To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Very good, sir,” replied Beadle smartly, glad of the chance to make his escape.

  “And now, Mr. Grimes, if I may sit down somewhere in less squalid surroundings . . .”

  “Certainly, Ma’am. If you will follow me . . .”

  Grimes led the way out of the suite. The two humanoid robots, with expensive-looking baggage piled at their feet, stared at him impassively. The maid—small, plump, pert, and darkly brunette—allowed a flicker of sympathy to pass over her rosy face. Grimes thought that she winked, but couldn’t be sure. On the way up to his own quarters Grimes was relieved to see that Beadle had kept the rest of the ship in a reasonably good state of cleanliness, although he did hear one or two disapproving sniffs from his passenger. His own day cabin was, he knew, untidy. He liked it that way. He was not surprised when Mrs. Dalwood said, “Your desk, Mr. Grimes. Surely some of those papers are of such a confidential nature that they should be in your safe.”

  Grimes said, “Nobody comes in here except by invitation. I trust my officers, Ma’am.”

  The Commissioner smiled thinly. Nothing cracked. She said, “What a child you are, Lieutenant. One of the first lessons I learned in politics was never to trust anybody.”

  “In space, aboard ship, you have to trust people, Ma’am.”

  She sat down in Grimes’s easy chair, extending her long, elegant legs. Grimes suspected that she looked at her own limbs with brief admiration before returning her regard to him. Her laugh was brittle. “How touching, Lieutenant. And that is why ships are lost now and again.”

  “Can I offer you refreshment, Ma’am?” Grimes said, changing the subject.

  “And do you drink, Lieutenant?”

  I know damn well that I’m only a two ringer, Grimes thought, but I do like being called Captain aboard my own ship . . . He said, “Never on departure day, Mrs. Dalwood.”

  “Perhaps I shall be wise if I conform to the same rule. I must confess that I am not used to travelling in vessels of this class, and it is possible that I shall need all my wits about me during lift off. Might I ask for a cup of coffee?”

  Grimes took from its rack the thermos container, which he had refilled from the galley coffee maker that morning. After he had removed the cap he realized that he had still to produce a cup, sugar bowl, spoon and milk. His tell-tale ears proclaiming his embarrassment, he replaced the container, conscious of the woman’s coldly amused scrutiny. At last he had things ready, finally filling the jug from a carton of milk in his refrigerator.

  She said. “The milk should be warmed.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Dalwood. Of course. If you wouldn’t mind waiting . . .”

  “If I took my coffee white I should mind. But I prefer it black, and unsweetened.”

  Grimes poured out, remembering that the coffee maker was long overdue for a thorough cleaning. Adder’s coffee had a tang of its own. Her people were accustomed to it. The Commissioner was not. After one cautious sip she put her cup down, hard. She asked, “And what is the food like aboard this ship?”

  “Usually quite good. Ma’am. We carry no ratings or petty officers, so we take it by turns cooking. Mr. Beadle—he’s my First Lieutenant—makes an excellent stew.” Grimes babbled on. “It’s a sort of a curry, actually, but not quite, if you know what I mean . . .”

  “I don’t, Lieutenant. Nor do I wish to. As I have already told you, my robots are versatile. Might I suggest that they take over galley duties, first of all thoroughly cleaning all vessels and implements, starting with your coffee maker? Apart from anything else it will mean that your officers will have more time to devote to their real duties.”

  “If you want it that way, Mrs. Dalwood . . .”

  “I do want it that way.”

  To Grimes’s intense relief the intercom phone buzzed. He said to the Commissioner, “Excuse me, Ma’am,” and then into the speaker/microphone, “Captain here.”

  “First Lieutenant, Captain. Mr. Hollister, the new P.C.O., has just boarded. Shall I send him up to report to you?”

  “Yes, Mr. Beadle. Tell him that I’ll see him in the Control Room. Now.” He turned to Mrs. Dalwood. “I’m afraid I must leave you for a few minutes, Ma’am. There are cigarettes in that box, and if you wish more coffee . . .”

