Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III (6 page)

He spoke into the microphone,
“Little Sister
to
Baroom.
Thank you for standing by us. But, I repeat, we do not require assistance.”

“But you do,
Little Sister,
you do. It is obvious that your interstellar drive is not operative. By the time that you arrive at your destination you will be dead of old age.”

Grimes doubted that. With a steady acceleration of one gravity, which could be increased if necessary, it would not be all that long before a respectable fraction of the speed of light was attained. And then there would be the time dilation effects . . . Nonetheless, planetfall would be made at Boggarty a long time after, a very long time after the expiry date of the contract. But the problem was purely academic. Once that wiring was replaced
Little Sister
would be on her way with time to spare.

“Baroom
to
Little Sister.
Stand by to receive our boarding party.”

“I do not require assistance,” repeated Grimes stubborn.

He saw a flash of blue flame from one of the menacing guns and flinched.
This was it.
But the projectile exploded a good half kilometer from the pinnace in a dazzling pyrotechnic display. Nonetheless, Grimes could recognize a warning shot across the bows when he saw one.

He said, “All right. I can take a hint. I’m opening the airlock door now.” He pressed the necessary button on the console. He told Tamara, “Get dressed. The Shaara are only glorified insects, but we have to keep up appearances. Put on something with as much gold trimming as possible. And jewelry.” Then again into the microphone, “You will have to wait a few minutes, I’m afraid. We have to do some minor housekeeping before we can receive guests.”

“Do not attempt any treachery,
Little Sister.
And I warn you that our engineers are standing by to synchronize should you succeed in restarting your interstellar drive.”

They possibly could, too, thought Grimes. With the two ships practically alongside each other
Baroom’s
spacetime-warper would be the master and
Little Sister’s
the slave . . . He hurried aft, opened the locker that he was using as a wardrobe, practically threw on to his body the hated gold and purple livery that was a relic of his servitude to the Baroness d’Estang. As he fastened the last button he turned to see Tamara looking at him. She had attired herself in a long robe of dark blue velvet down the front of which sprawled a dragon worked in gold and jewels, its snout practically nuzzling her throat, a gleaming claw over each breast. Rings glittered on her fingers, pendants that were almost miniature chandeliers dangled from her ears. A golden tiara, set with diamonds, was dazzling against the blackness of her hair. He grinned, “You’ll do.”

She grinned, “And so, Grimes, will you. Anybody would think that you were a Galactic Admiral.”

“Now,” he told her, “we put out a fine display of booze and sweetmeats on the table. Those liqueurs of yours . . .”

“Anyone would think,” she said, “that you
like
the Shaara.”

“I get along with them—when I have to. And I know them, and their weaknesses . . .”

When they had put the liquor and candy on display they went back forward. Looking through the control cab ports Grimes saw that an airlock door was open in the side of the other ship. He said, “We’ve tidied up. You can board now.”

“We are boarding,” came the reply. “The Princess Shree-la and Drones Brrell and Boorrong are on their way . . .”

Through his binoculars Grimes watched three figures, clad in cocoon-like Shaara spacesuits, emerge from the airlock, saw a puff of vapor from the rear of each almost featureless sack.

He said to the girl, “In their ships the captain is a queen. The princesses are her officers. The drones are, more or less, like the marines in
our
warships. The workers are the engineers and technicians.” He paused. “I notice that the Queen-Captain isn’t sending any workers across. Doesn’t look as though she’s in any hurry to help us to get the drive fixed.”

“Then what does she want?” asked the Superintending Postmistress.

“Loot,” said Grimes bitterly. “She’s a Rogue Queen. She and her swarm are on a flight to try to find a suitable planet on which to settle down and found a new colony. They’ll not be too concerned about the rights of any indigenes who may be in residence. Meanwhile, they snap up anything left lying around. Like us . . .” He paused, watching the three cocoons drawing closer and closer. “And this ship, this pinnace, will represent untold wealth to them. Their instruments will have told them what she’s built of. And they
love
precious metals—for themselves, not only just for their monetary value.”

“And the liquor? I’ve heard that they . . . er . . . tend to overindulge . . .”

