First Command

by A Bertram Chandler

  Did Kane intend opening a travel agency on this world? It was possible, Grimes conceded. After all, the man was a shipowner. And his ship, according to the report from Elsinore, had been modified to suit her for the carriage of passengers.

  “I don’t like the looks of this, Captain,” said the first lieutenant.

  “What don’t you like about it, Mr. Saul?” asked Grimes.

  “I still remember what he did on Ganda.”

  “He can hardly do the same here. These people aren’t being evacuated from their world before it’s destroyed. They’re quite happy here. In any case, the Gandans were skilled workmen, technicians. These people, so far as I can see, are little better than savages. Nice savages, I admit, but . . . “

  “Forgive me for saying so, Captain, but you’re very simple, aren’t you?”

  Grimes’s prominent ears reddened. He demanded sharply, “What do you mean, Mr. Saul?”

  “You’ve seen even more of these people than I have, sir. Have you seen an ugly man or woman?”

  “No,” admitted Grimes.

  “And there are worlds where beautiful women are in great demand . . . .”

  “And there are the quite stringent laws prohibiting the traffic in human merchandise,” said Grimes.

  “Kane is bound to find some loophole,” insisted Saul. “Just as he did on Ganda.” Then his racial bitterness found utterance. “After all, he’s a white man.”

  Grimes sighed. He wished, as he had wished before, that Saul would forget the color of his skin. He said tiredly, “All right, all right—Whitey’s to blame for everything. But, from my reading of history, I seem to remember that it was the fat black kings on the west coast of Africa who sold their own people to the white slave traders. . . .”

  “Just as that fat yellow queen whom Kane entertained will sell her people to the white slave trader.”

  “I wouldn’t call her fat . . . “ objected Grimes, trying to bring the conversation to a lighter level.

  “Just pleasantly plump, dearie,” said Maggie Lazenby. “But, as you say, Drongo won’t be able to pull off a coup like the Gandan effort twice running. And even if he makes a deal with some non-Federated world, he’s still a Federation citizen and subject to Federation law.”

  “Yes, Commander Lazenby,” agreed Saul dubiously. “But I don’t trust him.”

  “Who does?” said Grimes. “During my absence you’ll just have to watch him, Mr. Saul, like a cat watching a mouse.” He added, “Like a black cat watching a white mouse.”

  “A white rat, you mean,” grumbled Saul.

  12

  Before sunrise the pinnace was ready.

  Grimes was taking with him Pitcher, the navigator, Ensign Billard who, as well as being assistant communications officer (electronic), was a qualified atmosphere pilot, and Commander Maggie Lazenby. All of them carried sidearms. The pinnace, too, was armed, being fitted with a laser cannon and two 20-mm machine guns.

  Just as the sun was coming up, Grimes, Pitcher, Billard and Maggie stood outside the ship, watching as the small craft, its inertial drive muttering irritably, was eased out of its bay high on the ship’s side, maneuvered down to the ground. It landed rather clumsily. Saul stepped out of the pilot’s cabin and saluted with rather less than his usual snap. (He had been up, working, all night.) He said, “She’s all yours, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Number One.” Grimes looked at his watch, the one that had been adjusted to keep Morrowvian time. “Mphm. Time Maya was here.”

  “And here she is,” said Maggie. “Enter the Queen of Cambridge, singing and dancing . . . .”

  Maya was not singing and dancing, but she looked well rested, alert, and as though she were looking forward to the outing. She was escorted by a half a dozen bow-women and a like number of spearmen, two of whom were carrying a large basket between them. Curiously, Grimes looked into the basket. There were bowls of the raw fish that he had enjoyed the previous day, other bowls of what looked like dried meat. He looked away hastily. All that he had been able to manage for breakfast was a large cup of black coffee.

  Maya looked with interest at the pinnace. “How does this thing fly?” she asked. “I don’t see any wings or gasbag. . . .”

