"I shall not leave my weapon here. Will you be so good as to put me through to the ship so that I can tell the duty officer to send somebody ashore to pick it up?"
"All right." Diomedes punched a few buttons on his board, picked up the handset, spoke into it briefly, then handed it to the Arcadian. He turned to Brasidus. "So you've arrived. Attention!" Brasidus obeyed with a military crash and jangle. "Let's look at you. H'm, brass not too bad, but your leatherwork could do with another polish . . . But you're not going anywhere near the palace, so I don't suppose it matters. At ease! Stand easy! In fact, relax."
Meanwhile, Margaret Lazenby had finished speaking into the telephone. She returned the instrument to its rest. She stood there, looking down at the obese Diomedes sprawled in his chair—and Brasidus looked at her. She was not in uniform, but was wearing an open-necked shirt with a flaring collar cut from some soft, brown material, and below it a short kilt of the same color. Her legs were bare, and her slim feet were thrust into serviceable-looking sandals. At her belt was a holstered weapon of unfamiliar design. The cross straps from which depended her equipment—camera, sound recorder, binoculars—accentuated the out-thrusting fleshy mounds on her chest that betrayed her alien nature.
She was, obviously, annoyed, and when she spoke it was equally obvious that she was ready and willing to transfer her annoyance to Brasidus. "Well, Brasidus," she demanded. "Seen enough? Or would you like me to go into a song and dance routine for you?"
"I . . . I was interested in that weapon of yours."
"Is that all?" For some obscure reason Brasidus' reply seemed to annoy her still further. And then a junior officer from Seeker came in, and Margaret Lazenby unbuckled the holstered pistol from her belt, handed it to the young spaceman. She accepted the stun gun from Diomedes, unholstered it, looked at it curiously. "Safety catch? Yes. Firing stud? H'm. We have similar weapons. Nonlethal, but effective enough. Oh, range?"
"Fifty feet," said Diomedes.
"Not very good. Better than nothing, I suppose." She clipped the weapon to her belt. "Come on, Brasidus. We'd better get out of here before he has me stripped to a peashooter and you polishing your belt and sandals."
"Your instructions, sir?" Brasidus asked Diomedes.
"Instructions? Oh, yes. Just act as guide and escort to Doctor Lazenby. Show her what you can of the workings of our economy—fields, factories . . . you know. Answer her questions as long as there's no breach of security involved. And keep your own ears flapping."
"Very good, sir. Oh, expenses . . ."
"Expenses, Brasidus?"
"There may be meals, an occasional drink . . ."
Diomedes sighed, pulled a bag of coins out of a drawer, dropped it with a clank on to the desk. "I know just how much is in this and I shall expect a detailed account of what you spend. Off with you. And, Doctor Lazenby, I expect you to bring Brasidus, here, back in good order and condition."
Brasidus saluted, then followed the spaceman out through the doorway.
She said, as soon as they were outside the building, "Expenses?"
"Yes, Doctor . . ."
"Call me Peggy."
"I have rations for the day in the car, Peggy, but I didn't think they were . . . suitable. Just bread and cold meat and a flagon of wine from the mess at the barracks."
"And so . . . and so you want to impress me with something better?"
"Why, yes," admitted Brasidus with a certain surprise.
"Yes." (And it was strange, too, that he was looking forward to buying food and drink for this alien, even though the wherewithal to do so came out of the public purse. On Sparta every man was supposed to pay for his own entertainment, although not always in cash. In this case, obviously, there could be no reciprocation. Or could there be? But it did not matter.)
And then, with even greater surprise, Brasidus realized that he was helping Margaret Lazenby into the hovercar. Even burdened as she was, she did not need his assistance, but she accepted it as her due. Brasidus climbed in after her, took his seat behind the control column. "Where to?" he asked.
"That's up to you. I'd like a good tour. No, not the city—shall be seeing plenty of that when I accompany John—Commander Grimes—on his official calls. What about the countryside and the outlying villages? Will that be in order?"
"It will, Peggy," Brasidus said. (And why should the use of that name be so pleasurable?)
"And if you'll explain things to me as you drive . . ."
The car lifted on its air cushion in a flurry of dust, moved forward, out through the main gateway, and for the first few miles headed toward the city.
"The spice fields," explained Brasidus with a wave of his hand. "It'll soon be harvest time, and then the two ships from Latterhaven will call for the crop."
"Rather . . . overpowering. The smell, I mean. Cinnamon, nutmeg, almond, but more so . . . And a sort of mixture of sage and onion and garlic. But those men working in the fields with hoes and rakes, don't you have mechanical cultivators?"
"But why should we? I suppose that machines could be devised, but such mechanical tools would throw the helots out of employment."
"But you'd enjoy vastly increased production and would be able to afford a greater tonnage of imports from Latterhaven."
"But we are already self-sufficient."
"Then what do you import from Latterhaven?"
