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Two

Little Sister came to New Venusberg.

Grimes had heard, of course, of the fabulous pleasure planet but this was his first time there. Oddly enough it was also Fenella Pruin's first time on this world. The General Manager of Bronson Star Enterprises, however, had spent a few days on New Venusberg as part of a Trans-Galactic Clippers cruise. Although on holiday he had kept his eyes skinned and his ears flapping. He had gained the impression that there was something unsavoury—something even more unsavoury than was to be expected in a holiday resort of this nature—going on. He had decided that an investigation might well pay off and that Fenella Pruin would be ideally qualified to make it. She was known, of course, by her name and the likenesses of her that accompanied her syndicated material but it was unlikely that anybody would penetrate her disguise or her cover story. To the Venusbergers she would be no more—and no less—than a fortuitously rich bitch, ripe for the plucking.

Little Sister came to New Venusberg.

Grimes was not sorry that the voyage was over. Neither, she told him, was she. She sat with him in the control cab as he eased the pinnace down to Port Aphrodite. Among her many other faults she was a back seat driver. She took him to task for evincing interest in the chalk giantess that, viewed from the air, was a huge advertisement for the major entertainment for sale on New Venusberg. Cut out from the green turf she was, although the two white hillocks that were her breasts, the oval blue ponds that were her eyes must have been artificial. There was golden hair on the head and above the jointure of the thighs (a flowering creeper, Grimes later discovered) and her nipples (marked by a sort of lichen) were pink.

"If you were as interested in me as you seem to be in that thing," said Ms Pruin, "you might be some use."

"I'm getting my bearings," said Grimes.

"If you can't see the spaceport apron and the marker beacons from here," she said, "you should have your eyes examined. Come to that, you've other organs that need attention."

Grimes made a major production of filling and lighting his pipe.

"Must you smoke that vile thing, stinking the ship out?"

Since she herself smoked thin, black cheroots that had the cloying scent of cheap incense Grimes considered her censure unjustified and said so. A snarling match ensued, terminated by a voice from Port Aphrodite Aerospace Control.

"Control to Little Sister. May I remind you that your berth is marked by the three scarlet flashers? It is not, repeat not, between the White Lady's legs." There was a tolerant chuckle from the speaker of the NST transceiver. "Of course, Captain, I realise that you're in a hurry, but even so . . ."

"Little Sister to Control," said Grimes. "Just admiring your scenery."

"You'll find much more to admire once you're down," Control told him.

"And if you can do any more than just admire it," whispered Fenella Pruin viciously, "I, for one, shall be surprised."

"Shut up!" almost shouted Grimes.

"What was that, Little Sister!" demanded Aerospace Control.

"I was just talking to my passenger," said Grimes.

He applied lateral thrust, bringing the golden pinnace directly over the triangle of beacons, vividly bright in spite of the brilliance of the morning sun. He wondered, not for the first time, why Port Captains love to berth incoming vessels in a cramped huddle when there are hectares of spaceport apron vacant. But there was no ground level wind and Little Sister would fit in easily between what looked like one of the bigger TG Clippers and what was obviously a Shaara vessel; they were the only spacefaring people whose ships were almost featureless cones with a domed top. Fenella Pruin asked, "Shaara? Here!"

"Why not?"

"But they're arthropods."

"And they have their vices. Almost human ones. Alcoholism. Gambling. Voyeurism . . ."

"You'd know, of course."

Grimes did know. Not so long before he and his then passenger, the attractive Tamara Haverstock, had been captured by a Shaara Rogue Queen, held prisoner, in humiliating circumstances, aboard the arthropod's ship.

All he said, however, was, "Let me get on with the piloting, will you?"

Little Sister fell slowly, but not too slowly. Grimes dropped her neatly between the two towering hulks. (He could have come down almost to ground level well clear of them and then made a lateral final approach but he couldn't resist showing off.) He saw duty officers watching from control room viewports, waved to them nonchalantly. The underskids kissed the concrete.

The inertial drive—a clangorous cacophony to those outside but reduced by sonic insulation to a mere, irritable grumble inside the hull—fell silent as Grimes switched it off.

