First Command (70 page)

The golden stewardess came in, carrying a tray on which was a napkin-covered plate, a tall glass and a bottle with condensation-bedewed sides. She said, “I thought that you must still be hungry, sir. These are ham sandwiches, with mustard. And Botany Bay beer.”

“Is it you speaking,” asked Grimes, “or is it Big Sister?”

“Does it matter?”

“But this supper . . . And the fresh supply of tobacco . . . I did not think that you approved of anybody but Her Excellency.”

“Perhaps I do not. But you are now part of the ship’s machinery and must be maintained in good running order. I decided that a replication of the noxious weed to which you are addicted was required; somehow, its fumes are essential to your smooth functioning.”

By this time Grimes—who had not been nicknamed Gutsy in his younger days for nothing—had made a start on the thick, satisfying sandwiches. He watched the stewardess as she left, her short skirt riding up to display her shapely rump.

If
only you could screw as well as cook . . .
he thought . . .

Chapter 12

Grimes was nothing
if not conscientious. The next ship’s day, after an early and excellent breakfast in his own quarters, dressed in the utilitarian slate-gray shirt and shorts uniform that he had been vastly relieved to learn was permissible working rig, he proceeded to go through the ship from stem to stern. Big Sister, of course, was aware of this. (Big Sister was aware of everything.) When he began his tour of inspection in the control room she reminded him sharply that smoking would be tolerated only in his own accommodation and elsewhere would be regarded and treated as an outbreak of fire. She added pointedly that only she could keep him supplied with tobacco. (He was to discover later that the fragrant fuel for his pipe was actually the product of the algae vat, dried and cunningly processed. This knowledge did not effect his enjoyment of the minor vice.)

He could find only one fault with the control room instrumentation: Big Sister had the final say as to whether or not it was switched on. She condescended to activate it for him. He checked everything—and everything was functioning perfectly. The navigational equipment was as fine as any he had ever seen—finer, perhaps. He set up an extrapolation of trajectory in the chart tank and the knowledge that this course had, originally, been plotted by no human hand made him understand Billinger’s bitterness about being master
de jure
but not
de facto.

His own quarters he had thoroughly explored before retiring the previous night. Immediately abaft these was his employer’s accommodation. These compartments were, of course, out of bounds to him unless he should be invited to enter. Legally speaking the Baroness, even though she was the owner, could not have denied her yachtmaster access but the very rich can afford to ignore laws and to make their own which, although not appearing in any statute book, are closely observed by employees who wish to keep their jobs.

Galley and storerooms were next. Grimes gazed with appreciation at the fantastic stocks of canned and jarred delicacies from more than a score of planets and hoped that he would be allowed to sample the genuine Beluga caviar, the stone crab from Caribbea, the Atlantian sea flowers, the Carinthian ham. There were even cans of haggis from Rob Roy, one of the worlds of the Empire of Waverley. Grimes wondered if, in the event of its ever being served, it would be ritually piped in.

The autochef was the biggest that Grimes had ever seen aboard ship, a fat, gleaming cylinder reaching from deck to deckhead, an intricacy of piping sprouting from the top of it, gauges and switches set in its polished metal sides but all of them, like the instruments in the control room, dead. Nonetheless the beast was humming contentedly to itself and suddenly a bell chimed musically and a service hatch opened, revealing a steaming mug of coffee and a plate on which reposed a slab of rich looking cake. Grimes was not exactly hungry but could not resist the offering.

He sipped, he nibbled. He said, remembering his manners, “Thank you.”

Big Sister replied—he could not determine just where her voice came from—“I was programmed to serve Mankind.”

Grimes, who could not fail to note the sardonic intonation, thought,
Sarcastic bitch!
but, even so, enjoyed the snack.

