First Command

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Yes. But, as a personal favor, will you, please, stop making remarks about the shape of my body?”

  “All right.” Then he said, meaning no offense, “On Sparta nobody is deformed.”

  “Not physically,” remarked Margaret Lazenby nastily, and then it was the Sergeant’s turn to lapse into a sulky silence, one that remained unbroken all the rest of the way to the ship.

  Brasidus left the spacemen at the barrier, then reported to Spaceport Security. Diomedes was seated in his inner office, noisily enjoying his midday meal. He waved the Sergeant to a bench, gestured toward the food and drink on the table. “Help yourself, young man. And how did things go? Just the important details. I already know that the King has agreed to let Grimes carry out some sort of survey, and I’ve just received word that Pausanius has lost his head. But what were your impressions?”

  Deliberately Brasidus filled a mug with beer. Officers were allowed stronger liquor than the lower-ranking hoplites, even those with the status of sergeant. He rather hoped that the day would soon come when he would be able to enjoy this tipple in public. He gulped pleasurably. Then he said, “It must be a funny world that they come from. To begin with, they didn’t seem to have any real respect for the King. Oh, they were correct enough, but . . . I could sense, somehow, that they were rather looking down on him. And then . . . they were shocked, sir, really shocked when I told them what was going to happen to Pausanius. It’s hard to credit.”

  “In my job I’m ready and willing to credit anything. But go on.”

  “This Margaret Lazenby, the Arcadian. She seems to have a terror of nudity.”

  “She, Brasidus?”

  “Yes, sir. She told me to refer to her as ‘she’. Do you know, it sounds and feels right, somehow.”

  “Go on.”

  “You’ll remember, sir, that we saw a picture in Lieutenant Commander Grimes’ cabin of what seemed to be a typical beach scene on Arcadia. Everybody was naked.”

  “H’m. But you will recall that in that picture humans and Arcadians were present in roughly equal numbers. To know that one is in all ways inferior is bad enough. To be inferior and in the minority—that’s rather much. His—or her—attitude as far as this world is concerned makes sense, Brasidus. But how did it come up?”

  “She said, when we were driving back through the city, that she felt as though she were being undressed by the eyes of all the people looking at her. (Why should she have that effect on humans? I’m always wondering myself what she is like under her uniform.) And she said that she was afraid that King Cresphontes was going to order her to strip in front of him and the Council.”

  “Men are afflicted by peculiar phobias, Brasidus. You’ve heard of Teleclus, of course?”

  “The Lydian general, sir?”

  “The same. A very brave man, as his record shows. But let a harpy get into his tent and he’s a gibbering coward.” He picked up a meaty bone, gnawed on it meditatively. “So don’t run away with the idea that this Arcadian is outrageously unhuman in his—or ‘her’—reactions.” He smiled greasily. “She may be more human than you dream.”

  “What are you getting at, sir? What do you know?”

  Diomedes waved the bone playfully at Brasidus. “Only what my officers tell me. Apart from that—I’m Security, so nobody tells me anything. Which reminds me, there’s something I must tell you. Your little friend Achron has been ringing this office all morning, trying to get hold of you.” He frowned. “I don’t want you to drop him like a hot cake now that you’ve acquired a new playmate.”

  “What new playmate, sir?”

  “Oh, never mind, never mind. Just keep in with Achron, that’s all. We still want to find out what’s going on at the créche, alien ships or no alien ships. As I’ve said—and I think you’ll agree—it seems to tie in.”

  “But, sir, wouldn’t it be simple just to stage a raid?”

  “I like my job, Brasidus—but I like the feel of my head on my shoulders much better. The doctors are the most powerful branch of the priesthood. This Pausanius, do you think that the King would have acted as he did if he hadn’t known that he, Pausanius, was in bad with his own colleagues? All that happened was that he got himself a public execution instead of a very private one.”

  “It all seems very complicated, Captain.”

