STAR LOOT

A. Bertram Chandler

Chapter 1

For the first time in his life Grimes was rich.

But money, he was coming to realize, does not buy happiness. Furthermore it is, far too often, a very expensive commodity. It has to be paid for and the price can be high. The cost of his newly acquired wealth was Little Sister, the beautiful, golden, deep-space pinnace that had been given him by the Baroness Michelle d'Estang. He had hated parting with his tiny ship but financial circumstances had been such that there was almost no option. The fortunes of Far Traveler Couriers were at an extremely low ebb and Grimes, long notorious for his hearty appetite, wanted to go on eating. At first the courier business had been moderately successful. There seemed to be no shortage of small parcels of special cargo to be carted, at high freight rates, hither and yon across the known galaxy. Then the commercial climate deteriorated and Grimes gained the impression that nobody at all wanted anything taken anywhere in a hurry and at a price. His last employment had been the carriage of a small shipment of

memory-and-motivation units from Electra to Austral, the consignee being Yosarian Robotics. There was absolutely no suitable outward cargo for Little Sister available on Austral-and the First Galactic Bank was getting restive about Far Traveler Couriers' considerable overdraught.

Grimes went to see Mr. Yosarian. He knew that the fantastically wealthy roboteer often manufactured very special models for very special customers, some of whom must surely wish delivery in a hurry. He was admitted into an outer office on the very top floor of the towering Kapek Komplex, an assemblage of three glittering tetrahedra of steel and plastic with a fourth tetrahedron mounted on this spectacular foundation.

He sat waiting in a deep, comfortable chair, watching the blonde secretary or receptionist or whatever she was doing something at her desk, languidly prodding a keyboard with scarlet-nailed fingers, watching some sort of read-out on a screen that presented a featureless back to the visitor. She was not at all inclined to make conversation. Grimes wondered idly if she was one of Yosarian's special robots, decided that she probably wasn't. She was too plump, too soft looking and there had been nothing metallic in her voice when she condescended to speak to him. He tried to interest himself in the magazines on a low table by his seat but all of them were trade journals. An engineer would have found them fascinating-but Grimes was not an engineer. From his cadet days onward he had displayed little mechanical aptitude and, quite naturally, had entered the spaceman branch of the Survey Service.

He filled and lit his vile pipe, got up from his chair and strolled to one of the wide windows overlooking the city of Port Southern. The tall, elongated pyramid was a feature of local architecture. Between these towers and groupings of towers were green parks, every one of which seemed to have its own fountain, each a wavering plume of iridescent spray. In the distance was the spaceport, looking like a minor city itself. But those gleaming spires were the hulls of ships great and small, passenger liners and freighters.

Grimes could just see the golden spark that was the sunlight reflected from the shell plating of a ship by no means great-Little Sister. She had brought him here, to this world. Would she take him away from it? She wouldn't, he thought bitterly, unless there were some cargo to make it worth her while, some paid employment that would enable him to settle his outstanding bills.

The blonde's voice broke into his glum thoughts. "Mr. Yosarian will see you now, sir. Go straight through."

"Thank you," said Grimes.

He looked around for an ashtray, found one, knocked out his pipe into it.

"That," said the girl coldly, "happens to be a flower bowl."

"But there aren't any flowers in it," he said defensively.

"A ship is still a ship even when there's no cargo in her holds," she told him nastily.

That hurt. She must know how things were with him. Probably everybody in Port Southern, on the whole damned planet, knew. With his prominent ears flushing angrily he went through into the inner office.

* * *

Like a statue of some corpulent Oriental deity Yosarian sat behind his huge desk, the vast, shining expanse of which was bare save for two read-out screens. He did not rise as Grimes entered, just regarded him through black eyes that were like little lumps of coal representing the visual organs in the white face of a snowman. His too full red lips were curved in a complacent smile.

He said, "Be seated, Captain." His voice was just too pleasant to be classed as oleaginous, but only just.

Grimes started to turn. The nearest chair had been against the wall, near the door by which he had entered. But it was no longer there. Walking rapidly but silently on its four legs, it had positioned itself behind him. The edge of its padded seat nudged Grimes just below the backs of his knees. He sat rather more heavily than had been his intention.

Yosarian laughed.

Grimes said, "Quite a trick."

"But little more, Captain. You should see-and use-some of the robot furniture that I design and manufacture. Such as the beds. Custom made." He leered. "And what do you think of these?"

A drawer in the desk must have opened-by itself, as both Yosarian's fat hands were sprawled on the polished surface. Something was coming out of it. A tiny hand found purchase on the edge of the desk top, then another. It-she-pulled herself up. She was only a mechanical doll but she could have been alive, a miniature golden girl, perfect in every detail from her long, yellow hair to the toes of her golden feet. She pirouetted and as she did so she sang wordlessly. High and thin was the music but with an insidious rhythm. She was joined by two more dolls, both female, one white-skinned and black-haired, the other whose body was a lustrous black and whose hair shone like silver. They carried instruments-the white girl a syrinx, the black girl a little drum. They sat cross-legged, piping and drumming, while the golden doll danced and sang.

"These come life-size, too," said Yosarian. "Special orders. Very special orders . . . ."

"Mphm," grunted Grimes thoughtfully and disapprovingly.

"And you wouldn't believe that they're made of metal, would you?" He raised his hands, clapped them sharply, then with his right index finger pointed at Grimes. The musicians stopped playing, the dancer halted in mid-step. Then all three of them ran gracefully to the edge of the desk, jumped down to the thick carpet. Before Grimes realized what was happening they were swarming up his legs, on to his lap. His ears, flamed with embarrassment.

"Go on, touch them. They aren't programed to bite, Captain." Gingerly, with the tip of a forefinger, Grimes stroked the back of the golden dancer. It could almost have been real skin under his touch-almost, but not quite.

Yosarian clapped again. The dolls jumped down from Grimes' lap, ran around to Yosarian's side of the desk, vanished.

"You must often, Mr. Yosarian, get special orders for these . . . toys," said Grimes.

"Toys? You offend me, Captain. But there are special orders. Only a short while ago the Grand Duke Oblimov on El Dorado wanted a pair of dancing boys, life-size. Do you know El Dorado, Captain? I have thought, now and again, of retiring there. I've more than enough money to be accepted as a citizen, but I'd be expected to buy a title of some kind-and that I would regard as a sinful waste of hard-earned credits! As a matter of fact it was an El Doradan ship that carried the small shipment to the Grand Duke. She was here on a cruise and all the passengers were Lord this and Lady that. The master of her called himself Commodore, not Captain, and he was a Baron. The funny part of it all was that I used to know him slightly, years ago, when he was skipper of a scruffy little star tramp running out of Port Southern . . . ."

"Commodore Baron Kane," said Grimes sourly.

"You know him? It's a small universe, isn't it? But what can I do for you, Captain Grimes? I'm sure that you didn't come all the way from the spaceport just to talk to me and watch my pretty mini-robots perform."

"You have mentioned special orders, Mr. Yosarian. I'll be frank; I need employment for my ship and myself very badly. I was wondering if . . . ."

"I am sorry, Captain. The last special order was the one to El Dorado; the next one will be-" he shrugged and spread his hands-"who knows when? But perhaps you have not wasted your time after all . . . ."

"Then you do have something?"

"You have something, Captain Grimes. Something that I want, for which I am prepared to pay. I will tell you a secret. When I was very young I wanted to become a spaceman. As you know, your Antarctic Space Academy on Earth accepts entrants from all the Federated Planets-as long as they can pass the preliminary examinations. I almost passed-but almost isn't good enough. So I had to go into my father's business-robotics. He wasn't exactly poor-but I am rich. I have been thinking for some time of purchasing a little ship of my own, a spaceyacht, something so small that I am not required by law to carry a qualified master. I have the know-how-or my people have the know-how-to make a computer pilot capable of navigating and handling life-support systems and all the rest of it. I may have to import a special m-and-m unit from Electra, but that is no problem. They can send it with the next big shipment that I have on order."

"You mean . . ." began Grimes.

"I mean that I want your ship, your Little Sister. I know how things are with you. There is word of a forced sale, engineered by the First Galactic Bank. So I'm doing you a favor. I will pay a good price. And you will know that your ship will not be broken up just for the precious metal that went into her building. She will survive as a functioning vessel."

"As a rich man's toy," said Grimes.

Yosarian chuckled. "There are worse fates, much worse fates, for ships, just as there are for women. And a ship such as yours, constructed from an isotope of gold, will keep her looks. I shall cherish her."

"How much?" asked Grimes bluntly.

Yosarian told him.

With an effort Grimes kept his face expressionless. The sum named was far in excess of what he had expected. With such money in his bank account he would be able to retire, a young man, and live anywhere in the galaxy-with the exception of El Dorado-that he wished. But was it enough? Would it ever be enough?

"I think, Captain," said Yosarian gently, "that mine is a fair offer. Very fair."

"Yes," admitted Grimes.

"And yet you are still reluctant. If I wait until your many creditors force a sale I may be able to buy your ship at a mere fraction of this offer."

"Then why aren't you willing to wait, Mr. Yosarian?" asked Grimes. The fat man looked at him shrewdly, then laughed. "All right, Captain. It's cards on the table. I happen to know that Austral Metals wants your ship. It is quite possible that they would outbid even me-and that, I freely admit, would mean more money in your pocket after all the legal technicalities have been sorted out. But do you know what they would do with her if they got her? They would regard her as no more than scrap metal-precious scrap, but scrap nonetheless. They would break her up, melt her down. Only the Electrans know the secret of producing the isotope of gold of which your Little Sister is constructed. Austral Metals use that very isotope in some of their projects-and have to pay very heavily for what they import from Electra. Your ship, her hull and her fittings, would be relatively cheap.

"If I have read you aright, Captain Grimes, you are a sentimentalist. Although your ship is only a machine you feel toward her almost as you would toward a woman-and could you bear to see the body of a woman you loved cut up and the parts deposited in an organ bank?" He shuddered theatrically. "If I get Little Sister I'll look after her, pamper her, even. If Austral Metals gets her they'll hack her and burn her into pieces." And I can't afford to keep her, thought Grimes. Always in the past something had turned up to rescue him from utter insolvency-but this time nothing would. Or something had. If he accepted Yosarian's offer it would save Little Sister from the breakers as well as putting him back in the black.

"You really want her as a ship?" asked Grimes. "You don't intend to turn out a line of indestructible golden robots?"

"I give you my word, Captain."

Grimes believed him.

"All right," he said. "I'll take your price-on condition that you clear my overdraught and all my other debts."

Had he overplayed his hand? For long moments he feared that he had. Then Yosarian laughed.

"You drive a hard bargain, Captain Grimes. Once I would have haggled. Now I will not. At least twice-the first time many years ago, the second time recently-I have tried to get the price down on something I really wanted. Each time I failed-and failed, in consequence, to attain my heart's desire." Grimes wondered what it was that Yosarian had been wanting to buy, decided that it might not be politic to ask. He felt an odd twinge of sympathy.

"My lawyers," said the fat man, "will call on board your ship tomorrow morning to arrange the details. Please have a detailed statement of your liabilities prepared for them."

"I shall do that," said Grimes. "And . . . thank you." He got up from his chair, turned to leave the office. A slight noise behind him made him stop, turn again to see what was making it. Another mechanical toy had emerged from one of the drawers of Yosarian's big desk. This one was a miniature spaceship, perfect in every detail, a replica of an Alpha Class liner only about fifteen centimeters in length. The roboticist gestured with his fat right hand and, with its inertial drive tinkling rather than clattering, it rose into the air and began to circle the opalescent light globe that hung from the ceiling. It could have been a real space vessel, viewed from a distance, in orbit about some planetoid. So, thought Grimes, he was letting Little Sister go to somebody who would regard her as no more than an ingenious toy.

But in a harshly commercial universe that was all that she was anyhow.

Chapter 2

Much to Grimes' surprise the formalities of the sale were concluded late the following morning. (When Yosarian wanted something he wanted it now.) It was early afternoon when Little Sister was handed over to her new owner. Grimes was both hurt and relieved to discover that Yosarian did not expect him to stay around to show the new owner where everything lived and what everything did; in fact the roboticist made it quite plain that he wished to be left alone to gloat over his new possession.

"If that is all, Mr. Yosarian . . . ." said Grimes.

