Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (87 page)

He and Michelle walked up the gangway to the open airlock door, into the vestibule. The elevator cage, already at this lower level, carried them swiftly and smoothly up to the captain’s flat. Grimes ushered his guest into his sitting room. She sprawled with elegant inelegance in one of the armchairs by the coffee table, her long, slender legs stretched out before her. Grimes took the seat facing her. He saw that Magda had laid out his usual supper—a thermopot of coffee, a large dish of napkin-covered sandwiches. Michelle, too, noted this offering. She bent forward and lifted the napkin. The sandwiches were of new bread, with the crust left on, cut thick—as was the pink ham that was the filling.

She smiled. “You have a female catering officer, don’t you? It looks as though she spoils you as thoroughly as
Big Sister
used to . . .” Her expression clouded slightly. “I hope that I am not . . . trespassing. Or poaching.”

“No, Michelle. She’s already spoken for.”

“Oh. Do you think I could have some coffee?”

“Of course.”

There was only one mug on the tray but there were others in a locker. Grimes got one out. He filled both vessels with the steaming, aromatic brew, remembered that she preferred hers unsweetened. He added sugar liberally to his own drink.

She nibbled a sandwich.

She said, “Marriage—or marriage to Baron Kane—seems to have coarsened me. Once I would sneer at this sort of food. Now I enjoy it.”

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes through a mouthful.

“This cabin,” she said, “is more
you
than your quarters aboard
The Far Traveler
. . . And even if you don’t have a golden stewardess you do have a golden girl . . .” She waved a half-eaten sandwich toward the miniature Una, astride her gleaming bicycle, on the shelf. “Rather pretty. Or even beautiful.”

Grimes got up and lifted the figurine and her wheeled steed down to the deck. “Ride,” he ordered. “Ride. Round and round and round . . .”

She clapped her hands gleefully. “One of Yosarian’s toys, isn’t she? But aren’t they rather expensive?”

“I didn’t buy her,” said Grimes stiffly. “She was a gift. From Mr. Yosarian and . . .”

“And from the lady who was the model?” She laughed. “No doubt one of your ex—or not so ex—girl friends. You know, I’ve always been sorry that you were so overawed by me when you were my yachtmaster. But now that you’re an owner-master,
and
a commodore . . .”

“But not a baron,” said Grimes.

“But still a privateer,” she told him, “as the first Baron d’Estang was . . .”

There was something more than a little sluttish about her posture. Her bodice had become unbuttoned. The pink nipple of one firm breast seemed to be winking at him. The invitation was unmistakable.

Yet when he got up from his chair and moved toward her she put up a hand to fend him away.

“Wait,” she said. “I have to use your bathroom first. Through there, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She rose sinuously from her seat, walked, with swaying buttocks, to the bedroom, through which were the toilet facilities. Grimes poured himself the last of the coffee from the thermopot. He was still sipping it when she came back, standing in the doorway between day and sleeping cabins.

The glossy white Eton collar and the black bow accentuated her nakedness. A highborn lady she might be—and, at this moment, a tart she most certainly was.

But a high-class tart, thought Grimes, as he got up and went to join her in the bedroom.

In the day cabin the miniature Una Freeman continued her tireless rounds while the solidograph of Maggie Lazenby looked down disapprovingly.

***

“And now,” he whispered, “what was all this about, darling?”

She murmured, “The laborer is worthy of his hire.”

He said, “But this was a bonus.”

“And for me, John. And for me. Besides . . .”

“Yes?”

“I don’t pretend to possess the faculty of prevision . . . But . . . But I don’t think that you’ll be coming back here, ever. I just had to take this chance to do with you what we should have done a long time ago.”

“Thank you,” he said.

She kissed him a last time, her lips moist and warm on his, then gently disengaged herself from his embrace. She swung her long, long legs down to the deck, swayed gracefully into the bathroom. When she came out she was dressed again in her bunny costume.

“Don’t get up,” she told him. “I can see myself ashore.”

“But . . .”

“Don’t get up, John.” She blew him a kiss. “Good night Good bye, and the very best of luck.”