  “You can say that again, Brasidus.” Diomedes tossed his bone into the trash basket. “Now . . .” He picked up a sheaf of crumpled, grease-stained papers from the untidy table. “We have to consider your future employment. You’ll not be required for escort duties this afternoon. I shall be arranging his itinerary with Lieutenant Commander Grimes. And tomorrow the bold space commander and his Arcadian sidekick will not be escorted by yourself.”

  “And why not, sir?”

  “Because you’ll be working—working with your hands. You’ve plainclothes experience. You can mix with helots as one of them and get away with it. This afternoon you pay a call on Alessis, who is both an engineer and—but let it go no further—on our payroll. Tomorrow Alessis with a gang of laborers will carry out the annual overhaul of the refrigerating machinery in the Andronicus warehouse. You will be one of the laborers.”

  “But I don’t know anything about refrigeration, sir.”

  “Alessis should be able to teach you all that a common laborer should know this afternoon.”

  “But the other helots, sir. They’ll know that I’m not a regular member of the gang.”

  “They won’t. Alessis has just recruited green labor from at least half a dozen outlying villages. You’ll be the one big-city boy in the crowd. Oh, this will please you. Your friend Heraklion will not be in the créche. He has been called urgently to his estate. It seems that a fire of unknown origin destroyed his farm outbuildings.”

  “Unknown origin, sir?”

  “Of course.”

  “But what has the Andronicus warehouse to do with the créche?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I hope to find out.”

  Brasidus returned to the barracks in Diomedes’ car, changed there into civilian clothes. He had been given the address of Alessis’ office, walked there briskly. The engineer—a short, compact man in a purple-trimmed tunic—was expecting him. He said, “Be seated, Lieutenant. And I warn you now that tomorrow, on the job, I shall be addressing you as ‘Hey, you!’ “

  “I’m used to plainclothes work, sir.”

  “As a helot?”

  “Yes. As a helot.”

  “As a stupid helot?”

  “If that is what’s required.”

  “It will be. You’re going to wander off by yourself and get lost. You’ll be tracing the gas-supply main—that will be your story if anybody stumbles on you. I was supposed to be giving you an afternoon’s tuition in refrigeration techniques, but that will not be necessary. All I ask of my helots is that they lift when I tell them to lift, put down when I tell them to put down, and so on and so forth. They’re the brawn and I’m the brain. Get it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Can you read a plan?”

  “I can.”

  “Splendid.” Alessis got up, opened a drawer of his desk and pulled out a large roll of tough paper. He flattened it out. “Now, this is the basement of the Andronicus warehouse. Power supply comes in here,” his stubby forefinger jabbed, “through a conduit. Fans here, compressors here—all the usual. The cold chambers are all on the floor above—with the exception of this one. Deep freeze—very deep freeze, in fact.”

  “There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be in the basement.”

  “None at all. And there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be up one floor, with the other chambers. But it’s not its location that’s odd.”

  “Then what is?”

  “It’s got two doors, Brasidus. One opening into the basement, the other one right at the back. I found this second door, quite by chance, when I was checking the insulation.”

  “And where does it lead to?”

  “
That is the question. I think, although I am not sure, that there is a tunnel behind it. And I think that the tunnel runs to the créche.”

  “But why?”

  Alessis shrugged. “That’s what our mutual friend Diomedes wants to find out.”

  Chapter 13

  A BLACK, WINDOWLESS CUBE, ugly, forbidding, the Andronicus warehouse stood across the cobbled street from the gracefully proportioned créche complex. To its main door, a few minutes before 0800 hours, slouched the gang of workmen employed by Alessis, among them Brasidus. He was wearing dirty, ill-fitting coveralls, and he was careful not to walk with a military stride, proceeded with a helot’s shamble.

  The other men looked at him, and he looked at them. He saw a bunch of peasantry from the outlying villages, come to the city to (they vaguely hoped) better themselves. They saw a man like themselves, but a little cleaner, a little better fed, a little more intelligent. There were grunted self-introductions. Then, “You’ll be the foreman?” asked one of the workmen.

  “No,” admitted Brasidus. “He’ll be along with Alessis.”