"Yes, that is all, Captain. I've made a study of ships, as you know. And, in any case, much of the equipment here is of my own design. The autochef, the waste processor . . . . There seems to be nothing here that is a departure from normal practice."

"Look after her," said Grimes.

"You need have no worries on that score, Captain. When something has cost me as much as this vessel I look after it."

He extended a fat hand for Grimes to shake. Grimes shook it, then went out through his-no, the-airlock for the last time. Yosarian's ground car was waiting to carry him to his hotel, his baggage already stowed in the rear compartment. There were two large suitcases and a mattress cover that had been pressed into service as a kitbag. (When one is in a ship for any length of time personal possessions tend to accumulate.) Before boarding the vehicle Grimes paused to pat the gleaming surface of the golden hull. At least, he thought, you aren't being broken up . . . .

The chauffeur, a little, wizened monkey of a man in severe, steel-gray livery, watched him dourly. He said, "Old Yosie won't like it if you put greasy pawmarks all over that finish."

"She's had worse on her," said Grimes. "Like blood."

"You don't say, Captain?" The man looked at Grimes with a new respect. Then, "Where to, sir?"

"The Centaurian," said Grimes, taking his seat beside the driver. The car sped smoothly and silently toward the spaceport gate. It did not reduce speed for challenge and inspection by the duty customs officer; the flag flying from the short mast on the bonnet, black with a golden Y set in a golden cogwheel, was pass enough.

"That blood, Captain . . . ." hinted the chauffeur.

"Not human blood," Grimes told him. "Shaara blood. Or ichor. A couple of drones were trying to burn their way in with hand lasers. So I went upstairs in a hurry, out of a dense atmosphere into near vacuum. They . . . burst."

"Messy," muttered the driver.

"Yes," agreed Grimes.

And where was Tamara, who had shared that adventure with him, he wondered. Probably back on Tiralbin, once again the desk-borne Postmistress General, no longer directly involved in getting the mail through come hell or high water. And where were Shirl and Darleen, also one-time passengers aboard Little Sister? And the obnoxious Fenella Pruin .

. . . And Susie . . . . Susie had never set foot aboard the golden pinnace herself but she belonged to the Little Sister period of his life. He may have lost his ship but he would keep the memories.

The driver was saying something.

"Mphm?" grunted Grimes.

"We're here, Captain. The Centaurian."

The hotel was the usual elongated pyramid. A porter, who could have been a Survey Service High Admiral making an honest living for a change, was lifting Grimes' baggage out of the back of the car, sneering visibly at the bulging mattress cover.

"Thank you," said Grimes to the chauffeur. He supposed that he should have tipped the man but, although he had a fortune in his bank account, he had almost nothing in his pockets. He disembarked, followed the porter into the lobby to the desk. The receptionists, he could not help noticing, were staring at the mattress cover and giggling. But the girl whom he approached was polite enough.

"Captain Grimes? Yes, we have your reservation. Room number 5063. And for how long will you be staying, sir?"

"Probably until Alpha Sextans comes in. She's the next direct ship for Earth."

"Have a happy stay with us, sir."

"Thank you," said Grimes.

He accompanied the porter in the lift up to the fiftieth floor, was ushered into a room from the wide windows of which he could enjoy a view of the city and the distant spaceport. Little Sister was there among the gray towers that were the big ships, no more than a tiny, aureate mote. He turned away from the window to the resplendently uniformed porter who was waiting expectantly.

He said, "I'm sorry. I'm out of cash until I get to the bank."

"That's all right, sir," said the man, conveying by the tone of his voice that it was not.

He left Grimes to his own devices.

* * *

Grimes explored his accommodation.

He treated himself to a cup of coffee from the tap so labeled over the bar. He lowered himself into one of the deep armchairs, filled and lit his pipe. Suddenly he was feeling very lonely in this comfortable but utterly characterless sitting room. He wondered how he would pass the days until he could board that Earthbound passenger liner. He would not, he told himself firmly, go near the spaceport before then. He had made his clean break with Little Sister; he would do his best to keep it that way. The telephone buzzed.

He reached out, touched the acceptance button. The screen came alive, displayed the pretty face of one of the hotel's receptionists.

"Captain Grimes, a lady and a gentleman are here to see you."

"Who are they?" Grimes asked.

"A Ms. Granadu, sir. A Mr. Williams."

The names rang no bells in Grimes' memory and it must have shown in his expression.

"Spacepersons, sir," said the girl.

"Send them up," said Grimes.

He had just finished his coffee when the door chimes tinkled. He had not yet recorded his voice in the opener so had to get up from his chair to let the visitors in. Yes, he thought, the receptionist had been right. These were certainly spacers; the way in which they carried themselves made this obvious. And he, a spacefarer himself, could do better than merely generalize. One spaceman branch officer, he thought, fairly senior but never in actual command. One catering officer.

The spaceman was not very tall but he was big. He had a fleshy nose, a broad, rather thick-lipped mouth, very short hair the color of dirty straw, pale gray eyes. He was plainly dressed in a white shirt and dark gray kilt with matching long socks, black, blunt-toed, highly polished shoes. The woman was flamboyant. She was short, chunky, red-haired, black-eyed and beaky-nosed. Her mouth was a wide, scarlet slash. In contrast to her companion's sober attire she was colorfully, almost garishly clad. Her orange blouse was all ruffles, her full skirt was bright emerald. Below its hem were stiletto-heeled, pointed-toed knee boots, scarlet with gold trimmings. Jewels scintillated at the lobes of her ears and on her fingers. It looked, at first glance, as though she had a ring on every one of them.

"Williams," said the big man in a deep voice.

"Magda Granadu," said the woman in a sultry contralto.

"Grimes," said Grimes unnecessarily.

There was handshaking. There was the arranging of seats around the coffee table. Magda Granadu, without being asked, drew cups of coffee for Williams and herself, replenished Grimes' cup. Grimes had the uneasy feeling that he was being taken charge of.

"And what can I do for you, gentlepersons?" he asked.

"You can help us, Captain," said Williams. "And yourself."

"Indeed?" Grimes was intrigued but trying not to show it. These were not the sort of people who, hearing somehow of his sudden acquisition of wealth, would come to ask him for a large, never-to-be-repaid loan.

"Indeed?"

"That ship in parking orbit-Epsilon Scorpii. You must have seen her when you came in."

"I did."

"She's up for sale. It hasn't been advertised yet but it soon will be." Grimes laughed. "And so what? The Interstellar Transport Commission is always flogging its obsolescent tonnage."

"Too right, Captain. But why shouldn't you be the next owner of that hunk of still spaceworthy obsolescence?"

"Why should I?" countered Grimes. "I've just sold one ship. I'm in no hurry to buy another."

"You would not be happy away from ships," said the woman, staring at him intently. "As well you know."

She's right, thought Grimes.

He said, "All right. Just suppose that I'm mad enough to buy this Epsilon Class rustbucket. What is your interest?"

"We want to get back into space," said Williams.

"And what makes you think that I'd help you?" Grimes demanded.

"The I Ching told us," said the woman.

Grimes regarded her curiously. With her features, her flamboyant clothing, her garish jewelry, she could well have passed for a Romany fortune teller, one of those who plied their trade in tea rooms and other restaurants. But such women usually practiced palmistry or worked with cards, either of the ordinary variety or the Tarot pack. To find one who consulted the Book of Changes was . . . weird. And what was a spacewoman doing as a soothsayer anyhow?

She went on, "We're old shipmates, Billy-Mr. Williams-and I. In the Dog Star Line. Billy was second mate, waiting for his promotion to mate. I was catering officer and purser. Billy was married to a girl on this planet who did not like having a husband who was always away on long voyages. So, just to please her, he resigned and found a shore job. A little while later I resigned too. I had a bachelor uncle on this world whom I used to look up every time that the ship came here. He was an importer in a small way but big enough to have amassed a neat little fortune. He . . . died. When his will was read it was discovered that he'd left everything to me. So, having said my fond farewells to the Dog Star Line, I thought I'd start a restaurant. I'm still running it although I had some very bad patches; now the bank owns most of it. I've come to realize that I was far happier as a spacewoman.

"Billy's of the same way of thinking. He's very much at loose ends since his wife left him."

"You can say that again!" growled Williams.

"It was all for the best," Magda Granadu told him. "Well, Captain, Billy often comes around to my place just about closing time. We have a few drinks and talk about old times. You know. Anyhow, a few nights back we were crying into each other's beer and telling each other how we'd sell our souls to get back into deep space, then Billy suggested that I tell our fortunes, his and mine. No, don't laugh. Quite a few of my customers come to the Tzigane as much for my fortune-telling as the food. I've made some lucky guesses. Up to now I've always used the cards and it's only recently that I've gotten interested in the Oracle of Change. So I got the book out and threw three coins-I don't use yarrow sticks-and constructed a hexagram. Ta Ch'u, it was. It told us to place ourselves in the service of the king and that it would benefit us to cross the great water. The great water is, of course, deep space. And the king-you."

"Me, a king?" demanded Grimes incredulously.

"You were a sort of god-king once, weren't you? The story got around. And, in any case, who more kingly than a shipmaster who owns his own ship?

The local media gave you a good coverage when you brought Little Sister in."

"I no longer own her," said Grimes.

"We are well aware of that, Captain, but you were still owner-master when I consulted the oracle. It puzzled us; surely you would not require a crew in such a small ship. Yet yours was the name that came to mind. Too, there was the business of the coins that I used . . . ."

"The coins?" asked Grimes bewilderedly.

"Yes. I used these." She fished in one of the capacious pockets at the front of her skirt, brought out three discs of some silvery alloy. Grimes stared at them. He had seen similar coins in his father's collection. They had been minted on Earth as long ago as the twentieth century, old style. One side bore the head of a woman, Queen Elizabeth, in profile. On the other was a stylized bird with a tail like an ancient lyre, and the number 10. An Australian ten-cent piece, very old yet in good condition.

"Where did you get these?" Grimes asked.

"They're Billy's."

"My father gave them to me years ago," said Williams. "They're out of his collection."

"My father has coins like them in his collection," said Grimes.

"And they're Australian coins," said Magda. "And you're Australian. There's a tie-in."

"Mphm," grunted Grimes dubiously.

"So the I Ching pointed to you," she insisted. "But we couldn't see how you could help us. And then, a day or so later, we heard that you'd sold Little Sister to Yosarian at some fantastic price. And we heard, too, that Epsilon, Scorpii was coming up for sale. My restaurant is a popular place for business lunches and I often overhear conversations at table. Pinnett-he's Planetary Manager for the Interstellar Transport Commission-was entertaining a couple of ITC masters. They were talking about the Epileptic Scorpion. Pinnett was saying that he wished that there was somebody on Austral who'd buy her. He'd get a nice commission on the deal."

"Mphm," grunted Grimes again.

"You're the king the I Ching told us of, Captain. At the moment you're a king without a kingdom. But you could buy one."

Why not? Grimes asked himself. Why not? A sizeable tramp, carrying sizeable cargoes, might make a living. But he would be obliged by law to carry at least a minimal crew in such a vessel.

"What about crew?" he said. "All right, I seem to have two volunteers. One control room officer. I suppose that you hold a Master Astronaut's Certificate, Mr. Williams? One catering officer cum purser. But I shall require two more control room officers. And engineers, both Mannschenn Drive and inertial drive. And a Sparks. Where do I get them from? More important-where would I get cargoes from? Little Sister couldn't make one man a living. Could this Epsilon Class rustbucket make a living for a crew of at least a dozen?"

"To answer your first question, Captain," said Williams, "there are quite a few retired spacers on Austral, many of whom would love to make just one more voyage, and one more after that . . . . To answer the second one-a tramp can always make money if her owner isn't too fussy, if he's willing to carry cargoes that the major shipping lines wouldn't touch, to go to places where the big shipping companies wouldn't risk their precious ships . . . ."

"Take a gamble, Captain," cajoled Magda Granadu. "Ride your famous luck."

"My luck?"

She smiled and said, "You're famous for it, aren't you?"

"Let the I Ching decide for him," said Williams.

Magda handed him the three antique coins, then from her capacious pocket produced a book bound in black silk. Grimes recalled past encounters with fortune tellers. There had been that drunken Psionic Communications Officer aboard Discovery who had read the cards for him with uncanny accuracy, and the old Duchess of Leckhampton on El Dorado who had also read the cards, although she had favored the Tarot pack.

