To the Galactic Rim: The John Grimes Saga (21 page)

There was a tiny tab on the pack of the envelope that made for easier opening. Grimes pulled it and the flap fell away. Immediately he was conscious of a hint of perfume, remembered it as the scent that the princess had worn at the time of their last meeting. He began to feel even more impatient, extracted the sheet of paper and unfolded it. It, too, was pale blue, deckle-edged, luxurious to sight and touch. The letter, apart from the firm, decisive signature, had been written by the same machine as the address.
Dear Mr. Grimes,
he read.
Having met and talked with your Captain I now realize how thoughtless and selfish my behavior was on the occasion of your landing on Lake Bluewater. On this world we are prone to forget that the mores of other planets are different from our own. Perhaps, when Captain Daintree grants shore leave, you would care to be my guest.

Marlene.

He pursed his lips and whistled softly.
But it means nothing,
he told himself.
Just
noblesse oblige.
Or throw the good doggie a nice bone.
The Universe was full of people who said, “But you must stay with us . . .” And then were surprised and pained when you turned up their front doorstep, suitcase in hand. In any case, it yet remained to be seen whether or not Daintree would allow planet liberty.

The bulkhead speaker burped, then announced, “Attention all! Attention all! This is the Captain speaking. It is my pleasure to announce that the local authorities have agreed to permit shore leave. Arrangements will be made for sightseeing trips and the like. Details will be promulgated by Heads of Departments.” There was a pause, then Daintree added, “Mr. Grimes to report to me at once.”

So he can tell me that
my
leave is stopped,
thought Grimes glumly.

“Sit down, Grimes.” Captain Daintree was almost affable.

Grimes sat down.

“Ah, yes, Mr. Grimes. This business of the loss of the re-entry vehicle . . .”

“Sir?”

Surprisingly, the Old Man grinned. “There was a film made of the whole sorry business. One of those damned robots in Spaceport Control records, as a matter of routine, every spaceship arrival and departure. I saw the film.” He grinned again. “I must admit that the spectacle of the Princess attired in a single water ski was, shall we say, distracting. An odd woman, Her Highness. But attractive, very attractive . . .”

Come to the point, you old goat,
thought Grimes.

“Yes, very attractive and very frank. She freely admits that she was to blame for the bungled landing. Not that I altogether agree with her, but even so . . . As I’ve already said, an odd woman. With odd tastes. Very odd. Believe it or not, she wants to be your hostess during this vessel’s stay on El Dorado.” Daintree paused. Grimes decided not to say anything. Daintree went on, “I told her, of course, that your duties toward the ship come first. You have still to write the report on the loss of the dynosoar. You have still to oversee and carry out salvage operations; I declined Comte de Messigny’s offer of equipment and robot submarine workers. Then you have to write the report upon the salvage.”

“Of course, sir.”

“I’m glad that you show some sense of responsibility. But when all these tasks have been completed to my satisfaction,
and not before,
you will be granted leave until the vessel’s departure. This Princess von Stolzberg appears to be one of the rulers of this planet, insofar as they have rulers, so it might be advisable to, as it were, humor her.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don’t thank me, Mr. Grimes. Thank Her Highness.
When
you get around to meeting her again.”

If I ever do,
thought Grimes.

Daintree, who had his telepathic moments, laughed. “You will, Mr. Grimes. You will. This medical emergency, I suppose that it could be called that, of theirs is more serious and less straightforward than an epidemic of measles. If
their
quacks can’t come up with an answer, I can’t see our Dr. Passifern and his aides getting to the bottom of the problem in five seconds flat . . .” He opened the box on his desk. “Smoke, Grimes?”

“My pipe if I may, sir.”

“Suit yourself.” Daintree tapped the end of his cigarette on his thumbnail to ignite the tobacco, looked thoughtfully at the thin, rising spiral of smoke. “Yes, quite a problem they have, these El Doradans. It all goes to show that money cannot buy happiness . . .”

“But with it, sir,” pointed out Grimes, “you can, at least, be miserable in comfort.”

