And I shall be teaching some, I hope, thought Grimes.
He led the way onto the field itself, walking between the furrows, his feet sinking into the soft soil. The incoming handcarts swerved to avoid him—or to avoid Laura McReady, who was walking close behind him. Her they knew but they would not know the new Governor. He came up to the line of reapers, stooped and sweating as they wielded their flashing sickles. He heard the cracking of the overseers’ whips and their shouted orders. He saw a woman, not young, one of the gatherers, straighten up briefly from her labors and stand there, her face turned up to the uncaring sky. For some reason (and who could blame her? thought Grimes) she was weeping quietly.
She stood in tears amid the alien corn . . . Where did that come from? Not that it mattered. What did matter was that a woman was standing there, in tears, the helpless victim of a harsh economic system and of political hypocrisy.
“Su Lin,” he said, “will you ask her what is wrong?”
“What does it matter, Your Excellency?” asked Laura McReady.
“It does to her, madam.” said Grimes.
Su Lin went up to the woman and, in a soft voice, spoke to her in her own language. The answer came in a rather unpleasant whining voice, punctuated by sobs.
“She says, Your Excellency,” Su Lin told him, “that her husband was promoted to threshing floor foreman. Now he has no time for her. He has taken up with one of the girls working under him.”
“You can’t blame me for that,” said Laura McReady smugly.
Grimes ignored this.
“Tell her,” he said to Su Lin, “that I am sorry. Very sorry.”
And what the hell good will that do? he asked himself.
And what the hell good will that do? Mrs. McReady, to judge from the expression on her face, was obviously thinking.
She asked, “And now have you seen enough, Your Excellency?”
“For the time being,” said Grimes.
“Then may I suggest that we return to the manor house?” She added, without enthusiasm, “You and Captain Sanchez will be dining with us, of course.”
“Thank you,” said Grimes. “And Su Lin?”
“Your servant, Your Excellency, will be able to take a meal with our own domestic staff.”
And make sure that you keep your pretty ears flapping, Su, thought Grimes.
Following the line of furrows they made their way back to the waiting trishaws.
Chapter 26
After their return to the manor house Grimes, Sanchez and Su Lin went back briefly into the airship. There the two men showered and changed—not that they had much to change into, just fresh suits of blue denim enlivened by scarlet neckerchiefs. They held a brief conference in the control cab before making their way down to the roof.
“The setup here,” said Grimes, “reminds me of what I have read of the plantations in the American deep South before the War Between The States. Instead of Negro slaves there are New Cantonese indentured labor—but the only essential difference is that of skin pigmentation. . . .”
“And nobody is strumming a banjo and singing Negro spirituals,” commented Sanchez drily.
“But Commodore Grimes is right,” said Su Lin. “The situation is analogous.”
“Not exactly,” Sanchez insisted. “Far from exactly. Where are the Yankee generals at the head of the Union armies, marching south to free the slaves?”
“It wasn’t quite like that, Raoul,” said Grimes. “In fact, according to some historians, the question of slavery was only a side issue. The major one was that of secession. And I don’t think that Liberia has any desire to secede from the Federation.” He got up from the settee, looked out and down from one of the control cab windows. “There’s some sort of functionary down there. He seems to be waiting for us. We’d better go and join our gracious hosts at the tucker table.”
The McReady butler, a tall, thin, pigtailed man in black-and-white brass-buttoned livery, bowed deeply to Grimes as he stepped from the foot of the ladder to the roof surface.
He said, “The Lord and the Lady are awaiting you, Your Excellency. Please to follow.”
He led Grimes and the others into the elevator cage, scowled at Su Lin when she was standing too close to her master, scowled at her again when she moved to stand by him. The downward journey did not commence until the grouping of the passengers was to the butler’s satisfaction—he standing in solitary state by the control panel, Grimes and Sanchez in one corner, Su Lin in another.
