Ride the Star Winds (37 page)

“Not very effective against well-aimed laser fire,” sneered Phryne.

“Better than bare fists,” said Grimes. “And, come to that, more effective than your wrestling . . . .”

“Care to try a fall or two, Commodore?” she asked nastily.

“No thank you, Lieutenant.”

Maggie laughed and Fenella Pruin sniggered.

And then all three of them watched the Amazons, under the tutelage of Shirl and Darleen, trying to master the art of play boomerang throwing.

“No! No!” Darleen was yelping. “Not
that
way, you stupid bitch. Hold it
up
, not across! Flat side
to
you, not away! And . . . And
flick
your wrist! Like
this!
”

An instructor officer she might be, newly commissioned, but already she was beginning to sound like a drill sergeant.

Grimes, Maggie and Fenella drifted away from the field. They stood in the shade of a large tree. Grimes was amused when Maggie went through routine bug detection; she was taking her secondment to the Intelligence Branch very seriously. There certainly would be bugs in the foliage, he said, but not of the electronic variety. She was not amused.

“Now we can talk,” she said.

“What about?” asked Fenella Pruin.

“You.”

“Me, Commander Lazenby?”

“Yes. You. You’re after a story, aren’t you?”

“I’m always after stories. Ask Grimes. He knows.”

“And the story with Grimes in it you weren’t allowed to publish.
I
know. Do you want to publish the story—if there is one—that you get on New Sparta?”

“Of course.”

“Suppose you aren’t allowed to?”

Fenella Pruin laughed. “Really, my dear! Even I know that a mere commander in the Survey Service doesn’t pile on many Gs.”

“A commander,” Maggie told her, “with admirals listening to what she has to say.”

“Am I supposed to stand at attention and salute?”

“Only if you want to. Anyhow, we can help you, and you can help us.”

“
We
? You and Grimes, of all people!”

Maggie contained her temper. “Miz Pruin,” she said coldly. “You know why I am here, on New Sparta. Making an ethological survey for the Survey Service’s Scientific Branch. You know why Commodore Grimes is here. Waiting for the arrival of his ship so that he may, once again, assume command of her. We know why you are here. Sniffing out a story, the more scandalous the better.”

“There’s one that I’ve already sniffed out,” said Fenella Pruin nastily. “You’re sleeping with Grimes. And if you don’t watch him like a hawk he’ll be tearing pieces off Shirl and Darleen again.”

“He’d better not,” said Maggie. “Not while I’m around.”

“Don’t I get a say in this?” demanded Grimes.

“No matter who is sleeping with whom, or who is going to sleep with whom,” went on Maggie, “we, the Commodore and I, could be of help to you. We are
persona grata
in the Palace, as old friends of the Archon. Too, I know my way about this planet. Both of us do.”

“You could be right,” admitted Fenella grudgingly.

“Of course I’m right. And, on the other hand, although you lack our local knowledge, although you don’t have our contacts, you are quite famous for your ability to sniff out scandals. Political as well as sexual.”

“Bedfellows often make strange politics,” said Fenella.

“Haven’t you got it the wrong way around?” asked Maggie.

“No.”

It was Grimes’s turn to laugh.

Maggie ignored him, went on, “It will be to our mutual benefit if we pool information. The Commodore and I have our contacts. You now have yours—Shirl and Darleen in the Amazon Guard. Too, if you made yourself too unpopular—as you have done on more than one planet—I could be of very real help to you.”

“How?”

“You must have seen that Serpent Class courier at the spaceport.
Krait.
Her captain, Lieutenant Gupta, is under my orders. I could see to it that you got offplanet in a hurry should the need arise.”

“You tempt me, Commander Lazenby. You tempt me, although I doubt very much that Lieutenant Gupta’s flying sardine can is as luxurious as Captain Grimes’s
Little Sister
. . . .” She turned to Grimes. “I was really sorry, you know, when I learned that you’d gotten rid of her. We had some good times aboard her . . .”

Grimes could not remember any especially good times, either on the voyage out to New Venusberg or the voyage back. But Maggie, of course, had taken the remark at its face value and was glaring at him.

“Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” said Grimes to Fenella, adding, “That’s one proverb you can’t muck around with.”

