Ride the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

  Grimes got up from his chair and began to pace back and forth. He managed to light his pipe—on the run, as it were—before Su Lin could do it for him.

  He said, “I don’t like being manipulated.”

  “You haven’t been manipulated all the time,” she told him.

  “And this nasty, mercenary streak you accuse me of having. . . .”

  “What shipowner doesn’t have one?”

  “Some more than others. More than me.”

  “So you say.” Her smile robbed the words of offense.

  It did more than that, making her look very attractive. And, he knew now, there was no longer that master-servant relationship to deter him from entering into a relationship with her. But would she now renew the offer that she had made when, so far as he then knew, she was no more than a serving girl?

  She was still smiling at him, on her feet and facing him. She did not break away when he took her in his arms—but she did not put her own arms about him. She did not turn her lips away from his—but she did not open them.

  When the kiss—such as it was—was over she said, “As well as being mercenary, you’re snobbish. You had the offer, your first day here, and you turned it down. And now that you know that there’s no great social gulf yawning between us you think that we’ll fall happily into bed together.”

  Now Grimes was really wanting her. He kissed her again, brutally, and, holding her to him, walked her backwards into the bedroom. He threw her on to the couch. She sprawled there, looking up at him. And was that contempt in her expression—or pity?

  She said, “When I first met you, you were making the rules. Now I’m making them. You can have me when I’m ready—and not before. Once you’ve proven yourself to be as good a man as Governor Wibberley was. . . .”

  “You mean that he and you. . . .”

  “Try to get your mind off sex, John. He was a good man, a religious man. A Bible-basher you’d call him—but, unlike so many Christians, he really tried to live according to his faith, to comfort and succor the helpless. Even agnostics such as myself could appreciate him, to say nothing of the mess of Anarchists, Confucianists, Buddhists and the Odd Gods alone know what on this planet. We—the various undergrounds and PAT—hope that you will carry on his work, the restoration of hope and dignity to the refugee peoples, the suppression of Bardon’s rackets. . . .”

  “Get off your soap box, Su,” said Grimes tiredly. “I’m here to do a job and I’ll do it to the best of my ability. I’ll expect some pay for my work—after all, I have that nasty, mercenary streak in me—but, if all goes well, I’ll arrange it myself. It won’t cost PAT anything. It won’t cost you anything. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to go to bed. By myself.”

  “I certainly do not intend otherwise.”

  She got up from the bed and walked slowly out of the room.

  “Call me at the usual time,” Grimes called after her.

  Chapter 17

  The next day Grimes had been looking forward to taking a test flight in Fat Susie but, while he was having his breakfast, Jaconelli brought him a list of the day’s appointments. He was to be host at a luncheon, he learned, for Madam President and her ministers. After this he was to accompany her to the official opening of the new Handicrafts Center just outside Libertad. After that he was free—for what little remained of the day.

  He spent the forenoon familiarizing himself with the Residence, guided by Wong Lee and with Su Lin and Lieutenant Smith in attendance. It was one of those buildings that seemed to have just happened, additional rooms and facilities being tacked on to an originally quite small house as required. The servants’ quarters were underground, as was the kitchen. Grimes lingered here, using a pair of long chopsticks handed to him by the chef to sample tidbits from various cooking utensils. He did some more nibbling during his tour of the storerooms.

  There were the vaults in which the records were stored—or had been stored. Filing cabinets were empty and the only information available from the read-out screens was purely domestic—food, light, heating and wages bills for the past decade and the like. Grimes found details of the last official luncheon given by his predecessor. Wibberley had been English and had fed his guests on pea soup, Dover sole (were there sole in Liberia’s seas?), steak and kidney pie, trifle and a cheese board featuring Stilton, Wensleydale and cheddar. He wondered how the New Cantonese kitchen staff had coped with this feast. To judge by the two breakfasts that he had already enjoyed they had probably made a very good job of it—just as they would almost certainly do with the menu that he had ordered.

