There was a knock at the outer door of the apartment. “Come in!” he called. He was expecting the Princess; surely the mechanical servitors, whatever they looked like (he had imagined something multi-appendaged, like an oversized tin spider) would not knock. The door opened and a man entered. No, not a man. Humanoid, but nonhuman, nonorganic. No attempt had been made to disguise the dull sheen of metal that was obvious on the face and hands. He (it?) was attired in a livery even more archaic than Grimes’uniform: white stockings and knee breeches over silver-buckled shoes, a black, silver-buttoned claw-hammer coat, a froth of white lace at the throat. An elaborately curled white wig completed the ensemble. The face was as handsome as that of a marble statue, and as lifeless. The eyes were little glass beads set in pewter. Nonetheless, the gray lips moved. “Lord, Her Highness awaits you.”
“Lead on, MacDuff.”
“My name, Lord, is not MacDuff. It is Karl. Furthermore, Lord, the correct quotation is, ‘Lay on, MacDuff.’”
“Lead on, anyhow.”
“Very well, Lord. Please to follow.”
It was like a maze, the interior of the castle. Finally the robot conducted Grimes along a gallery, the walls of which were covered with portraits of long dead and gone von Stolzbergs. Men in armour, men in uniform, they glowered at the spaceman; and those toward the end, those with the Crooked Cross among their insignia, seemed to stir and shift menacingly in their ornate frames. Grimes suddenly remembered his Jewish grandmother and could just imagine that proud old lady staring fiercely and contemptuously back at these arrogant murderers. And there were the von Stolzberg ladies. He didn’t mind looking at them, and he had the feeling that they didn’t mind looking at him. Although the earlier ones tended to plumpness, many of them had something of the Princess Marlene in their appearance, or she had something of them in hers.
A door at the end of the corridor silently opened. Karl stood to one side, bowing. Grimes went through.
The room beyond it was brightly lit, opulent, but in its furnishings there were glaring incongruities. Weapons, however beautifully designed and finished, look out of place on the satin-covered walls of a lady’s salon. But they caught Grimes’ attention. As a gunnery specialist he could not help looking at the firearms: the heavy projectile rifles, the lighter but possibly deadlier laser guns, the peculiar bell-mouthed weapons that, in a bad light, would have been antique blunderbusses but which, obviously, were not.
“I like to have my toys around me, John,” said the Princess.
“Oh, yes. Of course.” Grimes felt his ears burn. He turned to face her. “I . . . I must apologize, Marlene. My . . . er . . . professional interest was rather ill-mannered.”
“It was, but understandable. Although not many people can appreciate the aesthetic qualities of well-made weaponry.” She added, “I’m glad that you can, John.”
“Thank you.”
“Sit down, unless you would rather stand.”
He sat down, looking at his hostess as he did so. She was different, far different, from the naked water nymph of his first acquaintance, but still the heavy folds of her brocaded, long-sleeved, high-necked gown could not quite conceal the fluid beauty of the limbs and body beneath the golden glowing fabric. Her pale hair, platinum rather than gold in this light, was piled high on her head, and in it rather than on it was a bejewelled coronet. Yes, those weapons were beautiful, but she, too, was beautiful.
And in the same way?
“Some sherry, John?”
Her slender hand went to the slim decanter that stood on the lustrous surface of the low table between them, removed the stopper. She poured the pale wine into two glittering, fragile glasses. She raised hers, smiled, inclined her head slightly. It was more of a formal bow than a mere nod.
Grimes did his best to follow suit. They both sipped.
“An excellent Tio Pepe,” he commented gravely. She need never know that it was the only wine that he could identify easily.
“Yes,” she agreed. “But why put up with second best when you can import the best?”
And was there some hidden meaning in this seemingly innocent remark? But she, of all people, would never admit that any inhabitant of El Dorado was inferior to any offworlder.
“Will you take a second glass with me, John?”
“I shall be pleased to, Marlene.”
