Ride the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

  “But she didn’t know, of course, that you recognized her.”

  “Well, as a matter of fact she did. After I said, ‘Haven’t we met before?’ “

  “What!” The scream from the two female voices was simultaneous. Then, from Maggie, “You bloody fool! They, whoever they are, will know that you’re on to them!”

  “Not know. Only suspect. All that they will know is that I paid a professional call on Aerospace Control and thought that I recognized one of the duty officers. What I am hoping is that their suspicions drive them to do something stupid . . . .”

  “And if they do something cunning, where shall we all be?” demanded Fenella. “Oh, you can set yourself up as a decoy—but Maggie and I are in this business too.”

  “What’s done is done,” sighed Maggie. “We shall just have to be especially careful from now on.”

  “And how did your afternoon go?” asked Grimes, changing the subject.

  “Successful enough. We just confirmed what we knew already, that Trans-Sparta Airlines has several all-woman flight crews and that these, still, serve only in the freight carriers. We also learned that much of the freight carrying is done by night. Any of five freighters could have been in this vicinity—although, according to the records, not flying directly over the city—at the time of the kidnapping. Of the five, two had female crews. The Trans-Sparta traffic controller was starting to wonder why I, doing social research, was so interested in commercial operations. But I did find out where those two ships were from and, more importantly, where they were bound . . .”

  “Unluckily,” said Grimes, “it’s the deviations and the unscheduled stops that interest us. And those bitches in Aerospace Control will have made sure that there’s no record.”

  Chapter 18

  Grimes purchased a large atlas of New Sparta. Among the various maps therein were ones giving details of planetary transport routes—land, sea and air. He studied these, stepped off distances with his dividers. But there was so much territory over which the airships flew, so many stretches where there was not even the smallest village, only a wilderness of forest and mountain. There were so many places at which a dirigible could have made a descent unobserved, even in broad daylight, to disembark willing or unwilling passengers.

  Maggie paid more visits to the offices of Trans-Sparta Airlines; her excuse was that she had selected this organization as the subject for her study of the effects of the integration of women into New Spartan industry. Often Fenella would accompany her. She would tell anybody who was interested that she was doing a series which she would call Sex In The Skies, dealing with female air crews on those planets where there were such. She made herself very unpopular by her apparent determination to sniff out evidence of high-altitude Lesbian orgies.

  Shirl and Darleen continued to function as Instructors in the Amazon Guard. They reported that there was something cooking in the barracks but what they did not know. Despite their popularity with their fellow officers they were still outsiders, not fully accepted.

  Colonel Xenophon, whom Grimes met occasionally during the police chief’s visits to the Palace to confer with the Lady Ellena, said that promising leads were being followed and that before long the Archon would be released, unharmed, from captivity. He would not say what the leads were. He scorned Grimes’s suggestion that some ultrafeminist organization might be responsible for the kidnapping. “I keep on telling you, Commodore,” he snapped, “that the gang responsible for the crime was composed of men disguised as women. Furthermore, there is absolutely no record of a dirigible having flown over the city at the time of the kidnap.”

  Meanwhile, there seemed to be a spate of vanishings, most of those who disappeared having been prominent members of the New Hellas Association. Some bodies were recovered, corpses dumped in back alleys, bearing signs of extreme maltreatment before death. The New Hellas Courier, in its editorials, became increasingly critical of both the police force and the administration in general, ranting about the crime wave that had begun with the abduction of the Archon and would not abate until every public-spirited citizen had been disposed of. What, the leader writer demanded, was the Lady Ellena doing about it? But was it coincidence, he continued, that most of those who had vanished or been murdered were opponents of the Lady’s feminization programs?

  Shortly thereafter the newspaper editor’s name was added to the list of missing persons.

  Meanwhile Ellena governed. Her style was altogether different from that of her husband. Brasidus in his Council had been the first among equals, respected but by no means autocratic. Ellena just gave orders, and if these were not promptly carried out there would be demotions and dismissals. She was not at all displeased, Grimes gathered, by the nickname that had been bestowed upon her. She was not the first Iron Lady in history but certainly was one of the most deserving of that sobriquet.

  She did not seem to mind that Grimes and Maggie continued their residence in the Palace, although they were her husband’s guests and not hers. She did not object when Fenella continued her visits. She even condescended to mingle socially with the offworlders on occasion, inviting—or commanding—them to official dinner parties. At these the fare was Spartan and the conversation stilted.

  And then there was the affair of the bugging.

  Just prior to this, Grimes had found indications that his personal possessions, including his papers, had been disturbed during his absences from his suite. He told Maggie, who, after investigation, reported that there were signs that her own things had been interfered with. After this, before every meeting with Fenella, Shirl and Darleen in Grimes’s quarters, she would make a sweep with her bug detector, that multifunctional wrist companion which she had been given back on Earth. But the thing, when switched on, did not emit so much as a single beep.

  This particular morning there was the usual meeting of the five of them with the pretext of coffee and/or other drinks. Before the arrival of the other three, but after the serving wench had brought in the tray, Maggie used the detector, paying special attention to the coffee things. She said, “All clear.”

