The fliers were making rings around the balloon with contemptuous ease, flying in ever diminishing circles. (Surely Sanchez must have seen them by now—but what could he do about them? Did Anarchists pray to Bakunin?) Closer they were coming to the helpless aerostat, closer and closer. And then a leathery wing brushed Little Susie’s taut skin—no, not her skin but the garishly colored plant attached to it.
Grimes watched the airborne predator falter in its flight and then fall, its great wings still outspread but unmoving. Dead or merely stunned, it was parachuting down. It did not reach the ground. The others were upon it, tearing it to shreds as it dropped. Grimes was reminded of maddened sharks feasting upon the injured but not yet dead body of a member of their own species.
Little Susie drifted on, steadily diminishing in the field of Grimes’s binoculars. Smoke was coming from her. Smoke? Yes. Grimes could just see that there was something dangling below the pilot’s chair, a bundle from which the thick fumes were issuing. Clothing? Possibly. Perhaps Sanchez’ jacket, probably Su Lin’s shirt.
The pilot’s ingenuity was to be commended, but . . . Weight was being sacrificed. As a result, gas might have to be valved. And then, with sunset not far off, ballast would have to be dumped.
Was Sanchez sufficiently proficient a balloonist to juggle his buoyancy and ballast and still stay aloft for long enough to complete his voyage?
Grimes, he admonished himself, don’t be a backseat driver.
Then Little Susie was no more than a speck in the sky, and then she was gone. She had not fallen, Grimes told himself. She was still aloft, still flying steadily south. She was just out of sight, that was all.
“This wind is chilly,” said Su Lin.
He turned to look at her. She had her arms crossed over her naked breasts. She was shivering. Her creamy skin was speckled with smuts, some of them large, from the dying fire upwind. Her handkerchief mask and her goggles were still in place.
The effect was oddly but strongly erotic.
“There is nothing more that we can do today,” she said. “I am going inside. Are you coming?”
Why not? Grimes asked himself. Why not? He followed her into the ship.
Chapter 37
She did not make her way to her own cabin but into that occupied by Grimes. She sat down on the bunk, stripped off her goggles and the improvised mask, dropped them carelessly to the deck. This was out of character; she was usually fanatically tidy. She . . . slumped. But her breasts were proudly firm, the prominent nipples erect.
She said, “Well, Grimes, this is it. The girl from PAT and the Survey Service’s prize troubleshooter alone at last. And for how long? Until Raoul returns at the head of the United States Cavalry to rescue us from this howling wilderness. If he does return, that is . . .”
“He’ll be back,” said Grimes with a conviction that was not altogether assumed.
“But when, Grimes, when? And how do we pass the time until we’re rescued?”
“We have to keep ourselves supplied with food . . .”
“You would say that.”
“We can’t live on fresh air and sunshine. And then we have to make a start on building some sort of raft or canoe to get us out of here, downriver, if Raoul doesn’t come back.”
“As far as I’m concerned,” she told him, “mucking about in boats has never been one of my favorite pastimes. Especially in homemade boats on rivers crawling with large, vicious carnivores . . . Did it escape your notice that this stream runs through Bloodsuckers Canyon on its way to the sea?”
As she spoke she was easing her heavy boots off her feet—her slim, graceful feet with their crimson-lacquered toenails.
“We have to do something to pass the time,” said Grimes.
“For a Governor, for a pirate Commodore, for a Captain in the Survey Service Reserve you’re remarkably dim. Or are you putting me on?”
“The thought of that had flickered across my tiny mind,” said Grimes.
She laughed. “So the man is capable of double entendres. There’s hope for him yet. . . .”
Slowly Grimes was removing his sweaty shirt. It was not quite at the stage when it could be stood in the corner but it was not far from it. And, on the bunk, the girl was sliding her trousers down her long, shapely legs. Above the waist her body was besmirched with smoke and smuts; below her navel her skin gleamed with a creamy translucence. The lush blackness of her pubic hair was in vivid contrast to the rest of her and was the focus of Grimes’s mounting desire.
