First Command (40 page)

The electric cars sped swiftly along the road between the Base and Penobscot. Dusk was falling fast from a leaden sky, and little could be seen through the wide windows of the vehicles. Even in broad daylight there would have been little to see; this country was desolate moorland, only slightly undulant, with not so much as a tree or a hill or even a stony outcrop to break the monotony. Ahead, brighter and brighter as the darkness deepened and the distance diminished, glared the lights of the port city.

The motorcade swept past the spaceport where
Sundowner,
a stubby tower of metal, stood among the cargo-handling gantries, a briefly glimpsed abstract of black shadows and garish, reflected light. Slowing down at last it skirted the harbor—Penobscot was a seaport as well as a spaceport—and the long quay where the big oceangoing trawlers were discharging their glittering catch.

The mayor’s palace overlooked the harbor. It was a big, although not high, building, pseudo-classical, its pillared facade glowing whitely in the floodlights. The approach was along a wide avenue, lined with tall, feathery-leafed trees, in the branches of which colored glow-bulbs had been strung. Brabham muttered something in a sour voice about every day being Christmas on New Maine. Vinegar Nell told him tartly to shut up. The chauffeur said nothing, but Grimes could sense the man’s resentment.

The car drew to a halt in the portico. The driver left his seat to open the door for his passengers—the sort of courtesy that was long vanished from Earth but that still persisted in many of the colonies. Grimes was first out, then assisted Vinegar Nell, who was having a little trouble with her unaccustomed long skirt, to the ground. Brabham dismounted, then Swinton, then Brandt. The chauffeur saluted smartly and returned to his driving seat in the car, which sped off in a spattering of fine golden gravel.

Grimes limped to the wide doorway—a tiny pebble had got inside his right shoe—followed by the others. Mingled music and light flowed out into the portico. Standing by a group of heroic statuary—well-muscled, naked women wrestling with some sort of sea serpent—was a portly individual whom Grimes took, at first, for a local admiral. This resplendently uniformed person bowed, albeit with more condescension than obsequiousness, and inquired smoothly, “Whom shall I announce, sir?”

“Commander Grimes, captain of the Survey Ship
Discovery.
And with me are Commander Brandt, of the scientific branch, Lieutenant Commander Brabham, my executive officer, Major Swinton, of the Federation Marines, and Lieutenant Russell, my paymaster.”

The functionary raised a small megaphone to his mouth; with it he could compete quite easily with the buzz of conversation and the music from the synthesizer. “Captain Grimes . . . Commander Brandt. . .”

“
Doctor
Brandt!” snarled the scientist, but he was ignored.

“Lieutenant Commander Brabham . . . Major Swinton . . . Lieutenant Russell.”

Grimes found himself shaking hands with a wiry little man in a bright green evening suit, with an ornate gold chain of office about his neck. “Glad to have you aboard, Captain!”

“Commander, Mr. Mayor,” corrected Grimes. “Your majordomo seems to have promoted me.”

“You’re captain of a ship, aren’t you?” The mayor grinned whitely. “Come to that, I always call Bill Davinas ‘commodore.’ I’ll hand you over to him now while I greet your officers.”

Grimes shook hands with Davinas, a tall, dark, black-and-gold-uniformed man with four gold stripes on each of his epaulettes, who said, “I’m the master of
Sundowner,
Commander. You probably noticed her at the spaceport. I’ve been a regular trader here since Rim Runners pushed me off my old routes; the small, private owner just can’t compete with a government shipping line.”

“And what do I call you, sir? Commodore, or captain?”

“Bill, for preference.” Davinas laughed. “That commodore business is just the mayor’s idea of a joke. The
Sundowner
Line used to own quite a nice little fleet, but now it’s down to one ship. So I’m the line’s senior master—senior and only—which does make me a courtesy commodore of sorts. But I don’t get paid any extra. Ah, here’s a table with some good stuff. I can recommend these codfish patties, and this local rosé isn’t at all bad.”

