Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III

by A Bertram Chandler

  “Darleen,” said Darleen.

  “New Alicians, ain’t you, with those faces and accents? Matilda’s Stepchildren. What are two nice girls like you doing mixed up with Grimes and this muckraking news hen?”

  “Muckraking news hen?” asked McKillick bewilderedly.

  “Didn’t you know, Captain? This is Fenella Pruin, the pride and joy of some local rag on her home planet and the even greater pride and joy of Star Scandals. It wouldn’t at all surprise me if you were one of her Faithful Readers. She’s just been using you, the same as she’s used men on hundreds of worlds. She’s all set and ready to spill all the unsavoury beans about New Venusberg.”

  “And what about you, Commodore or Baron or whatever you call yourself?” she shouted. “What about your interests here? Your nasty little slave trade from New Alice to the New Venusberg brothels—and worse!”

  “Slave trade, my dear? But the New Alicians are underpeople, have no more rights than animals. The ships that bring them here are cattle ships, not slave ships.”

  “Are they? Are they? Wasn’t it ruled, some many years ago, that underpeople are to be reclassified as human as long as interbreeding between them and true humans is possible?”

  “In this case it ain’t, Miss Pruin. It’s obviously impossible. The ancestors of the New Alicians were marsupials, not placental mammals.”

  “Their ancestors, Mr. Kane. And, in any case, I imagine that the crews of your slave ships—sorry, cattle ships—aren’t too fussy about having intercourse with them.”

  “Of course not. I don’t recruit my personnel from Sunday schools.”

  “You can say that again. But I have seen—I’m not telling you where—a New Alician boy who bears a very strong resemblance to his father. To your precious Captain Dreeble.”

  Kane laughed, although he looked uneasy. “I’ve often entertained doubts about Dreeble’s own ancestry,” he said.

  Grimes laughed. “Morrowvia all over again, isn’t it?”

  “So the New Alicians are legally human,” remarked the Baroness. “So what? All that we have to do is get them to sign proper contracts. What does worry me is that Captain Grimes’ current inamorata—I’ve noticed before that he has the most deplorable taste in women!—is all set and ready to make a big splash in her gutter rag about New Venusberg. Once again—so what?

  “El Dorado has big money invested in this world and I, speaking for my fellow El Doradans, shall welcome the free advertising that New Venusberg will be getting. But . . .” she turned to Kane . . . “there will have to be a thorough housecleaning. I did not know of the existence of such establishments as the Colosseum and the Snuff Palace until you told me.” Suddenly there was icy contempt in her voice. With pleasure Grimes saw that she was making Kane squirm as, so often during the days aboard The Far Traveller, she had made him squirm. “You thought that it was a great joke that Grimes would end his days slaughtered in the arena. We are two of a kind, I know—but only up to a point. And beyond that point I refuse to pass. There will be a thorough investigation of the state of affairs on New Venusberg—but without overmuch publicity.”

  “Yes, Micky,” said Kane.

  McKillick was at last able to make himself heard. “Prunella!” he bleated to Fenella Pruin. “How could you have done this to me? You—a spy!”

  “The name is Fenella Pruin,” she told him coldly.

  “But, Prunella . . .”

  The Baroness interrupted. “Port Captain, will you expedite the Outward Clearance of Little Sister? Get the necessary officials, Port Health, Customs and the like, out of their beds, or whatever beds they happen to be occupying. Captain Grimes isn’t safe on this planet and I want him off it. Rightly or wrongly he will be blamed for the upheaval that will soon take place.”

  “What about consumable stores?” asked Grimes.

  A tolerant smile softened the Baroness’s patrician features. “You haven’t changed, John. Even though you no longer have Big Sister to pamper you I imagine that you make sure that you never starve.”

  “Too right,” said Grimes.

  While they were talking they drifted towards the door, which opened for them, out of the office, into the corridor. He could hear, faintly, the voices from inside the room—Drongo Kane at his hectoring worst, McKillick pitifully bleating, Fenella Pruin emitting an occasional outraged scream. Shirl and Darleen did not seem to be making any contribution to the argument. But he was no longer interested. He was too conscious of the close proximity of that filmily clad body to his. He could smell what once had been, during his tour of duty as captain of her spaceyacht, her familiar scent, cool yet warm, sensual yet unapproachable.

