The
air was alive with the vicious buzzing of the stun-guns. The smuggler was
frozen in his squatting posture, paralyzed, unable to stir so much as a finger.
But the robot moved. Its drive unit hammered shockingly and unrhythmically and
it shot straight upwards. Beams from hastily switched on police searchlights
swept the sky like the antennae of disturbed insects—then caught it, held it, a
tiny bright star in a firmament that had never known any stars. At least four
machine rifles were hammering, and an incandescent tracer arched upwards with
deceptive slowness.
The
lieutenant had drawn his laser pistol and the purple beam slashed across the
darkness, power-wasting and desperate. Some hapless night-flying creature
caught by the sword of lethal light exploded smokily.
It
might have been the machine rifles that found their mark,
it might have been the laser pistol. Nobody ever knew. But the broken beat of
the inertial drive ceased abruptly and the robot was falling, faster and faster
. . .
"Downl" shouted
somebody. "Get
downl"
A.
BERTRAM CHANDLER, who is both a Fellow of the British Interplanetary Society
and the Chief Officer of an Australian coastal steamer, writes of himself:
"I have always been an avid reader of
science-fiction and have always wanted to write. Until in possession of my
Master's Certificate, I always felt that my spare time should be devoted to
study rather than to writing. My first visit to New York was after the entry of
the U.S. into the war. Shortly after, having passed for Master, I had no excuse
for not writing, and I became a regular contributor to the magazines in the
field.
"After the war I continued writing, but
dropped out after promotion to Chief Officer. After my emigration to Australia,
I was bullied by my second wife into taking up the pen again, and became once
again a prolific writer of short stories. Finally, I felt that the time was
ripe for full-length novels. I have dropped shorter pieces feeling that they
gave insufficient scope for character development. I think that science-fiction
and fantasy are ideal vehicles for putting over essential truths."
THE
GATEWAY
TO
NEVER
A.
BERTRAM CHANDLER
ACE BOOKS
A Division of Charter Communications Inc. 1120 Avenue of the Americas New York, N.Y.
10036
THE
GATEWAY TO NEVER
Copyright
©, 1972, by A. Bertram Chandler
DEDICATION: For Susan, as usual.
THE INHERITORS Copyright ©, 1972, by A. Bertram Chandler
Printed in U.S.A.
Commodore John Grimes did not like Customs
Officers; to his way of thinking they ranked with, but even below, Tax
Collectors. The Tax Collector, however, is loved by nobody—with the possible
exceptions of his wife and children—whereas the Customs Officer makes his
impact only upon the traveling public, among whom professional spacemen are
numbered.
Grimes
was not at all pleased when his latest secretary, Miss
Pahvani, told him that the Port Forlorn Chief of Customs wished to see
him. It was not that he was especially busy; the only thing to occupy his
attention was the Stores Requisition sent in by the Chief Officer to Rim Mandrake, through most of the items on which he had been
happily running his blue pencil.
He
looked up from his desk and said irritably, "Tell him I'm busy."
Miss
Pahvani treated him to her impersonation of a frightened fawn. "But, sir,
he says that it is important. And he is the Chief Collector."
"And
I'm the Chief Astronautical Superintendent of Rim Runners. And the Officer allegedly Commanding the Rim Worlds
Naval Reserve."
"But, sir, he is
waiting."
"Mphm." Miss Pahvani's brother, Grimes recalled, was a Junior Customs
Inspector. How did a pretty girl like this come to have a near relative in a
profession like that? "All right," he said. "Show him in."
And
what was it this time? Grimes
wondered. There had been the flap when an overly zealous searcher had
discovered that the Master of Rim Basilisk had
no less than two bottles of duty-free gin over and above his allowance for
personal consumption. There had been the
unpleasantness about the undeclared Caribbean cigars in the
cabin of Rim
Gryphons Third
Officer. And what was he, Grimes, supposed to do about it? Send
this-practice-must-cease-forthwith Circulars to all ships, that was what. . . . He imagined that he was a Rim Runners*
Master (as he had been, before coming ashore) and mentally composed a letter to
himself as Astronautical Superintendent. Deat Sir, Your Circular Number so-and-so is now before me. It will
shortly be behind me. Yours faithfully. ...
"Ah,
Commodore," said Josiah Billinghurst, the Chief Collector of Customs,
breaking into his thoughts.
"Mr.
Billinghurst." Grimes got to his feet, with an outward show of cordiality.
After all, he had to share the spaceport with this man. "Come in, come in.
This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard!"
Billinghurst winced, as he was intended to
do; Grimes
knew very well that he hated the merest suggestion of
coarse language. He lowered his bulk into one of the
chairs on the other side of Grimes' big desk. He was a
grossly fat man and his gold-braided uniform did not
become him, and neither did he become the uniform.
Grimes wondered, as he had wondered many times be-
fore, what perverted genius had first thought of putting
these enemies of mankind into naval dress. "
"Coffee, Mr.
Billinghurst?"
"If
I may, Commodore."
Miss
Pahvani brought in the tray, poured for the two men. One more smile like that, Grimes thought sourly, and our fat friend will make your brother a
Chief Inspector. He
said, when the girl was gone, "And what can I do you for?"
"Nothing,
I hope." Billinghurst permitted himself an apology for a smile, then reverted at once to the appearance of a mournful
overfed bloodhound. "But you might be able to do something for me."
"In which of my official
capacities?" asked Grimes.
"Both, quite possibly." He sipped noisily from his cup. "This
is good coffee."
"Imported. And the duty was paid on it."
"I
have no doubt that it was. Frankly, Commodore, it wouldn't worry me much if it were out of ship's stores and not a cent of duty paid."
"You surprise me, Mr. Billinghurst."
Billinghurst
sighed. "All you spacemen are the same. You regard us as your natural
enemies. Do you think that I get any pleasure from finding one of your junior
officers for minor smuggling?"
"That
thought had flickered across my mind," said Grimes. "But
tell me, who's been naughty now? Rim Mandrakes the
only ship in port at the moment. I hadn't heard that any of her people had been
guilty of the heinous crime of trying to take an undeclared bottle of Scotch
ashore."
"None of them has,
Commodore."
"So?"
"I don't make the laws, Commodore
Grimes. All that I'm supposed to do is enforce them. The government decides
what duty shall be paid on the various imported luxuries, and also what
quantities of which commodities may be brought in, duty-free, by passengers and
ships' crews. Regarding this latter, you know as well as I do that we are inclined to be lenient."
Reluctantly Grimes agreed.
"When
something, such as liquor or tobacco, is intended for personal consumption
only, we often turn a blind eye. When something is smuggled ashore to be sold
at a profit, we pounce."
"Mphm."
"And
then, Commodore, there are the prohibited imports. You have traveled widely;
you know that on many worlds drugs of all kinds are
regarded as we regard tobacco and alcohol, or tea and coffee, even."
"Francisco . . contributed Grimes.
"Yes,
Francisco. A planet of which I have read, but which I have no desire ever to
visit."
"An odd world," said Grimes.
"Religion is the opium of about half of the people, and opium is the
religion of the other half."
"Neatly
put, Commodore. Now, I need hardly tell you that drugs, especially the
hallucinogens, are banned on the Rim Worlds."
"We get along without
them."
"You
do, Commodore, and I do, but there are some who think that they cannot. And
where there is a demand there will soon be a supply."
"Smuggling?"
"Yes."
"How
do you know it is smuggling? How do you know that somebody miles from any
spaceport hasn't a mushroom plot, or that somebody with
more than a smattering of chemistry isn't cooking up his own LSD?"
"We
are working closely with the police in this matter, Commodore. All the evidence
indicates that drugs are being smuggled in."
"And
what am I supposed to do about it? I'm neither a Customs Officer nor a
policeman."
"You
are in a position of authority. Your captains are in positions of authority.
All that I ask is a measure of cooperation."
"It is already laid down in Company's
Regulations," said Grimes, "that the penalty for smuggling is instant
dismissal."
"The
penalty for being caught
smuggling," said
Bill-inghurst.
"Isn't that the same
thing?"
"It's not, and you know it,
Commodore."
"All
right.
I'll compose a Circular on the subject."
"I
expected more from you than this, Commodore Grimes."
"What
more can I do?" Then, "And how do you know
it's our ships? Most of them are running the Eastern
Circuit, and to the best of my knowledge and belief no drugs are grown or
manufactured on Tharn, Mellise,
Stree or Grollor, any more than they are on Lom, Faraway, Ultimo or
Thule."
"Rim
Dingo," said the Chief Collector,
"is engaged in the trade between Lom and Elsinore. Drug addiction is no
problem on that world, but ships from all over the Galaxy come in to the ports
of the Shakespearean Sector. Rim Wombat runs
mainly to Rob Roy, in the Empire of Waverley. As long as the Waverleyans get
their Scotch they don't want anything else—but the Waverley ports are open to
Galactic trade."
"Mphm. But I still can't see why there should be all this fuss about
mind-expanding chemicals that can be purchased openly on at least a thousand
planets."
"Here," stated
Billinghurst, "their use is illegal."
"If
people enjoy something," said Grimes, "make a law against it. Who was
it who said that the law was an ass?"
"I
don't like your attitude, Commodore Grimes," Billinghurst said
reprovingly.
"There
are times when I thoroughly disapprove of myself," said Grimes, with mock
penitence. "Anyhow, I'll get that Circular into production."
"Thank
you," said Billinghurst. "I'm sure that it will be a great
help."
Sarcastic bastardl thought Grimes.
II
That evening he talked things over with his
wife. He said, "That fat slob Billinghurst was in to see me."
"What have you done
now?" Sonya asked him.
"Nothing," replied Grimes, hurt.
"Then
what have your captains and officers been do-ing?"
"Nothing, so far as I
know."
"Our Mr. Billinghurst," she said,
"doesn't like you enough to drop in for a social chat." "You can
say that again." The Commodore's prominent ears reddened. "I don't like him, either. Or
any of his breed."
"They have their uses," she said.
Grimes
looked at Sonya in a rather hostile manner. He growled, "You would say that. After all, you are an Intelligence Officer, even if only on
the Reserve List."
"Why rub it in?" she asked.
"I'm
not rubbing anything in. I'm only making the point that Customs Officers and
Intelligence Officers have a lot in common."
"Yes, we do, I suppose. To be in either trade you have to be something of a human ferret. And the Survey Service's Intelligence Branch has worked
with the Customs authorities more than once."
"Has
Billinghurst asked you to work with him?" he demanded.
"No. Of course not.
He represents the Government of the Confederacy, and my Reserve Officer's
Commission is held, as well you know, in the Federation's Survey Service."
"You are a citizen of
the Confederacy by marriage."
"Yes,
but a private citizen. As far as the Rim Worlds are concerned I'm just a civilian. Of course, if I got
orders from my bosses on Earth to work with Billinghurst—just as I've had
orders in the past to work with you—I should do just that."
"Mphm. Well, I most sincerely hope that you
don't."
"Suppose,"
she suggested, "that you tell me what all this is about. I know you don't
like Billinghurst—but he's only doing the job that he's paid to do."
"Why should the
taxpayers be forced to pay for the upkeep of their natural
enemies?" asked Grimes rhetorically.
"It
always has been so," she told him. "It's just one of the prices one
pays for civilization. But suppose you put me in the picture insofar as you and
Mr. Billinghurst are concerned."
"All right. As you know very well the Rim Worlds are far less permissive than Earth
and the older colonies. By comparison with them, we're practically
puritanical."
"Are
we? I haven't noticed anybody suffering agonies of repression."
"Perhaps not. But just compare our attitude towards the commoner drugs with that of,
say, Earth. On the home planet marihuana can be purchased as openly as tobacco.
Here, on the Rim, it is banned. There the more potent hallucinogens can be
bought by those who have a license to use them—even that Dew of Paradise they
distill on Arrid. Here, they are banned. I could go on...
"Don't
bother. So somebody's been drug running, and Billinghurst thinks that it's your
boys. Right?"
"Right."
"And
he wants you to do something about it. Right?" "Right."
"And what are you
doing about it?"
"I've
already done it. I've composed a this-practice-must-cease-forthwith Circular,
addressed to all Masters and Chief Officers, drawing their attention to Rule
No. 73 in Rim Runners' Regulations—the instant dismissal if caught smuggling
one."
"And do you think that
will be enough?" she asked.
"That's the least of
my worries," he said.
"At
times—and this is one of them—I find your attitude towards things in general
rather hard to understand." Her slender face was set in severe fines, her green eyes stared at him in what could have been
accusation.
Grimes
squirmed slightly. He said firmly, "I am not, repeat not, a Customs
Officer—and for that I thank all the Odd Gods of the Galaxy. Furthermore, ever
since man came down from the trees he has needed an assortment of drugs—tea,
coffee, alcohol, tobacco, the juice of sacred mushrooms, the smoke from burning
Indian hemp —to take the rough edge off things in general. Most—all,
probably—of these things are dangerous if taken in excess. So are plenty of non-drugs.
After all, you can kill yourself overeating."
"Talking of that," she said sweetly, "you could stand to
lose a pound or three ... or four ... or five."
He ignored this. "What Billinghurst is
doing is interfering with the most sacred freedom of mankind." 'Which
is?"
"Freedom to go to hell your own way. The odd part is that in any culture where
this freedom is an undeniable right very few people take advantage of it. But
once the law, in its wisdom, says, "You must be good," it's a different story. You will recall that Atlantia,
only a few years ago, tried to ban the consumption of alcohol. As a result
non-drinkers became drinkers, moderate drinkers became heavy drinkers, and
those who had been heavy drinkers drank themselves into early graves. And the
rum runners made their fortunes."
"Yes," she said, "the rum
runners made their fortunes. People like Drongo Kane, who has always ranked
high on your list of pet dislikes. And now that some genius has discovered that
there's an ideal market for drugs out on the Rim there'll be more fortunes
made, and all by the dregs of humanity. Tell me, John, if you knew that Drongo
Kane was among the runners would you be content to do no more than write one
of those Circulars that nobody ever reads anyhow?"
He
grinned. "I'll have to toss a coin before I can answer that one. Much as
I dislike Krongo Kane I'd hate to be on the same side as Billinghurst!"
Ill
When Grimes arrived at Port Last, on Ultimo,
he was not in a good temper. The matter calling him away from Port Forlorn had
been too urgent for him to wait for a regular sailing, so he had pressed the
Deep Space rug Rim
Malemute into
service. She was an enormously powerful little brute, designed to go a long way
in a short time. She was an assemblage of highly specialized machinery packed
into a tin can, with no waste space whatsoever.
Williams, her skipper, brought her in as
spectacularly as usual, applying the thrust of her inertial drive only when it
seemed inevitable that the Malemute and
her people would be smeared over the landing apron. Grimes, who was a guest in the control room, remarked coldly, "I
almost lost my last meal. Not that it would have been much loss."
The tug skipper laughed cheerfully. He and
Grimes were old friends and shipmates, and he had often served as the
Commodore's second in command in Faraway Quest. He
said, "You wanted to get here in a hurry, Skipper, and I got you here in a
hurry. As for the tucker —this little bitch isn't an Alpha Class liner."
"Isn't she? You
surprise me, Williams."
Grimes
watched, through the viewport, the ground car that was coming out to the Malemute. Through the transparent canopy he could see
two men. One was Giles, the Port Captain, the other
was Dunbar, Rim Runners' Local Astronautical Superintendent. As the tug was in
from another Rim Worlds port there were no Customs, Health, or Immigration
officials. He said, "I'd better go to start sorting things out. I'll let
you know where to send my baggage."
"Aren't you living
aboard, Skipper?"
"If
I'm a sardine in my next incarnation I'll think about it—but not until
then."
Grimes went down to the airlock, the doors of
which opened as he reached them, and walked down the ramp while it was still
being extruded. As he was doing so the ground car came to a halt and Giles and
Dunbar, both tall skinny men, got out. Giles was in uniform and saluted.
Dunbar bowed stiffly. Grimes bowed in return.
"Glad to see you here,
Commodore," said Dunbar.
"Thank you,
Captain."
"Perhaps
some refreshment before we get down to business. . . ."
"Thank
you, but no. We adjusted our clocks to your local time for the last week of the
voyage and I had breakfast before we landed." He looked at his watch.
"0930 I make it."
"That is cdrrect,
sir."
Grimes
got into the front of the car with Dunbar. Giles said that he was going aboard Rim Malemute to see Williams to handle the arrival
formalities. Dunbar drove off, wasting no time.
Grimes
looked with interest at the berthed ships as they passed them—Htm Cougar, Rim Panther, the Shakespearean Line's Othello, the Waverley Royal Mail's freighter Countess of Ayrshire. It could have been Port Forlorn, but for the
weather. The sky overhead was blue, with a very few white clouds, not a dismal
gray overcast —mainly natural, but contributed to by the smoke from the
towering stacks of Lom's heavy industry. Ahead, once they were through the main
gates, was the city of Port Last, and beyond the white
and red buildings towered the snowcapped pinnacles of the Ultimate Range. The
road ran straight as an arrow through fields of wheat, some still green and
some already golden. In these latter the harvesters, looking like huge
mechanical insects, were busily working.
Ultimo,
thought Grimes. The Granary of the Rim
Worlds. A planet of farmers. A world where
anything, anything at all, is welcome as long as it breaks the deadly monotony.
Like Elsinore, another farming world, but dairy products rather than grain,
where compulsive gambling is the main social problem. . . .
He
asked Dunbar, "Where have they got young Ples-hoff?"
"In the Central Jail, Commodore. I could have got him out on bail, but
thought that if I did he'd be getting into more trouble."
"What are the charges,
exactly?"
"As
far as we're concerned, mutiny. As far as the civil
authorities are concerned, drug addiction. I should have liked to have
held Captain Gaynes and his Chief Officer as witnesses—but, as you know, Rim Caribou was already behind schedule and it would have
taken too much time to get reliefs for them. But they left affidavits."
"Mphm. What do you think, Captain?"
"What can I think? The young fool was in
the control room, testing gear an hour before lift-off, while Gaynes" was
in my office and the Chief Officer was seeing the ship buttoned up for space.
The engineers had been doing last minute maintenance on the inertial drive, had
made a test run on one twentieth power and then, with
departure time so close, had left it on Stand By. Pleshoff slammed it into
maximum thrust and the old Caribou went
up like a rocket. Gaynes and I saw
it from my office window. It shook us, I can
tell you. Then Pleshoff thought he'd try his hand at a few lateral maneuvers.
He wiped the radio mast off the top of the spaceport control tower. He buzzed
the market place in Port Last —and it was market day, too, just to improve
matters. By this time the Chief and Second Officers had managed to break into
the control room. They overpowered him and got the ship back into her
berth—just as the entire police force came screaming in through the spaceport
gates."
"And what does he say?"
"That it seemed a good
idea at the time."
"Mphm. I suppose that all of us, as junior officers, have wanted to become
instant captains. This drug addiction charge ...
do you think it will stick?"
"It'll
stick, all right. Pleshoff was running around with a very unsavoury bunch of
kids of his own age, bearded boys and shaven-headed girls. The Blossom People,
they call themselves."
"There are Blossom People on Francisco.
I suppose they modeled themselves on these originals."
"Probably. The gang that he was mixed up in seem to have a source of supply
for—what do they call the muck?—dreamy weed. Ughl"
"They smoke it?"
"Yes.
In long, porcelain pipes. They claim
that it's not habit forming. They claim
that it's no worse than alcohol, that its effects are far less injurious. They
even have a religion based on it."
"Is this . . . this
dreamy weed grown locally?"
Dunbar laughed. "On
Ultimo? You must be joking, Commodore. Every square inch of soil on this
planet has to nourish the sacred grain. It's smuggled in, from somewhere. The
Police and the Customs are running around in small circles trying to get their
paws onto the runners. But even the pushers are too smart for them.5'
The
car had entered the city now, was running through a wide street on either side
of which were low, graceful stone houses. The houses gave way to shops, to
office buildings, taller and taller as the vehicle approached the centre. And
then they were in the great square, with the fountains and the statue of some
Ancient Greek-looking lady proudly holding a sheaf of wheat. Surrounding the
square were the official buildings—Town Hall, City Library, State Church,
Aero-Space Authority, Police Headquarters, and Prison. The jail was a
cylindrical tower, windowless except at ground level. It was well proportioned,
graceful even—but it looked grim.
Dunbar
said, "I've warned them that we're coming. They'll let us in."
"As long as they let
us out," said Grimes.
IV
The police lieutenant in charge of the ground
floor office eyed Grimes and Dunbar as though they were candidates for
admission. "Yes?" he barked.
"I am Captain Dunbar," said the
Local Astronautical Superintendent. "This gentleman is Commodore
Grimes."
The
policeman's manner softened very slightly. He asked, "And what can I do
for you gentlemen?"
"We
wish to see Mr. Pleshoff. Colonel Warden said that it would be in order."
"Oh, yes. Pleshoff."
The swarthy and burly young man leafed through a book on his desk. "We
still have him."
Pleshoff, thought Grimes. With no "Mister. But if you get on the wrong side of the law
you soon lose your rank and status.
"Cell 729," muttered the
lieutenant. He raised an imperious hand and a constable obeyed the summons.
"Bamberger, take these visitors to see the prisoner Ples-hoff."
"It is a work period, sir."
"I
know that. But I think that the sovereign state of Ultimo can afford to
dispense with his services for half an hour, or even longer."
"Follow
me, please, gentlemen," said the brawny Bamberger. He led the way to a
bank of elevator doors. He addressed a grille set in the nearest one, said.
"Constable Bamberger, No. 325252, with two visitors, Commodore Grimes and
Captain Dunbar." Then, to his charges, "Stand beside me, please. One on either side of me." And again to the grille,
"Constable Bamberger and party positioned."
There
was a flash of intense light, lasting for the briefest fraction of a second.
Grimes allowed himself to wonder how he would look in
the instantaneous photograph. The door slid open to reveal an empty cage. There
was no control panel. The door silently shut as soon as they were all inside.
Bamberger said, "Level 33." There was only the slightest rug of
acceleration to indicate that they were being slowly carried upwards.
Grimes
said, "I take it that your various robots are programmed to obey only the
voices of the prison staff."
"I cannot answer that
question, sir."
"Mphm. And I suppose, too, that the elevators move
very slowly unless some key word or phrase is used, so that any prisoner
attempting to escape from an upper level in one cage would find that those on
the ground floor had been given ample time to prepare for his reception."
"I cannot answer that question,
sir."
"If the machinery running the elevators
obeys only the voices of the guards," said Dunbar, "how could a
prisoner persuade it to work for him?"
"In
the history of penology," said Grimes, "there are many instances of
prisoners persuading guards to help them to escape. And not
only with a knife or gun in the back."
"I'm afraid that I can't see Pleshoff
doing any bribery," said Dunbar. "Not on Rim Runners' Third
Officer's salary. I couldn't do it on mine."
"Mphm,"
grunted Grimes, and Bamberger looked relieved at the change of subject.
"What work do the
prisoners do?" asked Grimes.
"Pleshoff,
sir," said the constable, "is in the workroom where playmaster
components are assembled. All the convicts receive full Award rates for
whatever work they are doing. In the case of a prisoner not yet tried and
convicted, even when undeniably guilty of the offense with which he is charged,
he is allowed to keep the money he earns after the cost of his keep has been deducted.
After conviction, of course, all his earnings revert to Consolidated
Revenue."
"Mphm." Grimes turned to Dunbar. "I'm surprised that our Mr. Pleshoff
hasn't been up before the Beak yet."
"He's had to take his
place in the queue, Commodore."
"So
they're keeping you busy," said Grimes to Bamberger.
The constable's wooden face at last betrayed
some emotion. "It's these Blossom People, sir. They get a lungful of
dreamy weed and the things they get up to aren't at all funny. We never have
the same trouble with proper
criminals."
"I suppose not. A proper criminal you
just regard as one of the family."
Bamberger
gave Grimes a very nasty look, then lapsed into sulky
silence.
"But they are becoming a menace,"
said Dunbar. "The Blossom People, I mean."
"I
suppose they are," said Grimes. Performing aerobatics in a 3,000 ton
spaceship certainly could be classed as being a menace.
"Floor
33," announced Bamberger. He led the way out through the opening door.
Most of Floor 33 was
occupied by the workroom.
Through
the space ran long, slow-moving conveyor belts. Industriously engaged at these
were about a hundred men, each of whom was dressed in drab gray coveralls, each
of whom had his number stenciled on to the chest and back of his garment.
Blue-and-silver uniformed guards strolled watchfully along the lines, and other
guards stood behind mounted guns of some kind in inward-facing balconies. Those screwdrivers, thought Grimes with a twinge of apprehension,
could be used as weapons.
And the soldering irons. . . . But how long would a prisoner who tried to
attack a guard last? Not long. He transferred his attention to an almost completed playmaster that was
sliding past him. He wondered if the machine in his own home had been assembled
in a place like this.
One
of the guards who had more silver braid on his sleeves than the others came to
meet them. He said, "Commodore Grimes? Captain Dunbar? You wish to see
Pleshoff, Number 729.
You may use the refreshment
room. It will not be required for general use until the next smoke, forty five
minutes from now. Take these gentlemen there, Bamberger."
"Yes,
Sergeant."
The
refreshment room was grim, gray, cheerless. It contained
an ice-water dispenser and dispensers for tea and coffee. Bamberger asked if
they wanted a drink. Dunbar refused one. The constable drew paper cups of
coffee for Grimes and himself. The fluid was lukewarm, black, and bitter and
could have been an infusion of anything at all but what it was called.
Escorted
by two guards Pleshoff came in. Grimes remembered the young man, had
interviewed him when he applied for a position in Rim Runners. He had been a
junior officer in Trans-Galactic Clippers and had met a girl from Faraway when
his ship had carried a number of Rim Worlds passengers on a cruise. He seemed
to remember that Pleshoff had married the girl—yes, he
had applied for an extension of leave during his honeymoon. And hadn't
PleshofFs captain mentioned to him, not so long ago, that the marriage had
broken up?
There
are some men who look like spacemen, like officers, no matter what they are
wearing. Pleshoff was not one of them. Out of uniform—or in the wrong uniform—he
looked like a very ordinary, very frightened young man. At least he didn't look like a criminal, thought Grimes.
The
Commodore said to the guards, "Do you think that you could leave us alone
with the . . . er . . . prisoner?"
Bamberger
said, "These gentlemen were vouched for by Colonel Warden."
One
of the other men asked, "Aren't you Commodore Grimes, sir? The Commodore Grimes?"
"There's
only one of me as far as I know," said Grimes. "On this Continuum."
Bamberger was puzzled by this remark and said
doubtfully, "We have to ask the Sergeant."
But
the Sergeant was agreeable, and after a few minutes Grimes, Dunbar, and
Pleshoff had the refreshment room to themselves, the two superintendents
seated on a hard wooden bench and the young officer facing them, perched on a
chair that looked even harder than their own seat.
V
"And now, Mr. Pleshoff," said
Grimes sternly, "what have you to say for yourself?"
"I suppose it's no
good my saying that I'm sorry, sir."
"It's
not," Grimes told him. But, he
thought, I'm
sorry. I'm sorry to see a youngster ruin his career.
"I suppose, sir, that I'm finished with
Rim Runners."
"I'm
afraid, Mr. Pleshoff, that you're finished in space. After what you did, your
Certificate of Competency will have to be dealt with. There's no way out of it.