She vanished through the doorway.

She screamed briefly. Grimes flung himself off the bed and ran to the door. She straightened up from rubbing her right foot and glared at him.

“That bloody golden popsy of yours,” she snarled. “It was
intentional
!”

“She’s only a toy,” said Grimes.

“And a dangerous one.” She grinned. “I’d better go before I kick her off her bicycle and then jump on her!”

She waved and then was gone.

Grimes told the tiny cyclist to stop, picked her up and put her back on her shelf. The integument of the metal body in his hands seemed almost as real as the human skin that, only minutes ago, he had been caressing.

Chapter 38

SISTER SUE’S
control room was fully manned.

Grimes was in the command chair, and Williams seated at the stand-by controls. Old Mr. Stewart was looking after the NST transceiver and Ms. Connellan and the new fourth officer, the Countess of Walshingham, were at their stations by the radar equipment. Venner was attending the recently installed battle organ. It was SOP in the Survey Service to have all armament ready for instant use during lift-off and, thought Grimes, what was good enough for a regular warship was good enough for a privateer.

He looked around him at his officers. Williams was his usual cheerful self and old Mr. Stewart looked like an elderly priest performing a ritual of worship to some electronic deity. Venner, with violent death at his fingertips, was grinning mirthlessly. He would welcome the excuse, Grimes knew, to push a few buttons. The Green Hornet seemed to have a smaller chip on her shoulder than usual. The Countess was conveying the impression that she was holding herself icily aloof from everybody except the second mate.

Grimes didn’t like her. He did not think that anybody, save Ms. Connellan, would or could like her. She had made a scene—only a minor one, but still a scene—when, at long last, she had deigned to affix her signature to
Sister Sue’s
Articles of Agreement. She had scrawled, in a large, rather childish hand,
Walshingham.
“What are your given names?” Grimes had asked her.

“That’s no concern of yours, Captain,” she had replied.

“How do we address you?” he had persisted.

“As Your Ladyship, of course.”

“You are a junior officer aboard this vessel,” he had told her. “Here you are not a Ladyship.”

“I am a Ladyship anywhere in the galaxy. But you may address me as Countess.”

(The Green Hornet, Grimes knew, called her new friend Wally. He said, “You will be addressed as Miss Walshingham. Or, if you prefer it, Ms.”)

“Port Kane Control to flagship,” came a voice, Kane’s voice, from the NST radio speaker. “Lift when you are ready.
Pride of Erin
,
Spaceways Princess
and
Agatha’s Ark
are under your orders.”

Grimes turned to face the transceiver with its sensitive microphone. “Commodore Grimes to Commodore Kane and to masters of
Pride of Erin
,
Spaceways Princess
and
Agatha’s Ark.
The squadron will proceed in echelon—first
Sister Sue
, then the
Pride
, then the
Princess
, then the
Ark
, as rear commodore . . .”

The Green Hornet muttered something about Survey Service bullshit.

“Ships will lift at twenty-second intervals and will maintain station. Acknowledge in order named.”

The acknowledgments came in.

“Stand by!” At Grimes’ touch on his controls the mutter of his hitherto idling inertial drive deepened to a rumble. “Execute!”

Sister Sue
shook herself, then clambered slowly into the calm morning air toward the blue sky with its gleaming, feathery streaks of high-altitude cloud. Grimes looked out and down through a viewport, saw that there was a small crowd of women outside the dome that housed The Happy Kangaroo. The volunteer hostesses, he thought. Most of them were still in their bunny costumes. Several of them were waving. Michelle was not among them and he felt a little stab of disappointment. Probably she would be with Kane, watching the privateer fleet’s departure from the control room at the top of the latticework tower. He transferred his attention to the glassed-in cage but could see nobody; the sunlight reflected from the windows was too dazzling. And was Kane, he asked himself wryly, playing King David to his Uriah the Hittite? But it was a far-fetched analogy. Apart from anything else it was the ill-fated Uriah who had been the cuckolded husband.

He wished, too, that the Princess had come to the spaceport to watch the ships, carrying both her son and the man who was his father, set out.