But, even though now naked himself, he hesitated before joining her on the not-too-narrow couch.
“Are you still . . . bugged?” he asked. “Or should I say anti-bugged?”
“I’ve room for only one thing at a time,” she told him. “And, right now, that one thing is you.”
It was good, very good, but Grimes could not shake off a feeling of guilt. Here was he—and here was Su Lin—reveling in the release of tensions, the all-over skin to skin contact, the intimate moist warmth, the murmured endearments and finally—from the girl—the screamed obscenities. (This rather surprised him; he had expected that one of her race would be a quiet lover.) He could not help thinking of Raoul Sanchez, dangling from that crudely cobbled gasbag in the perilous sky, with no one to comfort him through the coming night.
Tenderly and skillfully Su Lin aroused him again.
This time he thought only fleetingly of the young pilot. After all, he was there (wherever there was) and Grimes was here. Worrying about Sanchez would not make his voyage any safer.
And then, looking up, they saw through the port that darkness had fallen. They did not bother to dress at once. More important was to switch on the outside lights and then to make sure that there were enough shockers, attracted by the illumination, to form a protective cordon about the ship. (To judge from their numbers, few, if any of the motile plants had been destroyed by the brush fire, which now seemed to be completely out.) Satisfied that they were about as safe as ever they would be they heated water, refraining from extravagance, and shared a sponge-down. Attired in clean clothing they had a not-too-bad dinner of what Grimes described as tarted-up bits and pieces, washed down with a quite decent local variety of claret. They drew up a watch-and-watch roster.
Grimes—who should have been drowsy but was not, who was feeling exceptionally fit and alert—took the first tour of duty while Su Lin slept in his bed.
Chapter 38
The night passed.
Grimes, who (thanks to his father’s influence) was already something of a maritime historian, began to feel considerable sympathy for those long-ago Terran seamen to whom watch and watch had been routine. He recalled having read somewhere that Bligh—the much and unjustly maligned Bligh!—had been, by the standards of his time, an exceptionally humane captain. He had put his crews on three watches, four hours on and eight hours off. And now Grimes, following in Bligh’s footsteps for the second time in his career, was having to revert to the bad old ways and, thereby, was missing out on his beauty sleep.
He didn’t like it.
Neither did Su Lin. “Midnight already?” she complained.
“No,” he told her. “It’s one bell. 2345. You’ve fifteen minutes before you’re on watch.”
“At least you’ve made tea. Thank you.” She sipped from the steaming cup and grimaced. “What did you do? If I weren’t a lady I’d refer to this as gnat’s piss.”
“One for each person and one for the pot,” he said.
“What! I’ll not believe that you used three spoonfuls of tea to make this feeble brew!”
“Who mentioned spoonfuls? One tea leaf for each person, one for the pot. There’s precious little dry tea left in the canister.”
“I think I’ll be able to find another packet or two. But you’re right. We shall have to be economical . . . .”
Grimes would have liked to have stayed with her, to have watched her as she slid her elegant nudity from under the bed coverings. But he feared that if he did so there woul
d be no middle watch kept. Regretfully he went back out into the alleyway. Before long, dressed in shirt, slacks and calf-length boots, she joined him there.
“All quiet,” he told her. “All lights burning brightly. The shockers have been capturing occasional nocturnal beasties but I didn’t see what they were. If you’re happy, I’ll get my head down.”
“I have been happier,” she told him. “On the other hand—I’ve been unhappier. . . .”
She kissed him briefly, then broke away before things could develop. He went into his cabin, stripped rapidly and slid between the sheets that were still warm from her body.
It seemed that only seconds had passed when she called him at 0345.
The pot of tea she brought was better—but only a little better—than the one that he had made. There was only one packet of tea remaining in the stores and they would have to make it last.
