Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III

by A Bertram Chandler

  The lights were up again now. The last of the hunted girls had picked herself up from the floor and vanished from the room. The music was no longer eery but merely brassily strident. The stage was occupied by a giggling gaggle of tourist women, dancing lasciviously, tripping over the clothing that they were discarding. They were joined by a group of the hunters, still blackly and greasily naked.

  Grimes waited for a while to see if anybody would be doing anything with a bottle and two wine glasses—but that must be, he decided, a party trick peculiar to Fenella Pruin. He asked Tanya to call for the bill. She did so. She scowled at him when he tipped the little waitress.

  He said a not very warm goodnight to Tanya.

  She said a not very warm goodnight to him.

  There was no suggestion from either side that they should meet again.

  He returned to his ship.

  Chapter 9

  “AND HOW DID YOU FIND the Kathouse?” asked Fenella Pruin, regarding Grimes rather blearily over the breakfast table. Before he had time to reply she said, “These are bloody awful eggs. Where did you get them? Did you steal them out of a mud snake’s nest?”

  Grimes ignored this latter, answering only the first question. “Expensive,” he said. “You owe me . . .”

  “I owe you! Come off it, buster!”

  “I was helping you in your investigations . . .”

  “You were having a bloody good time.” She regarded him steadily, accorded him a derisive sneer. “Or were you? With your peculiar problem . . .”

  “The fact remains,” said Grimes, trying to ignore the burning of his ears, “that I had to pay my admission into the Kathouse. Then I was stuck with a bill for an expensive dinner . . .”

  “For you and which floosie?”

  “And then I purchased some information.”

  “Then spill it.”

  “What about my expenses?”

  “You’re a mercenary bastard, aren’t you? All right. Let me have a detailed account, in writing, and I’ll think about it. Get me some more coffee, will you? Then talk.” Grimes fetched more coffee.

  He said, “In some ways the evening was disappointing. I didn’t see anybody doing anything with a bottle and two wine glasses . . .”

  She glared at him, snarled. “You don’t have to believe everything that you hear—especially from that fat slob Jock McKillick! But did you see the specialty of the house, the kangaroo hunt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kangaroos are Australian animals, aren’t they? You’re an Australian. Was the hunt authentic?”

  “Kangaroos aren’t hunted. They’re protected fauna.”

  “But they must have been hunted once. Centuries ago.”

  “I wasn’t around then. Oh, all right, all right. I suppose that the hunt was an attempt to reconstruct a very ancient, long since dead nomadic culture. Of course, if I’d been stage managing it I’d have given the hunters woomeras and boomerangs . . .”

  “What’s a woomera? Some sort of weapon, I suppose.”

  “A spear thrower.”

  She laughed. “I can just imagine it. Lethal missiles mowing down Katy’s customers . . .”

  “It would be newsworthy,” said Grimes. “Well, anyhow there was the weird music. As far as I know the Australian aboriginals didn’t hunt to music—but those sounds did contribute to the atmosphere. The most convincing part of the hunt was the kangaroos themselves. Those girls with their odd legs . . . And it seems quite definite that they come from a world called New Alice and that they’re brought here in Drongo Kane’s ship, Willy Willy. The master is Aloysius Dreeble, who used to be Kane’s mate in Southerly Buster.”

  “And they come from New Alice. Anything Australian about that name?”

  “Yes. Alice Springs is a city in Central Australia. It’s referred to usually just as Alice or the Alice.”

  “And not for the first time—where the hell is New Alice? Nobody seems to know. Not even you.”

  “One person will know,” said Grimes. “Captain Aloysius Dreeble. And his ship is due in very shortly.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I read the papers,” said Grimes smugly.

  Chapter 10

  WILLY WILLY was not coming into Port Aphrodite. There was another spaceport on New Venusberg used only by vessels bringing cargoes of an objectionable nature, the bulkies and others. Presumably Willy Willy must be one of those others. It had not been hard to discover her arrival date and time. It has been easy enough to find out where Port Vulcan was situated. It was on Vulcan Island, the location for New Venusberg’s industries—apart from the tourist industry, of course. There was a regular air service to and from the industrial complex but it was rarely, if ever, used by tourists. Holiday makers had better (or worse) things to do with their time than the inspection of automated factories.

