Ride the Star Winds (62 page)

He watched the read-out of the radar altimeter.

10 meters . . . 9 . . . 8 . . . 7 . . . 6 . . .

Now!

The cacophony of the inertial drive rose from little more than an irritable mutter to an angry clangor—then abruptly ceased.
Sister Sue
dropped like a stone, a very large and heavy stone. Shock absorbers screamed rather than sighed. Loose fittings rattled and there was a tinkling crash as something tore adrift from its securing bolts. Grimes slowly filled and lit his pipe—but even though he had been expecting the accident it was hard to maintain the pose of imperturbability. Tomoko, he thought, to whom it had all come as a big surprise, was making a far better job of it than he was.

Steerforth voiced what must have been the thought of all those in the control room.

“That’s fucked it!” he said.

“Mr. Steerforth, mind your language,” Grimes told him.

The intercom speaker crackled and then Florence Scott’s voice came from it. “ID room to captain. Chief engineer here. The bearings of the governor seem to have seized up. I am making an immediate check of the extent of the damage.”

“Thank you, Ms. Scott,” said Grimes into his microphone.

“MD room to captain.” This was the chief Mannschenn Drive engineer, Daniel Grey. “You seem to have made a crash landing.”
A blinding glimpse of the obvious,
thought Grimes. “The jolt unseated numbers one, three and four rotors from their bearings . . . .”

Worse and worse
, thought Grimes.
Or better and better
?

“Apart from anything else,” Grey went on, “the Drive will have to be recalibrated once it has been reassembled.”

“Somebody’s coming out to us, sir,” announced Steerforth.

Grimes got up from his chair, went to stand with the chief officer by the viewport. He saw the group of bobbing lights—hand-held lanterns?—and the dimly illumined human forms.

He said, “Looks like a boarding party of some kind. You’d better go down to the after airlock to receive them. I shall be in my day cabin. Oh, on your way down give Ms. Clay my compliments and tell her to keep Seiko out of sight as long as there are any locals aboard.”

Steerforth grinned. “Aunt Jemima’s read that article too, just as we all have. But
Star Scandals’
not quite in the same class as the
Encyclopaedia Galactica
, is it, sir? And their star reporter, Fenella Pruin, never lets facts get in the way of a sensational story.”

“Ms. Pruin,” said Grimes, “is a very able investigative reporter.”

“Oh, yes. You know her, sir. I was forgetting.”

“We know her, too,” said Shirl and Darleen as one, making it plain that they held Fenella in quite high regard.

In his day cabin Grimes picked up the rather tattered copy of
Star Scandals
from the coffee table. It would be advisable, he thought, to get it out of sight before the visitors arrived. That lurid cover, with its colored photograph of a naked girl chained to a stake and with flames licking around her lower body . . . It had been the third ID engineer, Bill the Bull, who had found this particular issue of
Star Scandals
in his well-thumbed collection of that pornographic, as often as not, publication. As soon as it was known that
Sister Sue
was deviating to Salem, Fenella’s piece on that planet had become almost required reading by all hands.

Fenella had visited Salem as a passenger aboard Wombat, owned by Able Enterprises. (This, of course, had been before she had gotten into the bad books of Baron Kane, whose company Able Enterprises was.) She had found it hard to sniff out anything really juicy on Salem; the people lived lives of utterly boring sexual probity. She had witnessed a slaughter of the silkies, the animals whose furs were Salem’s only export—but Fenella was not at her best (worst?) as a writer on humanitarian issues. She blew up the business of her dancing dolls to absurd proportions. These tiny, beautifully made automata, one male, one female, not only danced to tinkling music but stripped, and when naked went through the motions of coitus. All very amusing to those of a kinky bent. . . .

Grimes read, “That party, in
Wombat’s
wardroom, was inexpressably dreary. Pastor Coffin and his wife would drink only tea and insisted that this be both weak and tepid. In deference to the sensibilities of their guests Captain Timson and his officers did not smoke. Daringly I lit a cigarillo and was told, by the she-Coffin that if God had meant me to smoke He would have put a chimney on top of my head. I said that She had more important things to occupy Her time. This did not go down at all well.

