Ride the Star Winds

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Yes, it’s me, Tomoko-san. Can you get Mr. Steerforth for me, please?”

  “One moment, Captain-san.”

  In a remarkably short space of time Tomoko’s face in the screen was replaced by that of the chief officer.

  “Sir!” said that gentleman smartly.

  “Yes, Mr. Steerforth?” asked Grimes.

  “Discharge has commenced, sir. I have been informed by Admiral Damien that the Survey Service wishes to charter the ship for a one-way voyage to Pleth, with a cargo of stores and equipment for the sub-base on that planet. He wishes to discuss with you details of further employment and intimated that your return to Woomera as soon as possible will be appreciated . . . .”

  Not only appreciated by Damien, thought Grimes, but necessary. He had his living to earn.

  He said, “I shall return by the first flight tomorrow. Meanwhile, how are things aboard the ship?”

  “We have a new catering officer, sir. A Ms. Melinda Clay. She appears to be quite competent. There is some mail for you, of course. I have opened the business letters and, in accordance with your instructions, dealt with such matters, small accounts and such, as came within my provenance as second in command. Personal correspondence has been untouched.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Steerforth. I shall see you early tomorrow afternoon.”

  He hung up, rejoined his parents in the lounge.

  “My holiday’s over,” he announced regretfully. “It was far too short.”

  “It certainly has been,” said Matilda.

  “And where are you off to this time, John?” asked his father.

  “Pleth. A one-voyage charter. Survey Service stores. Probably a full load of forms to be filled out in quintuplicate.”

  “And after that? Back to Earth with a full load of similar forms filled in?”

  “I don’t know, George. The mate told me that Damien has some further employment in mind for me.”

  “No more privateering?” asked the old man a little wistfully. “No more appointments as governor general?”

  “I hope not,” Grimes told him. “But, knowing Damien, and knowing something of the huge number of pies that he has a finger in, I suspect that it will be something . . . interesting.”

  “And disreputable, no doubt,” snapped Matilda. “When you were a regular officer in the Service you never used to get into all these scrapes.”

  “Mphm?” grunted Grimes dubiously. He’d been getting into scrapes for as long as he could remember.

  Shirl and Alice came in, accompanied by Dr. Namatjira. The doctor, who had joined them at their boomerang practice, was glowing with admiration. “If only I had a time machine!” he exclaimed. “If only I could send them back to the early days of my people in this country, before the white man came! They could have instructed us in the martial arts, especially those involved with the use of flung missiles.” He grinned whitely. “Captain Cook, and all those who followed him, would have been driven back into the sea!”

  “I might just use that,” murmured Grimes senior. “It sounds much more fun that what I’m doing now. That boring Peter Lalor and his bunch of drunken roughnecks. . . .”

  Matilda served afternoon tea. After this the doctor said his farewells and made his departure. He expressed the sincere hope that he would be meeting Shirl and Darleen again in the not too distant future.

  “Bring them back, John,” he admonished. “They belong here. They are like beings from our Dream Time, spirits made flesh . . .”

  And then there was what would be the last family dinner for quite some time, with talk lasting long into the night. It would have lasted much longer but Grimes and the girls had an early morning flight to catch.

  Chapter 8

  It was a pleasant enough flight back to Port Woomera. Again Grimes, and with him the two girls, were guests in the airship’s control cab. On this occasion, however, the captain, a different one, did not say anything to antagonize his privileged passengers. The three of them made their way from the airport to the spaceport by monorail and then by robocab to the ship.

  The efficient Mr. Steerforth was waiting by the ramp as the cab pulled up, saluted with Survey Service big ship smartness as his captain got out. He said, “Leave your baggage, sir, I’ll have it brought up.” He followed Grimes into the after airlock, but not before he had ordered sharply, “Ms. Kelly, Ms. Byrne, look after the master’s gear, will you?”

  Grimes heard a not quite suppressed animal growl from either Shirl or Darleen and with an effort managed not to laugh aloud. Well, he thought, the two New Alicians would have to start learning that, as cadets, they were the lowest form of life aboard Sister Sue . . . .