Brasidus creased his brows. "I . . . I don't know, Peggy," he admitted. "We are told that the ships bring manufactured goods."
"Such as?"
"I don't know." Then he recalled the strange book that he had seen in the crèche. "Books, perhaps."
"What sort of books?"
"I don't know, Peggy. The doctors keep them for themselves. But we turn off here. We detour the city and run through the vineyards."
The road that they were now following was little more than a track, running over and around the foothills, winding through the terraced vineyards on either side. As far as the eye could see the trellises were sagging under the weight of the great, golden fruit, each at least the size of a man's head, the broad, fleshy leaves. Brasidus remarked, "This has been a good year for grapes."
"Grapes? Are those things grapes?"
"What else could they be?" Brasidus stopped the car, got out, scrambled up the slope to the nearest vine. With his knife he hacked through a tough stem, then carried the ripe, glowing sphere back to Peggy. She took it, hefted it in her two hands, peered at it closely, sniffed it. "Whatever this is," she declared, "it ain't no grape—not even a grapefruit. Something indigenous, I suppose. Is it edible?"
"No. It has to be . . . processed. Skinned, trodden out, exposed to the air in open vats. It takes a long time, but it gets rid of the poison."
"Poison? I'll take your word for it." She handed the fruit back to Brasidus, who threw it onto the bank. "Oh, I should have kept that, to take to the ship for analysis."
"I'll get it again for you."
"Don't bother. Let the biochemist do his own fetching and carrying. But have you any of the . . . the finished product? You did say that you had brought a flagon of wine with you."
"Yes, Peggy." Brasidus reached into the back of the car, brought up the stone jug, pulled out the wooden stopper.
"No glasses?" she asked with a lift of the eyebrows.
"Glasses?"
"Cups, goblets, mugs—things you drink out of."
"I . . . I'm sorry. I never thought . . ."
"You have a lot to learn, my dear. But show me how you manage when you haven't any women around to exercise a civilizing influence."
"Women?"
"People like me. Go on, show me."
Brasidus grinned, lifted the flagon in his two hands, tilted it over his open mouth, clear of his lips. The wine was rough, tart rather than sweet, but refreshing. He gulped happily, then returned the jug to an upright position. He swallowed, then said, "Your turn, Peggy."
"You can't expect me to drink like that. You'll have to help me."
You wouldn't last five minutes on Sparta, thought Brasidus, not altogether derisively. He turned around in his seat, carefully elevated the wine flagon over Peggy's upturned face. He was suddenly very conscious of her red, parted lips, her white teeth. He tilted, allowing a thin trickle of the pale yellow fluid to emerge. She coughed and spluttered, shook her head violently. Then she gasped, "Haven't the knack of it—although I can manage a Spanish wineskin. Try again."
And now it was Brasidus who had to be careful, very careful. He was acutely aware of her physical proximity, her firm softness. "Ready?" he asked shakily.
"Yes. Fire at will."
This time the attempt was more successful. When at last she held up her hand to signal that she had had enough she must have disposed of at least a third of the flagon. From a pocket in her skirt she pulled a little square of white cloth, wiped her chin and dabbed her lips with it. "That's not a bad drink," she stated. "Sort of dry sherry and ginger . . . but more-ish. No—that's enough. Didn't you ever hear the saying, 'Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker'?"
"What is candy?" asked Brasidus. "And liquor is quicker for what?"
"Sorry, honey. I was forgetting that you have yet to learn the facts of life. Come to that, there're quite a few facts of life that I have to learn about this peculiar fatherland of yours. What is home without a mother?" She laughed. "Of course, you're lucky. You don't know how lucky. A pseudo-Hellenic culture and nary an Oedipus complex among the whole damn boiling of you!"
"Peggy, please speak Greek."
"Speak English, you mean. But I was using words and phrases that have dropped out of your version of our common tongue." She had slipped a little tablet into her mouth from a tube that she had extracted from her pocket. Suddenly her enunciation was less slurred. "Sorry, Brasidus, but this local tipple of yours is rather potent. Just as well that I brought along some soberer-uppers."
"But why do you need them? Surely one of the pleasures of drinking—the pleasure of drinking—is the effect; the . . . the loosening up."
"And the drunken brawl?"
"Yes," he said firmly.
"You mean that you'd like to . . . to brawl with me?"
Brasidus glimpsed a vivid mental picture of such an encounter and, with no hesitation, said, once again, "Yes."
"Drive on," she told him.
Chapter 16
THEY DROVE ON, through and over the foothills, always climbing, the snowcapped peak of Olympus ever ahead, until, at last, Brasidus brought the car to a halt in the single street of a tiny village that clung precariously to the mountainside.
"Kilkis," he announced. "The tavern here could be worse. We halt here for our midday meal."