"Shake and throw," ordered the woman. "Shake and throw." He rattled the coins in his cupped hands, let them fall to the carpet. Two heads and a tail. "Yang," he heard the woman whisper as she drew a line on a piece of scrap paper. "Eight." He picked up the coins, shook them, threw again. Two tails and a head. "Yin," he heard. "Seven." Then there was another yin, another seven. And another. Then three heads-yang, nine. And finally two heads and a tail-yang, eight.

"That will do," she said.

"Well?" he asked. "What's the verdict?"

"Wait," she told him.

She opened the book, studied the chart. She turned the pages.

"Upper trigram Sun," she murmured. "Lower trigram Chen. Increase. There will be advantage in every undertaking. It will be advantageous even to cross the great water . . . ." She looked up at Grimes. "Yes. You are destined to make a voyage."

"That is my intention in any case," he said. "But as a passenger."

"I haven't finished yet," she told him sharply. "It goes on like this. If the ruler strives to dispense benefits to his people and to increase the general level of prosperity he will be given loyalty in return. Thus he will be able to do great things."

Hogwash, Grimes almost said, would have said if he had not felt that in some weird way he was standing at the focus of cosmic lines of force. Hogwash, he thought again-but he knew that he was standing at the crossroads.

And he must make his own decision.

He put a hand down to the floor, picked up one coin.

"Heads I buy the ship," he said. "Tails I don't." He sent the little disc spinning into the air.

It came up heads.

Chapter 3

The next morning, bright and early, Magda Granadu and Billy Williams joined Grimes as he was finishing his breakfast in the hotel's coffee shop. The previous evening they had stayed with Grimes to discuss with him the problem of manning; they, as merchant officers, knew far more about such matters than he did. In the Survey Service his crews had been found for him and, except for his tour of duty in the couriers, he had always been used to a superfluity of personnel. As master of Epsilon Scorpii-or whatever name he would give her once she was his-he would have no Bureau of Appointments to dip its ladle into the barrel to procure for him his entitlements. (There had been times when he had been obliged to cope with what was at the bottom of the barrel.)

Williams looked at his watch. "As soon as you've finished your coffee, Skipper, we'll ring Pinnett. He should be in his office by now." So it was "Skipper" now, thought Grimes. If-if!-Williams became one of his officers such familiarity would not be tolerated. It might be all right for the Dog Star Line but not for any ship that Grimes might command. He drained his cup, taking his time about it. He did not like being rushed. Then, with Williams and Magda on either side of him, he took the elevator up to the fiftieth floor. He found that the cleaning robots were in his suite, noisily dusting, polishing, changing towels and bed linen. One of the spider-like things was making a major production of quite unnecessary housekeeping in the telephone alcove, buffing each button on the selector panel with loving care.

Williams put his big hands about its bulbous body, lifted it down to the floor and gave it a gentle shove toward the center of the room. It staggered no farther than a meter on its spindly legs and then turned around, scampering back to its appointed task. Again Williams tried to shoo it away. Again it came back.

"Get rid of that bloody thing!" growled Grimes.

"Aye, aye, Skipper!"

Williams kicked, hard. The little robot flew through the air, crashed against the wall. Its plastic carapace shattered and there was a coruscation of violet sparks and the acridity of ozone. But it still wasn't dead. It began to crawl back toward the telephone, bleeding tendrils of blue smoke from its broken body.

Williams stamped on it, jumped on it with both feet.

Grimes said coldly, "That will do. I suppose you realize that I shall have to pay for this wanton damage."

"You can afford it, Skipper!" Williams told him cheerfully. Grimes snarled wordlessly, then touched the D button for Directory. He said, speaking slowly and distinctly, "Interstellar Transport Commission." On some worlds he would have been put through automatically, but not here; he would have to do his own button pushing once he got the number. Luminous words and numerals appeared on the screen: INNIS & MCKELLAR, SOUTHPORT COMPREDORES-0220238.

Grimes snarled again, stabbed X for Cancel, prodded D and repeated his order in the kind of voice that he had used in the past for reprimanding junior officers.

The blanked-out screen returned to life, INTRACITY TRANSIT

CORPORATION-02325252.

"You're getting closer, Skipper," said Williams encouragingly. "But the number is 023571164."

"Why the hell didn't you tell me before?"

"You never asked."

Grimes touched the buttons as Williams called out the numerals. After what seemed far too long a delay a sour-faced, gray-haired woman looked out at them from the screen, not liking what she was seeing from her end.

"Interstellar," she snapped. "At the service of the universe."

"Mr. Pinnett, please," said Grimes.

"Whom shall I say is calling?"

"Captain Grimes."

The picture of the woman faded, was replaced by a gaudy representation of a spiral nebula. This faded in its turn when the woman came back.

"Mr. Pinnett," she said, "is in conference."

"Have you any idea when he will be free?"

"I am afraid not."

"Perhaps," said Grimes, "somebody else might be able to help me."

"I can tell you now," she said, "that we have no vacancies for space crew. In any case we always endeavor to avoid recruiting on outworlds." With an effort Grimes kept a hold on his temper. He said, "I understand that your ship, Epsilon Scorpii,is up for sale."

"From whom did you obtain that information?"

"It doesn't matter. I'm interested in buying her if the price is right." She did not say it but she was obviously thinking, Space-bums can't buy ships. Grimes' name had meant nothing to her. She said, "Even an obsolescent Epsilon Class tramp is very expensive. I do not think that any offer that you can make will be of interest to Mr. Pinnett. May I suggest that you waste no more of my time?"

The screen went blank.

"Good-bye, prune-puss," muttered Williams.

"Would you know the number of Yosarian Robotics?" Grimes asked him.

"No, Skipper, but I'll get it for you."

Williams punched the D button, said the words. On his first attempt he got YOUR SAURIAN PET SHOP. Grimes said that he was interested in buying a scorpion, not a lizard. Williams kicked the console. Something tinkled inside it. He tried again and this time got YOSARIAN ROBOTICS and the number. He stabbed the keys with a thick forefinger. The face of the plump blonde appeared on the screen. She looked at Williams without recognition and said cheerfully, "Yosarian to save you labor. Can I assist you?" Grimes moved so that he was within the scope of the scanner.

"Good morning, Captain Grimes," she said.

"Good morning. Can I talk to Mr. Yosarian, please?"

"He is down at the spaceport, aboard your ship. Sorry, Captain-his ship. Perhaps if you called him there . . . ."

Grimes did.

After some delay the roboticist appeared. He looked as though he had been working: there was a smudge of oil on his fat face. He snapped, "What is it? Can't you see that I'm busy?" Then, "Oh, it's you, Captain. If you want your Little Sister back it's just too bad."

"I do want a ship," said Grimes, "but not Little Sister. I've been trying to get through to Mr. Pinnett, the local boss cocky of the ITC, to find out how much he wants for Epsilon Scorpii. Some frosty-faced female gave me the brush-off."

Yosarian laughed. "Pinnett's tame dragon. She's quite notorious. But are you really thinking of buying that decrepit bitch? Still, there's an old saying, isn't there, about the dog returning to his vomit . . . ."

"And also there's 'Once bitten, twice shy,' " said Grimes wryly. "But I'm willing to take the risk of getting bitten again."

"It's your money, Captain. But what do you want me to do about it?"

"Perhaps if you rang Mr. Pinnett and told him that you know of a potential buyer for his superannuated scorpion . . . . You pull heavier Gs on this world than I do."

"All right, Captain. I'll do that. You're staying at the Centaurian, aren't you?

I'll tell him to call you back there. Oh, by the way, I'm having trouble getting your autochef-my autochef-working properly. You must have abused it considerably when you were using it . . . ."

His face faded from the screen.

Grimes and his companions were halfway through their second cups of coffee when the telephone buzzed. He accepted the call. A craggy-faced black-haired man looked out at Grimes suspiciously. "Captain Grimes? I'm Pinnett, Planetary Manager for the Commission. Mr. Yosarian called me and said that you might be interested in buying Epsilon Scorpii and assured me that you possess the necessary funds. I Cannot understand why you did not approach me directly."

"I did," said Grimes. "Or tried to."

"Oh." Pinnett looked slightly embarrassed. "But how did you know that the ship is up for sale? Head Office, on Earth, has yet to advertise."

"I just heard it somewhere," said Grimes. "And I also gained the impression that it would be to your advantage if you, personally, handled the sale."

"How did you . . . ? Oh, never mind, there's always gossip." His manner brightened. "Suppose we take lunch together to talk things over. 1300

hours. Do you know the Tzigane, on Moberley Square?"

Magda's place, thought Grimes. "I can find it," he said.

"Good. 1300 hours then."

His face vanished.

"I hope that you aren't allergic to sour cream and paprika, Skipper," said Williams.

* * *

The Tzigane was the sort of restaurant that Grimes categorized as being ethnic as all hell. Its interior tried to convey the impression of being that of a huge tent; its human waiters and waitresses were attired as romanticized Romanies. Magda was there, of course, generally supervising, but gave no indication of knowing Grimes, although she greeted Pinnett personally. The food was good, rich and highly spiced, and the portions generous. Pinnett did not allow business to interfere with the more serious business of eating and drinking and it was only when large mugs of coffee, laced with some aromatic spirit, were placed before them that he was willing to discuss the possible sale of Epsilon Scorpii.

"Well, Captain," he said around a slim, black cigar, "you'll be getting a good ship."

"If I buy her," said Grimes. Then, bluntly, "How much do you want for her?"

"Nine million," said Pinnett. "A bargain."

"She's not an Alpha Class liner, straight from the builder's yard," said Grimes.

"I know she's not. But she's a good, reliable workhorse, even if she's not built of gold. She's not a toy."

"At her age," said Grimes, "she'll need a lot of maintenance."

"Don't you believe it, Captain. We look after our ships in the Interstellar Transport Commission."

"I'd like to inspect her," said Grimes. "As soon as possible."

"I'm afraid that you'll have to wait a few days," Pinnett told him. "Arranging a shuttle at short notice isn't easy. Our own tender, Austral Meteor, is being withdrawn from service for annual survey."

"There are tugs," said Grimes. He strongly suspected that Pinnett did not wish to have the ship inspected until some attempt had been made to have her looking her best for a potential purchaser.

Pinnett smiled-regretfully or with relief? "There are space tugs here, of course. But they aren't here right now. Hadn't you heard that Punch and Percheron have both gone out to the Dog Star Line's Samoyed? A complete engine-room breakdown, all of a light-year from here."

"What about the met. satellite tenders?"

"You know what bureaucrats are. By the time that the Bureau of Meteorology made its mind up about hiring one to us our own tender would be back in service and the two tugs sitting on their backsides in the spaceport, waiting for the next job."

"I think I can arrange something," said Grimes. "I see a telephone there . .

. ."

As he got up from the table he saw that Magda Granadu was bearing down upon it, holding a pack of cards in her hand. No doubt she was about to offer to tell Pinnett's fortune-a prognostication, thought Grimes, that would predispose the ITC manager not to hang out for too high a price for the ship.

* * *

"You again, Captain Grimes!" complained Yosarian. "Just when I'm in the middle of getting the innie properly tuned. Did you know that it was delivering only ninety percent of its true capacity?"

"But it's working, isn't it? Mr. Yosarian, I'd like to hire Little Sister for a day. There's no shuttle available to take me out to Epsilon Scorpii, and I want to make an inspection as soon as possible."

"I'm not hiring her out," said Yosarian. Then he grinned. "But I want to see how she handles. We'll regard this as a sort of trial run. I can be ready for space in thirty minutes. That suit you?"

Chapter 4

Yosarian, as promised, had Little Sister ready for space in half an hour. There were delays, however, before she could lift off. Only two spacesuits were on board; others had to be borrowed from the Interstellar Transport Commission's stores. Luckily the storekeeper was able to find one large enough to accommodate the roboticist's corpulence. Meanwhile Pinnett got in touch, by radio telephone, with Epsilon Scorpii's ship-keeping officer to make arrangements for the reception of the boarding party.

