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Chapter 10

The next morning Grimes was awakened from his second sleep—he had drifted off again after Maggie had left him—by one of the very plain serving maids who brought him a jug of thick, sweet coffee and informed him that breakfast would be served, in the small dining room, in an hour's time. He had some coffee (he would have preferred tea) and then did all the things that he had to do and attired himself in a plain, black shirt and a kilt in the Astronaut's Guild tartan—black, gold and silver—long, black socks and highly polished, gold-buckled, black shoes. He went out into the passageway and rapped on the door to Maggie's suite.

She called, "Who is it?"

"Me."

"Come in, come in."

He was amused to find that she was attired as he was, although her kilt was shorter and lighter than his and the tartan was the green, blue, brown and gold of the Institute of Life Sciences.

"All we need," he said, "is a piper to precede us into the Archon's presence. I wonder if he'll give us haggis for breakfast."

She laughed. "Knowing you, you'll be wishing that he would. You'll be pining even for Scottish oatmeal. The Lady Ellena's ideas as to what constitutes a meal to start the day do not coincide with yours."

They most certainly did not. Grimes maintained that God had created pigs and hens only so that eggs and bacon could make a regular appearance on the breakfast tables of civilized people. He regarded the little, sweet buns with barely concealed distaste and did no more than sip at the syrupy, sweet coffee.

The Archon was in a subdued mood. The Lady Ellena looked over the sparsely laden table at her husband's guests with obviously spurious sweetness.

"Do have another roll, Commodore. You do not seem to have much of an appetite this morning. Perhaps your party last night was rather too good."

Grimes took another roll. There was nothing else for him to eat.

"The Archon tells me," she went on, almost as though Brasidus were not among those present, "that you know two of the performers at Aristotle's Arena. Those rather odd girls called Shirl and Darleen. The boomerang throwers."

"Yes," admitted Grimes. "We are old acquaintances."

Maggie was trying hard not to laugh.

"You have no doubt already noticed," went on Ellena, "that I have formed a Corps of Amazons. I considered this to be of great importance on a planet such as this which, until recently, had never known women. Women, I decided, must be shown to be able to compete with men in every field, including the military arts and sciences."

"Mphm," grunted Grimes, pulling his pipe and tobacco pouch out from his sporran.

"Would you mind refraining, Commodore? I am allergic to tobacco smoke. Besides, the ancient Hellenes never indulged in tobacco."

Only because they never had the chance to do so, thought Grimes as he put his pipe and pouch away.

"I am interested," she said, "in recruiting instructors from all over the Galaxy. Brasidus has told me that Shirl and Darleen—what peculiar names—are proficient in boxing techniques, especially a sort of foot boxing, and in the use of throwing weapons. Boomerangs."

"The ones that they demonstrated last night," said Grimes, "were only play boomerangs."

"I know, Commodore, I know. After all I, like you, am an Australian. Or, in my own case, was I am now a citizen of New Sparta. But I have no doubt that the young . . . ladies can use hunting boomerangs, killing boomerangs, with effect."

"I've seen them do it," said Grimes.

"You have? You must tell me all about it some time. Meanwhile, I shall be greatly obliged if you will act on my behalf and try to persuade the young ladies to enter my service as instructors."

"Rank and pay?" asked Grimes, always sensitive to such matters.

"I was thinking of making them sergeants," said Ellena.

"No way," said Grimes. "There will have to be much more inducement. As theatrical artistes they are well paid." (Were they?) "They are members of a glamorous profession. I would suggest commissioned rank, lieutenancies at least, with pay to match and specialists' allowances in addition."

"Do you intend to demand a 10 percent agent's commission?" asked Maggie.

He kicked her under the table and she subsided.

Ellena did not appear to have a sense of humor. She said, sourly, "Of course, Commodore, if you wish a recruiting sergeant's bounty, that can be arranged."

He said, "Commander Lazenby was only joking, Lady."

Maggie said, "Was I?"

Ellena looked from one to the other, emitted an exasperated sigh.

"Spacepersons," she said, "consider things funny that we mere planet lubbers do not."

Such as money? thought Grimes.

"Nonetheless," she went on, "I shall be greatly obliged if you will endeavor to persuade Miss Shirl and Miss Darleen to enlist in my Amazon Corps. Need I remind you that you are a shipowner whose vessel makes money trading to and from this world? Perhaps if you could bring yourself to call upon them this very morning . . . ."