  He and the chief officer took the elevator up to the captain’s flat. He let himself into his day cabin, thinking that, much as he had enjoyed the break, it was good to be back. But had somebody been interfering with the layout of the furniture? Had something been added?

  Something had—a long case, standing on end.

  Steerforth saw him looking at it and said, “This came for you, sir. Special delivery, from Alice Springs. Probably something you purchased there, sir, too heavy and cumbersome to carry with you on your flight.”

  “Probably,” said Grimes. “But I’ll catch up with my mail, Mr. Steerforth, before I unpack it. I’ll yell for you as soon as I’m through.”

  “Very good, sir.”

  His curiosity unsatisfied, Steerforth left the cabin. He said to Shirl and Darleen, who were about to enter with Grimes’s baggage, “Report to me as soon as the captain’s finished with you.”

  Shirl said, “I liked Billy Williams.”

  Darleen said, “So did I.”

  Grimes said, “Billy Williams earned his long service leave. And try to remember, young ladies, that when you knew Billy Williams you were passengers in this ship, and privileged. Now you are very junior officers and Mr. Steerforth is a senior officer, my second in command. Meanwhile, I still have a job for you. To help me unpack this.”

  Like most spacemen he always carried on his person a multi-purpose implement that was called, for some forgotten reason, a Swiss Army Knife. (Once Grimes had asked his father about it and had been told that there was, a long time ago, a Swiss Army and that a special pocketknife had been invented for the use of its officers, incorporating a variety of tools, so that they would never lack the means to open a bottle of wine or beer.)

  Anyhow, Grimes’s pocket tool chest had a suitable screwdriver. He used it while Shirl and Darleen held the long box steady. At last he had all the securing screws out of the lid and gently pried it away from the body of the case, put it to one side on the deck. And then there was the foam plastic packing to be dealt with. He knew what he would find as he pulled it away.

  She stood there in her box, her transparent skin glistening, the ornamental complexity of shining wheels on their jeweled pivots motionless. And he stood there looking at her, hesitant. He knew the simple procedure for activation—but should he?

  Why not?

  He inserted the index finger of his right hand into her navel, pressed. He heard the sharp click. He saw the transparent eyelids—a rather absurd refinement!—open and a faint flicker of light in the curiously blank eyes. He saw the wheels of the spurious clockwork mechanism begin to turn, some slowly, some spinning rapidly. There was a barely audible ticking.

  The lips moved and . . . .

  “Hello, sailor,” said Seiko seductively.

  “Mphm,” grunted Grimes. Then, gesturing toward the litter of foam packing, “Get this mess cleaned up.”

  Shirl and Darleen laughed.

  “Now there’s somebody else to do the fetching and carrying!” said one of them.

  Grimes dealt with his mail while Seiko busied herself with what Grimes thought was quite unnecessary dusting and polishing. There was a letter from his father, written before Grimes had left the family home to return to his ship. I don’t like the idea of returning Seiko to the makers, the old man had written. They’d
take her apart to find out what went wrong—or went right—and when they put her together again she’d be no more than just another brainless robomaid with no more intelligence than a social insect. And she would, of course, lose her personality. I’m hoping that you’ll be able to use her aboard your ship, as your personal servant. . . .

  Then there was a brief note from Admiral Damien, inviting him—or ordering him—to dinner in the admiral’s own dining room that evening.

  He was interrupted briefly by his new catering officer, Melinda Clay. He looked up at her approvingly. She was a tall woman, of the same race as Cleo Jones, the radio officer, and Cassandra Perkins, the fourth RD engineer. She was at least as beautiful as Cleo, although in a different way. The hair of her head was snowy white, in vivid contrast to the flawless black skin of her face. Natural or artificial? Grimes wondered.

  “I came up, sir,” she said, “to introduce myself . . . .”

  “I’m very happy to have you aboard, Ms. Clay,” said Grimes, extending his hand.

  She shook it, then went on, “And to find out, before the voyage starts, if you have any special preferences in the way of food and drink. That way I can include such items in my stores.”

