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Chapter 6




ARTICLES WERE OPENED.

Grimes, having done all the autographing required of him in his capacity as captain, stood behind the counter in the shipping office, watching his officers affixing their signatures to the agreement while the shipping master checked their qualifications and last discharges, if any.

Billy Williams was the first to sign. He said cheerfully, “I’ll get back on board, Skipper. They should be just about ready to start the loading.”

Magda Granadu signed and followed the mate out of the office, Mr. Crumley, a frail, white-bearded, bald-headed old man, produced one of the old-fashioned certificates bound in plastic rather than in flexisteel and a discharge book held together with adhesive tape.

“You’ll find that times have changed since you were Chief of the Far Centaurus, Mr. Crumley,” said the shipping master cheerfully.

“A ship’s a ship and engines are engines, aren’t they?” grumbled the ancient spaceman.

His three juniors signed. They possessed neither certificates nor discharge books, only diplomas from the Port Southern College of Technology. One of them, Denning, had been employed by Yosarian Robotics, the other two, Singh and Paulus, by the Intracity Transit Corporation. They were squat, swarthy, youngish men who could almost have been triplets—competent mechanics, thought Grimes snobbishly, rather than officers.

Malleson, looking every inch the grey-haired, untidy, stooping, absent-minded professor, signed. His two juniors, tall young men, briskly competent, with fashionably shaven heads and heavily black-rimmed spectacles, signed.

Old Mr. Stewart, the electronic communications officer, signed. His certificate and discharge book were as antique as Mr. Crumley’s. Shave his head, thought Grimes, and stick the hair on his chin and he’d be old Crumley’s double . . .

“You don’t have a doctor, Captain?” asked the shipping master.

“I’ve got three,” said Grimes. “Ph.Ds.”

“Ha ha. But you have tried to find one, haven’t you? A medical doctor, I mean. So I’ll issue you a permit to sanction your lifting off undermanned. You realize, of course, that you’ll have to pay your crew an extra ten credits each a day in lieu of medical services . . . Cheer up, Captain. You’ll be getting it too.”

“But I’ll be paying it,” growled Grimes. “Out of one pocket and into the other.”

“Ha ha! Of course. It’s not very often that I get masters who are also owners in here. In fact the only one before you was a Captain Kane. I don’t suppose you’ve ever run across him.” Grimes said nothing and the shipping master, who was checking the entries in the Articles of Agreement, did not see his expression. “H’m. We were talking of permits, weren’t we? I take it that you still haven’t been able to find a third mate . . . And where is your second mate, by the way?”

“She was told what time she was to be here,” said Grimes.

“She?” echoed the shipping master, looking at the preliminary crew list. “Oh. The Green Hornet. But I thought that she was with the Commission.”

“She was.”

“And now you’ve got her. Do me a favor, will you, Captain. Don’t bring her back to Port Southern. I’ll never forget the fuss she kicked up when she was paid off from Delta Crucis, threatening to sue the Commission, the Department of Interstellar Shipping and the Odd Gods of the Galaxy alone know who else! To begin with she was screaming wrongful dismissal—but, of course she wasn’t being dismissed but transferred. To Epsilon Scorpii. Then there was a mistake in her pay sheet—twenty cents, but you’d have thought it was twenty thousand credits. And—”

Grimes looked at his watch.

“I certainly wish that I didn’t have to have her,” he said. “But I have to. Where is the bitch?”

“Do you know where she’s staying?”

“Some place called The Rusty Rocket.”

“Cheap,” sneered the shipping master. “And nasty. You can use my phone, Captain, to check up on her. They might know where she’s got to.”

He showed Grimes through to his private office, seated him at the desk. He told Grimes the number to punch. The screen came alive and a sour-faced blonde looked out at them.

“The Rusty Rocket?” asked Grimes.

“This certainly ain’t The Polished Projectile. Waddya want?”

“Is a Ms. Connellan staying with you?”

“She was. She won’t be again. Ever.”

“Where is she now?”

“In the right place for her. Jail. I hope they throw away the key.”

After a little prodding Grimes got the story. The previous night there had been a nasty brawl in the barroom of The Rusty Rocket, the focus of which had been Kate Connellan. There had been damage, injuries. The police had been called. Arrests had been made.