But I don't think that we shall be pressing the
mutiny charge."
"Thank you, sir."
"You haven't much to thank me for, Mr.
Pleshoff. You're on the beach. You still have to face the drug charges. But I
shall instruct our legal people to do what they can for you."
"Thank you, sir."
"And you might do something for
me."
"Anything I can,
sir." Pleshoff was pitifully eager.
"I'll
be frank with you. Until now I've never taken this drug business seriously.
I've thought, if people want to blow their minds, let
'em. It just never occurred to me that anybody in a position of trust, of
responsibility, would get . . . hooked? Is that the right word?"
"But
I'm not hooked, sir. I tried the dreamy weed only once, and they told me that
its effects would be for that night only."
"And who," demanded Grimes sharply, "are they?"
Pleshoff's immature features set into a mask
of stubbornness. He muttered, "Keep them out of it. They're my
friends."
"You mean," said Grimes, "that she's your friend."
Tes,"
admitted the young man. And then the words poured out. "I've been very
lonely, sir. Ever since Sheila and I broke up. Then I
met this girl, here, in Port Last. It was in the park. I'd been given the
afternoon off and had gone for a walk. You know how it is, sir. You meet
somebody and you sort of click. She's like the girls I used to know at home.
You know—more free in her talk than the girls out here on the Rim Worlds, more
way out in her dress. I took her to dinner that evening. She decided on the
place. A little restaurant. Intimate. Candles on the tables, and all that. The
menu on a blackboard. I didn't know until then that there were such
places out here. That was just the first night, of course. There were other
nights. We . . . we became friendly. And with the ship on a regular trade, coming
in to Port Last every three weeks or so, I . . ." he grinned weakly,
"I had it made.
"She had other friends, of course. All
in the same age group. One night she asked me round to a party at one of their
places. There was music, of course, and plenty to drink, and things to nibble
on, and we were all dancing some of the time, and talking some of the time.
You know.
"And then the chap who was throwing the
party got up and said, 'Quiet, everybody! Silence in Court! I have an
announcement!' Then he went on to say that the pusher had come good at last,
and that the gateway to never was open. This didn't make any sense to me. He started
passing out long, pretty, porcelain pipes, and then brought out from somewhere
a can of what looked like a greenish tobacco. What is it?' I asked my girl.
'Where were you dragged up?" she asked me. 'After all we
mean to each other, don't tell me that you're a block.'"
"A block?" asked Grimes.
"It's
what they call stiff and stodgy and conventional people, sir. Well, I told her
that I wasn't a block. Then she said that I must be, otherwise I'd recognise
dreamy weed when I saw it. Well, I'd heard about dreamy weed, of course, but
you never see it in the Academy, although when I was there, for my pre-Space
training, two senior cadets were booted out for smoking it. And there's something
in TG Clippers' Company's Regulations about it not being allowed aboard their
ships. So I wasn't keen on trying it and said that we were lifting off the next
day.
"She
told me that I'd be right as rain in the morning. She told me, too, that to get
the full benefit of it you had to smoke it with somebody, somebody towards whom
you felt affectionate. If I wouldn't smoke with her, she was going to smoke
with . . . the name doesn't matter.
"You
know what it's like, sir. How a girl can make you do things you wouldn't do
ordinarily."
" 'Lord,'" quoted Grimes, " 'the woman tempted me, and I fell.'"
"Who said that, sir?"
"A man called Adam. Rather before your
time, and even mine. But go on."
"It was odd, sir. The
smoke, I mean. She and I shared the pipe, passing it back and forth between us.
It seemed that I was inhaling something of her, and that she was inhaling
something of me. And it was like breathing in a fluid, a liquid, rather than a
gas. A warm, sweet, very smooth liquid. And then,
somehow, as we smoked we were . . . doing other things." Pleshoff blushed
in embarrassment. "The people round us were . . . doing the same. But it
wasn't always boys with girls. There were some boys with boys, and there were
girls together. And the lights were dim, and dimmer
all the time, and redder, and redder, like blood. But it wasn't frightening.
It was all . . . warm, and . . . cosy. And there was a pulsing sound like a
giant heartbeat. It must have been my own heart that I was hearing, or her
heart, or the hearts of all of us. And we were very close, the two of us, all
of us. And. . . .
"And
we reached our climax. It's the usual way of putting it, sir, and the words are
the right words, but . . . can you imagine an orgasm that's an implosion rather
than an explosion? And after that there was the slow, slow falling into a deep
velvety darkness, a warm darkness. . . .
"And_____
"And then it was morning. Most of the
others were waking up too. It should have all looked very sordid in the first
light, naked bodies sprawled everywhere, but it didn't. And I felt fine, just
fine, as fine as everybody looked, as fine as I knew that I looked myself.
Somebody had made coffee, and I'd never tasted coffee as good before. It tasted
the way that coffee smells when it's being ground. And my cigarette tasted the
way thaf somebody else's cigar usually smells. I'd have liked to have stayed
for breakfast with the others, but I had to be getting back to the ship. After
all, it was sailing day. So I got back to the ship. I was still feeling fine—on
top of the world, on top of all the worlds. I just breezed through all the
things I had to do."
"Including testing the
gear," remarked Grimes.
PleshofFs face lost its
animation. "Yes, sir. The gear.
I
was there, by myself, in the control room. I saw that the inertial drive was
already on Stand By. And then, quite suddenly, the thought came to me, Why shouldn't I show the old bastard—sorry, sir, the Old Man
I mean-that he's not the only one who can handle a ship?' I knew that he was
still in Captain Dunbar's office, and I thought it'd be a fine joke if he saw
his precious Caribou
lifting off without
him."
"Mphm. A very fine joke," commented Grimes. "You may consider
yourself highly fortunate that nobody was hurt or killed. Mphm.
I suggest that you tell the authorities the name of your host on that
unfortunate evening— although no doubt the local detective force is quite capable
of finding it out for themselves. The real villain, of
course, is the pusher. If you could name him you'd probably get off with a
light sentence."
"I
can't," said Pleshoff dully. "And if I could, I wouldn't."
Grimes shook his head sadly. "I don't
know what trade you'll be entering after the authorities turn you loose—but
whatever it is, you'll find that schoolboy code of honor a disadvantage."
He got to his feet. 'Well, Mr. Pleshoff, we'll do our best for you. We pride
ourselves that we look after our own. But I'm afraid that you wont be one of our own for very much longer."
VI
"I don't know what today's young people
are coming to," complained Captain Dunbar as he and Grimes left the jail. "Drugs. Orgies."
"I've
never taken part in an orgy," said Grimes rather wistfully. "Have
you?"
"Of
course not!" snapped Dunbar, looking at his superior in a rather dubious
manner. Then, apparently having decided that the Commodore must have been
joking, he went on, "Until now we've been clear of all this sort of thing
on the Rim Worlds. I always said that it was a big mistake to open these planets
to intergalactic trade."
"Mphm. Where am I staying, by the way?" "We've booked you into the Rimrock
House, Commodore."
Grimes sighed. There was a Rimrock House at Port Forlorn, on Lorn, another one at Port Farewell, on
Faraway, yet another at Port Edgell, on Thule. From time to time he had stayed
at them all. They were the most expensive hotels on the Rim Worlds—but by no
means the best. He would have preferred some place with a less pretentious menu but far better food, with the staff not rigged out
like Galactic High Admirals, but with far better service. But it would be only
for a few days, until he had this Rim Caribou mess
sorted out.
The Rimrock House was one of the huge
buildings fronting on to the Central Square. Dunbar drove Grimes the short distance,
although he would rather have walked, and promised that he would have the Commodore's
gear picked up from Rim
Malemute and
sent out to the hotel.
Grimes
left the car, walked over the sidewalk to the big doorway, through the force
field that prevented the atmosphere of the hotel from being tainted by the excellent
fresh air outside. On a world such as Lom there would have been some point to
it, but on Ultimo it was merely a very expensive absurdity. He nodded to the
gorgeously uniformed doorman who had saluted him as though he were at least the
Federation's First Space Lord. He went to the huge desk behind which a half dozen very pretty girls were chirping to each other
like colorful inmates of an aviary. Eventually one of them condescended to
notice him.
"Sir?"
"My name is Grimes. I am booked in here."
"Would
that be Commodore Grimes, sir?" asked the tall blonde, statuesque in her
form-revealing trouser suit of crimson dermitex.
"Yes."
"There is a Carlottigram for you, sir.
It came in only a few minutes ago." She handed Grimes the dark blue
envelope.
What
now? he wondered as he ran a fingernail along the
seal line. What
now? The envelope tidily
fell apart. He looked at the message it had contained.
From:
Officer Commanding Rim Worlds Navy To: Commodore Grimes, D.S.M., O.C.,
F.H.S.C., R.W.N.R.
Copies:
c/o Rimrock House, Port Last, Ultimo
c/o
Tug, Rim Malemute, at Port Last, Ultimo c/o Dock Office, Rim Runners,
Port Last, Ultimo
Text:
As and from date of origination you are to consider yourself called to Active
Service, Rim Worlds Navy, Pay and Allowances as for Commodore First Class,
Expenses as requisite. You are to cooperate with Police, Customs and other
authorities in investigation of drug smuggling. Indefinite leave of absence
from Rim Runners arranged. (Signed) Kravitz.
"Mphm,"
grunted Grimes thoughtfully. He could imagine what had been happening. High-up
politicians must have been getting concerned about the general deterioration of
Rim Worlds morals, and some of them must have demanded that the Navy do
something about the smuggling in of drugs. And Admiral Kravitz—Grimes could
just picture him—must have said, "We'll put Commodore Grimes on the job.
Anything at all off-beat is right up his alley." And if Grimes were
successful in stopping the traffic the Navy would take the credit. If he made a
mess of things, it would be pointed out that, after all, he was only a Reserve
Officer, not Navy proper. On past occasions Sonya had worked with him—but that
had been when the Federation and the Confederacy had been acting in concert. On
this occasion they would not be. The majority of Federated Planets approved the
permissive society. The Rim Worlds did not, repeat not
Oh, well, thought Grimes, / suppose I'd better do something about
something. For a start, I'd better organize transport for myself. Billy
Williams is a Reserve Commander, and Rim Malemute is
rated as a naval auxiliary vessel. And the Navy has a yard here, at Port Last,
and an armory. It's time I did some telephoning. It's just as well that the
Admiralty will be footing the bills.
A
smartly uniformed boy took him up to his suite. Once there Grimes called Rim Malemute, by now hooked into the planetary telephone
service, and told Williams to come out to see him as soon as possible. Then he
spoke to Rim Runners' Port Last Manager, telling him that he, Grimes, had been
called to Active Service. He dictated a Priority Carlottigram to be sent to
Admiral Kravitz, requesting the services of the Malemute and her personnel. He rang the O.I.C. Port
Last Base, introducing himself and warning the officer that probably he would
require some modifications made to the tug. He sent another Carlottigram, this
one to Sonya, raying, Involved
in fun and games. See if you can get yourself asked to the party. He caught Captain Dunbar at his office, and
told him what was happening. Finally he rang the Port Last Chief Collector of
Customs.
"Grimes here. Commodore Grimes. I've been instructed to
work with you people on this drug running business."
"Oh,
yes, Commodore. The Navy told us that they were putting a senior officer on to
it. Hang on a moment, will you? There's a friend
of yours here would like a word
with you."
A friend? thought Grimes. If I had any friends on this world they
wouldn't be in the Customs Department.
But
he recognized the face that appeared in the little screen of the telephone. It
was Billinghurst, who said, "A very good day to you, Commodore. I suppose
you came here over the Rim
Caribou affair.
I was here when it happened. There's been a conference of all the senior Customs Officers of the Rim Worlds. Yes,
about this drug business." He laughed fatly. "I think you'll admit,
now, that sending out Circulars isn't quite good enoughl"
In the days that followed Grimes was busy.
The modifications to Rim
Malemute—mainly
the fitting of weaponry—he left in Williams' capable hands, concerning himself
with setting up some kind of an organization and with reading all the official
reports that were made available to him. Pleshoff, he learned, had been very
unlucky. In the vast majority of cases those who smoked dreamy weed functioned
normally on awakening. He learned, too, that the drug was not one on which one
became hooked, although those who had participated in a dream time, as it was
called, wished to repeat the experience as soon as possible. But, as far as he could
determine, the stuff was no more dangerous than alcohol, and its over-all
effects were far less damaging. Still, he had been ordered to help stamp out
the traffic—and, as Sonya had said, there were far too many utterly unworthy
people making far too big profits from it.
For
much of the time he was having to work with
Bill-inghurst who, even though Port Forlorn was his own bailiwick, had been put
in general charge of the investigation by his Department. Grimes acquired a
grudging respect for the man's capabilities although it was still impossible to
like htm. Billinghurst, however, insisted on treating Grimes as an old friend.
His attitude was, we're both Lorners. We have to stand
together against these Ultimo hicks.
He
said, "We'll not be able to rely too much on the police, Commodore.
They're like all policemen, everywhere. When it comes to dealing with members
of the criminal classes they're quite efficient, but when they tangle with
students, or spheres, they go all hysterical."
"Spheres?" asked
Grimes.
"You should study the jargon. They call
themselves spheres. They call people like us blocks. We block the spheres from
rolling.''
"And just how do the . . . er . . .
spheres roll, Mr. Billinghurst?"
"Doing anything tonight, Commodore?
There's a big roll around at the Dominey Hall. You and I will have to wear
false beards and dress the part; spheres come in all ages and sizes. Young
Pahvani—his sister is in your office—will be with us. He's been growing his own
beard so he can play the part of a sphere if necessary. He'll tell you what to
wear, and all the rest of it."
Grimes changed into his sphere outfit in
Pahvani's room, in the unpretentious hotel in which the young Customs Officer
was living. He surveyed himself rather dubiously in the full-length mirror.
Black leather shorts— but that part of it wasn't so bad, he was used to wearing
shorts with uniform. Bare legs—well, at least he maintained a good tan.
Ornate, metal-studded sandals, looking like the sort of footwear that Roman legionaries must have worn. A
short shirt, worn outside the shorts, basically dark green but liberally
decorated with improbable scarlet and orange blossoms. A string of glass
beads, each one a different shade of blue, and each one perfectly spherical.
And the beard ... it matched the hair
of his head perfectly, but that was all that could be said in its favour. It
was not the sort of beard that Grimes would ever have grown. It was too long,
too untidy, untrimmed, uncombed.
There
was one consolation; Billinghurst, who did not have the build for this sort of
rig, looked even worse than Grimes, his spindly legs uglily incongruous under
the gross bulk of his body. Sub-Inspector Pahvani looked quite good. His beard
suited him. He could have been an old-time Indian mystic.
It
was only a short walk from the hotel to the Dominey Hall, which was situated in
the Old Town suburb of Port Last, differing from the ancient sheet metal buildings
around it only in size. It was a huge bam of a place with no pretentions to
architectural style. Projected into the air above it, in huge, shimmering
letters of blue fire, were the words:
TONITE!
TONITEI ROLL-AROUND TONITE!
Already
there were crowds converging on the hall—men, of all ages, dressed as Grimes
and his companions were dressed, girls and women, shaven-headed, most of them,
similarly attired, although their shorts were much shorter and many of the
shirts were practically transparent.
There
were police, too, obvious in their blue and silver uniforms. One of them, when
Grimes stopped to stare at the crowd, poked him quite painfully with his club,
snarling, "Move along there, you bearded wonderl
Move along!" Grimes decided to move along. Billing-hurst chuckled and
murmured, "You see what I mean about the Police Force, John."
"I see, Joe. And I
feel it!"
They
reached the door, where Pahvani paid the admission for all three of them.
There were no seats in the hall. There was a platform in the centre of the
floor, as yet unoccupied. The glaring lights overhead were red and green, blue
and yellow. The air was hot and already heavy with the odour of perspiring and
not overly clean humanity. Many of the women had already removed their shirts
and a few of the men had done so.
"What
band tonight, Francis?" asked Billinghurst casually.
"The
Music of the Spheres, sir."
"Watch it!"
snarled Billinghurst
"The
Music of the Spheres, Joe."
"Appropriate,
I suppose," commented Grimes. He saw that a circle of flooring in the
centre of the platform was sinking, was vanishing from sight. Some sort of
elevator, he supposed. It would have been impossible for the bandsmen to
struggle to their places through this crowd.
Yes,
it was an elevator. It brought up the instrumentalists—three bearded men with
electric guitars, three more with small drums, one seated at a piano, and an
enormously fat blonde girl who was holding a microphone.
They
started almost at once—the guitars snarling, the drums thudding, the piano
holding the tune together. The fat girl yelled into the microphone and her
voice, vastly amplified, came at them from all corners of the hall.
"Driftiri
"An' dreamin',
"No lyin,
"No schemin',
"Just you, an
me,
"An' he, an' she, ,
"Just we,
"Ain't yer gonna drift an' dream some
time with me?"
So it went on, for quite some time. Grimes was not enjoying himself much. He suspected that
Billinghurst was not either. But young Pahvant was reveling in the music with
its odd, broken rhythm—like
an inertial drive unit slightly on the blink, thought Grimes nastily—as were most of the
others in the crowd. But the real Roll-Around had not yet started.
When
it did there was, at last, some rhythm in the music—unsubtle, compelling. As
though stirred by a giant spoon the crowd began to move, clockwise,
around the hall, marching in step to the insistent drums, stepping high,
bringing feet thudding down on the reverberant floor. It was impossible not to
join in, physically as well as psychologically. To the snarling guitars and
growling drums they marched, to the amplified bass beat of the flogged piano,
to the words that the fat woman was belting out in an almost baritone.
"Rolling free, rolling free!
"Give a shock to the blocks—One, two,
three!
"Oh, we'll roll the bastards under
"And we'll break them all asunder,
"Rolling free, rolling free, rolling free!"
Grimes
was singing as loudly as anybody. So was Pahvani.
Billinghurst was merely muttering the words, without enthusiasm.
Round, and round, and round again. Pahvani
had got his shirt off somehow. Grimes, sweating profusely, would have liked to
have done the same, but in this crush it was impossible. He saw that some of
the women had, with fantastic agility, contrived to strip themselves stark
naked.
"Over land, over sea, we go rolling,
rolling free,
"And we'll always go rolling alongl
"Over hill, over dale, you will see our
dusty trail,
"As we always go rolling along."
Round,
and round, and round again. Tramp, stamp, tramp, stamp! Overhead the lights were swinging to the percussive beat of the music.
"An all you blocks stop growlin',
"Or this is what we'll do!
"The spheres was made for rollin',
"They'll roll right over you!"
"I was hoping," gasped Billinghurst,
contriving to whisper and pant simultaneously, "to pick something up here."
"That
one looks quite nice," suggested Grimes, who had got his second wind.
"A bit sweaty, but aren't we all?"
"No
. . . not . . . that! Information."
"A rolling sphere
gathers no moss," Grimes told him.
Round,
and round, and round again. Tramp, tramp, tramp! Stamp, stamp, stamp!
"When the spheres come rolling in,
"When the spheres come rolling in,
"We're gonna be in that number
"When the spheres come rolling in!"
To Grimes' right there was a skinny, half naked,
almost breastless girl who had been edging closer and closer to him with every
circuit of the floor. He was beginning to wonder if a pick-up were intended,
was trying to work out ways and means of achieving a painless brush-off. She
just wasn't his type. And then he saw that a plump, copiously perspiring young
man had joined her in this dance that was more like a march. He heard him
whisper to her, "0200 hours at the Fitzroy Crossing. Pass it onl" His
message delivered, he vanished into the mass of dancers.
Somehow
the skinny girl had inserted herself between Grimes and the almost exhausted
Billinghurst. She was singing softly, in time to the music,
"When the weed comes dropping in,
"When the weed comes dropping in,
"Oh two hundred,
Fitzroy Crossing,
"When the weed comes dropping in!"
The music changed, but she
went on singing,
"Dreamy free, dreamy
free,
"Dreamy weed, dreamy
weed, dreamy free . . ."
She
made a face at Billinghurst, flashed a smile at Grimes, and wriggled away
through the crowd.
Round, and round, and round—but with every circuit edging closer to the
exit.
"Oh, we'll roll, away up yonder!
"Oh, we'll roll, away up yonder!
"Oh, we'll roll, away up yonder!
"When they roll away up yonder we'll be
there!"
And
Billinghurst, getting his wind back, sang the final "We'll be there!"
with great emphasis.
VIII
But they almost weren't
there.
There
was a minor riot outside the Dominey Hall. Accounts as to its cause differed.
One morning paper said that a crowd, singing, "We'll roll the bastards
under!" had charged a group of policemen. The other paper said that the
police had charged a small group of people from the Roll-Around who were going their ways quite peacefully.
Actually
it had been Grimes' fault. Those noisy songs, with their primitive rhythm, had
carried him back in time, to when he was a young and normally rowdy cadet in
the Federation's Survey Service. He had remembered something that he and his
shipmates had been fond of singing whenever there was a minion of the law within earshot. He had insisted on teaching the words
to Billing-hurst—who was not amused—to Pahvani—who was—and to a half dozen
young men and girls who were going the same way as themselves.
"There's
a policeman on his beat,
"Over
there, over there!
"There's
a policeman on his beat,
"Over
there!
"There's
a policeman on his beat, "I can smell his sweaty feet, "There's a
policeman on his beat "Over there!"
During
the third, noisy rendition of this ditty a dozen
policemen tried to silence the songsters. Punches were thrown. Stunguns were
used, set so as to inflict the maximum pain without causing unconsciousness. A
large body of revelers rushed to the aid of Grimes and his companions. Police
air cars clattered overhead, dropping arrest-meshes, wire nets that ignored the
specially treated police uniforms but that clung to everything else in a tight grip. The air cars ranged over the street like seine net fishermen
over a school of fish. Their catch, dangling under the aircraft, was hauled
ignominiously to the station house. Grimes, Billinghurst, and Pahvani would
have spent the night in cells had not Pahvani, who had been acting as liaison
officer between Police and Customs, been recognized by the lieutenant in
charge. He had the three Lomers hustled away from the other prisoners,
ostensibly for interrogation. Shouts of sympathy and encouragement followed
them.
As
soon as he could safely do so Billinghurst snarled, "You almost ruined
everything, Commodore!"
"When
among spheres—roll!" replied the unrepentant Grimes.
"You,
Lieutenant whatever-your-name-is," snapped Billinghurst to the police
officer. "I am the Chief Collector of
Customs for Port Forlorn, in over-all charge of this drug investigation. This
is Commodore Grimes, of the Rim Worlds Navy, who's working with me." He
glared at the Commodore. "Or against me, to judge by
tonight's little effort. Sub-Inspector Pahvani you already know."
"And what can I do for
you, sir?"
"I want vehicles, and
I want men. Armed men."
"And a map," contributed Grimes.
"And all the geographical information you can give us." He waited
for Bilhnghurst to say something, then added, "It
seems that there's to be a drop
at Fitzroy Crossing. At 0200 hours tomorrow."
"There's a wall map in the Captain's
office," said the lieutenant. "Follow me, please."
The
map was a large scale topographical one, covering Port
Last and the surrounding countryside to a distance of 50 kilometres from the
City Centre. "The Fitzroy Crossing is not far from here," said the
police officer, jabbing with his finger. "There's a bridge, as you see,
both road and monorail. On the north side of the bridge there's Davidsham
village—with one Senior Constable who, by this time, will be tucked up warm and
snug in his little bed." He laughed. "I was stationed there myself
before I was promoted to Sergeant. Nothing ever happens in Davidsham. Even so,
I should hardly think that the drop will be to the north of the Crossing.
"Now, on the south side we have the
wheatfields. And," his finger jabbed again, "here we have the racecourse. I hope you gentlemen
can manage to be here for the Ultimo Cup Week—it's really something."
"Landing
facilities?" asked Grimes, who was not at all interested in horses.
"You could set a cruiser down there, Commodore. And a couple of
destroyers. No G.C.A. of course. Ha, ha."
"There probably will be," said
Grimes. "A small beacon, mounted on a car. Mphm.
Now, Mr. Billinghurst, if we go charging out there in police vehicles we'll
scare off the reception committee—and whoever's making the delivery. I suggest
that we land somewhere to the north of the racecourse, well away from the road,
and make our way to the landing site on foot. We shall want a guide. Do any of
your men know the district, Lieutenant?" "I do, sir."
"Good.
And have you any quiet cars? Inertial drive kicks up one helluva racket,
especially on a still night like this."
"We
have the blimps, sir. They have been developed especially for police use on
this planet."
"They
should do." And Grimes thought, Once again the airship comes back into service. He said, "But I thought you had no really serious crime on Ultimo."
"There
are gambling schools, sir, very often meeting out in the country. They play a
game of chance, tossing two coins. When it comes to catching the gamblers
red-handed we find the silent approach technique very useful. The blimps are
propeller driven, with almost noiseless electric motors."
"Make it blimps,
then."
"Very good, sir. And now, if you'll excuse me, I'll ring the Precinct Captain and start
getting things organized."
"Before you do, Lieutenant, is there a
washroom handy? I'd like to get this artificial foliage off my face. I'd just
hate to get it wound round a blimp's propeller."
IX
Airships had always fascinated Grimes. Now
and again, on worlds lagging in technological development, and on planets whose
people had a commonsense attitude towards unnecessary power consumption, he
had been a passenger in such craft. The Shaara, for example, could build
spaceships at least as good as anything built by Man, but for atmospheric
flights they favored lighter-than-air machines.
The blimps of the Ultimo Police were well
conceived, well designed, well constructed. They were semirigid ships rather
than true blimps, however. They had heating coils inside their balloons to give
the helium additional lift, and there was an arrangement of bands and nets
whereby the lift could be reduced by compression of the gas. Water ballast was
carried, but except in emergencies there would be no need for any valving of
helium or dumping of ballast. Below the rigid spines were slung the gondolas,
one to each ship, and each with a single pusher screw.
Grimes,
Billinghurst, and Pahvani rode in the leading ship, the one piloted by the
police lieutenant. With them were four constables. Grimes sat with the pilot in
the little control cab at the fore end of the gondola, watching everything with
interest. Mooring lines were cast off by the ground crew, but the ship still
sat stolidly on its skids, although above the gondola the gas bags, enclosed in
their sausage-shaped integument, were swaying and creaking. The lieutenant's
hand went to a switch on the control panel and almost immediately there was the
subdued hum of an electric motor. Decompression? wondered Grimes. But apart from the mechanical noise,
which soon stopped, nothing at all seemed to be happening.
The
lieutenant swore under his breath. Then he called back into the main cabin,
"Excuse me, Mr. Billinghurst, how much do you weigh?"
"I ... I haven't checked lately,
Lieutenant."
"Then it's time you
did!" muttered the young man.
There was a fresh sound, the splashing of
water on to the concrete of the blimpyard. Now the ship was rising, smoothly,
silently, up past the lighted windows of the police barracks, up, up, until, a
checkered pattern of crisscrossing street lights, Port Last lay below her.
Grimes poked his head out of an open side window, looked astern. One by one,
great dark shapes, their black bulks in silhouette against the glow of the city
lights, the other five airships were swimming upwards.
The lieutenant started his motor then. It was
almost silent, and only a faint swishing sound came from the propeller. Slowly
he brought the ship round to her heading, explaining, "We have to be
careful how we handle these things. They're just a little flimsy." Gradually
the lights of the city, of the scattered outer suburbs, drifted astern.
