Ride the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

  “And the dreamsticks. . . . Where do they come from?”

  “One of the main sources of supply used to be the ships owned by Able Enterprises but recently a dreamweed plantation was started by Eduardo Lopez. . . .”

  “The Minister for Immigration?”

  “The same. There was an influx of refugees from Bangla—there was some sort of Holy War there. Dreamweed comes from Bangla. The people there use it but they’re immune to its worst effects. They were recruited to work on the Lopez plantation. The occasional leaves they smoke or chew will not reduce their capacity for hard work.”

  “And the other people, the customers, who get hooked have to work like bastards to feed their habit.”

  “Yes. And burn themselves out. And now, the Texas Whorehouse. Owned by a syndicate of Bardon’s officers. Managed by Lyman Cartwell, of New Dallas origin. Like Chiang Sooey, not yet a citizen but hopeful of becoming one. It’s not at all likely, he’s become a dreamstick addict himself.”

  “I take it that the clipjoints—how much do I owe you, by the way?—that we didn’t patronize are all very much the same insofar as ownership is concerned.”

  “With the exception of the New Shanghai, of course. And I’ll let you have a detailed accounting as soon as possible, sir.”

  “Do that, Raoul.”

  “To date, sir, you’ve just seen the glamorous—glamorous, ha, ha!—side of the exploitation of the refugees. You’ve yet to see the conditions on the farms and plantations—the living quarters, the company stores . . .”

  “It’s time,” said Grimes, “that you and I took Fat Susie out for an airing. A leisurely tour of my domain. . . .”

  “I’d like that, sir.”

  Obviously the van was slowing.

  It stopped and the rear door slid open.

  Grimes and Sanchez jumped down to the ground, found themselves standing by the tradesmen’s entrance of the Residence. Su Lin was waiting for them there. After a brief word of greeting she led them inside the building and through a maze of passageways to the Governor’s quarters. She produced the inevitable tea. After this had been sipped she brought out a bottle of solvent and, applying it with gentle hands, removed Grimes’s false facial hair. Sanchez attended himself to the stripping of his own disguise.

  The pilot said good night and departed for his accommodation. The girl stayed with Grimes and insisted on preparing him for bed.

  She did not offer to share his couch with him.

  Chapter 22

  After a not too early breakfast Grimes sent for Sanchez.

  Su Lin was present while the two men studied charts spread on the desk in the Governor’s office. Whatever the bugs picked up and reported would not be what was actually being said.

  “I suggest, sir,” said the pilot, “that we start by flying to the McReady estate. There are mooring facilities there.”

  “A surprise visit, Raoul?”

  “More or less. We’ll give him a call about an hour before we’re due. That’ll give him time to muster a few hands and to get his own blimp away from the mast and into the hangar.”

  “It sounds rather high-handed.”

  “You’re the Governor, sir.”

  “But not an absolute monarch. Mphm.”

  “If we cast off at noon,” said Sanchez, “we should arrive at about 0900 hours, McReady’s time, tomorrow morning. The actual flying time will be seventeen hours, weather permitting. At this time of the year there shouldn’t be much wind, either with us or against us. Would you mind standing a watch or two, sir? There’s an automatic pilot, of course, but I’m old-fashioned. I feel that the control room should be manned at all times.”

  “So do I,” said Grimes.

  “I can stand a watch too,” put in Su Lin. “I may not hold any licenses or certificates but I can handle lighter-than-air craft.”

  “Did you fly with Governor Wibberley?” Grimes asked.

  “No. I learned . . . elsewhere.”

  “But what gave you the idea that you were coming with us?”

  “The Lord High Governor must have his personal maidservant in attendance, mustn’t he? Who’s going to make your tea and cook your meals?”

  “I can handle an autochef,” Grimes told her huffily. “When I was by myself in Little Sister I fed quite well. I don’t need a huge kitchen, such as here, with hordes of chefs and scullions.”

  “Three watches will be better than watch and watch, sir,” said Sanchez.

  “I suppose so. But you’re the expert, Raoul. Shall we need any crew apart from the three of us?”

