Ride the Star Winds (9 page)

“I leave it to you. Something informal, or relatively so. . . .”

He put the almost empty cup down on to the tray with a decisive clatter, declined the offer of a refill. When she removed the tea things, carrying the tray through to the sitting room, he got out of bed. There was an old-fashioned bolt on the door to the toilet facilities; he shot it. He completed his morning ablutions, depilation and all the rest of it without interruption. On returning to the bedroom he found that the bed had been made and that clothing had been laid out on it—underwear, a ruffled shirt of orange silk, dark gray, sharply creased slacks. Highly polished, gold-buckled shoes stood by the couch.

He dressed and went through to where a low table had been set with crockery and cutlery, a covered dish of hot rolls, a butter dish and another with the marmalade. There was a pot of coffee, a bowl of sugar crystals and a jug of cream. A prepared half-grapefruit awaited his attention, as did that morning’s issue of
The Liberty Star.
He sat down, propped the newspaper against the coffee pot and made a start on the grapefruit. He read the account of Madam President’s reception for the new Governor the previous evening. He was amused to see himself referred to as “an officer who achieved great distinction whilst in the Federation Survey Service” and as “a successful shipowner who has put his great administrative and business talents at the disposal of both his home planet and of Liberia.” The piece on Grimes concluded with the pious hope that he, as an experienced captain both of spaceships and of industry, would not feel the urge, as had his predecessor, to meddle officiously in the smooth running of the world that he had been called upon to govern.

The attentive Su Lin—he had not noticed her return—removed the plate with the now empty grapefruit shell, replaced it with that occupied by his eggs and bacon. She asked him how he preferred his coffee. He told her that he liked it black. He held the paper in both hands as she poured.

The eggs, bacon and fried potatoes were just as he liked them. The rolls were crisp. The marmalade, when finally he got to it, was deliciously tangy. By this time he had turned to the INTERSTELLAR SHIPPING—ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES Columns.
Sobraon’s
arrival and departure were listed as
Orbital Only. Willy Willy,
with the obnoxious Dreeble commanding, had lifted off, with passengers for Isa—a world rich in metals, Grimes knew, with mining and smelting as the major industries—while the Governor had been enjoying himself at the reception. One did not need to be clairvoyant, he thought, to know what sex those passengers belonged to or for what employment they had been recruited.
Bulkalgol and Bulkvega
were due out very shortly, with grain, one for Waverley and the other for Caribbea. After that it looked like being a slack time, for some weeks, at Port Libertad. One name among the
Future Arrivals
caught Grimes’s attention—
Agatha’s Ark.
He remembered that old flash of prevision he had experienced while
Sobraon’s
temporal precession field had been building up.

He filled his pipe, brought the stem to his mouth. Before he could strike a match Su Lin was holding the flame from a golden lighter over the charred bowl. Grimes hated having his pipe lit for him but submitted to the attention. He did not mind, however, having another cup of the excellent coffee poured for him.

The Liberty Star,
he discovered ran to a daily crossword puzzle. He got up from the breakfast table and sat down in one of the easy chairs. Without being asked the girl brought him a slim, golden stylus from the office. But the puzzle was not to his taste; it was not of the cryptic variety. Furthermore it required of the would-be solver an encyclopedic knowledge of Terran political history—names, dates and all. And that, thought Grimes, was not a subject in which he would ever be awarded full Marx. He savored the pun, knocked out his pipe in a convenient ashtray (it had been burning unevenly), refilled it and, Su Lin being temporarily absent, clearing away the breakfast things, lit it properly himself.

He got up and, trailing an acrid rather than an aromatic cloud of blue smoke, wandered out into the corridor and, to his pleased surprise, found his way to the main doorway of the Residence without too much trouble. Servants bowed to him as he passed, the guard on duty at the entrance to the building saluted smartly.

It was pleasant outside, the morning sun warm but not too much so, the light breeze carrying the scent of the gaudy flowers from the big, ornamental beds. The closely cropped grass of the lawn was springy under the soles of his shoes. Su Lin joined him, walking respectfully to his left and half a pace to the rear. He was conscious of her presence and found himself wishing that their relationship was not one of master and servant.

She broke the silence.

“Your Excellency,” she said, “someone approaches from the air.”

