Ride the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

  Trumpets sounded and there was a rhythmic mutter of drums. The cameras turned to cover Ellena’s grand entry. She strode majestically to the dais, flanked by high-ranking military officers, both male and female, followed by white-robed Council members. Among these was a tall woman on whose right shoulder rode an owl. Grimes stared at this. It was a real bird. It blinked, shifted its feet, half-lifted its wings.

  “The High Priestess of Athena,” whispered Brasidus.

  The trumpets were silent but the drums maintained a soft throbbing. Ellena stood there, waiting for the applause that was supposed to greet her appearance. She was a majestic enough figure in Amazon Guard uniform, more highly polished bronze than leather. Her plumed helmet added to her already not inconsiderable height. She stood there, frowning.

  At last, from somewhere in the crowd, there was an outbreak of cheering and cries of, “Ellena! Ellena!” But there was also some booing. And were the people, wondered Grimes, who were chanting, “Hip, Hip, Hippolyte!” applauding or exercising their derision?

  Trumpets blared.

  Ellena raised her arms, brought her hands to her shining helmet, lifted it from her head, handed it to an Amazon aide. A white-robed acolyte gave an elaborate crown of golden laurel leaves to the High Priestess, who advanced to stand beside Ellena. Beside her stood one of the councillors, an elderly man, stooped, feeble, with wrinkled face and sparse white hair.

  He spoke into a microphone. Despite the amplification his voice was feeble.

  “Citizens of Sparta . . . We are gathered together on this great and happy occasion to witness the coronation of our first Queen . . . In accordance with our Law the appointment of the ruler must be by public consent . . . Do any of you gathered here know of any reason why the Lady Ellena should not be crowned Queen of all Sparta?”

  “She’s a woman, that’s why!” yelled somebody.

  But Ellena was now seated on the thronelike chair that had been brought for her and the High Priestess, standing behind it, had the golden crown raised in her hands, ready to lower it on to Ellena’s head.

  “For the second time,” quavered the elderly councillor, “do any of you gathered here know of any valid reason why the Lady Ellena should not be crowned Queen of all Sparta?”

  “We want Brasidus! We want Brasidus!” quite a number of voices were chanting.

  “For the third and the last time, do any of you gathered here . . .”

  “We want Brasidus! We want Brasidus! We want the Archon! We want the Archon!”

  Brasidus cried in a great voice, “I am Brasidus! I am the Archon!”

  Freakishly the microphones caught his words, sent them roaring over the crowd. The news media cameras swiveled to cover him. The policemen at the foot of the vast staircase shifted away to the sides as he began his advance to confront his wife.

  Ellena was back on her feet, furious, pointing an accusatory hand.

  “Guards! Kill this impostor!”

  Her own Amazons might well have obeyed but the military personnel in her immediate vicinity were all men. Grimes recognized one of the officers although it was the first time that he had seen him in uniform. It was Paulus.

  “Guards!” Ellena was screaming now. “Kill this impostor!”

  “Brasidus!” the crowd was roaring. “Brasidus!”

  On the platform Ellena was yelling at Paulus. “Shoot him, you useless bastard! Shoot him!”

  “But he is the Archon.”

  “He is an impostor!” She wrestled briefly with the man who had been Brasidus’ bodyguard, succeeded in pulling a heavy projectile pistol from the holster at his belt, smote him on the forehead with the barrel, knocking him to the ground. “All right!” she snarled. “If none of you will do the job, I will!”

  She raised the weapon, holding it in both hands. It was obvious that she knew how to use it.

  From the corner of his eye Grimes caught a blur of movement to his right, the glint of sunlight reflected from bright metal. Darleen had pulled one of the deadly sharpened discs from the pouch that she was still carrying. With a snap of her wrist she launched it. When it hit its target Ellena was about to squeeze off her first shot. The report of the pistol was shocking, deafening almost, but where the bullet went nobody ever knew.

  Ellena screamed.