  Fenella Pruin said that it might excite suspicion if she and Grimes proceeded to Port Vulcan by a scheduled flight to watch Willy Willy’s arrival. It would be quite in character, however, if she, playing the role of a bored rich bitch, hired a camperfly for a few days for a leisurely drift around the scenic beauties of the pleasure planet. The camperflies were smallish aircraft with sleeping accommodation and cooking and toilet facilities. They were hybrid machines with helium gas cells incorporated in their thick wings and above their fuselages, slow but airworthy, suitable for handling by amateur pilots. They were so buoyant that it was quite impossible for them to come down hard. The girl in the Uflyit office was only mildly interested when Grimes produced his Master Astronaut’s Certificate of Competency as proof that he was a capable pilot. She was much more interested in seeing that Fenella Pruin paid the quite enormous but returnable deposit. It was a fine morning when Grimes and his passenger lifted off from Port Aphrodite. He had spent most of the previous day accustoming himself to the controls of the rented aircraft and then had retired early. Fenella Pruin had spent the day and most of the night with Captain McKillick. McKillick, looking very much the worse for wear, came to the Uflyit landing field, on the outskirts of the spaceport apron, to see them off.

  He glared at Grimes from bloodshot eyes.

  He said, “You know that I could have taken a few days leave, Prue, to pilot you around . . .”

  She said, “And leave Grimes, here, to carry on boozing and wenching at my expense? Not bloody likely. I’m making him earn his keep.”

  “But he doesn’t have the local knowledge that I have.”

  “He can read a chart. And it isn’t as though we’re going anywhere in particular. We shall just be bumbling around.”

  The Port Captain turned on Grimes.

  “Look after her,” he threatened with a touching show of devotion, “or I’ll have your guts for a necktie when you get back!”

  “Mphm,” Grimes grunted.

  He stood to one side and watched McKillick try to enfold the girl in a loving embrace. She did not cooperate; the wet kiss that should have plastered itself over her mouth landed on her ear.

  She broke away, saying, “I’ll be seeing you, Jock. If you can’t be good, be careful.”

  She clambered into the cabin of the tubby aircraft.

  “Be seeing you, Captain,” said Grimes.

  “Be seeing you, Captain,” replied McKillick with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

  The two men did not shake hands.

  Grimes boarded and went forward, sat down beside Fenella Pruin. The aircraft was designed for easy handling with minimal controls. Trying to make it look even easier than it actually was Grimes went through the take-off procedure. The electric motors whined and the camperfly rose at a steep angle, obedient to Grimes’ touch. He did not set course at once for Vulcan Island but circled the spaceport as he ascended, looking down at the ships both great and small, at his own Little Sister goldenly agleam in her berth between the huge TG liner and the big Shaara vessel. There was some activity around the latter. He wondered briefly what the bee people were doing; they seemed to be hauling some
thing bulky out of a cargo airlock.

  After his second circuit Fenella Pruin demanded irritably, “What are you playing at, Grimes? Trying to disappear up your own fundamental orifice?”

  He told her, “We don’t want to be seen heading for Vulcan Island.”

  “At the moment we aren’t heading anywhere.” Grimes sighed resignedly and then, ignoring the compass, steered for a tall conical peak to the westward. The Mons Veneris Park would be as good an apparent destination as any; once he was out of sight from Port Aphrodite he would bring the camperfly around to a north easterly course. There was ample time to waste; allowing for two nocturnal set-downs they should be at Port Vulcan a good three hours prior to Aloysius Dreeble’s ETA.

  She said (couldn’t she ever stop talking?), “You aren’t such a bright businessman, you know.”

  “I know,” he said. He thought, If I were I wouldn’t be obliged to carry people like you around.

  “If you were,” she went on, “you’d do the same as the Shaara. Carry a blimp on board for this sort of outing.”