  He returned to his quarters to change from shirt and slacks into an informally formal lightweight suit. Su Lin. the dutiful handmaiden, assisted him unnecessarily to dress. She walked with him out to the portico where, with Jaconelli and the ADC, he waited to receive the guests.

  Bardon, wearing a dark blue civilian suit that was almost a uniform, rode in with Estrelita O’Higgins in the presidential limousine. The President was in superbly cut blue denim with scarlet touches. The ministers and their companions were similarly clad. Before luncheon there were drinks in one of the big reception rooms.

  The Colonel cornered Grimes while the Governor was graciously circulating among the guests.

  He said abruptly, “I hear that my Lieutenant Duggin isn’t good enough for you, Your Excellency.”

  “Frankly, Colonel, he isn’t,” said Grimes. “In any case I’d already made my own appointment of an atmosphere pilot.”

  “I was hoping, Your Excellency,” said Bardon, “that you, with a military rather than an academic background, would be more cooperative with the Garrison than the late Governor Wibberley was.”

  “A military background, Colonel? Piracy, you mean?”

  “I was referring to your Survey Service career, Your Excellency.”

  “In the Survey Service, Colonel, we expected a reasonably high standard of ship-handling competence.”

  “Ship-handling, sir? An airship is not a spaceship.”

  “One did not need to be an airshipman to know that Duggin was not very competent.”

  “You are entitled to your opinion, Your Excellency.” Grimes wandered on, chatting with the other guests. Most of them, inevitably, asked him what he thought of Liberia and then, before he could make reply, told him what he should think.

  And then the sonorous booming of a gong announced that luncheon was about to be served.

  Grimes enjoyed the meal in spite of the company; he did not like fat cats and most of the guests could be categorized as such. The Residence chef and his assistants had done very well. Local Crustacea, served simply with a melted butter dressing, could almost have been the yabbies that Grimes remembered from his younger days in Australia. The Colonial Goose—leg of hogget, well-spiced—could not have been better. The tropical fruit salad, its components marinated in wine, was a suitable conclusion to the meal. There should have been kangaroo tail soup for the first course but the necessary ingredients had not been available on this planet.

  It was Estrelita O’Higgins, sitting at Grimes’s right, who brought the luncheon party to a close.

  “Your Excellency, they will be waiting for us at the Handicrafts Center. Oh, there is no real hurry.” She smiled. “Everybody of any importance is here. Nonetheless, we have our obligations. Our duties.”

  She asked for more coffee.

  Finally the party made its collective way to the waiting cars. Grimes rode in his own official vehicle, accompanied by his ADC and with two soldiers sitting forward, with the chauffeur. Estrelita O’Higgins led the motorcade.

  The new Handicrafts Center was a big, single-storied hall, one of those buildings that manage to show signs of dilapidation even before their completion. It looked like an unprosperous factory. Outside its main entrance, which was bedecked with wilted flowers, was a small crowd. There was a band which, at the approach of the official cars, struck up with a selection of Australian folk songs which, at first, Grimes fo
und it hard to recognize; every one of them sounded like a military march. There were the schoolchildren with their little flags. Most of them, Grimes noted, were New Cantonese. There were older people—teachers?—and they, too, were mainly representative of the refugee population.

  The cars stopped.

  Estrelita O’Higgins, squired by Colonel Bardon, got out of hers. There was some not very enthusiastic flag waving and a ragged cheer. Grimes, accompanied by his ADC, disembarked. Was it his imagination or was the cheering a little louder?

  The President, accompanied by Grimes, Bardon and the Minister of Industry, mounted a temporary, bunting-covered dais. She spoke into a microphone and her amplified voice came from the speakers mounted on the street lamp standards. She told her listeners how Liberia—that generous host!—had supplied facilities for the fitting education of the children of those to whom refuge had been given.

  God bless the Squire and his relations, thought Grimes, and keep us in our proper stations.

