Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III

by A Bertram Chandler

  Chapter 12

  CAMP PERSEPHONE was hot springs and fumaroles, dominated by a spectacular geyser, spouting with clockwork regularity every thirteen and a half minutes. There was a huge hotel complex for those wishing to make an extended stay and a big camperfly park with the usual facilities, including a repair shop. To this Grimes went almost immediately after landing, taking with him what he hoped would be an adequate supply of The Bronson Star’s money.

  The manager was just shutting up shop.

  He was oilily courteous, however.

  “Repairs to your camperfly, sir, at this time of the evening? My staff have all left for the night and I was on the point of leaving . . . But I have no doubt, sir, that we shall be able to make an arrangement, a mutually satisfactory arrangement. . .”

  “It is a matter of some urgency,” said Grimes.

  “Of course, sir.” He coughed delicately. “Forgive me for my impertinence but now and again—very rarely, but now and again—we have tourists who are not your sort of people, who demand services and then who are unable or unwilling to give recompense in return . . .”

  “So you want to see the colour of my money,” said Grimes crudely.

  “Ha, ha. You have a ready wit, sir . . .”

  “And ready cash.” Grimes brought out and opened his notecase.

  “What is the trouble with your camperfly, sir?”

  “The starboard wing gas cell was holed. I was obliged to valve gas from the port wing to compensate.”

  “An unusual accident, sir, perhaps you were flying too low and fouled a tree top or some other obstacle . . .”

  “Perhaps,” said Grimes.

  He walked with the manager through the sulphur-tainted evening air along the lines of parked camperflies. He took the man into the aircraft, up to the canopied cockpit, shone a torch on to the jagged rent in the wing fabric. He said, “The . . . er . . . obstacle is still inside the wing.”

  “But were you flying upside down, sir?”

  “I was trying to loop the loop,” said Grimes.

  The manager stared at him, then said, “The most peculiar accidents do happen, I know. If you will wait here, sir, until I recall my staff . . . But, if you will forgive my impertinence, first a small deposit before I do so . . .”

  Grimes paid up. After all, it wasn’t his money.

  ***

  The repair job did not take long. The piece of jagged rock was removed from the punctured gas cell. The repair shop manager was sorely puzzled but Grimes stuck to his looping the loop story. Improbable as it was it was better than the one suggested by Fenella Pruin. Disposable ballast carried by airships is never of a character likely to damage anything or anybody underneath . . .

  The repairmen worked well and efficiently. The damaged cell was removed and replaced, and inflated before the renewal of wing fabric. The gas cell in the port wing was reinflated and tested. When everything was done Grimes paid the balance of the charges and was relieved to find that when he had asked Fenella Pruin for the money he had slightly overestimated. He made a light meal of cheese and biscuits, then went in search of his passenger so that he could report that the next day’s journey would be as planned. She would be in the hotel, he thought, probably eating far better than he had done. But she must have fed by now. Hadn’t she said something about paying a visit to The Inferno later in the evening?

  So, with wallet much lighter but not empty, he left the camperfly and walked towards the Hotel Pluto, a fantastic appearing building whose architect had taken stalagmites as his inspiration, whose irregular spires, floodlit, were whitely luminous against the night sky. Off to the right the geyser—also floodlit but in rainbow colours—momentarily distracted his attention from the man-made extravagance.

  He reached the grotto-like entrance to the hotel, passed into a cavernous foyer where artificial stalactites and stalagmites dominated the decor. There were luminous signs—one of which, by an ascending spiral escalator, read Elysian Fields Restaurant and another, over what looked like a mere hole in the floor, The Inferno.

  By the hole was the inevitable pay booth, a construction looking like a huge dog kennel made from rough, rock slabs. The attendant wore a ferocious dog mask and nothing else. But, so far as Grimes could remember, Cerberus had been a male dog and not a bitch. (And, in any case, the idea of Hell as an inferno was a Christian invention and bore little resemblance to the Greek Hades.)

  He paid his not inconsiderable sop to Cerberus. He asked if there would be any ferry fees as an additional charge and was told that there would not be, although as soon as the proposed artificial Styx was flowing there would be fares collected by Charon.

