“Not to worry, Captain,” that gentleman had told him. “You’re one of ours now. We look after our own. You’ll get the finest legal defense if—and it’s a big ‘if’—the Admiralty takes any action against you. We fought an illegal arrest case a few years back—you may have heard about it—when some officious destroyer skipper seized a ship called Southerly Buster. Captain Kane’s ship. You must have heard about him. Anyhow, we won and Drongo Kane was awarded very heavy damages.”
So that was that, Grimes thought. If the Guild’s legal eagles could save the bacon of an unsavory character like Kane they should be able to do at least as well by him.
He let the Green Hornet board first while he walked around the ship. He told her to report as soon as possible to Mr. Williams.
***
Finally he climbed the ramp to the after airlock, took the elevator to the No. 3 cargo compartment. Williams was there with a human foreman stevedore who was directing the spidery stowbots. The mate was harassed looking and his slate grey uniform shirt was dark with perspiration. “Tell those bloody tin spiders of yours,” he was shouting, “that it’s the heavy cases bottom stow and those flimsy crates on top!” He turned to face Grimes. “I had to chase the Green Hornet out of here. Her idea of stowage was big packages under and little packages over, regardless of weight.” He switched to a falsetto voice. “ ‘That’s the way that we always did it in the Commission . . .’” He snorted. “It certainly ain’t the way we did it in the Dog Star Line!”
“Where is she now?”
“I told her to make a check of the navigational equipment.”
Grimes left the mate attending to the stowage, carried on up to Control. There he found Ms. Connellan sulkily tinkering with the mass proximity indicator. She was still dressed as she had been when released from jail.
“Why aren’t you in uniform?” he asked.
“What uniform am I supposed to wear?” she countered. “All my trappings are Interstellar Transport Commission.”
“Then find out,” he told her, “the name of a local uniform tailor. Mr. Williams should know. Get on the telephone and order full sets of uniform trappings for all hands.”
“Including you, Captain?”
“Not including me.”
Some time in the past Grimes had had his own Far Traveler Couriers insignia made up—the cap badge a stylized rider on a galloping horse, in silver, with two golden comets as the surround; the same horse and rider, but in gold, over the four gold stripes on his epaulets. When he could afford it he would put his people into Far Traveler Couriers uniform but it could wait.
“I suppose you know, sir,” said Ms. Connellan, the tone of her voice implying that he didn’t, “that the shipowner is responsible for supplying his personnel, at his expense, with uniform trappings.”
“I know,” said Grimes.
After she left him he began to reassemble the MPI. Luckily she had done no more than to remove the hemispherical cover.
A spacelawyer . . . he thought.
In any astronautical service, naval or mercantile, such are crosses that their commanding officers have to bear.
Chapter 9
YOSARIAN CAME TO SEE GRIMES shortly before Sister Sue was scheduled to lift off. He was carrying a parcel, a gift-wrapped box. Grimes, taking it from him, was surprised at how heavy it was.
“Just a small gift, Captain,” said the roboticist. “From myself, and from another . . . friend. I hope that you will like it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Yosarian. But the other friend . . . ? Apart from you I don’t have any friends on this planet.”
The fat man laughed.
“Open the parcel,” he said, “and you will see.”
Grimes put the package on his desk. The tinsel ribbon around it was tied with a bow that came undone at the first tug. The metallic paper fell away to reveal a box of polished mahogany with brass fittings. The two catches holding down the hinged lid were easy to manipulate. Inside the box was foam plastic packing. Grimes pulled it out carefully, saw the rich gleam of metal, of gold.
He stared at what was revealed. There was a tiny bicycle, perfect in every detail. Seated upon it was one of Yosarian’s mechanical dolls, a miniature golden woman, naked and beautiful. He recognized her—or, more correctly, knew whom she represented.
“Una Freeman . . .” he murmured. “Commissioner Freeman.”
“As I said, Captain, an old friend of yours. And a friend of mine for quite some years. A charming lady.”
“Mphm.”