Grimes,
he admonished himself,
you’re a sentimental slob.

The Countess announced in a high, clear voice, “
Pride of Erin
is lifting, Commodore.”

“Thank you, Miss Walshingham.”

He stepped up the thrust of his inertial drive.

“
Spaceways Princess
is lifting . . .”

“Thank you.”

In the stern vision screen the spaceport buildings were dwindling fast.

“
Agatha’s Ark
is lifting.”

“Good.”

Up drove the four ships, and up. The flickering altimeter numerals in the screen told their story of ever and rapidly increasing distance from the ground. Soon, thought Grimes, it would be time for the first test of his captains—and of himself. Never before had he been called upon to assume responsibility for the movements of more than a single ship. He had discussed the maneuver that he was about to attempt with the three other tramp masters, had told them that it was one frequently carried out by Survey Service squadrons shortly after lift-off. He had instructed them in signals procedure. It was a quite spectacular evolution, especially during the hours of darkness, but as long as everything was working properly there was no risk.

“Stand by inertial and reaction drive controls,” he ordered. “Acknowledge.”

In the screen he saw paired brilliant lights, one red and one blue, blossom into life on the gun turrets of the other ships, so sited as to be visible to all concerned.
Sister Sue
was now displaying similar illuminations.

His hand poised over his inertial drive controls, he looked to Williams, whose fingers were on the light switches. The mate nodded.

“Execute!”

The clangor of the inertial drive ceased suddenly. In the screen Grimes saw the blue lights on the other ships wink out as one. He felt the inevitable weightlessness as
Sister Sue
began to drop.

“Execute!”

As the red lights were switched off blue incandescence and white vapor burst from the sterns of the ships. Acceleration slammed Grimes down into his chair.

Not bad,
he thought,
not bad at all . . .

“
Pride of Erin
is out of station,” said the Countess coldly. “She is lifting relative to us.”

“She’s not going to come sniffing up our arse, is she?” asked Grimes coarsely.

“No, sir.”

He had seen worse, he remembered. There had been one quite spectacular balls-up many years ago when he had been a junior officer aboard
Aries
. The cruiser, with four escorting destroyers, had lifted from Atlantia. One of the destroyers had not only accelerated violently but had deviated from trajectory, missing the flagship of the squadron by the thickness of the proverbial coat of paint, searing her plating with the fiery backblast.

Anyhow, there was no point in wasting reaction mass. He ordered the required signals to be flashed, cut the reaction drive and restarted inertial drive simultaneously.

The fleet lifted steadily.

***

Once clear of the Van Allens, trajectory was set for the Kalla sun. Grimes wondered what prevision, if any, he would experience during the moments while the temporal precession field of the Mannscherm Drive built up. What visions of battle and carnage would he see?

But there was only a voice—his voice—singing, not very tunefully.

I murdered William Moore as I sailed, as I sailed,

I murdered William Moore as I sailed,

I knocked him on the head till he bled the scuppers red

And I heaved him with the lead

As I sailed . . .

Then inside the control room the warped perspective snapped back to normality and colors resumed their proper places in the spectrum. Outside, the stars were no longer points of brilliance but resembled writhing nebulae.

Grimes looked at Williams.

The mate, obviously, was unaware that his captain was destined to kill him.
But,
thought Grimes,
there is an infinitude of possible futures. There are probabilities and improbabilities—but there are no impossibilities.

He unbuckled himself from his chair, went to look into the screen of the mass proximity indicator. All the ships were there, as they should have been. Soon, thought Grimes, he would carry out trials of the synchonizers with which the privateers were fitted, and then there would be a few practice shots. There was no urgency, however. Until those Letters of Marque were issued
Sister Sue
and the others were just innocent merchantmen proceeding on their lawful occasions.

“Deep Space routine, Mr. Williams,” he ordered. “You know where to find me if you want me.”

He went down to his day cabin, where he was joined after a few minutes by Mayhew.

Chapter 39

“I HAVE THAT DAMNED
prevision again,” he told the telepath. “The Ballad of Captain Kidd. I murdered William Moore, and all the rest of it.”