It was a fine night, clear, almost windless.
The single moon of Ultimo, named Ceres, was hanging high in the black sky, the
empty sky of the Rim Worlds. It was just past its full
but did not give much light; satellites so large as to be almost sister planets
are rare throughout the Galaxy. Nonetheless, the surface of the Fitzroy River
reflected what little illumination there was, a faintly gleaming silver ribbon
winding through formless masses of darkness. On the horizon was the dim cluster
of yellow lights that was Davidsham.
Silently
the squadron flew on, invisible from the ground now that it was clear of the
glare from the city, keeping the river to starboard, the distant village fine
on the starboard bow. Grimes borrowed the pilot's night glasses. He could see,
now, the straight black line that cut the silver ribbon. The bridge. . . . He
looked more to his left, trying to pick out the racecourse, but without
success.
"You'll not find it, sir," laughed
the Lieutenant, "unless you've eyes like a cat. But you see the horseshoe
bend, just this side of the village?"
"Mphm.
Yes."
"There's a field there that's been
harvested. That's where we're landing."
"And then we get out and walk."
"Yes. Then we get out and walk."
The airship was losing altitude as the pilot applied negative"
dynamic lift.
Grimes could make out features on the ground below now, as long as they were
not too far distant. He could see the paleness of the fields that were yet to
be harvested, the darkness of those where reaping had
already taken place. Another electric motor started up, and from above came a
faint creaking as the gas bags were compressed. The ground seemed very close
now, and seemed to be rushing past at a fantastic speed. Grimes started to
worry about tall trees and the like, but told himself
that the lieutenant knew what he was doing. In any case, it would be unlikely
that there would be any trees in the wheatlands to rob the precious grain of
its nutriment.
The
pilot snapped rapid orders to the other ships on his radio, then
stopped the main motor, restarting it almost at once in reverse. The ground
below slowly lost its retrograde progression relative to the ship, but was
coming up to meet her as the buoyancy was squeezed out of her balloons. There was
a dry crackling from under the gondola as the skids brushed the stubble. Then,
with all motors stopped, she landed. Men jumped from the side doors, quickly
and efficiently moored her with screw pegs.
"All ashore!"
ordered the lieutenant cheerfully.
Grimes jumped down from the gondola to the
ground, cursing to himself as the stubble scratched
his bare calves and shins. He should have changed out of this absurd rig;
getting rid of that insanitary beard had been a step in the right direction,
but not far enough. It was fortunate that the correct footwear for a
Roll-Around consisted of very heavy sandals. He was joined by Bil-linghurst and
Pahvani. He stood with them to watch the other airships coming in. He wondered
how those landing managed to avoid those already down, and was told by the
Lieutenant that on occasions such as this dim lights were shown on the tops of
the gas bags.
There
was a very cautious flashing of down-pointed, shielded torches. The lieutenant
detailed a man to stay with each ship, then said to
Grimes, "You and the other two had better stay close to me, Commodore.
We'll walk to the racecourse from here, making as little noise as possible.
Before we get there we'll spread out to surround the position—just in case
there's anybody there. If there's not—some of us will wait in the Owners'
Stand, some by the Saddling Paddock and the rest by the Tote. That'll give us a
good coverage."
"And good odds?"
asked Grimes.
He
did not much enjoy the walk over the fields. There was enough moonlight to make
the going not too difficult, but the sharp spiny stubble was drawing blood
with almost every step. And the air, despite the lack of wind, was decidedly
chilly. And things
were rustling in the dry
stalks. He had visions of venomous reptiles, insects or the like, and was only
slightly reassured when his guide whispered to him that it was only cats—of
Terran origin—hunting a small and harmless (apart from its appetite for grain)
indigenous rodent.
Behind
him, despite his bulk, Billinghurst was moving silently, as was Pahvani, and as
far as noise was concerned the policemen might not have been there at all.
Grimes murmured something complimentary to the Lieutenant and was told that this was the Gaming Squad, used to creeping up
on parties of gamblers. He asked if the fines collected from such desperate
criminals sufficed to pay for the airships and other equipment, and was
answered by a pained silence.
Whispered
orders were passed back and the policemen spread out to surround the
racecourse. Grimes could just hear the faint voices from the Lieutenant's wrist
radio as the members of his force reached their assigned positions. Then the
order was given to advance, with caution. Ahead, rails glimmered whitely in the
faint moonlight. Grimes,, following the leader, ducked
under them and on to the track. There were vague shapes in front of them,
moving towards them—but it was only the men who had entered the course by the
Owners' Stand and who were now on their way to the Tote. They reported briefly
to their officer that they had seen nobody, and that nothing larger than a cat
had registered on their biodetectors.
Grimes
looked at his watch. An hour to wait. Probably the
receivers would not be here until just before the drop was due—assuming, of
course, that this was the drop site.
He hoped that the benches in the stand would
be padded.
They
were—but the padding had long since lost any softness it had ever possessed.
X
It was a long wait, in the cold and the dark,
while the little moon, now past the meridian, slowly slipped down the starless
sky. The policemen— and, to an only slightly lesser degree, Billinghurst and
Pahvani—were used to vigils beside yet-to-be-sprung traps; Grimes was not. He
wanted to be doing
something. Finding that the
lieutenant had a pass key that fitted the lock of the toilets under the stand
he borrowed it, although what he really wanted was a smoke. His battered,
stinking pipe was very comforting after he got it going and he was in no hurry
to rejoin his comrades. Then, looking at his watch, he decided that he had
better. The time was 0155 hours.
As soon as he was back outside he heard the
noise. Something was approaching from the direction of the city, something in
the sky. The irregular stuttering of a small
inertial drive unit was unmistakable. He looked up, in the direction from which
the sound was coming, but saw nothing. But it was not likely that the
smugglers' aircraft would be showing running lights.
It was
visible at last, but only when it dropped to a landing in the centre of the ellipsoid formed by the track. It just sat
there, but nobody came out of it. Its crew was waiting, just as the police were
waiting.
Grimes looked at his watch
again. 0201 . . . 0202
"Here it comes!"
whispered the lieutenant.
Here it came.
At first it was no more than a barely
audible, irritable muttering drifting down from the zenith. It became louder,
but not much louder. The machine that finally dropped into sight was no more
than a toy, no more than a model of a ship's boat. It might have accommodated
the infant child of midget parents who had bred true, but nobody larger. But it
could carry quite a few kilos of dreamy weed.
The
police had their stunguns ready, trained on the smugglers' aircraft and on the
robot, which were covered from three points—from /the Owners' Stand, from the
Saddling Paddock, from the Totalizator. The lieutenant had stationed his men
well; whoever had come to pick up the consignment would be inside the effective
range of the weapons, but each police party would be just outside the range of
the guns of the others.
Somebody
was coming out of the aircraft at last, walking slowly and cautiously towards
the grounded robot spaceboat, hunkering down on the grass beside the thing.
"Fire,"
said the lieutenant in a conversational tone of voice, speaking into his wrist
transceiver.
The
air was alive with the vicious buzzing of the stunguns. The smuggler was frozen
in his squatting posture, paralyzed, unable to stir so much as a finger. But
the robot moved. Its drive unit hammered shockingly and unrhythmically and
>it shot straight upwards. Beams from hastily switched on police
searchlights swept the sky like the antennae of disturbed insects-then caught
it, held it, a tiny bright star in a firmament that had never known any stars.
At least four machine rifles were hammering, and an incandescent tracer arched
upwards with deceptive slowness. The lieutenant had drawn his laser pistol and
the purple beam slashed across the darkness, power wasting and desperate. Some
hapless night-flying creature caught by the sword of lethal light exploded
smokily.
It
might have been the machine rifles that found their mark,
it might have been the laser pistol. Nobody ever knew. But the broken beat of
the inertial drive ceased abruptly and the robot was falling, faster and
faster, still held in the searchlight beams. It hit the ground almost exactly
at the point of its initial landing.
It
hit the ground—and, "Downl" shouted somebody. "Get downl"
It
hit the ground, and where it struck an instantaneous flower of intolerable
flame burgeoned, followed by a crack! that
sounded as though the very planet were being split in two. The blast hit the
grandstand; which went over like a capsizing windjammer—but, freakishly, the
structure remained intact. Had it not done so there would have been serious
injuries, at last to those upon it. Dazed, deafened,
Grimes struggled to his feet, crept cautiously along the back of the bench upon
which he had been sitting. Lights were flashing as men helped each other from
the wreckage.
Billinghurst
got clear of the stand before Grimes. He had found a torch and was running
clumsily across the grass to the still smoking crater. The Commodore followed
him. He gagged as the Customs Officer's light fell on the tangle of broken
limbs and spilled entrails that had been the smuggler who had come out from the
air car. The head was missing. After a cursory glance Billinghurst ignored the
dead man, carried on to the wrecked vehicle, which had been blown on to its
side. He shone his fight in through the open door. The girl inside appeared to
be uninjured, but she was very still. A strand of hair glowed greenly across
her white face. Her hair? Grimes could see the beam of
the torch reflected from her shaven, polished scalp. The fat man stooped,
lifted the hank of green fibre, twisted it between his thick fingers, sniffed it.
"Dreamy
weed," he said flatly. Then, "The poor little bitch got what she came
for. It's the very last thing that she did get." He shifted the beam of
his torch and Grimes saw that the girl's body, below the waist, was no more
than a crimson pulp.
The
Commodore looked away hastily, up to the empty blackness of the sky. Somewhere
up there was a ship. Somewhere up there was somebody who had killed,
ruthlessly, to destroy all evidence that could be used to stop his profitable
racket.
"Losing
your neutrality, Commodore Grimes?" asked Billinghurst.
XI
Peter Fellini, Student.
Aged 19.75 Years, Local, 18.25 Years, Standard. Inga Telfer, Artist.
Aged 25.50 Years, Local, 23.05 Years, Standard.
The
identification of the bodies had presented no problems. Ultimo is one of those
worlds where everybody is fingerprinted, where a record is made of everybody's
retinal patterns and where coded information, including allergies and blood
group, is tattooed in everybody's armpits.
The
two victims were known to have been Blossom People. Fellini had been brilliant
in his studies. Inga Telfer's swirling abstracts had been in great demand and
had fetched good prices. Their deaths had been remarkably pointless; they had
suffered the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
The
identification of the ship that had made the drop was also easy. Immediately on return to Port Last Grimes and Billinghurst had gone
to Aerospace Control. The Duty Officer had at first been
uncooperative—as far as he was concerned here were two spheres, albeit beardless
ones, invading his office. But once credentials were produced he was very
helpful.
Yes,
the Tanagerine tramp Ditmar
was at present in orbit
about Ultimo, having signalled her intention of landing at first light. Her
Master, one Captain Reneck, did not like pilotage in the dark. He had brought
his ship into Port Last on quite a few occasions, but always during daylight
hours. Yes, Ditmar
was on a regular run
between Ultimo and Eblis. She was chartered to bring shipments of minerals from
the so-called Hell Planet, and to carry assorted foodstuffs back to the holiday
resort in Inferno Valley. And where was she relative to Port Last, to the
Fitzroy Crossing, shortly after 0200 hours? To judge by the elements of her
orbit, constantly checked by ground radar, she must have been on the other side
of the planet.
"Mphm,"
grunted Grimes doubtfully on learning this. At the time of the attempted escape
of the robot, at the time of its destruction, line of sight communication
between it and the mother ship would have been impossible. But there was no
reason why Ditmar
should not have left at
least one relay station in orbit. If this were so, then she ran to a line of
highly sophisticated electronic gadgetry not usually, if ever, found aboard a
merchant vessel, a tramp freighter at that.
And
Tanager. ...
It was one of the older colonies, having been
settled during the Second Expansion. It was a Federated Planet, but rather
peculiarly situated, being only world with a human population in a sector of
space that had been colonised by the Shaara. There was a Federation Survey
Service Base on Tanager, a base that could be of vital strategic importance
should Man and Shaara ever fall out again. The Tanagerines knew this, and every
now and again talked of the economic advantages that would accrue if their
world became part of the Shaara Empire —so the Federation went to great pains
to try to keep them happy. And for many years now the foreign policy of the Rim
Worlds Confederacy had been geared to that of the Interstellar Federation.
Don't
let's be nasty to the Tanagerines, thought Grimes. But if Ditmar s Master
had broken Rim Worlds laws he must expect some nastiness.
Grimes and Billinghurst were out at the
spaceport at dawn to see Ditmar come
in. The battered tramp chopped down carefully, with a caution that would not
have been amiss in a vessel ten times her size. Although she was from one of
the other Rim Worlds she was a foreign ship, so officials from Port Health,
Immigration, and Customs were waiting for her. The Customs Officers were, in
fact, out in force.
Ditmar
bumbled in hesitantly, at
last hovering a few feet over the beacons that marked her berth. Her in-ertial
drive unit was a particularly noisy one. When at last it was stopped the
short-lived silence was deafening —and broken by the tinny crash as the ship's
tripedal landing gear hit the concrete. There was a long delay, and then the
after-airlock door opened slowly and the ramp extruded. Billinghurst pushed
himself to the head of the group of waiting officials, tramped heavily aboard.
Grimes followed him.
Ditmar's
Mate, a burly, swarthy
young man in shabby uniform, received them. He mumbled, "You'll find all
the papers in the Purser's Office, as usual."
"Take us to the Captain," snapped
Billinghurst.
"This . . . This isn't
usual."
"I know it's not usual."
Billinghurst turned to give orders to his officers. "Spread out through
the ship. Living quarters, control room, engine-room, everywhere."
"But,
look, Mister. We're in from Eblis. Eblis. That's one of your
bloody Rim Worlds, isn't it?"
"Take us to the Captain," repeated
Billinghurst.
"Oh,
all right, all right. You'll have to use the stairway, though, the elevator's on the blink."
Grimes
and Bilhnghurst followed the officer up the internal spiral staircase. It
didn't worry Grimes much, but by the time they got up to the Captain's flat the
fat man was soaked with sweat, his face purple. The Mate knocked at the open
door, said, "Two Customs Officers to see you, sir." Grimes glared at
him. Admittedly his uniform, which he had put on for the occasion, was similar
to Billinghurst's, but if this young oaf could not distinguish between
different cap badges it was time that he started to learn.
"Come in, come in." Captain Reneck
looked up from his desk. "The cargo manifest and the store sheets are in
the Purser's office. I don't have them here."
"I am the Chief Collector of Customs at
Port Forlorn," began Billinghurst.
"Haven't you got your
ports mixed?"
"And
I am in over-all charge of an investigation. This gentleman with me is
Commodore Grimes, of the Rim Worlds Navy."
"Indeed?"
Captain Reneck's bushy black eyebrows, the only noticeable feature of his pale,
smooth face, lifted. "Indeed? A Customs Officer and a Commodore of the Rim Worlds Navy. Please
be seated, gentlemen."
"Captain
Reneck," said Billinghurst, "I'll waste no words. At approximately
0200 hours this morning, Port Last time, a powered container of dreamy weed—a
powered, booby-trapped container of dreamy weed-made a landing at the Fitzroy
Crossing."
"So?
But at 0200 hours this morning I was not over Port Last, or the Fitzroy
Crossing."
"Does your ship carry probes?"
demanded Grimes. "Robot probes, remote-controlled? Is she fitted with the
equipment to launch and guide and recover such probes?"
Reneck
grinned. His ugly teeth showed yellow in his white face. "As a matter of
fact she does, and she is. Tanager is a poor world and cannot afford
specialized survey craft. All of our merchant ships—all of them tramps like this vessel—are so fitted as to be able to carry
out survey work if required."
"Two
people were killed this morning," said Billinghurst. "A
young man and a young woman."
"I
am very sorry to hear that," said Reneck, neither looking nor sounding
sorry.
"What
do you know about the container of dreamy weed that was dropped?" blustered Billinghurst.
"What should I
know?"
"It must have come from your ship,"
said Grimes. "How could it have done so? I was nowhere near the scene of
the alleged smuggling." "And murder."
"Murder, Commodore? Strong
words. How could I, a law-abiding shipmaster, be implicated in murder? A naval officer like yourself, maybe, but not a merchant
spaceman." He sighed. "Murder. . . ."
"Who's paying you?" snapped
Billinghurst suddenly.
"The TSSL, of course. The Tanager State Shipping Line." He
grinned with another display of discolored teeth. "Between ourselves,
gentlemen, they could pay much better than they do."
"So something a little extra, over and
above your salary, tax free," suggested Grimes.
"Really,
Commodore . . . you wouldn't suggest that, surely."
"How many robot probes do you
carry?"
"Three.
You will find that number shewn on my store sheets, and you will find that
number in the launching bay."
Billinghurst
lumbered to his feet. "Let's get out of here, Commodore Grimes." He
turned to Reneck. "My men are taking the ship
apart. If they find so much as one strand of dreamy weed, may all the Odd Gods
of the Galaxy help you. Nobody else will."
XII
The
Odd Gods of the Galaxy did not have their peace disturbed. Ditmar was a clean ship—clean, that is, from a Custom Officer's viewpoint,
although not necessarily from that of a spaceman. She was far scruffier than
the generality of tramps. Painted surfaces were not only crying out for a fresh
coat of paint but for the washing of what had been applied some time in the distant
past. The ghosts of every meal that had been cooked in her galley since her
maiden voyage still haunted her accommodation; the dirt of unnumbered worlds
was trodden into her deck coverings.
But
she was clean.
There was not even any
pornography in her officers' cabins. Nobody had a drop of liquor or a fraction
of an ounce of tobacco over and above the permitted duty-free allowance. Her
papers were in impeccable order. She was so clean, in fact, as to invite
suspicion.
From
the viewpoint of the authorities it was unfortunate that she was of Tanagerine
registry. Had she been under any other flag it would have been possible to clap
some of her personnel into jail on some trumped-up charge or another. A fight
in a bar, started by a provocateur. . . . The imprisonment of
all participants and, if necessary, innocent bystanders. The administration
of "blabberjuice" in food or water. . . . Oh, it could have been done, but little, otherwise unimportant Tanager was a pet of
the United Planets Organization. Billinghurst and the Port Last Chief of Police
would have liked to have done it regardless, but orders were given to them to
handle Ditmar with kid gloves before they could give orders
of their own to their under cover agents.
Bugs,
of course, were planted in the places of entertainment and refreshment
frequented by Ditmar's
crew. They picked up
nothing of interest. The Tanagerines seemed to be enthusiastic amateur
meteorologists to a man and discussed practically nothing except
the weather. Bugs were planted aboard the ship herself— a Customs Searcher, of course, knows all the good hiding places aboard a
vessel. The only sound that they recorded was a continuous, monotonous whirrup, whirrup, whirrup.
All
that culd be done was to delay the ship's departure on her return voyage to Eblis.
At Grimes's suggestion the Port Last Department of Navigation Surveyor checked
up on Ditmar's lifesaving equipment. One of her lifeboats
was not airtight, and was condemned, and the stores in one of the others were
long overdue for renewal. The faulty boat could have been repaired, of course,
but the Surveyor's word was law. And, oddly enough, lifeboat stores were
practically unprocurable at Port Last and would have to be shipped from Port
Forlorn. So it went on. The Master of a merchant
vessel is peculiarly helpless when the Authorities of any port take a dislike
to him.
Meanwhile,
Rim Malemute, her armament fitted, was almost ready for
space. Grimes was taking her to Eblis. Officially he
was visiting that world to inspect port facilities, as the Rim Worlds Navy was
thinking of opening a base there. Billinghurst wanted to come with him, saying
that he wished to make arrangements for the setting up of a Customs Office at
Inferno Valley. Grimes told him that this would look too suspicious, both of
them leaving Port Last in the same ship. This was true, of course, but the real
reason for the Commodore's refusal to cooperate was that he did not wish to
share the cramped quarters aboard the little Malemute with a man of Billinghurst's bulk.
Alternative transport was available, although not at once. TG Clippers' cruise
liner, Macedon, was due shortly at Port Last, and Inferno
Valley was her next port of call.
"Eblis,"
said Billy Williams, when he and Grimes were discussing matters prior to
departure. "I've never been there, Skipper. What's it like?"
"Its
name suits it, Commander Williams, very well indeed. It's mainly red desert, with
rocks eroded by wind and sand into all sorts of fantastic shapes. It has volcanoes—big
ones and little ones—like other worlds have trees. The atmosphere is
practically straight sulphur dioxide. The inhabitants look like the demons of
Terran mythology—horns and tails and all—but they're quite harmless, actually.
Earth tremors are more common than showers of rain on normal worlds. The odd
part about it is that as long as you keep away from the really dangerous areas
you're as safe there as you are anywhere in the Galaxy. The planet is like a
huge amusement park with all sorts of hair-raising rides; you get the illusion
of risk with no real risk at all. That's why it's such a popular holiday
resort."
"Inferno
Valley ... isn't that owned by a
retired space captain?"
"Yes. Captain
Clavering. He came out to the Rim quite some years ago, Owner/Master of a ship
called Sally Ann. She was—of all things!—an obsolescent Beta
Class liner. Far too big and expensive in upkeep for a
little, one ship company. He'd been getting by somehow, just making ends
meet, but when I met him he'd come to the end of the line. I was able to put a
charter in his way; the Rim Worlds Universities were sending a scientific
expedition to Eblis and we, Rim Runners, hadn't any ships either handy or
suitable.
"So
he went to Eblis. He and his wife, he told me later, quite fell in love with
the valley in which the expedition set up its main camp. There are these quite
fertile valleys all over the planet, actually, not too hot and the air quite
breathable if you don't mind the occasional whiff of brimstone. But what gave
him the idea of a holiday resort was a remark that he'd heard somebody—it may
have been me—make: 'Anybody who comes out to the Rim to earn a living would go
to hell for a p'astime!'
'That
was his start. He had people living in tents at first, with quite primitive
facilities. He used his own Sally Ann to
carry holidaymakers from the Rim Worlds to this amusement park infemo. Then TG
Clippers, when they started cruising, got into the act. Then
the Waverley Royal Mail. Even the Dog Star Line.
And Clavering never looked back.
"His old Sally Ann is still there, I believe. He doesn't use her
himself—he's too busy being a resort manager. And I don't think he's
sufficiently sentimental to hang on to her for old times' sake—it's just that
the market for secondhand ships of that size is a very limited one."
Grimes
carefully filled and lit his pipe. When it was going he said, "I rather
liked Clavering, and I'm pleased that he's done so well. I only hope that he's
not mixed up in this dreamy weed business."
"I
don't see why he should be, Skipper. He must be coining money in his legitimate
business."
"Nobody
is so rich that he can't use a few extra credits—especially when they're tax
free. Too, very few people from the Inner Worlds would consider the possession,
use, or even peddling of a drug like dreamy weed a crime. I'm not at all sure
that I do myself. It's when the racketeers get mixed up in the trade that it's
bad. It's when two young people get blown into messy tatters by the bastards
they're working for."
"And
it's when people make a religion out of what is, after all, just a
pleasure," said Williams, who had his puritanical moments.
"If
all religions had been like that," Grimes told him, "they'd have done
far less harm over the ages."
Williams was not convinced.
XIII
Williams piled on the lumes all the way from
Ultimo to Eblis. Grimes was in a hurry; he wanted to
get there before Reneck's principal was fully advised as to what had been
happening at Port Last. Ditmar,
of course, could not
legally use her Deep Space radio while in port, so any Carlottigrams originated
by her Master would have to be handled by the Port Last G.P.O. And the Port
Last post office telegraphists were on strike. Grimes did not know how much
Billinghurst had to do with this, but suspected that it was plenty. The cause
of the stoppage had been the quite justifiable dismissal of a shop steward for
insolence. Who was Billinghurst's under cover man—the shop steward or the
overseer who had fired him? Perhaps they were both Customs agents. Perhaps—but
this was unlikely—the strike was coincidental.
The more Grimes thought about it the more sure he became that Eblis was the source of dreamy weed
shipments to the other Rim Worlds. Inferno Valley was not a Rim Worlds Port of
Entry, therefore there was no Customs Office on Eblis.
In theory any ship bound for Eblis was supposed first to land on one of the
worlds from which she could be entered inwards. Ditmar, for example, when she had first come out to
the Rim had arrived at Port Edgell, on Thule, with a cargo of cheese from
Elsinore. She had then loaded general cargo for Inferno Valley, and thereafter
had shuttled between Eblis and the other Rim Worlds, mainly Ultimo,
with regularity. As a foreign ship she had been liable to Customs inspection
every time in, but as she was not from a foreign port the inspection, until
this last time, had been a mere formality. And as her contraband was always
dropped before she entered the atmosphere even a rigorous going over, as on
this last occasion, would have revealed nothing.
Insofar
as Eblis was concerned, you could land a battle fleet unobserved as long as it
was well away from any of the widely spaced centres of population. There was
Aero-Space Control, of a sort, but it had no radar and talked only when talked
to.
The
dreamy weed was grown and processed on quite a few of the Inner Worlds, the
Federated Planets. As far as the Federation was concerned anybody could smoke
the stuff who wished. It was regarded as a rather superior marihuana, the use
of which had been legalized, for centuries, on practically every planet of the
Federation. If any world government, inside or outside the Federation, cared
to make its use illegal it was up to that government to enforce its own laws.
The Federation couldn't care less, one way or the other,
as long as it received whatever taxes and duties were due.
Grimes
had his plan of campaign, such as it was, mapped out. He would land at Infemo
Valley. He would tell Clavering, who had been made, some time ago, Planetary
Commissioner on Eblis, that he was conducting a survey prior to the possible
establishment of a naval base on the Hell Planet. He would use Rim Male-mute for his excursions—she was a handy little
brute and suitable for work inside an atmosphere—or, if necessary, he would
hire air or ground transport. If Clavering were among the smugglers he would be
liable to betray himself; if he were not he would afford every possible assistance
to Grimes. The owner of a pleasure resort would profit rather than otherwise by
the presence of recreation-hungry naval officers and ratings.
A
subjective week after her lift-off from Port Last Rim Malemute was in orbit about Eblis. She circled the
fiery world, her people gazing down in wonderment at the cloud envelope of
black and brown and yellow smoke that, now and again, was riven by hurricane
force winds to uncover the fke-belching volcanoes on the surface. The night
side was even more spectacular, in a frightening sort of way, than the day
side. It seemed that life-as-we-know-it could not possibly survive in that
caldron of incandescent gases.
Williams
asked wrily, "Sure we've come to the right place, Skipper."
"Quite
sure, Commander Williams," Grimes told him. "Call Aero-Space Control,
will you?"
"Rim Malemute to Aero-Space Control. Rim
Malemute to
Aero-Space Control. Do you read me? Over."
After
the seventh call the Infemo Valley duty officer came through.
"Eblis
Aero-Space Control here. Vessel calling, say again your name, please. Over."
"Rim Malemute. Repeat, Rim
Malemute. Over."
"Rim
Malemute? Aren't you the tug? Over."
Grimes
took the microphone from Williams. "This is the Rim Worlds Naval Auxiliary
Rim Malemute, requesting berthing instructions. Over."
"Have
you been here before, Rim
Malemute? The
spaceport's at the eastern end of Inferno Valley." There was a long pause.
"Latitude one three degrees, four five minutes north. Longitude
oh, oh, oh degrees east or west. We
reckon from the Inferno Valley meridian. The time here is 1149 hours, coming up
for Mean Noon. Equation of Time zero as near as dammit.
