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Chapter 25

So the bait had been noticed. Would Pastor Coffin bite? Grimes had little doubt he would do so, and no doubt at all that the pastor would find Shirl, Darleen and Seiko an impossibly hard mouthful to swallow. As long as there was an incident, as long as Grimes could scream that he and his people, respectable, law-abiding merchant spacepersons, had been assaulted by the Salemites there would be an excuse for Survey Service intervention. Damien had half-promised that the destroyer Pollux would be loafing around in the vicinity of New Salem, doing something or other, during the period of Grimes' stay on the planet.

After spending a rather lazy day Grimes and the three girls emerged from the ship under the cover of darkness and followed their usual route to the beach. It was another brightly starlit night but this time they were not followed. When Grimes got himself entangled in a particularly tenacious bush he envied the pastor's men. They—assuming that they would be at the shore to watch the horrid goings-on—would have made their way to the beach by the coast road.

They were waiting there. Grimes, by himself, would not have been aware of their presence but Shirl and Darleen, with their super-sharp hearing, were.

"Do we do the same as last night, John?" whispered Shirl.

"No," said Grimes firmly. (Tonight's audio-visual tapes would have to be produced as evidence at the inquiry into the almost inevitable incident.) "No. Just a meeting, a conference with the silkies."

"But can't we have a swim, even?" asked Darleen.

"All right, all right. Have your swim." (There was very few worlds—although Salem was one of them—where the spectacle of attractive naked women splashing in the sea would evoke so much as a raised eyebrow.)

Grimes set up the recorder. Seiko stripped and waded out into the water, deeper and deeper, until she was lost to sight. Shirl and Darleen got out of their coveralls, ran down to the sea, fell full length and began striking out in a sparkling flurry of phosphorescence. Grimes lit his pipe. He thought that he heard a faint rustling in the bushes inland from the beach but could not be sure. He was far from being afraid but was beginning to feel distinctly uneasy.

Shirl and Darleen emerged from the water, joined him where he sat. Shirl produced a packet of cigarillos from a pocket in her coveralls. Both girls lit up. Neither made any attempt to get dressed. Grimes remarked upon this.

"The air is quite warm," said Shirl. "We shall let it dry us."

"Last night," said Darleen, "we were very uncomfortable when we put on our clothes over wet skins."

"Suit yourself," said Grimes.

And why should he be the only one dressed? Because all that was happening was being recorded, that was why. Because friends as well as enemies in the Survey Service would laugh themselves sick when, at the inquiry, the tapes were played, with an audio-visual recording of Grimes enjoying a roll in the hay (or a roll on the sand) with two of his junior officers. Too, why should he give those unseen watchers an even better show than the one that they were already enjoying?

Seiko waded out from the sea, dripping phosphorescence. She was followed by six big silkies. The same ones as the previous night? Grimes couldn't tell. Apart from differences in size and pelt coloration they all looked the same to him.

The sea-beasts disposed themselves in a semicircle, facing the humans and the pseudo-human and the audio-visual recorder. They talked and sang, and Shirl, Darleen and Seiko replied to them in kind. Now and again Shirl would interpret for Grimes' benefit.

The silkies wanted just one thing, to be left alone. They admitted that not all humans were as bad, from their viewpoint, as the colonists. They admitted that exchanges of knowledge and of information might be advantageous but, essentially, they had very good reason not to trust humans.

"Not even you, John," said Shirl sadly. "We— Darleen and myself and Seiko—have been prepared to cast aside the artificial trappings of so-called civilization. You have not. We have made naked contact with the silkies. You have not. And you did not approve, in your heart of hearts, when we did . . . ."

"I'm keeping my trousers on," growled Grimes. "Tonight especially."

At last the conference was over. Again Seiko stood on that sea-rounded rock; again the silkies made their obeisance, one by one gently placing a flipper on her slim feet. Then they were gone, back into the sea.

The three women began to get into their coveralls—and from the bushes, armed with staves and clubs, poured Coffin's men.

 

The women were caught at a disadvantage, hall into and half out of their coveralls. Too, at first, they paid overmuch heed to Grimes' admonition not to fight back too viciously. And Seiko, upon whom Grimes had been relying, was one of the first casualties. The butt of a long stave struck her fair and square upon her vulnerable navel, where her ON/OFF switch was situated. She did not freeze into complete immobility—the switch had not been fully actuated—but thereafter was able to struggle only feebly. By this time both Shirl and Darleen had been struck about their heads with heavy clubs, as had been Grimes himself. After that he had only confused recollections of the struggle. He was flung violently to the sand, face down, and got his mouth and his eyes full of grit. A heavy boot on the small of his back pinned him in this supine position. His wrists were yanked up and back, pulled together by rough rope that broke the skin. Despite his kicking his ankles were bound.

He heard Coffin's voice, an unpleasant combination of smugness and harshness.

"We have them. The witch and her three disciples."

"But one of them is the outworld captain, pastor."

"It matters not. Captains may still be sinners and blasphemers, worshippers of false gods. His rank—such as it is—matters not. He will stand trial with the witch and the two shameless trollops."

Grimes felt hands lifting him. He was dropped on to a hard wooden surface. His nose began to bleed. Somebody was dropped beside him, and then two other bodies on top of him. He heard the squeaking of not-very-well greased axles and felt the jolts as the unsprung vehicle, whatever it was, was pulled (by manpower, he supposed) along the rough coast road. He managed to lift and to turn his head so that his painfully bruised nose was no longer in contact with the floorboards.

He could speak now, although it required a great effort.

"Seiko . . . "

"Yes . . . " her voice came at last, weak, barely audible.

"You're the strongest of us. Can you break your bonds?"

"No . . . I have . . . lost . . . my strength. They . . . hit me. You know . . . where."

"You should not have told us not to fight back," said Shirl.

"Where . . . are they taking us?" asked Darleen.

To hell in a handcart, thought Grimes but did not say it.

"What will they do to us?" asked Shirl.

"Throw us into jail, I suppose," said Grimes. "But not to worry. Mr. Steerforth will bail us out." (And how much will that cost? he wondered, the mercenary side of him coming to the surface.)

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Framed