Finally, with everybody and everything aboard Little Sister, the pinnace was buttoned up. Yosarian, not without diffidence, took the pilot's seat in the control cab. Grimes sat beside him. Billy Williams and Pinnett disposed themselves in the main cabin. Permission was received from Aerospace Control to lift off. Yosarian looked at Grimes, who nodded. The fat man's pudgy hands hesitated briefly over the console, then turned on the inertial drive. Little Sister shuddered as the thrust built up. The drive hammered more loudly as the little ship lifted from the apron. Yosarian increased the rate of ascent and said to Grimes, "Can't you feel the difference? The innie needed tuning very badly."

It sounded the same to Grimes as it always had-but as long as Yosarian's tinkerings kept him happy that was all right by him. He did not interfere with the roboticist as he pushed Little Sister up and up, through wisps of high cirrus, into a sky which rapidly deepened to indigo, into the airless blackness where the unwinking stars were brightly shining. The pinnace's new owner seemed to know what he was doing and was not so arrogant as to attempt himself tasks that were better carried out by the computer. He fed the elements of Epsilon Scorpii's synchronous orbit, which he had obtained from Pinnett, into Little Sister's electronic brain and switched control from manual to automatic. Before long a spark appeared on the radar screen, a point of light, tiny at first, that expanded into a glowing blob that grew steadily.

He turned to Grimes and said, "Well, there she is, Captain." He paused, then asked, "How did I do?"

"Very nicely, Captain," said Grimes.

Yosarian blushed happily and said, "Would you mind taking over now, Captain Grimes? You're more used to this sort of thing than I am."

"But you have to get some practice. Just match orbital velocity; it shouldn't be difficult. Edge her in until we're half a kilometer off target, then put her back on automatic . . . ." He transferred his attention to the NST

transceiver. "Little Sister to Epsilon Scorpii . . . ."

"Eppy Scorpy to Little Sister. I read you."

A slightly effeminate voice, thought Grimes. Some very junior officer, he decided, not an old retired captain augmenting his pension with a shipkeeper's salary. (But he had been a shipkeeper himself although he had been neither old nor retired. He had needed the money.)

"Is your airlock ready?" he asked. "We will board as soon as we're suited up."

"Opening outer door now," came the reply.

Little Sister was on station, maintaining the correct distance off. In the cabin Pinnett was getting into his spacesuit; it was obviously not the first time that he had been required to wear such a garment. Yosarian, however, required assistance to get into the especially large outfit that had been borrowed for him. When the roboticist was at last suited up Grimes got into his own space armor. He realized, once he had sealed himself in the garment, that it was not the one that he had regarded as his own while he had been Little Sister's owner and master. The last person to have used it must have been Tamara Haverstock; after all this time a trace of her perfume still persisted. He allowed his memories briefly to take over his mind. Who else had worn this suit? Only Tamara, he decided-and she, now, was no more than a recollection of somebody whom he would never see again, any more than he would ever see again those other lost ladies-Jane Pentecost, Fenella Pruin, Shirl, Darleen, Susie, Una Freeman . . . . I must be wanting a woman, he thought, if it takes no more than a fugitive whiff of scent to start me wandering down memory lane . . . .

"Are you all right, Skipper?" asked Williams sharply, his voice distorted but still recognizable as it came from the helmet speaker. The big man had seated himself in the chair vacated by Yosarian, was speaking into the NST

transceiver microphone.

"Of course, Mr. Williams," said Grimes. He added, lamely, "I was just thinking." He continued, speaking briskly, "All right. You're in charge until we get back. We're locking out now."

The small airlock could accommodate two persons-but not when one of the pair was as bulky as Yosarian. Grimes and Pinnett, therefore, went out first after Grimes had told the roboticist that, according to protocol, he, as captain, should be last out of the ship. Before long the three men were hanging outside Little Sister's golden hull, staring at the great hulk of Epsilon Scorpii gleaming against the backdrop of stars. Sunlight was reflected from most of her shell but the open airlock door was in shadow. That was all to the good; it made it much easier to see the bright green light that illuminated the chamber.

"Grimes to Pinnett. Go!" ordered Grimes.

Pinnett went. He handled himself not unskillfully, launching himself into the void with an economically short blast from his suit reaction unit, making only one trajectory adjustment before he braked himself just outside the open airlock door. Grimes watched him, his figure in black silhouette against the green illumination, as he pulled himself into the chamber.

"You next, Mr. Yosarian," said Grimes.

"I . . . I don't think . . . ." Then, in a burst of embarrassed frankness, "This is the first time that I've done this sort of thing . . . ."

"So we take no risks," said Grimes.

He positioned himself behind the fat man, put both gloved hands on the other's armored shoulders, took a firm grip.

He said, "Whatever you do, don't touch your reaction-unit controls. I don't want a hole blasted in my belly. Just relax . . . ."

Pushing Yosarian before him, he jetted toward Epsilon Scorpii. The short flight was a clumsy one. He was grateful that there were not many witnesses. He managed to turn around when halfway to his objective, fired a short braking blast. He missed the open doorway, fetched up with a clang on the ship's side a meter from the rim. Fortunately Pinnett was spaceman enough-like most of the Interstellar Transport Commission's managers he had done his stint as a ship's purser-to extend a helping hand, pulling Grimes and his bulky, ungainly tow into the chamber.

There was ample room for all of them in the airlock and they were able to get themselves sorted out, all standing the same way up, their magnetically soled boots holding them to the deck. The outer door closed and the illumination changed from green to red, indicating that they were in a hard vacuum environment. It acquired a yellowish tinge, became amber, showing that atmosphere was being fed into the chamber. It became green once more.

The inner door opened.

The shipkeeper was waiting to receive them.

She spoke into the little transceiver that she was wearing on her left wrist.

"Come in," she said sourly. "This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard. I hope that one of you is an engineer. The autochef is playing up again. I've lost count of the number of times that I've reported it. And isn't it time that I got some new spools for the playmaster? And . . . ."

Grimes stared at her. She was wearing a well-filled T-shirt and very short shorts. The sandals on her rather large feet were secured by string, the original straps being no more than broken ends. Her free-floating hair made a dingy green halo about her head. A pair of vividly green eyes glared at the boarders. Even her skin-and there was plenty of it on view-had a greenish tinge. She would have been a good-looking enough wench, thought Grimes, had she been cleaner (to judge from the state of her shirt and even her face she was a messy feeder), had her expression been less surly. But even after a bath and looking happy she would have been too strong featured to suit his taste in women.

A Donegalan, he decided. (He had visited New Donegal once, during his career in the Survey Service.) Human ancestry, but with a slight genetic drift from the norm. A woman-dominated society. No spaceships of Donegalan registry but, each year, a few promising girls sent to the Antarctic Academy on Earth-where the Commandant and his officers made sure that none of them did well enough to graduate into the Survey Service. Most of them, however, did qualify for entry into the Interstellar Transport Commission and other shipping lines. There was more than male chauvinism involved in the Academy's attitude toward the Donegalans. They were notorious for always carrying chips on their shoulders, and such an attitude on the part of junior officers could seriously impair the efficient running of a warship.

Faceplates were opened.

"Ms. Connellan," said Pinnett, "this is Captain Grimes." Grimes nodded.

"And Mr. Yosarian . . . ." The roboticist managed, even in his bulky spacesuit, a quite courtly bow. Pinnett went on, "Ms. Connellan is one of our second officers . . . ."

"Demoted to watchperson," she snarled. "I've a Master's ticket-and this is the best job that the bloody Commission can find for me!"

"Shipkeeping officer," Pinnett corrected her. "With very generous hard-lying money over and above your salary."

"Which I earn, in this rustbucket where damn all works the way that it should!"

"What exactly is not working, Ms. Connellan?" asked Grimes pleasantly.

"The autochef, for a start. And the NST transceiver only works if you know just where to give it a clout. You were lucky that it wasn't on the blink when you came up from Port Southern; the last time that you condescended to call on me, Mr. Pinnett, you had to hammer on the control-room viewports to attract my attention. Then, a couple of days ago, I tried to actuate the Carlotti transceiver, just so that I could find out what ships are around. It just spat sparks at me and died. Oh, and just to pass the time I've been browsing through the logs. It seems that Captain Taine had one helluva job establishing this wreck in orbit. I know that he's not the best ship handler in the universe but the fact that the innies were playing up made him even worse than usual. And . . . ."

"That will do, Ms. Connellan," snarled Pinnett. "That will do!"

"Like hell it will. What about the nutrient pumps for the tissue culture vats?

I've had to dump the lamb and the beef and the pork. Would you like chicken for every meal?"

"That will do!"

"It will not do, Mr. Pinnett. I demand that you find me a deep space appointment."

"I am not the Commission's astronautical superintendent, Ms. Connellan."

"Too right you're not. But you're a planetary manager, aren't you?

Somebody in the top office must listen to you sometimes."

"Captain Grimes," said Pinnett, trying hard to ignore the irate shipkeeper,

"may I suggest that we start the tour of inspection?"

"It's what we came here for," said Grimes. "Ms. Connellan, will you lead the way? We'll start in the control room and work aft."

"Are you really thinking of buying this . . . thing?" asked the girl interestedly. "You must have more money than sense." Perhaps I have, thought Grimes. Perhaps it's always been that way, even when I've been flat broke.

* * *

Grimes was glad that Yosarian had come along. Even though the roboticist was not an astronautical engineer he knew machines; too, there was his keen interest in spaceships.

"The people who were here," he complained, "just did not care. All over there is lack of proper attention . . . ."

"I should have been given the time to get the shore gang up here to do some cleaning up," said Pinnett stiffly.

Yosarian ignored him as he continued his inspection of one of the offending pumps on the farm deck.

"Look at this!" he spluttered. "Every lubrication point clogged! Small wonder that it seized up . . . ." He stared reproachfully at the woman. "Surely even you should have seen what was the trouble."

"I'm employed as a shipkeeping officer," she snapped, "not as a mechanic!" Yosarian shook his head sadly. "But your own comfort . . . . Your own safety, even . . . ."

"I've told you that I'm not an engineer."

"That is glaringly obvious," he said.

"Mr. Pinnett," she demanded, "did you bring this man here to insult me?"

"But this is Mr. Yosarian," said Pinnett.

"And so what? Am I supposed to fire a twenty-one-gun salute? But if there were any guns in this ship they wouldn't be working, any more than the pumps are."

"So the pumps aren't working," snarled Pinnett. "You are at least partly responsible for that."

"The butterfly-brained Terry apes who were the alleged engineers of this scow on her last voyage were responsible, and you know it!"

"Let's get on with the inspection," said Grimes tiredly. Throughout the ship it was the same story, a glaring example of the "she'll be all right" principle carried to extremes. There were many things, such as those nutrient pumps, that Ms. Connellan could have put right. And, with all the time on her hands, she might have done something about the state of the inertial drive room. Hasty repairs of some kind seemed to have been carried out at the very conclusion of the voyage while the ship was being established in parking orbit-and then the tools employed had not been returned to their clips but had been carelessly dropped, were now, in these free fall conditions, drifting around dangerously in the air eddies set up by the body movements of the inspection party.

Grimes began to round up the wandering spanners and such, returning them to their proper places on the shadow board. Yosarian assisted. Although the roboticist was not used to working in the absence of gravity, he could not bear to see machinery neglected.

Neither Ms. Connellan nor Pinnett made any attempt to lend a hand. Farther aft it was discovered that one of the propellant tanks for the auxiliary reaction drive had been leaking; that level would have been a suitable habitat for goldfish but not for human beings.

"If I am going to buy this ship," said Grimes, "I shall require new certificates of spaceworthiness."

"But the last annual survey," the manager told him, "was only five standard months ago."

"Then a lot happened in that five months," said Grimes. "And one helluva lot, in the way of maintenance, didn't happen!"

* * *

Back at his hotel in Port Southern Grimes conferred with Billy Williams and Magda Granadu.

"Pinnett will come down in price," he said. "But it was just as well that we had Yosarian along as a sort of independent witness. He can bring some pressure to bear."

"I'm sorry that I didn't get to meet that shipkeeping officer," said Williams.

"To judge from what I heard of her on the NST radio it's a bloody good thing that she doesn't come with the ship!"

"I've shipped with Donegalans," said Magda. "They're bitter, resentful. On New Donegal they're on top. They're just not used to accepting men as equals, let along superiors. Too, this Connellan woman knows that the shipkeeping job was just the Commission's way of sweeping her under the carpet."

