First Command (4 page)

“Better not,” said Diomedes, reading his subordinate’s face.

“Better not,” said Johngrimes, turning back to look at the pair of them. “An incident could have unfortunate—for your planet—repercussions.”

Better not, thought Brasidus.

Soldierlike, he approved the smartness with which the spacemen saluted their commander. And soldierlike, he did not like the feel of a deck under his feet instead of solid ground. Nonetheless, he looked about him curiously. He was disappointed. He had been expecting, vaguely, vistas of gleaming machines, all in fascinating motion, banks of fluorescing screens, assemblages of intricate instruments. But all that there was was a little metal-walled room, cubical except for the curvature of its outer side, and beyond that another little room, shaped like a wedge of pie with a bite out of its narrow end.

But there must be more to the ship than this.

An officer pressed a button on the far, inwardly curved wall of the inside room. A door slid aside, revealing yet another little compartment, cylindrical this time. Johngrimes motioned to his guests—or hostages? Diomedes (but he was familiar with spaceships) entered this third room without any hesitation. Apprehensively Brasidus followed him, with Johngrimes bringing up the rear.

“Don’t worry,” said Diomedes to Brasidus. “This is only an elevator.”

“An . . . an elevator?”

“It elevates you. Is that correct, Lieutenant Commander?”

“It is, Captain Diomedes.” Johngrimes turned to Brasidus. “At the moment, we are inside the axial shaft—a sort of hollow column running almost the full length of the ship. This cage that we’ve just entered will carry us up to my quarters. We never use it, of course, in free fall—only during acceleration or on a planetary surface.”

“Do you have machines to do the work of your legs, sir?”

“Why not, Sergeant?”

“Isn’t that . . . decadent?”

The spaceship commander laughed. “Men have been saying that ever since the first lazy and intelligent bastard invented the wheel. Tell me, did you march out from the city to the spaceport, or did you ride?”

“That’s different, sir,” said Brasidus lamely.

“Like hell it is.” Johngrimes pressed a button. The door slid shut. And almost immediately Brasidus experienced an odd, sinking sensation in his stomach. He knew that the cage was in motion, felt that it was upward motion. Fascinated, he watched the lights flashing in succession on the panel by the door—and almost lost his balance when the elevator slowed to a stop.

The door slid open again, revealing a short stretch of alleyway. Still there were no machines, no instruments—but the air was alive with the subdued murmur of machinery.

Brasidus had likened the ship to a metallic tower, but this was not like being inside a building. It was like being inside a living organism.

Chapter 6

“COME IN,
said John Grimes, pushing a button that opened another sliding door. “As a very dear friend of mine used to say, this is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.”

“Cat?” asked Brasidus, ignoring an admonitory glare from Diomedes. “Bastard? What are they?” He added, “It’s the second time you’ve used that last word, sir.”

“You must forgive my Sergeant’s unmannerly curiosity, Lieutenant Commander,” said Diomedes.

“A healthy trait, Captain. After all, you are both policemen.” He smiled rather grimly. “So am I, in a manner of speaking . . . But sit down, both of you.”

Brasidus remained standing until he received a grudging nod from his superior. Then he was amazed by the softness, by the comfort of the chair into which he lowered himself. On Sparta such luxury was reserved for the aged—and only for the highly placed aged at that, for Council members and the like. This lieutenant commander was not an old man, probably no older than Brasidus himself. Yet here he was, housed in quarters that the King might envy. The room in which Johngrimes was entertaining him and Diomedes was not large, but it was superbly appointed. There were the deep easy chairs, fitted with peculiar straps, there was a wall-to-wall carpet, indigo in color, with a deep pile, there were drapes, patterned blue, that obviously concealed other doorways, and there were pictures set on the polished paneling of the walls. They were like no paintings or photographs that Brasidus had ever seen. They glowed, seemingly, with a light of their own. They were three-dimensional. They were like little windows on to other worlds.

Brasidus could not help staring at the one nearest to him. It could have been a typical scene on his own Sparta—distant, snow-capped peaks in the background, blue water and yellow sand, then, in the foreground, the golden-brown bodies of naked athletes.

But . . .

Brasidus looked more closely. Roughly half of the figures were human—and the rest of them were like this mysterious Margaretlazenby. So that was what he must look like unclothed. The deformity of the upper part of the body was bad enough; that of the lower part was shocking.