  “Inertial drive,” Grimes told her briefly. “No, I’m sorry, but I can’t explain it at this hour of the morning.” He turned to Saul. “All right, Number One. I’m getting the show on the road. I leave Seeker in your capable hands. Don’t do anything you couldn’t do riding a bicycle.”

  “What is a bicycle?” asked Maya.

  “Remind me to bring you one some time . . . .” He visualized the tall, lush, naked woman astride such a machine and felt more than a little happier.

  Pitcher and Billard clambered into the pinnace. They stood in the open doorway and took the hamper of Maya’s provisions as the two Morrowvian spearmen handed it up to them. Then, Maggie, disdaining the offer of a helping hand from Grimes, mounted the short ladder into the doorway. Grimes, however, was courteously able to assist Maya to board. He glared coldly at Saul when he noticed the sardonic look on the first lieutenant’s face. Then he boarded himself.

  Pitcher, with a chart made from Maggie’s photographs, and young Mr. Billard occupied the forward compartment. Grimes sat with Maggie and Maya in the after cabin. As soon as the women were comfortable—although Maya was sitting on the edge of her seat like a young girl at her very first party—Grimes ordered, “Take her up.”

  “Take her up, sir,” acknowledged Billard smartly. He was little more than a boy and inclined to take himself seriously, but he was able and conscientious. The noise of the restarted inertial drive was little more, at first, than a distant whisper. The pinnace lifted so gently that there was no sense of motion; even Grimes was surprised to see the sleek hull of Seeker sliding past and downward beyond the viewports. She ascended vertically, and then her passengers were able to look out and down at the two ships—Southerly Buster’s people were sleeping in; there were no signs of life around her—at the winding river, at the little towns spaced along its banks.

  Maya ran from one side to the other of the small cabin. There was rather much of her in these confined quarters. “Oh, look!” she said, pointing. “There’s Cambridge! Doesn’t it look small from up here! And that town on the next bend is Kingston, and there’s Richmond. . . . And there’s the weekly cargo wherry, there, with the sail. . . .”

  Grimes could not appreciate the distant view as it was obscured by Maya’s breasts, but he did not complain.

  “Sir,” called Pitcher, “do you want us to steer a compass course, or shall we navigate from landmark to landmark? That way we shall not put on much distance.”

  “From landmark to landmark,” said Grimes. “We may as well enjoy the scenery.”

  “You look as though you’re doing that right now,” commented Maggie.

  “Would you mind getting back to your seat, Maya?” asked Grimes. “We shall be accelerating soon, and you may lose your balance. . . .”

  “Make sure you don’t lose yours . . .” Maggie murmured.

  The irregular beat of the inertial drive was louder now, and its vibration noticeable. The pinnace turned in a wide arc, and then the landing site was astern of them, and the two tall ships were dwindling to the size of toys. Ahead of them, and a little to starboard, was a snowcapped mountain, Ben Nevis. Below them was a wide prairie over which surged a great herd of dun colored beasts. “Bison,” said Maya, adding that these animals constituted the main meat supply of her people. She offered strips of dried flesh from her basket to Grimes and Maggie, much as a Terran woman would offer chocolates. Grimes took one and chewed it dubiously. It wasn’t bad, but it would not worry him much if he never tasted any more of it.

  He took a pair of binoculars from their rack and stared down at the so-called bison. From almost directly above them he could not get much of an idea of their general appearance—but he knew that the Terran animals of that name had never run to six legs, whereas these bru
tes did.

  The gleaming peak of Ben Nevis hung in their starboard viewports for long seconds, then dropped slowly astern. The pinnace, now, was following the course of another river, the Mersey, and Maya was pointing out the towns along its meandering length. “Yes, that must be Lancaster. . . . I visited there two years ago, and I remember that thickly wooded hill just by it. . . . Most of the people living along the Mersey banks are Cordwainers . . . .”

  “Cordwainers?” asked Grimes, thinking that she must be referring to some odd trade.