"Well," Grimes said, "they'll just have to find her another deep-space posting when they sell the ship from around her." He grinned. "And may the Odd Gods of the Galaxy help the unfortunate master who gets saddled with her!"

Chapter 5

The details of the sale were ironed out with surprising ease and for a sum quite a bit lower than the original asking price. Yosarian pulled considerable Gs on his home world and even the mighty Interstellar Transport Commission listened when he talked. One of his engineers, an ex-spacer, went out to Epsilon Scorpii to make sure that the ship's inertial drive was in proper working order, then acted as engine-room chief while Grimes, assisted by Bill Williams, brought the vessel down to the spaceport. (During this operation Ms. Connellan made it quite clear that she was employed as a shipkeeping officer only and was not required to lend a hand with any maneuvers.)

So Grimes had his "new" ship sitting on the apron, handy to the spaceport workshops whose facilities he was using. The obnoxious Ms. Connellan was no longer on board; she had left, with her baggage, as soon as the ramp was down. It was now up to Pinnett and the Commission to find for her suitable employment.

The next four weeks were busy ones. Grimes and Williams went through the ship from stem to stern with the Lloyd's and Interstellar Federal surveyors, pointing out the things that needed doing while Pinnett, who had reluctantly agreed that the Commission would bear the cost of making the vessel spaceworthy, tried to argue that many of the proposed repairs were only of a cosmetic nature. The trouble was that the Federation surveyor tended to side with him, saying more than once to Grimes, "You aren't in the Survey Service now, Captain. This isn't a warship, you know." Grimes got his way (he usually did) but it was costing him much more than he had anticipated. For example, he had been obliged to foot the bill for making the auxiliary reaction drive fully operational, such an additional means of propulsion being no longer mandatory for merchant vessels. The charge for the work involved was not a small one.

He had been temporarily rich but he was no longer so; what money had been left after the purchase of Epsilon Scorpii was fast being whittled away. If his luck ran out again he would be back where he started-only instead of having a golden white elephant on his hands it would be one constructed of more conventional and far less valuable materials. Nonetheless he felt an upsurge of pride when she was renamed. To have the new nomenclature fabricated in golden letters was a needless extravagance but one that pleased him. It was a tribute to Big Sister, the almost too human computer-pilot of The Far Traveler. It was also a sort of memento of Little Sister. As for the second half of the name, it was just there because it went naturally with the first, Grimes told himself-although the lady so commemorated was part of what he was already thinking of as the Little Sister period of his life and about the only one from whom he had not broken off in acrimonious circumstances.

SISTER SUE . . . .

He stood on the apron looking up at his ship, at the golden name on the gray hull gleaming brightly in the afternoon sunlight. Williams joined him there.

"Very pretty, Skipper," he commented. Then, "Who was Sue?"

"Just a girl," said Grimes.

"She must have been somebody special to get a ship named after her . . .

." Williams shuffled his big feet, then went on, "I'm afraid I've bad news for you, Skipper."

"What now?" demanded Grimes. "What now?" This was too much, he thought. He now had, not without a struggle, a spaceworfhy ship, a sturdy workhorse, and all that he needed was a little bit of luck to make a go of things.

What had happened to his famous luck?

"It's the manning, Skipper," Williams said. "We're all right for engineers. We've old Crumley lined up; he's a bit senile but he's qualified, a double-headed Chief's ticket, inertial drive and reaction drive. For the Mannschenn Drive there's Professor Malleson. He passed for Mannschenn Chief before he came ashore to go teaching. As I told you before, he's taking his sabbatical leave from the university. Also from the university there'll be a couple of bright young Ph.D.s. to act as his juniors. And we've a Sparks, another old-timer, retired years ago but wanting to get back into space . . . ."

"So what's the trouble?"

"In the control room, Skipper. According to the Manning Scale we should have three control-room watchkeeping officers-although we can lift with only two as long as we get a permit. Well, you've got me, as mate. You should have got old Captain Binns-he used to be in the Dog Star Line-as second mate. But he got mashed in a ground-car accident last night. At his age it'll be at least six months before he's grown a new left arm and right leg."

"There are times," said Grimes, "when I strongly suspect that the Odd Gods of the Galaxy don't like me. So Binns is out. Is there nobody on this benighted planet to fill the gap?"

"Well, er, yes. There is."

"So what's all this talk of bad news?"

"The Green Hornet," said Williams, "has let it be known that she's had the Interstellar Transport Commission in a big way."

"The Green Hornet?"

"Kate Connellan. 'Green Hornet' is her company nickname. Anyhow, she had a knock-down-and-drag-'em-out row with Pinnett. She resigned-about a microsecond before Pinnett could fire her. And, as far as we're concerned, she's qualified and she's available."

"Oh," said Grimes. "Oh."

Could he possibly afford to wait until somebody more suitable turned up?

He could not, he decided. He had been lucky enough to have a consignment of government cargo offered to him, but if he could not lift it by the specified date somebody else would be found to do the job.

"She has a master's ticket," said Williams.

"But she's still an eleven-trip officer," said Grimes.

"Eleven trips, Skipper? How do you make that out?"

"One out and one home," Grimes told him.

Chapter 6

Articles were opened.

Grimes, having done all the autographing required of him in his capacity as captain, stood behind the counter in the shipping office, watching his officers affixing their signatures to the agreement while the shipping master checked their qualifications and last discharges, if any. Billy Williams was the first to sign. He said cheerfully, "I'll get back on board, Skipper. They should be just about ready to start the loading." Magda Granadu signed and followed the mate out of the office, Mr. Crumley, a frail, white-bearded, bald-headed old man, produced one of the old-fashioned certificates bound in plastic rather than in flexisteel and a discharge book held together with adhesive tape.

"You'll find that times have changed since you were Chief of the Far Centaurus, Mr. Crumley," said the shipping master cheerfully.

"A ship's a ship and engines are engines, aren't they?" grumbled the ancient spaceman.

His three juniors signed. They possessed neither certificates nor discharge books, only diplomas from the Port Southern College of Technology. One of them, Denning, had been employed by Yosarian Robotics, the other two, Singh and Paulus, by the Intracity Transit Corporation. They were squat, swarthy, youngish men who could almost have been triplets-competent mechanics, thought Grimes snobbishly, rather than officers. Malleson, looking every inch the gray-haired, untidy, stooping, absent-minded professor, signed. His two juniors, tall young men, briskly competent, with fashionably shaven heads and heavily black-rimmed spectacles, signed.

Old Mr. Stewart, the electronic communications officer, signed. His certificate and discharge book were as antique as Mr. Crumley's. Shave his head, thought Grimes, and stick the hair on his chin and he'd be old Crumley's double . . . .

"You don't have a doctor, Captain?" asked the shipping master.

"I've got three," said Grimes. "Ph.D.s."

"Ha ha. But you have tried to find one, haven't you? A medical doctor, I mean. So I'll issue you a permit to sanction your lifting off undermanned. You realize, of course, that you'll have to pay your crew an extra ten credits each a day in lieu of medical services . . . . Cheer up, Captain. You'll be getting it too."

"But I'll be paying it," growled Grimes. "Out of one pocket and into the other."

"Ha ha! Of course. It's not very often that I get masters who are also owners in here. In fact the only one before you was a Captain Kane. I don't suppose you've ever run across him." Grimes said nothing and the shipping master, who was checking the entries in the Articles of Agreement, did not see his expression. "H'm. We were talking of permits, weren't we? I take it that you still haven't been able to find a third mate . . . . And where is your second mate, by the way?"

"She was told what time she was to be here," said Grimes.

"She?" echoed the shipping master, looking at the preliminary crew list.

"Oh. The Green Hornet. But I thought that she was with the Commission."

"She was."

"And now you've got her. Do me a favor, will you, Captain. Don't bring her back to Port Southern. I'll never forget the fuss she kicked up when she was paid off from Delta Crucis, threatening to sue the Commission, the Department of Interstellar Shipping and the Odd Gods of the Galaxy alone know who else! To begin with she was screaming wrongful dismissal-but, of course she wasn't being dismissed but transferred. To Epsilon Scorpii. Then there was a mistake in her pay sheet-twenty cents, but you'd have thought it was twenty thousand credits. And-"

Grimes looked at his watch.

"I certainly wish that I didn't have to have her," he said. "But I have to. Where is the bitch?"

"Do you know where she's staying?"

"Some place called The Rusty Rocket."

"Cheap," sneered the shipping master. "And nasty. You can use my phone, Captain, to check up on her. They might know where she's got to." He showed Grimes through to his private office, seated him at the desk. He told Grimes the number to punch. The screen came alive and a sour-faced blonde looked out at them.

"The Rusty Rocket?" asked Grimes.

"This certainly ain't The Polished Projectile. Waddya want?"

"Is a Ms. Connellan staying with you?"

"She was. She won't be again. Ever."

"Where is she now?"

"In the right place for her. Jail. I hope they throw away the key." After a little prodding Grimes got the story. The previous night there had been a nasty brawl in the barroom of The Rusty Rocket, the focus of which had been Kate Connellan. There had been damage, injuries. The police had been called. Arrests had been made.

Grimes thanked the woman and disconnected.

He said to the shipping master, "Now I suppose I'll have to pay her fine or bail or whatever." He sighed. "More expense."

"I'm afraid that's out of the question, Captain. In the old days the police authorities were only too pleased to get rid of drunken spacers as soon as possible-but not anymore. Not since the new Commissioner was appointed. Now any spacer who makes a nuisance of himself-or herself-is given a stiff sentence and has to serve it. Every minute of it."

Grimes sighed again. He owed no loyalty to the troublesome Ms. Connellan, he told himself. Had her name been on his Articles she would have been one of his people-but she had not yet signed.

He said hopefully, "I see no reason why I shouldn't lift off with only the mate and myself as control-room watchkeepers. After all, in Little Sister there was only me. I was the cook and the captain bold . . . ."

"Regulations," the shipping master told him. "A vessel of Little Sister's tonnage is classified as a spaceyacht, even though she may be gainfully employed. Your Epsilon Scorpii-sorry, Sister Sue-is a ship. The manning scale calls for a master and three mates. I can issue a permit to allow you to lift with only two mates. But you may not, repeat not, lift with only one qualified control-room officer in addition to yourself."

"And I must lift on time," muttered Grimes. "If I don't the penalty clauses in the charter party will beggar me." He filled and lit his pipe, puffed furiously. "Do you think that if I made a personal appeal to this Police Commissioner of yours, putting all my cards on the table, it might help?"

"It might," said the shipping master. "It might-but the Commissioner has a down on spacers. Your guild has already lodged complaints-which have been ignored. Still, you can try. As long as you watch your language you should be able to stay out of jail."

Grimes borrowed the telephone again and ordered a cab.

In a short time he was on his way from the spaceport to the city.

* * *

Like most of the other buildings in Port Southern, that housing Police Headquarters was a pyramid. But it was not a tall, graceful one, all gleaming metal and glittering glass, but squat and ugly. The material used for its construction looked like dark gray stone although it was probably some plastic.

Grimes walked in through the frowning main entrance, approached a desk behind which a heavily built man, with silver sergeant's stripes on the sleeves of his severe black uniform, was seated.

"Your business, citizen?" asked the police officer.

"I wish to see the Commissioner."

"Your name, citizen?"

"Grimes," said Grimes. "Captain Grimes."

"A spacer, eh? The Commissioner doesn't like spacers." The sergeant laughed briefly. "In fact . . . ."

A bell chimed softly from the telephone set on the desk. A female voice-that of a secretary, Grimes supposed, although it was oddly familiar-said, "Send Captain Grimes up, sergeant." The policeman raised his heavy eyebrows in surprise. He growled, "So the Commissioner will see you. What have you got that all the other spacers haven't? The elevators are over there, citizen. The Commissioner's office is on the top floor." He laughed again. "The apex of our pyramid." Grimes thanked the man, walked to the bank of elevators. As he approached the indicator, lights showed that a cage was descending. The door opened as he got to it. There was nobody inside. The door closed again as soon as he had entered and the lift started to rise before he could touch the button of his choice.

Service, he thought. With a smile?

The car stopped gently. The door opened. Grimes stepped out. The walls of the apex of the police pyramid were all glass, overhead automatically polarized to reduce the glare of the sun. There were elaborate arrays of screens, some of which displayed ever-changing pictures while in others numerals flickered into and out of being. There was a big desk behind which was sitting a woman, a large woman in black and silver uniform with what looked like commodore's braid on her shoulderboards.