While he sipped and nibbled Grimes looked around the huge ballroom. The floor was a highly polished black, reflecting the great, glittering electroliers, each one a crystalline complexity, suspended from the shallow dome of the ceiling, which was decorated with ornate bas-reliefs in a floral pattern. Along the white-pillared walls panels of deep blue, in which shone artificial stars set in improbable constellations, alternated with enormous mirrors. The overall effect was overpowering, with the crowd of gaily dressed people reflected and re-reflected to infinity on all sides. Against the far wall from the main doorway was the great synthesizer, an intricacy of transparent tubes through which rainbow light surged and eddied, a luminescent fountain containing within itself orchestra, choir, massed military bands—and every other form of music that Man has contrived to produce during his long history. The fragile blonde seated at the console—which would not have looked out of place in the control room of a Nova Class dreadnought—could certainly handle the thing.
Beauty and the beast,
thought Grimes.

“Jenkins’ Folly,” announced Davinas, waving an arm expansively.

“Jenkins’ Folly?”

“This palace. The first mayor of Penobscot was a Mr. Jenkins. He’d got it firmly fixed in his thick head that New Maine was going to go the same way as so many—too many—other colonies. Population expansion. Population explosion. Bam! According to his ideas, this city was going to run to a population of about ten million. But it never happened. As you know, the population of the entire planet is only that. Once New Maine had enough people to maintain a technological culture with most of the advantages and few of the drawbacks the ZPG boys and girls took control. So this palace, this huge barn of a place, is used perhaps three times a year. Anniversary Day. New Year’s Day. The Founder’s Birthday. And, of course, on the very rare occasions when one of
your
ships, with her horde of officers, drops in.”

“Mphm.”

“Ah, here you are, Commander Grimes.” It was Denny, looking considerably smarter than he had in his office, although the short Eton jacket of his mess uniform displayed his plump buttocks, in tightly stretched black, to disadvantage. “Clarice, my dear, this is Commander Grimes. Commander Grimes, meet the little woman.”

Mrs. Denny was not a little woman. She was . . . vast. Her pale flesh bulged out of her unwisely low-cut dress, which was an unfortunate shade of pink. She was huge, and she gushed. “It’s always good to see new faces, Commander, even though we are all in the same family.”

“Ah, yes. The Survey Service.”

She giggled and wobbled. “Not the Survey Service, Commander Grimes. The
big
family, I mean. Organic life throughout the universe.”

If
she’d kept it down to the mammalia,
thought Grimes, looking with fascination at the huge, almost fully revealed breasts,
it’d make more sense.
He said, “Yes, of course. Although there are some forms of organic life I’d sooner not be related to. Those great snakes of yours, for instance.”

“But you haven’t
seen
them, Commander.”

“I’ve seen the evidence of their passing, Mrs. Denny.”

“But they’re so sweet, and trusting.”

“Mphm.”

“She’s playing our tune, dear,” Denny put in hastily, extending his arms to his wife. He got them around her somehow, and the couple moved off to join the other dancers.

Grimes looked around for Davinas but the merchant captain had vanished, had probably made his escape as soon as the Denny couple showed up. He poured himself another glass of wine and looked at the swirling dancers. Some of them, most of them, were singing to the music of the synthesizer, which was achieving the effect of an orchestra of steel guitars.

Spaceman, the stars are calling,

Spaceman, you live to roam,

Spaceman, down light-years falling,

Remember I wait at home. . . .

Icky, thought Grimes.
Icky.
But he had always liked the thing, in spite of (because of?) its sentimentality. He started to sing the words himself in a not very tuneful voice.

“I didn’t think you had it in you, Captain.”

Grimes cut himself off in mid-note, saw that Vinegar Nell had joined him. It was obvious that the tall, slim woman had taken a drink—or two, or three. Her cheeks were flushed and her face had lost its habitually sour expression. She went on, “I’d never have dreamed that you’re a sentimentalist.”

“I’m not, Miss Russell. Or am I? Never mind. There are just some really corny things I love, and that song is one of them.” Then, surprising himself at least as much as he did her: “Shall we dance?”

“Why not?”

They moved out onto the floor. She danced well, which was more than could be said for him. Normally, on such occasions, he was all too aware of his deficiencies—but all that he was aware of now was the soft pressure of her breasts against his chest, the firmer pressure and the motion of her thighs against his own. And there was no need for them to dance so closely; in spite of the illusory multitude moving in the mirrors the floor was far from crowded.

Watch it, Grimes,
he admonished himself.
Watch it! And why the hell should I?
part of him demanded mutinously.