“The conversation, such as it was, got on to the topic of machinery. Machinery, I gathered, was disapproved of on Salem. Of course I had already noticed this. Just one solar power plant to generate electricity for the spaceport facilities, communications and so forth. But oil-lighting in the houses, sailing vessels on the sea, bullock-drawn wagons on the roads. And bullocks, too, supplied the power to operate the presses which extracted the flammable oil from various seeds.

“Anyhow, Captain Timson was letting Pastor Coffin’s diatribe against inventions of the devil go on without interruption. He knew on which side his bread was buttered. The silkie skin trade was a profitable one for his owners. But his officers, the engineers, especially, were inclined to argue. The fruit punch that they had been drinking had been well spiked with gin as soon as it became obvious that the Coffin couple was having none of it.

“Terry Muldoon, the third engineer, said, ‘But machines have their uses, Pastor Coffin. Even as toys for children, educational toys . . .’ (Terry, I learned later, had already resigned from Able Enterprises and had a job waiting for him with the Dog Star Line.) Coffin said, ‘What can a child learn from a mechanical toy? He will learn all that he ever needs to know from the Bible.’ Terry said, ‘You’d be surprised, Pastor.’ He turned to me and said, Fenella, why not show our guests those educational toys of yours?’ (He was one of the few people aboard the ship who had seen them. Old Timson had not, neither had the two chief engineers.) So I went to my cabin and got the box and set it down on the wardroom table. I took out Max and Maxine. They stood stiffly, facing each other. I switched on the music, Ravel’s Bolero. Max and Mazine came . . . alive. They could have been flesh-and-blood beings, not automata. They danced, and as they danced they shed their clothing. I always liked the part when Max got rid of his trousers; it is easy for a woman to disrobe gracefully to music, not so easy for a man. I always hoped that Max would get his feet tangled in his nether garments and come down heavily on his rather too perfect little arse, but he never did.

And then they were quite naked, the pair of them, anatomically correct. Maxine, legs open, was supine on the table top and Max was about to lower himself upon her when Coffin’s big fist smashed down on the box as he bellowed, ‘Blasphemy! Blasphemy!’ The music stopped in mid-stridency. There was a sputter of sparks. Max, no more than a lifeless, somehow pathetic doll collapsed on top of the other doll, among the litter of rags that had been their clothing.

“Timson apologized. ‘I had no idea, Pastor . . .’”

“Coffin—he was virtually foaming at the mouth—screamed, ‘That is no excuse, Captain. Does it not say in the Book that you shalt not suffer a witch to live? She . . .” he pointed a quivering finger at me, ‘is a witch. And those are her familiars!’

“‘Go to your cabin,’ Timson ordered me. I tried to argue but it was no use. The mate and the second mate, that pair of great, hulking louts, hustled me out of the wardroom, locked me in my quarters. And there I was confined until breakfast the next morning.

“After the meal Terry managed to have a few words with me. He told me that the pastor had gone on ranting and raving after I had been removed from his presence, accusing me of witchcraft and saying that Max and Maxine were my familiars. He demanded that I be turned over to the local authorities to stand trial—but this was too much even for Captain Timson. Then he insisted that Max and Maxine be given into his custody, saying that they would be publicly destroyed by burning. Timson agreed to this. ‘And you’d better stay aboard from now on, Fenella,’ Terry told me, ‘otherwise you’ll find yourself tied to a stake with the faggots piled about you . . .’”

There was a knock at the door. Grimes hastily took the dog-eared copy of
Star Scandals
through to his bedroom, returned to the day cabin and called, “Come in!”

Tomoko entered, followed by a tall man in rusty black clothing with touches of white, rather grimy white, at his throat and wrists.

“Pastor Coffin to see you, sir,” she announced.

Grimes almost said what he usually said on such occasions but decided against it. To judge from the deeply lined, craggy face, the fanatical black eyes under shaggy gray brows, this was a man utterly devoid of humor.

Chapter 16

The two men shook hands.
The pastor’s grip was firm but cold.

“Be seated, sir,” said Grimes. “May I offer you refreshment? Coffee? Tea? Or . . . ?”

“Tea, Captain. Not strong. No milk. No sugar.”

Grimes telephoned the pantry and made the order. He sat back in his chair, filled and lit his pipe.

The pastor said, “Do not smoke.”

