Chapter 24
GRIMES AND WILLIAMS, dressed in what the mate referred to as their penguin suits, stood at the foot of the ramp watching the Duchess’s air car coming in. With them was Magda Granadu, also wearing a black outfit, high-necked, long-sleeved and with an ankle-length skirt. Its severity was offset by a necklace of opals, by a blazing, fire opal brooch over her left breast and by what was almost a coronet of opals in her piled-high auburn hair.
You can put an inertial drive unit into any sort of body, of any shape at all, and it will fly. If you want speed through the atmosphere streamlining is desirable. If speed is not the main consideration the streamlining may be dispensed with.
The Duchess’s car was not streamlined. It was an airborne replica of one of the more prestigious road vehicles developed during the twentieth century, Old Reckoning, on Earth, even to the silver nymph decorating the square bonnet. It drifted down through the evening air, touched, then rolled the last few meters on its fat-tired wheels. The chauffeur—a grey-faced robot clad in black, high-collared, silver-buttoned livery—got down from the forward compartment, marched stiffly to the three humans and saluted smartly.
“Your transport, gentlemen and lady,” he announced in a metallic voice.
He turned, walked back to the car and opened the rear door. Grimes held back to let Magda enter first but she said, “After you, Captain.”
She followed him in, so as to sit between him and Williams. Williams entered. The robot chauffeur shut the door, returned to his own seat. There was a sheet of glass or some other transparency between him and his passengers. His voice came to him through a concealed speaker. “Gentlepersons, you will find a small bar in the panel before you. There is a single button in the padding, which you may press.”
The car lifted. Grimes, whose mind was a repository of all manner of useless facts, recalled the proud boast of Rolls Royce on one of whose later cars this vehicle had been modeled. The only mechanical sound you can hear is the ticking of the clock on the dashboard. So it was here. The inertial drive is inevitably noisy, yet Grimes and his companions had heard only the faintest mutter as the car came in for its landing. Inside the passenger compartment there was not so much as a whisper to indicate that machinery was in operation.
“A drink, Skipper?” asked Williams.
“Just one,” said Grimes. “We don’t want to arrive doing an impersonation of drunken and dissolute spacemen.”
When the button was pushed a section of panel fell back to form a shelf and to expose a compartment containing a rack of bottles, another one of glasses and a tiny refrigerator with an ice cube tray. There was a box of cigarettes and one of cigarillos. There was even a jar of pipe tobacco. (Grimes had smoked the local weed when on El Dorado, years ago, and enjoyed it.)
Magda dispensed drinks—whisky, genuine Scotch, for herself and Williams, gin and bitters for Grimes. She and Williams lit up cigarillos. Grimes scraped out his pipe and refilled it with the fragrant mixture. The three of them sipped and smoked, watching, through the wide windows, the landscape over which they were flying.
Here, between the spaceport and the city, it was well tamed, given over to agriculture. There were orchards, with orderly rows of fruit trees. There were green fields, and other fields that were seas of golden grain. In these the harvesters were working, great machines whose bodies of polished metal reflected the rays of the setting sun.
Ahead was the city, a small one, a very small one compared to the sprawling warrens found on the majority of the worlds of man. There were towers, only one of which was really tall, and great houses, oddly old-fashioned in appearance, few of which were higher than four stories. Every building stood in what was, in effect, its own private park. Lights were coming on as the sun went down, in windows and along the wide, straight avenues.
The air car was losing altitude. It dropped to the road about a kilometer from the city limits, continued its journey as a wheeled vehicle. The landing was so smooth that had the passengers been sitting with their eyes shut they would never have noticed it. The vehicle sped on with neither noise nor vibration, a great orchard with golden-fruit-laden trees on either side of it. Then it was running along one of the avenues. There was other road traffic, ground cars which, like their own transport, were probably capable of functioning as flying machines.
Williams was enthusiastic. “Look, Skipper! A Mercedes! And isn’t that a Sunbeam?”
That was an open car, with wire wheels and a profusion of highly polished brass. (Or gold, thought Grimes. On this world it could well be the precious metal.) A man in an archaic costume—belted jacket, high, stiff collar with cravat, peaked cap—was at the wheel. By his side sat a woman with a dust coat over her dress, with her hat secured to her head by a filmy scarf tied over it and beneath her chin. Both these persons wore heavy goggles.
