Grimes did not get much sleep that night.
He did not want to leave his ship until he was reasonably sure that the situation was under control. Drongo Kane was the main problem. Just what were his intentions? Southerly Buster had been kept under close observation from Seeker, and all the activity around her airlock had been filmed. Highly sensitive long-range microphones had been trained upon her—but Kane had set up some small noise-making machine that produced a continuous whup, whup, whup . . . . Hayakawa, disregarding the Rhine Institute code of ethics, had tried to pry, but Myra Bracegirdle, Kane's PCO, was maintaining an unbreakable block over the minds of all the Buster's personnel. He had then tried to pick up the thoughts of the people in the town of Oxford, with little more success.
Grimes studied the film that had been made. He watched, on the screen, Kane talking amicably with Sabrina, the Queen of Oxford. He seemed to be laying on the charm with a trowel, and the Morrowvian woman was lapping it up. She smiled smugly when Drongo hung a scintillating string of synthetic diamonds about her neck, and her chubby hand went up to stroke the huge ruby that formed the pendant of the necklace, that glowed with crimson fire between her ample, golden-skinned breasts. She looked, thought Grimes, like a sleek cat that had got its nose into the cream. If it had not been for that annoying whup, whup, whup he would have heard her purring. It was shortly after her acceptance of this gift that Kane took her into the ship. Dreebly and two others—a little, fat man who, to judge by his braid, was the second mate and a cadaverous blonde in catering officer's uniform—remained by the table, handing out cheap jewelry, hand mirrors, pocket knives (a bad guess, thought Grimes amusedly, in this nudist culture), pairs of scissors and (always a sure way of buying goodwill) a quite good selection of children's toys. But it was the books that were in the greatest demand. The lens of one of the cameras that had been used zoomed in to a close-up of the display. Their covers were brightly-colored, eye-catching. They were, every one of them, handouts from the Tourist Bureaus of the more glamorous worlds of the galaxy.
Did Kane intend opening a travel agency on this world? It was possible, Grimes conceded. After all, the man was a shipowner. And his ship, according to the report from Elsinore, had been modified to suit her for the carriage of passengers.
"I don't like the looks of this, Captain," said the first lieutenant.
"What don't you like about it, Mr. Saul?" asked Grimes.
"I still remember what he did on Ganda."
"He can hardly do the same here. These people aren't being evacuated from their world before it's destroyed. They're quite happy here. In any case, the Gandans were skilled workmen, technicians. These people, so far as I can see, are little better than savages. Nice savages, I admit, but . . . "
"Forgive me for saying so, Captain, but you're very simple, aren't you?"
Grimes's prominent ears reddened. He demanded sharply, "What do you mean, Mr. Saul?"
"You've seen even more of these people than I have, sir. Have you seen an ugly man or woman?"
"No," admitted Grimes.
"And there are worlds where beautiful women are in great demand . . . ."
"And there are the quite stringent laws prohibiting the traffic in human merchandise," said Grimes.
"Kane is bound to find some loophole," insisted Saul. "Just as he did on Ganda." Then his racial bitterness found utterance. "After all, he's a white man."
Grimes sighed. He wished, as he had wished before, that Saul would forget the color of his skin. He said tiredly, "All right, all right—Whitey's to blame for everything. But, from my reading of history, I seem to remember that it was the fat black kings on the west coast of Africa who sold their own people to the white slave traders . . . ."
"Just as that fat yellow queen whom Kane entertained will sell her people to the white slave trader."
"I wouldn't call her fat . . . " objected Grimes, trying to bring the conversation to a lighter level.
"Just pleasantly plump, dearie," said Maggie Lazenby. "But, as you say, Drongo won't be able to pull off a coup like the Gandan effort twice running. And even if he makes a deal with some non-Federated world, he's still a Federation citizen and subject to Federation law."
"Yes, Commander Lazenby," agreed Saul dubiously. "But I don't trust him."
"Who does?" said Grimes. "During my absence you'll just have to watch him, Mr. Saul, like a cat watching a mouse." He added, "Like a black cat watching a white mouse."
"A white rat, you mean," grumbled Saul.