“Arcadia,” said Johngrimes. “A very pleasant planet. The people are enthusiastic nudists—but, of course, they have the climate for it.”

“We,” said Diomedes, turning his attention to the picture from the one that he had been studying, a bleak, mountain range in silhouette against a black sky, “exercise naked in all weathers.”

“You would,” replied Johngrimes lightly.

“So,” went on Diomedes after a pause, “this Margaretlazenby of yours is an Arcadian.” He got to his feet to study the hologram more closely. “H’m. How do they reproduce? Oddly enough, I have seen the same deformation on the bodies of some children who have been exposed. Coincidence, of course.”

“You Spartans live up to your name,” said Johngrimes coldly.

“I don’t see what you mean, Lieutenant Commander. But no matter. I think I begin to understand. These Arcadians are a subject race—intelligent but nonhuman, good enough to serve in subordinate capacities, but temperamentally, at least, unqualified for full command.”

“Doctor Lazenby was born on Arcadia. It’s a good job she’s not here to listen to you saying that.”

“But it’s true, isn’t it? H’m. What amazes and disgusts me about this picture is the way in which humans are mingling with these . . . these aliens on terms of apparent equality.”

“I suppose you could look at it that way.”

“Here, even though we are all Men, we are careful not to be familiar with any but privileged helots. And these Arcadians are aliens.”

“Some time,” said Johngrimes, “I must make a careful study of your social history. It should be fascinating. Although that is really Peggy’s job.”

“Peggy?”

“Doctor Lazenby.”

“And some time,” said Diomedes, “I must make inquiries as to your system of nomenclature. I have heard you call this Margaretlazenby by his rank and profession, with the first part of his name missing. And I have heard you call him Peggy.”

Johngrimes laughed. “I suppose that it is rather confusing to people who have only one name apiece. We have at least two—the surname, or family name . . .”

“But there is only one family. The State.”

“On Sparta, perhaps. But let me finish, Captain Diomedes. We have the family name, which, with us, comes last, although some human races put it first. Then we have one, if not more, given name. Then we have nicknames. For example, Margaret, one word, Lazenby, one word. Peggy, which for some obscure reason is a corruption of Margaret. Of course, she could also be called Maggie or Meg. Or Peg. In my own case—John Grimes. But that ‘John’ can be changed to ‘Jack’ or ‘Johnnie’ by people who really know me.”

“Like Theo for Theopompus,” contributed Brasidus.

“Yes. Some of our nicknames are curtailments, like Margie or Margo for Margaret.”

“How many names has that being got?”’ exploded Diomedes.

“I’ve heard her called other things—and called her them myself. But you wouldn’t know what a bitch is, would you?”

“Doubtless some exotic beast you’ve run across on your travels. But, Lieutenant Commander, you keep on using these odd pronouns—‘she’ and ‘her.’ Are they confined to Arcadians?”

“You could say that.” Grimes seemed to he amused by something. “Now, gentlemen, may I offer you refreshment? The sun’s not yet over the yardarm, but a drop of alcohol won’t kill us. Or would you rather have coffee?”

“Coffee? What’s that?”

“Don’t you have it here? Perhaps you would like to try some now.”

“If you partake with us,” said Diomedes cautiously.

“But of course.” Grimes got to his feet, went to his desk, picked up a telephone. “Pantry? Captain here. I’d like my coffee now, please. Large pot, with all the trimmings. Three cups.”

He took an oddly shaped wooden . . . instrument (?) off the desk top, stuffed a hollow bowl at the end of it with what looked like a dried brown weed, put the thin stem in his mouth, applied a flame from a little metal contraption to the open top of the bowl. He inhaled with apparent pleasure, then expelled from between his lips a cloud of fragrant fumes. “Sorry,” he said, “do you smoke?” He opened an ornamental box, displaying rows of slim cylinders obviously rolled from the brown weed.

“I think that one strange luxury will be enough for one day, Lieutenant Commander,” said Diomedes, to Brasidus’ disappointment.

The door to the outside alleyway opened. A spaceman came in, by his uniform not an officer, carrying a large silver tray on which rested a steaming silver pot, a silver jug and a silver bowl filled with some white powder, and also three cups of gleaming, crested porcelain each standing in its own little plate. But it was not the tray at which Diomedes and Brasidus stared; it was at the bearer.