  “You like playing with that thing, don’t you?” said Grimes.

  “I do, rather.”

  Then Fenella came in, accompanied by Shirl and Darleen.

  The two New Alicians were silent while Grimes, Maggie and Fenella compared notes, aired theories, discussed the implications of all that they had learned.

  “There’s something cooking,” said the journalist at last. “I can feel it in my water. Some sort of balloon is about to go up. There is something rotten in the State of Denmark . . . .”

  “But this is New Sparta,” objected Darleen, “not Denmark. Wherever Denmark is.”

  “A figure of speech,” said Fenella. “And now, let’s hear from you two.”

  “What can we tell you?” asked Shirl. “We are still trying to teach those thick-witted Amazons how to throw a boomerang. And there are the foot-boxing lessons. They are rather better at that.”

  “What about the private lessons you are giving to that butch blonde, Major whatever-her-name-is?” Fenella’s nostrils were quivering, a sure sign that she was on the scent of some interesting dirt. “Has she been giving you any lessons?”

  “What could she give us lessons in?” asked Darleen innocently. “But she wants to be our friend; she has told us as much. And when we are alone with her we are to call her by her name, Hera, and not address her by her rank.”

  “All girls together,” sneered Fenella. “And haven’t you learned yet that the word ‘friend’ has, over the past few years, acquired a new meaning?”

  “We do not understand,” said both girls as one.

  “But haven’t your relations with the major,” persisted Fenella, “been rather warmer than one would expect between a relatively senior officer and two very junior ones?”

  “We would not know,” said Shirl. “This is the first time that we have been part of an army.”

  “Perhaps Hera has
been generous,” said Darleen doubtfully. “She gives us presents. Like this . . . .”

  She raised her right arm. Around the wrist was a broad bracelet of gold mesh, set with sparkling, semi-precious stones.

  “It is very pretty . . .” said Maggie.

  “She’ll be wanting something for that . . .” said Fenella.

  “Use your detector, Maggie!” snapped Grimes.

  “But . . .”

  “Do as I say!”

  Maggie pressed the right buttons on her wrist companion. The beeps that it emitted seemed deafeningly loud.

  “How . . . How did you guess?” asked Fenella.

  “My mind isn’t as suspicious in the same way as yours,” Grimes told her, “but it has its moments. And isn’t there an old saying, ‘beware the Greeks when they come bearing gifts’?”

  He was rather annoyed when he had to explain the allusion to Shirl and Darleen. And Darleen was even more annoyed when Maggie made her take off the bracelet and then hammered it with the heel of her sandal until her bug detector made it plain that it had ceased to function.

  And Grimes realized that they all had behaved foolishly, even to the officer who had fitted Maggie out for her role as intelligence agent. That bug detector should have given a visual warning, not a series of loud beeps. And, beeps or no beeps, the counterintelligence listeners-in should never have been told that their bug had been detected; instead they should have been fed false information.

  But it was no use crying over spilt milk.

  Chapter 19

  The next day they made a break in what had become their routine.

  Instead of the morning meeting in Grimes’s suite they did their talking during a stroll through the city streets. This was no hardship; the day was fine, pleasantly warm. But there were problems. A group of five people find it hard to hold a conversation while walking, especially if what is being discussed is of a confidential nature. Raised voices attract attention. So it was that Shirl and Darleen, who did not have much to contribute in any case, brought up the rear while Grimes walked between Maggie and Fenella.

  There seemed to be an air of expectancy in the streets. Grimes remarked on this.

  “It’s the Marathon, of course,” said Fenella. “Even though Brasidus is not here to fire the starting pistol, the show must go on.”

  “It can go on without me,” laughed Grimes.

  “Some gentle jogging would do you good,” Maggie told him.

  “There are better ways of taking exercise,” he said.

  He turned into a shop doorway, where he would be sheltered from the light breeze, to fill and to light his pipe. An annoying eddy blew out the old-fashioned match that he was using. He bent his head to shield the flame of the second match. Something whistled past his ear. He stared at the tiny, glittering thing that had embedded itself in the wooden door frame with a barely audible thunk. He recognized it for what it was. He had fired similar missiles himself while taking part in a panjaril hunt on Clothis, a combination of sport and commercial enterprise, the beasts being not killed but merely rendered unconscious, then to be shorn of their silky fur and left to recover to wander off and grow a new coat. It was an anesthetic dart that had just missed him.

  He forgot the business of pipe lighting, stared at the passing pedestrians, alert for the sight of a gleaming weapon, an aiming hand.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Maggie.

  He indicated the dart, said, “Somebody’s out to get us.”

  “But who?” demanded Fenella.

  “You tell me.”

  “It must be somebody,” said Maggie, making a sweeping gesture with her hand at the passersby.

  She was as lucky as Grimes had been. The dart that should have struck the exposed skin of her wrist embedded itself harmlessly in the baggy sleeve of her shirt, just above the elbow. Grimes pulled the thing out before it could do any damage, dropped it into a convenient grating in the gutter.