“When I mentioned to her that I was going to give you one of my dolls as a farewell gift she said that she would like it to be from both of us. But I got the impression that the combination of naked lady and bicycle was some sort of private joke.”
“At least she didn’t ask you to include a golden can of baked beans. That’s another private joke.”
“But what is the meaning of this?” asked Yosarian. “I was able, easily, to make the lady and her steed to her specifications. But a bicycle . . . ?”
“Miss Freeman and I were working together. It was when she was a member of the Corps of Sky Marshals and while I was in the Survey Service. It’s a long story; you must get her to tell it to you some time. But, fantastic as it may sound, the two of us were cast away on an almost desert planet with two bicycles for company. Mphm. Rather special bicycles.”
“I gathered that.”
Carefully Grimes lifted the exquisitely made models from the box, the little woman still sitting on the saddle, her tiny hands grasping the handlebar, her feet on the pedals. He set the toy—or the toys; he did not think that the assemblage was all in one piece—down onto the desk. He let go of it hastily when one foot lifted from the pedal, went down to make contact with the surface on which the bicycle was standing.
“It—she—is attuned to your voice, Captain,” said Yosarian. “Tell her to ride around the desk top.”
“Ride around the desk top,” ordered Grimes dubiously.
The golden foot was back on the golden pedal after giving a backward shove; both feet were on the pedals and the golden legs were working smoothly, up and down, up and down, and the golden filaments that were the wire spokes of the wheels glittered as they turned, slowly at first, and then became a gleaming, transparent blur.
Round the desk she rode, balancing on the very edge of its top, cutting no corners, faster and faster. And then she was actually over the edge with the wheels running on the shallow thickness of the rim, machine and rider no longer vertical to the deck but horizontal.
This was fascinating, but Grimes had to think about getting his ship upstairs in the very near future.
He asked, not taking his eyes from the fascinating golden figurine, “Are there batteries? How is she powered?”
“From any light source, natural or artificial.”
“How do I stop her?”
“Just tell her, Captain.”
Grimes restrained himself from saying ‘Stop,’ realizing that if he did so the golden toy might fall to the desk, damaging itself.
“Back onto the desk top,” he said. (Sometime, he thought, he must make a slow motion recording of that graceful gymnastic maneuvering.) “Back into the box.” (The bicycle ran up the vertical side of the container with ease, hovered briefly in the air before plunging downward.) “Stop.”
“You’re getting the hang of it, Captain,” said Yosarian.
“All I can say,” said Grimes, “is thank you. Thank you very much.”
“You should also thank Commissioner Freeman. The nature of the gift was her idea—and she was the model for part of it.”
“Then thank her for me, please.”
“I will do so.” Yosarian got up from the chair on which he had been sitting. “And now I must go. There is still work for me to do aboard my ship.” He extended his hand. Grimes shook it. “Bon voyage, Captain. And good fortune. Oh, I have a message from the Commissioner. She told me to tell you that bicycles aren’t always what the
y seem, and to remember that.” Something seemed to be amusing him. “Bon voyage,” he said again, and left.
Grimes pottered about his day cabin, making sure that all was secure. He lifted the box containing Yosarian’s—and Una’s—farewell gift down from the desk, stowed it in his big filing cabinet. (There was room for it; the ship, under her new ownership, had yet to accumulate stacks of incoming correspondence and copies of outgoing communications.) He made sure that the solidograph of Maggie Lazenby was secure on the shelf on which he had placed it while he was settling in. He would have to find a suitable site for Una and her bicycle, he thought; it would be a crime to leave her to languish unseen in the box. He remembered another gift from another woman, the miniature simulacrum of Susie. He remembered, too, the troubles that it had brought him. But the mini-Una, he told himself, for all her motility would be no more dangerous than the image of Maggie.
His telephone buzzed. The fleshy face of Williams appeared on the screen.
“Mate here, Skipper. Mr. Yosarian’s ashore now. I’m sealing the ship.”
“Thank you, Mr. Williams.”
“And Aerospace Control confirms that we’re all set for lift-off at 1400 hours.”
Grimes looked at the bulkhead clock. The time was 1350. He left his quarters and went up to the control room.