  Grimes thanked the girl. He wondered if her face were as attractive as her voice and body. He went to look dubiously into the hole. There was no staircase, either static or mobile. It was just a chute of black, polished stone, plunging downwards at a steep angle.

  Rather dubiously Grimes sat down on the rim with his legs in the hole, then pushed off. At first his descent was almost free fall, through utter darkness. The acridity of sulphurous gases stung his nostrils. Then he felt that the angle of the chute was less steep, was tending to the horizontal. His speed was checked by a screen of curtains that clung like cobwebs. Beyond them there was light again—ruddy, flickering, but to eyes that had become accustomed to the darkness bright enough.

  He had come to a halt on a smooth floor of rock, or artificial rock. He got to his feet, looked around. Slowly swirling luminously crimson mist restricted visibility but he could dimly see stalactites and stalagmites—or, more probably, plastic representations of dribbles of molten lava that had solidified on reaching the ground, like candle drippings on a giant scale. The air was hot and steamy. There was music. It was vaguely familiar in spite of the distortions. Night On Bald Mountain? Grimes couldn’t be sure but he thought that it was that.

  A demon materialised beside him. Gleaming white horns—probably artificial but not necessarily so; unscrupulous genetic engineers are capable of many amusing perversions—protruded jauntily from her cap of tightly curled black hair. Grimes allowed his regard to shift downward. Her body was human enough except for the feet, which were cloven hooves. Shoes? Perhaps. But if they were her pedal extremities must have been exceedingly small to get into them.

  “May I serve you, sir?” Her voice was a pleasant contralto. He could not place the accent.

  “I’m looking for a lady . . .”

  “There are many unattached ladies here, sir.”

  “A tourist. A Miss Fenn. Prunella Fenn.”

  “She is not known to me, sir. But probably she will be in the Lake of Fire. If you will follow me . . .”

  She turned away from him. He saw that a scaly tail, terminating in a conventional arrowhead, sprouted jauntily from the cleft of her naked buttocks. He could not resist the temptation of catching hold of it, giving it a playful tug. The root of it came away from her body, snapped back when he released his hold. She looked back with a smile that was wearily tolerant rather than pleasant; having her tail pulled must have been an occupational hazard of her employment.

  “Artificial caudal appendages may be purchased here. They are ideal for fancy dress parties and the like. But come with me, please.”

  He followed her through the acrid yet sweet mists to a small, pallidly glimmering pavilion where she handed him over to another woman attired—horns, hooves and tail—as she was. This lady told him to remove his clothing, then asked for a fee, not a small one, in return for a locker key which was on a chain so that it could be hung about the neck. She asked Grimes if he wished to buy or hire horns and a tail. He did not so wish even though he was assured that these embellishments would enhance his manly beauty. Before he stowed and locked his possessions away the first girl intimated that she was expecting a tip. Grimes gave her a ten credit bill; there was nothing of smaller denomination in his notecase. He thought that it was too much. She, obviously, did not.

  Nonetheless she cond
escended to lead him from the pavilion to the edge of the Lake of Fire. Streamers of mist wavering above the surface of the sullenly glowing water had the semblance of tongues of flame. And there were real flames, yellow and not red, out there in the distance, seemingly floating on the surface, like a star cluster dimly glimpsed through the fire mist of some inchoate nebula.

  “Your lady is out there,” said the guide, pointing. “If she’s here, that is.”

  “Do I have to swim?” asked Grimes.

  “Only if you wish to.”

  Grimes tested the temperature of the water at the lake verge with a cautious toe. It was little more than comfortably warm. He waded out towards the glimmering lights. As he disturbed the surface it flashed brightly scarlet, illuminating the mist that swirled about him. It was like walking through fire—but a fire that had no power to burn.

  He waded on. The bottom shelved gently; still the water was only half way up to his knees. He thought at first that the lambent flames were receding from him as he headed towards them but this was only some trick of refraction. Quite suddenly—by which time the water was up to his knees—he was among them. He looked down with some bewilderment at the naked men and women obviously sitting on the lake bottom each with a tray, on which was a burning candle, floating before him or her. The trays bore more than candles. There were bottles, glasses, dishes of solid refreshments.