“You heard right. With any luck at all the princess will dip her proboscis into a bottle, and the drones will follow suit. And when they’ve passed out I’ll replace that burned out wire.”

“But the Queen-Captain said that her ship would be able to synchronize temporal precession rates . . .”

“Yes. But I think that I shall be able to set my controls for random precession . . .” He hoped that he would be able to do so. He had seen the technique demonstrated during a Survey Service engineering course for spaceman officers. It involved hooking up the Carlotti antenna with the Mannschenn Drive controls, thereby engendering a sort of unholy mechanical hybrid. “They’re here,” she said.

“They’re here,” he agreed, watching the tell-tale lights on the panel that showed that the airlock was occupied.

From the NST transceiver came the voice of the Queen-Captain. “The princess is in the chamber. You will admit her to your ship, and then, one by one, the drones.”

“Wilco,” replied Grimes briefly.

The airlock, he saw was re-pressurized. He opened the inner door. The princess came through into the main cabin, looking like a sheeted ghost out of some old story of the supernatural. Anything at all could have been under the folds of that white shroud. Then the protective garment fell away from her, dropped to her taloned feet. She stood there, a splendid creature, as tall as Tamara, taller than Grimes, regarding the two humans through her glittering, faceted eyes. Her gauzy, iridescent wings hung down her back like a flimsy, bejewelled cloak. Golden filigree gleamed in the rich, chocolate brown fur that covered her body and bracelets of fine gold wire encircled, between every joint, her four slender arms. Her voice box, strapped to her thorax, was also of gold.

“Which of you is the captain?” she asked.

“I am,” said Grimes. “And this is Madam Tamara Haverstock, the Superintending Postmistress of Tiralbin.”

“And your name, Captain?”

“Grimes. John Grimes.”

“We have heard of you.” Although the artificial voice was without inflection Grimes could detect disapproval. He had become involved with an alcoholic Shaara princess some years ago and the news must have gotten around. “Now, please to admit my escort.”

Grimes admitted them. They were smaller than the princess, each about half the size of a grown man. Like her they were lavishly bedecked with personal jewelry. Even their gun-belts and holsters and the butts of their laser pistols were as much ornamental as functional.

“May we offer refreshments, Highness?” asked Grimes politely.

The two drones started towards the laden table; the princess put out two long arms to restrain them. Then she walked slowly towards the display of refreshments. From her complex mouth a long, tubular tongue slowly uncoiled. She dipped it into one of the bottles, that containing the homemade Benedictine. Grimes, watching carefully, saw that the level of liquid fell, at the most, only half a millimeter.

She said tonelessly, “It is a pity that I must do what I must do.” Her orders to the drones were telepathic. They approached the table, picked up the bottles, carried them through to the galley-cum-engine room. Then, with obvious reluctance, they poured the contents into the waste-disposal chute. Grimes wondered what would happen to the algae in the vats—but, of course, all sewage and galley refuse was processed before being used as nutriment for the primitive but especially bred organisms.

“So you do not accept our hospitality,” said Grimes.

“But I do,” replied the princess. She picked up a little fondue in a dainty claw, lifted it to her busy mandibles. “This is quite excellent.”

One big advantage of an artificial voice box, thought Grimes, was that it allowed its possessor to talk with her mouth full.

“I believe,” she went on, “that your interstellar drive is inoperative.”

“It requires only a few minutes’ work, Highness, to make it operational,” Grimes told her. “Work that I am quite capable of carrying out myself.”

“And are you a qualified engineer, Captain?”

“No.”

“Then I strongly advise against any tinkerings, on your part, with that delicate piece of machinery. It would be a pity if this very valuable little ship were hopelessly lost in a warped continuum. Our technicians will put matters to right.”

“I am quite capable of making the necessary repairs,” said Grimes.

“You are not,” stated the princess. “And now I extend to you and your distinguished passenger an invitation to repair aboard
Baroom.”

“Thank you,” said Grimes, “but I regret that we must decline.”

“Perhaps,” said the princess, “I should not have used the word ‘invitation’.”

The drones, Grimes saw, had drawn their pistols. They looked as though they knew how to use them. And they would be bad tempered at being deprived of the free drinks that had been so temptingly displayed.”