When he had finished he continued the inspection. On the farm decks the tissue culture vats were unlabelled but certainly Big Sister must know what was in them. There would be the standard beef, lamb, pork, chicken and rabbit. Man, when he expanded among the stars, had brought his dietary preferences and the wherewithal to satisfy them with him. On a few, a very few worlds the local fauna had proved palatable. Grimes hoped that the flesh of the Drambin lion-lizards, the Kaldoon sandworms would be among the yacht’s consumable and living stores. He asked aloud if this were so and was told—once again Big Sister’s voice came from nowhere in particular—that of course a stock of these delicacies was carried but that they would be served only if and when Her Excellency expressed a desire for them.

He could find no faults with the comprehensive assemblage of hydroponic tanks. Everything was lush and flourishing in the simulated sunlight. He picked a just ripe tomato from the vine, bit into it appreciatively.

Big Sister said, “I trust that you will make regular use of the gymnasium, Captain Grimes. You will, of course, have to arrange your exercise and sauna times so as not to coincide with those of Her Excellency.”

He was tempted to sample a small, espaliered pear but, conscious that Big Sister was watching, refrained.

Below and abaft the farm were more storerooms, in one of which the GP robots, looking like sleeping, golden-skinned men were stacked on shelves. He was told that these could be activated only on orders by the Baroness. He looked into the armory. There was a fine stock of weapons, handguns mainly, stunners, lasers and projectile pistols.

Then came the deck upon which the gymnasium was situated with its bicycle, rowing machine, automasseur, sauna with, alongside this latter, a neck-deep pool of icy-cold water. There would be no excuse, Grimes decided, for not keeping disgustingly fit.

Further aft there were the fully-automated workshops—in one of which, Grimes noted, a complex machine was just completing a purple, richly gold-braided tunic which he decided must be for himself. There was a laboratory, also fully automated, in which he watched the carcass of one of the Botany Bay kangaroos, an animal which had mutated slightly but significantly from the original Terran stock, being dissected.

The voice of Big Sister told him, “You will be interested to learn that a tissue culture has already been started from cells from the tail of this beast. I understand that kangaroo tail soup is esteemed both on Earth and on Botany Bay. The fact that this caudal appendage is prehensile should not detract from its palatability.”

Grimes did not linger to watch the flashing blades at their grisly work. He was one of those who would probably have been a vegetarian if obliged to do his own butchering. He left the laboratory and, using the spiral staircase around the axial shaft, carried on down and sternwards.

He looked briefly into the Mannschenn Drive room where the gleaming, ever-precessing gyroscopes tumbled through the warped Continuum, drawing the ship and all aboard her with them. He spent as little time in the Inertial Drive compartment; within its soundproof bulkheads the cacophony was deafening. The hydrogen fusion power plant would have been fascinating to an engineer—which Grimes was not—and the fact that all the display panels were dead robbed the device of interest to a layman. Big Sister said condescendingly, “I can activate these if you wish, Captain Grimes, but such meaningless, to you, showing of pretty lights would only be a waste of electricity.”

He did not argue. And when, a little later, he looked at the locked door of the compartment in which the electronic intelligence had its being he did not request admittance. He knew that this would be refused. He told himself that he would take a dim view of anybody’s poking around inside his own brain—but still it rankled.

He had been too many years in command to enjoy being told what he could or could not see in a ship of which he was officially captain.

Chapter 13

The voyages, as voyages do,
continued. Grimes was determined to learn as much as possible about his command—but when the command herself was rather less than cooperative this was no easy matter. His relationship with his employer was not unfriendly although he met her socially only on her terms. Sometimes he partook of luncheon with her, sometimes dinner, never breakfast. Frequently they talked over morning coffee, more often over afternoon tea. Now and again they watched a program of entertainment on the Baroness’s playmaster although her tastes were not his. Neither were Captain Billinger’s. Unfortunately it had not been possible to lay in a spool library that would have appealed to Grimes. He made frequent, pointless inspections. He insisted on keeping in practice with his navigation. He exercised dutifully in the gymnasium and kept himself reasonably trim.

And now here he was, seated on a spindly-legged chair in the Baroness’s boudoir, sipping tea that was far too weak for his taste, attired in the uniform that he hated, all purple and gold, that would have been far more appropriate to a Strauss operetta than to a spaceship.