That any help to you? Over."
"Yes,
thank you. Now, if you'll switch your beacon on. . . .
"Give me time, man, give me time. Nobody
was expecting you. On now."
"Rim Malemute to Aero-Space Control. Beacon signal coming in. We are almost directly above you. Have you any
further instructions for us? Over."
"Yes.
Listen carefully. Berth Number One—that's the pad furthest to the east—has Sally Ann. She's our ship. Berth Number Three—that's the
one furthest to the west —has Trans-Galactic Clipper's cruise liner Sobraon. You should be able to get into Berth Number
Two. I suppose you are the tug and not some dirty great battle cruiser
with the same name? Over."
"Yes, we are the tug. Over."
"Watch
the wind, Rim
Malemute. In
the Valley it is calm, but overhead we have west at seventy knots. Over."
"Thank
you, Aero-Space Control. We are coming in. Over."
"We're
coming in," repeated Williams. He cut the in-ertial drive and the little
ship fell like a stone, applied vertical thrust to slow her descent only when
her hull began to heat as she plunged into the outer atmosphere. He explained.
"Have ter make it fast, Skipper. With all these bloody winds at umpteen
knots we'll be all over the place unless we get downstairs in a hurry."
"Mphm,"
grunted Grimes, who had almost swallowed his pipe.
They
were into the first cloud layer now, rolling black vapor slashed by dazzling
hghming flashes. They were through it, and dropping through a stratum of clear
air—and through turbulence that shook the tug like a terrier shaking a rat.
Below them a cloudscape of fantastic castles in black and brown and yellow
rushed up to meet them. Williams had no eye for the scenery; he was watching
his radar altimeter and the shifting blip of the beacon signal. The ship
shuddered as he applied lateral thrust to compensate for the fast drift to
leeward.
They were under the cloud ceiling at last.
Inferno Valley lay almost directly beneath them, a rift in the red rocks, a
canyon, but one formed by geological upheaval than by erosion. To the north
and to the south towered the volcanoes, classical cones, the smoke and steam
from their craters streaming out almost horizontally. At the
eastern end of the valley stood a great monolith, a fantastic needle of rock.
The spaceport must be to the west of this formation.
Lower
dropped Rim
Malemute and
lower, with Williams fighting to keep her in position relative to her landing
site, with his officers calling out instrument readings in voices that, for all
their studied calmness, betrayed fear. The nearer of the volcanoes emitted a great burst of smoke and incandescent molten matter and the dull boom! was felt and heard through the insulated hull.
A shift of wind blew the Malemute away
from the valley, at right angles to the rift—and once again she shuddered and
complained in every member as lateral thrust drove her back on to her planned
line of descent.
Then, quite suddenly, she was below the rim
of the canyon. Below, deep, deep below, there was a silvery ribbon of water,
the dark green of vegetation, the pastel colours of
buildings. Below, looking from this altitude to be right alongside each other,
were the metallic spires that were Sally Ann and Sobraon.
But
there was room enough, and in this windless valley maneuvering was easy.
Neatly, with no fuss and bother at all, Williams dropped Rim Malemute between the other two ships, in the exact
centre of the triangle of brilliant red fights that marked his berth.
XIV
"Aero-Space Control to Rim Malemute. Leave your inertial drive on Stand By until your stays have been rigged
and set up. Over."
"Stays?" asked
Williams. "Stays?"
"Yes," Grimes told him. "Stays.
Lengths of heavy wire rope, with bottle screws and springs.
Necessary in case there's an exceptionally heavy earth tremor."
"And I suppose if there is one, before
I've been tethered down, I have to get upstairs in a hurry."
"That's the
drill."
Grimes,
Williams, and Rim
Malemute's officers
looked out through the control room viewports. A man had come on to the apron,
dressed in white shirt and shorts that were like a uniform, although they were
not. He was giving orders to a squad of about a dozen natives. These looked as
though they should have been carrying the traditional pitchforks instead of
spikes and spanners. In appearance they were more like kangaroos than
dinosaurs—but scaled kangaroos, with almost human heads. Almost human—their
goatlike horns and the gleaming yellow tusks protruding from their mouths made
it quite obvious that they were not. They wore no clothing, and their reptilian
hides ranged in colour from a brown that was almost black to a yellow that was
almost white. Three of them climbed up the Malemute's smooth sides, using the sucker pads on their
hands and feet, carrying the ends of the wire cables after them with their
prehensile tails. Swiftly, efficiently, they shackled these ends to
conveniently situated towing lugs. Then they scampered down to join their mates
on the ground. The stays were stretched, set up taut. From the transceiver came
the voice of Aero-Space Control, "Rim Malemute, you may shut down your engines and leave your ship at your
discretion."
Grimes
had been using binoculars to study the face of the man who had directed mooring
operations. "Yes," he said at last. "That's Clavering. He's put
on weight, lost that lean and hungry look, but he hasn't changed much."
He
led the way down from the control room, followed by Williams. He was first down
the still extruding ramp. Clavering came to meet him, threw him a sort of half
salute. "Welcome to Inferno Valley, sir," he said not very
enthusiastically. Then recognition dawned on his face. "Why, it's Commodore Grimes I" Then, with an attractive grin,
"I'd have expected you to be in
command of something bigger than thisl"
"I'm
not in command of Rim
Malemute," Grimes
told him. "I'm just a passenger. This is Commander Williams, Captain
Clavering, who had the dubious pleasure of bringing me here."
There
was handshaking all round, then Clavering said,
"Come to my office, and tell me what I can do for you."
Grimes and Williams looked about them
curiously during their walk from the spaceport. It should have been gloomy in
the deep ravine, with the murky yellow sky no more than a
thin ribbon directly overhead, but it was not. The canyon walls—red,
orange, banded with gold and silver—seemed to collect all the light that there
was and to throw it back. Here and there on the sheer cliff faces vegetation
had taken hold, static explosions of emerald green in which glowed sparks of
blue and violet. Similar bushes grew from the firm, red sand that was the
valley floor.
Two
natives passed them, bound on some errand. They waved to Clavering, grinning
hideously. He waved back. He said, "You get used to their horrendous appearance.
They're good, cheerful workers. They like to be paid in kind rather than cash, in all the little luxuries that cannot be
produced on this planet. Candy, they love. And they've acquired the taste for
the more sickly varieties of lolly-water. Which reminds me—you are in from Port
Last, aren't you? Did you see anything there of Ditmar? She brings my supplies in, and takes back the
chemicals produced at my plant on the Bitter Sea, not far from here."
"I'm
afraid she's going to be late," said Grimes. "She ran into all sorts
of trouble with the Department of Navigation. Safety equipment was in a
shocking state."
"I'm
not surprised, Commodore. But you can't blame Captain Reneck entirely. His
Owners seem to be a bunch of cheeseparing bastards. Still, he might have let me
know he was delayed."
"You can't blame him for that,
either," said Grimes.
"The Post Office boys on Ultimo are
playing up."
"Oh.
And I shall have a strike on my hands
if I try to pay my devils in cash instead of kind. Still, if worst comes to the
worst I shall be able to do a deal of some kind with Sobraon's Catering Officer. Now, this is the Devil's
Stew Pot that we're coming to. Between ourselves the
story that the waters have marvellous rejuvenating properties is just a
story—but a good soak and a good sweat never did anybody any harm."
The
heat from the huge, circular, natural pool was almost overpowering even though
they passed several meters from its rim. The people in it were not engaged in
any violent physical activities. They just lay there in the shallows, only
their faces, the breasts of the women and the
protuberant bellies of both sexes appearing above the steaming surface.
"There
are times," said Clavering, "when I wish, most sincerely, that young people could afford to come on these TG cruises."
"That one's not bad," said Grimes,
nodding towards a woman who had just emerged from the water and who was walking
slowly towards the next pool.
"Not
bad at all," agreed Clavering. "She's old Silas Demarest's secretary,
quote and unquote. You know— Demarest, the boss cocky of Galactic Metals. Now,
this next bath, the Purgatorial Plunge, is not natural. Quite a few of my . . .
er . . . customers give it a miss after they've sweated all the sin out of
themselves. But it's amazing the extremes of cold that the human body can take
after it's been well and truly heated."
"Mphm." Grimes watched with appreciation as the
naked girl dived into the clear, blue-green, icy water and propelled herself to the other side with swift, smooth strokes.
"And
after the Purgatorial Pool you have the choice of swimming back to the Lucifer
Arms—that's my hotel— in the River Styx, or walking along its banks. Or, if you're really keen, jogging along its banks. The
temperature of the Styx is normal, by the way, what we refer to as
pee-warm."
The
girl, Grimes saw, was swimming back, which was rather a pity, especially as she
was a fast swimmer.
"Just
around this bend you'll see the Lucifer Arms and the other buildings. Or 'inflations.' I had
an architect staying here who tried to convince me that 'inflation' was a more
correct word. This is earthquake country— this is an earthquake planet—and any
normal construction wouldn't last long."
And
there, on the north bank of the Styx, was the Lucifer Arms. Imagine an igloo.
Color it. Put another one beside it and color that, being careful to avoid a clash. Put another one beside the first two. Put one on top of the
triangular base. And so on, and so on, and so on. . . .
Dome
upon dome upon dome, and every one a bubble of tough, stiffened plastic, its
double skin filled with pressurized gas. It was as though some giant had emptied
tons of detergent into the sluggishly flowing river and then stirred it
violently so that the iridescent froth was flung up on to the bank. The edifice
should have been an architectural nightmare—but, fantastically, it was not.
Those soft-hued demispheres should have been in violent contrast to the harsh,
red, towering walls of rock on ether side of the rift valley—but in some weird
way they matched the awe-inspiring scenery, enhanced it, even as did the ghost
gums that Clavering had planted along the banks of the river, raised from
saplings brought all the way from distant Earth. (But the management of TG
Clippers, of course, had probably charged only nominal freight on them.)
The
ex-Captain led the way to the hotel's main entrance, through the force screen
into the airconditioned interior. It was only then that Grimes realized how
sulphurous the hot air outside had been. It was a matter of contrasts. After
the atmosphere of Rim
Malemute, far
too small a ship for any sort of voyage, even the natural air of Eblis had
smelled and tasted good.
Clavering took Grimes and Williams to his
office, itself a dome within the assemblage of domes. The three men seated
themselves in very comfortable chairs that, too, were inflated plastic. A
grinning devil, his scales highly polished, came to take their orders for
drinks. Save for a tendency to hiss his sibilants his Galactic-English was very
good.
Clavering
sat back in his chair, which molded itself to the contours of his body. Save
for his almost white hair he had aged very little since Grimes had seen him
last-how many years ago? He was as smooth and as smug as a well-fed cat—in
that, he had changed.
After the native had brought the tray of
drinks, in tall glasses misted with condensation, he asked, "And now,
Commodore Grimes, just what can I do for you?"
XV
"I thought you
knew," said Grimes innocently.
"How the hell could I know?"
countered Clavering. "I'm not a telepath."
"Didn't you get the
letter, Captain?"
"What letter?"
"From
the Admiralty."
"No. Was there
supposed to be one?"
"Yes.
I was shown a copy. But the mail services are getting worse than ever these
days. The original will probably be in the mail brought by Ditmar, when she finally lifts off Ultimo."
"And just what is this
famous letter about?"
"The base."
"What base?"
"Sorry,
I was forgetting that you don't know. I'll put you in the picture. The Space
Lords of the Confederacy, with a surplus of the taxpayers' money to play with,
have decided that it might be a good idea to establish a naval base on
Eblis."
"What in the Universe for? It would have
no strategic value whatsoever."
"Just what I tried to tell them, Captain Clavering. But ours not to reason why,
and all the rest of it."
"I
suppose not." Then, "I'm glad to see you again after all these years,
Commodore Grimes, but you might have let me know that you were craming. An ETA
would have been useful. As it was, you just appeared out of nowhere and,
between ourselves, young Lingard who's supposed to be
in charge of Aero-Space Control isn't the brightest. He should have told you to
stay in orbit until sunset or dawn, when there's always an hour or so of flat
calm. He should have asked you if you wanted a pilot in. I do the piloting, as
a matter of fact. I go up in one of Sally Ann's boats
and board outside the atmosphere."
"Keeping your hand in.
. . ."
"Yes."
Then Clavering returned to his original complaint. "I know that the Navy
always does as it damn well pleases, but an ETA would
have been useful."
"You'd
have got one," lied Grimes, with a warning glance
at Williams, "if the Carlotti gear hadn't gone on the blink. I'm afraid
that the poor little Malemute's
showing her age. If it's
not one thing broken down, it's something else." Then, as a sop to Rim Malemute's skipper, "Of course, she's very hardworking."
"But
this base, Commodore," said Clavering. "The idea's crazy. Eblis is
absolutely unsuitable. There's a shortage of suitable landing sites, and the
climate is quite impossible, and. . . ."
"You
made out all right, Captain." Grimes smiled. "And look at the trade
that you'd be doing, as owner of the only recreational facilities on the planet."
"And
look at the headaches I'd be getting!
The natives spoiled by the big money, or its equivalent, splashed around by a
spendthrift government. Brawls in my bars. ..."
"Come,
come. I'll not say that our officers and ratings are fit and proper personnel
for a Sunday School Treat
—but they are quite well behaved."
"They
may be, Commodore, but are the tourists? I can just imagine it. Mr. Silas Q.
Moneybags is staying here with his latest blonde secretary. A handsome young lieutenant, all prettied up in his go-ashore uniform, does a
line with the blonde. Mr. Moneybags, after a drink or three
too many, takes a swing at the lieutenant. Oh, no, Commodore. That sort
of carry on is not for me if I can possibly avoid it."
"Mphm. I see your point, Captain. But I was sent here to make a survey, and a
survey I have to make. To begin with, I suppose you have Eblis pretty well charted?"
"Of course. I was a navigator before I became a hotel manager. Suppose you and
Commander Williams come with me to my map room."
"Thank you," said
Grimes.
The map room was in another of the plastic
bubbles. It contained a mounted globe, a huge table upon which flat charts
could be spread, a projector, and a wall screen.
Clavering
went first to the sphere, sent it spinning with a touch of a finger, slowed its
rotation with another touch, stopped it.
"Here," he said, "is Inferno Valley. A typical rift formation,
as you will already have realized. To the north we have the Great Smokies, and
to the south the Erebus Alps. North of the Smokies you find the Painted
Badlands—and the sandstorms there can strip even one of my armorplated devils
to bare bones in minutes. South of the Alps there's mountain range after
mountain range—the Devil's Torches, the Infernal Beacons, the
Lucifers. ..." He rotated the
glob twenty degrees. 'To the west of Infemo Valley there's the Bitter Sea. Our
chemical extraction plant is there. Even if the tourist trade died on us—and it
shows no signs of ever doing so—we'd
get by. And to the north we still
have the Smokies, and to the south the Torches, the Beacons and the
Lucifers." The globe rotated again. "And here there's a quite remarkable
formation, stretching practically from pole to pole. The Satan's Barrier
Range.
Worth visiting just to see the fantastic rock formations, such as the Valley of
the Winds and the Devil's Organ Pipes. When conditions are right you'd swear
that some supernatural being was playing a gigantic organ—a little light music
for Walpurgis Nacht.
"West
of the Barrier there're the Fire Forests and the Burning Pits. The Fire Forests
are . . . clumps of young, new volcanoes, and their number grows every year.
The Burning Pits are just what their name implies. Further west still, and we
begin to pick up the foothills of the east-west ranges—the Great Smokies, the
Torches and all the rest of them. There are, of course, valleys like this one,
but smaller. There's nothing that could accommodate a Base, with its barracks
and workshops and repair yards."
"Mphm.
Quite a world you have here, Captain Clavering. I suppose you run tours from
Inferno Valley for your customers?"
"Yes.
Unluckily the Organ Pipes tour was a couple of days ago, and my air cars are
now undergoing maintenance. You will appreciate that the abrasive winds make
this essential after every outing. I'll not be running another tour until Macedon comes in. Sobraon, of course, lifts off first thing tomorrow
morning.''
"Taking her out?"
"Yes.
Her Master's newly appointed and would like to see the Eblis pilotage both ways, arrival and departure, before he makes a stab at
it himself. And now you really must excuse me. There's always something to be
done around a place like this. But you'll have dinner with us tonight, of
course. Sally Ann will be wanting to see you again.
You too, of course, Commander Williams, are invited." He paused.
"Come to that, why don't you and all Rim Malemute's people stay at the Lucifer Arms? I've plenty
of accommodation."
"And I'm entitled to reasonable
expenses," said Grimes.
Clavering
laughed. "I should have made it clear that I want you as non-paying guests. But I'm not averse to taking the
government's money."
"And
I'm not averse," said Grimes, "to having some small percentage of
what I pay in income tax and customs duty spent of my comfort."
And had a flicker of apprehension showed on Covering's face when Grimes used the words "customs duty"?
Damn
it all! thought the
Commodore, I'm
neither a policeman nor a customs officer.
Then
he remembered young Pleshoff, whose career had been ruined, and Peter Fellini
and Inga Telfer, who were dead.
XVII
The dining room of the Lucifer Arms was yet
another plastic hemisphere, but a huge one. Clavering and Sally, his wife, had
their table in the exact centre of the circular floor. It was on a low dais,
raised above the level of the others so that the ex-Captain could oversee everything
that was going on. Not that his supervision was really necessary; his devils,
looking more than ever like refugees from a black humor cartoon in their stiff
white shirts, black ties and black jackets, were superbly trained, attentive
without being obtrusive. And there were three human headwaiters, circulating
slowly among the diners, watching everything.
Grimes enjoyed his meal. For almost as long
as he could remember he had liked highly spiced, exotic foods, and every item
on the menu was either deviled or flambeed—or both. Williams, who preferred
good plain cooking, was not so happy—but to judge by his rate of consumption he
found nothing at all wrong with the excellent chilled hock. Neither did Captain
Gillings of Sobraon
who, with his Chief Officer
Mr. Tait, made up the party. So far he was showing no effects, but—Any moment now! thought Grimes. And—It's none of my business.
Yet
when Gillings put his hand firmly over the top of his empty glass, saying,
"I lift off at dawn," Clavering persuaded him to accept a refill,
remarking, "I'm taking your ship up for you, Captain. As
long as Tm on the ball in the morning."
Mrs. Clavering, a tall, very attractive blonde, looked as though she were about
to interfere, especially when she saw that her husband's glass was also being
refilled. She asked Grimes rather pointedly, "What are the rules about
drinking in the Navy, Commodore?"
Grimes said, "It all depends. Sometimes
you know that you can afford to relax, at other times you know that you can't. Mphm. But drink is not the major problem. You can always
tell if a man is under the influence. With other drugs you can't tell if a
man's judgment has been seriously impaired. Not so long ago—in my civilian
capacity as Rim Runners' Chief Astronautical Superintendent—I had to try to
sort out a most distressing business. The Third Officer of one of our ships had
been among those involved in a dreamy weed orgy. The next morning, apparently
quite normal, he was testing the gear prior to his vessel's lift off from Port
Last. The inertial drive, which had been given a trial run by the engineers
after maintenance, was on Stand By. The officer noticed this—and thought it
would be a good idea to take the ship up, himself, for a joyride."
"And what happened?" asked Sally
Clavering.
"General alarm and despondency. Luckily there was nobody hurt, and no
serious damage. The young man, I'm afraid, will have to serve a jail term—the
Rim Confederacy takes a very dim view of drugs in general. And his spacegoing
career is ruined."
"If
your government," said the TG Clipper captain, "weren't so many years
behind the times that sort of thing wouldn't happen. In the Federated Planets
we accept the consciousness-expanding drugs. We know that there are some people
affected more strongly than others, just as there are some people more strongly
affected by alcohol than othrs. On Austral—my home planet—a smoker has to take
out a license and is subjected to various physical and psychological tests. He
knows just what effect marihuana, dreamy weed or
anything similar will have on him, and regulates his activities accordingly. In
my own case, for example, I know that if I were enjoying a pipe instead of Captain
Clavering's excellent wine I should be, no more than two standard hours after
the last inhalation, perfectly capable of taking my ship into or out of any
spaceport in the Galaxy—more capable, in fact, than if I had not smoked. This
Third Officer of your was unlucky."
"You
can say that again, Captain Gillings," agreed Grimes. He looked casually
around the table. Sally Clavering was showing interest in the conversation. So
was Mr. Tait, Gillings' Chief Officer. Williams looked as though he were
interested only in the wine. And Clavering was suddenly taking great interest
in a party of rater noisy revellers six tables away.
He
said, "I hope those people don't carry on like that aboard your ship,
Captain Gillings."
"Not
all the time, Captain Clavering. They're usually quite quiet at
breakfast."
"Black
coffee and two aspirins, I suppose. Talking of coffee, shall we adjourn to the
Grotto? I've some rather decent Altairian Dragon's Blood that we could have as
a liqueur."
He got up from the table and, as soon as his
wife and his guests were on their feet, led the way from the dining room,
pausing slightly now and again to exchange salutations with the people at the
other tables.
A
short tunnel led to the Grotto, its walls coloured and shaped in the likenesses
of rough granite. Grimes had to put his hand out to convince himself
that they were not granite and was almost surprised by the soft spongy texture
under his fingers. In the Grotto itself amazingly realistic stalactites hung
from the high ceiling, and stalagmites grew upwards from the floor. But if
there should be an earth tremor there would be no danger of frail human flesh
being crushed and tom by falling masses of jagged limestone. Should, by any
chance, a stalactite be shaken adrift from its overhead anchorage it would
float gently downwards like the plastic balloon that in actuality, it was.
Nonetheless, the effect was convincing, enhanced by the dim green and blue
lighting, by musical trickling of water somewhere in the background.
They
sat around a table that could have been a slab of
waterworn limestone, on surprisingly comfortable chairs simulating the same
material. A devil brought a tray
with coffee pot and cups, another devil the teardrop decanter and the slim
glasses. Sally Clavering poured the coffee, her husband the liqueur.
"Here's to
crime," said Grimes, raising his glass.
"An odd toast,
Commodore," said Clavering.
"A
very old one, Captain."
"It
all depends," said Captain Gillings, whose speech was becoming a little
slurred, "on what you mean by crime."
"Too,"
said Williams, who enjoyed an occasional philosophical argument, "one has
to distinguish between crime and sin."
"Smuggling,
for example," said Grimes, "is a crime,
but is it a sin?"
"Depends on what you smuggle," said
Gillings.
"Too right," agreed Williams.
"Take gambling," said Clavering a little desperately. "It's a crime—I mean,
it's classed as a crime—when the State doesn't get its rake-off. But as long as
the government gets its cut it's perfectly all right"
"I
'member once on Elshinore . . ." began Gillings. "Ticket in Shtate
Lottery .. .
only sheventeen off million creditsh. . . ."
"I
always think," said Grimes, "that the people of these very
agricultural planets, like Elsinore and Ultimo, need
such outlets as gambling and, perhaps, drug-taking. The essentially rural
worlds tend to be more—sinful, shall we say?—more sinful than the heavily
industrialized ones."
"Who
shaid gambling wash a shin, Commodore?" asked Gillings.
"It's only a sin," said Clavering
thoughtfully, "if somebody else, somebody apart from the gambler himself,
is hurt. That can be said about most crimes, so-called."
"Take forgery," contributed
Williams. (Blast
you! thought Grimes. Why must you go changing the subject?) "Take forgery. S'pose I print a million
Ten Credit notes. S'pose they're all perfect. Undetectable.
I win. But who loses?"
"I'll
go into partnership with you, C'mander Wil-liamsh," said Gilhngs.
"When d'we shtart?"
"Time
we started getting back to the ship, sir," said Mr. Tait, looking pointedly
at his watch.
"A nightcap, Captain
Gillings?" asked Clavering.
"Thank
you, Captain Clavering. I will take jusht one li*l hair o' the dog thash bitin'
me. After alL it'sh a long worm that hash no turning. Thank you. Thank you. Your very good health, shir. An' yoursh,
Mishess Clavering. An' yoursh, Commodore Grimesh.
An' yoursh, Commander Williamsh. An'... an'. .. . Shorry, Mishter Tait. Glash's empty. Musta
'vaporated. Very dry climate here. Very dry...."
Somehow Tait got his captain out of the
Grotto. Mrs. Clavering looked at her husband angrily. "You know he can't
take it. That Dragon's Blood on top of what he had before and with
dinner." She looked at Grimes. "I'm sorry, Commodore. But this sort
of thing makes me angry."
"It's not as though he were taking his
ship up himself," said Clavering.
"It makes no difference. As you were always telling me, before you came ashore, the Master is always responsible for his ship. You should have known better than to encourage
him."
"He'll
be all right in the morning, Sally." He yawned. "Time I was getting
some shut-eye myself. And I'm sure that you and Commander Williams must be
tired, Commodore. I'll show you to to your rooms."
"Thank
you, Captain. Oh, I'd rather like to see you take Sobraon up tomorrow. Both of us would, in fact. Do
you think you could have us called in time?"
"Surely. You can come along for the ride, in fact. I
put her in orbit, then my boat will pick us up and
bring us back. I'll tell the devil in charge of your level to call you in good
time. What do you want with your morning trays? Tea? Coffee? Or whatever?"
"Coffee," said Grimes and
"Tea," said Williams.
Clavering took them to a lift shaft that was
one of the very few really rigid structural members in the hotel, accompanied
them to their levels, and then took them to their rooms. Williams, who was not
quite sober, looked at the inside of his hemispherical sleeping compartment and
said that he wanted Eskimo Nell to keep his bed warm. Clavering told him that
the devils who looked after the bedrooms were female
devils. Williams said that, on second thoughts, he would prefer to sleep alone.
He vanished through the circular doorway.
Grimes
said goodnight to Clavering then went into his own bedroom. It looked to be
very comfortable, with an inflated bed and matching chair, a shower and toilet
recess and—the only solid furnishing—a refrigerator. Suddenly he felt thirsty.
He looked in the refrigerator, found fruit and several bottles of mineral
water, together with plastic tumblers. He opened one of the bottles, poured
himself a drink. But he only half finished it. It was deliciously cold but,
after the first few swallows, its flavor was . . . wrong. The water from the
tap in the shower recess was lukewarm and tasted of sulphur, but it was better.
Grimes drank copiously—the dinner had been conducive to thirst—then undressed
and got into the soft, resilient bed.
No
sooner had his head hit the pillow than there was an earth tremor, not severe
but quite noticeable. He grinned to himself and muttered, T don't
need rocking." Nor did he.
XVIII
Like most men who are or who have been in
active command Grimes possessed a built-in alarm clock. This woke him promptly
at 0500 hours Local, the time at which the domestic devil was supposed to be
calling him, with coffee. Although Grimes had awakened he was in a rather
confused state and it took him many seconds to work out where he was and what
he was supposed to be doing. He was on Eblis. He was shut up in a pneumatic plastic igloo. He was supposed to be aboard Sobraon before she lifted off at 0600 hours. He
wanted his coffee. Even when there had been no night before the morning after
he wanted his coffee to start the day with. He thought about coffee the way
that it should be—hot as hell, black as sin and strong as the devil. Talking
about devils—where the hell was the lazy devil who should have called him?
Grimes
found a bell push among the inflated padding that
backed the bed. He pushed it. He pushed it again. He pushed it a third time.