The pseudo Rolls Royce slowed, turned off the avenue on to a graveled drive, made its way to a brilliantly illuminated portico beyond which loomed Leckhampton House, grey and solid, a façade in which windows glowed softly like the ranked ports of a great surface ship, a cruise liner perhaps, sliding by in the dusk. The car stopped. The robot chauffeur got out to open the door for his passengers, saluting smartly as they dismounted. In the doorway of the house stood a very proper English butler, pewter-faced, who bowed as he ushered them in. Another robot servitor, slimmer and younger looking than the first, led them to the drawing room, a large apartment illumined by the soft light from gasoliers, that was all gilt and red plush, the walls of which were covered with crimson silk upon which floral designs had been worked in gold.
It was all rather oppressive.
Following the servant Grimes and his companions walked slowly toward the elderly lady seated on a high-backed chair that was almost a throne.
“Your Grace,” said the robot, “may I present Captain John Grimes, of the spaceship Sister Sue, and . . .”
“Cut the cackle, Jenkins,” said the Duchess. “I’ve known Captain Grimes for years. Shove off, will you?”
“Very good, Your Grace.”
The servitor bowed and left.
“And now, John Grimes, let me have a look at you. You’ve changed hardly at all . . .”
“And neither have you, Your Grace,” said Grimes truthfully. He looked at her with admiration. She was dressed formally—and what she was wearing would not have looked out of place at the court of the first Queen Elizabeth, richly brocaded silk over a farthingale (Grimes wondered how she could manage to sit down while wearing such a contraption), ruff and rebato. A diamond choker was about her neck. There were more diamonds, a not so small coronet, decorating the obvious auburn wig that she was wearing over her own hair.
“Introduce me to the young lady and the young gentleman, John.”
“Your Grace,” said Grimes formally, remembering the style used by the rudely dismissed under butler or whatever he was, “may I present Miss Magda Granadu, my Catering Officer and Purser? And Mr. William Williams, my Chief Officer?”
“So you’re the commissioned cook, Magda,” cackled the old lady. “By the looks of John you ain’t starving him. And you’re his mate, Billy, somebody to hold his hand when he gets into a scrape. Do you still get into scrapes, John boy?”
“Now and again,” admitted Grimes.
Then there were the others to meet—in Grimes’ case to meet again. There was the Baron Takada, his obesity covered with antique evening finery, white tie and tails, the scarlet ribbon of some order diagonally across his snowy shirtfront with its black pearl studs. There was the Hereditary Chief Lobenga, tall and muscular, darkly handsome, in a high-collared, gold-braided, white uniform. There was his wife, the Lady Eulalia, her glistening black hair elaborately coiled above her face with its creamy skin, the nose too aquiline for mere prettiness, the mouth a wide, scarlet slash. Through the pale translucence of her simple gown her body gleamed rosily.
An under butler circulated with a tray of drinks. Grimes did not have to state his preference for pink gin; it was served to him automatically.
“You remember my tastes, Your Grace,” he said.
“Indeed I do, John-boy. For drinks and for . . .”
The butler made a stately entrance into the room.
“The Princess Marlene von Stolzberg,” he announced. “Commodore the Baron Kane, El Doradan Navy. The Baroness Michelle d’Estang . . .”
So she had come to see him after all, thought Grimes. It was a pity that Mayhew had not been able to warn him. She had put on weight, he thought, and remembered regretfully the slim, golden girl whom he had seen, skimming over Lake Bluewater, on the occasion of his first landing on this world. And yet she was more beautiful than she had seemed when he had talked to her by telephone. Like Eulalia she was simply but expensively attired in a robe of smoky spider silk—but her dress was definitely opaque.
She recognized his presence with a distant nod. He bowed to her with deliberate stiffness.
But Drongo Kane was cordial enough. Like Grimes and Williams he was in civilian evening wear; unlike them he gave no impression of being dressed up for the occasion. His suit looked as though it had been slept in. His black bow tie, obviously of the clip-on variety, was askew.
He seized Grimes’ hand in a meaty paw, almost shouted, “Grimes, me old cobber! Welcome aboard!”
“This happens to be my party, Baron, in my house,” said the Duchess coldly.