  “Let’s get out of here!” he snapped. “Back to the Palace!”

  “There’s never a policeman around when you need one,” complained Fenella. Then, “But whose side are they on, anyhow?”

  The general flow of foot traffic was now in the direction that they wanted to go. There were very few vehicles. They mingled with the crowd which, although it afforded some protection, hampered their progress. A fat man, past whom Grimes shoved none too gently, uttered a little squeal and collapsed. Grimes saw the tiny dart protruding from his bulging neck. Other people in the immediate vicinity of the fugitives were falling. The members of the hit squad were showing more determination than accurate marksmanship but, sooner or later, they must hit at least one of their designated targets. And how many of the ambulance attendants, out in force as always during a major sporting event, were the genuine article? Would Grimes or his companions be taken to a first-aid station or hospital or to some interrogation center?

  Their scattering throughout the crowd was not altogether intentional but it made the pursuers’ task more difficult. Had they stayed in a tightly knit group it would have been easy to identify them, to pick them off one by one. As it was, the only two easily indentifiable were Shirl and Darleen, and they were not the prime objectives.

  They pushed and jostled their way along the narrow, winding street. They came to the intersection with the main road—not much wider, little more direct—to the Palace. There the crowds were heavy, lining each side of the thoroughfare. There were shouts and cheers. For us? wondered Grimes dazedly. He was aware that Maggie had found her way to his side and that Fenella was elbowing her way toward them both through the crush. And there were Shirl and Darleen. Darleen plucked a dart from one of the leather cross-straps of her uniform, dropped it to the ground. The unfortunate, barefooted woman who trod on it also dropped.

  And they were pounding down the hill from the Palace, thousands of them, citizens and tourists, men and women, running, as was the ancient Greek custom, naked. It would be impossible to make any headway, toward refuge, against that mob. The first runners were abreast of them now—a slim young woman, her long legs pumping vigorously, her breasts jouncing; a wiry, middle-aged man; a fat lady, her entire body a-quiver who, on the downgrade, gravity-assisted, was putting on a fair turn of speed. It was probably against the rules but it was happening nonetheless; onlookers were casting aside their clothing and joining the runners.

  One did so from near to where Grimes and Maggie were standing. He thought that he recognized the back view of her, that mole, with which he had become familiar, on her left shoulder . . . . But . . . Fenella?

  “Quick!” snapped Maggie. “Get your gear off. Join the mob!”

  Yes, it made sense. Clothed, among the naked runners, they would be obvious targets. Naked they would be no more than unidentifiable trees in a vast forest. But . . .

  “My pipe . . .” he muttered. “My money . . . My credit cards . . .”

  “Carry your notecase in your hand if you have to. As for your stinking pipe, you know what you can do with it. You’ve more than one, haven’t you? Hurry up!”

  He threw off his shirt, unbuckled the waistband of his kilt, remembering just in time to remove his notecase from the sporran. In the crush he had trouble with his underwear, his shoes and his long socks. Then he was stripped, as Maggie was, and the pair of them were out onto the road, merging with the mainstream of runners. Shirl and Darleen were just ahead of them; even with their peculiar hopping gait their nudity made them almost undistinguishable from the crowd.

  Grimes ran. He knew that if he dropped back among the stragglers he would once again become a target. Not many men on New Sparta had outstanding ears. The same would apply if he achieved a place among the leaders—but there was little chance of that. He ran, trying to adjust the rhythm of his open-mouthed breathing to that of his laboring legs. He kept his eyes fixed on the bobbing buttocks of the lady ahead of him; there could have been worse things to watch. The soles of his feet were beginning to hurt; except on sand or grass he
was used to going shod.

  He ran, clutching his wallet in his right hand, using his left, now and again, to sweep away the sweat that was running down his forehead into his eyebrows, then into his smarting eyes.

  He snatched a glance to his left. Maggie was still with him, making better weather of it than he was although her body was gleaming with perspiration and her auburn hair had become unbound. She flashed a smile at him, a smile that turned into a grimace as she trod on something hard. She was developing the beginnings of a limp.

  But they were keeping up well, the pair of them, although the crowd around them was thinning. Fenella was still in front; Grimes caught a glimpse of a slim figure with a distinctive mole on the left shoulder when, momentarily, he looked up and away from the shapely bottom that he had been using as a steering mark. Shirl and Darleen were nowhere to be seen.

  Somebody was coming up on him from astern. He could hear the heavy breathing, audible even above the noise of his own. He wondered vaguely who it was. Then he heard the sound of a brief scuffle and the thud of someone falling heavily and, almost immediately, the shrill whistle of one of the Marathon marshals summoning a first-aid party.

  From his right Shirl (or was it Darleen) said, “We got her.”

  Grimes turned his head. The New Alician was bounding along easily, showing no effects of physical exertion.

  “Got . . . who?” he gasped.

  “We did not find out her name. A tall, skinny girl with red hair. She had one of those little needles in her hand. She was going to stick it in you. We stuck it in her.”

  “Uh . . . thanks . . .”

  “We are watching for others.”