  “Unluckily,” laughed Grimes, “my very special preferences are also very expensive—and as owner, as well as master, I should have to foot the bill. Just stock up normally. And I’m quite omnivorous. As long as the food is good, I’ll eat it. . . .”

  Seiko came out of the bathroom, where she had been giving the shower fittings a thorough polishing.

  Melinda’s eyes widened. “What a lovely robot! I didn’t know that you carried your own robomaid.”

  “I didn’t know myself until I unpacked her. She’s a gift, from my father.”

  “She? But of course, sir. You could hardly call such a beautiful thing it.”

  “Seiko,” said Grimes, “this is Ms. Clay, my catering officer. When you are not looking after me—and I do not require much looking after—you will act as her assistant.”

  “Your father’s last instructions to me, sir,” said Seiko, “were that I was to be your personal servant.”

  “And my instructions to you,” said Grimes firmly, “are that you are to consider yourself a member of the domestic staff of this vessel. Your immediate superior is Ms. Clay.”

  “Yes, Massa.”

  “Seiko, you are not supposed to have a sense of humor.”

  Melinda Clay laughed. “Don’t be so serious, Captain! I’m sure that Seiko and I will get on very well.”

  A slave and the descendant of slaves . . . thought Grimes wryly.

  Chapter 9

  Damien had another dinner guest, a tall, severely black-clad, gray-haired woman, with classic perfect features, who was introduced to Grimes as Madam Duvalier, First Secretary of the Aboriginal Protection Society. Grimes had already heard of this body, although it was of quite recent origin. It had been described in an editorial in The Ship Operators’ Journal, to which publication Grimes subscribed, as an organization of trendy do-gooders obstructing honest commercial progress. And there had been cases, Grimes knew, where the APS had done much more harm than good. Their campaign on behalf of the down-trodden Droogh, for example. . . . The Droogh were one of the two sentient races inhabiting a world called Tarabel, an Earth-type planet. They were a sluggish, reptilian people, living in filth, literally, because they liked it, practicing cannibalism as a means of population control, fanatically worshipping a deity called The Great Worm who could be dissuaded from destroying the Universe only by regular, bloody sacrifices of any lifeform unlucky enough to fall into Droogh clutches. The other sentient race on Tarabel had been the Marmura, vaguely simian, although six-limbed beings. It was with them that the first Terran traders had dealt, taking in exchange for manufactured goods, including firearms, bales of tanned Droogh hides. It was learned later—too late—that, at first, these hides had been the leftovers from the Droogh cannibal feasts. A little later many of the hides had come from Droogh who had been killed, by machinegun fire, when mounting unprovoked attacks on Marmuran villages, the purpose of which had been to obtain raw material for blood sacrifices to The Great Worm.

  Somebody in the Walk Proud Shoe Factory just outside New York had become curious about obvious bullet holes in Droogh hides and had gone to the trouble of getting information about Tarabel and had learned that the Droogh were sentient beings. Then APS had gotten into the act. A SAVE THE DROOGH! campaign was mounted. Pressure was exerted upon the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs. A Survey Service cruiser was dispatched to Tarabel, not to investigate (which would have made sense) but to disarm the Marmura. This was done, although not without loss of life on both sides. Then the cruiser was called away on some urgent business elsewhere in the Galaxy.

  The next ship to make planetfall on Tarabel was a Dog Star Line tramp. Her captain did not get the expected consignment of Droogh hides—and, in any case, there weren’t any Marmura for him to trade with. In the ruins of the small town near the primitive spaceport were several Droogh. These tried to interest him in a few bales of badly tanned, stinking Marmura skins. He was not interested and got upstairs in a hurry before things turned really nasty.

  And the Droogh were left to their own, thoroughly unpleasant, devices.

  Grimes remembered this story while he, the admiral and Madame Duvalier were sipping their drinks and chatting before dinner. Somehow the conversation got around to the problem of primitive aborigines introduced to modern technology, of how much interference with native cultures was justifiable.

  “There was the Tarabel affair . . .” said Grimes.