“Ha! Very good. I must remember that. But it is a most peculiar situation. As you know, they bought this planet and then, at enormous expense, terraformed it. With improvements. They stocked with all the flora and fauna necessary for sport as well as food. Insofar as the animal and plant kingdoms are concerned the normal cycle of birth, procreation, death has been in operation from the very start. Insofar as the humans are concerned, there are no births. No, that’s not quite correct. Some of the women were pregnant when they came here. The youngest of the children born on El Dorado is now a girl of seventeen.”

“Something in the air, or the water, sir?”

“Could be, Grimes. Could be. But I’m a spaceman, not a quack. I wouldn’t know. If it is, it must be something remarkably subtle. And you’d think that such an . . . agent? would affect the plants and the livestock as well as the people.”

Grimes, flattered by the honor of a conversation with the normally unapproachable Captain, ventured another opinion. “Do you think, sir, that they called us in so that we could . . . ? How can I put it? A sort of artificial insemination by donor? Only not so artificial.”

“Mr. Grimes!” Daintree at once reverted to his normal manner. “I ask, no, I order, you to put such ideas out of your alleged mind at once. These people, and never forget it, are in their own estimation the aristocrats of the Galaxy. They want children to inherit their wealth, their titles. But they made it quite clear to me that such children must be sired by themselves, not by mongrel outsiders.” His face darkened. “I don’t mind telling you, Mr. Grimes, that I was furious when I heard that term used. But, bear this in mind, if there are any incidents during this vessel’s stay on El Dorado it will go hard, very hard indeed, with those responsible. You will learn, Mr. Grimes, that a senior officer has very often, too often, to subordinate his own true feelings to the well-being of his Service. We are not, repeat not, a drunken, roistering crew of merchant spacemen. We are Survey Service, and every man, from myself to the lowest mess boy, will comport himself like a gentleman.”

And one definition of a gentleman,
thought Grimes,
is a man who takes his weight on his elbows . . .

“And this offer of hospitality by the Princess von Stolzberg, it’s no more than her way of apologizing to you and to the Survey Service. You’d better not get any false ideas.”

“I won’t, sir.”

“Very well. That will do. See the Commander and ask him for the necessary men and equipment for the salvage of the re-entry vehicle. I have already told him that the entire operation is to be directly under your charge.”

“Very good, sir.”

Grimes got to his feet, stiffened to attention in salute, turned about smartly and marched towards the door. Daintree’s snarl halted him abruptly.

“Mr. Grimes!”

“Sir?”

“I know that I’m only the Captain, but may I point out that it is not correct to take official leave of a senior officer with a pipe stuck in the middle of your cretinous face?”

“Sorry, sir.”

“And, Mr. Grimes, may I request that you watch your manners when you are mingling with the aristocracy?”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Your best, on far too many occasions, has not been good enough. Get out!”

Ears burning, Grimes got out.

Chapter 12

The following morning
Grimes started the salvage operations.

As a unit of the Survey Service fleet,
Aries
was rich in all manner of equipment. She was a fighting ship but, officially at least, her prime function was exploration and survey, and a newly discovered watery world cannot be properly surveyed without underwater gear. Insofar as the raising of the dynosoar was concerned, the engineers’ workshop was able to supply, at short notice, what little extra was needed.

Commander Griffin had let Grimes have one of the work boats, a powerful little brute fitted with inertial drive, aboard which the engineers had installed a powerful air compressor. There were coils of tough, plastic hose, together with the necessary valves and connections. There was a submarine welding outfit and a good supply of metal plates of various shapes and sizes. There were scuba outfits for Grimes and for the men who would be working with him.

Shortly after dawn the airlock high on
Aries’
side opened and the work boat, muttering to itself, slid out, wobbled a little in midair and then, with Grimes at the controls, set course for the further end of Lake Bluewater, from the surface of which a light mist, golden in the almost level rays of the morning sun, was lazily rising. The Lieutenant was already in his skin-tight suit, as was the remainder of the working party, but had yet to put on his helmet and flippers. The interior of the boat was crowded with men and gear, and there would have been little room to undress and dress. By his side, similarly attired, sat Chief Petty Officer Anderson, a big man, grossly fat until you looked at him more closely and realized that the fat was solid muscle. Baldheaded, baby-faced, he was peering intently at the submerged metal indicator that had been installed on the work boat’s control console. He looked up from the instrument, said, “If I were you, Mr. Grimes, I’d run to the end of the lake and then come back in short sweeps.” It was a suggestion, not an order, but when a C. P. O. suggests to even a senior officer the words carry weight.