“Thank you,” said Grimes. He had already heard a distant clatter, looked up and seen a dark speck in the sky. He stopped walking and stared at it. Su Lin produced from a pocket a thin, round case, about twenty millimeters in diameter. She did something to it and it opened out into a tapered tube. She removed the covers from each end, handed it to Grimes. He realized that it was a telescope, a sophisticated instrument with a universal focus. He raised it to his right eye, managed to bring the approaching aircraft into the field of it. It was a minicopter, little more than a bubble-enclosed chair with two long skids under it as landing gear and over it the almost invisible rotating vanes.

Grimes recognized the pilot. It was Raoul Sanchez. He raised his free hand to wave. The young pilot returned the salutation, altered course slightly so as to come into a landing close to where Grimes and the girl were standing. Almost immediately the little aircraft was surrounded by a small crowd of indignant gardeners, gesticulating and shouting in high-pitched voices, pointing at the barely visible scars that the landing gear of the minicopter had made on the surface of the lawn. Sanchez grinned and shrugged apologetically. A door slid open in the surface of the transparent bubble.

“Better keep off the grass, Captain,” said Grimes. “You’d better shift to the drive before we have a riot on our hands.”

“Will do, Your Excellency.”

The gardeners scrambled back as the vanes started to spin again. The machine lifted, drifted slowly over to the broad drive, settled down again, the skids crunching audibly on the gravel. By the time that Grimes had walked to it Sanchez had unstrapped himself from the chair and disembarked. He was wearing a suit of faded, deliberately frayed denim and a red neckerchief. He bowed formally to Grimes.

He said, “Your aerial chauffeur, Your Excellency, reporting for duty.”

Lieutenant Smith who, accompanied by two soldiers, had come on to the scene achieved an expression that was both sneer and scowl.

Chapter 14

Sanchez led the way
around the sprawling Residence to what was almost a minor airport. He had been there before, of course, while his brother had been atmosphere pilot to the late Governor Wibberley. There were hangars—two of them occupied and the third, the very big one, empty. Outside this, at a suitable distance, was a tripedal mooring mast.

Smith said, with, a gesture toward this construction, “Your airship will be delivered this afternoon, Your Excellency. One of the Army’s Lutz-Parsivals. Colonel Bardon has appointed Lieutenant Duggin to be your pilot.”

Before Sanchez could protest Grimes said, “I have made my own appointment, Lieutenant. Captain Sanchez will be flying me.”

“But the Colonel . . .”

“Is not the Governor,
I
am.”

“But Captain Sanchez is a spaceman . . .”

“And a qualified airshipman. Is that not so, Captain?”

“It is, Your Excellency,” replied Sanchez as Smith said nastily, “So was his brother.”

“That will do, Lieutenant Smith!” snapped Grimes while making a
pipe down!
gesture aimed at the other man. “That will do. Captain Sanchez is my pilot. And now, Captain, shall we look at what toys we have to play with?”

He walked to one of the occupied hangars, into it. The craft housed therein was a small pinnace of a type carried by the larger warships of the Survey Service, a spaceship in miniature. That, thought Grimes, he could fly himself—although legally he couldn’t, his Master Astronaut’s Certificate having been suspended. (Of course there was his Reserve Commission but that was supposed to be kept a secret.) Sanchez opened a door in the pinnace’s side, into the little airlock. Grimes clambered on board, followed by Sanchez and Smith. He went forward first, to the control cab. With two exceptions the instrumentation on the console seemed to be in order. Certain switches, dials and screens had been removed and replaced by blank cover plates.

“No Mini-Mannschenn?” asked Grimes. “No Carlotti deep space radio?”

“They were removed, Your Excellency,” said Smith, “when Colonel Bardon had this pinnace modified for the Governor’s use.”

“Modified
how!
”
demanded Grimes.

“The space occupied by that equipment was required for the bar and for . . . for . . .”

“Mphm,” grunted Grimes. He asked suddenly, “Does the Residence run to its own Carlotti transceiver?” (That was one of the many things, he thought, that he should have found out long before he arrived on Liberia.)

“No, Your Excellency,” said Smith. “Surely you must have noticed that there are no Carlotti antennae on the roof.”