She looked at Grimes. Grimes looked at her. Beneath her glossy brown hair, short cut, the face was too strong for prettiness, the cheekbones pronounced, the pale-lipped mouth wide over rather too much jaw.

"Una . . ." he said softly. "Long time no see."

"Commissioner Freeman," she corrected him harshly. "I knew, of course, that you were on this planet but I was able, quite successfully, to fight down the urge to renew our old . . . acquaintanceship. But now that you have come to see me I let my curiosity get the better of me.

"And what do you want? Make it quick. I'm a busy woman."

"I didn't know that you were the Police Commissioner here, Una. When did you leave the Corps of Sky Marshals? How . . . ."

"This isn't a social call, Grimes. What do you want?"

"Your men, Una . . . ." She glared at him. He started again. "Your men, Commissioner Freeman, arrested one of my officers. I'd like her back. I'm willing to pay her fine." He added hastily, "Within reason, of course."

"One of your officers, Grimes? The only spacer at present in our cells is a known troublemaker, a Kate Connellan, whose most recent employment was with the Interstellar Transport Commission. She faces charges of assaulting a police officer, occasioning bodily harm. There are three such charges. Also to be considered, and compensated for, is the damage done to the uniforms of those officers. There are five charges of assaulting civilians. There are charges of violent and abusive behavior. There are charges of damage to property-mainly furniture and fittings of The Rusty Rocket. Need I go on?"

"It seems enough to be going on with," admitted Grimes glumly.

"But how is it that you can claim that this person is one of your officers, Captain Grimes?"

"I opened Articles today, Commissioner Freeman. Ms. Connellan was supposed to sign on as second mate. I'll be frank. She wouldn't have been my choice but she was the only qualified officer available."

"Still the male chauvinist pig, Grimes, aren't you?"

"Her sex has nothing to do with my reluctance to employ her. And, in any case, I must have her if I'm to lift off on time."

"You should have kept that little Sister of yours. To judge from my experiences while under your command-ha, ha!-a glorified lifeboat is just about the limit of your capabilities. But you had to have a big ship, didn't you? Epsilon Scorpii-or Sister Sue, as you've renamed her. Who was Sue, by the way?"

"Just a girl," said Grimes.

"Spoken like a true male chauvinist pig. I hope that she has happier memories of you than I have. Even now I can't force myself to eat baked beans. And as for bicycles . . . ."

"You can't blame me for either," said Grimes hotly.

"Can't I? Well, after that most peculiar mess that you got me into I was allergic to space as well as to beans and bicycles. I resigned from the Corps-although I'm still supposed to be on their reserve list. And I've found that useful. Sky Marshals poll heavy Gs with most of the planetary police forces."

"So when you came here you started at the top," said Grimes as nastily as he dared.

"Not at the top, although my having been a Sky Marshal entitled me to inspector's rank. After that my promotion was strictly on merit."

"Local girl makes good," said Grimes.

"Do you want to be arrested too? I can soon think of a few charges. Insulting behavior to a police officer for a start . . . ."

"I can see that I'm wasting my time," said Grimes. He turned to walk back to the transparent tube in the center of the room that housed the elevator.

"Hold it, Grimes!"

Grimes halted in mid-stride, turned to face Una Freeman.

"Yes, Commissioner?"

"I am disposed to be lenient. Not to you, Captain, but to Ms. Connellan. I have heard accounts of what actually happened at The Rusty Rocket. She was provoked. You aren't the only male chauvinist pig around, you know. It is unfortunate that she attacked my officers after dealing with those . . . men who had been taunting her. Nonetheless she is not a very nice person. I shall be happy if she is removed from this planet.

"Pay her fines to the desk sergeant on your way out and she will be released to your custody. Bear in mind that you will be responsible for her good conduct for the remainder of her stay on this world."

"Thank you," said Grimes.

She laughed harshly and asked, "Will you still thank me after you've been cooped up in a ship with The Green Hornet for a few weeks? Am I doing you a good turn, Grimes? Think that if you want. But I sincerely hope that by the time you get to Earth you'll have changed your tiny mind!" Grimes stood there silently, looking at her. He remembered how things had been between them before everything had turned sour. He remembered the long weeks in the accommodation dome of that unmanned beacon station, the continual bickerings, the monotonous diet of baked beans, with which delicacy the emergency food stores had been fantastically well stocked. It was a pity that things had gone so badly wrong. He, for a while at least, had loved her after his fashion. She had reciprocated. But when the beacon tender, making its leisurely rounds, had finally arrived to pick them up they were no longer on speaking terms.

Even so . . . .

"Thank you," he said again.

"For nothing," she growled and then, ignoring him, began to study the papers on her desk.

She ignored his good-bye as he left her.

Chapter 7

The Desk Sergeant must have been given his orders while Grimes was on the way down from the Commissioner's office. There were forms ready for signing. There was a receipt book.

"What have you got that other spacers haven't, citizen?" he asked. "But as long as you've got money that's all that really matters. Ha, ha. Now, the fines . . . . Grievous bodily harm to the persons of three police officers at five hundred credits a time . . . . That's fifteen hundred. Replacement of one complete uniform . . . . One hundred and seven credits and fifteen cents . . . . Repairs and dry cleaning to two other uniforms . . . . Twenty-three credits fifty . . . . Medical services to the assaulted officers . .

. . One hundred and fifty credits . . . . Riotous behavior, breach of the peace etc . . . . Two hundred and fifty credits. One night's board and lodging in our palatial cells . . . . One hundred and twenty-five credits. Ten percent service charge . . . . Two hundred and fifteen credits and fifty-seven cents. Making a total of two thousand, three hundred and seventy-one credits and twenty-two cents."

"Is there no discount for cash?" asked Grimes sarcastically. The policeman ignored this.

"A check will be acceptable," he said, "or any of the major credit cards." Grimes pulled out his checkbook and looked at the stubs. He was one of those people who prefer to keep their own accounts rather than put himself at the mercy of the computers. He was still quite a way from being flat broke. He made out a check for the required amount, signed it and handed it over, was given a receipt in exchange.

"And now, citizen, if you'll sign these . . . ." These were official forms, and by affixing his autograph to them he made himself entirely responsible for Ms. Connellan during the remainder of her stay on Austral. He would be liable for any debts that she had incurred. He would be liable, too, for any further fines, for the costs of any civil actions brought against her and so on and so on and so on.

Una Freeman was striking a very hard bargain. It was a seller's market. He signed.

When he straightened up from the desk he turned to see that the Green Hornet, escorted by two policewomen who looked even tougher than herself, had been brought up from the cells. She was not a prepossessing sight. One of her eyes had been blackened. Her green hair was in a tangle. Her clothing was soiled and torn.

She scowled at Grimes.

She said sullenly, "I suppose you're expecting me to thank you. But you're only helping yourself, aren't you? We both know that."

"That's the way of it," said Grimes. "And now we'll get you to the Shipping Office to sign on, and then you'll report straightaway to the chief officer, aboard the ship. He'll find you a job to keep you out of mischief."

"What about my gear?" she demanded. "All my things are still at The Rusty Rocket. I can't join a ship without so much as a toothbrush or change of underwear."

"We'll stop off on the way to the Shipping Office," Grimes told her. There was a public telephone in this ground-floor office. Grimes used it to order a cab. He said a polite good day to the sergeant and the two female constables then went outside to wait, almost pushing Ms. Connellan ahead of him. He realized that he was afraid that Una Freeman might change her mind and was anxious to remove himself from close proximity to her as soon as possible.

The Green Hornet asked him for a cigarette. He told her that he did not use them. He produced and filled his pipe, lit it. She snarled at him, saying,

"It's all right for you."

He told her, "Just stand to leeward of me and you'll be getting a free smoke." She snarled at him again, wordlessly.

The cab came. Grimes got in beside the driver so that she could sit in solitary state on the back seat. The ride to The Rusty Rocket was made in silence; the driver, unrepresentative of his breed, was not a conversationalist and Ms. Connellan seemed to be sulking. This suited Grimes, who was in no mood to be ear-bashed.

They arrived at the shabby hostelry, a small, pyramidal building with functionless vanes giving it a faint similitude to an archaic spaceship. Grimes asked the driver to wait for them. He and the Green Hornet went inside.

* * *

There were unpleasantries.

Ms. Connellan did not have-or said that she did not have-the money to pay her bill. Grimes had been expecting that. What he had not been expecting was to be presented with another bill, a heavy one, to cover repairs to the replacement of various pieces of equipment and furniture. It was obvious, he was obliged to admit, that the playmaster had had its face smashed in, and recently. On the other hand the thing looked as though it had been on the point of dying of old age when it had been put out of its misery. There were two broken bar stools. There was a dent in the stained surface of the bar. There was a bin of broken bottles which, according to the sour-faced manageress, had been swept off the shelves behind the bar by the berserk Green Hornet.

"Did you do this damage?" asked Grimes exasperatedly.

"I did not!" snapped Ms. Connellan.

"She did!" yelped the manageress. "Like a wild beast she was! Screaming and shouting . . . ."

"I had to scream to make myself heard! I had to fight to defend myself!"

"If there was a fight, you started it!"

"I did not!" She turned to Grimes. "Pay no heed to her, Captain. She's lying like a flatfish!"

"Lying, you say, you deceptive bitch! Who's lying, I ask. Not me. And I'm holding on to your bags until I'm paid for all the wanton destruction!"

"You'll let me have my baggage," snarled the Green Hornet, advancing threateningly on the landlady, "or . . ."

"Ladies, ladies," admonished Grimes, interposing himself between them.

"Ladies . . . ." sneered Ms. Connellan. "I'll thank you not to tack that archaic label on to me!"

"She admits it!" jeered the other woman. "She's no lady!"

"Who are you calling no lady, you vinegar-pussed harridan? I'll . . . ."

"You will not!" almost shouted Grimes, pushing Ms. Connellan to one side before she could strike the manager. "Now, listen to me! Unless you behave yourself I'll put you in the hands of the police again. The Commissioner's an old friend of mine . . . ." (Well, she had been a friend, and rather more than a friend, once, a long time ago.) "I'll ask her to keep you under lock and key until I'm ready to lift ship. And as for you, madam . . . ."

"Don't talk to me like that, buster. I'm not one of your crew."

"Can I see that bill again, madam?" She thrust the sheet of dirty and crumpled paper at him. "Mphm. I see that you're charging for a new playmaster. And that I am not paying. One quarter of the sum you've put down should buy a good second-hand one, one far better than that . . . wreck. The bar stools? I'll let that pass, although I still think that you're overcharging. The dent in the bar? No. That's an old damage, obviously. And now, all these bottles . . . . Were they all full bottles? I'll not believe that, madam. I note, too, that you've charged retail price. Don't you buy your liquor at wholesale rates?"

"I'm an honest woman, mister!"

"Tell that to the Police Commissioner," said Grimes. "I've no doubt that she's already well acquainted with your honesty." He began to feed figures into his wrist companion. "One second-hand playmaster . . . . I've seen them going for as-low as one hundred credits, quite good ones . . . . Six bottles of Scotch at four credits each wholesale . . . . Twenty-four credits . .

. . But as they were almost certainly no more than half full, that makes it twelve credits . . . ." He raised his eyebrows. "Brandy, at twenty-four credits a bottle? Even as a retail price that's steep."

"Either you pay," said the woman stubbornly, "or I call the police."

"Do just that," Grimes told her. "As I've said already, Commissioner Freeman is an old friend of mine."

"Like hell she is. She hates spacers."

"In general, yes. But in particular? Ask yourself why she released Ms. Connellan to my custody, although usually she insists that spacers serve their full sentences, with ho fines and no bail."

"All right," said the woman suddenly. "All right. I'll take your word for what you say you owe me. Just don't come back in here again, ever. And tell that green bitch of yours to keep clear of my premises."

"Who are you calling a green bitch, you draggle-tailed slut?" screamed Kate Connellan. "I'll . . . ."

"You will not!" snapped Grimes. "Collect your bags and put them in the cab. And now, madam, if you'll make out a receipt for two hundred and ten credits . . . . That covers the playmaster, the bar stools and a very generous estimate of the cost of liquor lost by breakage." Check and receipt changed hands.