  The engineer arrived in his hovercar, his foreman riding with him. They got out of the vehicle and the foreman went to the doorway, pressed the bell push set to one side of it. Then he said, “Jump to it. Get the tools out of the car.” Brasidus—his years of training were not easily sloughed off—took the lead, swiftly formed an efficient little working party to unload spanners, hammers, gas cylinders and electrical equipment. He heard the foreman say to his employer, “Who’s that new man, sir? We could use a few more like him.”

  Slowly the door opened. It was thick, Brasidus noted. It appeared to be armored. It looked capable of withstanding a chariot charge, or even the fire of medium artillery. It would have been more in keeping with a fortress than a commercial building. In it stood a man dressed in the gray tunic of an industrialist. That made him a helot, although one of a superior class. Nonetheless, his salutation of Alessis was not that of an inferior to a superior. There could even have been a hint of condescension.

  The maintenance gang filed into the building—the engineer and his foreman unhampered, Brasidus and the others carrying the gear. So far there was little to be seen—just a long, straight corridor between featureless metal walls, terminating in yet another door. But it was all so clean, so sterile, impossibly so for Sparta. It reminded Brasidus of the interior of John Grimes’ ship, but even that, by comparison, had a lived-in feel to it.

  The farther door was heavily insulated. Beyond it was a huge room, crowded with machinery, the use of which Brasidus could only guess. Pumps, perhaps, and compressors, and dozens of white-faced gauges. Nothing was in motion; every needle rested at zero.

  “Have you everything you want, Alessis?” asked the industrialist.

  “I think so. Nothing’s been giving any trouble since the last overhaul?”

  “No. I need hardly tell you that the deep freeze is, as always, top priority. But Hera’s not due for another couple of months.”

  “Not to worry, what’s the hurry?” quipped the engineer. Then, to his foreman, “O.K., Cimon, you can start taking the main compressor down. One of you”—he looked over his workmen carefully as though making a decision—“come with me to the basement to inspect the deep freeze. You’ll do, fellow. Bring a hammer and a couple of screwdrivers. And a torch.”

  Brasidus opened the hatch in the floor for Alessis and then, as he followed the engineer down to the lower level, managed to shut it after himself. It was not difficult; the insulation, although thick, was light. In the basement there was more machinery seeming, thought Brasidus, to duplicate the engines on the floor above. It, too, was silent. And there was the huge, insulated door that he, as instructed by Alessis, opened.

  The chamber beyond it was not cooled, but a residual chill seemed to linger in the still air. Physical or psychological? Or psychic? There was . . . something, some influence, some subtle emanation, that resulted in a slight, involuntary shudder, a sudden, prickly gooseflesh. It was as though there were a million voices—subsonic? supersonic? on the verge of audibility—crying out to be heard, striving, in vain, to impart a message. The voices of the dead? Brasidus must have spoken aloud, for Alessis said, “Or the not yet born.”

  “What do you mean?” demanded Brasidus. “What do you mean?”

  “I . . . I don’t know, Lieutenant. It seemed that the words were spoken to me by someone, by something outside.”

  “But this is only a deep-freeze chamber, sir.”

  “It is only a deep-freeze chamber—but it has too many doors.”

  “I can’t see the second one.”

  “No. It is concealed. I found it only by accident. You see that panel? Take your screwdriver and remove the holding screws.”

  In spite of his unfamiliarity with power tools, with tools of any kind, Brasidus accomplished the job in a few seconds. Then, with Alessis’ help, he pried the insulated panel out from the wall, lifted it to one side. There was a tunnel beyond it, high enough so that a tall man could walk without stooping, wide enough so that bulky burdens could be carried along it with ease. There were pipes and conduits on the roof of the tunnel, visible in the light of the torches.

  “An alternative freezing system,” explained Alessis. “Machinery in the créche itself. I’m not supposed to know about it. The tunnel’s insulated, too—and I’ve no doubt that when it’s in use it can be brought down to well below zero.”

  “And what am I supposed to do?” Brasidus asked.

