Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (83 page)

“No . . .” he lied.

(Or was it the truth? After that heavy lunch and the strenuous bedroom gymnastics he did not feel inclined to analyze his feelings.)

“You will make me very happy if you agree to become commodore of the privateer squadron. I shall know then that Ferdinand will be safe.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a commodore,” said Grimes.

“Then you will become one? For us?”

“Yes,” said Grimes.

He wondered if his consent had been registered by the monitor. It almost certainly had been. There was no backing out now.

“John, darling, you’ve made us very happy . . .”

Her soft lips brushed his ear as she whispered the words.

“And I’m happy to be of service to you,” he replied.

They drifted into sleep then, limbs intertwined. It was a pity, he thought, that she snored—but the almost musical noise did not prevent him from following her into sweet unconsciousness.

Chapter 32

WHEN HE AWOKE
it was late evening. He was alone in the big bed.

Well,
he thought philosophically,
it was nice while it lasted.

Somebody had come into the sitting room of his suite.
Marlene?
he wondered. (Hoped?) But by the gradually increasing illumination he could see that it was one of the robot servitors, carrying a large tray which was set down on a low table visible through the bedroom door.

Tea?
wondered Grimes. He hoped that it was. Then the robot moved away and he could see that it was a silver ice bucket from which protruded the slender neck of a tall bottle. There was a tulip glass—no, glasses. There was what looked like a dish of canapés.

Marlene appeared in the doorway. The subdued lighting was kind to her. She was wearing a diaphanous robe through which her full—too full?—body was clearly visible. (But she was no plumper, thought Grimes, than fat Susie had been before her remodeling.)

“You are awake, darling,” she murmured. “I had hoped to wake you in the time-honored way . . .”

Nonetheless she billowed into the bedroom, planted a warm, moist kiss on his not unwilling lips. She seemed to be inclined to carry on from there—but Grimes had more urgent matters on his mind.

He said, as he tried to break away from her embrace, but not too abruptly, “You’ll have to excuse me for a few moments, Marlene. I have to go to the bathroom . . .”

“Then go.”

She released him but remained seated on the bed.

Grimes got from under the covers, feeling absurdly embarrassed. (Had it not been for the knowledge that each of them was using the other his nudity would not have worried him.) He went into the bathroom, closed the door behind him, did what he had to do. He was relieved to find a dressing gown of dark blue silk—it seemed to be a new garment—hanging there. He put it on. When he emerged he found that the Princess was in the sitting room, sprawled rather inelegantly in one of the chairs by the low table.

“Open the bottle, John darling,” she said.

Grimes untwisted the wire and eased the old-fashioned cork free, hastily poured before too much of the foaming wine was lost.

“To success,” toasted the Princess.

“To success,” repeated Grimes.

They clinked glasses. She regarded him over the rim of hers. He wished that he had missed the coldly calculating gleam in her blue eyes. He wished that she were loving him for himself, not for what he could do for her.

The telephone—an instrument that Grimes, until now, had not known was part of the sitting room’s appointments—chimed. The Princess, facing the corner just beyond the bar, said, “Marlene here.”

The air shimmered and then a holographic projection of the pewter-faced majordomo appeared.

“Your Highess, an officer from the ship,
Sister Sue
, is calling. He wishes to speak with his captain.”

“Very well, Karl. You may put him through.”

The image of the robutler faded, was replaced by that of Williams. He seemed to be looking directly into the room—as, in fact, he was. Grimes wished that he were wearing something more formal than a dressing gown, that Marlene’s negligee were not so transparent. The mate—blast him!—was trying hard not to leer.

“Sorry if I interrupted anything, Skipper,” he said cheerfully.

“What is it, Mr. Williams?”

“The Baron, sir. Commodore Kane. He’s just been on board. He asked me to call a meeting of all hands—which, of course, I did. He treated us to a fine sales talk on the pleasures and profits of privateering. Yes, it was a sales talk all right. He could sell a pair of hairbrushes to a bald man . . .”

“Get on with it, Mr. Williams. Are the people willing to join Kane’s enterprise?”

“Too right, Skipper. Even Magda. She insisted on going through her ritual with the coins and the book and came up with the
Chieh
hexagram.” He looked at a scrap of paper that he was holding. “Regulation. There will be progress and success. But if the regulation is too severe and difficult, its good effect will not last long . . .”