  And then she was standing there, with blood spouting from her ruined right hand, still clinging to the pistol, still trying to bring it to bear, although it was obvious that those more than half-severed fingers would never be able to pull a trigger until extensive and lengthy repair work had been carried out.

  People joined Brasidus in his march up the steps to the platform, some in civilian clothing, some in police and army uniforms. There was scuffling among the assembled dignitaries but no shots were fired. The Amazon Guard officers were doing their best to stand haughtily aloof, striking out, damagingly, only when jostled. Their loyalty, thought Grimes with some bewilderment, was to their Corps, not to Ellena. She must have done something to antagonize them.

  (Later, very much later, he was to learn that Ellena intended to lay the blame for her husband’s murder on top-ranking Amazon officers, who were to be executed after a mere parody of a trial. Somehow they had discovered this and already had their own plans for Ellena’s elimination. But now she was saving them the trouble.)

  Ellena had collapsed and was receiving medical attention.

  Brasidus had gained access to a microphone. “Fellow citizens! People of Sparta, men and women both! I have returned. Later the full story of my abduction and my rescue by very good friends will be told to you . . . .”

  Grimes didn’t catch the rest of it.

  He had been accosted by a man whom at first he thought was a stranger, a slightly built fellow with a dark complexion, dressed in ill-fitting civilian clothes.

  “You bastard! You bloody pirate!” this person sputtered. “What did you do with my ship?”

  “It’s a long story,” said Grimes at last. “But I’ll see to it that you get her back, Lieutenant Gupta.”

  Chapter 34

  And Grimes got his own ship back when, at last, Sister Sue dropped down to Port Sparta. He got his name back on to the Register as Master and Billy Williams, surprisingly cheerfully, reverted to his old rank as Chief Officer, saying, “Now you can have all the worries again, Skipper.”

  And worries there were.

  Discharge of cargo had just begun when a strongly worded request—it was more of an order, really—came from Admiral Damien by Carlotti deep space radio. This was that Grimes handle the salvage of Krait. He had done this sort of job before, back on Botany Bay, and the courier was a very small ship and Sister Sue had plenty of power and, even with most of her cargo still on board, could have lifted Krait bodily. As it was, throughout the operation the courier’s stern remained in contact with the ground. And then she had to be stayed off so that she was safely stable while Grimes’s engineers made repairs to her engines.

  One consolation was that as Grimes, officially, was no longer connected with the Survey Service he would be able to put in a large bill for the services of himself and his ship.

  And now his Earthbound cargo was almost loaded and, very soon, Sister Sue would be secured for space.

  Maggie sat with Grimes in his day room.

  “And so,” she said, “our ways part again.”

  “It was good while it lasted,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “You could resign your commission,” he told her, “and enter my employ.”

  “You resigned yours, John, but they pressganged you back into servitude. And my orders are that I must remain on New Sparta until the situation has stabilized. And . . . . And you must have noticed how things are now between Brasidus and myself.”

  “How could I not have noticed?”

  “But you must understand, my dear, that it’s all part of the job. My job. He must be taught that all women aren’t like Ellena . . . .”

  “Is that all?”

&nbs
p; “No. I admire Brasidus. I’m sorry for him. And, if you must know, I love him in my fashion. But as soon as I have him back on an even keel—and as soon as this planet’s back on an even keel—I shall be on my way. I’ve no doubt that Damien will find another job for me.”

  “To judge from my own experience of the old bastard, no doubt at all. But what a can of worms this one turned out to be!”

  “And now that the chief worm has been removed the others should quiet down. But what a cunning bitch she was! Playing both ends against the middle. Both ends? I still have to find out just how many ends there were. And if it hadn’t been for her plans to purge the high command of her own Amazon Guard she might still have pulled it off.”

  “How did Colonel what’s-her-name find out what was in store for her?”

  “You and I, John, were by no means the only intelligence operatives on New Sparta, although we were the only Survey Service ones. I had my contacts.”

  “You might have told me.”

  “The less you knew,” she said, “the better.”

  “Mphm.”