“They could be in the cellar,” said Grimes, “and work just as well!”

Smith made a show of ignoring this and continued, “The only Carlotti equipment is at the spaceport. It is manned and maintained, of course, by Terran personnel.”

And so the Governor,
thought Grimes,
can communicate directly with Earth only by courtesy of the Garrison Commander.

He completed his inspection of the pinnace. He was not overly impressed. He could not refrain from using his memories of
Little Sister
as a yardstick. When he made his way out through the airlock Su Lin was there to help him down to the ground. He waved her aside irritably and then, when he saw her hurt expression, rather hated himself.

He said, “It’s all right, Su. I’m a spaceman. I’m used to getting into and out of these things.”

With the others he made his way into the second hangar in use. The aircraft there was a helicopter, a rather beat-up Drachenflieger, no doubt one of Bardon’s cast-offs. Sanchez looked at the machine disparagingly.

“Governor Wibberley,” he said, “never used this. My brother reckoned that it wasn’t safe.”

“And he, of course,” said Smith, “was an expert on aeronautical safety.”

“You . . .
” the pilot growled, his fist raised threateningly.

“Lieutenant Smith,” snapped Grimes, putting a control room crackle into his voice, “you will refrain from making provocative remarks.” Then, his voice a little milder, “Captain Sanchez, I will not tolerate brawling among the members of my . . . family. And now, will you take luncheon with me?”

“Thank you, Your Excellency.”

“And will you, Lieutenant Smith, please inform us when the airship is approaching?”

“Very good, Your Excellency.”

The party walked back to the main entrance to the building, Sanchez beside Grimes, Su Lin the usual half-pace to the rear and Smith, sulking hard, well astern.

It was a leisurely and pleasant meal, with drinks before, served by the attentive Su Lin. The honeyed sand crawlers were especially good, reminding Grimes of the honeyed prawns that he had enjoyed in Chinese restaurants on Earth. With the meal there was rice wine, served warm in tiny cups. When it was over Grimes lit his pipe—waiting until the girl was out of the room—and Sanchez a slim, black cigar.

The pilot said, “I must apologize for having lost my temper with your ADC, Excellency.”

“He asked for it,” said Grimes. “I’ve been considering asking Colonel Bardon for a replacement, but . . .”

“Better the devil you know, sir.”

“Precisely. You must have seen him, now and again, when you visited your brother here.”

“Yes. I never did like him. He didn’t like me. And my brother hated him. It was mutual.”

“He’s Bardon’s man, of course.”

“Of course,” agreed Sanchez.

Su Lin returned with coffee.

“Is it switched on, Su?” asked the pilot.

“Yes, Raoul,” she replied.

Grimes stared at them.

“Is
what
switched on?” he demanded.

“A device that I carry,” she replied. “A—how shall I call it? A conversation modifier. It takes our voices and—scrambles? shuffles? To any listener you are telling Raoul about some of your deep space adventures and he is asking questions about them.”

“And what are you saying?”

“I am urging Your Excellency to take at least one of these
chinrin
cakes with your coffee.
Chinrin
cakes, of course, were a great delicacy on New Canton. The refugees brought
chinrin
seeds with them when they came here and now we have our own little plantations of the shrubs.”

“This modifier,” asked Grimes curiously. “Does it have to be programmed?”

“Only in the most general of terms. It could almost be said to be intelligent. Perhaps it functions psionically. It could be a form of pseudolife but that I cannot say. I am not a scientist.”

“Could I see it?” asked Grimes curiously. To his surprise she blushed embarrassedly.

“When Su Lin said that she carried the modifier,” explained Sanchez, “she didn’t mean that she carried it
on
her . . .”

“An implant?” asked Grimes.

“Yes, sir. But not a
surgical
implant. If you know what I mean.”

“Oh. So am I to understand that as long as she’s around, and along as she has
it
switched on, the bugs with which the Residence must be crawling will be sending absolutely fictitious reports to Bardon’s monitors. I suppose that the bugs are
Bardon’s?”

“Of course, sir,” said Sanchez.

“Mphm.” He turned to Su Lin. “So you’re rather more than my faithful handmaiden, it seems—just as Wong Lee is rather more than my faithful majordomo. But this . . . this
thing
of yours . . . where did you get it?”