“So? Is that a good forecast?”

“It is, Skipper. You’ll just have to ride with a loose rein, that’s all.”

“Mphm. You all seem to be sure that I shall agree to charter my ship to the El Dorado Corporation.”

“The commodore gave us to understand, Skipper, that you’d agreed.”

Grimes looked at Marlene. She looked back at him rather too innocently. Grimes turned his attention back to the solid-seeming image of Williams.

“All right, all right. Then why call me to tell me about it?”

“There’s more, Skipper. We’re to complete discharge at Port Kane. The commodore wants you back so that you can shift ship so as to be at Port Kane tomorrow morning, their time. There’s a twelve-hour differential.”

Grimes looked again at Marlene. She looked back at him, shook her head ever so slightly. Did that mean what he thought it did?

He said, “Mr. Williams, must I make it clear to you that Drongo Kane is neither the owner nor the master of
my
ship? Furthermore, the charter party has not yet been signed. Until it is, I am a free agent.”

“But the officers,” Williams said, “are looking forward to getting away from this cheerless dump to Port Kane . . .”

“My nose fair bleeds for them, Mr. Williams. I shall return to the ship tomorrow morning . . .” The Princess nodded almost imperceptibly. “I shall return to the ship tomorrow morning to make all the necessary arrangements. A very good night to you.”

Williams flickered and vanished.

“I’m glad that you were firm, John,” said Marlene.

“Now I suppose we’ll have Kane on the blower,” grumbled Grimes.

“We shall not.” She spoke firmly toward the corner of the room, “Karl, you are to accept no more incoming calls.”

“Very good, Your Highness,” came a disembodied, mechanical voice in reply.

“What if he calls around in person?” asked Grimes.

She laughed. “My watchbirds never sleep. And they are vicious.”

She drained her glass, held it out for the refill. She helped herself to a savory pastry, then to another. Grimes decided that he had better start nibbling too, otherwise he would not be getting his share. It would have been a shame to have missed out; the creamy filling in the flaky cases, some sort of fish, he thought, was delicious.

Then the dish was empty save for a few crumbs. The tall bottle, now standing to attention in the ice bucket, was a dead marine. The Princess sighed, inelegantly wiped her mouth on the back of her hand.

“I could order up more,” she said, “but it might spoil dinner. I thought that we would have it served here. It would be such a waste of time getting dressed and then getting undressed again . . .”

Grimes thought wryly of the evening dress that he had packed, the resplendent mess uniform that he had worn while he had been master of the Baroness d’Estang’s space yacht. It had been altered only inasmuch as the gold buttons now bore the crest of his own company, Far Traveler Couriers. He had affected to despise what, privately, he had called his organ grinder’s monkey suit but had been looking forward to giving it an airing in the proper surroundings.

She said, “I think that we shall be more comfortable on the settee.”

He got up from his chair, helped her to her feet. He thought,
If I married her I’d rupture myself carrying her across the threshold . . .
He deposited her at one end of the sofa, sat himself down at the other. She pouted at him but before she could move toward him the robot servants came in, cleared the low table of the debris of the pre-prandial snack and then set it down between them, laying out on its surface napery and cutlery, a selection of glasses. Then there was caviar, glistening black pearls piled high in a crystal bowl nestling in a larger vessel in which was crushed ice, with paper-thin toast and butter. With this there was vodka, poured by the attentive robot waiter from a bottle that was encased with an ice block.

Grimes made a pig of himself. So did Marlene.

There was paté, rich and flavorsome, in which a profusion of truffles was embedded. There was lobster, served in its split carapace and drenched with garlic-flavored butter. There was duck—or some bird like it—with a crisp, honeyed skin and a cherry sauce, with tiny new potatoes and green peas. (By this time Grimes’ appetite was beginning to flag although Marlene, whose face had become quite greasy, was leaving nothing on her plate.) There was steak, tender and rare, smothered with mushrooms. There was a fruit tart, topped by a minor mountain of whipped cream. There were the wines—white and rosé and red with, at the finish, an imported champagne with the sweet.

There was coffee.

Grimes took his black, Marlene with cream, lots of it.

Grimes repressed a belch.

Marlene did not.

Grimes said, speaking with some difficulty, “Thank you for a marvelous dinner.”