"I will come with you, John," said Brasidus, breaking his glum silence.

"But you have forgotten, dear, that there is a Council meeting?"

"I have not, Ellena. But surely such a matter as providing separate toilets for the sexes in the Agora does not demand my presence."

"It does so. The status of women on this world must be elevated and you, as my husband, must make it plain that you think as I do."

"I'd accompany you, John," Maggie told him, "but I'm scheduled to address the Terra-Sparta Foundation on the history and culture of my own planet. I can't very well wriggle out of it."

"I'll organize transport for you, John," said Brasidus.

"It might be better if I did," said Ellena. "It will look better if the Commodore is driven to the Hippolyte by one of my Amazon Guards rather than by one of your musclebound louts."

* * *

So Grimes, in a small two-seater, a hovercar looking even more like an ancient war chariot than the generality of military vehicles on this world, was driven to the Hippolyte Hotel by a hefty, blonde wench who conveyed the impression that she should have been standing up holding reins rather than sitting down grasping a wheel. She brought the vehicle to an abrupt halt outside the main doorway of the hotel, leapt out with a fine display of long, tanned legs and then offered Grimes unneeded assistance out of the car to the pavement. The doorwoman, uniformed in imitation of Ellena's Amazons but squat and flabby (but with real muscles under the flab, thought Grimes) scowled at them.

"What would you, citizens?" she demanded.

"Just get out of the way, citizen, and let us pass."

"But he is a man."

"And I am Lieutenant Phryne, of the Lady Ellena's Amazon Guard, here on the Lady's business."

"And him?"

"The gentleman is Commodore Grimes, also on the Lady's business."

"All right. All right." She muttered to herself, "This is what comes of letting theatricals in here. Turning the place into a spacemen's brothel."

"What was that?" asked Phryne sharply.

"Nothing, Lieutenant, nothing."

"The next time you say nothing say it where I can't hear it."

Grimes looked around the lobby of the hotel with interest. All its walls were decorated with skillfully executed mosaic murals, every one of which depicted stern-looking ladies doing unkind things to members of the male sex. There was Jael, securing the hapless Sisera to the mattress with a hammer and a nail. There was Boadicea, whose scythed chariot wheels were slicing up the Roman legionnaires. There was Jeanne d'Arc, on horseback and in shining armor, in the act of decapitating an English knight with her long, gleaming sword. There was Prime Minister Golda riding in the open turret of an Israeli tank, leading a fire-spitting armored column against a rabble of fleeing Arabs. There was Prime Minister Maggie on the bridge of a battleship whose broadside was hurling destruction of the Argentine fleet. There was . . . There was too much, much too much.

Grimes couldn't help laughing.

"What is the joke, Commodore?" asked Lieutenant Phryne coldly.

"Whoever did these murals," explained Grimes, "might have been a good artist but he . . ." She glared at him. "But she," he corrected himself, "was a lousy historian."

"I do not think so."

"No?" He pointed with the stem of his pipe at the very imaginative depiction of the battle off the Falkland Islands. "To begin with, Mrs. Thatcher wasn't there. She ran things from London. Secondly, by that time battleships had been phased out. The flagship of the British fleet was an aircraft carrier, the other vessels destroyers, frigates and submarines. Thirdly, with the exception of one elderly and unlucky cruiser, the Argentine navy stayed in port."

"You seem to be very well informed," said the Amazon lieutenant coldly.

"I should be. My father is an historical novelist."

"Oh."

The pair of them walked to the reception desk.

"Would Miss Shirl and Miss Darleen be in?" asked Grimes.

"I think so, citizen," replied the slight, quite attractive brunette. "I shall call their suite and ask them to join you in the lobby. Whom shall I say is calling?"

Before Grimes could answer his escort said, "I am Lieutenant Phryne of the Lady Ellena's Amazon Guard. This citizen is Commodore Grimes. The business that we have to discuss is very private and best dealt with in their own quarters."

The girl said something about hotel regulations.

The lieutenant told her that the Lady Ellena was a major shareholder.

The girl said that Shirl and Darleen already had a visitor. A lady, she added.

"Then I shall be outnumbered," said Grimes. "I shall be no threat to anybody's virtue."

Both the receptionist and the lieutenant glared at him.

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Framed