Eventually the plug-like door opened and the chambermaid, if you could call her
that, came in. The white frilly cap looked utterly absurd perched on top of her
homs. She asked in a well modulated voice, with only
the merest hint of croak or hiss, "You rang, sir?"
"No. My physiotherapist told me that I should exercise my right thumb more."
"My apologies for the intrusion, sir." She turned to go. The long claws of her
kangaroo-like feet indented the padded floor.
"Wait. I was joking. Word was left for me to be called at five, with coffee. It
is now 0515." "Nobody told me, sir. Do you wish coffee?"
"Yes, please."
"Black, sir, or white? With sugar or without? Or
with mintsweet, or lemonsweet, or honey? And do you wish toast, sir, or
a hot roll? With butter, or with one or more of our delicious
preserves? Or with butter and preserves?"
"Just coffee. In a pot. A big one. Better bring a cup as well. Sugar.
No milk. Nothing to eat."
"Are you sure that you would not care
for the full breakfast, sir? Fruit, a variety of cereals, eggs to order, ham or
bacon or sausages. . . ."
"No!"
He softened this to "No, thank you." After all, the demon-girl was
doing her best. "Just coffee. Oh, and you might
look in the room next door to see if Commander Williams is up. He wanted tea,
I think."
Grimes
showered hastily, depilated, then dressed. While he
was doing this latter the coffee arrived. It was good coffee. After he had
finished his first cup he thought he had better see how Williams was getting
on.
The tray, with its teapot and accessories,
was on the Commander's bedside table. The Commander was still in the bed. He
was snoring loudly and unmusically.
"Commander
Williams!" said Grimes. "Commander Williams!" snapped Grimes.
"Commander Williams!" roared Grimes.
In
any Service it is an unwritten law that an officer must not be touched in any
way to awaken him—even when the toucher is superior in rank to the touchee.
Grimes knew this—but he wanted Williams on his feet, now. He took hold of the other man's muscular shoulder, shook it. Williams
interrupted his snoring briefly and that was all. Grimes hammered on the
headboard of Williams' bed—but it, like everything else except the
refrigerator, was pneumatically resilient, emitted no more than a soft,
slapping sound.
Grimes
thought of hammering the refrigerator door with something hard and heavy and
had his right shoe half off before he thought of a better idea. Presumably this
cold box, like the one in his room, would contain a few bottles of mineral
water.
It did. There were six bottles, and five of
them were empty, put back after they were finished by Williams, who had a small
ship man's necessary tidiness. Grimes pulled the seal of the sixth bottle,
inverted it over the Commander's head. The icy fluid gurgled out, splashed over
hair and face and bare chest and shoulders.
Williams'
eyes opened. He said, slowly and distinctly, "Mr. Timmins, you will fix
the thermostat at
once. This is a ship, Mr.
Timmins, a ship—not an orbital home for superannuated polar
bears. I want her warm as a busty blonde's bottom, not cold as the Commodore's
heart."
"Williams, wake up, damn youl"
"Brragh."
It
was hopeless. And Williams' sleep was far deeper than could be accounted for by
the previous night's drinking. He had taken nothing like as much as Captain
Gillings—and, presumably, he was
up. Those bottles of mineral water, only one of which Grimes had no more than
tasted, five of which Williams had quaffed. . . .
But who.
. . ?
And why.
. . ?
Grimes
looked at his watch. If he hurried he would get to the spaceport before Sobraon lifted. He tried to hurry, but considerable
local knowledge was required to find a quick way out of the vast honeycomb that
the Lucifer Arms resembled. At last he was clear of the building and running
along the path of coarse red sand beside the Styx. It was dark still, it would be some time before Inferno Valley received
the benefit of the rising sun. But there was light enough from the luminescent
lichenous growths that grew, here and there, on the granite cliffs. Past the
Purgatorial Pool he ran, past the Devil's Stewpot, blundering through the
white, acrid fog that, at this hour of the morning, shrouded its surface.
And
there were the ships at last—Clavering's Sally Ann in
the background, dwarfed by the towering Devil's Phallus, and Sobraon, hiding with her bulk the little Rim Malemute. The TG Clipper's atmosphere running lights
were on, and at the very tip of her needle-pointed stem an intensely bright red
light was winking, the signal that she was ready for lift off. Loud in the
morning calm was the irritable warming-up mumble of her in-ertial drive. Well
clear of her vaned landing gear the mooring gang—the unmooring gang—was
standing in little groups. The last airlock door was shut, the boarding ramp
in.
The note of the liner's inertial drive deepened, became throbbingly insistent. A siren howled
eerily. Then she was lifting, slowly, carefully. She was lifting, and her drive
sounded like the hammers of hell as it dragged her massive tonnage up to the
distant ribbon of yellow that was the sky.
She
lifted—then suddenly checked, but there was no change in the beat of her
engines, no diminution of the volume of noise. Yet she hung there, motionless,
and those on the ground, human and native, started to run along the valley
toward Grimes.
There
was a sound like that of a breaking fiddle string —a fiddle string inches in
diameter plucked to destruction by a giant, a ship-sized giant, a ship. . . . Sobraon, suddenly freed, surged upwards, and astern of
her the broken ends of the mooring cable that had fouled one of her vanes
lashed out like whips, striking sparks from the granite rocks.
And Rim Malemute, whose mooring wire it was that had been
snagged, teetered for long seconds on two feet of her tripedal landing gear,
teetered—and toppled.
"Corl"
muttered somebody, "they haven't half made a mess of the poor little
bitch."
Grimes
looked at him. It was Rim Malemute
s ship-keeping officer, who
had turned out to watch the big TG Clipper's lift off.
The
Commodore said, "You're a witness. Come with me to the control tower and
we'll slap a complaint on the Duty Controller's desk before he has time to
think of sueing us for having our lines too close to Sobraon s stem vanes."
"But
he can't, sir. The Port Captain himself saw the moorings set up."
'Tort
Captains," Grimes told him, "are like the kings in olden days. They
can do no wrong."
xrx
The Control Tower was a shack on stilts and
had little in the way of electronic equipment—just a normal space-time
transceiver, a Carlotti transceiver and, logically enough for this planet, a
seismograph. The Duty Aero-Space Control Officer was little more than a boy,
and a badly frightened boy at that. He looked
around with a start as Grimes and the Malemute's Third Engineer burst in. He said, in a shaken
voice, "Did you see that, sir? Did you see that?"
"Too
right I saw itl" Grimes told him. "Stick a piece of paper in your
typewriter and take this down. Ready? I, John Grimes, Commodore, Rim Worlds
Naval Reserve, senior officer of the Rim Worlds Navy on Eblis, hereby lodge a
complaint, as follows. Got all that? At 0600 hours this morning—put the date
in, will you?—the cruise liner Sobracon, under
the pilotage of Captain Clavering, Port Captain, Infemo Valley, fouled the
moorings of the Rim Worlds Naval Auxiliary Vessel Rim Malemute, as a result of which Rim Malemute sustained severe damage, the extent of which
has yet to be determined. I, Commodore John Grimes, hold the Inferno Valley
port authorities responsible for this accident That's
all. Give it to me, and I'll sign it. Take copies and let me have three."
"But,
sir, it was an accident. I saw it too. When Sob-raons vane fouled Rim Malemute's moorings Captain Clavering had to keep on
going. The ship was off bal* ance. I£ he'd tried to land there's have been a shocking disaster."
"I said it was an accident," stated Grimes. "But that has no bearing
at all on the question of legal liability. Somebody will have to pay for the
repairs to the Malemute.
I suppose that it will be
Lloyd's, as usual."
But was it an accident? Grimes asked himself.
This Sobraon was practically a sister ship to Clavering's
own Sally Ann, his last space-going command. Too, Clavering
had piloted Sobraon
inwards. He would know the
second/foot/tons developed by her inertial drive. As Port Captain he would
know, too, the breaking strain of Rim Malemutes moorings.
His motive? Plain enough. He
didn't want Grimes ranging far and wide over the surface of Eblis, ostensibly
conducting a survey. Deliberately, knowing Gillings' weakness, he had got the
TG Clipper's Master drunk the night before lift off. And Gil-lings, knowing
that he was morally as well as legally to blame for the alleged accident, would
tend to *back up Clavering in any story that did not show him and his pilot in
a bad light. After all, insofar as his owners were concerned he was there, and they
were not.
Just
then Clavering came through on the transceiver. His face, in the little screen,
was surprisingly calm. Behind him, Gillings seemed to have aged years in as
many minutes. "Sobraon
to Ebbs Aero-Space Control ... I don't
think we sustained any damage, but I'm putting the ship in orbit until we're
sure. Expect me when you see me. Over."
"Commodore Grimes is
here, sir."
"Put
him on, will you? Good morning, Commodore. I'm afraid we damaged your Malemute. I saw her come a clanger in the rear vision
screen. I'm sorry about that."
"So am I," Grimes
said.
"I'm Lloyd's Agent on Eblis. I'll survey
Malemute as soon as I get back."
"That's uncommonly decent of you,"
said Grimes.
"Don't
take it so hard, Commodore. Excuse me, please. I've some pilotage to do. Over and out."
"Mphm,"
grunted Grimes. After this unsatisfactory conversational exchange he could
continue with his thoughts. There was the failure, the deliberate failure, he
was sure, to have Grimes and Williams called so that they could be in Sobraons control room during lift off. There were the
bottles of drugged mineral water—very tempting after a thirst inducing meal—in
the bedroom refrigerators. Of course, he did not know that the mineral water
had been drugged, but it certainly looked that way.
He
should have kept a sample—but what good would that have
been? On this world there were no police, no forensic laboratories. Clavering
was the law—such as it was.
Clavering came back on the NST transceiver.
Tn orbit," he announced. "The Chief Officer's making an inspection
now. Is Commodore Grimes still with you?"
"Grimes here."
"For your report, Commodore, the wind
caught us just as we were lifting."
"There wasn't any wind, Captain
Clavering. I saw the whole thing happen."
"Oh,
there wouldn't be any wind at ground level. But there are some odd eddies in
the higher levels of the canyon."
"As low as only one
hundred meers up?" "Yes."
And
you're the expert on this bloody world, thought Grimes. Your
wordd be better than mine if I tried to raise any kind of a stink.
"For
the remainder of your stay on Eblis," went on Clavering, "you and
your people must stay free of charge at my hotel. I cannot help feeling that
I'm to blame for what happened."
Too right you are, thought Grimes.
"We'll talk things over as soon as I get
back."
We'll do just that, thought Grimes.
"I'll be seeing you, then."
"I'll be seeing you, Captain
Clavering," said Grimes, trying to inject the slightest touch of menace
into his voice. If he got Clavering worried he might start making mistakes.
And—Damn it all, thought
Grimes, I'm not a
policeman!
He said to the Duty Officer, "Ring the
hotel, please, and see if Commander Williams is available."
Commander
Williams, it seemed, was not. When he finally did wake up, thought Grimes, he'd
be sorry that he hadn't stayed asleep. He loved his little Malemute as other men loved a woman.
Late in the morning Williams broke surface.
When he heard what had happened to his ship he snapped from a muzzy
semiconsciousness to a state of energetic alertness with amazing rapidity. As
soon as he was dressed he hurried to the spaceport to assess the damage.
Grimes
waited for him in the spacious lounge of the Lucifer Arms that now, after the
cruise liner's departure, was almost deserted. Sally Clavering found him there.
She sat down, facing him over the small table with its coffee service, said.
"I heard what happened, Commodore."
"You
probably heard it happen," said Grimes, who was in a bad mood. "There
was quite a crash."
"But Ian's such a good shiphandler."
Grimes
relented slightly. He had always found it hard to speak unkindly to really
attractive women. He said, "The best of us have our off days. And, sooner
or later, accidents just have to happen."
"Do you think it was an accident?" she asked.
"Mphm," grunted Grimes
noncommitally.
She
said, "I'm worried, Commodore. I've a feeling-it's more than just a
feeling—that Ian's got himself into some sort of trouble. Over the past year or
so he's . . . changed. I've asked him, more than once, what it is, but he just
laughs it off."
"Money trouble?"
asked Grimes.
She laughed. "That's the least of our
worries. I was, as you know, Sally Ann's Purser—and
now I'm ashore L carry on pursering. I keep the books for the hotel and all the
rest of it. I hope you don't think that I'm boasting when I say that we're
doing very nicely."
"Income
Tax?"
"No. Really, Commodore, we have it made.
Eblis is one of the Rim Worlds, and legally speaking is part of the
Confederacy, but we,
Sally Ann's crew,
were the first
settlers, the only permanent settlers. How did our
lawyer put it? "You're of, but
not in, the Confederacy.' Sooner or later the Grand
Council of the Confederacy will get around to passing laws to bring us in
properly, so we have to pay taxes, and duty on
everything we import. What's holding up such legislation is the squabbling over
which of the Rim Worlds shall take us under its wing—Lom or Faraway, Ultimo or
Thule. Another complicating factor, which we shall drag in if we have to, is
that Sally Ann, still in commission, is under Federation
registration, and all of us, Sally Ann's original
crew, are still Federation citizens."
"Complicated,"
admitted Grimes.
"Yes,
isn't it? Of course, if the Navy decides that it must have a base here there's not much that we can do about it." She
smiled. "But we have reduced rates at the hotel for legislators. That
should help."
"You shouldn't have told me that."
"Everybody
knows. Everybody knows, too, that a holiday here would be impossibly expensive
if our profits were eaten away by taxes. Our guests from the Rim Worlds aren't
in the same financial brackets as those in the cruise liners, from the
Federation's planets. The next cruise ship in will be Macedon. While she's still here Ian will be taking Sally Ann to Ultimo to pick up a large party of Rim
Worlders. A religious convention, as a matter of fact."
"Odd," commented Grimes. "This
is hardly the sort of world to inspire the fear of hell fire."
"It
is in parts, Commodore, make no mistake about that. But these people who're
coming don't belong to any of the old religions. They're members of some new
cult or faith or whatever. What do they call themselves? The
Gateway? Something like that."
"All
religions are gateways, I suppose, or make out that they're gateways—gateways
to . . . something." He tried to steer the conversation back on to its
original track. "With all this trade I can't see how you or Captain
Clavering have anything to worry about."
"That's it, Commodore. We shouldn't have
any worries. But Ian's been ..
. odd lately. Forgive me for suggesting it, but I thought
that you, as a fellow shipmaster, might be able to pull him out of it. He'll
tell you things that he wouldn't tell me."
Is
there a Marriage Guidance Counsellor in the house? thought Grimes. He said, "Just a phase,
probably. All marriages pass through them. There are times when Sonya—you must
meet her some time—when Sonya and I are hardly on speaking terms. But we get
over it." Another woman? he
asked himself. Or ... ?
She
read his thoughts, partially at least. She said, "It's not another woman.
He has his opportunities, running a resort like this. He may have taken an
occasional opportunity. But his ...
his secrecy is worse between ships, at times like this when the hotel is empty.
There's something on his mind. He hardly slept at all last night, and when he
did sleep he was muttering to himself. And it wasn't a woman's name, either. It
was, I think, just technicalities. 'Thrust' came into it. And "breaking
strain'."
"Mphm. Just a technician's nightmare. I get 'em
myself sometimes." He remembered the dream that Williams must have
experienced when he, Grimes, tried in vain to awaken him. "So do other
people. Oh, by the way, do you bottle your own mineral water?"
She
looked surprised at the abrupt change of subject, then
said, "Yes. As a matter of fact we do. We have a small plant on the bank
of the river, the only river, running into the Bitter Sea. Its water's not
quite as rich in assorted chemicals as the Sea itself. Rather an acquired
taste, actually, although it's supposed to have all sorts of medicinal
qualities. The tourists drink it religiously. We import soft drinks too—but
they're mainly for the devils, who enjoy anything as
long as it's really sweet."
"I
had some of your own mineral water last night, when I turned in. I thought it
tasted a bit. . . odd."
"It
most certainly does, Commodore. I never touch it myself. But the bottling plant
is one of Ian's hobbies."
She
lapsed into a short, brooding silence. "If ever a man should be happy, it's him."
"Men
are unwise and curiously planned," quoted Crimes.
"You
can say that again, Commodore. But here comes your Commander Williams. He looks
as though he has real worries. I'll leave you to
him."
Williams dropped into the chair vacated by
Sally Clavering, so heavily that Grimes feared that he would burst it. He said,
"She's had it. She's really had it, Skipper. The inertial drive unit
sheered its holding-down bolts. The Mannschenn Drive looks like one of those
mobile sculptures—an' abput as much bloody usel Even the boats are in a
mess—the inertial drive units again. The work boat is the least badly
damaged."
"Radio gear?"
"We
can fix the NST transceiver, I think, but not the Carlotti. We haven't the
spares. But the Mdlemute
herself . . . we have to
get her Sitting up properly before we can start any major repairs, an' there's
no heavy lifting gear on the bloody planet. We could do it by using a tug—but Rim Mdlemute is the only tug we have in commission—had in commission—on the whole bloody Rim. Oh, yes, there's Rim Husky, but she's been laid up for so long that she's
just part of the Port Edgell scenery —an' at her best she couldn't pull a
soldier off her sisters!"
"We
can ask Captain Clavering to hook on to the Mdlemute when he takes his Sally Ann out."
"Yes,
we can, I suppose. He's very
good at towing, isn't he?
Ha, hal An' when'll that be, Skipper?"
"Not
until Macedon's arrived here. Mphm.
I doubt if he'll come at it. Too much chance of damaging
Macedon."
"He
didn't mind damaging Sobraon.
Although I did hear, from
that young puppy in Aero-Space Control, that she got away with no worse than a
few scratches an' some dented fairing. Clavering's on his way back down from
orbit now, an' Captain Gillings, the pride of TG Clippers, is on his way rejoicing. What a pair! What a bloody pair! He an' Clavering...
"You weren't too
bright yourself this morning."
Williams grinned ruefully. "No, I
wasn't, was I? Do you know what I think it was?" He obviously did not
expect that his story would be believed. "I had one helluva thirst when I
turned in, and all that was in the 'fridge was a half dozen bottles of lolly water. It tasted like it'd been drunk
before, but it was cold and wet. You know, Skipper, I think it must have gone
bad."
"You
could be right," said Grimes, "although not in the way you
mean."
XXI
Clavering came in from orbit. As soon as his
boat had landed he sought out Grimes. He said, "I'm afraid I made a mess of your Rim
Malemute."
"You
did just that, Captain Clavering. I take it you've seen my letter on the
subject?"
"I
have, Commodore. Don't you think it was rather unnecessary?"
"No.
I represent the Rim Worlds Navy, and when one of their ships is damaged I have
to make sure that the person responsible, or his insurance company, foots the
bill for repairs."
Clavering
grinned without mirth. "I suppose you read the copy of Inferno Valley Port
Regulations I had put aboard your Malemute? One
of the rules is that anybody who lands on this planet does so at his own risk.
But we're both of us spacemen, Commodore. Suppose you enjoy your holiday here,
and let the lawyers argue about who pays whom for what." His grin was
friendly now. "I'm sure that you and Commander Williams will join me in a
drink to show that there's no hard feelings."
"Smoke the pipe of
peace," said Grimes.
Clavering
looked at him, hard, but Grimes kept his face expressionless, thinking, I shouldn't mind betting that he could
produce a pipe of dreamy weed if it were called for.
A
devil brought cold drinks. The Commodore sipped his, then
said, "I'm not sure that I should be having this. And I'm sure that
Williams should lay off the grog after his effort last night. We both of us
slept in. Of course, if we'd been called on time. . . ."
Clavering
flushed—guiltily? He said, "I seem to be doing nothing else but apologize.
It was my fault. I should have seen to it personally that your level devil
understood the instructions. I should have checked up on you before I left the
hotel. But I overslept myself, and had to rush down to the ship almost as soon
as I was out of bed. With these big brutes the only safe time to lift off or
land is during the dawn or sunset lull."
"And
even then it's not all that bloody safe," remarked Williams.
"Nothing is safe, Commander, ever. You
should know that by this time."
"If anything can go
wrong, it will," contributed Grimes.
"You
said it, Commodore. It's really surprising that things don't go wrong more
often."
"Mphm. And now, Captain Clavering, much as we're enjoying your hospitality I
have to remind you that we're here on business."
"Business?" Was there a flicker of fear in Clavering's
eyes?
"Yes. This survey for
the projected base. Had you forgotten? I was wondering if we could hire
transport from you."
Clavering did his best to look apologetic.
"Normally I'd be only too pleased to let you have something suitable,
Commodore. But this request of yours comes at an awkward time. Apart from Sally Ann's boats I have only two heavy-duty atmosphere
craft. They were both used extensively for tours during Sobraon's stay on Eblis, and with maintenance staff
working flat out they'll be ready for use again just when Macedon comes in."
"What about Sally Ann's boats?
"Once
again, out of the question. I've just finished getting them up to the required
standard for my charter trip. You know as well as I do—better than I do,
probably —what sticklers for regulations the Department of Navigation
Surveyors are at Port Last, and that's where I shall be going. I don't want to
be held up the same as Ditmar
has been."
"I suppose not. How about ground
cars?"
"We don't have any—not for passenger transport.
We have the trucks bringing chemicals from our plant on the Bitter Sea."
"And
bottles of mineral water."
"Yes. Have you tried our Bitter Soda
yet? You should. A universal panacea for all the ills afflicting Man."
"Including
insomnia?"
"Possibly. I don't drink the muck myself."
"You just make
it"
"Yes."
"I often wonder what the vintners
make," quoted Grimes, "one half so precious as the stuff they sell.
Or should it be Tjuy,' not 'make'? No matter."
"What are you driving at,
Commodore?" demanded Clavering.
"I'm not sure myself, Captain. Just thinking out loud. Sort of doodling
without pen or paper. And as I can't be getting on with my survey I
shall be doing a lot of thinking, just to pass the time. Call me Cassius."
"Cassius?" asked Williams, breaking
the silence.
"Yes.
He had a lean and hungry look. He thought too much. He was dangerous."
"You'll
be able to go on the tours when Macedon comes
in," said Clavering. "The Painted Badlands. The Valley of the Winds and the Organ Pipes. The Fire Forest.
. . ."
"From
what I've already learned," said Grimes, "none of them at all
suitable sites for a naval base."
"There just aren't any suitable sites. Period."
"Looks
as though I was wasting my time coming here, doesn't it?"
"Sally Ann will be empty on the run from here to Port
Last," said Clavering a little too eagerly. I'll be pleased to give
passage to you and Commander Williams and the rest of Rim Malemute's officers."
"Thank
you, Captain. But we can't accept. Traditions of the Service,
and all that. Don't give up the ship. She's our responsibihty. I'm
afraid we're stuck here until she's repaired."
"I
suppose I might tow her back to Port Last for you," suggested Clavering
doubtfully.
Grimes
went through the motions of considering this. Then, "Too
risky. Deep space towing*s a very specialized job, as Williams, here,
will tell you. And the most awkward part would be getting the Malemute off the ground. You've damn all room to play
with in your spaceport at the best of times, and when your Sally Ann lifts off you'll have Macedon cluttering up the apron, with mooring wires
every which way. No. Not worth the risk."
"At
least," said Clavering, "I shall be having the pleasure of your
company for quite some time." He was obviously trying to convey the
impression that the prospect was a pleasurable one. He essayed a smile.
"So, gentlemen, make yourselves at home. This is
Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard."
The
literal minded Williams looked around him, at the pneumatic furniture, the
inflated walls. He grinned, "If you did have a cat you would be calling him a bastard, or worse, I can just imagine one racing around
in here, digging his claws into everything."
Clavering
smiled, genuinely this time. He said, "This plastic is tougher than it
looks. It has to be, as the devils just refuse to cut their toenails. But it is
a nightmare I have sometimes, the skins of the bubbles pricked and the whole
damn' place just collapsing on itself like a punctured balloon. But it can't
ever happen."
"Famous last words," said Grimes
cheerfully. "It can't happen here."
"It can't,"
Clavering told him forcefully.
Grimes was far from
happy and was wishing, most sincerely, that the Navy had assigned somebody else
to work with the Customs in this drug-running investigation. What put him off
the job more than anything else was being obliged to accept Clavering's
hospitality—it was impossible to live aboard Rim Malemute until such time as she was righted. He had
insisted that the ex-Captain send the bills for himself and the tug's officers
to the Rim Worlds Admiralty, but there were still the rounds of drinks on the
house and, with Williams, dining every night at Clavering's table. He was more
than ever sure that he was not cut out to be a policeman. But the memories of
those three young people—two dead and one with his career ruined—persisted.
He talked matters over with Williams while
the two of them paced slowly along the left bank of the Styx. The tug skipper
was but a poor substitute for Sonya on such an occasion, but he was the only
one in whom Grimes could confide.
He said, T don't
like it, Commander Williams."
"Frankly,
Skipper, neither do I. Clavering ain't all that bad a bastard, an* his wife's a
piece of all right, an' here we are, sleepin' in his beds, eatin' his tucker
an' slurpin' his grog. An' if all goes well, from our viewpoint, we'll be
puttin' him behind bars."
"Mphm. Not necessarily. His legal status, like that of his world, is rather
vague. Even so, the Rim Worlds governments, both over-all and planetary, could
make life really hard for him. For example, somebody might decide that Inf emo Valley is the site
for a naval base. But I'm not concerned so much with the legalities. It's the
personal freedom angle. If somebody wants to blow his mind, has any government
the right to try to stop him?"
"I
see what you mean, Skipper. But when that same somebody is in a position of
responsibility, like young
Pleshoff,
he has to be stopped. Or when somebody, like Clavering, is making a very nice
profit out of other people's mind-blowing. ..."
"In
most of the Federated worlds it's the governments that make the profits, just
as they do from every other so-called vice—liquor, tobacco, gambling.... Damn
it all, Williams, is Clavering a sinner, or is he just a criminal, only until
such time that somebody sees fit to liberalize our laws?"
Tm not a theologian,
Skipper."
"Neither
am I. But both of us, when sailing in command, have been the law and the prophets. Both of us have deliberately turned a blind eye to
breaches of regulations, whether Company's or Naval."
"When you're Master under God,"
observed Williams, "you can do that sort of thing an' get away with it.
The trouble now is that we have far too many bastards between us an' the
Almighty. It's all very well our hearts fair bleedin' for Clavering—but we have
to keep our own jets clear."
"Mphm. All right, then. You suggest that we regard ourselves as policemen,
pure and simple."
"I've
known a few simple ones," said Williams, "but I've yet to meet one
who's pure."
"You
know what I mean!" snapped Grimes testily. "Don't try to be funny.
Now, we think
that the dreamy weed is
coming in through Eblis, and that it's transhipped from here to Ultimo or
wherever in Ditmar.
Clavering tells me, by the
way, that she's still held up. Her yeast vats were condemned. But where was I?
Oh, yes. We think that the contraband is shipped from somewhere to Eblis. Through the spaceport? No, I don't think so. Too many people
around, even when there's no cruise ship in, who might talk out of turn. Only a
dozen of the people here are Sally Ann originals;
the rest are Rim Worlders. The head waiters, the chef and his
assistants, the mechanics in the repair shops. ... So. So this is a fair hunk of
planet, and I'd say that the only man who really knows it is Clavering, and
Clavering, by putting the Malemute and
her boats out of commission, has made sure that we don't get really to know it.
"Our
fat friend Billinghurst is due here shortly, in Macedon, and he'll be relying on us to lay on
transport. And we can't lay it on, and I can't see the Master of Macedon lending us one of his boats."