Grimes said, “This is my ship, sir. I make the rules.”

“This may be your ship, Captain, but you neither own nor command this planet. And, as I understand it, you will be unable to lift from this world unless you are vouchsafed cooperation by myself and the elders of my church.”

Grimes made a major production of sighing. Until he knew which way the wind was blowing or likely to blow he would have to do as bid. He put his pipe down in the ashtray.

Shirl came in, carrying a tray which she set on the coffee table. (Melinda Clay, in her capacity as purser, would still be dealing with the port officials.) In her very short uniform shorts she looked all legs.

Coffin looked at her disapprovingly then said, “Are all your female officers so indecently attired, Captain?”

Grimes said, “My female officers wear what is standard uniform for both the Federation Survey Service and the Merchant Service.”

“Aboard the ships of Able Enterprises,” said Coffin, “females are always decently covered.”

And Drongo Kane, thought Grimes, would put his people in sackcloth and ashes as the rig of the day rather than lose a profitable trade.
And so would I
, he realized with some surprise.

Shirl glared at Coffin and strode out of the day cabin. Grimes poured the tea, which was far too weak for his taste, added milk and sugar to his own.

“I understand, Captain,” said the pastor, “that you have various mechanical troubles. We on Salem, freed from the tyranny of the machine, are not so afflicted.”

“It was machines, starships, that brought your ancestors here, sir.”

“At times the Lord uses the Devil’s tools. But His people should avoid doing so. Now, what are your requirements? What must you do to make your vessel spaceworthy?”

“I have to repair a bulkhead—just a matter of patching. I hope that a suitable plate will be available here. The shaft of my inertial drive governor must be renewed. My Mannschenn Drive has to be recalibrated. I understand that there is a workshop here, and a stock of spares and materials.”

“Your understanding is correct, Captain. The workshop and the stores are the property of Able Enterprises. I am empowered to act as their agent.”

“Any skilled labor, Pastor?”

“We have blacksmiths, Captain, but nobody capable of carrying out the type of work that you seem to require.”

“No matter. My own engineers can start earning their pay for a change.” Grimes picked up his pipe, thought better of it and put it down again. “There’s another matter, Pastor. I don’t need to tell you that a deviation, such as this one that I have been obliged to make, costs money. I am not loaded to capacity. Would there be any chance of a cargo of silkie hides to New Otago?”

“It is only wealthy worlds, such as El Dorado, that can afford such luxury clothing,” said the pastor. “From what I have heard of New Otago I gain the impression that nobody there is either very rich or very poor.”

“Perhaps,” said Grimes hopefully, “there might be the possibility, sometime in the not too distant future, of a shipment of hides from here to some market, somewhere . . . .”

“Able Enterprises,” Coffin told him, “has the monopoly on the trade from Salem to Earth as well as to El Dorado. But you are a widely traveled man, Captain. You have your contacts throughout the Galaxy . . .” And did Grimes detect the gleam of cupidity in the pastor’s eyes? “Perhaps, in your voyagings, you will be able to find other markets for our export. In such a case I am sure that some mutually profitable arrangement could be made.”

Melinda Clay came in with various documents to be signed. Coffin looked at her even more disapprovingly than he had Shirl but said nothing until she had left.

He said, “So you employ the children of Ham aboard your vessel. But, from them, an indecent display of flesh is, I suppose, to be expected.”

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes.

Coffin got to his feet. “Almost I was tempted to forbid shore leave to yourself and your officers. But I realize that if there are, in the future, to be business dealings between you and ourselves there must be some familiarization. Your people must understand the nature of the cargo that they will be carrying. Too, it is not impossible that they, or at least some of them, will find the true Light. . . .” He drew himself to his full, not inconsiderable height. “But I strongly advise you, Captain, to see to it that your females are properly attired when they set foot on our soil. Otherwise I shall not be responsible for the consequences.”

Probably,
thought Grimes contemptuously,
your men would fly into a screaming tizzy at the sight of a woman’s ankle.

He said, “I’ll see to it, Pastor, that my people comport themselves properly.”

“Do so, Captain. Tomorrow morning I shall have the spaceport workshop unlocked and shall be waiting for you there so that you and your engineers can tell me what you want.”