Grimes went out to the waiting cab in which the Green Hornet, two battered cases on the seat beside her, was sullenly established. He got in beside the driver, told him to carry on to the spaceport.

Chapter 8

The cab brought them into the spaceport, to the foot of Sister Sue's ramp. Grimes was pleased to see that the loading ramps had been set up around his ship, that already streams of crates and cases were being whisked up from the apron to the yawning cargo ports. This was real freight, he thought, not the little parcels of luxury goods that he had been carrying in Little Sister. He could read the consignee's title stenciled on each package: SURVEY SERVICE RECORDS, PORT WOOMERA.) There had once been a major Survey Service Base on Austral, which had been degraded to a Sub-Base. Finally, only a short while ago, it had been closed down altogether. The transport Robert A. Heinlein had lifted off personnel and all the really important stores and equipment. There had been no great hurry for the rest of the stuff, mainly records going back almost to man's first landing on Earth's moon, until the warehouse accommodating the material was required for a factory site.

So perhaps, thought Grimes, this was not real freight after all, except in terms of tonnage. Anybody with any sense would have ordered all that junk destroyed-but the Survey Service, as well he knew, was a breeding ground for planet-based bureaucrats whose dusty files were the temples of whatever odd gods they worshipped.

Nonetheless he had been lucky to get this cargo.

Quite fantastically it had tied in with Magda Granadu's reading of the I Ching. She had thrown the coins and constructed a hexagram on the afternoon of the day that Grimes had renamed the ship. Huan, it had been. Dispersion. There will be progress and success. The king visits his ancestral temple. It will be advantageous to cross the great water and to act with firm persistence. And in the first line there had been the reference to "a strong horse"-and the Epsilon Class tramps had long been known as the sturdy workhorses of the Interstellar Transport Commission. Yet Grimes had been dubious, at first, about the wisdom of carrying that cargo to those consignees. He had left the Survey Service under a cloud, had resigned hastily before he could be brought to face a court-martial. But, apart from the obnoxious Delamere's attempt to drag him back to Lindisfarne Base from Botany Bay, there had been no moves made to arrest him, although more than once, as a civilian shipmaster, he had been in contact with Survey Service vessels and personnel.

He had gone to Captain Taberner, Resident Secretary of the Astronauts'

Guild on Austral, for advice.

"Not to worry, Captain," that gentleman had told him. "You're one of ours now. We look after our own. You'll get the finest legal defense if-and it's a big 'if-the Admiralty takes any action against you. We fought an illegal arrest case a few years back-you may have heard about it-when some officious destroyer skipper seized a ship called Southerly Buster. Captain Kane's ship. You must have heard about him. Anyhow, we won and Drongo Kane was awarded very heavy damages."

So that was that, Grimes thought. If the Guild's legal eagles could save the bacon of an unsavory character like Kane they should be able to do at least as well by him.

He let the Green Hornet board first while he walked around the ship. He told her to report as soon as possible to Mr. Williams.

* * *

Finally he climbed the ramp to the after airlock, took the elevator to the No. 3 cargo compartment. Williams was there with a human foreman stevedore who was directing the spidery stowbots. The mate was harassed looking and his slate gray uniform shirt was dark with perspiration. "Tell those bloody tin spiders of yours," he was shouting, "that it's the heavy cases bottom stow and those flimsy crates on top!" He turned to face Grimes. "I had to chase the Green Hornet out of here. Her idea of stowage was big packages under and little packages over, regardless of weight." He switched to a falsetto voice. " 'That's the way that we always did it in the Commission . . . .' " He snorted. "It certainly ain't the way we did it in the Dog Star Line!"

"Where is she now?"

"I told her to make a check of the navigational equipment." Grimes left the mate attending to the stowage, carried on up to Control. There he found Ms. Connellan sulkily tinkering with the mass proximity indicator. She was still dressed as she had been when released from jail.

"Why aren't you in uniform?" he asked.

"What uniform am I supposed to wear?" she countered. "All my trappings are Interstellar Transport Commission."

"Then find out," he told her, "the name of a local uniform tailor. Mr. Williams should know. Get on the telephone and order full sets of uniform trappings for all hands."

"Including you, Captain?"

"Not including me."

Some time in the past Grimes had had his own Far Traveler Couriers insignia made up-the cap badge a stylized rider on a galloping horse, in silver, with two golden comets as the surround; the same horse and rider, but in gold, over the four gold stripes on his epaulets. When he could afford it he would put his people into Far Traveler Couriers uniform but it could wait.

"I suppose you know, sir," said Ms. Connellan, the tone of her voice implying that he didn't, "that the shipowner is responsible for supplying his personnel, at his expense, with uniform trappings."

"I know," said Grimes.

After she left him he began to reassemble the MPI. Luckily she had done no more than to remove the hemispherical cover.

A spacelawyer . . . he thought.

In any astronautical service, naval or mercantile, such are crosses that their commanding officers have to bear.

Chapter 9

Yosarian came to see Grimes shortly before Sister Sue was scheduled to lift off. He was carrying a parcel, a gift-wrapped box. Grimes, taking it from him, was surprised at how heavy it was.

"Just a small gift, Captain," said the roboticist. "From myself, and from another . . . friend. I hope that you will like it."

"Thank you, Mr. Yosarian. But the other friend . . . ? Apart from you I don't have any friends on this planet."

The fat man laughed.

"Open the parcel," he said, "and you will see." Grimes put the package on his desk. The tinsel ribbon around it was tied with a bow that came undone at the first tug. The metallic paper fell away to reveal a box of polished mahogany with brass fittings. The two catches holding down the hinged lid were easy to manipulate. Inside the box was foam plastic packing. Grimes pulled it out carefully, saw the rich gleam of metal, of gold.

He stared at what was revealed. There was a tiny bicycle, perfect in every detail. Seated upon it was one of Yosarian's mechanical dolls, a miniature golden woman, naked and beautiful. He recognized her-or, more correctly, knew whom she represented.

"Una Freeman . . ." he murmured. "Commissioner Freeman."

"As I said, Captain, an old friend of yours. And a friend of mine for quite some years. A charming lady."

"Mphm."

"When I mentioned to her that I was going to give you one of my dolls as a farewell gift she said that she would like it to be from both of us. But I got the impression that the combination of naked lady and bicycle was some sort of private joke."

"At least she didn't ask you to include a golden can of baked beans. That's another private joke."

"But what is the meaning of this?" asked Yosarian. "I was able, easily, to make the lady and her steed to her specifications. But a bicycle . . . ?"

"Miss Freeman and I were working together. It was when she was a member of the Corps of Sky Marshals and while I was in the Survey Service. It's a long story; you must get her to tell it to you some time. But, fantastic as it may sound, the two of us were cast away on an almost desert planet with two bicycles for company. Mphm. Rather special bicycles."

"I gathered that."

Carefully Grimes lifted the exquisitely made models from the box, the little woman still sitting on the saddle, her tiny hands grasping the handlebar, her feet on the pedals. He set the toy-or the toys; he did not think that the assemblage was all in one piece-down onto the desk. He let go of it hastily when one foot lifted from the pedal, went down to make contact with the surface on which the bicycle was standing.

"It-she-is attuned to your voice, Captain," said Yosarian. "Tell her to ride around the desk top."

"Ride around the desk top," ordered Grimes dubiously. The golden foot was back on the golden pedal after giving a backward shove; both feet were on the pedals and the golden legs were working smoothly, up and down, up and down, and the golden filaments that were the wire spokes of the wheels glittered as they turned, slowly at first, and then became a gleaming, transparent blur.

Round the desk she rode, balancing on the very edge of its top, cutting no corners, faster and faster. And then she was actually over the edge with the wheels running on the shallow thickness of the rim, machine and rider no longer vertical to the deck but horizontal.

This was fascinating, but Grimes had to think about getting his ship upstairs in the very near future.

He asked, not taking his eyes from the fascinating golden figurine, "Are there batteries? How is she powered?"

"From any light source, natural or artificial."

"How do I stop her?"

"Just tell her, Captain."

Grimes restrained himself from saying Stop, realizing that if he did so the golden toy might fall to the desk, damaging itself.

"Back onto the desk top," he said. (Sometime, he thought, he must make a slow motion recording of that graceful gymnastic maneuvering.) "Back into the box." (The bicycle ran up the vertical side of the container with ease, hovered briefly in the air before plunging downward.) "Stop."

"You're getting the hang of it, Captain," said Yosarian.

"All I can say," said Grimes, "is thank you. Thank you very much."

"You should also thank Commissioner Freeman. The nature of the gift was her idea-and she was the model for part of it."

"Then thank her for me, please."

"I will do so." Yosarian got up from the chair on which he had been sitting.

"And now I must go. There is still work for me to do aboard my ship." He extended his hand. Grimes shook it. "Bon voyage, Captain. And good fortune. Oh, I have a message from the Commissioner. She told me to tell you that bicycles aren't always what they seem, and to remember that." Something seemed to be amusing him. "Bon voyage," he said again, and left.

Grimes pottered about his day cabin, making sure that all was secure. He lifted the box containing Yosarian's-and Una's-farewell gift down from the desk, stowed it in his big filing cabinet. (There was room for it; the ship, under her new ownership, had yet to accumulate stacks of incoming correspondence and copies of outgoing communications.) He made sure that the solidograph of Maggie Lazenby was secure on the shelf on which he had placed it while he was settling in. He would have to find a suitable site for Una and her bicycle, he thought; it would be a crime to leave her to languish unseen in the box. He remembered another gift from another woman, the miniature simulacrum of Susie. He remembered, too, the troubles that it had brought him. But the mini-Una, he told himself, for all her motility would be no more dangerous than the image of Maggie. His telephone buzzed. The fleshy face of Williams appeared on the screen.

"Mate here, Skipper. Mr. Yosarian's ashore now. I'm sealing the ship."

"Thank you, Mr. Williams."

"And Aerospace Control confirms that we're all set for lift-off at 1400

hours."

Grimes looked at the bulkhead clock. The time was 1350. He left his quarters and went up to the control room.

Chapter 10

Sister Sue lifted from Port Southern.

It was not, of course, the first time that Grimes had handled her; he had brought her down from the parking orbit to the spaceport. This, however, was his first lift-off in the ship. He could not help thinking that she appreciated his touch on the controls-and inwardly laughed at his subscription to the pathetic fallacy. But he persisted in his imaginings. Little Sister had been little more than a girl, eagerly responsive to his lightest caress. Sister Sue was a woman, no longer young, an experienced woman. She required-demanded, even-a heavier hand.

She lifted steadily, accelerating smoothly. Below her the glittering city dwindled and the horizon began to display curvature. Up through filmy upper clouds she drove, up through the last, tenuous shreds of atmosphere, into the blackness and the hard vacuum of space.

Soon it was time to set trajectory for the interstellar voyage. Grimes cut the inertial drive, then used the directional gyroscopes to swing the vessel about her axes. He brought the bright star that was Sol directly ahead, then made the small correction for galactic drift. He started the inertial drive. The temporal precession field built up.

As always there was disorientation, visually and aurally, while colors sagged down the spectrum and perspective was distorted. As sometimes, although not always, happened there was prevision, a consequence of the warping of the fabric of space and time.

Grimes stared at what, at first glance, had seemed to be his reflection on the inner surface of one of the viewports. With a shock he realized that it was the image of a much older man than himself that was staring back at him. There were the same prominent ears, there was a foul-looking pipe clamped between the teeth. (The here-and-now Grimes' pipe was still in his pocket.) The apparition was gray-haired. He was, like Grimes, in uniform but the gold braid on his shoulderboards was a single broad stripe, not four narrow ones. Above it was a winged wheel device, not the Far Traveler stylized courier. Somehow the name of the ship was in the background but the letters were wavering, squirming as though alive, dissolving, reforming. They stabilized and no longer spelled Sister Sue but Faraway Quest . . . . And was that Williams there beside this other-this future-Grimes? An older Williams, just as it was an older Grimes in the reflection. Then, the field established and holding, things snapped back to normal-or as normal as they ever could be in a ship running under interstellar drive. The pseudo reflections vanished. Outside the control room the warped continuum now presented an uncanny, even to a seasoned spaceman, aspect with every star no longer a sharp point of light but a writhing, coruscating spiral nebula, slowly but visibly drifting across the field of vision.