“Isn’t it? Didn’t a grazing cow once say, ‘Never take a horse gift in the mouth . . .’?”

“Shut up, you two!” snapped Maggie. “Are you with us or aren’t you, Miz Pruin?”

“I know what’s in it for me,” said the journalist. “Put what’s in it for you?”

“I’ve told you. Just help in my research project.”

“And for Grimes?”

“I’m just helping Commander Lazenby,” he said. “Just passing the time until my ship comes in.”

“If that’s your story,” she said, “stick to it. But all right, I’ll play. And I’ll expect the pair of you to play as well.”

“We shall,” promised Maggie.

Chapter 14

Fenella Pruin
was now allowed into the Palace although she was still far from welcome. Should she chance to meet the Lady Ellena while making her way through the corridors the Archon’s wife would sweep by her as though she didn’t exist. Brasidus himself would acknowledge her presence, but only just. She was tolerated in the officers’ quarters of the Amazon Guard because of her friendship with Shirl and Darleen, both of whom had become quite popular with their messmates. And, of course, she was free to visit Maggie and Grimes any time that she so wished.

She joined them, this day, for morning coffee.

After the surly serving wench had deposited the tray on the table and left, after Maggie had poured the thick, syrupy fluid into the little cups, she demanded, “Well? Have you anything to tell me yet?”

“No,” admitted Maggie. “I am still nibbling around the edges, as it were. The New Hellas people are up to
something
. But what?”

“It’s a pity that you can’t join them,” said Fenella.

“It is. But they know that I’m an officer of the Federation Survey Service. And they know that both Commodore Grimes and I are personal friends, old friends of Brasidus.” She laughed. “Although if it were not for that personal friendship they might try to recruit John.”

“It’d be my ship they’d want,” said Grimes. “Not me especially.”

“Why not?” asked Fenella. “After all, you were slung out of the Survey Service in disgrace . . . .”

“I resigned,” growled Grimes.

“And you were a pirate . . .”

“How many times,” he demanded, “do I have to tell people that I was a privateer? And now, Fenella, do you have anything to tell us?”

She looked at him and said, “I was under the impression, Grimes, that the ethological research project was Commander Lazenby’s baby, not yours.”

“Commodore Grimes,” said Maggie, “is helping me with it. Just out of friendship, of course.”

“Of course,” concurred Fenella, twitching her nose. “Of course. But the Commodore was quite recently a servant of the Federation, on the public payroll, as a planetary governor, no less . . . Are you really self-employed, Grimes? Or is it just a cover?”

“It is a known fact,” snapped Maggie, “that Commodore Grimes is an owner-master.”

“At the moment,” said Grimes, “just an owner. I shall be master again as soon as I get my name back on
Sister Sue
’s register.”

“It is the
unknown
facts that interest me . . .” murmured Fenella. “Such as the real reason for the appointment of a notorious pirate . . .”

“
Not
a pirate!” yelled Grimes.

“ . . . to the governorship of a planet.”

“You’ve trodden on corns in the past,” said Grimes coldly. “You should know, by this time, that there are some corns better not trodden on.”

Maggie sighed. “All this is getting us nowhere and has nothing at all to do with New Sparta. Would you mind telling us, Fenella, just what you’ve found out?”

The journalist finished her coffee, said, “No thanks, Maggie. One cup of this mud was ample. Potables shouldn’t need knives and forks to deal with them.” She took a cigarette from the box on the table, puffed it into ignition. “Now, I think I’m getting places, which is more than can be said for the pair of you. A Major Hera has taken quite a fancy to Shirl and Darleen. She is taking private
savate
lessons and, in return, is teaching the two girls her own version of wrestling. Now, now . . . I know that you have dirty minds, or I know that Grimes has, but there’s nothing like what you’re thinking. Not yet, anyhow, but I must admit that Shirl and Darleen are surprisingly innocent in some respects. Well, Hera is a high-up in the Ladies’ Auxiliary of the New Hellas Association. She’s already persuaded quite a few Amazon officers and NCOs to join. She’s been trying to persuade the two new Instructor Lieutenants to join. I’ve advised them to yield to her blandishments and then to keep their eyes skinned and their ears flapping.”

“I can’t see them as spies,” said Grimes. “They’re too direct. Too honest.”