They shared breakfast—fried rice with the protein component being what was left of the worm. They knew that they must soon make a serious attempt at living entirely off the country but were inhibited from foraging by the activities of the fliers which, almost immediately after dawn, maintained a patrol over the island. And they were now almost weaponless. The charge of Su Lin’s lighter was so depleted that it was now useful only for the ignition of the tobacco in Grimes’s pipe. (And how long could he make his tobacco last?) The laser tool was effective only at very short range. Knives would not be of much use against something that could dive, without warning, from the sky with at least two meters of sharp, horny beak extended before it.
Water was not, yet, an immediate problem. There were still bottles of various mineral waters in the stores—but once these were gone they would have to go down to the river again. While there had been three of them, one could watch the sky, another keep an eye on the stream and the third one fill the buckets.
“Sometimes,” said Su Lin, “I wish I were a mutant. One with eyes at the back of my head.”
They spent the day mainly inside the wreck. Grimes, once again using the backs of the charts on which to make calculations and draw plans, tried to work out ways and means of using what wreckage was available to make some sort of boat or raft. A coracle would have been easy—had there been any of the adhesive left. But this had all been used in the manufacture of Little Susie. The sheet metal of the skin was very thin and could be bent into shape by hand. The laser pistol was actually a welding tool. Yet a canoe made this way would be almost as flimsy as a coracle and would offer hardly more protection against the aquatic predators.
At sunset Grimes had a sudden rush of brains to the head. Using the laser he killed—at least, he hoped that had killed it—one of the shockers when the creatures, attracted by the lights, took up their stations about the ship. Handling it with heavily gloved hands, careful not to let the still twitching mass touch any other portions of their bodies, they got the thing into the galley, put it onto one of the work surfaces. It overlapped considerably, the edges of it hung down almost to the deck.
Su Lin carved off a slice, then cut from this a very small portion. She chewed thoughtfully. When she spoke, Grimes saw that her teeth were stained green.
She said, “There’s moisture here. And possibly—hopefully—some food value. Of course, there must be. The thing eats meat itself. . . .”
After an hour had elapsed she was suffering no ill effects. She and Grimes dined on shocker salad, washed down with shocker juice. (The thing’s “battery” yielded a quite refreshing, only slightly acid fluid.) They were well-fed enough but they still felt hungry. Too, probably their diet, although rich in vitamins, would be deficient in many other essentials.
There was another night of watch and watch.
Just before sunrise, before the fliers resumed their diurnal patrol, Grimes was lucky enough to kill a shocker just after it had killed a thing that, he said later, looked like a cross between a spider and an Airedale terrier. He was able, at some risk, to get the animal’s body into the wreck before any of the other carnivorous plants could reach it.
This provided them with meat for the day’s meals.
The flesh was tough but Su Lin found that marinating it in juice squeezed from a dead shocker tenderized it. The meat was almost flavorless—but it was meat.
It would be possible for Grimes and Su Lin to hold on until Raoul Sanchez returned with help.
If he returned. . . .
If not they would either have to live out their lives as castaways or risk their lives on a hazardous voyage downriver in some cranky, homemade canoe.
Chapter 39
“Don’t . . . stop . . .” she murmured. But Grimes’s body, clasped to hers by her strong arms and thighs, had become motionless. He tried to raise his head from where it had been beside hers on the pillow. He demanded, “Do . . . you . . . hear . . . it?”
“Hear what? I can hear your heart thumping away like a runaway steam engine . . .”
“Not . . . my heart. Or yours . . . Listen!” She heard it then. It was very faint, coming from far away. It was the irritable mutter of an inertial drive unit. A small one, thought Grimes, such as are fitted to ships’ boats and pinnaces. And there had been a pinnace in one of the hangars at the Residence.
The mutter was now more of an interrupted snarl.
The thing was getting closer.
So Raoul had made it after all.
Grimes tried to disengage himself.
She asked, rather tartly, “Aren’t you going to finish what you started?”
He said, “My name is Grimes, not Sir Francis Drake.”
She said, “I wasn’t aware that we were playing bowls.”
They laughed together.
