They were dragged into a small office in the spaceport's administration block. Grimes was groggy, hardly able to stand, after the stungun blast. Fenella Pruin had been roughed up considerably by her initial captors. She had been stripped and would have been raped had the guards not intervened in time. Many women would have been cowed, humiliated, on the verge of collapse. She was not. She stood there in the ripped clothing that she had been allowed to resume, almost literally spitting with fury.
She screamed at the fat man in civilian clothes sitting behind the big desk, "I'll sue! I'll make this lousy spaceport pay and pay and pay for what was done to me!"
The fat man raised his eyebrows and smiled. "You will sue? But you are a trespasser. As such you have no rights." He turned to the master of Willy Willy. "Captain Dreeble, do you know these people?"
"I know the man, Colonel Dietrich. He is John Grimes. The last time I met him he was captain of the Federation Survey Service's Seeker. This woman I don't know."
"And what are you doing here on New Venusberg, Mr.
Grimes?"
Grimes found it hard to talk; he still had not regained full control of his faculties. At last he croaked, "I am ownermaster of Little Sister, at present berthed at Port Aphrodite."
"And you, Miss?".
"I am Captain Grimes' passenger. His charterer, rather. And people who can afford to charter spaceships are not to be trifled with. Especially not on this money-hungry mud ball!"
"Your name, please?"
"Prunella Fenn, a citizen of Bronsonia. Our ambassador here will be told of what has happened to me!"
"Bronsonia has no ambassador on New Venusberg, Miss Fenn. I doubt if such a minor colony has representation on any other world."
"The Federation High Commissioner represents us."
"And will the Federation High Commissioner bother his arse about a pair of trespassers? Trespassers, moreover, who went to the trouble of disguising themselves. Trespassers who did not enter the spaceport through the gate; the records have been scanned and nobody of your appearance was seen to enter. In any case you have no identity badges. A search of the perimeter fence has been initiated; we shall soon know how you did get in."
"And much good will it do you!" sneered Fenella Pruin.
"And much good it will do you," replied the colonel mildly. He picked up an elongated sheet of paper that had been protruded through a slot in the surface of his desk. "Ah, the print-out from Port Aphrodite . . . You get quite a write-up, Captain Grimes. Always getting into trouble in the Survey Service, finally resigning after the Discovery mutiny. Yacht-master for the Baroness d'Estang. Ownermaster of Little Sister, which used to be the deep space pinnace carried by the Baroness's Yacht. Quite an expensive little ship, your Little Sister. It says here that she's constructed from an isotope of gold . . . You should have no trouble in paying your fine . . .
"And now, Miss Fenn . . . Winner of the Bronson Bonanza Lottery. Blowing your winnings on a galactic tour, with first stop New Venusberg . . .
"But why, why, WHY should you and Grimes be trespassing on the Port Vulcan landing field?"
Aloysius Dreeble was looking hard at Fenella Pruin. He said, "I think that I may have the answer, Colonel. May I use your telephone?"
"Of course, Captain."
"What number has been allocated to my ship?"
"Seven six three," volunteered one of the uniformed officers.
Dreeble went to the colonel's desk, punched the number on the panel of the handset, picked up the instrument. "Willy Willy? Captain here. Get me the Chief Officer, please." There was a short delay. "Oh, Mr Pelkin . . . Will you go up to my day cabin and look in my bookcase . . . You'll find a bundle of old copies of Star Scandals, you know, that magazine they put out on New Maine . . . Will you bring them across to Colonel Dietrich's office?"
"Star Scandals?" murmured the colonel thoughtfully.
"Star Scandals!" said Fenella Pruin scornfully. "Does somebody here have some take-away food to wrap up?"
"Only crumpet," leered Dreeble.
She glared at him.
"You always seem to be getting into trouble, Captain Grimes, don't you," said the colonel, making conversation. "Weren't you involved in that Bronson Star affair?"
"Bronson Star . . ." repeated Dreeble. "Of course. Syndication . . ."
"I demand that we be released, with apologies!" snapped Fenella Pruin. "Are we to be held here while this disreputable tramp skipper paws through his cheap pornography?"
"There are writers as well as readers!" retorted Dreeble. "And some publications are more disreputable than any tramp ship could ever be!"
Dreeble's mate, a chubby, sullen young man, came in.
He said to his captain, "Your reading matter, sir."
"Put it on the colonel's desk, Mr Pelkin."
The spaceman dropped the bundle of gaudily covered magazines on to the polished surface. Dreeble started to sort through them.
"Ah, here we are! Sex Slaves of Solatia. By Fenella Pruin. Syndicated from The Bronson Star . . . And there's a picture of the distinguished authoress, Colonel."
Dietrich looked from the photograph to Fenella Pruin, then back again. "There is a resemblance . . ." he murmured. "And Fenella Pruin's from Bronsonia, as is Prunella Fenn . . ."
"I always read Fenella Pruin's pieces," said Dreeble. "In fact I am—or was—quite an admirer of hers. She's been in jail at least once, you know. I remember the article she did on the experience. I Was A Prisoner Of The Prince Of Potsdam. Kinky that prince was. Very kinky. Potsdam's one of the Waldegren planets, you know."
"I know," said Dietrich. "I've relatives living there."
"They'll have records on Potsdam, colonel. Fingerprints, retinal patterns, bone structure, the lot. Unless Miss Pruin—or her employers—went to the expense of a complete body sculpture job something is bound to match."
"If Miss Fenn is Miss Pruin," said Dietrich.
"Which of course, I am not," said that lady. "You'd better release us before you make further fools of yourselves."
"Captain Dreeble," said Grimes, sufficiently recovered to shove his oar in, "would be pleased and flattered to have as a passenger his favourite author. Do you think that I'd charter my ship to such a notorious woman?"
"You'd do anything for money, Grimes," said Dreeble. "For all your airs and graces you're no better than Drongo Kane or myself. What sort of rake-off did you get from the Dog Star Line for interfering with our quite legitimate enterprises on Morrowvia?"
"You should know that officers of the Federation Survey Service don't take rake-offs, Dreeble."
"And is that why you're not in the Service now?"
"Gentlemen, gentlemen," admonished Dietrich. "This is my office, not a spaceman's bar." He turned to a woman officer. "Take Miss Fenn—or Miss Pruin—away and record all, and I mean all, her personal data." Then, to one of his male assistants. "Send a Carlottigram to the governor of the Leipzig Jail on New Potsdam, over my name, requesting all available information on Fenella Pruin . . ."
She tried to put up a struggle but stunguns flashed. She was carried out.
"And now, Captain Grimes," said Dietrich, "I must invite you to accept our hospitality until this little matter has been cleared up."
Grimes shrugged. A token resistance would do him no good and would please only the obnoxious Dreeble. He let himself be led out of the office and to a cell. This had a heavily barred door, a hard bed, a water faucet, a drainage hole in the corner for body wastes and a single overhead light strip. It was not luxurious accommodation.
After he was locked in a guard pushed a bundle of magazines through the bars.
"With Captain Dreeble's compliments," he said, grinning.
Grimes wondered if Fenella Pruin would ever be writing about the star scandal in which she and he were now involved.