  “I most certainly do not. And, Mr. Grimes, don’t you think that you had better put those papers away in your safe before you go about your pressing business?” She allowed herself another thin smile. “After all, you haven’t asked yet to see my identification. For all you know I could be a spy.”

  And if you are, thought Grimes, I hope I’m the officer commanding the firing squad. He said, “You are very well known, Ma’am.” He swept his desk clean, depositing the pile of official and private correspondence on the deck, then fumbled through the routine of opening his safe. As usual the door stuck. Finally he had the papers locked away. He bowed again to Mrs. Dalwood, who replied with a curt nod. He climbed the ladders to Control, glad to get to a part of the ship where, Commissioner or no Commissioner, he was king.

  Beadle was awaiting him there with a tall, thin, pale young man who looked like a scarecrow rigged out in a cast-off Survey Service uniform. He announced, before Beadle could perform the introductions, “I don’t like this ship. I am very sensitive to atmosphere. This is an unhappy ship.”

  “She didn’t use to be,” Grimes told him glumly.

  Usually Grimes enjoyed shiphandling. Invariably he would invite his passengers to the control room during lift off, and most times this invitation would be accepted. He had extended the courtesy to Mrs. Dalwood, hoping that she would refuse the offer. But she did not. She sat there in the spare acceleration seat, saying nothing but noticing everything. It would almost have been better had she kept up a continual flow of Why-do-you-do-this? and Why-don’t-you-do-that?

  Her very presence made Grimes nervous. The irregular beat of the inertial drive sounded wrong to him as Adder climbed slowly up and away from her pad. And, as soon as she was off the ground, the ship yawed badly, falling to an angle of seven degrees from the vertical. It must look bad, Grimes knew. It looked bad and it felt worse. The only thing to do about it was to get upstairs in a hurry before some sarcastic comment from Port Control came through the transceiver. Grimes picked his moment for turning on the auxiliary rockets, waiting until the tall, slender tower that was Adder was canted away from the wind. That way, he hoped, he could make it all look intentional, convey the impression that he was using the quite stiff northwester to give him additional speed. He managed to turn in his seat in spite of the uncomfortable acceleration and said, forcing out the words, “Letting . . . the . . . wind . . . help . . . us . . .”

  She—calm, unruffled—lifted her slender eyebrows and asked, with apparently genuine unconcern, “Really?”

  “Time . . .” Grimes persisted, “Is . . . money . . .”

  “So,” she told him, “is reaction mass.”

  Flushing, Grimes returned to his controls. Apart from that annoying yaw the ship was handling well enough. Beadle, and von Tannenbaum, the navigator, and Slovotny, electronic communications, were quietly efficient at their stations. They were certainly quiet. There was none of the usual good-humored banter.

  Sulkily Grimes pushed Adder up through the last, high wisps of cirrus, into the purple twilight, towards the bright, unwinking stars. She screamed through the last tenuous shreds of atmosphere, and shortly thereafter von Tannenbaum reported that she was clear of the Van Allens. Grimes, still far too conscious of the Commissioner’s cold regard, cut inertial and reaction drives, then slowly and carefully—far more slowly than was usual—used his directional gyroscopes to swing the sharp prow of the ship on to the target star. He applied correction for Galactic Drift—and then realized that he had put it on the wrong way. He mumbled something that sounded unconvincing even to himself about overcompensation and, after a few seconds that felt more like minutes, had the vessel headed in the right direction.

  He wondered what would happen when he
started the Mannschenn Drive—but nothing did; nothing, that is, worse than the familiar but always disquieting sense of déjà vu. He had a vision of himself as an old, old lieutenant with a long white beard—but this was nothing to do with the temporal precession field of the Drive, was induced rather by the psionic field generated by the Commissioner. He didn’t like her and had a shrewd suspicion that she didn’t like him.

  She said, “Very educational, Mr. Grimes. Very educational.”

  She unstrapped herself from her chair. Slovotny and von Tannenbaum got up from their own seats, each determined courteously to assist her from hers. They collided, and von Tannenbaum tripped and fell, and Beadle fell over him.