"Kilkis." The Arcadian repeated the name, gazed around her at the huddle of low but not ungraceful buildings, and then to the boulder-strewn slopes upon which grazed flocks of slow-moving, dun-colored beasts, many of them almost ready to reproduce by fission. "Kilkis," she repeated. "And how do the people here make a living? Do they take in each other's washing?"
"I don't understand, Peggy."
"Sorry, Brasidus. What are those animals?"
"Goats," he explained. "The major source of our meat supply." He went on, happy to be upon more familiar ground, "The only helots allowed to carry arms are the goatherds—see, there's one by that rock. He has a horn to summon assistance, and a sword, and a spear."
"Odd-looking goats. And why the weapons? Against rustlers?"
"Rustlers?"
"Cattle thieves. Or goat thieves."
"No. Goat raiding is classed as a military operation, and, in any case, none of the other city-states would dare to violate our borders. We have the Navy, of course, and firearms and armored chariots. They do not. But there're still the wolves, Peggy, and they're no respecters of frontiers."
"H'm. Then I think that you should allow your goatherds to carry at least a rifle. Is it a hazardous occupation?"
"It is, rather. But the schools maintain a steady flow of replacements, mainly from among those who have just failed to make the grade as hoplites."
"I see. Failed soldiers rather than passed veterinarians."
They got out of the car and walked slowly into the inn, into a long room with rush-strewn floor, tables and benches, low, raftered ceiling, and a not unpleasant smell of sour wine and cookery. At one end of the room there was an open fire, upon which simmered a huge iron cauldron. The half dozen or so customers—rough-looking fellows, leather-clad, wiry rather than muscular—got slowly to their feet at the sight of Brasidus' uniform, made reluctant and surly salutation. And then, as they got a proper look at his companion, there was more than a flicker of interest on their dark, seamed faces.
"You may be seated," Brasidus told them curtly.
"Thank you, Sergeant," replied one of them, his voice only just short of open insolence.
The taverner—fat, greasy, obsequious—waddled from the back of the room. "Your pleasure, lords?" he asked.
"A flagon of your best wine. And," added Brasidus, "two of your finest goblets to drink it from. What have you to eat?"
"Only the stew, lord. But it is made from a fine, fat young goat, just this very morning cast off from its father. Or we have sausage—well-ripened and well-seasoned."
"Peggy?" said Brasidus, with an interrogative intonation.
"The stew will do very nicely. I think. It smells good. And it's been boiled, so it should be safer . . ."
The innkeeper stared at her. "And may I be so impertinent as to inquire if the lord is from the strange spaceship?"
"You've already done so," Margaret Lazenby told him, then relented. "Yes. I am from the ship."
"You must find our world very beautiful, lord."
"Yes. It is beautiful. And interesting."
Roughly, Brasidus pulled out a bench from a vacant table, almost forced Peggy down onto the seat. "What about that wine?" he growled to the innkeeper.
"Yes, lord. Coming, lord. At once."
One of the goatherds whispered something to his companions, then chuckled softly. Brasidus glared at the men, ostentatiously loosened the flap of the holster of his projectile pistol. There was an uneasy silence, and then, one by one, the goatherds rose to their feet and slouched out of the room. The Arcadian complained, "I had my recorder going." She did something to the controls of one of the instruments slung at her side. An amplified voice said loudly, "Since when has the Army been playing nurse to offworld monsters?"
"Insolent swine!"
"Don't be silly. They're entitled to their opinions."
"They're not. They insulted me." Then, as an afterthought, "And you."
"I've been called worse things than 'offworld monster' in my time. And you've ruined their lunchtime session, to say nothing of my chances of making a record of a typical tavern conversation."
Reluctantly, "I'm sorry."
"So you damn well should be."
The innkeeper arrived with a flagon and two goblets. They were mismatched, and they could have been cleaner, but they were of glass, not of earthenware or metal, and of a standard surprising in an establishment such as this. He placed them carefully on the rough surface of the table, then stood there, wine jug in hand, awaiting the word to pour.
"Just a minute," Margaret Lazenby said. She picked up one of the drinking vessels, examined it. "H'm. Just as I thought."
"And what did you think, Peggy?"
"Look," she said, and her pointed, polished fingernail traced the design of the crest etched into the surface of the glass. "A stylized Greek helmet. And under it, easy enough to read after all these years, 'I.T.T.S. DORIC.' "
"I.T.T.S.?"
"Interstellar Transport Commission's Ship."
"But I thought that your ship belonged to the Interstellar Federation's Survey Service."
"It does."
"But apart from the Latterhaven freighters, no ships but yours have ever called here."
"Somebody must have. But what about getting these . . . these antiques filled?
"
Brasidus gestured to the innkeeper, who, after a second's hesitation, filled the Arcadian's glass first. One did not have to be a telepath to appreciate the man's indecision. Here was a sergeant—and a sergeant in the Police Battalion of the Army at that. Here was an alien, in what might be uniform and what might be civilian clothing. Who ranked whom?
Spartan Planet Page 9