  “What for?”

  “As long as you’re happy,” said Grimes, “I am. I don’t want any of Smith’s nongs in my hair. Come to that—I don’t want Smith himself, even though he is alleged to be my ADC.”

  “He hates flying,” said Su Lin. “Whenever possible he found some excuse to avoid accompanying Governor Wibberley on his flights.”

  “He knew what was going to happen,” said Sanchez bitterly.

  “Could it happen to me?” asked Grimes interestedly. “To us?”

  “Fat Susie is clean,” the pilot told him. “So far. And I’ve set up an intrusion recorder that will let me know if anybody has been sniffing around her during my absence.”

  “One of your electronic toys, Su Lin?” asked Grimes.

  “Yes.”

  “Then all right. Raoul, get Fat Susie ready for flight. I’ll see Smith and Jaconelli and tell them that I shall be away from the Residence for a while.”

  “Perhaps you’d better tell Madam President and Colonel Bardon as well,” suggested Su Lin.

  Sanchez left.

  Grimes picked up the telephone on his desk, was able to get in touch with the ADC and the secretary without any trouble. After a very short while they came into the office.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” said Grimes.

  “Good morning, Your Excellency,” they chorused.

  “Captain Sanchez and I are going to take Fat Susie out for a trial flight. I can’t be sure when I shall be back.”

  “Will you require me, Your Excellency?” asked Smith.

  “No, thank you. Somebody has to mind the shop during my absence, to maintain my liaison with the military. . . .” Smith looked relieved. “And you, of course, Mr. Jaconelli, will maintain liaison with the civil government. I’d like you both to pass out the necessary information regarding my temporary absence from the Residence.”

  “Will you be filing a flight plan, Your Excellency?” asked Smith.

  “No. Captain Sanchez and I will just be swanning around, admiring the scenery, letting the wind blow us where it lists. . . .”

  “It is a calm day, Your Excellency,” said Smith.

  “Just a figure of speech, Lieutenant.”

  “And should we wish to get in touch with you, Your Excellency?”

  “Fat Susie’s radio telephone system will be operative throughout.”

  Smith, Grimes noticed, was sneaking glances at the charts laid out on the desk. He wouldn’t learn much. The one with the courses plotted on it was under all the others, the one on display was of the Lake Country, west of Libertad.

  “I think that’s all, gentlemen,” said Grimes.

  “Thank you, Your Excellency.”

  “And will you pack an overnight bag for me, Su Lin?”

  “Very good, Your Excellency.”

  After having made sure that his tobacco pouch was full Grimes strolled out of the Residence and made his way to the mini-airport.

  Fat Susie was swinging lazily at the low mast. The end of the ladder hanging from her control cab was just clear of the ground. Grimes caught hold of the side rails, got his feet onto the bottom step. He heard, above him, the air pump whine briefly as pressure in the atmospheric trimming cells was reduced to compensate. He climbed up to the cab, through the open door, went forward.

  “Permission to board, Captain?” he asked Sanchez, who was feeding information into the auto-pilot.

  �
��Glad to have you aboard, Commodore,” replied the young man.

  “What courses do you propose to steer?”

  “With your permission, sir, north at first to make a circuit of Mount Bakunin. When it’s erupting it’s very spectacular—but it’s been quiet for some years now. Of course, if it were erupting we shouldn’t be going near it. After that we follow a great circle to the McReady place. That takes us over Rumpel’s Canyon and, a bit farther on, the townships of Vanzetti and Princeps. . . .”

  “Should be a scenic trip.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Through an open window came the sound of a female voice.

  “Ahoy, Fat Susie! Fat Susie, ahoy!”

  Grimes looked out and down. Su Lin was standing there, two large suitcases on the ground beside her.

  “Your Excellency,” she called, “could you send a line down for the baggage?”

  “I’ll fix it, sir,” said Sanchez.

  Grimes watched with interest as the pilot opened a hatch in the deck of the cab, lowering through it a wire from a winch secured to the overhead. Su Lin hooked on both bags. By the time that they were inboard she was halfway up the ladder. She did not stay long in the control cab but went up into the body of the ship. Sanchez and Grimes were again discussing the navigational details of the flight when she came back.