"So
we just go on sittin' our big, fat butts doin' sweet damn' all," said
Williams. "Suits me, Skipper."
"It doesn't suit me, Commander Williams.
Much as we may dislike it we have a job to do. And as long as we're the ones
who're doing it we stand some chance of protecting Clavering from the more
serious consequences."
"That's
one way of lookin' at it, Skipper. And Mrs. Clavering, of course. Pardon me bein' nosey, but she an' you seem to be gettin* on like a
house on fire. Long walks by the river after dinner while
Clavering's in his office cookin' his books."
"If
you must know, Commander Williams, she has asked my help, our help. She knows that her husband is mixed up in something illegal, but
not what it is. She has told me about the prospecting trips that he makes by
himself, and about the Carlotti transceiver that he keeps, under lock and key,
at his bottling plant by the Bitter Sea."
"Nothin' wrong with that. When he's out there he has to keep in touch
with home."
"Yes.
But an NST transceiver would do for that. You should know by this time that a
Carlotti set is only for deep space communications."
"Just
a radio ham," suggested Williams. "When he gets tired of hammering
the stoppers on to bottles he retires to his den and has a yam with a cobber on
Earth or wherever."
"Mphm. I doubt it. Anyhow, Mrs. Clavering is far
from happy. She'd like to see her husband drop whatever it is he's doing, but
she wouldn't like to see him in jail. If we can catch him before that fat
ferret Billinghurst blows in we shall be able to help him to stay free. If
Billinghurst gets his claws into him, he's a goner."
"You sure make life complicated,
Skipper," complained Williams.
"Life is complicated. Period. Now, your work boat...."
"In working order. But if you intend a long trip it'll be so packed with power cells that
there'll be room for only one man."
"Good
enough. And your engineers, I think, have been passing the time doing what
repairs they can to Male-mute,
and have been in and out of
Clavering's workshop borrowing tools and such."
"Correct."
"By
this time they should be on friendly terms with Clavering's mechanics."
"If
they don't know by this time which of the boats it is that Clavering takes out
to the Bitter Sea, they should."
"They probably do know."
"I'd
like a transponder fitted to Clavering's boat, and the necessary homing
gadgetry to your workboat. I don't know quite how Clavering's boat can be
bugged without somebody seeing it done—but, with a little bit of luck, it
should be possible. Mphm. Suppose, say, that the inertial drive main rotor has
to be carried to the shop so that work can be done on it with one of the
lathes. Suppose that everybody—everybody but one man—is clustered around the
thing, admiring it. And suppose this one man manages to stick the transponder
to the underside of the hull of Clavering's boat when nobody is looking."
"Possible,
Skipper, just possible. We already have transponders in stock; they're used
quite a lot in salvage work. We've plenty of tubes of wetweld in the stores.
An' if Clavering's mechanics know nothin' about the drug racket they'll not be
expecting any jiggery pokey from my blokes. Yair. Could be done."
"And
how's the repair work on our Carlotti set coming on?"
"Not so good."
"A pity. I'd like to do some monitoring. Just who
does Clavering talk to?"
It was some time before the plan could be put
into effect. The boat that Clavering usually used for his trips to the Bitter
Sea—and for his prospecting trips—was undergoing an extensive and badly needed
overhaul. Even without wind-driven abrasives to severely damage the exterior of
an atmosphere craft, the air itself was strongly corrosive. Too, most of the
work force was engaged on necessary maintenance to make Sally Ann thoroughly spaceworthy for her charter trip
Macedon
came in, and aboard her, as
a passenger, was Billinghurst. Sub-Inspector Pahvani was with him, and a half dozen other Customs officers. Unlike
policemen, Customs officers, when out of uniform, look like anybody else.
Billinghurst and his people had no trouble in passing themselves off as
ordinary tourists.
XXIII
"Looks like you've been having trouble,
Commodore," commented Billinghurst to Grimes as the pair of them stood by
the Devil's Stewpot, watching what seemed to be the majority of Macedon's passengers wallowing in the murky, bubbling,
steaming water. "Sabotage?"
"Accident,"
replied Grimes. "Sobraon
was lifting off, and one of
her stern vanes snagged one of Rim Male-mute's mooring
wires."
"Accident? You don't really believe that, do you?"
"I've handled ships for long enough, Mr.
Billinghurst, to know that accidents do happen."
"All
the same, Commodore, it's suspicious," stated Billinghurst.
"How so?" asked Grimes, just to be
awkward.
"As
I recollect it, the idea was that you were to run a survey of the planet,
officially looking for sites for the naval base, and actually looking for
places where dreamy weed might be brought in. I don't suppose that you've even
started to do that."
"How right you
are."
"Meanwhile, you're living in the lap of
luxury, and the taxpayer is picking up the tab for your hotel bills."
"The
taxpayer forked out for your fare in Macedon, and
will be picking up the tab for your hotel
bills."
"That's
different."
"How
so?"
"Because,
Commodore, in matters of this kind I'm a trained
investigator. You're not. You can't do anything unless you've a ship under you.
When Rim Malemute was accidently knocked
out of the picture you were knocked out of it too. I did expect some cooperation
from you in the way of transport, but now 111 have to manage as best I can by
myself. Don't worry; I've done it before."
"I'm
not worrying," said Grimes. He looked with some distaste at an enormously
fat, naked man waddling down to the hot pool like a Terran hippopotamus. He asked, "Why don't you try the stewpot, Mr. Billinghurst? You could afford to lose some
weight."
"Because I've more important things to
do, that's why. Tm not
here on holiday."
"Neither am I, unfortunately." So
you say.
"So I say. But tell me, just how do you
intend to go about things? I realize that I'm just an amateur in these matters,
so I'd like to know how a real professional operates."
Billinghurst lapped up the flattery. He said,
"In any sort of detective work the human element is, in the final
analysis, far more important than all the fancy gadgetry in the laboratories.
One informer—voluntary or involuntary—is worth ten scientists. I have chosen
to accompany me young, keen officers who are not unattractive to the opposite
sex. Sub-Inspector Pahvani you, of course, already know. That is Sub-Inspector
Ling just coming out of this absurdly named hot pool."
"Certainly
a tasty dollop of trollop," remarked Grimes as the golden-skinned,
black-haired, naked girl passed them.
"She is a very fine and capable young
woman," said
Billinghurst stiffly. "Anyhow, I have young Pahvani and three other men, Miss
Ling and two other women. All of them are provided with ample spending money. All
of them are to pass themselves off as members of well-to-do families on
Thule—they'd have to be well-to-do to afford the fares that TG Clippers charge and a quite long holiday here—enjoying a vacation. Captain Clavering has
quite a few unattached men and women among his staff here, and my officers have
been instructed to ... to make
contacts."
"All over contacts," said Grimes.
"Really, Commodore,
you have a low mind."
"Not
as low as the mind of the bastard who first thought of using good, honest sex
as an espionage tool. But go on."
"WelL
I'm hoping that some of Clavering's people become . . . er . . . infatuated
with some of my people. And I hope that they—Clavering's people—talk."
"So you can build a
case on bedtime stories."
"You
put things in the most crude way, Commodore
Grimes."
"I'm
just a rough and tough spaceman, Mr. Billinghurst. It has been rumored that my
rugged exterior hides a heart of gold—but there are times when even I am inclined
to doubt that."
"Who's that young man whom Miss Ling is
talking to?"
"That's
Clavering's chef. Like all good chefs he is always tasting
as he cooks. A daily session in the Devil's Stewpot helps him to keep his
weight down. He's a Farawegian. He started his career in the kitchen of the
Rimrock House at Port Farewell. Mphm. Your Miss Ling
is coming back with him for another good sweat session. She must be
conscientious. I hope she doesn't lose any weight; she's just right as she
is."
"And does this chef know anything?"
"He
certainly knows cooking. Ah, there's your Mr. Pahvani, getting on with the job.
Does he use steel wool on his teeth, by the way? That smile, against his brown
skin, is really dazzling. The recipient of the charm that he's turning on is
Clavering's head receptionist. She's from Thule, but she prefers it here. Oh,
looks like my Commander Williams is making a conquest from among Macedon's customers. I must say that I applaud his good
taste."
"That,"
said Billinghurst, "is my Miss Dalgety that he's talking to. I'll have to wam her off him."
"Mistakes
will happen. After all, you can hardly expect Williams to wear uniform for his
daily dip, can you? Any more than you can expect Miss Dalgety to appear in her
Sub-Inspector's finery."
"You
seem to have made some
enquiries, Commodore,"
admitted Billinghurst reluctantly. "Perhaps you will oblige me with
thumbnail sketches of all Clavering's staff here."
"All?
Devils as well as humans? I'm afraid you're out of
luck as far as the devils are concerned. At first I thought I was getting them
sorted out by the colour of their scales—and then I found out that this varies
from day to day. If you look really hard you can tell which are
males and which are females, though."
"Humans,
of course, Commodore."
"Well,"
began Grimes, "there's Clavering himself. Spaceman.
Hangs on to his Federation citizenship. Still makes an
occasional voyage in command of Sally Ann, also
brings in and takes out ships whose Masters want a
pilot."
"I suppose he was piloting Sobraon when she fouled your Malemute."
"As
a matter of fact, he was. Wife, Sally Clavering. Tall blonde, very attractive. Ex-purser, and looks after the
books of the hotel, the chemical works on the Bitter Sea and the bottling
plant. Then there's Larwood, another Federation citizen, Chief Officer of Sally Ann and Assistant Port Captain, Assistant Hotel
Manager and assistant everything else. Very quiet.
Doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, has no time for women. I think there was a marriage
once, but it broke up. Ah, here's Mrs. Clavering. Sally, this is Mr.
Billinghurst, an old acquaintance from
Port Forlorn. Mr. Billinghurst, this is Mrs.
Clavering."
Billinghurst bowed with ponderous dignity. He
said, T am very pleased to meet you." Then,
"This is quite a place you have here. I'd heard so much about it that I
just had to come and see it for myself."
"I
hope you enjoy your stay, Mr. Billinghurst. We do our best to make our guests
feel at home."
Home
was never like this, thought
Grimes. A slight earth tremor added point to his unspoken comment.
Billinghurst was unshaken. It would have
taken a major earthquake to unsettle him. He asked, "Do you have these
tremors often, Mrs. Clavering?"
"Quite
frequently. You
soon get used to them."
"I hope you're right. I hope that I
shall. Some people never get used to motion of any kind, and have to take all
sorts of drugs to help them to maintain their physical and psychological
equilibrium."
She
laughed. "We dispense one very good drug for that
purpose ourselves, Mr. Billinghurst. You can get it in the bar. It's
called alcohol."
"I think I could stand a drink,"
admitted Billinghurst. "Will you join me, Mrs. Clavering? And you, Commodore?"
"Later, perhaps," she said. She
dropped the robe that was all she had been wearing. "I always have my
daily hot soak at this time."
Grimes
got out of his own dressing gown. "And so do I."
He
followed the tall, slim woman into the almost scalding water. They found a
place that was out of earshot from the other bathers. She turned to face him,
slowly lowered herself until only her head was above the surface. Grimes did
likewise, conscious of the stifling heat, of the perspiration pouring down his
face.
She said, "I don't
like your fat friend, John."
"Neither do I, frankly."
"I never have liked customs
officers."
"Customs
officers?"
"Don't forget that I was once a
spacewoman, a purser.
I
know the breed. But what were all those not so subtle hints about drugs? Did he
expect me to offer him a pipeful of dreamy weed?"
"Perhaps he did," said Grimes.
"Perhaps he did."
"Surely you don't
think . . .?"
"I wish I didn't"
"But_____ "
"But
the bloody stuff is coming into the Rim Worlds from somewhere, Sally. I know of
one young man, an officer in our ships, who got himself emptied out because of
it. I know of two other young people who were killed because the container of
the weed, dropped from Dit-mar,
was destroyed, by remote
control and by explosion, to stop it from falling into Customs' hands. I'm not
saying that Ian knew anything about that; I'm sure that he didn't. But—on this
world of all worlds!—he should bear in mind the old proverb: He who sups with
the devil needs a long spoon."
"You're . . . accusing
Ian?"
"The
evidence—and what you yourself have told me— point to his being somehow
implicated. If he gets out from under now I shall be able, I think and hope, to shield him from the consequences. If he doesn't. . .
."
She
looked at him long and earnestly. Then, "Whose side are you on,
John?"
"I'm not sure. There are times when I
think that stupid laws breed criminals, there are
times when I'm not certain that the laws are so stupid. When it comes to
things like dreamy weed there's too much hysteria on both sides. It's far
easier to handle drugs like alcohol, because nobody has made a religion of
them."
"Have you talked to Ian yet, as I asked
you to?"
"I've
tried once or twice, but he's very hard to pin down."
"Don't I know it!
But I think he realizes that the game's up and that he's let whoever has been
bringing the stuff in that the trade is finished."
"He
hasn't been able to get out to his bottling plant where he has his private
transceiver. His air boat is still under repair, and it would take too long by
road."
She
said, "Surely the Port Captain is allowed to play around with the Carlotti
equipment in the control tower in his own spaceport."
"Oh,
well," said Grimes, "I'll shed no tears if it turns out that I've
come here for nothing."
XXIV
Seeing a planet as a tourist is not the same
as running your own survey, but it is better than not seeing a planet at all. Macedon, with all her experience-hungry passengers,
was in, and the three large atmosphere fliers, the aircoaches, were now
completely overhauled and ready for service.
Billinghurst
sneered at Grimes and Williams, saying that they were having a glorious holiday
at public expense. He preferred to stay in Infemo Valley, keeping his eyes and
his ears open. The only one of his officers to go on the tours was Denise
Dalgety—but not so that she could continue to turn her considerable charm on to
Williams. She had transferred her attentions to Larwood, who was in charge of
the sightseeing expeditions. Grimes felt sorry for the dark, morose assistant
manager. He would have liked to have warned him. More and more it was becoming
obvious that he appreciated the company of the plump redhead who, ever more
frequently, was able to coax an occasional smile from him. Sooner or later
there would have to be a rude awakening.
The
first trip was to the Painted Badlands. Grimes and Williams rode in the leading
air coach, the command vehicle, which was piloted by Larwood. They had been
given seats right forward, on the starboard side, immediately abaft the pilot.
In the corresponding seats to port were an elderly Terran businessman and his
wife, both looking slightly ludicrous in the heavy duty one piece suits, as
much metal as fibre, that were mandatory wear. There was a single seat to port
of that occupied by Larwood; in this, of course, sat Denise Dalgety. In any
form of transport whatsoever rank hath its privileges.
She, apart from Williams, was the only young passenger in the coach. Her
companions had said, rather too loudly, at the bar the previous night, that they didn't want to be herded around with a lot
of old fossils.)
Dawn
was just coming in when the three coaches lifted from the landing field close
by the hotel. Their inertial drives hammering erratically, they climbed slowly,
drifting a little to the west so that the fantastic
bubble structure, multihued and luminescent, lay beneath them. Grimes
permitted himself to wonder what would be the effect
of a few handfuls of heavy steel darts dropped from the aircraft.
•Slowly
they climbed, hugging the north wall of the canyon which, in this light, was
blue rather than red, splotched with opalescent patches where grew the
phosphorescent lichen and fungi. Slowly they climbed, and with every meter of
altitude they gained the orange ribbon of sky directly above them widened.
"Aero-space Control to Painted Badlands Tour," came
a matter-of-fact voice from the transceiver.
"There's as much of a lull
as you're likely to get. Keep clear of the Devil's Phallus. There's turbulence.
Over."
"PB
Tour to Aero-Space Control. Roger. Over."
Grimes
grinned to himself. This, he knew, was all part of the
window dressing.
Larwood
said into his microphone, "Make sure your seat belts are fastened, folks.- We may get a few bumps when we clear the canyon
rim."
There
were a few bumps, but very minor ones. The coaches were lifting under maximum
thrust now, and below them was Inferno Valley, a deep, dark slash in the face of the planet. To the south towered the
Erebus Alps, peak after conical peak, from each of which a pillar of flame—shot
smoke rose almost vertically. Dim in the distance were the Devil's Torches,
volcanoes even more spectacularly active than those of the Alps. And beyond those? The Infernal Beacons?
It was hard to be sure. Already the early morning clarity of the atmosphere
was becoming befouled.
The
note of the inertial drive changed as Larwood brought his coach around to a
northerly heading. He announced, "If you look hard, folks, you'll see the
Bitter Sea out to port, on our left. We shall be stopping there overnight on
our way back. Most of the day we shall be spending in the Painted Badlands, of
course."
"Pilot!" This was an old lady well back in the coach. "We've come all this
way and you've shown us practically nothing of the Erebus Alps and the other
ranges."
"I
may wear wings on my uniform, madam," Larwood told her, "but they
aren't bat's wings. A devil, one of those mythological devils out of the
mythological hell, might survive there, but we certainly shouldn't.
Up-draughts, downdraughts, red hot boulders hurtling through the air—you name
it, the Erebus Alps and the other ranges have got it. But I promise you that
the Painted Badlands will be an experience none of you will ever forget. Now,
all of you, you can either look astern, behind you, or at the stern view screen
that is in front of every seat. I've just switched it on. The screen might be
clearer. You will realize the sort of muck and rubbish we should have to fly
through. The wind's just starting to rise."
Muck and rubbish, thought Grimes, peering into the screen that he shared with Williams. A good description. The pillars of fiery smoke from the multitudinous craters were leaning
towers now, blown ever further and further from the vertical until they
approached the horizontal. The sharp outlines of the peaks were blurred, were
obscured by the wind-driven fumes and dust. Overhead the sky was no longer
orange but a glowing yellow across which scudded the low black clouds. And
below, the whirling flurries of red dust were blotting out all landmarks. Then,
through some meteorological freak, the air ahead of them cleared and, brooding
sullenly over the red plain, the Great Smokies appeared, almost black against
the yellow sky, belching volumes of white steam and dark brown smoke.
"But
you' re flying over them, Pilotl" complained the old lady accusingly.
"Not
over, madam. Through. Just fine in our starboard bow,
a little to the right of dead ahead, you'll see the entrance to Dante's Pass.
Also, if you will look at the smoke from the volcanoes, you will see that the
wind is nowhere near as bad as it is to the south'ard. The Smokies are in the
lee of the highest part of Satan's Barrier."
"But
these mountains are only smoking," muttered
the old lady.
"If
we'd only known," whispered Williams to Grimes, "we could have
brought along a couple of nuclear devices just to keep the
old dear happy."
"Mphm.
Smoke or flame—this is a good place for a holiday, but I wouldn't want to live here."
"Don't
mention holidays, Skipper. Glamorpuss up ahead might hear you."
Denise
Dalgety turned in her seat, smiled sweetly at Williams. "I'm enjoying my holiday," she said.
"What was all that
about, Denise?" asked Larwood.
"Nothing much, Ron. Nothing much. Just something that Commander
Williams said."
"Oh,"
grunted Larwood. Then, into the microphone again, "Coming up to Dante's Pass now, folks. To port, Mount Dante. To starboard, Mount Beatrice. Looks like Dante's a heavy smoker still, but
Beatrice seems to have kicked the habit. Ha, ha."
Ha,
ha, thought Grimes. Vm rolling in the aisle in
a paroxysm of uncontrollable mirth.
But
his irritation faded as he stared out at the spectacular scenery. The coach
had dropped to an altitude well below that of the peaks, seemed to be barely
skimming the numerous minor craters that pocked the valley floor. Smoke was
issuing from almost all of them—in some cases a trickle, in others as a
billowing cloud. And all up the steep, terraced side of Dante
were similar small craters, most of them active. The slopes of Mount
Beatrice
were also pockmarked but, for some reason, only an occasional
wisp of vapor was evident.
"You could do better, Skipper," whispered
Williams.
Grimes, who had brought out his pipe and was about to fill it, changed
his mind and put the thing back in his pocket.
On
they flew, and on, the three coaches in line ahead, the Great Smokies to either
side of their course and at last falling astem. On they flew, and the
smoldering mountain range dropped astern, and the foothills, each of which was
a volcano. Smoke eddied about them, restricting visibility, often blotting out
the view of the tortured landscape below them. Turbulence buffeted them, and
once the coaches had to make a wide alteration of course to avoid a huge red
tornado.
Desert
was below them at last—huge dunes the faces of which displayed all colors from
brown through red to a yellow that was almost white, with streaks of gray and
silver and blue. Beyond the dunes was a region where great rock pillars towered
like the ruins of some ancient devastated city, sculpted by wind and sand into
fantastic shapes, glowing with raw color.
"The Painted Badlands," announced
Larwood unnecessarily. "The wind's from the west still, so it's safe to
land."
"What
if the wind was from the east?" asked the old lady.
"Then,
madam, we shouldn't have the protection of Satan's Barrier. There'd be a
sandstorm that'd strip us to our bare bones. You can see what wind and sand
have done to those rocks down there."
The
irregular hammering of the inertial drive became less insistent. The coach
slowed, began losing altitude. It dropped at last to coarse red sand in what
could have been a city square, a clear space with the eroded monoliths all
about it. The second vehicle landed in a flurry of ruddy dust, then the third.
"Welcome to Dis," said Larwood.
"You may disembark for sight-seeing. Respirators will be worn; I wouldn't
say that the atmosphere's actually poisonous, but too much of it wouldn't do
your eyes, throats or lungs any good. You will all stay with me and not go
wandering off by yourselves. You may pick up souvenirs—pretty pebbles and the
like—within reason, but I warn you that this wagon doesn't develop enough
thrust to carry home one of the monoliths. Ha, ha."
One by one the passengers passed out through
the airlock, jumped or clambered down to the windswept sand.
"If it wasn't for the easterlies,"
said Williams to Grimes, his voice muffled by his breathing mask, "this'd
be a good spot for a Base."
"At least," said Grimes, "we
shall be able to write some sort of report on this base business now. Just in
case somebody actually asks for it"
XXV
It was a long day, and a tiring one. A heavy
protective suit complete with respirator is not the most comfortable wear for
sight-seeing, and Larwood was determined that they should see everything.
They
looked at the Venus de Milo—which, if one used one's imagination, just could
have been a giant statue of a woman, carved from black basalt, minus her arms.
Their guide made the inevitable joke about the consequences of fingernail
biting. They saw the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It did lean, but there all
resemblance ceased. They saw the Sphynx, which was not too unlike a great,
crouching cat if looked at from the right angle) and the Great Pyramid. They
returned to the comparative luxury of the coaches for a sandwich meal and very
welcome cold drinks. After lunch a short flight took them away from the
so-called City Square of Dis to another part of the Badlands. Here they saw the
Colossus of Eblis, which vaguely resembled a man standing arrogantly with his
legs apart, the Thinker—Larwood, of course, had to say that a huge stone toilet
roll was being carved to hang alongside the seated, brooding figure-Mount Olga
and Ayers Rock. Grimes made himself unpopular by
saying that the originals of these last two named gained greatly in majesty by
being situated in a vast empty desert with no surrounding clutter to distract
attention from them.
They
saw the Devil's Launching Pad, a low plateau surmounted by a remarkably regular
row of what, from a distance, could have been archaic space rockets. They saw
the Dinosaurs, and St. Paul's Cathedral, and St Bazil's Cathedral, and the
Rainbow Bridge. They saw. . . . But it was all too much, much too much, at the
finish. They stumbled through the surrealistic landscape, the rockscape, with
its great contorted masses of garishly coloured stone, behind their guides.
Even Larwood was running short of witticisms, although he did say that it just
required one good crash to make the Lorelei look happy.
Tired,
perspiring in their suits and behind their masks, they stumbled back into the
coaches, gratefully loosening clothing and removing respirators. The irregular
blotch of brightness in the yellow sky that was the sun was low in the west
when they lifted, but there was daylight enough for the coaches to negotiate
Dante's Pass without trouble, and Mount Beatrice honoured them with a salute, a
huge, spectacular smoke ring, as they flew past. The sun was not yet down when
they approached the western shores of the Bitter Sea and the white buildings of
the bottling plant, on the bank of the River of Tears, stood out against the
dusky red of the desert like a handful of white pebbles dropped there. As they
approached they could see that these were of the by now familiar bubble
construction—although, Larwood told them, the skins were centimeters instead
of mere millimeters thick, and had frequently to be renewed.
He announced, on his public address system,
"We shall be staying here overnight, folks. One dome has been fitted out
as a dormitory for tourists, and the one adjoining
as a mess hall. At dark floodlights will be turned on so that you may all enjoy
a swim in the Bitter Sea. You will have time for
another one in the morning, before we leave for Infemo Valley. Oh, before I
forget, there are fresh water showering facilities at
the Bottling Plant. I advise you all to take a shower after swimming in the Bitter Sea."
"Swimming, the man said," complained
Grimes, his voice muffled by the respirator that, now, was all that he was
wearing.
"Walkin
on the water's just the thing for a high
an' mighty Commodore," laughed Williams.
"But not for a mere
Commander, like you."
"I
wonder if one could really walk on it," murmured Williams. He managed a
sitting posture and then overbalanced, finishing up flat on his back. He said,
"Any bastard tryin' to commit suicide in this soup'd die o'
frustration."
"Mphm." Grimes managed a kind of squat and looked around him. The other
passengers were enjoying themselves, splashing and squealing in the harsh
glare of the floodlights. But the one he was looking for—the only one who would
have been worth looking at—was not there. Neither was Larwood, although the
other two coach pilots were disporting themselves with their charges.
"Mphm,"
grunted Grimes again. So Billinghurst's pet blonde spy was earning her keep
whilst he and Williams were having a good time. But perhaps she was having a
good time too.
"Lookin' for
Denise?" asked Williams.
"As
a.matter of fact, yes."
"She
went off with that frosty-faced sidekick o* Clav-ering's just before we all got
undressed for our dip. I suppose he's showin' her his etchings. Unless
I get outer this hellbroth soon I'll be able to show
all the girls my itchingsl"
"Yes, it does seem to be mildly
corrosive. I'd hate to swallow any. Coming out?"
"Too bleedin' right, Skipper. When I want a swim I have a swim, when I
want a walk I have a walk. What we're doin' now is just a compromise."
Clumsily
the two men splashed ashore. Once they were through the airlock of the bottling
plant they removed their respirators, handing them to attentive attendant
devils. They followed one of the natives to the showers, where others of his
kind were scampering around in the clouds of steam armed with long-handled
brushes, enthusiastically scrubbing down the naked humans. The red lighting of
the place made it all look like a scene from a
mythological Inferno—and, muttered Grimes, some of the tourists looked like
refugees from the canvases of Hieronymus Bosch.
After
their showers—hot water and detergent to remove the salty scum, cold water for
refreshment—the two men got into clean coveralls provided by the management,
collected personal belongings from their lockers in the change room, then
strolled into the dormitory. There was no sign of either Denise Dalgety or of
Lar-wood. They walked into the mess hall, where a few people were sitting over
cold drinks. Th girl and Claver-ing's assistant were not there either.
Grimes
wasn't worried—what Bnlinghurst's officers did with
themselves, or had done to them, was none of his concern—but he was curious.
Perhaps "curious" is not quite the right word. He had the feeling
that the girl was finding out something and would have liked very much to know
what it was. Perhaps pride was involved. He could imagine Billinghurst telling
his story to an appreciative audience: "There was the famous Commodore
Grimes, and all that he did was to get his ship wrecked and then,
with nothing at all that he could
do, have one helluva good time like a tourist, at the taxpayer's expense. One
of my Sub-Inspectors, a girl at that, did much
better than he did."