  She said, “At times—not all the time, but increasingly so—I’m sorry that Captain Kane turned up when he did. Just when we, alone in the pinnace, were about to do what we’d been putting off for far too long . . .” She put her slender hands on his shoulders, turned him to face her, regarded him with what he realised was affection. “You’re an awkward brute at times, for most of the time, but there’s something about you. An integrity I’m fond of Peter, of course . . .” (Peter? wondered Grimes. But “Drongo” was probably not Kane’s given name.) “I’m fond of Peter—in a way. He’s masterful, which I like, but rather too ruthless at times. And he thought that it was a huge joke when he received that message from Aloysius Dreeble—that poisonous little rat!—telling him that you’d been condemned to the Colosseum. (It was only then that I learned that there was such an establishment on this world.) I persuaded him to cancel the ship’s visit to New Sparta and to make all possible speed here to try to save you, if it were not too late . . .

  “But, of course, you’d already saved yourself.”

  “With assistance, Michelle.”

  “Perhaps. But I’m sure that she, that muckraker, wasn’t much help. It must have been those others, with the horse faces and the ugly names . . . There’s a certain strength about them . . .”

  “And they throw a wicked boomerang,” said Grimes.

  “I wish I could have seen it.” She laughed softly. “And there’s another thing I’d like to see. Again. The Far Traveller’s pinnace. I like the name that you gave her—Little Sister. And we have unfinished business aboard her, don’t we?”

  Grimes remembered well that unfinished business—when he, naked, had been holding the naked Michelle in his arms, when the preliminaries to their lovemaking (never to be resumed) had been interrupted by the obnoxious voice of Drongo Kane from the Carlotti transceiver.

  He said, “She’s under guard. The guards wouldn’t let me board her.”

  “They will,” she said, “when I tell them to . . . Come.”

  They seemed to have stopped arguing in the Port Captain’s office. As Grimes and the Baroness turned to make their way to the escalator the door opened. Drongo Kane emerged, scowling. He glared at Grimes.

  “Ah, there you are. Well, Micky, orders have gone out that the Colosseum and the Snuff Palace are to be closed down immediately, pending a full enquiry. Of course, you realise that this is going to play hell with our profits. Your profits as well as mine.”

  She said, “There are more things in life than money.”

  “Name just two!” he snarled. Then, to Grimes, “This is all your doing. As usual. I thought that at long last you’d be out of my hair for keeps—but Her Highness here had to shove her tits in!”

  There was a noise like a projectile pistol shot as the flat of her hand struck Kane’s face. He stood there, rubbing the reddened skin—and then, surprisingly, he smiled. Even more surprisingly it was not a vicious grin.

  He said, admiringly, “I always did like a woman with spirit, Micky.”

  “There are times,” she told him coldly, “when a woman with spirit finds it very hard to like you.” She addressed Grimes, “I think that the sooner you’re off the planet the better. I can’t guarantee your safety. Or that of your companions. Not only will the proprietors of some of the establishments here be gunning for you but
there is also my . . . consort, who never has liked you.” She allowed a small smile momentarily to soften her features. “But I should imagine that you are already aware of that.”

  “I shall want stores before I go,” said Grimes.

  “Then you’re out of luck,” Drongo Kane said smugly. “McKillick was able to arrange your Outward Clearance but, at this time of night, it was impossible to find a ship chandlery open.”

  “That presents no problem,” the Baroness said. “Southerly Buster is well stocked with everything. Peter, will you see to it that what is necessary is transferred from your ship to Captain Grimes’ vessel?”

  “Am I a philanthropic institution?” bellowed Kane.

  “Perhaps not. But I am the major shareholder in your Able Enterprises.”

  “All right,” grumbled Kane. “All right. And as for you, Grimes, I suggest that you and your popsies get your arses aboard your little boat while they’re still intact.”