Again they drank, slowly, gravely. And then, when they were finished, she extended a long, elegant arm toward him. There was an uncomfortable lag until he realized the implication of the gesture. His ears (inevitably) reddening, he got hastily (but not, he congratulated himself too hastily) to his feet, assisted her from her deep chair. Saying nothing, moving with slow grace, she contrived to take charge of the situation. Grimes found himself advancing with her toward the door, her right hand resting in the crook of his left arm. Grimes was sorry that there was not a full-length mirror in which he could see his companion and himself. The doorway gaped open as they approached it. There stood the robot Karl, bowing deeply. There stood four other humanoid robots, in uniform rather than in livery, attired as foot soldiers from some period of Earth’s barbaric past. Each of them held aloft a flaring torch. All the other lights in the long corridor had been extinguished.
Slowly, in time to a distant drumbeat, they marched along the gallery—Karl, then two of the torch-bearers, then Grimes and the Princess, then the remaining pair of robots. Past the portraits they marched, past the men in the uniform of the Thuringian Navy (a service that had been disbanded after Federation), past the men in the uniforms of the armed and punitive forces of the Third Reich, past the commanders of mercenaries and the robber barons. There was a sense of uneasy menace. How much of the personality of the sitter survived in the painted likeness? There was a sense of uneasy menace, but the von Stolzberg women smiled encouragingly from within their frames.
They came to a wide stairway. Surely it had not been there before. They came to the broad flight of steps, with ornate wrought-iron balustrades that led down into the fire-lit, torch-lit hall. The drums were louder now, and there was a flourish of trumpets. It was a pity that this effective entrance was wasted on the handful of serving robots that stood to attention around the long table. Grimes wished that his shipmates could witness it.
They descended the stairs, Karl still in the lead, walked slowly to the massive board. Ceremonially, the major-domo saw to the seating of Marlene; one of the lesser serving robots pulled out a chair for Grimes at her right hand. Then, suddenly, all the torches were somehow extinguished, and the only light was that from the blazing fire and from the score of candles set in an elaborately Gothic wrought-iron holder.
There was more wine, poured by Karl.
There was a rich soup served in golden bowls.
“Bisque of rock ogre,” said Marlene. “I hope you like it.”
Grimes, remembering the monster that had almost killed him, was sure that he would not but, after telling himself that a lobster, or even a prawn, would be a horrendous monstrosity to a man reduced to the size of a mouse, decided to try it. It was good, the flavor not unlike that of crayfish, but different. A hint of squid, perhaps? Or, just possibly, turtle? And then there was a roast of wild boar, and to accompany it a more than merely adequate Montrachet. To conclude the meal there was fresh fruit and a platter of ripe cheeses, with a red wine from Portugal, from grapes grown on the banks of the Douro.
Marlene said, “I like a man who likes real food.”
Grimes said, “I like a woman who likes real food.”
The robot Karl filled their coffee cups, offered a box of Panatellas to the Princess, who selected one carefully, and then to Grimes, who took the first one to hand. And then—it was a delightfully outré touch —a jet of intense white flame appeared at the end of Karl’s right index finger. He carefully lit the Princess’s cigar, and then the spaceman’s.
“The brandy, Karl,” said Marlene, through a cloud of fragrant smoke.
“The Napoleon, Your Highness? “
“You know as well as I do that it has no more connection with the Emperor of the French than . . . than Lieutenant Grimes has. But . . . Oh, very well, then. The Napoleon.”
To Grimes it was just brandy, but he had no cause for complaint.
“And what would you like to do now?” asked the Princess.
Grimes did know but could not muster up the courage to state his desire.
“Oh, yes,” said the girl after an uncomfortable pause. “I told you, I think, that I am a member of the Committee of Management. Would you be interested in finding out what that entails? “
“Yes . . .” answered Grimes dubiously.
