Ride the Star Winds (2 page)

“A not uncommon cause of such disasters, sir.”

“The Board of Inquiry, Grimes, consisted of Major Timms, Captain Vinor and Lieutenant Delaney, all of them Bardon’s officers. And there were witnesses who saw the aircraft—a helium-filled blimp with electric motors—explode and come down in flaming fragments.”

“Oh. I’m surprised that they, too, didn’t meet with accidents.”

“Most of them did. The one who didn’t managed to stow away aboard a bulk carrier and make it to New Maine. He told his story to our Sub-Base Commander there, who passed it on to Survey Service Intelligence.”

“Then why isn’t this Colonel Bardon relieved of his command?”

“Politics, Grimes. Politics. For quite some time now the Army has been the Lord Protector’s pet. For some reason he despises the Survey Service. And Field Marshal von Tempsky refuses to believe anything bad about any of his people, especially when the complaint is laid by us. Nonetheless, it’s a known fact that the Army sweeps all its misfits and bad bastards under the mat by shipping them off to outworld garrison duties.”

“And the Survey Service is doing the same, sir?”

Damien chuckled. “You’re a misfit, Grimes, but even I wouldn’t call you a bad bastard. Your forte has always been giving bad bastards what they deserve. People like Colonel Bardon, for example. . . .”

“So you want me to become Governor of Liberia so that I can put a spoke in Bardon’s wheel?”

“You could put it that way.”

“But since when, sir, has the Survey Service been appointing colonial governors?”

“A good question, Grimes. We never have done so. But the Protector of the Colonies—Bendeen—is a friend of mine. We were midshipmen together. He got as high as lieutenant commander, then married into a political family. Not long after he resigned his commission and went into politics himself. His wife’s family found a safe seat for him and he was elected to the Assembly. Surprisingly, despite his idealism and an honesty more typical of spacemen than politicians, he attained ministerial rank. He has his sights set on the Lord Protectorship but I don’t think he’ll make it. He tramples on too many corns.”

“And he wants to trample on Field Marshal von Tempsky’s corns?”

“Yes. And those of the Cereal Consortium. He hasn’t forgiven them for the engineered famine on Damboon, which resulted in the downfall of the Free Democrat regime.”

“Mphm.” Grimes knocked out his pipe in Damien’s waste-paper disposer, refilled and lit it. “Mphm. So I’m supposed to be Protector Bendeen’s cat’s paw. If I take the job, that is. . . .”

“You could put it that way, Grimes.”

“Mphm. But won’t it look fishy? A Survey Service dropout, a master astronaut who’s lost his ticket after a widely publicized inquiry, appointed to a governorship. . . . Won’t there be questions asked, in the World Assembly, by the media, on every street corner?”

“Our rumor factory will be working overtime, Grimes. The El Dorado Corporation has its tentacles everywhere. It will be hinted that El Dorado is behind the appointment, that highly placed people on that world are pulling strings to find a soft, highly paid job for a man who was one of their officers, a Company Commodore, and who served them to the best of his ability. Bendeen will try to convey the impression that your appointment is not one that he would have made of his own free will.”

“You should have become a politician yourself, sir.”

“Whatever makes you think that I didn’t?” asked the Rear Admiral.

Chapter 3

Grimes watched
Sister Sue
lift off from Port Woomera.

He stood there, on the stained and scarred concrete of the commercial spaceport apron, staring up at the dull-gleaming spindle that was the ship—
his
ship—climbing steadily until it was no more than a speck in the cloudless blue sky, listening to the cacophony of the inertial drive until it was no more than a faint, irritable mutter. And then the sky was empty and the only noises were those normal to a working spaceport at ground level—the whining of motors, the occasional clank and rattle from conveyor belts and gantries, now and again a shouted order.

Williams would do all right, he thought, despite his initial diffidence, even though the ex-mate had made it plain that he had hoped that Grimes would be along in an advisory capacity.

(“The old ship won’t be the same without you, skipper,” he had said. Then, “I’ll look after her for you. You’ll be back. I know you will.” And Grimes had thought,
But ten years is a long time.)

And now
Sister Sue
was up and away, outbound for Caribbea with a cargo of manufactured goods, everything from robotutors to robutterflies, the beautiful little devices that had been developed to deal, lethally and expeditiously, with flying insect pests. (They would sell well enough, Grimes thought, while the craze lasted.) Her discharge completed she would go on Time Charter to the Interstellar Transport Commission, carrying anything and everything anywhere and everywhere.