“But I am the naval authority on this planet, Duchess,” Kane told her cheerfully. Then, to Grimes, “Let by-gones be by-gones is my motto. I’ve even brought Micky along to see you again.”
“I brought myself,” snapped the Baroness. She looked at Grimes and he at her. Her dress was modeled on the Greek chiton—but of the style worn by artisans, warriors and slaves. It was short, very short, secured at the left shoulder by a brooch that was a huge diamond surrounded by smaller stones. Her arms and her right shoulder were bare. Her gleaming, auburn hair was braided into a coronet in which precious stones reflected, almost dazzlingly, the gaslight. Her fine features were illumined by a sudden smile. “John, it’s good to see you!”
“And it’s good to see you . . .” How should one address a Baroness? he wondered. “Your Excellency . . .”
“Not here,” she told him. “That was for when I was off planet, in my own ship, with ambassadorial status. Call me Michelle.” She glared at her husband as she added, “But don’t call me Micky!”
Grimes would have liked to have talked longer with her but Drongo Kane was an inhibiting influence. So he circulated. He tried to make conversation with the Princess Marlene but it was heavy going. And then he was unable to escape from Baron Takada who evinced a keen interest, too keen an interest, in the financial aspects of shipowning.
Then the Robot butler announced in sonorous tones, “Your Grace, dinner is served.”
Grimes realized that he was supposed to escort the Duchess in to the dining room. She put her hand lightly into the crook of his left elbow, indicated that they should follow the stately mechanical servitor. They marched slowly into the dining room, a huge apartment the walls of which were covered with broad-striped paper in black and white. At the head of the table, covered with a snowy-white cloth on which the array of golden cutlery and crystal glassware glittered, was the tall-backed chair, of ebony, which was obviously Her Grace’s. The illumination, from massed candles in golden holders, was soft but adequate.
The Duchess seated, Grimes stood behind his chair, at her right, waiting for the other ladies to take their places. Opposite him was Marlene. Below her was Baron Takada, then the Lady Eulalia, then Hereditary Chief Lobenga. Williams was at the foot of the table. On Grimes’ right was Michelle, with Drongo Kane below her, then Magda.
There was no scarcity of robot footmen. In a very short time all the guests were seated, a pale, dry sherry was being poured into the first of the glasses, and plates, of fine gold-trimmed porcelain, were set down at each plate. Grimes looked at his curiously. Surely this could not be a rose, a pink rose? But it was not, of course. It was smoked salmon, sliced very thinly and arranged in convincing simulation of petals.
He raised his glass to the Duchess and said, “Your very good health, Your Grace.”
“Down the hatch, Skipper!” she cackled in reply. Across the table the Princess looked disapprovingly both at her hostess and at that lady’s guest.
Course followed course, each one beautifully cooked and served. English cookery is often sneered at but at its best it is superb. There was a clear oxtail soup, followed by grilled trout, followed by game pie. There was a huge roast of beef, wheeled around on a trolley and carved to each diner’s requirements. (By this time Grimes was beginning to wonder if he would be able to find any room for some of that noble Stilton cheese he had noticed on the ebony sideboard.) There was tipsy cake, with thick cream. And there were the wines—the sherry, obviously imported, a hock that was a product of the Count Vitelli’s vineyards and none the worse for that. With the game pie came a delightfully smooth claret, and with the beef a heavier but equally smooth Burgundy. Vitelli Spumante accompanied the sweet.
After all that Grimes could manage only a token sliver of the delicious Stilton. He looked down the table a little enviously at Williams, who was piling the creamy, marbled delicacy high on to crackers and conveying them enthusiastically to his mouth.
During the meal the conversation had been pleasant and interesting—and at times, insofar as Grimes was concerned, a little embarrassing. The Baroness told a few stories of their voyagings together in The Far Traveler. “If I had let her,” she said, “Big Sister—that was the name that we had for the yacht’s pilot-computer—would have spoiled John as much as you’ve been spoiling him tonight. She even made pipe tobacco for him; I think she used dried lettuce leaves for the main ingredient . . .”
“It was still a good smoke,” said Grimes.
“Talking of smoking,” said the Duchess, “shall we leave the gentlemen to their port wine and cigars?”
All rose when she did. She was escorted from the dining room by her majordomo, the other ladies by robot footmen.
The gentlemen resumed their seats.