The downward journey was swift and smooth. The door opened. The butler was first out, bowing deeply to Grimes as he disembarked, saying. “Please to follow, Your Excellency.” Then, to Su Lin. “Wait here, woman. You will be sent for.”
She smiled submissively and bowed to the upper servant. She winked at Grimes.
The butler, with a slow and stately walk, led the way along a corridor the walls of which were paneled with some dark, gleaming wood, floored with the same material. There were no pictures or other decorations. They came at last to a hinged door which the butler opened with a flourish. Beyond this was a large room, paneled as was the corridor but with wall ornaments. There were the mounted heads of horned beasts and others ferociously fanged. There were highly polished firearms—antique projectile weapons, modern lasers and stunguns. There were, even, crossed cavalry sabers.
McReady and his wife got up from the deep, black-leather-upholstered armchairs in which they had been sitting. They were dressed for the occasion—the man in a silver-braided and -buttoned black jacket over a ruffled white shirt, a kilt in a tartan that Grimes could not identify (he was no expert in such matters), long socks in the same tartan, highly polished black, silver-buckled shoes. Laura McReady was in high-necked, long-skirted, long-sleeved black with a sash in the same tartan as that worn by her husband.
Both of them looked at the formally informal attire of their guests and allowed themselves the merest suggestion of a sneer.
“Your Excellency,” said the woman, “we must apologize. We assumed that you, as the Governor, would be dressing for dinner.”
“The rank is but the guinea stamp,” quoted Grimes. “A man’s a man for a’ that.”
“Indubitably,” said McReady. He repeated the word, making it sound anything but indubitable. “But be seated, please. A drink or two before dinner, Your Excellency?”
“That will be a pleasure,” said Grimes.
He and Sanchez lowered themselves into deep armchairs, facing the others across the black, gleaming surface of the low round table. There was a decanter already there, a bowl of ice cubes and, standing on ceramic coasters, tour glasses, two of which had already seen used.
“Whisky, Your Excellency? Captain Sanchez? On the rocks?”
“That will be fine,” said Grimes.
“Thank you,” said Sanchez.
The whisky, rather to Grimes’s surprise, was not Scotch. It was bourbon. He didn’t mind. It would have been improved by light conversation during its intake. Words were exchanged, of course, but it was obvious that the McReady couple were trying, without enthusiasm, to be on their best behavior and were annoyed that their guests, sartorially, had themselves made no great effort. After the second drinks—insofar as Grimes and Sanchez were concerned—had been disposed of a gong sounded somewhere outside.
The butler appeared and bowed.
“Lord McReady, dinner is served.”
“Your Excellency,” said McReady, “shall we proceed to the dining room?”
The dining room was a huge barn of a place, gloomy, the only lighting being from the candles set in ornate silver holders on the long, polished table. The McReady family, thought Grimes, must have a thing about black wood. McReady stood by his high-backed chair at the head of the not very festive board; Laura McReady indicated that Grimes should take one halfway down the table on McReady’s right. She moved to her own chair at the foot of the table, leaving Sanchez to find his way to a position facing Grimes.
Everybody sat d
own.
Grimes, his eyes now accustomed to the near darkness, looked around curiously. There were paintings on the walls, ancient-looking oils, uniformly gloomy, horned beasts standing around drearily in a drizzle, another horned beast—a Terran stag?—understandably perturbed by the harassment of hounds. He had been expecting that the McReady estate would be Little Texas; it was turning out to be, inside the manor house at least, Little Scotland. And what would be for dinner? Haggis? He hoped not.
But there was no kilted piper to play in “the chief of all the pudding tribe.” There was only the liveried butler supervising the activities of the New Cantonese maids, pretty little girls in short-skirted uniforms. Somebody, somewhere, had switched on music—and that had no Scottish flavor. Grimes recognized one of the tunes—“The Yellow Rose Of Texas.” He wished that the local representatives of the Clan McReady would be consistent.