  “Pinnace,” corrected Grimes stiffly.

  “Or lugger, if you like. Once aboard the lugger and the girls are yours. But not my girl.” He put a possessive arm about the Baroness’s waist.

  She disentangled herself, turned to face Grimes. She was as tall as he and did not have to hold her face up to be kissed—and the kiss was not a light one.

  “Good bye, John,” she said. “Or au revoir . . .”

  “Break it up, Micky,” snarled Kane. And to Grimes, “It’s time that I didn’t have to look at you!”

  “Good bye, John,” said the Baroness again. “Look after yourself, and those two nice girls. As for the other one—I shall want a few words with her before she joins you aboard Little Sister.”

  Shirl and Darleen were already in the corridor, watching and listening with interest. Fenella Pruin was still in the office, no doubt saying her farewell to Captain McKillick. The Baroness, followed by Kane, went back into the Port Captain’s sanctum. It was not long before he heard, through the closed door, Fenella Pruin’s indignant screams. She seemed to be very annoyed about something.

  But he could not distinguish what was being said and he wanted to get back aboard his ship to see that all was in order. With the two New Alicians, one on either side of him, he made his way out of the administration block. The guards at his airlock must have been told to allow him through. They saluted him smartly, stood aside.

  Back in Little Sister he felt much happier. He checked everything. Apart from the legal formalities he could be ready to lift off within minutes. Even the stores were of no great importance provided that one was willing to put up with a monotonous diet.

  ***

  Fenella Pruin came aboard.

  She was crestfallen, sullen. She glowered at Grimes.

  “Your friends!” she spat. “Her Exalted Highness the Baroness of Bilge! And the Lord High Commodore! Ptah!”

  “He’s no friend of mine,” said Grimes. “Never has been.”

  “But she is. And that’s not all. She’s a major shareholder in Star Scandals Publishing. So . . .”

  “So what?”

  “Do I have to spell it out for you? Are you as dim as you look? She put the pressure on. I shall be graciously permitted to write a story, a good story even but nothing like as good as it should have been. I shall have to keep both feet firmly on the soft pedal. She laid down the guidelines. For example: ‘Due to an unfortunate misunderstanding Captain Grimes and I were arrested and sentenced to a term in a punishment and rehabilitation centre for vicious criminals. We were released, with apologies, as soon as our identities were established . . .’” She laughed bitterly. “Ha! Ha bloody ha!”

  “But things are going to be cleaned up here,” said Grimes. “Such establishments as the Colosseum are going to be closed down. And that’s more important than your story.”

  “Is it? Is it? And how do you know, anyhow?”

  “She promised.”

  “And you believed her?”

  “Yes,” said Grimes firmly.

  Chapter 32

  THERE WAS SOMEBODY at the outer airlock door wanting admittance.

  It was a supercilious young El Doradan officer in purple uniform, a single gold band on each of his sleeves. He looked curiously at the women, his expression conveying the impression that he had seen much better. He looked with disapproval at Grimes’ informal sarong, asked, “You are the captain?”

  “I have that honour,” said Grimes, blinking at the other’s purple and gold resplendence. He looked hard at the young man’s face, was both relieved and disappointed when he could find there was no resemblance to himself. His own son, of whom the Princess Marlene was the mother, would be about the age of this youngster.

  “Commodore Kane told me to find out what consumable Stores you will be requiring. Sir.”

  “Come through to the galley while I make a check . . .” The officer followed Grimes into the little compartment. “Mphm . . . Would you have any pork tissue culture in your vats? And we shall be needing fresh eggs. And bacon . . . And coffee. And table wines, of course . . .”

  The young man took notes. His manner toward Grimes oscillated between almost contemptuous disapproval and respect. After all, he was an El Doradan and therefore to him Money was one of the many Odd Gods of the Galaxy—and Little Sister, in her construction and appointments, reeked of Money. If only her captain had the decency to dress the part . . .