Grimes thanked the woman and disconnected.

He said to the shipping master, “Now I suppose I’ll have to pay her fine or bail or whatever.” He sighed. “More expense.”

“I’m afraid that’s out of the question, Captain. In the old days the police authorities were only too pleased to get rid of drunken spacers as soon as possible—but not anymore. Not since the new Commissioner was appointed. Now any spacer who makes a nuisance of himself—or herself—is given a stiff sentence and has to serve it. Every minute of it.”

Grimes sighed again. He owed no loyalty to the troublesome Ms. Connellan, he told himself. Had her name been on his Articles she would have been one of his people—but she had not yet signed.

He said hopefully, “I see no reason why I shouldn’t lift off with only the mate and myself as control-room watchkeepers. After all, in Little Sister there was only me. I was the cook and the captain bold . . .”

“Regulations,” the shipping master told him. “A vessel of Little Sister’s tonnage is classified as a spaceyacht, even though she may be gainfully employed. Your Epsilon Scorpii—sorry, Sister Sue—is a ship. The manning scale calls for a master and three mates. I can issue a permit to allow you to lift with only two mates. But you may not, repeat not, lift with only one qualified control-room officer in addition to yourself.”

“And I must lift on time,” muttered Grimes. “If I don’t the penalty clauses in the charter party will beggar me.” He filled and lit his pipe, puffed furiously. “Do you think that if I made a personal appeal to this Police Commissioner of yours, putting all my cards on the table, it might help?”

“It might,” said the shipping master. “It might—but the Commissioner has a down on spacers. Your guild has already lodged complaints—which have been ignored. Still, you can try. As long as you watch your language you should be able to stay out of jail.”

Grimes borrowed the telephone again and ordered a cab.

In a short time he was on his way from the spaceport to the city.

***

Like most of the other buildings in Port Southern, that housing Police Headquarters was a pyramid. But it was not a tall, graceful one, all gleaming metal and glittering glass, but squat and ugly. The material used for its construction looked like dark grey stone although it was probably some plastic.

Grimes walked in through the frowning main entrance, approached a desk behind which a heavily built man, with silver sergeant’s stripes on the sleeves of his severe black uniform, was seated.

“Your business, citizen?” asked the police officer.

“I wish to see the Commissioner.”

“Your name, citizen?”

“Grimes,” said Grimes. “Captain Grimes.”

“A spacer, eh? The Commissioner doesn’t like spacers.” The sergeant laughed briefly. “In fact . . .”

A bell chimed softly from the telephone set on the desk. A female voice—that of a secretary, Grimes supposed, although it was oddly familiar—said, “Send Captain Grimes up, sergeant.”

The policeman raised his heavy eyebrows in surprise. He growled, “So the Commissioner will see you. What have you got that all the other spacers haven’t? The elevators are over there, citizen. The Commissioner’s office is on the top floor.” He laughed again. “The apex of our pyramid.”

Grimes thanked the man, walked to the bank of elevators. As he approached the indicator, lights showed that a cage was descending. The door opened as he got to it. There was nobody inside. The door closed again as soon as he had entered and the lift started to rise before he could touch the button of his choice.

Service, he thought. With a smile?

The car stopped gently. The door opened. Grimes stepped out. The walls of the apex of the police pyramid were all glass, overhead automatically polarized to reduce the glare of the sun. There were elaborate arrays of screens, some of which displayed ever-changing pictures while in others numerals flickered into and out of being. There was a big desk behind which was sitting a woman, a large woman in black and silver uniform with what looked like commodore’s braid on her shoulderboards.

She looked at Grimes. Grimes looked at her. Beneath her glossy brown hair, short cut, the face was too strong for prettiness, the cheekbones pronounced, the pale-lipped mouth wide over rather too much jaw.

“Una . . .” he said softly. “Long time no see.”

“Commissioner Freeman,” she corrected him harshly. “I knew, of course, that you were on this planet but I was able, quite successfully, to fight down the urge to renew our old . . . acquaintanceship. But now that you have come to see me I let my curiosity get the better of me.

“And what do you want? Make it quick. I’m a busy woman.”

“I didn’t know that you were the Police Commissioner here, Una. When did you leave the Corps of Sky Marshals? How . . .”