  “You take your orders from Captain Diomedes, not from me. You’re supposed to snoop—that’s all that I know. And if you are caught, I risk my neck by providing you with some sort of a cover story. You thought—and I thought—that all these wires and pipes are supposed to be doing something. As, in fact, they are. Well, you’ll find another door at the end, a proper one, and with dogs that can be operated from either side.” His hand rested briefly on Brasidus’ upper forearm. “I don’t like this business. It’s all too hasty; there’s far too much last-minute improvisation. So be careful.”

  “I’ll try,” Brasidus told him. He stuck the hammer and the screwdriver into his belt—after all, he was supposed to be a workman, and if it came to any sort of showdown they would be better than no weapons at all—and, without a backward glance, set off along the tunnel.

  The door at the far end was easy enough to open, and the screw clamps were well greased and silent. With the thick, insulated valve the slightest crack ajar, Brasidus listened. He could hear nothing. Probably there was nobody on the farther side. He hoped. The door opened away from him into whatever space there was on the other side. It was a pity, as anybody waiting there—the possibility still had not been ruled out—would be hidden from Brasidus as he emerged. But if the door were flung open violently, he would be not only hidden, but trapped.

  Brasidus flung the door open violently, catching it just before it could thud noisily against the wall of the corridor.

  So far, so good.

  But what was there to see? Across the corridor there was yet another door, looking as though it, too, were insulated. And it was locked. To his left stretched a long, long passageway, soft ceiling lights reflected in the polished floor. To his right stretched a long, long passageway, similarly illuminated. On both sides there were doors, irregularly spaced, numbered.

  Brasidus stood, silent and motionless, every sense tuned to a high pitch of sensitivity. There was the faintest hint of perfume in the air, merged with other hints—antiseptics, machinery, cooking—noticeable only by reason of its unusualness. A similar fragrance had lingered around Margaret Lazenby. And, remembered Brasidus, around that other Arcadian in this very building—Sally. And, oddly enough, around Heraklion. (Normally the only odors associated with doctors were those of the various spirits and lotions of their trade.)

  So, he thought, there are Arcadians here.

  So, he told himself, I knew that already.

  So what?

  His hea
ring was abnormally keen, and he willed himself to ignore the mutter of his own heartbeats, the susurus of his respiration. From somewhere, faint and faraway, drifted a murmur of machinery. There were voices, distant, and a barely heard tinkle of that silvery laughter he already associated with the Arcadians. There was a whisper of running water, evocative of a hillside rill rather than city plumbing.

  He did not want to stray too far from the door, but realized that he would learn little, if anything, by remaining immobile. He turned to his left, mainly because that was the direction from which the Arcadian laughter and the faint splashing sounds were coming. He advanced slowly and cautiously, his hand hovering just clear of the haft of his hammer.

  Suddenly a door opened. The man standing there was dressed in a long, soft, enveloping robe. He had long, blonde hair, and the fine features and the wide, red mouth of an Arcadian. There was about him—about her, Brasidus corrected himself—more than just a hint of that disturbing perfume. “Hello,” she said in a high, pleasantly surprised voice. “Why, hello! A fresh face, as I live and breathe! And what are you doing in this abode of love?”

  “I’m checking the refrigeration, sir.”

  “Sir!” There was the tinkling laughter, amused but not unkind. “Sir! That’s a giveaway, fellow. You don’t belong here, do you?”

  “Why, sir, no.”

  The Arcadian sighed. “Such a handsome brute—and I have to chase you off. But it’s getting on for the time when our learned lovers join us for . . . er . . . aquatic relaxation in the pool. And if they find you wandering around where you shouldn’t be . . .” She drew the edge of her hand across her throat in an expressive gesture. “It’s happened before—and, after all, who misses a helot? But where did you come from? Oh, yes, I see. You could be a refrigeration mechanic . . . My advice to you is to get back into your hole and to pull it shut after you.” Then she said, as Brasidus started to turn to retreat to the tunnel, “No so fast, buster. Not so fast.” A slim hand, with red-painted nails, caught his right shoulder to swing him so that he faced her; the other hand came up to rest upon his left shoulder. Her face was very close to his, the lips parted.