  “Very educational,” repeated the Commissioner, gracefully extricating herself from her chair unaided. “Oh, Mr. Grimes, could you come to see me in ten minutes’ time? We have to discuss the new galley routine.”

  “Certainly, Mrs. Dalwood.” Grimes turned to his embarrassed officers. “Deep Space Routine, Mr. Beadle.” Usually he said, “Normal Deep Space Routine,” but had more than a suspicion that things would not be at all normal.

  Things were not normal.

  Usually Adder’s people were gourmands rather than gourmets, and a certain tightness of waistbands was an accepted fact of life. Even when whoever was doing the cooking produced an inedible mess bellies could be filled, and were filled, with sandwiches of the doorstep variety. But these relatively happy days were over.

  As she had told Grimes, the Commissioner’s robots were skilled cooks. To have called them chefs would not have been exaggerating. Insofar as subtlety of flavorings and attractiveness of presentation were concerned nobody could fault them. To the average spaceman, however, quantity is as important as quality. But there were no second helpings. The coldly efficient automatons must have calculated just how much nutriment each and every person aboard required to operate efficiently himself—and that was all that he ever got. Too, there was always at least one of the mechanical servitors doing something or other around the galley and storerooms, and Grimes and his officers knew that the partaking of snacks between meals would be reported at once to Mrs. Dalwood.

  A real Captain, one with four gold bands on his shoulderboards and scrambled egg on the peak of his cap, would never have tolerated the situation. But Grimes, for all his authority and responsibility, was too junior an officer. He was only a Lieutenant, and a passed-over one at that, while the Commissioner, although a civilian, could tell Admirals to jump through the hoop.

  But he was hungry.

  One morning ship’s time, he went down to the solarium for his daily exercises. This compartment could, more aptly, have been called the gymnasium, but since it was part of the “farm” it got its share of the ultra violet required for the hydroponics tanks. Mrs. Dalwood and her maid, Rosaleen, were still there, having their daily workout, when Grimes came in. Always he had timed his arrival until the two women had finished, but for some reason he was running late. It was not that he was prudish, and neither were they, but he had decided that the less he had to do with them the better.

  As he came into the room he noticed their gowns hanging outside the sauna. He shrugged. So what? This was his ship. He took off his own robe and then, clad only in trunks, mounted the stationary bicycle. He began to pedal away almost happily, watching the clock as he did so.

  From the corner of his eye he saw the door to the sauna open. The Commissioner, followed by her maid, came out. It was the first time that he had seen her naked. He almost whistled, then thought better of it. She was a bit of all right, he admitted, if you liked ‘em lean and hungry. He inclined his head towards her courteously, carried on pedaling.

  Rather to his surprise she stood there, looking him over. She said, “Mr. Grimes, there is a little improvement in your condition, but that probably is due to a properly balanced diet.” She walked towards him, her feet slim and elegant on the carpeted deck, her breasts jouncing over so slightly. “Get off that thing will you?” Grimes did so, on the side away from her. She stooped, with fluid grace, and tested the pedals with her right hand.

  “Mr. Grimes! How in Space do you hope to get any benefit from these exercises unless you do them properly?” Her hand went to the adjusting screw of the roller on top of the wheel, turned it clockwise. The muscles of her right arm stood out clearly under the smooth brown skin as she tested the pedals again. Then she actually smiled, saying, “On your bicycle, spaceman!”

  Grimes remounted. He had to push, hard, to start the wheel rotating. He had to push, to keep it rotating. Now and again he had ridden on real bicycles, but almost always had dismounted rather than pedal up a steep hill. She stood there watching him. Until now he would have thought it impossible actively to dislike an attractive naked woman. But there has to be a first time for anything.

  The Commissioner turned to her maid. “Rosaleen, you were last on the bicycle. Did you readjust it?”

  The girl blushed guiltily over her entire body. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  “I see that I shall have to watch you too.” The woman glanced at the watch that was her only article of clothing. “Unluckily I have some work to do. However, you may stay here for another thirty minutes. The bicycle again, the rowing machine, the horizontal bars. And you, Mr. Grimes, will see to it that she does something about shedding that disgusting fat.”