At least, thought Grimes, Williams had a good crew. Magda Granadu was still Catering Officer/Purser and the two old-timers, Crumley and Stewart, were still Reaction Drive Chief and Radio Officer respectively. The other engineers, Reaction Drive and Mannschenn Drive, were
real
space engineers, not refugees from universities and bicycle shops. (Their predecessors, together with their false memories, had been given passage back to Austral.) The Chief, Second and Third Officers were all young, properly qualified and actually employees of the Commission which, by the terms of the charter party, was required to supply necessary personnel.

So that was that.

Ex-Captain Grimes, ex-Company Commodore Grimes, soon-to-be-Governor Grimes climbed into the ground car that had been waiting to take him to the airport from where he would fly to Alice Springs to spend a few days with his parents before leaving for Liberia.

They met him in the waiting room at the base of the mooring mast.

Grimes senior, a tall, white-haired old man, greeted his son with enthusiasm. “I envy you, John,” he said. “I really do. I just write about adventures; you have them!”

Matilda Grimes—also tall, red-haired and pleasantly horse-faced—frowned disapprovingly. “Don’t encourage him, George. Ever since he left the Survey Service he’s been doing nothing but getting into trouble, I hoped to see him become an admiral one day. I never dreamed that he’d become a pirate.” She turned on her son. “And what do you intend to do now, John? You’ve had your Certificate taken from you . . .”

“Only suspended,” said her husband.

She ignored this. “You’ll never command a ship again, not even a merchant vessel. And after that trial. . . .”

“Court of Inquiry, my dear.”

“. . . nobody will ever employ you.”

“As a matter of fact, Matilda,” Grimes said, “I shall shortly be going out to take up a new appointment.”

“What as?” asked Grimes’s father.

“Governor, as a matter of fact. Of Liberia.”

“I’ve always thought,” said his mother, “that the standard of intelligence in the World Assembly is appallingly low. Now I am sure of it. And I’ve never trusted Bendeen. Any man who would give up a career in the Survey Service for one in politics must have something wrong with him. Appointing a pirate as governor. . . .”

“There are precedents,” said George Whitley Grimes. “Sir Henry Morgan, for example.” He realized that the other people in the lounge were looking curiously at the small family party and said, “I suggest that we continue this discussion at home.”

The robutler brought in drinks.
The Old Man must be doing well,
thought Grimes. The machine was one of the very latest models, a beautifully proportioned and softly gleaming cylinder moving on silent treads rather than something unconvincingly humanoid. From a circular port midway up the thing’s body a sinuous tentacle produced the drinks ordered—dry sherry, chilled, for Matilda Grimes, a pink gin for Grimes and beer for his father. A dish of assorted nuts, placed on the coffee table, followed.

“Here’s to crime,” toasted George Whitley Grimes, raising his glass.

“I’ll not drink to that!” snapped his wife. Nonetheless she gulped rather than sipped from hers.

Grimes sampled his pink gin. He could not have mixed a better one himself.

He said, “You seem very prosperous, George.”

“Yes. It was that
If Of History
novel.”

“The Ned Kelly idea that you were telling me about the last time that I was here?”

“No. The one after that, based on the Australian Constitutional Crisis.
If
Gough Whitlam, the Prime Minister, had refused to relinquish office after the Governor General fired him. . . .”

“Don’t go putting ideas into his head,” admonished Matilda. “The last time that he was here the pair of you talked about privateering and piracy—and look what happened! The next thing we hear will be that he’s fired the President of Liberia!”

“Perhaps I shall,” murmured Grimes. “Perhaps I shall. . . .”

His father looked at him intently over the rim of his condensation-beaded glass. He said softly, “Tell me, John, did you really leave the Survey Service?”

“I did.”

“Did they call you back?”

“Did they?” pressed his mother, suddenly alert.

It was useless, he knew, to try to lie to her.

He said, “No comment.”

“And isn’t it true,” his father went on, “that after your piratical antics a bill was pushed through the Assembly making privateering illegal anywhere in the Federation of Worlds?”

“You read, watch and listen to the media, George.”

“I do. And there have been some nasty rumors recently about Liberia. But you can’t tell us anything, can you?”

“I can’t. And I think that you’d both be wise to keep your suspicions to yourself.”

“We shall,” promised his father. “But I shall be tempted, mind you, to give them an airing in a novel.”