“This isn’t a social call, Grimes. What do you want?

“Your men, Una . . .” She glared at him. He started again. “Your men, Commissioner Freeman, arrested one of my officers. I’d like her back. I’m willing to pay her fine.” He added hastily, “Within reason, of course.”

“One of your officers, Grimes? The only spacer at present in our cells is a known troublemaker, a Kate Connellan, whose most recent employment was with the Interstellar Transport Commission. She faces charges of assaulting a police officer, occasioning bodily harm. There are three such charges. Also to be considered, and compensated for, is the damage done to the uniforms of those officers. There are five charges of assaulting civilians. There are charges of violent and abusive behavior. There are charges of damage to property—mainly furniture and fittings of The Rusty Rocket. Need I go on?”

“It seems enough to be going on with,” admitted Grimes glumly.

“But how is it that you can claim that this person is one of your officers, Captain Grimes?”

“I opened Articles today, Commissioner Freeman. Ms. Connellan was supposed to sign on as second mate. I’ll be frank. She wouldn’t have been my choice but she was the only qualified officer available.”

“Still the male chauvinist pig, Grimes, aren’t you?”

“Her sex has nothing to do with my reluctance to employ her. And, in any case, I must have her if I’m to lift off on time.”

“You should have kept that Little Sister of yours. To judge from my experiences while under your command—ha, ha!—a glorified lifeboat is just about the limit of your capabilities. But you had to have a big ship, didn’t you? Epsilon Scorpii—or Sister Sue, as you’ve renamed her. Who was Sue, by the way?”

“Just a girl,” said Grimes.

“Spoken like a true male chauvinist pig. I hope that she has happier memories of you than I have. Even now I can’t force myself to eat baked beans. And as for bicycles . . .”

“You can’t blame me for either,” said Grimes hotly.

“Can’t I? Well, after that most peculiar mess that you got me into I was allergic to space as well as to beans and bicycles. I resigned from the Corps—although I’m still supposed to be on their reserve list. And I’ve found that useful. Sky Marshals poll heavy Gs with most of the planetary police forces.”

“So when you came here you started at the top,” said Grimes as nastily as he dared.

“Not at the top, although my having been a Sky Marshal entitled me to inspector’s rank. After that my promotion was strictly on merit.”

“Local girl makes good,” said Grimes.

“Do you want to be arrested too? I can soon think of a few charges. Insulting behavior to a police officer for a start . . .”

“I can see that I’m wasting my time,” said Grimes. He turned to walk back to the transparent tube in the center of the room that housed the elevator.

“Hold it, Grimes!”

Grimes halted in mid-stride, turned to face Una Freeman.

“Yes, Commissioner?”

“I am disposed to be lenient. Not to you, Captain, but to Ms. Connellan. I have heard accounts of what actually happened at The Rusty Rocket. She was provoked. You aren’t the only male chauvinist pig around, you know. It is unfortunate that she attacked my officers after dealing with those . . . men who had been taunting her. Nonetheless she is not a very nice person. I shall be happy if she is removed from this planet.

“Pay her fines to the desk sergeant on your way out and she will be released to your custody. Bear in mind that you will be responsible for her good conduct for the remainder of her stay on this world.”

“Thank you,” said Grimes.

She laughed harshly and asked, “Will you still thank me after you’ve been cooped up in a ship with The Green Hornet for a few weeks? Am I doing you a good turn, Grimes? Think that if you want. But I sincerely hope that by the time you get to Earth you’ll have changed your tiny mind!”

Grimes stood there silently, looking at her. He remembered how things had been between them before everything had turned sour. He remembered the long weeks in the accommodation dome of that unmanned beacon station, the continual bickerings, the monotonous diet of baked beans, with which delicacy the emergency food stores had been fantastically well stocked.

It was a pity that things had gone so badly wrong. He, for a while at least, had loved her after his fashion. She had reciprocated. But when the beacon tender, making its leisurely rounds, had finally arrived to pick them up they were no longer on speaking terms.

Even so . . .

“Thank you,” he said again.

“For nothing,” she growled and then, ignoring him, began to study the papers on her desk.

She ignored his good bye as he left her.







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Framed