Chapter 18
Before its fantastically costly dismantling and transportation Schloss Stolzberg had been well equipped with what, in the Middle Ages, were regarded as finest modern conveniences. Now not even a hole in the ground somewhere in Germany marked the site of these dungeons and torture chambers; where the Castle had once brooded stood a towering block of apartments. But still there were subterranean galleries and spaces: wine cellars, storerooms, and the Monitor Vault.
“It is our obligation as members of the Committee of Management,” explained the Princess, “to watch. And we, even during our tenure of office, know that we can be watched . . .”
“You mean that there’s no privacy?” asked Grimes, shocked.
“I suppose that you could put it that way.”
“But . . . But I thought that this was a society, of . . . aristocratic anarchists.”
“That’s a good way of putting it, John. And a true way.” She lay back in the chair set before the huge screen, relaxed, but with her fine features thoughtful. “But, can’t you see?, neither the aristocrat nor the anarchist suffers from false shame. I can conceive of situations in which a petty bourgeois such as yourself would be agonizingly embarrassed if he knew that he was being watched. During copulation, for example or defecation. But we . . .” In spite of her almost supine position she managed a delicate shrug. “But we . . . We know that it doesn’t matter.”
“But why this body of elected, I suppose that you are elected, Big Brothers? And Big Sisters.”
“El Dorado,” she told him, “could be a Paradise. But there are snakes in every Eden. When such a snake is found, he is placed aboard a small, one-man spacecraft, with whatever personal possessions he can pack into two suitcases, and a Universal Letter of Credit that will allow him sufficient funds to make a fresh start elsewhere. He is then sent into exile.”
“Have there been many such cases?”
“Since the foundation of the colony, several. About a dozen.”
“I’m surprised that none of these deportees has talked. Their stories, sold to newspapers and magazines throughout the Galaxy, would bring in enough to maintain them in luxury for the rest of their lives.”
She smiled. “Somebody must know what happens, but quite a few of us suspect. After all, not much engineering skill would be required to convert a perfectly functioning ship into a perfectly functioning time bomb.”
“I suppose not. But tell me, Marlene, just what does anybody have to do to get slung off this, insofar as you all are concerned, perfect world?”
“There was one man who still lusted for power, direct, personal power. Working in secret he tried to form a Party, with himself as Leader, of course, on the same lines as the old Fascist and Communist Parties. . . .” She almost whispered, “I was lucky not to have been involved. Anyhow, he went. And there was another man . . . We still have the record. I’ll show you.”
She made a slight gesture with her right hand. There was the slightest of humming noises, a hesitant click, and then misty forms and colors swirled in the depths of the big screen, slowly coalesced. And there was sound, too, a woman’s voice screaming, “No! Please! No!”
Horrified, yet obsessed by a fascination of which he was afterwards bitterly ashamed, Grimes stared at the picture. It showed the interior of a cellar, and there was a naked girl, her body dreadfully elongated, stretched out on a rack, and a pale, fat slug of a man, stripped to the waist, in the act of taking a white-hot iron from a glowing brazier.
Suddenly there was an ingress of men and women, all of them armed, one of them carrying a bell-mouthed pistol like the ones Grimes had seen in Marlene’s room. The report, when it was fired, was no more than a soft chuff. At once the torturer was trapped, enmeshed in a net of metal strands that seemed to be alive, that working with a sort of mechanical intelligence bound his hands and arms and legs and feet, swiftly immobilizing him. He fell against his own brazier, and the others left him there while they attended to his victim. Grimes could see the smoke and the steam that rose from his burning body, could hear his wordless screams (until the net somehow gagged him), thought (although this could have been imagination) that he could smell charred flesh.
The screen went blank.
“And who was that?” asked Grimes, with feeble, cheap humor. “The Marquis de Sade?”
“No. Oddly enough, a Mr. Jones from New Detroit.”
“And did he . . . die?”
“Probably. But not on El Dorado.”
“And how did you suspect?”