  “It is their name, just as Smith is the name of most of us along the Thames . . . .”

  “And what names, how many names, do you have on this world?” asked Maggie.

  “There’s Smith, of course. And Wells. And Morrow. And Cordwainer. That’s all.”

  “Probably only four male survivors when Lode Cougar got here,” said Grimes. “And polygamous marriages . . . .”

  “Chester,” announced Maya, pointing to another town. “Brighton, and the shipbuilding yards. . . . That schooner looks almost finished . . . Manchester, I think. . . . Oh, this is the way to travel! It took me weeks, many weeks, when I did it by foot and by wherry!”

  “And why do you travel?” asked Maggie.

  “Why do you travel?” the other woman countered. “To . . . to see new things, new people.”

  “And what new things have you seen?”

  “Oh, the workshops at Manchester. You must have noticed the smoke as we flew over them. They smelt metal there, after they’ve dug the ore from the ground. They say that for years and years, before the process was discovered, we had to use scraps of metal from the ship to tip our spears and arrows.”

  “And so your weapons are made from this iron—I suppose it’s iron—from Manchester?” asked Maggie.

  “Yes.”

  “And what do you buy it with? What do you barter for it?”

  “The salmon are caught only in the Thames. Their pickled flesh is a great delicacy.”

  “And tell me,” Maggie went on, “don’t some of you Smiths and Morrows and Wellses and Cordwainers get the idea, sometimes, that there are other ways of getting goods besides barter?”

  “There are no other ways, Commander Maggie.”

  “On some worlds there are. Just suppose, Maya . . . just suppose that it’s been a bad year for salmon. Just suppose that you need a stock of new weapons and have nothing to give in exchange for them. Just suppose that you lead a party of spearmen and archers to, say, Oxford, to take the people by surprise and to take their bows and spears by force . . . “

  “Are you mad?” demanded Maya. “That would be impossible. It is not . . . human to intrude where one is not wanted. As for . . . fighting . . . that is not human either. Oh, we fight the wolves, but only to protect ourselves from them. We fight the eagles when we have to. But to fight each other . . . unthinkable!”

  “But you must fight sometimes,” said Maggie.

  “Yes. But we are ashamed of it afterward. Our young men, perhaps, over a woman. Sometimes two women will quarrel, and use their claws. Oh, we have all read The History. We know that human beings have fought each other, and with weapons that would make our spears and bows look like toys. But we could not.” There was a long silence, broken when she asked timidly, “And can you?”

  “I’m afraid we can, “Grimes told her. “And I’m afraid that we do. Your world has no soldiers or policemen, but yours is an exceptional world . . . .”

  “And are you a soldier, Commander Grimes?”

  “Don’t insult me, Maya. I’m a spaceman, although I am an officer in a fighting service. I suppose that you could call me a policeman of sorts . . . .”

  “The policeman’s lot is not a happy one . . .” quoted Maggie solemnly.

  “Mphm. Nobody press-ganged me into the Survey Service.”

  Then they were approaching the coast, the mouth of the river and the port town of Liverpool. North they swept, running low over the glittering sea, deviating from their course to pass close to a large schooner, deviating again to make rings around a huge, unwieldy balloon, hovering over a fleet of small fishing craft whose crews were hauling in nets alive with a silvery catch, whose men stared upward in wonder at the alien flying machine.

  Pitcher called back from the pilot’s cabin, “We’re setting course for the mouth of the Yarra, sir—if you’re agreeable.”

  “I’m agreeable, Mr. Pitcher. You can put her on automatic and we’ll have lunch.”

  Maya enjoyed the chicken sandwiches that had been packed for them, and Pitcher and Billard waxed enthusiastic over the spiced fish that she handed around.

  13

  It was an uneventful flight northward over the ocean. They sighted no traffic save for a large schooner beating laboriously to windward; the Morrowvians, Grimes learned from Maya, were not a sea-minded people, taking to the water only from necessity and never for recreation.