  “I’ve checked the autochef,” she said. “It’s very short on spices. No mace, no cumin, no turmeric. No . . .”

  “You’ve time to get some from the kitchen, Su,” said Sanchez. “But make it snappy.” He turned to Grimes. “Women . . .” he said.

  “Don’t spoil the ship for a ha’porth of tar,” Grimes told him. “Don’t spoil the stew for a pinch of salt. Don’t spoil the roast for a sliver of garlic. Don’t . . .”

  “Wasn’t your Survey Service nickname Gutsy Grimes, sir?” asked Sanchez respectfully.

  “It was. For some obscure reason people still find occasion to remind me of it. What time did you order the ground crew for?”

  “They should be along now,” said Sanchez.

  And there they were, following in the wake of Su Lin, who was carrying a quite large bag. Again the winch was put to use and then, as soon as the girl was aboard, the ladder was retracted. Two soldiers clambered up the other ladder, that inside the metal tripod, to the head of the mast. Sanchez stuck his head out through a forward window of the cab, a portable loudspeaker to his mouth.

  “Let go!” he shouted.

  There was a faint clang as the quick release shackle at the end of the airship’s mooring wire was given a sharp blow.

  “Lift!” called Sanchez.

  Grimes, who had been given instructions on the drill by the pilot, used the air pump to reduce pressure in the midship’s trimming cell. Fat Susie drifted lazily astern, drifted and lifted, going up like an unpowered balloon. She cleared the Residence roof with ease. Grimes, looking out and down, saw that an almost horizontal part of it was being used as a sunbathing area by female members of his domestic staff. Apparently unembarrassed, one of the naked girls got to her feet to wave to the slowly ascending dirigible.

  “Back inside, sir,” ordered Sanchez. “I’m going to close the windows.”

  The transparent panels slid silently into place. Almost as silently the motors started. Sanchez put the wheel over, watching the gyro-compass repeater. When he was satisfied he switched to automatic.

  Fat Susie, maintaining course and above-ground altitude, would find her own way to Mount Bakunin.

  Su Lin came back into the control cab carrying an insulated container.

  “I thought,” she said, “that you would both like lunch here.”

  “The Governor,” said Sanchez, “would like lunch anywhere.”

  “I resent that,” said Grimes, but jocularly. From the steam that issued from the box when its lid was removed he thought that the girl had conjured up a meal of chili beef. He sat down on the settee, gratefully took the bowl and chopsticks that she handed to him.

  Chapter 23

  Grimes enjoyed the flight.

  He had always loved dirigibles, maintaining that they were the only atmospheric flying machines that were real ships. And now he had one of his very own to play with—although it was a great pity that he was not master as well as being de facto owner. When he had time and opportunity, he thought, he would qualify as a pilot of lighter-than-air craft. Meanwhile • Sanchez was instructing him in the elements of airship handling, allowing him to take the controls during the circuit of Mount Bakunin.

  The snow-covered upper slopes of the great, truncated cone were dazzlingly white on the sunlit side, a chill, pale blue in the shadow. The frozen-over crater lake was like cold, green stone. The lower slopes were thickly forested and even the old scars of lava flows were partially overgrown with scrub. As was to be expected in the vicinity of a high mountain there were eddies and updraughts and downdraughts. Sanchez watched alertly while Grimes steered and Su Lin, acting as altitude coxswain, turned her own wheel this way and that. He said little, just an occasional “Easily, sir, easily. . . .” or “Not so fast, Su, or you’ll put us in orbit. . . .” Fat Susie made her own creaking protests at the over-application of elevators or rudder but these diminished as Grimes and the girl got the hang of their controls.

  And then course was set and its maintenance left to the automatic pilot. Fat Susie flew quietly and steadily into the darkening east, the flaming sunset astern. Dusk deepened into night and the stars, the unfamiliar (to Grimes) constellations appeared in the sky. Those directly overhead were, of course, obscured by the airship’s upper structure but Su Lin was able to point out and identify those not far above the horizon.