  Grimes did not say what he was thinking. He had little breath to say anything. He managed to gasp, “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Mrs. Dalwood went to her gown, shrugged it on, thrust her feet into her sandals. She walked gracefully to the door. She did not look back at the man on the bicycle, the girl on the rowing machine.

  As soon as the door had shut behind her Rosaleen stopped rowing.

  She said, “Phew!”

  Grimes went on pedaling.

  “Hey, Captain. Take five. Avast, or whatever you say.”

  Grimes stopped. He said, “You’d better carry on with your rowing.”

  The girl grinned. “We’re quite safe, Captain. She is so used to having every order implicitly obeyed that she’d never dream of coming back to check up on us.”

  “You know her better than I do,” admitted Grimes.

  “I should.” She got up from the sliding seat of the rowing machine, then flopped down on to the deck. She was, Grimes decided, at least as attractive as her mistress, and she had the advantage of youth. And there was so much more of her. The spaceman looked her over, studying her almost clinically. Yes, she had been losing weight. Her skin was not as taut as it should have been.

  She noticed his look. She complained, “Yes, I’m starved . . .”

  “You get the same as we do, Rosaleen.”

  “That’s the trouble, Captain.”

  “But you have this sort of feeding all the time.”

  “Like hell I do. I have my nights off, you know, and then I can catch up on the pastries and candy, and the hot rolls with lots of butter, and the roast pork, with crackling . . .”

  “Please stop,” begged Grimes. “You’re making me ravenous.”

  She went on, “But aboard your ship I have to toe the line. There’s no escape.”

  “I suppose not.”

  “But surely you can do something. You’ve storerooms, with bread . . .”

  “Yes, but . . . “

  “You aren’t scared of her, Captain?” She looked at him through her big, dark eyes. He had thought that they were black—now he saw that they were a very deep violet.

  “Mphm.” He allowed his glance to stray downwards, then hastily looked back at her face. There had been invitation in every line of her ample body. He was no snob, and the fact that her status was that of a servant weighed little with him. But she was the Commissioner’s servant. A lady has no secrets from her lady’s maid—is the converse true? Anyhow, they were both women, and no doubt happily prattled to each other, disparity of social status notwithstanding. She said plaintively, “I’m hungry, Captain.”

  “So am I, Rosale
en.”

  “But you’re the Captain.”

  Grimes got off the bicycle. He said, “It’s time for my sauna.” He threw his shorts in the general direction of the hook on which his robe was hanging, strode to the door of the hot room, opened it. She followed him. He stretched out on one of the benches, she flopped on one opposite him. She said, “I’m hungry.”

  “It’s those damned robots,” complained Grimes. “Always hanging around the galley and storerooms.”

  “They won’t be there tonight.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They’re much more than cooks. Even I don’t know all the things they’ve been programmed for. This I do know. She has been working on a report, and tomorrow it will be encoded for transmission. The way that she does it is to give it to John—he’s the one with the little gold knob on top of his head—to encode. And James decodes each sheet as John finishes it, to ensure that there are no errors.”

  “Are there ever any?”

  “No. But she likes to be sure.”

  “She would.” He wondered when he was going to start sweating. The girl was already perspiring profusely. “Tell me, when does this encoding decoding session take place?”

  “After dinner.”

  “And there’s no chance of her breaking it off?”

  “None at all. When she starts something she likes to finish it.”

  “Mphm.” The sweat was starting to stream out of Grimes’s pores now. The girl got up, began to flick the skin of his back lightly with the birch twigs. He appreciated the attention. “Mphm. And are you free while all this Top Secret stuff is going on?”

  “Yes.”

  “And she should have her nose stuck into it by 2000?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Then meet me outside the galley at, say, 2015 . . .”

  “Yes!”

  “Thick buttered toast . . .” murmured Grimes, deciding that talking about food took his mind off other things.

  “Lots of butter . . .” she added.

  “And sardines . . .”

  “Fat, oily sardines . . .”