  “Cheer up. You’ve got your ship back. Thanks to me you won’t be getting Ellena as a passenger. I persuaded Brasidus that a dangerous woman such as her should be sent back to Earth in a warship, where she can be kept under guard. The destroyer Rigel will have the pleasure of her company. As you know, she’s due in a couple of days after you lift off.”

  “I thought for a while that I might have the dubious pleasure of Fenella’s company.”

  “She decided that there are still stories to be had on New Sparta. Too, she’s set her sights on Brasidus.” She laughed. “I might even let her have him. Who better to retail the scandalous gossip of a palace than one who’s the subject of such gossip herself?”

  “Mphm,” grunted Grimes again. Brasidus, he thought a little jealously, was doing very nicely for himself, getting his hairy paws onto all of Grimes’s women . . . .

  There was a knock at the door.

  “Enter!” called Grimes.

  The door opened. Billy Williams stood there.

  “Secured for space save for the after airlock, Skipper,” he reported. “The two passengers, with their gear, have just boarded.”

  “Passengers, Mr. Williams?”

  “I thought you knew, sir. A lady officer from the Palace, an Amazon major, came out with them and told me that everything had been arranged.”

  Two familiar forms appeared in the doorway behind the Chief Officer.

  “Hi!” said Shirl (or was it Darleen?).

  “Hi!” said Darleen (or was it Shirl?).

  Maggie got to her feet, then bent to kiss Grimes as he still sat in his chair.

  “See you,” she said. “Somewhere, somewhen.”

  Billy Williams left with her to escort her to the airlock.

  “Aren’t you pleased to see us?” asked the two New Alicians as one.

  Grimes supposed that he was.

  THE

  WILD

  ONES

  Chapter 1

  Sister Sue, John Grimes commanding, had made a relatively uneventful voyage from New Sparta to Earth and was now berthed at Port Woomera. But nobody seemed to be in a hurry to take delivery of her cargo, a quite large consignment of the spices for which New Sparta had become famous among Terran gourmets. This didn’t worry Grimes much. His ship, of which he was owner as well as master, was on time charter to the Interstellar Transport Commission and until her holds were empty she would remain on pay. What did worry Grimes was that the charter had expired and that the Commission had indicated it might not be renewed. Another cause for worry was that Billy Williams, his chief officer for many years and, for quite a while, during the term of Grimes’s appointment as governor for Liberia, relieving master, was taking a long overdue spell of planet leave, returning to his home world, Austral. With him had gone the Purser/Catering Officer Magda Granadu, leaving Grimes with a shipful of comparative strangers, young men and women who had not been among her complement when he had first commissioned her. So he had to find a replacement for Magda and one for Billy Williams. The second officer, young Kershaw, was, in Grimes’s opinion, too inexperienced a spaceman for promotion. It would be many years before he would be capable of acting as a reliable second in command.

  Meanwhile Grimes had no option but to hang around the ship like a bad smell. Until he had seen which ways the many cats were going to jump he could not afford to leave her in the fumbling hands of young Kershaw. And he wanted, badly, to get away himself for at least a few days, to revisit his parents’ home in Alice Springs. The old man was getting on now, although still churning out his historical novels. And his mother, Matilda, although one of those apparently ageless women, blessed at birth with a good bone structure, would be wanting to hear a firsthand account of her son’s adventures as governor of Liberia and then on New Sparta.

  He was beginning to wonder if he should make the not-too-long walk from the commercial spaceport to the Survey Service Base, there to pay a courtesy call on Rear Admiral Damien. Even though not many people knew that Grimes was back in the Service with the rank of captain on the reserve list, everybody knew that he was an ex-Survey Service regular officer and that at one stage of his career his superior had been Damien, then Commodore Damien, who had been Officer Commanding Couriers at the Lindisfarne Base. (But it was also common knowledge that young Grimes, as a courier captain, had been Damien’s bête noir.)