Chapter 10
SISTER SUE lifted from Port Southern.
It was not, of course, the first time that Grimes had handled her; he had brought her down from the parking orbit to the spaceport. This, however, was his first lift-off in the ship. He could not help thinking that she appreciated his touch on the controls—and inwardly laughed at his subscription to the pathetic fallacy. But he persisted in his imaginings. Little Sister had been little more than a girl, eagerly responsive to his lightest caress. Sister Sue was a woman, no longer young, an experienced woman. She required—demanded, even—a heavier hand.
She lifted steadily, accelerating smoothly. Below her the glittering city dwindled and the horizon began to display curvature. Up through filmy upper clouds she drove, up through the last, tenuous shreds of atmosphere, into the blackness and the hard vacuum of space.
Soon it was time to set trajectory for the interstellar voyage. Grimes cut the inertial drive, then used the directional gyroscopes to swing the vessel about her axes. He brought the bright star that was Sol directly ahead, then made the small correction for galactic drift. He started the inertial drive.
The temporal precession field built up.
As always there was disorientation, visually and aurally, while colors sagged down the spectrum and perspective was distorted. As sometimes, although not always, happened there was prevision, a consequence of the warping of the fabric of space and time.
Grimes stared at what, at first glance, had seemed to be his reflection on the inner surface of one of the viewports. With a shock he realized that it was the image of a much older man than himself that was staring back at him. There were the same prominent ears, there was a foul-looking pipe clamped between the teeth. (The here-and-now Grimes’ pipe was still in his pocket.) The apparition was grey-haired. He was, like Grimes, in uniform but the gold braid on his shoulderboards was a single broad stripe, not four narrow ones. Above it was a winged wheel device, not the Far Traveler stylized courier. Somehow the name of the ship was in the background but the letters were wavering, squirming as though alive, dissolving, reforming. They stabilized and no longer spelled Sister Sue but Faraway Quest . . . And was that Williams there beside this other—this future—Grimes? An older Williams, just as it was an older Grimes in the reflection.
Then, the field established and holding, things snapped back to normal—or as normal as they ever could be in a ship running under interstellar drive. The pseudo reflections vanished. Outside the control room the warped continuum now presented an uncanny, even to a seasoned spaceman, aspect with every star no longer a sharp point of light but a writhing, coruscating spiral nebula, slowly but visibly drifting across the field of vision.
Grimes looked at Williams. Williams looked at him. There was mutual acknowledgment that their futures were somehow interlinked. Then Williams looked at the Green Hornet, slumped and sulky in her chair. He grinned at Grimes as though to say, Whatever happens, whatever is going to happen, we won’t be saddled with her, Skipper.
With slow deliberation Grimes filled and lit his pipe. He said, “Deep space routine, Mr. Williams.” He turned to the girl and told her, “You have the first watch, Ms. Connellan.”
“I still haven’t had time to unpack properly. Sir.”
“That will have to wait until you come off duty. The chief officer has been watch on and stay on ever since we opened Articles.”
She glowered at him but said nothing. Grimes wondered if, should he log and fine her for the crime of dumb insolence, he could make it stick. He looked back at her coldly, then released himself from his chair and walked to the hatch leading down to the axial shaft. Williams followed him.
“A stiff drink before you get your head down, Number One?” asked Grimes.
“Thanks, Skipper. I could use one.”
Grimes led the way into his quarters. He went to the liquor cabinet. Williams asked for beer. Grimes mixed himself a pink gin. Seated, the two men faced each other across the coffee table.
The mate raised his condensation-bedewed can in salutation. “Here’s to a long and prosperous association, Skipper.”
“I’ll drink to that, Mr. Williams. Oh, by the way, when the time-twister was warming up did you see anything?”
Williams laughed. “I saw myself as a frosty-faced old bastard—and you even frostier faced! I’ve had these glimpses of the future before and, just between ourselves, they’re more reliable than Magda’s I Ching!”
“On one occasion,” Grimes told him, “I was treated to the prevision of a naked lady riding a bicycle . . .”