“Oh, we knew. But his first victims were collaborators more than martyrs, and he did them no permanent damage. And that girl, for example, was experiencing nothing worse (or better?) than a mild, sexually stimulating whipping. However, the Monitor sees all, knows all, and gave the alarm, but on the rare occasions that arrests are necessary we prefer that they be made by ourselves, not by robots.”
“But if your Monitor is so highly efficient, why the human Big Brothers?”
“We monitor the Monitor. That first man I told you about, the would-be dictator, almost succeeded in subverting it.”
“I’m not sure that I’d like to live here, Marlene.”
“I’m not sure that we’d have you, John, at least not until you’ve made your first billion or produced cast-iron documentary evidence of a family tree going back to Adam. Or both.” But the words were spoken without malice. “And now, John, would you like to see how your lords and masters are behaving themselves?”
“No,” he should have said.
“They are guests at the Duchess of Leckhampton’s masked ball—the Captain and Surgeon Commander Passifern.”
“That sounds innocuous enough,” he said, disappointed.
Again there was the languid wave of her slim hand, again there was the coalescing swirl of light and form and color. Again there was sound, distorted at first, that reminded Grimes of Ravel’s Waltz Dream. But it was not Ravel that poured from the concealed speakers when the picture clarified; it was Strauss, rich, creamy, sensual, unbearably sweet, and to it the dancers swayed and glided over the wide, wide expanse of mirror floor, and in the background there was red plush and gilt, and overhead blazed and sparkled the crystalline electroliers.
Grimes stared, shocked, incredulous.
Crinolines and hussars’ uniforms would have added the final touch but not, relieved (accentuated) only by masks and sandals and jewellery, nudity.
And yet . . .
He shifted uneasily in his seat, acutely conscious of his telltale ears. He muttered, “Surely not the Old Man and the Chief Quack . . .”
And then, as though the Monitor had heard his words (perhaps it had), he was looking directly at Captain Daintree and Commander Passifern. The two officers were not among the naked dancers. They were seated at a table against the wall, stiff and incongruous in their dress uniforms. With them was a lady, elderly, elaborately clothed, one of the few people on this world of perpetual youth and near immortality showing her age and not ashamed of it. There was a silver ice bucket, bedewed with condensation; there were three goblets in which the wine sparkled.
Fascinated, Grimes stared at the faces of his superiors. Daintree—he would—was playing the part of the disapproving puritan, his mouth set in a grim line. But his eyes betrayed him, flickering avidly, almost in time to the music, as
the nude men and women swirled past. Passifern was more honest, was making no pretence. A shiny film of perspiration covered his plump features. There was more than a suggestion of slobber about his thick lips.
“Your Grace,” he muttered, “I . . . I almost wish that I could join them.”
The old lady smiled, tapped the Doctor on the arm with her fan. “Naughty, naughty, Commander. You may look but you mustn’t touch.”
“I wish that I could . . .” sighed Passifern, while Daintree glared at him.
The scene shifted again to an overall view of the ballroom. The scene shifted and, once more, the music seemed to Grimes to carry the subtle discordancies of Ravel’s distortion of the traditional Viennese waltz.
The scene faded.
“Decadent,” whispered Grimes to himself. “Decadent.”
“Do you think so, John?” asked the Princess. She answered herself, “Yes, I suppose that it is. But erotic stimulation carried to extremes is one of the ways that we have tried to deal with our . . . problem. And there are other ways . . .”
Although the screen was still dark, from the speakers drifted a throb and grumble of little drums. Gradually there was light, faint at first then flaring to brilliant reds and oranges. It came from a fire and from torches held aloft by white-robed men and women. It grew steadily brighter, illuminating the clearing in the forest, in the jungle, rather. It shone on the altar, on the squatting, naked drummers, on the rough-hewn wooden cross that stood behind the altar, its arms thrust through the sleeves of a ragged black coat, a band of white cloth, like a clerical collar, where a human neck would have been, the whole surmounted by a battered black hat.
To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga Page 20