Grimes replied, cheerfully enough, “I’ll do just that, Chief.”

He reduced thrust, lost altitude as he approached the beach, so that the boat would make its run barely clear of the surface of the water.

“If I were you, Mr. Grimes, I’d keep her up. That way we get a better spread on the detector beam. Once we’ve found the wreck we can come down for finer location.”

“All right, Chief.”
And,
thought Grimes,
what the hell do we have officers for? To carry the can back, that’s all.

Slowly, steadily, the boat grumbled its way out over Lake Bluewater. There were not, Grimes was relieved to see, any early morning swimmers or water-skiers. An audience he could do without, especially when such an audience would have with it a horde of watchbirds. He had good reason to dislike those robotic guardian angels.

To the end of the lake flew Grimes, toward the clump of screw pines that backed the sandy beach. “Anything yet, Chief?” he asked Anderson.

“No, sir.” Then, in a reproachful voice, “You should have released the marker buoy, Mr. Grimes.”

“I didn’t know that we had one.”

“I installed it myself, Mr. Grimes.” Anderson was the ship’s expert, rated and paid as such, in submarine operations.

“Why wasn’t it an automatic release?” demanded the Lieutenant.

“Come, sir. You know better than that.” The intonation made it quite clear that in the speaker’s opinion Grimes didn’t. “What if you make a crash landing on some hostile planet, in the sea, and don’t want to give the potential enemy a chance to pinpoint your position? And hadn’t you better watch those trees, sir?”

“I am watching them.” Slowly Grimes turned the boat, started his sweeps back and forth across the width of the lake.

“Now!” exclaimed Anderson. “That’s it, sir, I think. Bring her down, if you don’t mind . . . Stop her. Now, back a little. Slowly, sir, slowly. Right a little . . . Stop her again. Cut the drive.”

Gently, making only the slightest of splashes, the work boat settled to the surface. With the drive shut down it was suddenly very quiet. The air drifting in through the open windows carried a faint, refreshing tang of early morning mist. One of the ratings in the after compartment muttered, “This is a bit of all right. We should have brought fishing tackle.”

Anderson turned his head, “You’ll have all the fishing you want, Jones. It’s a big, tin fish we’ve come to catch.”

The men who knew what was good for them laughed.

“There are goldfish in the lake,” contributed Grimes. His remark was received in silence. He shrugged. “All right, Chief. I’ll go down to make the preliminary inspection. I’ll let you know when I need help.”

“Have you had your antibend shot, sir?” asked Anderson in a way that implied that all officers have to be wet-nursed, junior officers especially.

“Yes, Chief. Now, if somebody will help me on with my helmet . . .”

Anderson himself picked up the transparent sphere, lowered it carefully over Grimes’ head, connected up the air pipes to the shoulder tank. The speaker inside the helmet said tinnily, “Testing, sir. Testing. Can you read me?”

“Loud and clear.” The Lieutenant eased himself up from his chair, sat on the ledge of the open window, his back to the water. “Flippers,” he said.

He saw Anderson speaking into the microphone that somebody had handed him. “If I were you, sir, I’d go down on the line.”

“Just what I am doing, Chief. But I’ll wear my flippers just the same.”

Anderson strapped the large fins on to his bare feet, then made a thumbs-up gesture. Grimes replied in kind, leaned far back and then let himself fall. He knew that this unorthodox method of entering the water would not please the C. P. O. and, even as he hit the surface with a noisy splash, heard, through his helmet speaker, Anderson admonish the men, “Just because an officer does it that way you’re not to. See?” The failure to place a hand over the microphone was probably deliberate.

He hit the water and, at once, started to sink. With his equipment and the disposable weights at his belt he had negative buoyancy. He looked up at the shimmering mirror that was the surface, broken by the black hull of the boat. Using his hands and feet he turned about his short axis until he was upright, saw the weighted line, pale-gleaming in the blueness. One tentative kick took him toward it. He grasped the rough-textured cord with one hand and hung there for a little while to get his bearings, to become acclimatized.