“What do you want with us?” Grimes demanded.

“That, Captain, is for the Queen-Captain to tell you if she so decides.”

“Do
something, damn you, Grimes!” shouted Tamara. “If you won’t, I will!”

She snatched from the golden belt at her waist something that Grimes had assumed was no more than decoration, that was, in fact, a shin dagger. She sprang towards the princess. One of the drones fired, and she was nursing her scorched right hand, looking down at the hilt that, with a mere centimeter of still-glowing steel protruding from it, had fallen to the deck. The other drone fired. The crystals of her right ear pendant shattered. Blood trickled down her face from a dozen tiny wounds.

Grimes went to her. “We have to do as they say,” he told her. “Even if we did overpower these three pirates their ship would vaporize us in a second.”

“But the contract . . .” She was actually weeping, from pain or humiliation, or both. “The contract . . . The parcel mail . . .”

“It won’t be the first time in the history of Man,” said Grimes, “that the mail’s been late or has never arrived at all.”

He should not have been surprised when the open palm of her uninjured hand almost knocked his head off its shoulders.

Chapter 11

UNDER THE WATCHFUL EYES
of the three Shaara they divested themselves of their finery—and much good had it done them!—climbed into their longjohns and then their spacesuits. The one that Tamara put on had belonged to the Baroness. She had told Grimes, “You may as well keep it. You may be carrying a passenger some time. And, all too probably, you’ll be getting into a situation where life-saving equipment is essential . . .”

“You will leave the ship first, Captain,” said the princess. “And then your passenger. You will assist her to make the jump.”

“Did you ever try to teach your grandmother to suck eggs?” asked Grimes. It was obvious that no passenger could make a space jump without guidance.

“I do not understand,” said the princess. “But do not delay any further. Go. I shall be quite capable of operating your simple airlock controls.”

Grimes sealed his helmet. The suit radio was working; he could hear Tamara’s ragged breathing. He checked the seals of her spacesuit then made his way to the airlock. The inner door closed behind him. He watched the needle of the pressure gauge on the bulkhead drop to zero. The outer door opened. He clambered from the chamber into the emptiness, being careful to keep a grip on one of the recessed handholds.
Little Sister
was still accelerating and if he cast adrift too soon he would follow a weird trajectory relative to her and might well expend all the reaction mass in his suit propulsion unit trying to get back.

The outer door closed.

While he was waiting for it to open again he looked across to the Shaara ship, a huge, menacing hulk against the starry blackness. All her lights were on, making it easy to see her. That inside the open airlock door was green, slowly flashing.

Tamara emerged from
Little Sister.

She whispered, and even the distortion of the helmet phones could not hide the shakiness of her voice, “I’ve never done this before.”

Grimes said, “And I don’t make a habit of it.”

And another voice—the princess aboard the pinnace? The Queen-Captain aboard
Baroom?—
ordered, “Do not delay. Make the jump.”

“Hang on to me,” said Grimes. “You’ll have to let go of the hand-holds first.”

And that latter went for him too. He realized that
Little Sister
was falling up away from him. He got his left arm around her and both her arms went about his body. He could see her face through the transparency of her helmet. She was very pale, and blood was still oozing from the cuts on her cheek. He was lucky, he thought. Looking over her space suited shoulder he could see that he was lined up for the flashing green light. With his left hand he thumbed the button of the propulsion unit at his waist. He felt the not-quite-violent nudge at the small of his back as the miniature rocket fired. Had neither ship been accelerating he would have cut the drive at once, completing the journey under free fall. But in these circumstances he was obliged to maintain his own personal acceleration.

Deceleration would be the problem, although not an insuperable one.

He said, “Hang on to me.”

She muttered, “I somehow can’t see myself letting go . . .”

He took his right arm from about her shoulders. The grip of her arms about him tightened at once. With his right hand he found the propulsion unit control at her left side and was thankful that the Baroness had spared no expense in the equipping of her yacht; the space suit gloves were of the very latest—and most costly—pattern, with fingertip sensors. Had it not been so he might never have found the button in time.