The first course was a soup that Grimes categorized as lukewarm varnish. The second course was some sort of flavorless fish, steamed, with a bland, uninteresting sauce. This was followed by boiled mutton accompanied by vegetables with all the goodness stewed out of them. Finally there was an overly sweet fruit tart smothered with custard. The wines, Grimes had to admit, were not too bad. Without them the meal would have been quite impossible.
Throughout there was desultory conversation.
“And what do you think of Liberia, Your Excellency?”
“I have hardly been here long enough, Mrs. McReady, to form an opinion.”
“Have some more of this mutton, Your Excellency. It’s from our own flocks.”
“I don’t think that I have room, Mr. McReady.”
“Oh, but you must. Haven’t I heard somewhere, Your Excellency, that your nickname in the Survey Service used to be Gutsy Grimes?”
“Just a slice, then.”
“Governor Wibberley used to enjoy his visits here. It was on his way back to the Residence from our estate that he was so tragically killed.”
“Oh.”
Grimes looked across the table at Sanchez. Sanchez looked at him.
“That is an unusual name that you have given your airship, Your Excellency.”
“How so, Mrs. McReady?”
“Fat Susie . . .”
“She’s named after a girl I once knew,” said Grimes.
“And did you call her Fat Susie? To her face?”
“No.”
“And was she fat?”
“Well, she was . . . plumpish.”
“And where is she now?”
Damn the woman, thought Grimes. She sits there like a statue all through the meal and now, once the subject of my murky past crops up, she’s putting me through the third degree . . . And what was the official story of Susie’s disappearance?
“I don’t know,” he said truthfully.
At last the meal was over.
The party retired to what McReady called the gun room for coffee and brandy and cigars. (Grimes refused the latter and stuck to his pipe.) Mrs. McReady made deliberately half-hearted attempts to stifle her yawns. Grimes said that it was time that he was getting on his way. He thanked his hosts for a very enjoyable day and evening. There was a brief session of not very warm handshaking. The butler escorted the Governor and his atmosphere pilot up to the roof where, black against the darkly luminous sky, Fat Susie swung at the mooring mast like an oversized windsock.
Su Lin was waiting for them aboard the airship.
She said, “Look what I found!”
She showed Grimes and Sanchez a small sphere of black metal.
“Where was it, Su?”
“Tucked in between the main gas cells.”
“What is it?”
“Just a ball, an empty ball, not hidden very cleverly and bound to show up on the metal detector I used. Just a warning.”
“I wish it were a bomb,” said Grimes viciously, “so that I could drop it on those bastards!”
“Not selective enough,” she told him. “There are quite a few nice people in the servants’ quarters.”
“And I suppose that you had a nice meal,” said Grimes.
“Very nice, as a matter of fact. Satay, and . . .”
“Don’t tell me. But if this . . . thing is just a warning how did they know that you were going to go through the ship with a fine tooth comb and find it?”
“Not me,” she said, “but you. You are the ex-Survey Service Commander, the pirate Commodore. They’re hoping that you will make a better job of cleaning up the mess here than your predecessor did.” She laughed. “You know, I think that the dummy bomb was planted not by the baddies but by the goodies.”
“A warning nonetheless,” said Grimes.
“Too right,” she said.
Chapter 27
As a matter of courtesy Grimes kept in radio contact with both President O’Higgins and Colonel Bardon. There seemed to be no great need for him in the capital—no schools or bridges to be opened, no official dinners or luncheons to attend. During his conversations he was deliberately vague about Fat Susie’s flight plan. “Just swanning around,” he would say. “Just letting the wind blow me wherever it listeth. . . .”
And that, for much of the time, he was actually doing. During his younger days on Earth he had acquired some expertise as a hot air balloonist and he found his old skills returning. Now he was the instructor and Raoul his pupil. With main engines shut down and only the air pumps in operation he would decrease or increase altitude in the search, usually successful, for a fair wind. The dirigible drifted over the countryside, going a long way in a long time and quite often in the right direction.