“Who else have we got?” she asked. “Not me. Not either of you,”

“And they will report to you?” asked Grimes.

“Yes,” she said.

“They will report to
us
,” stated Maggie firmly. “After all, they are Commodore Grimes’s friends. What could be more natural than that they should join him here for a drink or two?”

“As long as I am present,” said Fenella.

“Talking of drinks,” said Grimes, “I could do with a stiff one to wash away the taste of that alleged coffee.”

The two ladies thought that this was quite a good idea.

Chapter 15

“You know, John,”
said Brasidus, “I think that I was much happier in the old days. When I was a simple sergeant in the army, with authority but not much responsibility. Now I have responsibility, as Archon, but my authority seems to have been whittled away.” He sighed. “Sparta—it wasn’t called
New
Sparta then—was a far simpler world than it is now. We were happy enough eating and drinking and brawling. There were no women to tell us to wash behind the ears and watch our table manners.” He gulped from his mug of wine. “I regard you as a friend, John, a good friend, but I have thought that it was a great pity that you ever came to this planet, opening us up to the rest of the Galaxy . . .”

“If it hadn’t been me,” said Grimes, “it would have been somebody else. The search for Lost Colonies is always going on. I’ve heard that 90 percent of the interstellar ship disappearances have now been accounted for. And, in any case, how many ships of that remaining 10 percent founded a colony? Possibly none of them.”

“You are changing the subject, my friend. In the old days I should never have been obliged to disguise myself in order to enjoy, with a good friend, what you refer to as a pub crawl. I should never have had to wait for an evening when my wife—my
wife
—was out attending some meeting or other. There weren’t any wives.”

“As I recall it,” said Grimes, “some of your boyfriends, your surrogate women, could be bitchy enough. And, in any case, the King of Sparta would have done as you are doing now, put on disguise, if he wished to mingle, incognito, with his subjects.”

“If he had mingled more,” said Brasidus sourly, “he might have kept his crown. And his head. As it was, he just didn’t have his finger on the pulse of things.”

“And you have?”

“I hope so.”

“Tell me, what do you feel?”

“I . . . I wish that I knew.”

The two men looked around the tavern, which was far from crowded. They had been able to secure a table at which they could talk with a great degree of privacy. Even the two bodyguards, although not quite out of earshot, were fully occupied chatting up the slovenly, but crudely attractive, girl who had brought them a fresh jug of wine. Had he not already seen how swiftly Jason and Paulus could act when danger threatened Grimes would have doubted their value.

“But you have your Secret Service, or whatever you call it,” pursued Grimes. “Surely they keep you informed.”

Brasidus laughed. “I sometimes think that the State subsidizes the New Hellas Association and other possibly subversive organizations. They’re packed with Intelligence agents, all of them dues-paying members. But do they tell me everything? Do they tell me
anything
?”

“They must tell you something, just to stay on the payroll if for no other reason.”

“But do they tell me the truth?” demanded the Archon. “This way, mingling with my people in disguise, I can hear things for myself. There are grumblings—but what government has ever been universally popular? Need I ask
you
that? There are those who want a return to the Good Old Days, a womanless world, and who resent the influx of females from Earth and other planets. There are those who want a society more closely modeled on that of ancient Greece, on Earth, with women kept barefoot and pregnant.” He laughed. “There are even those, mainly women, who hanker after some mythical society that was ruled by a woman, Queen Hippolyte, where men were kept in subjection. But that, as you would say, is the lunatic fringe . . . .”

“With the Lady Ellena as a member?” Grimes could not help asking.

Brasidus laughed again. “She is a good wife, I’ll not deny that, although perhaps a shade overbearing. And I . . . humor her. She believes, or says that she believes, that the Hippolyte legends are true. Oh, I’ve tried to reason with her. I’ve imported books from Earth, Greek histories, and she’s condescended to read them. And she says that there has been a conspiracy of male historians to suppress the Hippolyte story, to laugh it away as a mere myth . . .”

“Your scholars had done some ingenious tampering with history and biology before your Lost Colony was found,” said Grimes.

“That was different,” said Brasidus. “But Ellena . . . I’ve played along with her, up to a point. I let her form her Amazon Guard. Having toy lady soldiers to play with keeps her happy.”