  A Customs officer, a surly, middle-aged woman obviously rudely awakened from her much-needed beauty sleep, came on board with papers for Grimes to sign. He put his name to them, wondering as he did so who had paid Little Sister’s port dues. He had not and had no intention of doing so unless compelled. He asked the woman to unseal the locker in which the small arms and the crystals from the laser cannon had been stowed. She complied with his request reluctantly, telling him sternly that he was not to replace the crystals until he was off New Venusberg. He examined the pistols. They were in order. It was ironical that he had weapons now that the need for them (he hoped) was gone.

  The stores were brought aboard from Southerly Buster. The young officer handed Grimes a parcel, wrapped in parchment and tied with a golden ribbon, said, “With Her Excellency’s compliments, sir.”

  Grimes opened it. There were two large tins of tobacco and, in its own case, a beautiful brier pipe.

  “Thank Her Excellency for me, please,” he said.

  “Certainly, sir.” The young man smiled unpleasantly. “And the commodore asked me to say that he hopes it chokes you.”

  “You can tell Commodore Kane, from me, to . . . Oh, skip it. He knows what I think about him.”

  Grimes went into the galley, supervised the two stewards in their stowage of the various items, put the pork into the cooler until such a time as a vat could be readied for its reception. He followed them back into the cabin. They wished him bon voyage and went out through the airlock. The officer saluted stiffly, then left Little Sister.

  Fenella Pruin looked at Grimes, looked at Shirl and Darleen.

  “Well?” she asked.

  “Well what?” countered Grimes.

  “Aren’t you going to say your fond farewells?” she demanded.

  “To whom?”

  “Those two.”

  “They’re coming with us,” said Grimes.

  “What?”

  “Of course. What will their lives be worth if we leave them here? They’re wanted for a few murders, you know. And we were accessory to some of those killings.”

  “Always the space lawyer, aren’t you? I know something about the law myself, Grimes. I would remind you that I am chartering this ship.”

  “Your employers are.”

  “And I decide what passengers may or may not be carried.”

  “Her Excellency,” said Grimes, “is your employer, as you discovered this evening. She charged me to look after Shirl and Darleen. She didn’t as much as mention you, by the way.”

  He brushed past her, stamped forward to the control cab, sat down firmly in
the pilot’s seat. He turned to look aft into the main cabin. He could see Fenella, in profile. She was glaring at Shirl and Darleen. They were staring back at her defiantly. He pushed the button on the control panel that closed the airlock doors, sealed the ship. He said into the microphone of the NST transceiver, “Little Sister to Aerospace Control. Request permission to lift ship.”

  “Permission granted, Little Sister.”

  The voice was familiar. Yes, that was McKillick’s fat face in the screen of the transceiver.

  There was no bon voyage. There were no pleasantries whatsoever. If looks could have killed Grimes would have died at his controls.

  The inertial drive grumbled and Little Sister detached herself from the concrete, rose vertically. To one side of her was the towering Southerly Buster, to the other the great, metallic skep that was the Shaara ship. There was activity in this latter’s control room; Grimes could see huge, faceted eyes peering at him through the viewports. He wondered briefly what their owners were thinking. But for all their wealth and influence they were only tourists on this planet. The real power lay with human capitalists, of whom the Baroness was one. Once he had almost—at least!—hated her but, now, he both respected and trusted her. He had no doubt that the worst abuses on New Venusberg would be put a stop to.

  Just in time he turned to look out and down to Southerly Buster. There was a white-clad figure in the big ship’s control room, one hand raised in a gesture of farewell. He lifted his own arm in reply, hoped that she would see. Then Little Sister was high above the spaceport. In the keel viewscreens were the toylike ships and buildings, the dwindling, floodlit form of the wantonly asprawl White Lady. A lot had happened since he first set eyes on that piece of pornographic landscape gardening.

  “Good bye, Little Sister,” said McKillick. “Don’t come back.”

  “If I do,” said Grimes, “it will be fifty years too soon.

  He heard the sound of quarrelling female voices behind him.

  This would not be, he predicted to himself, one of the more pleasant voyages of his career.

  But it would be interesting.