  “That’s the Torch of Liberty,” she said. “The bright red star at the tip of it is the Pole Star. . .”

  “Mphm.” (That constellation, thought Grimes, looked as much like a torch as that other grouping of stars, with Earth’s Pole Star at the tip of its tail, looks like a Little Bear.)

  “The Hammer and Sickle. . . .”

  “I was under the impression,” said Grimes, “that the founders of this colony were Anarchists, not Communists.”

  “They had to call their constellations something,” put in Sanchez. “And that one does look like what it’s called.”

  Su Lin went up and aft to the galley, returned after not too long with dinner for them all, a simple but excellent meal of lamb chops and some spicy green vegetable with a fruit salad to follow. Shortly after this Grimes retired to his cabin; he was taking the middle watch at the suggestion of Sanchez. “You’ll want to see Rumpel’s Canyon,” the pilot had told him. “In the dark?” queried Grimes. “You’ll see it all right, sir,” Sanchez assured him.

  Stretched out on the comfortable couch he had little trouble in getting to sleep, lulled by the slight swaying motion of the ship and by her rhythmic whispering. He awoke instantly, feeling greatly refreshed as Su Lin, calling him for his watch, switched on the cabin light. She had brought him a pot of tea.

  “Rise and shine!” she cried brightly. “Rise and shine, Your Excellency!”

  She put the tray down on the bunkside table and returned to the control cab.

  Grimes poured and sipped tea, then got up and went into the tiny toilet facility. He finished his tea while he was dressing. He filled and lit his pipe, then went out into the narrow alleyway toward the control cab. Looking up at the gas cells, their not overly taut fabric rippling from forward to aft, he wondered how it had been in the early days of airships when the only buoyant gas available was hydrogen. It must have been hell on smokers, he thought.

  He clambered down the short companionway into the cab. Su Lin turned away from the forward windows, through which she had been peering, binoculars to her eyes.

  “The canyon’s coming up now,” she said.

  She handed him the glasses. He adjusted the focus and looked. There was the hard, serrated line of the land horizon, black against the faintly luminous darkness of the sky.

  �
��More to your left,” she told him.

  A spark of light . . . A town or village? But there was an odd quality about it. It was pulsing as though it were alive. The ship flew on and now there was more than just a spark to be seen. A stream of iridescence came slowly into view, a winding, rainbow river and then, most spectacular of all, a great cataract of liquid jewels.

  At last the show was over, fading astern.

  “Luminous organisms,” said Su Lin matter of factly. “Found only in the Rumpel River. And now, sir, will you take the watch?”

  “I relieve you, madam,” said Grimes formally.

  “She’s on course and making good time. If any of the automatic controls play up the alarm will sound. Call Captain Sanchez—although that shouldn’t be necessary. There’s a bell in his cabin. Call him, in any case, at 0345. The clock’s adjusted to McReady’s time.”

  “So I see.” Grimes lifted his hand and spoke into his wrist companion. “Advance to 0045 exactly on the word Now.” He watched the changing seconds on the clock. “Now.”

  “I’m an old-fashioned girl,” said Su Lin. “I prefer old-fashioned watches—not contraptions that can do just about anything but fry eggs. Good night, sir. Or good morning, rather.”

  “Good morning, Su.” said Grimes.

  His watch passed pleasantly enough. He looked out at the dark landscape streaming past below with the very occasional clusters of light that told of human habitation. He studied the instruments—gyro compass, radar altimeter, ground, airspeed and drift indicators and all the rest of them. He looked into the radar screen and saw a distant target, airborne, and finally was able to pick it up visually, a great airliner ablaze with lights along the length of her, sweeping by on course, he decided, for Libertad.

  Then, satisfied that all was in order and would remain so, he went briefly aft to the galley to make for himself a mid-watch snack—a pot of tea and a huge pile of thick ham sandwiches. He went to the galley again to make more tea, this time for Sanchez when he called him.

  “You shouldn’t have done that, sir,” protested the pilot. “You . . . You’re the Governor.”