"Denise Dalgety, the Beautiful Blonde
Spy," muttered Williams.
"Jealous,
Commander?"
"My oath, yes. I still haven't forgiven that bastard Billinghurst for calling her off
me. He ruined the beginnings of what promised to be a beautiful friendship. I
wonder where he's taken her? Larwood, I mean."
"Clavering
has an office here. Presumably his second-in-command has a set of keys to
it."
"An now he's
chasin' her round the water cooler . . . or she's chasin' him round the water
cooler."
"The chasing part," said Grimes, "must be well over."
"Some
people are slow starters. All right, then. He's sittin' there, with a silly
smile on his face, while she photographs the plans of the fortifications with
the miniature camera hidden in one of her ear clips, which are the only things
she's wearin' at the moment. There's a recorder
in the other clip."
"Try to be serious,
Williams."
"What about, Skipper? It'd be a lot
easier for me if I knew which side you were on. Are you pro- or anti-smuggler?
I know damn well that you're anti-Billinghurst —but who's not? Ever since we've
been on this bloody job you've been obscuring the issue with a fog of moral
principles. And we aren't concerned with the moral side of it, only with the
legal side."
"And
that," Grimes told him, "is even more obscure. Whose laws apply on
this planet—the laws of the Confederacy or the laws that Clavering makes up as
he goes along? The Confederacy, don't forget, didn't want Eblis. Clavering saw
its possibilities."
"And so what? As planetary ruler he pays his taxes to the Confederacy rather than to
the Federation—because that way he pays less. But, by so doing, he has admitted
Confederate jurisdiction."
"Here she comes,"
said Grimes in a low voice.
Here
she came. She saw Grimes and Williams, walked to the table where they were
seated. An attentive devil clattered up to take her drink order. She waved the
native away.
"Commodore,"
she said, smiling sweetly, "I understand that you're attached to this investigation
as an astronautical expert."
"Mphm. I suppose so."
"Ron
showed me round the bottling plant. He said that I should see more if I had his
undivided attention, that it would be better than going on the conducted tour
of inspection later this evening."
"Mphm."
"It wasn't very interesting really. Just
machines doing things, washing bottles, filling bottles, sealing
bottles...." "Mphm."
"And then he took me
into the office."
Grimes, looking at Williams' face, had
trouble in keeping his own straight.
"I'm
not very well up on ships' instruments. Usually I'm concerned with passengers'
baggage. Tell me, Commodore, that radio with an antenna like a Mobius Strip, formed as a long ellipse, universally mounted, is a Carlotti transceiver, isn't it?"
"It
is." (But he knew already that there was one in the bottling plant.)
"And
it's never used for short range signalings? Only ship to ship, ship to planet,
planet to ship, planet to planet?"
"As a general
rule."
"A
message came through while we were. . . ." She blushed. "Well, a
message came through. Ron said that I'd have to leave the office, as it was
probably Captain Clavering calling about some important business and, even
though he trusted me, some matters regarding the bottling of the River of Tears
water were a commercial secret. Luckily I'd taken my ear clips off, and left
them behind when I went out. And then, after. . . ." She blushed again.
"And then after I left Ron—he let me back inside when whoever it was had
finished sending —I played it back when I went into the toilet."
She detached the ornament of interlocking
golden rings from her right ear, put it on the table. She said, "I have it
set for the lowest volume. You'll have to pretend to be looking at it closely.
Press the spring clip."
"An
interesting piece of jewelry," commented Grimes, picking it up. "Very
fine workmanship."
He
heard, "Damn! The Old Man's calling from Inferno Valley!" (Presumably
earlier conversation had been censored by one of those involved.) "Let
him call." "But darling, it could be important," "Answer it
then, and get it over." "Denise, it's not that I don't trust you, but
it could be something confidential." "All right then, I'll go out
into the main office. Give me time to put something on." "There's no
need, all the doors are locked." "Do you think more of your boss than
you do of me?" "Please, Denise, just leave me and let me answer this
call." "All right, all right. I bet Billy
Williams wouldn't drop me like a hot cake and come a-running if Commodore
Grimes whistled for him!" A hissing silence, then,
"SB three calling IC. Anyone there? I repeat, anyone there?" The voice was oddly familiar. "IC answering SB three. This is RL receiving
you." "I've a shipment for you, IC. Will advise
later when. Presumably usual place. Over." "But, SB three, the heat's on."
"You'll want this shipment for the Convention, won't you? Over, and most
definitely out." Silence, then Ron Larwood's voice again, presumably on a
normal telephone. "That you, Sally? Can I get
hold of the Captain? I'll call later then. No, no trouble with the tour. Very well behaved bunch of customers. See you tomorrow.
Goodnight."
And
that was all. There are more secrets than commercial ones.
XXVI
Before they could all sit down to their
evening meal there was the conducted tour of the bottling plant—all very boring
unless one happened to be an engineer. Larwood pointed out with pride the way
in which the machinery was mounted on floating platforms so that it would
suffer no damage, and even go on functioning, in the event of an earth tremor.
There were free samplings of the mineral-rich water, from which Grimes and Williams
abstained. What had happened during their first night on Eblis had put them off
the stuff.
Grimes,
more out of spite than from any desire to know, asked, "And what's behind
that door, Mr. Lar-wood?"
"Just
the office, Commodore Grimes. Nothing of any interest
whatsoever."
"I'd
rather like to see it, Mr. Larwood. As I spend most of my days behind an office
desk I might get some ideas as to how to make myself more comfortable. If your
office is like the plant it'll be up to the minute."
"I'm
sorry, Commodore. Only Captain Clavering has the keys. In any case, there's
nothing at all to see."
"Some other day, perhaps?" said
Grimes vaguely.
"Yes,
Commodore. Some other day."
And
then they were all sitting down at the tables in the mess hall, and the devils
were bringing in steaming platters of food and bottles of cold wine, and
everybody was tucking in to the bouillabaisse made from various denizens of the
Bitter Sea as though none of them had eaten for at least a week. Even Williams
enjoyed it, leaving nothing in his bowl but empty shells and cracked claws.
Denise Dalgety, who was at the next table, was eating with a very good
appetite, but Larwood was off his feed.
It
was bedtime then, and the tourists retired to the dormitory. The air mattresses
were very comfortable, and even the chorus of snores from all around him could
not keep the Commodore awake. He was vaguely conscious of a slight earth
tremor just before he dropped off, but it did not worry him.
Music over the public address system woke the
tourists. Most of them went out for a last swim in the Bitter
Sea, but Grimes and Williams did not. Apart
from anything else there was privacy for conversation in the shower room. -
"I wonder just who SB three is,"
said Grimes. "That voice sounded familiar. I've heard it before, but a
very long time ago. It made quite an impression on me."
"One o' the Australoid accents,
Skipper," said Williams.
"Pots and kettles, Commander. Pots and kettles.
But it hadn't got that peculiar Rim Worlds twang, like yours."
"Austral?"
suggested Williams doubtfully.
"Mphm. Yes. Could be. And those initials, SB, ring some
kind of bell too. IC is obviously Ian Clavering, and RL is Ron Larwood. Do we
know anybody who has SB for initials?"
"I
don't, Skipper, 'cept for a
shelia back on Lorn called Susan Bartram. It couldn't have been her."
"How do you know? In this sort of
business all sorts of odd people may be implicated."
"It
wasn't a woman's voice," began Williams, then
realized that Grimes was not entirely serious.
"Yes,
as you say, Commander, it was a man's voice. But whose?"
"There're one
helluva lot o' men in this Galaxy—an' you, in your lifetime, have met at least
your fair share of 'em."
"Too right."
And then the first of the bathers came in
from the Bitter Sea, and the attendant devils got busy with detergent and
long-handled brushes, and there was no more opportunity for conversation.
After a good breakfast the tourists got back
into the coaches. The first pallor of dawn was showing in the eastern sky, with
the black plumed Great Smokies in silhouette against the yellow luminosity,
when the vehicles lifted. To the south'ard the low clouds reflected the glare
from the Erebus Alps and the Devil's Torches. The wind had yet to rise,
although the Bitter Sea was well enough in the lee of Satan's Barrier to be
shielded from the full fury of the westerlies.
Larwood
and the other two pilots wasted no time. Was he in a hurry, wondered Grimes,
because he wanted to report that odd deep space radio call to Clavering, or
because he wanted to get back to Infemo Valley while the dawn lull lasted? But
he must have called Clavering again last night, after he had got rid of Denise
Dalgety. And Clavering was to lift off at sunset in Sally Ann on his charter voyage, so Larwood must have
made sure of getting in touch with him as soon as possible.
The
sun came up—and there, ahead, was the dark gash in the ochre desert that was
Inferno Valley. From its eastern end white steam, from the Devil's Stewpot, was
lazily rising, curling in wreaths about the Devil's Phallus. One thing about this world, thought Grimes, there's no need to go the trouble and expense
of putting up wind socks.
Larwood
started to lose altitude as the coaches approached the western end of the
valley, dropped below the lips of the canyon as soon as possible, skimmed over
the placid waters of the Styx at reduced speed, almost brushing the upper
branches of the ghost gums along its banks.
He
grounded just in front of the main entrance to the Lucifer Arms, said into his
public address microphone, "Well, that's all, folks. Thank you for your
company and cooperation."
Williams
looked at the back of Denise Dalgety's blonde head and whispered, "She and
the Mate
"Would cooperate
"Upon the office
table."
"There's
probably a settee in there," said Grimes, taking a malicious pleasure in
seeing the girl's ears redden.
"All
ashore what's going ashore!" said Larwood with spurious heartiness.
"This is the end of the penny section!"
Clavering,
Grimes noticed, was waiting just inside the hotel entrance. He looked impatient.
Grimes could not see Larwood's face, but the back of his neck looked impatient
too. Slowly, clumsily, the tourists extricated themselves from the coach.
Grimes and Williams politely held back to let Denise Dalgety out first. She
said sweetly, "After you, Commodore," but Larwood seemed anxious to
be rid of her.
At
last they were all out, standing in gossiping groups on the firm red sand.
Larwood, his responsibilities at an end, went straight to Clavering. The two
men exchanged a few brief words and then went into the hotel, brushing past
Billinghurst, who was on his way out. Denise Dalgety walked swiftly towards the
fat Customs chief to make her report.
"Nobody loves us, Commander," said Grimes sadly.
"Is it surprising,
Skipper?" countered Williams.
XXVII
Grimes managed to have a few words in private
with Clavering before his departure for Ultimo. It was natural enough that he
should wish to have a- look over Sally Ann, and
that vessel's Master could not very well refuse his request.
When
they were in the old liner's control room Grimes said seriously, "I'm
warning you, Captain."
"What
about, Commodore?" Clavering's voice was altogether too innocent.
"You know."
"All
right. So
I know. So what?"
"Try
to get out of this mess that you've gotten into, man. Tell whoever's behind the
racket that he'll have to find some other way of bringing the stuff in. The
risk, for you, just isn't worth it. You've built up a very nice little business
here—a not so little business, rather. How long will it last if the Confederacy
gets really hostile?"
Clavering
said stiffly, "For your information I am pulling out." His face worked strangely. "Also for your information—I
knew Inga Telfer. I ... I knew her
well. I don't need to tell you, Commodore Grimes, that the owner and manager of
a holiday resort has even better opportunities than a
passenger ship officer. Did you see any of Inga's work? There's a lot of Eblis
in it; she was always saying that this planet is a painter's paradise. Eblis
and dreamy weed, and all splashed down on canvas. When I heard of her death I
was . . . shocked. I want nothing more to do with the traffic that killed her.
Satisfied?"
"Mphm. What about the consignment that's on the way?"
"What consignment?"
countered Clavering.
"I
just assumed that there would be one," said Grimes. He could not say more
for fear of blowing Denise Dal-gety^s cover.
"Assume all you
like," said Clavering.
And
then his Chief Officer—not Larwood, who would be staying behind to run things
in his captain's absence —came in to report that he had completed the
pre-lift-off inspection.
"Thank
you, Mr. Tilden," said Clavering. "And now, if you'll excuse me,
Commodore, I have to start thinking about getting this old lady upstairs. Mr.
Tilden will show you to the after airlock."
"This way, sir,"
said the Mate.
"A pleasant voyage,
Captain," said Grimes.
"Thank you. Enjoy your
stay on Eblis, Commodore."
"Ill do just
that," promised Grimes.
Not so very long later he stood with
Billinghurst and Williams, a little apart from Macedon's passengers, and watched Sally Ann lifting off. The big ship climbed slowly and,
it seemed, laboriously—although this impression may have been due to the way
in which the irregular hammering of her inertial drive was echoed back from
the red basalt cliffs of the canyon walls. Slowly she climbed, clambering up
towards the strip of darkling yellow sky far overhead, her far from
inconsiderable bulk dwarfed by the towering monolith of the Devil's Phallus.
Slowly she climbed at first, then faster and faster, hurrying to get clear of
the atmosphere during the sunset lull.
Abruptly Billinghurst asked, "Did you find anything out, Commodore?" "Eh? What?"
"I
asked," repeated the fat man patiently, "if you found anything out?"
"I don't wear ear
clips," said Grimes.
"Ha, ha. Very funny. But, talking of electronic
gad-getry, it's a bloody pity you haven't got your Carlotti receiver repaired yet."
"Why?"
"Do
I have to spell it out? Because then we could monitor all incoming and outgoing
signals."
"Not
necessarily," Grimes told him. "This mysterious SB Three could be
sending on a very tight beam, aimed directly at the bottling plant. I didn't
get a look at the transreceiver there myself, but probably it's designed for
tight beam transmission."
"Not
that it makes any difference," said Billinghurst, "since you can't do anything about it, anyhow."
I've
got Clavering's word that he's pulling out, thought Grimes. For what it's worth. . . . How many times have men engaged in illegal
activities said, "Just one more time?" Too many.
Far too many. And was Clavering already using his
ship's Carlotti equipment to establish communication with SB Three? All too likely.
"I
don't suppose anything will happen until Clavering gets back," said
Billinghurst.
"If then," said
Grimes.
"Are you helping me or
not, Commodore?"
"I
was merely expressing an opinion. For your information, Mr. Billinghurst, as
you should have gathered from the conversation your Miss Dalgety recorded,
everybody on this planet knows who you are and what you're here for, and they
suspect that my story about the projected naval base is just a blind. The way
in which Ditmar's
been held up at Port Last
stinks to high heaven. It's obvious, as Larwood said, that the heat's on."
"When the heat Is
on, Commodore, people get panicky and make silly mistakes." "Some
people do, but not all."
"These
ones will," said BiUinghurst flatly, and waddled off.
"The
old bastard really loves you, Skipper," commented Williams.
"Doesn't
he? Damn it all, Commander, I rather envy him. To be in a job where there's no-
question of rights or wrongs or personal freedoms, just what's legal and what's
illegal. ..."
"Remember Pleshoff and
Fellini and Inga Telfer."
"PleshofFs a young idiot, and unlucky to
boot Fellini and the girl were killed by H.E., not by dreamy weed. Too, we're
just assuming that the charge in the drop container was detonated deliberately.
Don't forget that it was under fire from laser and projectile weapons."
"If
you were takin' a more active part, Skipper, you'd be far happier. You wouldn't
be carryin' on as if yer name was Hamlet, not Grimes."
"Perhaps
you're right If only we had the Malemute in
running order...."
"But
we haven't But we still have the work boat, and that
transponder is still stuck to Captain Clavering's pet atmosphere flier."
"For all the good it
is," said Grimes.
XXVIII
It seemed safe to assume that nothing would
happen until Clavering's return from Ultimo, if then. Billing-hurst
condescended to explain to Grimes the part that the Commodore would have to
play should the mysterious SB Three land on Eblis to discharge a consignment
of dreamy weed.
"We
have to bear in mind," he said, "that we're surrounded by legal
complications. We can't touch Claver-ing—or, if we do, his legal eagles are
going to raise a scream that'll be heard from here to the Magellanic Clouds.
Given time, no doubt, we could nail something on him. But
what? No matter. SB Three, however, is most definitely a lawbreaker.
He—or she, or it, for all I know—is landing on one of the Rim Worlds without
going through the formalities of obtaining an Inward Clearance. He and his ship
are liable to arrest. I have the legal power to make such an arrest, of
course—but usually, in such cases, the Navy is called upon to seize on behalf
of the Customs Department. You, even with the small handful of Rim Malemute's officers at your disposal, will be able to
put a prize crew aboard the seized vessel and take her to Port Last."
"I suppose so," admitted Grimes.
"I'd be happier if I had the Malemute at
my disposal as well as her officers, though. I had the little bitch fitted with
a good set of teeth, and now she won't be able to show them, let alone use
them."
"This isn't a naval action, Commodore.
This is merely the seizure of a smuggler."
"Mphm. Some quite respectable merchant vessels are armed like young cruisers.
I shouldn't be at all surprised if SB Three, if he shows up, packs an even
heavier wallop."
"When SB Three shows up," said
Billinghurst firmly, "we will arrest him." "And
meanwhile?"
"My people will continue to cultivate
the friendships they have made. So far the only one to have got results is Miss
Dalgety. As you know. It isn't up to me to give you
orders, Commodore, but perhaps if you continued making your sightseeing tours
you might learn something."
"Thank you," said Grimes, with mock
humility.
So
he saw the Valley of the Winds and listened to the Devil's Organ—which, he
said, reminded him of the lowing of a sick cow. He visited the Burning Pits,
and he and Williams amused themselves by imagining Billinghurst being reduced
to a puddle of grease at the bottorn of the Wishing Well, into which they
threw coins to watch them become blobs of molten silver in seconds. They were
flown over the Fire Forests on a day when conditions were suitable, and
applauded with the rest of the tourists when Larwood solemnly named a new
volcano Mount Denise, swooping low to drop a bottle of champagne (he always carried a few on this trip for
such occasions) into the bubbling crater.
They
dined and danced in the Lucifer Arms, they perspired
in the Devil's Stewpot and even, eventually, got into the habit of running
straight from its almost boiling waters into the artificially cooled
Purgatorial Pool. They spent evenings in the Gambling Hell and soon learned to
avoid the One Fingered Bandits so as to make their money last longer at the
TriDi Roulette tanks. Insofar as the smuggling was concerned they saw nothing,
heard nothing, learned nothing. As far as they could
gather Denise Dalgety, although enjoying herself even more than they were, had
learned nothing further, and neither had the other undercover Customs agents.
Finally
Macedon departed on the next leg of her Galactic
cruise and the hotel was almost empty again, the only guests being Billinghurst
and his people and Rim
Malemute's crew.
Larwood busied riimself with the overhaul of the tourist coaches and Denise
Dalgety, left to her own devices and not liking it, took up with Williams.
Grimes spent much of his spare time in the company of Sally Clavering.
Billinghurst sat around and sulked.
Then,
with the ship Sally
Ann on her way back from
Port Last, there was an outbreak of fresh activity. The main lounge was
converted into a (lining room, and the vast, domed dining hall was stripped of
its furniture— an easy job, since it had merely to be deflated and stowed—and
hung with sombre black drapes.
"I
don't like it, John," confessed Sally Clavering to Grimes. "But this
is the way they
want it, and they're paying."
"They,
I take it, being the Church
of the Gateway." "Yes. They must be going to hold services in here.
But ... all this black. No crucifixes, or stars and
crescents . . . not even a Crux Ansata."
"Not
even an alarm clock," said Grimes. "I was on Darsha once, and went to
a service in the famous Tower of Darkness. The clock is running down, and all
that. Made quite an impression on me. I suppose
Entropy is as good a god as any, although not to my taste."
"Do
you know anything about these Gateway people, John?"
"Hardly a thing, Sally. It's a new cult that's sprung up on Ultimo,
quite recently." And,
he thought, dreamy weed's mixed up in it somehow. The
hallucinogens have been part and parcel of quite a few freak religions.
She
said, "I don't think I shall like them. I wish Ian hadn't agreed to let
them hold their convention here. But they're paying well."
"Thirty pieces of
silver?" asked Grimes.
She snapped, "That's not funny."
"I'm
sorry, Sally. But ... I could be
wrong, I probably am, but it often seems to me that religion has betrayed Man
more times than it has led him upwards."
T don't
agree."
"You
don't have to. Even so, what Marx said seems, to me, to have validity. Religion
is the opium of the people." And opium is the religion of some people.
"Marx . . . there's a
false prophet for you."
"Not
altogether false." He laughed. "I'm a spaceman and you're an
ex-spacewoman, and the pair of us should know better than to discuss two of the
subjects that are taboo in space—religion and politics."
She said, "We're not
aboard ship now."
"We
might as well be. Just a handful of men and women living in
one little valley on a hostile planet. ..
."
"You'll
be serving out the rifles and the revolvers next, to fight off the hostile
natives."
"Are they restless tonight?" I know that I am, he thought, I can't help feeling that Clavering's going
to do one last niece of drug running—and, as far as he's concerned, irivill be
quite legal. But SB Three will be on the wrong side of the fence as far as the law's concerned.
He excused himself as soon as he decently
could, went to find Billinghurst, told him what he
suspected. The Customs officer was scornful. He said, Tou only see the obvious,
Grimes, when your nose is rubbed in it The convention
was mentioned in that Carlotti call recorded by Miss Dalgety. You and your
officers had better be on their toes when Clavering gets back with his shipload
of cranks. I've already warned my people."
"I don't think, somehow," said
Grimes, "that SB Three will be landing in Inferno Valley."
"Are
you sure you can't get your bloody ship fixed in time?" demanded
Billinghurst.
"Quite sure," Grimes told him.
XXIX
Sally Ann came in from Ultimo, dropping down through
the morning twilight, the dawn lull, the eddying
streamers of white mist rising sluggishly from the Devil's Stewpot. Sally Ann came in, and all Clavering's staff, as well
as the guests at his hotel, were out to watch the
berthing. The big ship settled gently to her pad just beyond the crippled Malemute. Almost immediately the mooring crew of
devils, under Larwood's direction, swarmed over her, shackling on and setting
up the wire stays. Only when this job was completed did the last mutterings of
the liner's inertial drive fade into silence. Then, up and along her towering
hull, airlock doors opened and ramps were extruded.
Disembarkation
at a port like Inferno Valley—as Grimes took pleasure in pointing out to
Billinghurst— was not a lengthy procedure. There were no Port Health,
Immigration, or Customs officials to slow things up. Within seconds the first
passengers were trooping ashore.
Grimes
looked at them curiously. They were like—yet markedly unlike—the spheres with
whom he had rolled at
Port
Last. The women's heads were shaven, the men all had
long hair and beards. But most of them belonged to a different age group, were
older, and wore long dark robes instead of form revealing clothing.
Larwood
came to greet the first group down the ramp. He saluted the man who seemed to
be in charge. He asked courteously, "Are you the . . . er . . . leader,
sir?"
The tall, gray-haired and gray-bearded man
replied, "Yes, my son. I am the Guru William. Is all prepared for
us?"
"All is prepared, Your
. . . Your Reverence. Accommodation for two hundred people.
Our main hall converted into a temple, to your specifications."
'It is good," said the Guru.
"It
is good," echoed those of his followers within earshot.
"Somethin'
odd about these bastards, Skipper," whispered Williams to Grimes.
"Mphm. Yes." The Commodore looked at the members of the
Church of the Gateway as they trooped past him. They walked as though they were
in a state of trance, gliding over the hard-packed red sand
somnambulisti-cally. Every face, young, not so young, or old, male or female,
wore the same expression of ... of
beatitude? When
the saints go marching in, thought Grimes, irreverently, I don't
want to be of their number.
Clavering
came down the ramp from the forward airlock, letting the escalator do all the
work. He looked very worried. He started to walk to where Larwood was still
talking with the Guru and his party, then paused where
Grimes, Williams, and Billinghurst were standing.
Grimes
said, "Nice Sunday School Outing you have here,
Captain."
Clavering
almost snarled, "That's not funny, Commodore!" then hurried on.
"What's bitin' him?" asked Williams.
"The same as what's just starting to
nibble me, probably," Grimes told him. "Are you like me, Commander
Williams? Do you feel uncomfortable when you're among really
pious people, men and women who evince a passionate belief in something utterly
irrational? Have you ever tried to argue with some fanatical true believer
who's doing his damnedest to convert you to his own brand of hogwash? That's
the way I feel now, looking at this bunch."
"Live an' let
live," said Williams airily.
"I quite agree. That's the viewpoint of
the cynical, tolerant agnostic. But don't forget that it's always been the
overly religious who've taken a righteous delight in the slaughter of
nonbelievers. Crusades, Jehads, bloody revolutions to establish the dictatorship
of the proletariat—you name it, they've done it."
"I
think these are a harmless bunch, Skipper, even if they are a bit odd. No more
than rather elderly Blossom People with a few extra trimmings. Just spheres
who're a bit too stiff in the joints for any really hearty rolling."
"Mphm. You could be right. I hope you are right." He turned to look at
the devils who were bringing passengers' baggage
ashore. "They don't seem to have much gear with them, do they?"
"Don't
suppose they need much," said Williams. "Just a
change of robes an' a spare pair o' sandals. A tube of
depilatory cream for the sheilas. That's all. Somethin'
to be said for travellin' light."
Billinghurst broke into the conversation. He
said, "Well, Commodore, the balloon should be going up at any time
now."
"What balloon?"
asked Grimes, just to be awkward.
"You know," growled the fat man. "As long as you're ready to do what has to be done when it
goes up."
"If it goes up,"
corrected Grimes.
"It will, Commodore,
it will."
Grimes
said to Williams as the Chief Collector moved ponderously away, "I hate to
have to say it, but I'm afraid he's right."
It
was, however, all of five days before the balloon did go up.
Those five days were . . .
interesting. The People of the Gateway did not behave as the previous tourists
had done. They went on no sightseeing tours. They did not frequent the Gambling
Hell, neither did they simmer and freeze themselves in the hot and cold pools.
They infuriated the Chef by demanding very plain foods, although their
consumption of alcoholic drinks was far from low. Morning, afternoon and
evening they met in the made-over dining hall, which they called their temple.
They made no attempt to convert outsiders, but neither did they refuse
admission to the curious.
Grimes attended one or two services, of
course, as did Williams and Rim Malemute's officers,
and Billinghurst and his people, and the human staff of Inferno Valley. There
was no singing, no sermonizing. The worshippers sat on the floor, in
near-darkness, around the central dais on which the Guru William was seated.
Every time he would open proceedings by saying, "Brethren, let us
meditate. Let us open our minds to the true reality." There would be
silence, often a long silence, broken only by the subdued sound of breathing.
Then somebody would utter a single word, such as, "Peace." Another silence. "Darkness
everlasting." Silence again, and a growing tension. "The end of light." "The
end of life." "Not-life, not-death."
More silence. "The Gateway to Infinity."
"Open the gate, open the gate, open the gateF
"The Gateway to Never." "Open the gatel"
"Gives
me the willies, Skipper," Williams confessed to Grimes.
"I
prefer religions that go in for Moody and Sankey style hymns," said the
Commodore.
"Yeah. At least you can fit your own kind o* words to most o' the tunes."
He began to sing untunefully, "Whiter than the whitewash on the walll
Whiter than the whitewash on the walll Wash me in the water Where yer wash yer
dirty daughter An' I shall be whiter than the whitewash On
the wall!"