  The woman laughed ruefully.

  “Yes,” she admitted. “There was the Tarabel “affair.” She extended a slim foot shod in dull-gleaming, grained, very dark blue leather. “You will note, Captain, that I have no qualms about wearing shoes made of Droogh hide. I know, now, that the late owner of the skin was either butchered by his or her own people for a cannibal feast or shot, in self-defense, by the Marmura. We, at APS, should have been sure of our facts before we mounted our crusade in behalf of the Droogh.

  “But tell me—and please be frank—what do you really think of people like ourselves? Those who are referred to, often as not, as interfering do-gooders . . . .”

  Rear Admiral Damien laughed, a rare display of merriment, so uninhibited that the miniature medals on the left breast of his mess jacket tinkled.

  “Young Grimes, Yvonne,” he finally chuckled, “is the do-gooder of all do-gooders, although I’ve no doubt that he’ll hate me for pinning that label on him. He’s always on the side of the angels but, at the same time, contrives to make some sort of profit for himself.”

  Madame Duvalier permitted herself a faint smile. “But you still haven’t answered my question, Captain. What do you think of do-gooders? Organized do-gooders, such as APS?”

  “Mphm.” Grimes took a large sip from his pink gin, then gained more time by refilling and lighting his pipe. “Mphm. Well, one trouble with do-gooders is that they, far too often, bust a gut on behalf of the thoroughly undeserving while ignoring the plight of their victims. They seem, far too often, to think that an unpopular cause is automatically a just cause. Most of the time it isn’t. But, on the other hand, anybody backed by big business or big government is all too often a bad bastard . . . .”

  “He may be a son of a bitch,” contributed Damien, “but he’s our son of a bitch.”

  “Yes. That’s the attitude far too often, sir.”

  “And so, young Grimes, you’re interfering, as a freelance do-gooder, every time that you get the chance.”

  “I don’t interfere, sir. Things sort of happen around me.”

  “Captain Grimes,” said Damien to Madame Duvalier, “is a sort of catalyst. Put him in any sort of situation where things aren’t quite right and they almost immediately start going from bad to worse. And then, when it’s all over but the shouting—or, even, the shooting—who emerges from the stinking mes
s, smelling of violets, with the Shaara crown jewels clutched in his hot little hand? Grimes, that’s who. And, at the same time, virtue is triumphant and vice defeated.”

  Grimes’s prominent ears flushed. Was the Duvalier female looking at him with admiration or amusement?

  The sound of a bugle drifted into Damien’s sitting room—which could have been the admiral’s day cabin aboard a grand fleet flagship. (Damien was a great traditionalist.) Damien got to his feet, extended an unnecessary hand to Madam Duvalier to help her to hers. He escorted the lady into the dining room, followed by Grimes.

  The meal, served by smartly uniformed mess waiters, was pleasant enough although, thought Grimes, probably he would have fed better aboard his own ship. But in Sister Sue it was his tastes that were catered to; here, in Flag House, it was Damien’s. The admiral liked his beef well-done, Grimes liked his charred on the outside and raw on the inside. Even so, Grimes admitted, the old bastard knew his wines, the whites and the reds, the drys and the semi-sweets, each served with the appropriate course. But it was a great pity that whoever had assembled the cheese board had been so thoroughly uninspired.

  During dinner the conversation was on generalities. And then, with the mess waiters dismissed, Damien and his guests returned to the sitting room for coffee (so-so) and brandy (good) and some real talking.

  “Yvonne,” said the admiral, “is one of the very few people who knows that you are back in the Survey Service, as a sort of trouble shooter. She thinks that you may be able to do some work for APS.”

  “Since the Tarabel bungle,” the woman admitted, “APS doesn’t have the influence in high government circles that it once did. But there are still wrongs that need righting, and still powerful business interests putting profits before all else . . . .”

  “And how can I help?” asked Grimes. “After all, I represent a business interest myself, Far Traveler Couriers. Unless I make a profit I can’t stay in business. And if I go broke I just can’t see the Survey Service taking me back into the fold officially . . . .”