  And where was Fenella Pruin?

  He looked to right and left but could not see her. But he heard her unmistakable voice, off somewhere to the right. She was complaining loudly to somebody, “Isn’t it time that they put on the next show? I can’t stay here much longer. I want to get some sleep tonight as I shall be leaving early in the morning—if my fool of a pilot has had my camperfly repaired, that is . . .”

  He waded slowly towards her, rippling the water. Somebody called to him irritably, “Hey, you! Don’t rock the boat!”

  He reduced his speed. He had no wish to spill people’s drinks. He apologised when he trod on a bare leg under the water, smilingly refused the invitation to sit down and keep its owner, a plump tourist lady, company.

  He found Fenella Pruin. She was with a grossly fat man who could almost have been twin brother to Captain McKillick, who had stuck on to his bald head a pair of patently artificial horns. Before them was a large, floating tray laden with good things.

  The big toe of Grimes’ right foot made contact with Miss Pruin’s naked hip.

  “Who the hell . . .?” she began.

  “It’s your fool of a pilot,” said Grimes.

  “Oh. You.” She looked up at him. “What do you want?”

  “The camperfly’s airworthy again. We shall be able to lift off tomorrow morning as planned.”

  “It’s a pity that you have to leave, Prue,” sighed the fat man. “Just when . . .”

  Grimes looked down at his obese, pallid nudity. First McKillick, he thought, and now this overweight slob. And he must have some skin disease; if a cross between a Terran leopard and a hippopotamus were possible he could have been it.

  “Sit down, Grimes,” snarled the Pruin. “Since you’re here you can watch the second show and then see me back to the camperfly.”

  “But, Prue . . .” The fat man’s voice was childishly plaintive.

  “Sorry, Clarrie. But I’m paying Grimes, here, good money to look after me—and I like getting my money’s worth.”

  “So do I,” muttered her companion.

  Grimes lowered his body into the warm water on the other side of Fenella Pruin from Clarrie. If whatever caused that ugly, mottled skin was catching he didn’t want to catch it. Almost immediately one of the attendant demons appeared; this one was towing, by her tail, a little, flatbottomed barge. From it she took a tray, with a candle, set it before Grimes, ignited the wick with a flick of her long finger nails. By its light Grimes read the menu and the wine list printed on the surface of the tray. Unless the Pruin came to his rescue he would not be able to afford much. Beer would be the cheapest drink. (Here it was called Teufelwasser.) But how, naked as he was, could he pay for it?

  He found out. Having set the bottle and glass on his tray the girl took a stamp and pressed it on his right upper arm. It left, in indelible ink, a record of what he had ordered and received. Presumably there would be a reckoning in the pavilion when he retrieved his effects. He looked at the sulking, mottled Clarrie. He felt almost sorry for the man; his skin bore the record of his evening’s outlay on the ungrateful Pruin.

  Grimes sipped his beer—it wasn’t bad—and looked around. The mists were clearing and he could see that the audience was seated in a great circle with a low island in its centre. This was flat, bare of vegetation. Suddenly, appearing from the mouth of a concealed tunnel, a horde of fearsome looking demons appeared, Neanderthalers with cloven hooves, horns and tails, with leathery wings. Moving in time to the music they set up their horrifying apparatus—a rack, a brazier from which protruded the handles of branding irons, a wheel from the rim of which protruded vicious, dull-gleaming spikes. At a wave from a taloned hand the brazier came to glowing life.

  From overhead came a rumble of thunder, culminating in a supernal crack while artificial lightning flared dazzlingly. Spiralling down from the high roof of the cavern, wings outspread, came more demons. (Those wings, thought Grimes, were all wrong aerodynamically; they were not moving and, in any case, did not have the area to support anything as large as a man, let alone a man burdened with a struggling woman. Miniaturised, personal inertial drive units? Probably. The continuous grumble of thunder, combined with the strident music, was loud enough to drown the arhythmic beat of such machinery.)