  “Where would I stow the bloody thing?” he snarled. “Even you,” she sneered, “might have more sense than to carry it with the gas cells inflated. But I suppose it would be beneath your precious dignity to learn anything from the Shaara.”

  “Why the sudden interest in those bloody bumblebees?” he demanded.

  “It’s just that we’re being followed,” she told him. The pilot’s cab of the camperfly was a transparent bubble set above fuselage top level, affording all-round vision. Grimes looked aft. Yes, there was something astern, coming up on them slowly. He could not be sure but it did look like a Shaara blimp. It had to be a Shaara blimp. As far as he knew there were no aircraft of that type native to New Venusberg. “Are you going to let them pass us?” she asked. He said, “I’ve no option. This camperfly is designed for comfort, not for speed.”

  “But a bloody gasbag . . .”

  “Gasbag it may be but it’s not starved for horsepower. Or workerpower, or whatever term the Shaara use.”

  “Don’t be so bloody pedantic.”

  The camperfly flew on, still heading for the Mons Veneris. The blimp gained steadily on its parallel course, a little to starboard, flying at the same altitude as the humans’ aircraft. Grimes studied it through the binoculars that were included in the rented equipment. He could see the arthropod crew in the open car under the envelope—a mixed bunch of drones and princesses he decided. Was his princess, the one with whom he had exchanged words in Lady Luck’s establishment, among them? he wondered. She might be. And so what? Presumably the ban on the carrying of weapons on this world applied to all visitors, not only to human beings. And what could unarmed Shaara do to him?

  They could get in his hair, that was what.

  The blimp was abeam of the camperfly now, matching speed, blocking Grimes’ turn on to the north easterly course. Its crew were watching him through their big, faceted eyes. Sunlight was reflected dazzlingly from the jewels that adorned the dark brown, velvety fur of their bodies.

  But ships of the air are not like surface vehicles; they have freedom to move in three dimensions. Grimes made a rude, two fingered gesture to the watching Shaara, put the camperfly into a shallow dive as he turned to starboard. It was the easiest maneuver to carry out in these circumstances; it also turned out to be a foolish one.

  The camperfly was directly under the airship when Grimes realised this. For the second time during his stay on New Venusberg he was bombed by the Shaara. A shower of missiles fell from the blimp’s car, clattering on to the transparent canopy of the cab, thudding on to the tough plastic containing the wing and fuselage gas cells. The camperfly staggered, heeled over dangerously. The heavy object that had landed on the starboard wing tip and stayed there fell off but not before Grimes had seen what it was, one of those large earthenware containers referred to as honeypots, a jar in which the Shaara had carried semi-fluid refreshment to sustain them during their trip.

  “What the bloody hell?” screamed Fenella Pruin.

  “Somebody up there doesn’t like us,” muttered Grimes.

  But there was no damage to the camperfly. Although some of the jetsam had been heavy none of it had been sharp. A container of some kind had shattered on top of the bubble canopy and overhead vision was obscured by a red, syrupy mess. Through it, dimly, Grimes could see the blimp. It was now little more than a dot in the sky. After that dumping of weight it had gone up fast.

  “And just what was all that about?” demanded the girl.

  “The Shaara—these particular Shaara—have it in for me.”

  “And so I’m liable to suffer for your misdeeds.”

  “I’m here too.”

  “More’s the pity. Anyhow, what do you intend doing about it?”

  “We just carry on,” said Grimes, “until it’s time to land for the night.”

  “And get bombed again.”

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “My guess—for what it’s worth—is that the Shaara are keeping an eye on me. A surveillance mission only. But that princess, seizing a heaven sent opportunity to be nasty, just gathered up everything dumpable in the car and dropped it on us. Just petty spite.”

  “It could have been serious.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  “The surveillance—if your theory is correct—is. I don’t want to be snooped on.”

  “The biter bit,” said Grimes.

  “Oh, shut up!” Then, after a pause, “And what are you doing about it?”