  Manual Silvero, the Minister of Industry, said his piece. He extolled the virtues of labor. A fat, short, greasy man he looked, thought Grimes, as though he had never done an honest day’s work in his life.

  He concluded, “And now it is my honor to request His Excellency, Commodore John Grimes, to open this well-appointed, palatial, even, training establishment.”

  The President led the way down from the dais. Bardon indicated that Grimes should follow her. The others came after them. They walked to the entrance, which had a scarlet, silken ribbon strung across it. A young man—a native Liberian—approached them, bearing a plump, purple cushion. On it was a pair of golden scissors. Bowing, he presented the implement to the Governor.

  Grimes took the scissors, worked them experimentally. They seemed to be in order. He walked the few steps to where the ribbon barred his way to the drab looking interior of the Handicrafts Center.

  And was it accidental or did somebody possess both a sense of humor and an acquaintance with Australian folk music?

  Click go the shears . . .

  Click went the shears and the ribbon parted.

  The children cheered (because they had to) and there was a patter of polite handclapping.

  Chapter 18

  Grimes returned to the Residence.

  Sanchez was waiting for him in the portico.

  He said, as soon as Grimes was out of the car, “I’ve taken her out, Your Excellency . . .”

  Grimes wondered who she was.

  “She handles quite well . . .”

  “Oh. Fat Susie.”

  “Of course. What did you think I meant, sir?”

  “Come with me to my office and tell me about it.” Then, to the ADC, “I’ll not be requiring you any more today, Lieutenant Smith.”

  “Very good, Your Excellency.”

  As soon as Grimes and the pilot were seated Su Lin materialized with a tea tray.

  “Are you switched on?” Grimes asked the girl. He realized, too late, that this would be rather a foolish question, one that would cause the snoopers to wonder, to add two and two to make at least five, if she were not.

  But she was.

  Grimes said, “I want to wander around the city incognito. To see for myself without having to peer through a thick screen of officials, politicians and hangers on.”

  “Like that Caliph of Baghdad,” said Raoul. “Haroun al Raschid or whatever his name was.”

  “Yes.”

  “Governor Wibberley used to do it,” said Su Lin. “I would help him with his disguise. A denim suit, false whiskers. A voice modulator. . . .”

  “But how did he—how do I—get out of this place unobserved?”

  “Wong Lee has a car,” she said. “It’s a van, rather, with the back enclosed. He runs into the city now and again, in the evening. He goes to the Golden Lotus Club. This is one of his recreational nights.”

  “And mine,” said Grimes, suddenly making up his mind. “Su, could you disguise me? Is there a denim suit that would fit? Can you still lay your hands on the other things?”

  “Of course.”

  “And would you come with me, Raoul?”

  “It will be my pleasure, sir.”

  “Then what are we waiting for?”

  He went through to his bedroom and got out of his informal suit. When he was down to his underwear Su Lin came back with a bundle of clothing and other things. She unnecessarily helped him on with the floppy-collared white shirt and the scarlet neckerchief, the blue denim suit, the black, calf-length boots. There was a full-length mirror in the wardrobe door and Grimes admired himself in it. He rather liked this rig—but he was still him.

  The girl told him to sit in a chair, went behind him to carry on the work of disguise. He felt the sticky coldness as some adhesive was dabbed on to his skull behind his ears and then her hands as she firmly pressed the prominent appendages to the fast-setting gum. She came around to stand in front of him and looked down at him.

  She said, “That’s better. Now, open your mouth, please . . .”

  He obeyed.

  Her deft fingers inserted a pad, a tiny cushion covered in slick plastic, into each side of his mouth, under each cheek. He was, of course, aware of their presence although they were not uncomfortable.

  “Now look at yourself,” she told him.

  He got up from the chair and did so. He stared at the chubby-faced stranger who stared back at him from the mirror.

  He asked, “Don’t I get a moustache?”

  His voice was as strange as his appearance, high, squeaky almost. He could see his expression of surprise.