Her descents to ground were unscheduled, dropping down with very little prior warning onto the manor houses of the vast estates, her people receiving grudging hospitality (“What the hell is he doing here?” Grimes overheard on one occasion) from those whom Grimes, remembering his Australian history, categorized as squatters. In long ago Australia, however, there had been three classes of colonist—the wealthy squatters, the small farmers and the laborers who, in the very earliest days, had been convicts. More than one governor had sided with the little men against the big landowners. Some of them had been socially ostracized by the self-made aristocracy. One of them, the immensely capable but occasionally tactless Bligh, had been deposed by his own garrison, the New South Wales Corps, the officers of which were already squatters or in the process of becoming such.
On Liberia things were only a little different, although there were no small farmers. The status of the refugees was almost that of those hapless men and women who had been shipped out to Botany Bay in the First Fleet and its successors. Bardon’s Bullies were not at all unlike the personnel of the New South Wales Corps. They were up to the eyebrows in every unsavory and lucrative racket.
There was the Lopez dreamweed plantation in the foothills of the Rousseau Ranges, an expanse of low, rounded hills covered with a purple growth that, from the air, looked more like the fur of some great animal than vegetation. The swarming, brown-skinned laborers, gathering the ripened leaves, could have been lice. There was the sprawling, red-roofed manor house with, at its highest point, a latticework mooring mast. There was a ship at this mooring, a large dirigible with military markings, crossed swords below the Terran opalescent sphere on its dark blue ground. It seemed to be taking on cargo of some kind, bales piled on the small area of flat roof space being hoisted, one by one, into its interior.
“And now, sir,” said Sanchez, grinning widely, “we shall embarrass them by making our presence known. Give them a call, Su.”
“Fat Susie to Lopez Control,” said the girl into the transceiver microphone. “Fat Susie to Lopez Control. Do you read me?”
“Lopez Control here,” came the answer at last in a very bored voice. “What do you want?”
“Request mooring facilities.”
“You’ll just have to wait, Fat . . .” There was a long pause, then, “What did you say your name was?”
“Fat
Susie. And, in case you’re wondering, the Governor, Commodore Grimes, is on board.”
Loading operations had ceased, Grimes saw, looking out and down through his binoculars. Loading operations had ceased but work had not. The remaining bales on the rooftop were being rolled into a large penthouse—from which, no doubt, they would hastily be taken down and stowed somewhere out of sight.
A fresh voice issued from the speaker of the transceiver.
“R273. Major Flattery commanding to Fat Susie. My compliments to His Excellency. I am casting off now so that you may approach the mast. May I ask how long you will be staying here?”
“Tell him,” said Grimes, “that I don’t know.”
Su Lin passed on the message.
“Fat Susie,” said Flattery, “please inform His Excellency that I am on urgent military business and have a schedule to keep. I would like to know how long I shall be delayed.”
“Tell him,” said Grimes, “that I am on governmental business.”
“Fat Susie,” said the major (he must have overheard Grimes’s instructions to Su Lin), “please inform His Excellency that I shall be obliged to inform Colonel Bardon that my schedule has been disrupted. Over and out.”
R273 cast off drifted lazily astern from the mast. Flattery was in no hurry to start his engines. Sanchez, coming in against the wind, passed closely to the larger ship. Grimes could look into the control cab, saw a ferociously moustached face scowling at him through one of the windows. Major Flattery, he assumed. He waved cheerfully. Flattery did not acknowledge the salutation.
The mooring party—dark-skinned men in startlingly white loincloths and turbans—was waiting for Fat Susie. She was brought to the mast smartly enough, hooked on. A tall, thin man, in a white tunic with a scarlet sash, white-trousered but barefoot, stood at the foot of the ladder, extended a hand to assist Grimes as he stepped down from the platform. Then he put his hands to his turbaned forehead and bowed deeply.
“Sahib. The Burra Sahib and the Burra Memsahib await you.”
Ride the Star Winds Page 13