  “I’ll think of something,” said Grimes with a confidence that he did not feel.

  ***

  The Shaara blimp kept them company throughout the day. Grimes could not outrun it. The arthropods, however, took no further hostile action; presumably they had nothing else that they could afford to jettison. But it was not a happy flight for Grimes and his companion; they were continually and uncomfortably aware of hostile eyes looking down on them.

  As already planned they came in to Camp Diana in the afternoon. Before they landed the Shaara airship sheered off, vanishing beyond a range of low, wooded hills to the northward. Perhaps it was returning to the spaceport, as Fenella Pruin suggested. Grimes did not think so. He feared that they would be seeing more of the arthropods before arrival at Vulcan Island.

  Camp Diana was situated on the south bank of the narrow river. There was a little hill overlooking the broad meadow upon which camperflies and pneumatic tents were arranged in orderly lines and upon this eminence was a silver statue of the divine huntress, bow in hand. The artist had depicted a lady who, despite her archaic armament, looked to be more versed in bedroom venery than the outdoor sport for which the same word is used. She did not have at all the appearance of a virgin goddess. By the wateredge was the hunting lodge, so called. It was a large, white building of vaguely classical architecture. On its roof was a mast with a windsock that was hanging limply in the calm, warm air. There was, too, a squat control tower and from this Grimes received his landing instructions.

  He set down in a vacant space in one of the lines of camperflies, making an almost vertical descent. He watched from the cab a young woman walking out to the aircraft, looked at her appreciatively. She was dressed in filmy chiton that left one breast bare and that revealed most of her long, slender legs. The effect of her pseudo-Grecian attire, however, was slighly marred by a very modern looking shoulder bag. (She had to have something, thought Grimes cynically, in which she stowed the money, camping fees and the like, that she collected from the customers.)

  She waited at the door of the camperfly for Grimes and Fenella Pruin to emerge. She said, her voice high and silvery, “Welcome to Camp Diana.” Then, “For how long do you intend to stay, sir and miss?”

  “Only for the night,” Grimes told her.

  “Only for the night, sir? But you will miss tomorrow’s hunt. Perhaps you will reconsider. This evening you will have ample time for arbalest instruction at the range in the lodge basement .
. .”

  “What the hell’s an arbalest?” demanded Fenella Pruin.

  “A crossbow,” said Grimes. “Its great advantage over the longbow is that little training is required before a bowman is reasonably competent.”

  “But weapons,” persisted Fenella. “After all the fuss you had with the Customs at Port Aphrodite I got the impression that weapons were banned on this world.”

  “They are, miss,” the girl told her. “But for a deer hunt bows must be used—longbows for the few capable of employing them, arbalests for those who must learn archery in a hurry. They are hired from the lodge and during the hunt strict supervision is exercised.” She smiled. “In the extremely unlikely event of any of our guests not returning his bow before leaving the camp he will find it of little use save as a souvenir. After all, it is not a concealed weapon. It is not the sort of thing that one can carry into a cathouse or gambling den unnoticed. In fact if a bow is carried anywhere save in the precincts of a hunting camp such as this it will at once excite the interest of the authorities.” She took time off to recover her breath then continued, “Have I persuaded you to stay for the hunt, sir?”

  “I’m afraid not,” said Grimes. “But I should like to get in some arbalest practice this evening.”

  “What the hell for?” demanded Fenella Pruin.

  “We might enjoy a longer stay here next time we drop in.”

  “Oh, well, if that’s your idea of a pleasant evening, go ahead. I’m not stopping you. But you pay for your own tuition; I’m not subsidizing your fun. It’s bad enough having to shell out for camping fees. How much do I owe for one night?” she asked the girl. “What? Oh, well, this is a hunting camp. You’re the predator and we’re the prey . . .”

  She went back into the camperfly for money. Grimes looked at the girl. She looked at him. Two pairs of eyebrows were raised simultaneously.

  Grimes asked, “What time are these arbalest lessons?”

  “Any time you like,” she said. “Do you plan on shooting her—accidentally, of course?”