That’s why!
he snarled mentally as one of his own officers, a junior engineer, swept past, holding a local lass at least as closely as Grimes was holding the paymaster. The young man leered and winked at his captain. Grimes tried to relax his grip on Vinegar Nell, but she wasn’t having any. Her arms were surprisingly strong.

At last the music came to a wailing conclusion. “I enjoyed that,” she said.

“So did I, Miss Russell,” admitted Grimes. “Some refreshment?” he asked, steering her toward one of the buffet tables.

“But I should be looking after you.” She laughed. It wasn’t so much what she said, but the way that she said it. “Mphm,” he grunted aloud.

Captain Davinas was already at the table with his partner, a tall, plain local woman. “Ah,” he said, “we meet again, Commander.”

Introductions were made, after which, to the disgust of the ladies, the men started to talk shop. The music began again and, with some reluctance, Vinegar Nell allowed herself to be led off by the Penobscot police commissioner, and the other lady by the first mate of
Sundowner.

“Thank all the odd gods of the galaxy for that!” Davinas laughed. “I have to dance with her some of the time—she’s the wife of my Penobscot agent—but she’ll settle for one of my senior officers. Talking of officers—I’ll swap my purser for your paymaster any day, John!”

“You don’t know her like I do, Bill,” Grimes told him, feeling oddly disloyal as he said it. He allowed Davinas to refill his glass, tried to ignore the beseeching glances of three young ladies seated not far from them. “Oh, well, I suppose we’d better find ourselves partners, especially since there seems to be a shortage of men here. But I’d sooner talk. Frankly, I’m sniffing around for information on this sector of space—but I suppose that can wait until tomorrow.”

“Not unless you want a job as fourth mate aboard
Sundowner.
I lift ship for Electra bright and early—well, early—tomorrow morning.”

“A pity.”

“It needn’t be. I’m not much of a dancing man. I’d sooner earbash and be earbashed over a cold bottle or two than be dragged around the floor by the local talent. And I was intending to return to my ship very shortly, anyhow. Why not come with me? We can have a talk on board.”

Chapter 10

Davinas and Grimes
slipped out of the ballroom almost unnoticed. A few cabs were waiting hopefully in the portico, so they had no difficulty in obtaining transport to the spaceport. It was a short drive only, and less than twenty minutes after they had left the palace Davinas was leading the way up the ramp to the after airlock of
Sundowner
.

It is impossible for a spaceman to visit somebody else’s ship without making comparisons—and Grimes was busy making them. Here, of course, there was no uniformed Marine at the gangway, only a civilian night watchman supplied by the vessel’s local agent, but the ramp itself was in better repair than
Discovery’s,
and far cleaner. It was the same inboard. Everything was old, worn, but carefully—lovingly, almost—maintained. Somehow the merchant captain had been able to instill in his people a respect—at least—for their ship. Grimes envied him. But in all likelihood Davinas had never been cursed with a full crew of malcontents, and would have been able to extract and dump the occasional bad apple from this barrel without being obliged to fill in forms in quintuplicate to explain just why.

The elevator cage slid upward swiftly and silently, came to a smooth stop. Davinas showed Grimes into his comfortable quarters. “Park the carcass, John. Make yourself at home. This is Liberty Hall; you can spit on the mat . . .”

“. . . and call the cat a bastard,” finished Grimes.

“Then why don’t you?”

Grimes felt something rubbing against his legs, looked down, saw a large tortoiseshell tom. The animal seemed to have taken a fancy to him. He felt flattered. In spite of the affair on Morrowvia he still liked cats.

“Coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Davinas poured two mugs from a large thermos container, then went into the office adjoining his dayroom. Grimes, while he petted the cat, looked around. He was intrigued by the pictures on the bulkheads of the cabin, holograms of scenes on worlds that were strange to him. One was a mountainscape—jagged peaks, black but snowcapped, thrusting into a stormy sky, each summit with its spume of ice particles streaming down wind like white smoke. He could almost hear the shrieking of the icy gale. Then there was one that could have been a landscape in Hell—contorted rocks, gaudily colored, half veiled by an ocher sandstorm.

Davinas came back, carrying a large folder. “Admiring the art gallery? That one’s the Desolation Range on Lorn, my home world. And
that
one is the Painted Badlands on Eblis. Beats me why some genius doesn’t open a tourist resort there. Spectacular scenery, friendly indigenes, and quite a few valleys where the likes of us could live quite comfortably.”