“I doubt if that came true, Skipper!” laughed Williams.
“But it did. By the time it was all over I was allergic to both the wench and her velocipede!”
He got up, went to the filing cabinet and brought out the mahogany box. He opened it, lifted out the beautiful . . . toy, set it down on the deck. “Ride around the cabin,” he ordered. “Slowly.”
Williams stared as the naked cyclist made her leisurely rounds.
“Where did you get that, Skipper? One of Yosarian’s specials, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Grimes. “A parting gift. From him, and . . .”
“And?” Williams bent down in his chair to look more closely at the tiny, golden cyclist as she glided past him. “And? Surely not! Isn’t that our beloved Police Commissioner?” He laughed. “But she is a friend of Yosarian’s. And I know that she was a Sky Marshal before she settled down on Austral. Don’t tell me, Skipper, that she was the lady in your, er, vision!”
Grimes allowed himself a small grin.
“Gentlemen don’t tell,” he said.
“Come off it, Skipper! We aren’t in the wardroom of a Survey Service warship; this is a merchant ship. Religion, politics and sex are quite permissible topics of conversation. In any case it’s highly unlikely that any of us will ever be seeing Commissioner Freeman again—and thank the Odd Gods of the Galaxy for that!”
“All right,” said Grimes. “I met Sky Marshal Freeman, as she was then, when she was supposed to be taking possession of the pirated, then abandoned Delta Geminorum. You may recall the case. The ship was just wandering around, going nowhere in particular, with her Mannschenn Drive in operation. Ms. Freeman called upon the Survey Service for assistance. I was between ships at the time and was put in charge of the prize crew. We—Ms. Freeman, the people in the prize crew and myself—went out in the Lizard Class courier Skink to intercept the derelict. We found her and synchronized temporal precession rates. It was arranged that Ms. Freeman and I would be the first to board her; we left Skink in a Class A boat, practically a spaceship in miniature, complete with mini-Mannschenn, Carlotti
radio, life-support system and all the rest of it. As far as we could work things out afterward there was some sort of interaction between the temporal precession fields of the ship, Delta Geminorum, and the boat as we made a close approach. This caused the detonation of the bomb which the pirates had left as a booby trap. It was a thermonuclear device. We were as near as dammit at ground zero—and, as I’ve said, there was this interaction between temporal precession fields.
“We weren’t killed . . .”
“That’s obvious, Skipper!”
“It wasn’t at the time. Not to Skink’s captain and his crew, and to my prize crew, who were still aboard his ship. They all thought that Sky Marshal Una Freeman and Lieutenant Commander John Grimes had been well and truly vaporized, together with the boat and the derelict. It was so reported. Of course I was able to report differently some time later, after our return to this universe.”
“I’ve heard all these stories about alternate universes,” said Williams, “but I’ve never quite believed them. Oh, there were a few odd stories about Delta Geminorum and Ms. Freeman and yourself—but most people thought that they were some sort of Survey Service smokescreen, covering up something with serious political implications, or . . . When Ms. Freeman first came to Austral—with her Corps of Sky Marshals background she started in the police force with senior inspector’s rank—a few of the local rags and stations tried to interview her. All that she’d say about the Delta Geminorum affair was that it was classified. I hope that you won’t say the same.”
“I’m a civilian shipmaster now,” said Grimes. “I don’t even hold a reserve commission. But if I tell you, keep it to yourself, will you?
“We were flung, somehow, into a more or less parallel universe. There had been a galaxy-wide war, resulting in the destruction of all organic life. Life, of a sort, had survived—the intelligent machines. The ruling entity, regarded as a god and with godlike powers, wanted to give his late creators, the human race, a fresh start. (Not that they’d been human, as we understand the term. They’d been more like centaurs.) Una—Ms. Freeman—and I were captured. We were set down in an oasis on an otherwise desert planet. There were plants, animals. There was water and a wide variety of edible fruits and nuts. The implication was that we were to become the Adam and Eve of the new race. Una wasn’t all that keen on the idea—and neither was I. After her last contraceptive shot wore off we were very, very careful.
Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III Page 53