  Still, Damien owed him something. He had acted as the Rear Admiral’s cat’s paw during the El Doradan piracy affair, and on Liberia and, most recently, on New Sparta. The Survey Service pulled heavy Gs with the Interstellar Transport Commission. If Damien dropped a few hints in the right quarters the Commission would either renew the New Sparta time charter or find some other lucrative employment for Sister Sue.

  So, after a not very satisfactory breakfast—the temporary, in-port-duties-only catering officer thought it beneath her dignity to cater to the captain’s personal tastes and could murder even so simple a dish as eggs and bacon—Grimes got dressed in his best uniform, his own uniform with the Far Traveler Couriers cap badge and crested buttons. Then he sent for the second officer.

  He said, “I shall be going ashore for a while, Mr. Kershaw. Should anything crop up I shall be with Rear Admiral Damien, at the Base.”

  The lanky, sullen young man with the overly long hair asked, “Is there any word, sir, about a replacement for Mr. Williams? After all, I’m doing chief officer’s duties and only getting second’s pay . . .”

  I’m doing the chief officer’s duties, thought Grimes indignantly. But he said, “The Astronauts’ Guild have the matter in hand. As you know, I require Master Astronaut’s qualifications for my chief officer. Unluckily you have only a First Mate’s certificate.”

  Kershaw flushed. He knew that Grimes knew that he had already sat twice for his Master’s ticket and failed dismally each time. He decided to drop the subject.

  “When will you be back, sir?”

  “That all depends upon the Rear Admiral. He might invite me to lunch, although that’s unlikely. Or I might run into some old shipmates at the Base.”

  “It’s a pity that you ever left the Service, sir,” almost sneered Kershaw.

  “Isn’t it?” said Grimes cheerfully.

  He walked down the ramp from the after airlock, puffing his foul pipe. The morning was fine although, with a southerly breeze straight from the Antarctic, quite cool. There were only a few ships in port—two of the Commission’s Epsilon Class tramps (Sister Sue had started her working life as one such), a somewhat larger Dog Star Line freighter and, gleaming like a huge, metallic skep in the bright sunlight, some of the bee people who were her crew flying lazily about her, a Shaara vessel. (Those bastards are getting everywhere these days, thought Grimes disapprovingly. Once he had quite liked the Shaara but various events had caused him to change his attitude.)

  All these ships, he saw, were working cargo. They all had gainful emplo
yment. His Sister Sue did not.

  He identified himself to the marine guard at the main gate to the Base, was admitted without question. (Fame, or notoriety, had its advantages.) He looked with rather wistful interest at the Survey Service ships in their berths. There were two Serpent Class couriers, the so-called “flying darning needles.” Grimes’s first command—how many years ago?—had been one of these little ships. There was a Star Class destroyer. There was a cartographic ship, similar to Discovery, the mutiny aboard which vessel had been the main cause of his somewhat hasty resignation from the Survey Service.

  But he hadn’t come here to take a leisurely stroll down memory lane. He had come here to confront Rear Admiral Damien, to make a more or less formal request that this gentleman use his influence to obtain further employment, preferably another time charter, for Sister Sue. After all he, Grimes, was useful to the Survey Service even though very few people knew that he was back in their employ. And surely a willing—well, for some of the time—laborer was worthy of his hire.

  He approached the main office block, passed another marine sentry. He went to the receptionist’s desk where a smart little female ensign was on duty. The girl looked at him curiously, noting the details of his uniform. Obviously she was not one of those who knew Grimes by name and reputation. But she was young, young. There may have been giants in those days, the days when Grimes himself was young, but this pert wench would never have heard of them. (Yet. But legends persist and, almost certainly, there would be those on the Base who would be happy to regale her with all sorts of tales, true, half-true and untrue, about that notorious misfit John Grimes.)

  “Sir?” she asked politely.

  “Could I see Admiral Damien, please?”

  “Is he expecting you, sir?”

  “No. But he’ll see me.”

  “Whom shall I say is calling?”

  “John Grimes. Captain John Grimes.”

  “Wait, please, Captain Grimes.”