blew him a kiss. “Good night Good bye, and the very best of luck.”

  She vanished through the doorway.

  She screamed briefly. Grimes flung himself off the bed and ran to the door. She straightened up from rubbing her right foot and glared at him.

  “That bloody golden popsy of yours,” she snarled. “It was intentional!”

  “She’s only a toy,” said Grimes.

  “And a dangerous one.” She grinned. “I’d better go before I kick her off her bicycle and then jump on her!”

  She waved and then was gone.

  Grimes told the tiny cyclist to stop, picked her up and put her back on her shelf. The integument of the metal body in his hands seemed almost as real as the human skin that, only minutes ago, he had been caressing.

  Chapter 38

  SISTER SUE’S control room was fully manned.

  Grimes was in the command chair, and Williams seated at the stand-by controls. Old Mr. Stewart was looking after the NST transceiver and Ms. Connellan and the new fourth officer, the Countess of Walshingham, were at their stations by the radar equipment. Venner was attending the recently installed battle organ. It was SOP in the Survey Service to have all armament ready for instant use during lift-off and, thought Grimes, what was good enough for a regular warship was good enough for a privateer.

  He looked around him at his officers. Williams was his usual cheerful self and old Mr. Stewart looked like an elderly priest performing a ritual of worship to some electronic deity. Venner, with violent death at his fingertips, was grinning mirthlessly. He would welcome the excuse, Grimes knew, to push a few buttons. The Green Hornet seemed to have a smaller chip on her shoulder than usual. The Countess was conveying the impression that she was holding herself icily aloof from everybody except the second mate.

  Grimes didn’t like her. He did not think that anybody, save Ms. Connellan, would or could like her. She had made a scene—only a minor one, but still a scene—when, at long last, she had deigned to affix her signature to Sister Sue’s Articles of Agreement. She had scrawled, in a large, rather childish hand, Walshingham. “What are your given names?” Grimes had asked her.

  “That’s no concern of yours, Captain,” she had replied.

  “How do we address you?” he had persisted.

  “As Your Ladyship, of course.”

  “You are a junior officer aboard this vessel,” he had told her. “Here you are not a Ladyship.”

  “I am a Ladyship anywhere in the galaxy. But you may address me as Countess.”

  (The Green Hornet, Grimes knew, called her new friend Wally. He said, “You will be addressed as Miss Walshingham. Or, if you prefer it, Ms.”)

  “Port Kane Control to flagship,” came a voice, Kane’s voice, from the NST radio speaker. “Lift when you are ready. Pride of Erin, Spaceways Princess and Agatha’s Ark are under your orders.”

  Grimes turned to face the transceiver with its sensitive microphone. “Commodo
re Grimes to Commodore Kane and to masters of Pride of Erin, Spaceways Princess and Agatha’s Ark. The squadron will proceed in echelon—first Sister Sue, then the Pride, then the Princess, then the Ark, as rear commodore . . .”

  The Green Hornet muttered something about Survey Service bullshit.

  “Ships will lift at twenty-second intervals and will maintain station. Acknowledge in order named.”

  The acknowledgments came in.

  “Stand by!” At Grimes’ touch on his controls the mutter of his hitherto idling inertial drive deepened to a rumble. “Execute!”

  Sister Sue shook herself, then clambered slowly into the calm morning air toward the blue sky with its gleaming, feathery streaks of high-altitude cloud. Grimes looked out and down through a viewport, saw that there was a small crowd of women outside the dome that housed The Happy Kangaroo. The volunteer hostesses, he thought. Most of them were still in their bunny costumes. Several of them were waving. Michelle was not among them and he felt a little stab of disappointment. Probably she would be with Kane, watching the privateer fleet’s departure from the control room at the top of the latticework tower. He transferred his attention to the glassed-in cage but could see nobody; the sunlight reflected from the windows was too dazzling. And was Kane, he asked himself wryly, playing King David to his Uriah the Hittite? But it was a far-fetched analogy. Apart from anything else it was the ill-fated Uriah who had been the cuckolded husband.

  He wished, too, that the Princess had come to the spaceport to watch the ships, carrying both her son and the man who was his father, set out.

  Grimes, he admonished himself, you’re a sentimental slob.

  The Countess announced in a high, clear voice, “Pride of Erin is lifting, Commodore.”

  “Thank you, Miss Walshingham.”

  He stepped up the thrust of his inertial drive.

  “Spaceways Princess is lifting . . .”

  “Thank you.”