  Dark-furred demons with pallidly gleaming eyes and tusks and horns . . . Shrieking, damned women, their opulent flesh whitely naked, fighting but with utter hopelessness. One of them was flung roughly on to the rack, her wrists and ankles strapped. Another was made fast to the wheel. (“Watch those spikes,” whispered Fenella Pruin. “They aren’t sharp and they withdraw into the rim.”) Two more were chained to St. Andrew’s crosses.

  “You must let me take you to the real thing, Prue,” muttered the fat man. “This is tame . . .”

  “Shut up!” she snapped.

  And this, thought Grimes, looked real enough. With two husky demons manning the capstan the screaming girl on the rack was being elongated so that she looked more like a writhing, white snake than a human being, as was her sister on the wheel. Irons, whitely incandescent at first, slowly dulling to red, were being applied to the bodies of the crucified victims. There was an audible sizzling and the sweet/acrid stench of burning meat.

  Grimes watched in horrified fascination. Towards the end he found it hard to fight down his rising nausea—and hated himself when he became aware that something else was rising too.

  At last the show was almost over.

  The girls were released from the rack, wheel and crosses, flung on to the ground where the demons, each of whom was more than adequately endowed, fell upon them. These withdrew at last, leaving the victims of the pack rape sprawled on the smooth rock.

  The woman who had been on the rack was the first to recover. She sat up, stripped from her arms the stretched simulacra of her natural limbs and then, from her legs, what looked now only like ludicrously long hip-length stockings. The victim of the wheel followed suit. Meanwhile, solicitously, two demons with damp white towels were cleaning the simulated burn-marks from the bodies of the other two girls.

  The demons and the damned bowed to the audience, acknowledged the applause.

  “Phoney,” muttered the fat man. “Phoney as all hell. I know a place . . .”

  “I’m sure you do, Clarrie.” Fenella Pruin got to her feet, looked down at Grimes. “If you’ve quite finished your beer we’ll get back to the camperfly.”

  They waded ashore, retrieved their clothing from the pavilion. The woman in charge raised her eyebrows at the Solitary price stamp on Grimes’ skin, accepted his money and handed him a wad of clot
h impregnated with some fluid with which to remove the mark. Grimes dressed. Prunella Fenn dressed. They walked to the golden, spiral escalator that carried them back to ground level.

  She said, “A pity we have to be at Port Vulcan. Otherwise I’d have taken Clarrie up on his offer. He’s stinking rich—really stinking rich—you know and has the entre to all sorts of places that the ordinary rich, like I’m supposed to be, can’t afford . . .”

  “You wouldn’t,” said Grimes.

  “I would. Too right I would. But I’ll find a way yet . . .” They left the hotel, made their way to the camperfly park. Back in the aircraft they retired for what was left of the night.

  Grimes was acutely aware that she was sleeping, probably naked, on the other side of the curtain dividing the cabin. Almost he got off his bunk to go to join her; that crudely sadistic and pornographic entertainment had stimulated him. Then he remembered what had happened (what had not happened) with her before and desire ebbed.

  He tried to sleep and at last succeeded.

  Chapter 13

  THE FLIGHT FROM CAMP PERSEPHONE to Port Vulcan was uneventful.

  An early start was made, with Grimes, after a mug of strong coffee, feeling reasonably competent and his passenger still snoring not unmusically in her bunk. Grimes set course at once for Vulcan Island. Soon he was flying over the sea, looking down with interest at the waterborne traffic—a huge tanker (and what was she carrying? he wondered), a large, white-painted cruiser liner, a fleet of big trawlers.

  Vulcan Island showed up on schedule, a dark smudge of smoke on the far horizon under which there was the glint of metal, the reflection of the morning sunlight from storage tanks, separator towers and the like. By this time Fenella Pruin was up and dressed, sitting beside Grimes as he maintained his course.

  Grimes called Aerospace Control.

  “Camperfly Able Zulu Steven Four Eight, pilot John Grimes, passenger Prunella Fenn, requesting permission to land.”