  As the pinnace drove steadily onward Maya, with occasional encouragement from Grimes and Maggie, talked. Once she got going she reminded Grimes of a Siamese cat he had once known, a beast even more talkative than the generality of its breed. So she talked, and Grimes and Maggie and Pitcher and Billard listened, and every so often Maggie would have to put a fresh spool in her recorder.

  This Morrowvia was an odd sort of a planet—odd insofar as the population was concerned. The people were neither unintelligent nor illiterate, but they had fallen surprisingly far from the technological levels of the founders of the colony—and, even more surprisingly, the fall had been arrested at a stage well above primitive savagery. On so many worlds similarly settled the regression to Man’s primitive beginnings had been horridly complete.

  So there was Morrowvia, with a scattered population of ten million, give or take a few hundreds of thousands, all of them living in small towns, and all these towns with good old Terran names. There was no agriculture, save for the cultivation of herbs used medicinally and for the flavoring of food. Meat was obtained by hunting, although halfhearted attempts had been made at the domestication of the so-called bison and a few of the local flying creatures, more reptilian than anything else, the flesh and the eggs of which were palatable. The reason why more had not been done along these lines was that hunting was a way of life.

  There was some industry—the mining and smelting of metals, the manufacture of weapons and such few tools as were required, shipbuilding. Should more ever be required, said Maya, the library at Ballarat would furnish full instructions for doing everything, for making anything at all.

  Government? There was, said the Morrowvian woman, government of a sort. Each town was autonomous, however, and each was ruled—although “ruled” was hardly the correct word—by an elected queen. No, there were no kings. (Maya had read The History and knew what kings were.) It was only natural that women, who were in charge of their own homes, should elect a woman to be in overall charge of an assemblage of homes. It was only natural that the men should be occupied with male pursuits such as hunting and fishing—although women, the younger ones especially, enjoyed the hunt as much as the men did. And it was only natural that men should employ the spear as their main weapon, while women favored the bow.

  No, there were no women engaged in heavy industry, although they did work at such trades as the manufacture of cordage and what little cloth was used. And women tended the herb gardens.

  Maya confirmed that there were only four families—although “tribes” would be the better word—on Morrowvia. There were Smiths, Cordwainers, Morrows and Wellses. There was intermarriage between the tribes, and in such cases the husband took his wife’s surname, which was passed on, also, to the children of such unions. It was not quite a matriarchal society, but it was not far from it.

  Grimes steered the conversation on to the subject of communications. There had been radio—but many generations ago. It had never been required—“After all,” said Maya reasonably enough, “if I die and my people elect a new queen it is of no real conc
ern to anybody except themselves. There is no need for the entire planet to be informed within seconds of the event.”—and transmitters and receivers had been allowed to fall into desuetude. There was a loosely organized system of postmen—men and women qualified by powers of endurance and fleetness of foot—but these carried only letters and very light articles of merchandise. Heavier articles were transported in the slow wherries, up and down the rivers—which meant that a consignment of goods would often have to be shipped along the two long sides of a triangle rather than over the short, overland side.

  There was a more or less—rather less than more—regular service by schooner between the island continents. The seamen, Grimes gathered, were a race apart, males and females too incompetent to get by ashore—or, if not incompetent, too antisocial. Seafaring was a profession utterly devoid of either glamor or standing. Grimes was rather shocked when he heard this. He regarded himself as being in a direct line of descent from the seamen and explorers of Earth’s past, and was of the opinion that ships, ships of any kind, were the finest flower of human civilization.

  The airmen—the balloonists—were much more highly thought of, though the service they provided was even more unreliable than that rendered by the sailors. Some of the airmen, Maya said, were wanting to fit their clumsy, unmaneuverable craft with engines—but Morrow (he must have been quite a man, this Morrow, thought Grimes) had warned his people, shortly before his death, of the overuse of machinery.