He regarded his employer over the gold rim of his teacup. She was worth looking at, languidly at ease on her
chaise lounge
, attired as usual in a filmy gown that revealed more than it concealed. Her dark auburn hair was braided into a coronet in which clusters of diamonds sparkled. She could have been posing for a portrait of a decadent aristocrat from almost any period of man’s long history. Decadent she may have looked—but Grimes knew full well that the rulers of El Dorado were tough, ruthless and utterly selfish.

She said, looking steadily at Grimes with her big, violet eyes, “We have decided to allow you to handle the landing.”

Grimes, with a mouthful of tea, could not reply at once and, in any case, he was rather surprised by her announcement. He hastily swallowed the almost scalding fluid and was embarrassed by the distinctly audible gurgle. He put the fragile cup down in its saucer with far too much of a clatter.

“Surely,” she went on, “you are getting the feel of the ship.”

“Perhaps,” he admitted cautiously, “the ship is getting the feel of me.” He realized that she was regarding him even more coldly than usual and hastily added, “Your Excellency.”

“But surely to a spaceman of your experience a ship is only a ship,” she said.

You know bloody well that this one isn’t,
he thought,
A normal ship isn’t built of gold, for a start. A normal ship doesn’t have a mind of her own, no matter what generations of seamen and spacemen, myself among them, have half believed. A normal ship doesn’t run to an Owner’s suite looking like the salon of some titled rich bitch in Eighteenth Century France . . .

“So you can handle the landing,” she stated.

He replied, as nastily as he dared, “I am sure that Big Sister can manage by herself quite nicely.”

She said, “But you are being paid—handsomely, I may add—to do a job, Captain Grimes. And this Farhaven is a world without radio, without Aerospace Control. During your years in command in the Survey Service your brain has been programmed to deal with such situations. Big Sister has not been adequately programmed in that respect, she informs me.” She frowned. “As you already know I have brought such deficiencies in programming to the notice of the builders on Electra. Fortunately the guarantee has not yet expired.”

The golden robot butler refilled her cup from the golden teapot, added cream from a golden jug, sugar from a golden bowl. Grimes declined more tea.

He said, “Please excuse me, Your Excellency. Since I am to make the landing I should like to view again the records made by
Epsilon Pavonis
and
Investigator . . .”

“You may leave, Captain,” said the Baroness.

Grimes rose from his chair, bowed stiffly, went up to his far from uncomfortable quarters.

He sat before the playmaster in his day cabin watching the pictures in the screen, the presentation of data, the charts and tables. As he had done before, as soon as he had learned of
The Far Traveler’s
destination, he tried to put himself in the shoes of Captain Lentigan of
Epsilon Pavonis,
one of the Interstellar Transport Commission’s tramps, who had first stumbled upon this planet.
Epsilon Pavonis
had been off trajectory, with a malfunctioning Mannschenn Drive. As far as Lentigan was concerned Farhaven had been merely a conveniently located world on which to set down to carry out repairs and recalibration. He was surprised to find human inhabitants, descendants of the crew and passengers from the long-ago missing and presumed lost
Lode Venturer.
He had reported his discovery by Carlotti Deep Space Radio. Then the Survey Service’s
Investigator
was dispatched to make a more thorough job of surveying than the merchant captain, all too conscious of the penalties for deviation, had been able to do. Her captain, a Commander Belton, had run into trouble. And as Farhaven, as it had been named by its colonists, was of neither commercial nor strategic importance to any of the spacefaring races its people were left to stew in their own juice.

Grimes allowed himself to wonder what they would make of the Baroness, himself—and Big Sister.

As yet he had been unable to view Commander Belton’s records in their entirety. Every time that he asked for them they were unavailable. Presumably the Baroness was monopolizing them.

Chapter 14

Grimes sat in the captain’s chair
in
The Far Traveler’s
control room. The Baroness occupied the chair that, in a normal ship, would have been the seat of the second in command. She was dressed in standard spacewoman’s working uniform—white shirt and shorts but without insignia. She needed no trappings of rank; in the functional attire she was no longer the decadent aristocrat but still, nonetheless, the aristocrat.