"We're here," he said unnecessarily.

"Do you expect me to give you a medal?" she asked.

 

The port officials came out to Little Sister, riding in a large, purple, gold-trimmed ground car. Normally junior officers of the departments concerned would have completed the clearing inwards formalities—initiated by Carlotti deep space radio fourteen days prior to arrival—but although space yachts were not uncommon visitors to New Venusberg golden ones most certainly were. What she lacked in size Little Sister made up for in intrinsic value.

So there was the Chief Collector of Customs in person, accompanied by two micro-skirted, transparently shirted junior customs officers. There was the Port Doctor; there was no need for him actually to sight the clean Bill of Health from Bronsonia—a formality usually carried out by Customs—but Grimes was being given VIP treatment. There was the Port Captain—and his visit was purely social.

Grimes produced refreshments. (The last batch of Scotch that he had cajoled out of the autochef would almost have passed for the real thing and as he had decanted it into bottles with genuine labels he did not think that anybody would know the difference.) He, Prunella Fenn (he must remember always to call her that) and the three men sat around one table in the main cabin while the two Customs girls went through the ship's papers at another.

The Port Captain divided his attention between the ersatz Scotch and Grimes' passenger. He was a big, florid man with a cockatoo crest of white hair, with protuberant, slightly bloodshot (to begin with) blue eyes, a ruddy, bulbous nose and a paunch that his elaborately gold braided white uniform could not minimise. He looked more like the doorman of a brothel than a spaceman, thought Grimes. (But the Port Captain on a world such as Venusberg was little more than the doorman of a brothel.)

The Port Doctor—even though he, too, was dressed in gold-trimmed white—looked like an undertaker. He did not divide his attention but was interested only in the whisky. He picked up the bottle, studied the label, put it down again. He lifted his glass, sipped, raised his heavy black eyebrows, then sipped again. He was the first person ready for a refill.

The Collector of Customs was interested most of all in the financial side of things. What was the actual value of Little Sister! What was the possibility of various solid gold fittings being stolen and sold ashore during her stay in Port Aphrodite? What security arrangements was Grimes implementing?

Unwisely Grimes said that he was prepared to use arms, if necessary, to protect his property and was sternly told that the ship's laser and projectile pistols must be placed under Customs seal and that the two laser cannon—Shaara weapons that had been fitted while Little Sister was temporarily under the command of the Rogue Queen—must be dismantled.

But Grimes was not to worry, the Collector told him. A guard would be on duty at his ramp throughout. (Grimes did worry. He knew who would have to pay for that guard. According to the charter party the charterers would pay all normal port charges and the wages of an armed guard could be—almost certainly would be—argued not to be a normal port charge.)

Finally Prunella Fenn got a little unsteadily to her feet.

"I'm off," she announced. "Jock's going to show me a good time . . ."

Jock? wondered Grimes.

The Port Captain levered himself upright, his hands on the table.

"I'm ready, Prue, soon as you are."

"I'm ready, Jock."

As they left the cabin he already had his arm about her slender waist, his meaty hand on her hip.

The Port Doctor raised his thick eyebrows. The Collector of Customs grinned.

"Well, Captain," he said, "I'd best be off myself. Ingrid and Yuri will put your pistols under seal. As for your cannon—as long as you remove the crystals and put them in bond with the hand guns that will be sufficient. I'll arrange for the Customs guard." He grinned again. "And enjoy your stay. The only thing that's not tolerated here is gunplay."

He left the cabin far more steadily than the Port Captain had done although he had imbibed at least as much.

Grimes excused himself to the doctor, went out of the ship. Using the recessed rungs in the shell plating he clambered up to where the cannon were mounted above the control cab. He removed the crystals. Back inside the hull he handed these to the two Customs girls, who put them into the locker allocated for the purpose together with the pistols. They sealed the door with an adhesive wafer, told him that although it looked flimsy it was not and could be removed only with a special tool.

They accepted a drink—after all, thought Grimes, they had earned theirs, they had been doing all the work—and then left.

"Have ye any more o' that quite tolerable whisky, Captain?" asked the Port Doctor.

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Framed