  She told him, “The voice modulator is incorporated in one of the cheek pads. The way you look and the way you sound nobody will recognize you.”

  “Perhaps. But just about everybody on this world has face fungus of some kind.”

  “All right.” She went back to the things that she had laid out on the bed and selected something that looked, at first glance, like a large, hairy insect. “This is self-adhesive,” she told him. “You’ll need a special spray, of course, to get it off.”

  Grimes looked at himself again.

  That heavy moustache suited him, he thought. It was a great pity that his modulated voice did not go with his macho appearance. He supposed, ruefully, that he couldn’t have everything.

  He took the broad-brimmed black hat, with its scarlet ribbon, that the girl handed him, went through to the sitting room. Sanchez got up from the chair in which he had been sitting when Grimes entered. At first Grimes did not recognize him; the tuft of false beard on his chin was an effective disguise.

  Sanchez asked, “Ready, Joachim?”

  “Joachim?”

  “You have to have a name.”

  “Joachim, then,” agreed Grimes. “I rather like it.” He patted his empty pockets. “What do I use for money?”

  Su Lin handed him a well-worn notecase and a small handful of silver and copper coins.

  She said, “At first you’d better let Raoul do the paying, until you get the feel of the local currency.”

  “That shouldn’t be long,” Grimes told her. “As a spaceman I’m used to paying for things, on all sorts of worlds, in all sorts of odd coins and pieces of paper or whatever. And now, as soon as I’ve found my pipe and tobacco, I’ll be ready to go.”

  “You will not smoke a pipe, Joachim,” said Su Lin severely.

  “I’ve seen people smoking pipes in Libertad.”

  “And everybody knows that you smoke one. There were cartoons in the newspapers when your appointment was first announced; in every one of them you had a pipe stuck in your face. Pipe and ears—those are your trademarks.”

  “Mphm.”

  “Here’s a packet of cigars, and a lighter. And now, if both of you will follow me, I’ll take you to the truck.”

  Grimes thought that he had already acquired a fair knowledge of the geography of the Residence; he soon discovered that he had not. There was a door that he had thought was just pa
rt of the paneling in the corridor; beyond this was a corridor of the kind that, aboard a ship, would be called a working alleyway. There was a tradesman’s entrance. Beyond this was the rather shabby van, in the driver’s seat of which the old majordomo was sitting. Wong Lee was not wearing his livery but was looking very dignified in a high-collared suit of black silk, a round black hat of the same material on his head. He ignored Grimes and Sanchez as they clambered into the rear of the vehicle. The door shut automatically as soon as they were aboard. There was a roll of cloth of some kind on which they made themselves comfortable. The only light came from ventilation slits and that—it was all of half an hour after sunset—was fading fast.

  The van started, so smoothly that the passengers were hardly aware of the motion. Raoul offered Grimes a long, thin cigar from his pack, took one himself. The two men smoked in companionable silence, broken eventually by the pilot.

  He said, “Wong Lee’s letting us off on the corner of May Day Street and Tolstoy Avenue. On the outskirts of the city. From there it’ll be easy to get a trishaw. He’ll pick us up on the same corner at 0100 tomorrow.”

  “And how do we fill in the time until then?” asked Grimes.

  “Easily, Joachim. I’ll try to give you an idea of the way in which the refugees are exploited here. We’ll do a tour of the pleasure district.”

  “Combining business with pleasure, as it were,” said Grimes.

  “You can put it that way,” said Raoul coldly, very coldly.

  Grimes remembered, then, what he had been told when the pilot’s shuttle craft brought him down from the orbiting Sobraon to Port Libertad, about the New Dallas girl called Mary Lou who had been one of the entertainers in the Pink Pussy Cat.

  He said, inadequately. “I’m sorry, Raoul.”

  “There’s no need to be, Joachim. I know that you’re not the sort of man who’ll get much pleasure from what we’re going to see. You’re no Holy Joe—as Wibberley was—but you have your principles.”