And then doubt assailed Grimes. What if this approaching pinnace or whatever were not piloted by Raoul Sanchez? What if this were Bardon or some of his minions coming to make sure that the troublesome Governor was well and truly dead?
Then this might be the last time.
She said, “I thought you were in a hurry to rush out to repel boarders.”
He said, “A man can change his mind, can’t he?”
He completed the act—but it was not as good as it should have been. All the time he was aware of that rapidly approaching pinnace. He rolled off her, hastily pulled on a pair of trousers, picked up the almost useless laser pistol from the table on which he had left it, went out to the catwalk and then made his way to the hole that had been cut in the metal envelope. He was just in time to see the ship’s boat coming in to land.
A ship’s boat?
And what was the name on the bows?
No, not a name. Just letters and a number.
AA #1.
The boat touched ground, crushing at least half a dozen of the shockers. A scent like that of new-mown grass filled the air. The cacophony of the inertial drive unit abruptly ceased. Slowly the outer airlock door opened. From it stepped a woman, not young but far from old, with short, iron-gray hair and matching eyes, dressed in a uniform that was, essentially, a short-skirted business suit, well-tailored from some gray fabric that looked (and probably was) very expensive, with touches of gold braid at the collar and on the sleeves.
She looked at Grimes and at the scantily clad girl standing behind him.
She asked pleasantly, “Have I interrupted something. Commodore?”
And then she, herself, was interrupted as four of the fliers, briefly scared off by the racket of the boat’s inertial drive unit but now, with that engine shut down and silent, returning in search of prey, swooped. She would have been skewered had not Raoul Sanchez, jumping out of the airlock, knocked her to one side and then delivered a dazzling exhibition of laser play.
Before the remainder of the circling predators could launch a fresh attack he yanked the woman to her feet, hustled her through the opening cut in Fat Susie’s skin and then literally fell in after her.
“Who is your friend, Raoul?” asked Su Lin.
The pilot scrambled to his feet, then said courteous
ly, “Allow me to introduce Captain Agatha Prinn, of Agatha’s Ark. Captain Prinn already knows Commodore Grimes, of course.”
“Of course,” she agreed. “We’re old flotilla mates. And now the Commodore is a Governor and I’m still a star tramp skipper. But didn’t somebody say once, ‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown’?”
“You’re more of an absolute monarch aboard your ship, Agatha,” Grimes told her, “than I am on this planet. But tell me, do you still have that young El Doradan officer, the Count von Stolzberg, with you?”
“You mean Ferdinand, your son. . . .”
“How did you know . . . ?”
“Everybody knew. But no, he’s no longer with me. A pity. He was a good spaceman. But after the Inquiry into the privateering racket we were told that any El Doradan officers must be repatriated. . . .”
“Excuse me, sir and madam,” put in Sanchez, “I really think that this old pirates’ reunion can be deferred for a while. What’s of pressing urgency is what’s happening now on Liberia, not what happened when you were scouring the interstellar spacelanes under the Jolly Roger!”
Grimes glared at the young man, then laughed.
“All right, Raoul. Come into the wardroom and tell us your story. And is there any beer left, Su Lin? Good. This calls for a celebration. Raoul back in one piece, and Agatha with him . . .”
“It’s thanks only to Captain Prinn that I am back,” said Sanchez.
The flight of Little Susie, said Sanchez, had not been too bad an experience. The worst of it had been the way in which he had almost been kippered, sitting in his chair with the smoldering rags—Su Lin’s shirt and then his own clothing—directly beneath him. But the smoke had scared off the fliers.
During the first night he had been obliged to drop most of his ballast. The next day, to prevent the balloon from rising to a dangerous altitude, it had been necessary to valve helium. But the wind had been stronger than anticipated and he had made good time. By late afternoon he was out of the Unclaimed Territory. He didn’t know quite where he was but, sighting a village on the horizon, decided to make his descent before he was over the settlement. He came down in a wheatfield, one some weeks away from its future harvesting. There was nobody to see his landing.
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