He was obviously yet another Arcadian.

Brasidus glanced from him to the picture, and back again. He realized that he was wondering what the spaceman would look like stripped of that severe, functional clothing.

“Milk, sir? Sugar?” the man was asking.

“I don’t think that they have them on this planet, Sheila,” said Grimes. “There’s quite a lot that they don’t have.”

Chapter 7

SLOWLY DIOMEDES AND BRASIDUS
made their way down the ramp from the airlock. Both were silent, and the Sergeant, at least, was being hard put to sort and to evaluate the multitude of new impressions that had crowded upon him. The coffee—could it be a habit-forming drug? But it was good. And that burning weed the fumes of which Lieutenant Commander Grimes had inhaled with such enjoyment. And the un-Spartan luxury in which Grimes lived—luxury utterly unsuitable for a fighting man. And this Interstellar Federation, an officer of whose navy—although it was called the Survey Service—he claimed to be.

And those oddly disturbing Arcadians (if they were Arcadians)—the doctor Lazenby, the steward Sheila, and one or two more whom the Spartans had glimpsed on their way ashore . . .

They were out of earshot of the ship now, halfway between the airlock and the gate, outside which Hector and the other hoplites had stiffened to attention. Diomedes said, “Come to my office, Sergeant. I want to talk things over with you. There’s a lot that I don’t understand, but much of it strengthens my suspicions.”

“Of whom, sir? This Lieutenant Commander Grimes?”

“No. He’s just a spaceman, the same as Captain Bill and Captain Jim of the Venus and the Hera. If his service prefers to tack a double-barreled label on him, that’s his worry. Oh, I want to find out where the ship is from and what’s the real reason for its visit, but my main suspicions are much nearer home.”

They passed through the gate, opened for them and locked after them by Hector. Old Cleon approached them, was brushed off by Diomedes. They continued their march to the office, although in the case of Diomedes it was more of a waddle.

“In my job,” went on the Security Captain, buckling on his pistol belt as he walked, “I’m no respecter of persons. I shouldn’t be earning my pay if I were.” He gestured upwards. “Flight Admiral Ajax up there, for example. He holds his rank—and his life—only because I do not choose to act yet. When I do . . .” He closed his pudgy fist decisively and suggestively. “You’re an ambitious man, Brasidus. And an intelligent one. I’ve had my eye on you for some time. I have been thinking of asking to have you transferred to Security. And when Diomedes asks, people hurry to oblige him.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“With promotion to lieutenant, of course.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Think nothing of it. I need a young assistant for the . . . the legwork.” He smiled, showing all his uneven, discolored teeth, obviously pleased with the expression that he had just coined. “The legwork,” he repeated.

The two men entered the Spaceport Security Office, passed through into Diomedes’ private room. At the Captain’s order, Brasidus sat down. The chair was hard, comfortless, yet he felt far happier on it than he had felt in the luxury of Lieutenant Commander Grimes’ day cabin. Diomedes produced a flagon of beer, two mugs. He poured. “To our . . . partnership,” he said.

“To our partnership, sir.”

“Now, Lieutenant Brasidus, what I am saying to you is strictly confidential. I need not remind you of the consequences to yourself if you abuse my confidence. To begin with, I played along with this man Grimes. I asked the silly questions that he’d assume that I would ask. But I formed my own conclusions.”

“And what were they, sir?”

“Oh, I’m not telling you yet, young Brasidus. I could be wrong—and I want your mind to remain uninfluenced by any theories of mine. But they tie in, they tie in. They tie in with the most heinous crime of all—treason to the State. Now, tell me, who’re the most powerful men on Sparta?”

“The most powerful man is the King, sir.”

Diomedes’ thin eyebrows lifted, arching over his muddy eyes. “Is he? But no matter. And I said ‘the most powerful men’.”

“The Council, sir.”

“H’m. Could be. Could be. But . . .”

“What are you driving at, sir?”

“What about the doctors, our precious medical priesthood? Don’t they control the birth machines? Don’t they decide who among the newly born is to live, and who, to die? Don’t they conduct the fatherhood tests? Don’t they say, in effect, that there shall be so many members of the military caste, so many helots—and so many doctors?”