Marlene giggled and said, “The laborer is worthy of his hire. Besides, it is very rarely, on this world, that I can enjoy a meal in the company of somebody who appreciates good food as much as I do.”

Grimes took a cigar from the box preferred by the majordomo—genuine Cuban, he noticed. Marlene selected a slimmer smoke, a panatella. The robutler presented, first to Grimes then to his mistress, a metal index finger from which white flame jetted.

Grimes inhaled, wondering dimly that there should be room for anything else, even something so insubstantial as smoke, in his overfed body. He sat back, watching the silent, efficient robots removing the final plates and glasses, the coffeepot and cups. The table was shifted back to its original position between the two chairs and a large ashtray was placed on the richly carpeted floor.

Marlene, grunting a little with the effort, slowly shifted herself along the settee toward him. She covered the distance and then fell on to him. Her still-burning panatella dropped between their two bodies. Frantically he fished it out before it could do any damage, put it into the ashtray. Regretfully he placed his own cigar beside it. He was drowsy, so very drowsy. Marlene was sleeping, imprisoning him beneath the soft weight of her body. He tried to extricate himself, then gave up the struggle.

***

It may have been a dream but almost certainly it was not.

Awakening in the morning, alone in bed, as a robot servitor set down the morning tea tray, he had a confused memory of warm, pale flesh in the semi-darkness, of plump, naked limbs that imprisoned him, of hot, moist lips on his face and body, of an explosive release . . .

“And what do you wish for breakfast, lord?” asked the liveried servant.

“Some more tea will do nicely,” Grimes said. “After I’ve had my shower and all the rest of it . . .”

Surprisingly he did not feel at all bad. He just did not feel hungry.

“Very well, lord. Her Highness wishes me to tell you that the car will be ready, to return you to Port Bluewater, as soon as you desire.”

The old brush-off,
thought Grimes.
On your bicycle, spaceman. She’s got what she wants, had what she wanted, and that’s it.

He finished his second cup of tea, then got out of bed and went through to the bathroom.

Chapter 33

HE EMERGED FROM THE BATHROOM
refreshed and rather less torpid. He saw that his bed had been made and that on the coverlet fresh clothing—slacks, jacket and underwear—had been laid out. Presumably his case was already in the car.

He dressed and was not surprised to find that the waistband of his trousers was tight. He filled and lit his pipe; he would have a quiet smoke while waiting for the second pot of tea.

The majordomo entered the sitting room carrying a big tray. He (it) was followed by Marlene. Clothed—this morntag in pale blue—she looked no more than pleasantly plump. She sat down in one of the chairs by the coffee table, motioned to Grimes to take the other. The robutler put down the tray and left.

She said, “I thought, perhaps, that we might partake of only a light breakfast . . .”

On the tray were both teapots and coffeepots, with milk and cream and sugar. There was a large pitcher of some chilled fruit juice. There were croissants, with butter and a syrupy conserve with whole strawberries.

“Nothing for me, thanks, Marlene,” said Grimes. “Or, perhaps, some fruit juice.” She poured, handed him the glass. “And I think I’ve changed my mind. I told the servant tea, but that coffee smells delicious . . . Yes, two sugars.” She filled his cup. “And I wonder if I might have just a nibble of croissant . . .”

She laughed. “What I liked about you when I first knew you was your hearty appetite. I’ve heard that your Survey Service nickname was Gutsy Grimes . . . And what of it? Good food is meant to be enjoyed.”

She managed four croissants to Grimes’ three and was more generous with butter and conserve than he was. Satisfied, she lit a cigarillo. Grimes resumed his pipe.

“And now, my dear,” she said practically, “we have to get you back to your ship.”

She was friendly enough, thought Grimes, but little more than that. The events of the previous night might never have happened.

She got to her feet unassisted, walked toward the door. Grimes followed. She led him through corridors and down spiral staircases to the courtyard. The gleaming Daimler was awaiting them and, standing by it at stiff attention, were the majordomo and four liveried footmen. Grimes wondered wildly if he was supposed to tip them. (What sort of gratuity would a robot expect?) But they bowed stiffly as their mistress and her guest approached and the robutler assisted her through the open door of the car. Grimes sat down beside her. The doors closed. The car lifted and, escorted by the watchbirds, flew silently northward.