"Please, Commander.
"Sorry, Skipper. But sittin' crosslegged
among that bunch o' morbid hopheads makes me wanter relax with a spot o' light
blasphemy when I get outside. An' you said that you liked
Moody an' Sankey."
"I'm not so sure that I do,
now. Meanwhile, what do our spies report?"
"Captain
Clavering's aircar is ready to lift off at a second's notice. So are all the
coaches. An' so is our work boat. Clavering's buggy is still bugged. Absolutely no joy with any of our radio equipment. But I have the boys on watches, an' they'll let us know at once if an' when
anything happens."
"And
our friend Billinghurst has his boys and girls on watches too. But I think that if Clavering does lift off to a rendezvous with SB Three it
will be either around dawn or sunset."
"An' Mrs. Clavering? What's she sayin' these days?"
"Nothing much. Nothing much at all. She's worried stiff, of
course. She did sort of hint that this would be the very last time, and that if
I called my dogs off I should be . . . er . . . adequately recompensed." He grinned wrily. "Unluckily Billinghurst's dogs are in
the hunt as well as mine, and I can't
imagine any woman wanting to be nice to Billinghurst."
"People
have probably said the same about you, Skipper."
"Remind
me, Commander," said Grimes, "to have you busted down to Spaceman
Fourth Class when we get back to civilization."
XXX
The balloon went up at
dawn.
Substituting
literal for metaphorical language, Clavering's private atmosphere flier lifted
off at dawn. Grimes and his officers were already standing to, although none of
them had incurred suspicion by venturing outside their hotel rooms with the
exception of the watchkeeper aboard Rim
Malemute. The
young man hurried to the Lucifer Arms to inform the others that Clavering was
on his way—to where?—but Grimes, even through the double, air-filled skin of
his sleeping quarters, had heard the unmistakable irregular beat of an inertial
drive unit.
The
plan of operations was put into effect at once. The watch officer ran back to Rim Malemute and switched on the NST transceiver. This was
still useless insofar as the reception or transmission of
messages were concerned, but it was capable of jamming. He then
carefully jockeyed the tug's work boat out of its bay, brought it to the
landing ground in front of the Lucifer Arms.
Meanwhile
Williams and his Chief Officer, both armed with stunguns, had gone to the
hangar in which the resort's aircoaches were garaged. When Grimes and
Bill-inghurst entered the building it was to hear Williams saying to Larwood, 1
hereby requisition these vehicles for service in the
Pom Worlds Navy."
"Stop
playing at pirates, Commander WilliamsP growled Larwood.
"You've no legal right to do anything of the sort. These coaches
are the property of a citizen of the Federation!"
Grimes intervened. "Mr. Larwood,"
he said. "I can, quite legally, requisition these vehicles—and I am doing
so. I shall give you a receipt, and there will be adequate compensation."
"Legally? Come off it, Commodore."
"Yes.
Legally. I am empowered to requisition any air or
space vehicles of Rim Worlds registration for naval service. I can't touch your
precious SdOy Ann or
her boats—she's Federation registry. But your coaches . . . they are licensed to carry passengers by the Confederacy."
"You bloody space
lawyerl"
Sally
Clavering had appeared on the scene. Her face was pale and drawn. She said,
"Don't argue, Ron. It'll get us nowhere. He has the law on his side." The look she shot at Grimes should have
shriveled him up where he stood.
He said, meaning it,
"I'm sorry, Sally."
"You
should be. For your information, just in case you're interested, Ian has gone
to have it out with Drongo Kane, to tell him to find somebody else to handle
his trade at this end, on one of the other Rim Worlds." She addressed
herself to Billinghurst now, as well as to Grimes. "But Ian has broken no
laws, and you know it."
"Did
you say Drongo Kane?" demanded Grimes. So his had been the oddly familiar voice
recorded by Denise Dalgety.
"Yes."
"And
would the name of his ship be Southerly Buster?" "Yes. Southerly Buster 111."
"Come on, Commodore." Billinghurst
was impatient. "We can't afford to waste any time."
T know, I know. And I know now whom we're up against. And I
don't like it." He grinned. "Or perhaps I do. There're a few old
scores to settlel"
Grimes took the work boat up. He hoped that
by this time Clavering would be sufficiently distant for the small craft to be
beyond the range of his radar. He hovered above Inferno Valley, making altitude
slowly, until the commandeered air coach had lifted above the canyon rim. It
was not possible for him to exchange any words with Williams, who was piloting
the vehicle; the interference being broadcast by Rim Malemute's defective transceiver inhibited any sort of
communication. In any case, it would have been advisable to maintain radio
silence. Would this jamming effect the functioning of the transponder? Grimes
had been assured that it would not, but he was not sure until he saw that the
needle of the compass-like indicator had steadied on to a definite heading. He
looked into his radar screen. There was nothing but ground clutter. Good. If he
could not "see" Clavering, then Clavering could not "see"
him.
He turned the boat on to the indicated
heading, gave her maximum forward thrust. She vibrated frighteningly,
excessively, but she went. He put her on to automatic pilot. It was awkward, he was beginning to find, to have to do everything
himself. He had become far too used, over the years, to the control rooms of
ships, with attentive officers at his eyes and hands. He felt that he could do
with at least three pairs of the former and two of the latter. He looked into
his radar screen again. The coach was following him. He transferred his
attention to the gyro compass, then to the chart. Clavering, it seemed, was
making for Dante's Pass. So Kane's landing place was somewhere in the Painted
Badlands.
He
looked out through the viewscreens—out, ahead and down. The dawn lull wasn't
lasting. Below him the surface of the desert was obscured by driving clouds of
red sand; ahead, the Great Smokies were all but invisible. It was obvious, too,
that the boat was sagging very badly to leeward. He returned to his instruments
to make the necessary course adjustment. He knew that Williams, an excellent
pilot, would be doing the same—if he had not already done so.
Another course adjustment.
. . .
He thought, The little bitch is going sideways.
And was that the Great Smokies showing up in
the radar screen? It must be. Still there was no sign of Clavering, although
the indicator needle jerked to starboard, showing that he had entered the Pass.
And
if I keep him ahead, thought
Grimes, stopping himself from changing course, 7 shall pile up on Mount Beatrice.
He made the necessary adjustments to his
radar. Yes, there they were, Dante and Beatrice, marking the entrance to the
Pass, steadily approaching the centre of the screen. He changed to a shorter
range setting, and a shorter one, put the boat back on to manual steering. The
wheel, mounted on the control column, bucked in his hands. The little craft had
been designed to be used in airless space rather than in an atmosphere, a
turbulent atmosphere at that. Williams, he thought with a twinge of jealousy,
would be having a far better time of it in his air coach.
Hell! That's too bloody close!
Grimes yanked the control column violently to
port, applying lateral thrust Through bis starboard
window he saw black, steaming rocks dropping away from him. He must have missed
them by the thickness of a coat of paint He jerked the column to starboard as
he saw, through a rift in the billowing smoke and steam, one of Mount Dante's
minor craters almost below him. Hastily he reduced speed, hoping that Williams
would not overtake him and crash into bis stem.
He threaded his way through the pass on
radar, breathed a great sigh of relief when he was out and clear. He would have
liked to have got out his pipe, but he dared not take his hands from the
controls. He flew through the last of the heavy smoke and steam into relatively
clear air—but only relatively clear. Although on this
side of the Smokies it was almost calm, some freak of atmospheric circulation
had brought down a thick haze, a yellow murk through which the fantastic rock
formations looked menacingly. And Grimes was obliged to make a rock-hopping
approach, as was Williams astern of him. If they flew above the eroded
monoliths they would be picked up by Drongo Kane's radar. The master smuggler
was not a man to neglect precautions.
Grimes
watched his indicator needle, keeping Claver-ing ahead as much as possible. At
the same time he watched his radar screen and tried to keep a visual lookout
Afterwards, when he told the story, he would say, If the Venus of Milo had been
equipped with arms I'd have knocked them off—and I as near as dammit castrated
the Colossus of Eblisl" This was exaggeration, but only slightly so.
On
he flew, and on, perspiring inside the protective suit that he was wearing, his
hands clenched on the wheel, his attention divided between the indicator
needle, the radar screen, the forward window of his cramped cabin and the chart
of the area, one blown up from the brochure issued to tourists. He passed as
close as he
dared to the rock formations so that he could sight them visually and identify
them. Now and again, caught by a freak eddy, he had to apply vertical or
lateral thrust, or both together. The work boat
complained but kept on going.
Then,
ahead on the radar screen but still obscured by the haze, loomed a great mass.
There was only one formation that it could be, and that was Ayers Rock. But
surely the Rock did not have a much smaller monolith just over a kilometre to
the east of it. ,
Grimes decided not to reduce speed. By so
doing he could well forfeit the advantage of surprise. He ignored his radar,
concentrated on a visual lookout. And, at last, there, on his port bow, was the
sullenly brooding mass of red granite and, right ahead, indistinct but clearer
with every passing second, the silvery spire of a grounded spaceship. By the foot
of the ramp from her after airlock was a small atmosphere craft.
The
Commodore applied maximum forward thrust and, at the same time, using one hand,
worked his respirator over his head. He put the boat on full reverse when he
was almost up to and over Clavering's craft. He cut the drive, slammed down
heavily on to the red sand. He was out of the door and running for the ramp
before the dust had settled. He was dimly aware that Williams, just behind him,
had brought the coach in to a hasty landing.
It was too much to hope for—but it seemed
that his arrival had been neither seen nor heard. The airlock outer door
remained open, the ramp remained extended. He pulled his stungun from its
holster as he ran up the gangway. Impatiently he waited for Williams and
Bill-inghurst to join him in the chamber of the airlock; it was too small to
hold more than three men. The others—Rim Malemute's people
and the Customs officers—would have to wait their turn.
Williams used the standard controls to shut
the outer door, to evacuate the foul air of Eblis and to introduce the clean
air of the ship into the chamber. All this must be registering on the remote control board
in the control room, but perhaps there was no officer on duty there. He pushed
the knob that would open the inner door. It opened.
A
tall figure stood on the other side of it to receive them—a big man who, if he
lost only a little weight, could be classified as skinny. His face, under the
stubble of greyish yellow hair, was deeply tanned and seamed, and looked as
though at some time in the past it had been completely shattered and then
reassembled not too carefully.
He
said, "Welcome aboard, Commander Grimes! I beg your pardon, Commodore Grimes. But I always think of you as that boy
scoutish Survey Service Lieutenant Commander who was captain of Seeker.''
Grimes
removed his respirator with the hand that was not holding the gun.
"Captain Kane," he said, "you are under arrest, and your ship is
seized."
"Am
I, now? Is she, now? Let's not be hasty, Commander—Commodore, I mean. What
will the Federation say when it hears that a breakaway colonial officer has
arrested one of its shipmasters? Suppose we have a yarn about old times first,
Commodore. Come on up to my dogbox to see how the poor live. This is Liberty
Hall— you can spit on the mat an' call the cat a bastard!"
"I'd
rather not accept your hospitality, Captain Kane, in these circumstances. Or in any circumstances."
"Still
the same stuffy bastard, ain't yer, Grimes? But if yer seizin' Southerly Buster III—I still haven't forgiven yer fer what yer did
ter the first Southerly
Buster—yerll have ter see
her papers. Register, Articles o' Agreement an' all the rest of it."
"He's right,"
said Billinghurst.
"Ain't
yer goin' ter introduce me to yer cobbers, Commodore?^
"This is Mr. Billinghurst," said
Grimes curtly, "Chief Collector of Customs for the Confederacy. And this
is Commander Williams, of the Rim Worlds Navy."
"The way I'm
surrounded," drawled Kane. "I suppose
I should surrender. But I
ain't goin' to. I..
Whatever
else he said was drowned by the sudden clamour of Southerly Buster's inertial drive as she lifted with vicious
acceleration, as she staggered under the sudden application of lateral thrust
that threw the three unprepared men heavily to the deck.
Kane's
stungun was out, and a couple of tough looking characters, similarly armed, had
put in an appearance.
Speaking
loudly to be heard above the irregular beat of the drive Kane said cheerfully,
"An' if he's doin' what he was told ter do, my gunnery boy's just in the
act o' vaporizin' your transport with his pet laser cannon. I hope none o' your
nongs are still inside that coach they came in."
But he didn't seem to be worrying much about
it XXXI
"An' now," drawled Drongo Kane,
"what am I goin' ter do with you bastards?"
"Return us to Inferno Valleyl"
snapped Grimes.
Kane
lazily surveyed his prisoners—Clavering, Grimes, Billinghurst, and Williams,
the officers from Rim
Male-mute, the
Customs sub-inspectors. He said, leering in Denise Dalgety's direction,
"Seems a cryin' shame ter throw a good blonde back ter where she came
from, don't it?"
The
girl flushed angrily and Williams snarled, "That's enough o' that,
Kane!"
"Is
it, now, Commander? Get it inter yer thick head—, an' that goes for all o'
yer—that there ain't a thing any o' yer can do."
And
there's not, thought
Grimes. Not
until this paralysis wears off. And it won't, as long as these goons keep
giving us extra shots with their stunguns as soon as it looks like doing so.
"In
fact," Kane went on, "I think I deserve some reward for goin' back,
for not leavin' Blondie an' the others wanderin' around in the desert." He
extricated a gnarled cigar from the breast pocket of his uniform coverall,
ostentatiously lit it with his laser pistol. It stank as bad as it looked.
"Release us at oncel" blustered
Billinghurst.
"An' wouldn't yer be peeved if I did,
Chief Collector? What if I took yer at yer word, an'
dumped yer down in the Painted Badlands, miles from anywhere, an' with no
transport but yer own bleedin' hooves?" He exhaled a cloud of acrid smoke.
"But yer dead lucky. Clavering here won't play
balL so I have ter go all the way ter Infemo Valley in person, singin' an'
dancin', ter make me own deal with the boss cocky o* that bunch o' holy joes.
Church o' the Gateway, ain't it? They want dreamy weed, I've got it They can have it, at my price." He fixed his attention
on Grimes. "Ever hear o' Australis, Commodore? Not Austral. Australis. A frontier planet like these worlds o' yours,
only 'stead o' bein' on the Rim it's way out to hell
an' gone beyond the south rotor bearin' o' the Galaxy. Did a simlar deal there,
wi' some bunch o' religious nuts. They had a guru,
too. Often wonder what happened. Been no news out o'
Australis fer quite some time. Could be that the world itself ain't
there any more. After I heard the guru's advance spiel about what he said was
goin' ter be the final act o* worship, acceptance an' all the rest of it I
decided ter get the hell out" He grinned. "Tell yer what. I'll return
yer all ter Inferno Valley, an' insist that this Guru William try ter make
converts o' yer. If he won't play he gets no dreamy weed."
"The
users of it," remarked Billinghurst, "claim that dreamy weed is
non-addictive."
Keep out of it, you stupid, fat slob! thought Grimes.
"So 't'is, Chief Collector. So 't'is. Smoked it
once myself—try anythin' once, that's me. Guess I've the wrong kind o' mind.
Didn't see visions or dream dreams. But I'm a baddie, an* you're all
goodies."
Clavering
said, "There will be no business transactions of any kind on my world."
"An' who's goin' ter stop me from doin'
business? Not you, fer a start. You were pleased enough ter take yer rake-off
from my deals until that silly bitch got blown up, weren't yer? Oh, well, go
an' stew in yer own juice with the other goodies."
Grimes
realized that sensation was coming back into his hands and feet, that he could
move his fingers and toes. He mentally measured the distance between himself
and the arrogant Drongo Kane, and between Kane and the three armed spacemen
lounging negligently in the doorways of the ship's saloon. There was a chance,
he thought. There was a chance, and if he
could use Kane's body as a shield it might be a good one.
"Mr.
Welland," drawled Drongo Kane, "yer might give the . . . er . . .
passengers a sprayin' over with yer stungun. I noticed the Commodore twitchin' his pinkie just now."
The
weapon, set on low power, buzzed softly. Grimes' nerves tingled, then went dead. He could breathe, he could move his eyes, he
could speak, even, but that was all.
Til give yer all a stronger dose before we
land," Kane promised them. "The Guru an' his boys an' girls can carry
yer off me ship."
"You'll be sorry for
this," promised Grimes.
T shan't be when I count the foldin' money that Guru William's goin' ter hand over ter
me," Kane assured him, "Or, if I am, I shall cry all the way ter the bank."
Kane left then, presumably to take over the
pilotage of his ship. The three guards remained. They sneered at Billinghurst's
offer of a free pardon, a reward even, if they
assisted the forces of law and order. They laughed loudly when Denise Dalgety
made an appeal to their decency as human beings. Welland, who seemed to be
Kane's Second Mate, exclaimed, "We ain't decent, lady; if we were we
wouldn't be in Drongo's rustbucket If yer
want ter find out just how indecent we can be; ..
"Nol" she cried. "You wouldn't!"
"Wouldn't I,
honey?"
But he didn't, though it was obvious that it was fear
of Kane that restrained him rather than any respect for
the girl. •
Grimes, listening to the varying beat of the
inertial drive, was trying to work out where they
were. They were flying through severe turbulence, that
much was obvious. He said to Clavering, "Has Kane
been to Inferno Valley before?'
"Only as a passenger, Commodore. And only in my flier,
usually during the evening lull."
"Mphm. Will he be able, do you think, to get down
into the valley with the winds on top at gale force, at least?"
"You did,
Commodore."
"In a much smaller
ship."
Welland guffawed scornfully.
"The Old Man could take this bitch through hell without singeing her hidel
But stow the gab, will yer? Yer none
o' yer sparklin' conversationalists!"
"For the last time . . ." began
Billinghurst, making a final attempt to enlist aid from this unlikely quarter.
"Aw,
shaddup!"
The stunguns buzzed, and breathing became
almost impossible, and talking quite impossible.
Grimes
could still think, and he could hear. There were surges of power as lateral
thrust was applied one way and the other, then a diminution of the irregular
beat as vertical thrust was reduced.
Southerly Buster III was coming in for a landing.
XXXIII
Those who had been Kane's prisoners were
seated in a group to one side of the huge dining hall, and with them were Sally
Clavering and the members of Clavering's staff. These, too, had been
incapacitated by judicious use of the stunguns. Drongo Kane had collected his
payment from the Guru
William and had gone, the noisy hammering of his inertial drive echoing back
and forth between the sheer cliffs of the valley's walls until it bad suddenly
faded into silence.
Kane was gone—but the Guru William remained.
He
was a harmless man—to judge by his appearance-saintly, even. He had stood over
the nonbelievers after they had been dragged and carried into his temple and
had looked at them for long minutes, a faint smile curving his mouth, his
huge, brown eyes looking through and beyond the helpless men and women. He
murmured, "Peace."
Grimes
tried to say something, anything, but could not He would be voiceless until the
paralysis wore off.
"Peace,"
murmured the guru again, but in a louder tone. "Peace. The
last, the everlasting, peace. And you, my sons and my daughters, are
blessed, for you shall see, with us, the cessation of all that is harsh, all
that is discordant."
Billinghurst
managed to make some sort of noise. "Blahh . . .
blahh."
"I must leave you, my sons and my
daughters, my brethren, my sisters. The worship, the last act of worship, of
acceptance, is to begin. Surrender yourselves. Join with us, the People of the
Gateway. The gateway is about to be opened."
On to what? Grimes
demanded of himself desperately. On to what? More than any of the others, with the possible exception of Williams,
he was starting to realize the implications of it all. He tried to hold his
breath as he smelled the sweet yet acrid taint that was beginning to pervade
the air in the dome, reasoning that the smoke of burning dreamy weed was being
blown in through the airconditioning system. He wondered how much the Guru
William had paid for the consignment A small fortune—or a large one—must be
smoldering away somewhere behind the scenes.
William had mounted the dais and, surrounded
by acolytes, was squatting there in the lotus posture. The bald heads of the women glimmered eerily in
the dim light. Their eyes, and the eyes of the men, seemed to be self-luminous.
Drifting streamers of grey fog curled about them.
"We accept. .."
intoned the Guru.
"We accept . . repeated his flock.
The words had a faraway sound, like a tiin, cold wind rustling the detritus of
long dead years.
"The nothingness ..
"The nothingness . .
"Beyond the
stars."
"Beyond the
stars."
The nothingness, or the otherness, thought Grimes. Here, out on the Rim, on the
very edge of the expanding galaxy, the skin of the bubble that held the
continuum was stretched almost to bursting, the barriers between the dimensions
were flimsy, almost nonexistent. There were, Grimes knew all too well, the
other time tracks, the alternate universes. And what—if
anything—lay between the time tracks, the universes?
"Open the Gateway . . ."
"The Gateway to Never
. . ."
I will not believe, Grimes told himself. I will not believe.
The effects of the last stungun shock were
wearing off now, but the fumes of the consciousness-expanding drug were taking
effect. On the dais the guru's form was outlined by an aura, not of light, nor
yet of darkness, but of nothingness.
And
the word beat in the Commodore's mind, Never . . . never . . . never. . . . Those about him were becoming
insubstantial, filmy. . . . He lifted his hand—and realized with horror that he
could see through it, that he was looking through skin and flesh and bone at
the calm, the impossibly calm face of Pahvani.
"Nirvana
. . ." the young sub-inspector was murmuring. "Nirvana. . .."
And
was this what had happened on Australis, to Australis?
Was this why Drongo Kane had gotten away and clear like a bat out of hell? The picture that formed in Grimes'
mind of a huge, black, winged mammal beating its way through and between
towering columns of crimson fire was as real as though he were actually seeing
it—and it was better than that nothingness which
was showing through the widening rents in the very continuum.
"Open the Gateway...
"The
Gateway to Never ..."
"Accept, accept..."
Tm damned if JTB accept, thought Grimes.
Light
was beating upwards in waves—red, orange, dazzling blue-white—from the core of
the planet, washing over and through Grimes' body like cool water, dissipating
itself in the utterly starless dark, the dark that was a negation of
everything, all around, light that fought a losing battle against the
nothingness, that faded, faster and faster, to a faint, ashy glimmer. He put
out his hand, or thought that he put out his hand, to catch one of the last,
feeble photons, held it in his cupped palm, stared at the dying, weakly
pulsating thing and willed it to survive. It flared fitfully, and ...
Somebody had hold of his sleeve, was shaking
it Somebody was saying, almost hissing, "Sir,
sirl"
Grimes
stared at the intrusive being. So this was what lay in the nothingness between
the time tracks. It was hell, the old-fashioned hell of the fundamentalist
faiths at which he had always sneered, a hell peopled by horrendous, homed and
tailed demons....
"Sir! Sirl Come back, please!"
Come
back? What the hell was this stupid devil yapping
about? How could he come back when he was only just getting there?
"Sir! Earthquake. Bad one!"
"Go away ... go away. . . ."
The scaled, clawed hands were at his face,
were forcing something over his head. Grimes drew in a panicky breath, and the
sudden inhalation of almost pure oxygen nearly choked him. He put up his hands
to try to
tear off the respirator, but there were devils all around him, restraining him.
He was aware that the floor was heaving underfoot, and he was fighting as much
to retain his balance as to throw off his assailants.
His
assailants?
His
saviors.
The floor was like a calm sea over which a long,
low swell was rolling, and the walls of the dome were bellying inwards. But
only Grimes and his attendant demons were aware of this—and he still wondered
if this were actuality or some drug-induced vision. Billinghurst squatted there
like a Buddha, and beside him young Pahvani was
staring into—or at—nothingness, a super-naturally sweet smile on his thin face.
Williams was muttering, "The Outback. The last Outback. . . ." And
Sally Clavering ... was that a halo
faint-gleaming about her head, or was it merely a wreathing streamer of dreamy
weed smoke?
And were Billinghurst and Williams and the
others as insubstantial as the guru and his people? They were all fading,
fading fast, as they swayed in time to the waves that swept across the floor in
regular undulations. They were fading—and again, through rents in the very
fabric of space-time, that ultimate, horrifying nothingness was increasingly evident.
If only the simple, three dimensional fabric
of the dome would rend, to release the hallucinogenic fumes. . . .
What was hallucination, and
what was not?
"Sir, sir!" It was the devil who had first pulled Grimes
back to reality, or to what passed for reality. "Sir,
sir! Do something, please! We are frightened."
You aren't the only one, thought Grimes.
He looked at the native. He must have been a
kitchen helper of some kind. He was wearing an incongruous white apron, and a belt with a pouch into which were thrust various tools.
"Give me your knife," ordered the
Commodore.
He grabbed the implement,
used it to tear away the black hangings shrouding the interior wall of the
dome. Behind these the plastic was tough, too tough, even though the knife was
razor-sharp. And then ..
. and then the wall bellied inwards as there was a
particularly severe tremor and the skin was stretched almost to bursting.
The knife penetrated, and tore the outer skin
as well. There was a great whoosh as
the air rushed out, and Grimes and his helpers were blown through the opening
into the night, into the night that was blessedly normal despite the earthquake
shocks that continued, with increasing severity. He stood there, keeping his
balance somehow, and watched in fascination as the fantastic bubble structure
that was the Lucifer Arms collapsed upon itself, as balloon after glowing
balloon deflated, some with explosive suddenness, some
slowly. The generators kept working until the very end, and the darkness—the
real darkness, the natural darkness—did not sweep in until the last bubble had
burst.
Grimes
had battery powered emergency lights brought from Rim Malemute, and then the rescue work began.
XXXIV
"I've just heard from Clavering,"
said Grimes to Sonya. "He and Sally didn't come out of it too badly. The
Lucifer Arms was insured against earthquake damage, and Lloyd's paid up."
"Earthquake damage!" she scoffed. "Earthquake damage! When you were running amok with a long knife!"
"It
wasn't all that long. And there was an earthquake, after all."
"Joking apart, John, what do you make of
it all?" "You've read my report."
"Yes. But I sort of gained the
impression that you were too scared, still, to write what you really
thought."
"Could be. Could be. You know, I keep thinking of the
Lucifer Arms as a microcosm of the universe in which we live, our space-time
continuum. What would have happened if the Guru William had succeeded in
bursting the bubble of what we think of as reality, just as I burst that bubble
of inflated plastic?"
"I
can't see us all going whooshing out into nothingness."
"Can't
you? The guru's body was never found, you know, or the bodies of about a
hundred of his disciples. Or that of young Pahvani.
They could have fallen into one of the Assures that
opened and closed again—but it's odd that, apart from the utterly missing
people, there were no casualties." He slowly filled and lit his pipe. "An unfortunate business. Clavering and his people will
have to leave the Rim, of course. Billinghurst's a vindictive bastard. Drongo
Kane'll get away scot free. He broke no Federation laws, and I doubt very much if we could get him extradited to any of our
worlds."
"And
the Confederacy," she said, "will be confirmed in its archaic
puritanism insofar as the permissive practices of the Federated planets are
concerned."
"I hope that you're right," he
said. "I sincerely hope that you're right." She looked at him in some
amazement. He laughed. "No, I'm not becoming a wowser in my old age. It's
just that I've been made to realize that even if what you do doesn't much
matter, where
you do it does.
"To
use the so-called mind-expanding drugs out here, on the Rim, is like smoking
over a powder barrel!"
"The sort of thing you'd do," she
jeered, but without malice.
"But only tobacco," he told her, puffing away con-
tentedly on his pipe. "But only tobacco." '
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