“Please don’t. The El Dorado Corporation might add two and two to make five and then be after my blood.”

“All right.” The older man finished his beer and, ignoring his wife’s frown, demanded a refill from the robutler. “And now, young John, I am going to put an idea into your head—one that even Matilda will approve of. You’re really a spaceman, aren’t you? That’s all you want to be, ever will want to be. And you don’t want to wait ten years to get your Certificate back—especially when you’ve a ship of your own of which you should be the captain. You’ll be governor, of a world called Liberia. When in Liberia do as the original Liberians did. . . .”

He talked, drawing upon his historical knowledge.

Grimes listened intently, as did his mother.

When his father was finished Grimes grinned happily. “It could work,” he said. “By all the Odd Gods, I’ll make it work!”

“But you will have to finish the job that you’re being sent out to do,” said his mother, frowning worriedly. “You’ll have to finish that job first.”

“Of course,” Grimes assured her. “Of course.”

Chapter 4

Grimes took one
of the regular airships to Sydney and then a ramjet to New York. The World Assembly was housed in the old UN Building which, miraculously, had survived all the troubles that had plagued the city since the United Nations had taken up residence there. Staring down at Manhattan as the jet descended to the airport Grimes wondered what it had looked like during the days of its glory. He had seen photographs, of course, but would have liked to have been able to recognize, in actuality, such fabled towers as the Empire State and World Trade Buildings; the ornamental lakes that occupied their sites were all very well but, from the air, were no more than irregular puddles of blue water. But there was the Brooklyn Bridge, rebuilt only recently to the old design. And that must be the Chrysler Building. . . . It was too bad that this was to be a brief business visit only.

An official World Assembly car was waiting for him and whisked him swiftly to the Assembly’s headquarters. He was expected there; a young officer in a smart, sky-blue uniform escorted him along moving ways and up escalators, delivered him to the office of the Protector of the Colonies.

Bendeen—a slim man, not overly tall, gray-haired and with a heavily lined face—came from behind his littered desk to greet Grimes. The WA lieutenant withdrew and the door automatically closed behind him.

“So you’re the famous—or notorious—Grimes,” said Bendeen. “All right. You can admit it. This office is bugproof—or so the experts loaned to me by Rear Admiral Damien assure me. We can talk. Officially, as you may have learned, I was pressured into finding you a job. In actuality you were strongly recommended to me by the Rear Admiral. Drink?” What Grimes had taken for just another filing cabinet detached itself from the wall, rolled up to them on silent casters. A tray was extruded from it; on it were two glasses of what looked like pink gin. “As you see, Governor, I share your taste in tipples. Your very good health.”

“And yours, Protector,” Grimes replied.

(His father’s robutler, Grimes thought, was much better at mixing drinks than this thing of Bendeen’s.)

“You’re booked out, Grimes, on
Sobraon.
The VIP suite, of course. She lifts from Port Woomera tomorrow so that means another ramjet flight for you. Can’t say that I envy you. I hate those things. If God had meant us to fly He’d have given us an ample supply of non-flammable, lighter-than-air gas. Which, of course, He did. But where was I? Oh, yes. Your commission as Governor. It’s on the desk somewhere. Ah, here it is. A splendid example of the engraver’s art with eagles and dragons and hammers and sickles and lions and unicorns and hammers and sickles and rising suns and . . . oh, yes, emus and kangaroos all over it. And the Grand Seal of the Assembly. No not a
seal,
but a seal. Red wax, you know. And your name, in Gothic script. It’ll look fine when you have it framed on the wall of your gubernatorial office. . . .”

“Isn’t there any sort of swearing in ceremony?” asked Grimes, at last getting a word in edgewise.

“You’ll have to wait until Libertad—that’s the capital of Liberia—for that. I’m told that the president likes to put on shows to impress the oppressed masses. And they are oppressed, you know. Not only is there the hard, manual work for precious little pay but there’re all the lucrative rackets indulged in by Bardon’s boys. I don’t know what Bardon’s got on von Tempsky but, as far as VT is concerned, the colonel can do no wrong. I’ve tried to have him replaced but the Field Marshal piles on more Gs with the Lord Protector than I do. So I’m relying on you to catch Bardon with his hand in the till—or in the pocket of one of the indentured laborers. From what Damien has told me about you you’re used to playing by ear. And you’re a sort of catalyst. Things sort of happen all around you and, more often than not, you turn them to your advantage.