Grimes looked at Williams. Williams looked at him. There was mutual acknowledgment that their futures were somehow interlinked. Then Williams looked at the Green Hornet, slumped and sulky in her chair. He grinned at Grimes as though to say, Whatever happens, whatever is going to happen, we won't be saddled with her, Skipper.

With slow deliberation Grimes filled and lit his pipe. He said, "Deep space routine, Mr. Williams." He turned to the girl and told her, "You have the first watch, Ms. Connellan."

"I still haven't had time to unpack properly. Sir."

"That will have to wait until you come off duty. The chief officer has been watch on and stay on ever since we opened Articles."

She glowered at him but said nothing. Grimes wondered if, should he log and fine her for the crime of dumb insolence, he could make it stick. He looked back at her coldly, then released himself from his chair and walked to the hatch leading down to the axial shaft. Williams followed him.

"A stiff drink before you get your head down, Number One?" asked Grimes.

"Thank, Skipper. I could use one."

Grimes led the way into his quarters. He went to the liquor cabinet. Williams asked for beer. Grimes mixed himself a pink gin. Seated, the two men faced each other across the coffee table.

The mate raised his condensation-bedewed can in salutation. "Here's to a long and prosperous association, Skipper."

"I'll drink to that, Mr. Williams. Oh, by the way, when the time-twister was warming up did you see anything?"

Williams laughed. "I saw myself as a frosty-faced old bastard-and you even frostier faced! I've had these glimpses of the future before and, just between ourselves, they're more reliable than Magda's I Ching!"

"On one occasion," Grimes told him, "I was treated to the prevision of a naked lady riding a bicycle . . . ."

"I doubt if that came true, Skipper!" laughed Williams.

"But it did. By the time it was all over I was allergic to both the wench and her velocipede!"

He got up, went to the filing cabinet and brought out the mahogany box. He opened it, lifted out the beautiful . . . toy, set it down on the deck.

"Ride around the cabin," he ordered. "Slowly." Williams stared as the naked cyclist made her leisurely rounds.

"Where did you get that, Skipper? One of Yosarian's specials, isn't it?"

"Yes," said Grimes. "A parting gift. From him, and . . . ."

"And?" Williams bent down in his chair to look more closely at the tiny, golden cyclist as she glided past him. "And? Surely not! Isn't that our beloved Police Commissioner?" He laughed. "But she is a friend of Yosarian's. And I know that she was a Sky Marshal before she settled down on Austral. Don't tell me, Skipper, that she was the lady in your, er, vision!" Grimes allowed himself a small grin.

"Gentlemen don't tell," he said.

"Come off it, Skipper! We aren't in the wardroom of a Survey Service warship; this is a merchant ship. Religion, politics and sex are quite permissible topics of conversation. In any case it's highly unlikely that any of us will ever be seeing Commissioner Freeman again-and thank the Odd Gods of the Galaxy for that!"

"All right," said Grimes. "I met Sky Marshal Freeman, as she was then, when she was supposed to be taking possession of the pirated, then abandoned Delta Geminorum. You may recall the case. The ship was just wandering around, going nowhere in particular, with her Mannschenn Drive in operation. Ms. Freeman called upon the Survey Service for assistance. I was between ships at the time and was put in charge of the prize crew. We-Ms. Freeman, the people in the prize crew and myself-went out in the Lizard Class courier Skink to intercept the derelict. We found her and synchronized temporal precession rates. It was arranged that Ms. Freeman and I would be the first to board her; we left Skink in a Class A boat, practically a spaceship in miniature, complete with mini-Mannschenn, Carlotti radio, life-support system and all the rest of it. As far as we could work things out afterward there was some sort of interaction between the temporal precession fields of the ship, Delta Geminorum, and the boat as we made a close approach. This caused the detonation of the bomb which the pirates had left as a booby trap. It was a thermonuclear device. We were as near as dammit at ground zero-and, as I've said, there was this interaction between temporal precession fields.

"We weren't killed . . . ."

"That's obvious, Skipper!"

"It wasn't at the time. Not to Skink's captain and his crew, and to my prize crew, who were still aboard his ship. They all thought that Sky Marshal Una Freeman and Lieutenant Commander John Grimes had been well and truly vaporized, together with the boat and the derelict. It was so reported. Of course I was able to report differently some time later, after our return to this universe."

"I've heard all these stories about alternate universes," said Williams, "but I've never quite believed them. Oh, there were a few odd stories about Delta Geminorum and Ms. Freeman and yourself-but most people thought that they were some sort of Survey Service smokescreen, covering up something with serious political implications, or . . . . When Ms. Freeman first came to Austral-with her Corps of Sky Marshals background she started in the police force with senior inspector's rank-a few of the local rags and stations tried to interview her. All that she'd say about the Delta Geminorum affair was that it was classified. I hope that you won't say the same."

"I'm a civilian shipmaster now," said Grimes. "I don't even hold a reserve commission. But if I tell you, keep it to yourself, will you?

"We were flung, somehow, into a more or less parallel universe. There had been a galaxy-wide war, resulting in the destruction of all organic life. Life, of a sort, had survived-the intelligent machines. The ruling entity, regarded as a god and with godlike powers, wanted to give his late creators, the human race, a fresh start. (Not that they'd been human, as we understand the term. They'd been more like centaurs.) Una-Ms. Freeman-and I were captured. We were set down in an oasis on an otherwise desert planet. There were plants, animals. There was water and a wide variety of edible fruits and nuts. The implication was that we were to become the Adam and Eve of the new race. Una wasn't all that keen on the idea-and neither was I. After her last contraceptive shot wore off we were very, very careful.

"There were guardian angels in this Garden of Eden-although we didn't realize that they were until they tried to force us to do the bidding of the robot god . . . ."

"What form did they take, Skipper?"

"Bicycles," said Grimes.

Williams' eyes followed the little golden Una as she rode around the day cabin on her graceful golden steed. He laughed.

"So she has a sense of humor! The only time that I met her personally I thought that she was humorless. But what happened in the end?"

"I don't like uppity robots," said Grimes. "I never have. After we discovered the true nature of those bicycles I . . . disposed of them. It wasn't all that easy. If you've ever been a cyclist you'll know that even an ordinary bicycle can be quite vicious at times. The robot god made his appearance. He'd decided that we were not fit and proper persons to be the parents of the new race. He banished us from the garden. He slung us back into our own universe. Luckily he had us put back in the boat first.

"We found ourselves in orbit around a world-Tamsin IV, as a matter of fact-with one of those unmanned beacon stations. I tried to convert the beacon into a transmitter so that I could send a call for help. Frankly, I rather buggered it up. So we had to wait until the beacon tender dropped by on its normal rounds. The station had emergency stores, luckily. Unluckily there wasn't much variety. Can you imagine a steady diet of baked beans in tomato sauce for seven weeks?"

"What was wrong with honeymoon salad, Skipper?" asked Williams. "Just lettuce alone, with no dressing."

"The honeymoon was over, Mr. Williams, before we were expelled from the garden. Conditions weren't right for its resumption."

"From what I've seen of Commissioner Freeman," said Williams, "I'm surprised that conditions were ever right." He looked again at the unwearying golden cyclist. "But, to judge by that, she doesn't look too bad out of uniform."

Chapter 11

The voyage from Austral to Earth was a relatively short one-long enough, however, for,Grimes to get the feel of his ship and to make an assessment of his crew. The ship he liked. He knew that during her service under the Commission's flag she had been regarded as a notoriously awkward bitch; he did not find her so. Perhaps the change of ownership had sweetened her nature. Already-at least insofar as Grimes was concerned-she was as comfortable as an old shoe.

Regarding his personnel he was not so happy. Only the mate, Billy Williams, and the Catering Officer, Magda Granadu met with Grimes' almost unqualified approval although he was developing a liking for a few of the others.

One day he amused himself by making out a Voyage Staff Report. Had he been still in the Survey Service this would have been required of him, as it would have been had he been in command of a vessel owned by any of the major shipping lines. As owner/master he could report only to himself. Williams, William, he wrote. Chief Officer. A very good second in command. A tendency to be overzealous. Competent spaceman and navigator. Pleasant personality.

He filled and lit his pipe, cogitated on what he had written. If this were a real report he would have no hesitation in signing it and sending it in. He resumed writing. Connellan, Kate. Second Officer. A typical Donegalan female chauvinist bitch. Carries a perpetual chip on her shoulder. Is perpetually complaining about the ship, her shipmates, the meals, etc., etc. and etc. Barely competent as spaceperson and navigator.

And that, he thought, would be letting her off lightly. If Billy Williams or Magda Granadu were called upon to make a report on her their words would scorch the paper. At every change of watch she would annoy the Chief Officer with her complaints and comparisons. "In the Commission's ships we used to get so-and-so and such-and-such. In the Commission's ships we used to do it this way . . . ." The Catering Officer had tried her best to please everybody, but the Green Hornet could not-would not-be pleased. There was no Donegalan whisky in the bar stores. Donegalan national dishes never appeared on the menu. (Among the edible vegetables grown on the farm deck were no potatoes.) She was allergic to paprika. Sour cream made her come out in spots.

But there would be no need to put up with her any longer once Sister Sue got to Port Woomera. There should be no trouble in filling any vacancies on Earth.

Stewart, Andrew. Radio Officer. Conscientious and competent. Has no interests outside his profession.

Just an old-time Sparks, thought Grimes, and none the worse for that. Crumley, Horace. Chief Engineer, Reaction and Inertial Drives. Another old-timer. Extremely conscientious.

And as boring as all hell, thought Grimes. All his conversation is along

"when I was in the old so-and-so" lines.

Denning, Fred. Second Engineer. A refugee from a bicycle shop but reliable. Not, unfortunately, officer material.

Snobbish bastard! he admonished himself.

Singh, Govind. Third Engineer. A refugee from the Port Southern Monorail. Would be happier aboard a train than a spaceship-and, possibly, a little more useful.

Mr. Singh had endeared himself to Grimes by fixing the playmaster in the captain's day cabin; after his ministrations the thing would present a picture only in black and white with sound no louder than a whisper. Fortunately old Mr. Stewart had been able to get the thing working properly. Paulus, Ludwig. Fourth Engineer. Another refugee from the Port Southern Monorail. Has not yet been given the opportunity to demonstrate his incompetence but when the time comes will not be found lacking. Come, come, Grimes, he thought reprovingly. Your innies are working, aren't they, and working well. So are the life-support systems. Just because people haven't been through the Academy and learned which knives and forks to use at table and how to wear a uniform properly it doesn't mean that they're no good as spacemen.

Malleson, Phillip. Chief Engineer, Mannschenn Drive. Very much the academic but he knows his job. Good conversationalist . . . . But he's being paid to run the time-twister, isn't he, not to be the life and soul of the party. Still, it always helps when an officer is a good shipmate as well as being highly efficient.

Federation Survey Service, then Trans-Galactic Clippers. A typical big ship engineer of the better kind.

Watch that snobbery, Grimes!

Trantor, George. Second Engineer, Mannschenn Drive. And Ph.D., and makes sure that everybody knows it. As snobbish in his way as I am in mine. Must know his job, otherwise Malleson wouldn't tolerate him.

Giddings, Walter. Third Engineer, Mannschenn Drive. Another Ph.D. Like Mr. Trantor tends to hold himself aloof from the low, common spacemen. Granadu, Magda. Catering Officer/Purser/Acting Bio-Chemist. An extremely capable person and a good shipmate. An inspired touch with the autochef. Farm deck always in perfect order. Works well with members of other departments-as, for example, with the engineers in necessary maintenance of LSS. Very popular with almost every member of the crew. I have no doubt that if this vessel becomes known as a happy ship she will be largely responsible.

Somebody was knocking at his door.

"Come in," he called.

It was the Green Hornet.

"Yes, Ms. Connellan?" asked Grimes, trying to hide his distaste.

"Sir. It is bad enough having to keep watch and watch. But when I am not being fed properly the situation becomes intolerable!" Grimes looked at her. The sealseam at the front of her uniform shirt was under great strain. So was the waistband of her shorts. And it was obvious that she had not been feeding herself properly; there was a splash of half-dried sauce over her left breast and another on the right leg of her lower garment.

"Lunch," he said, "was very good."

"All right for people who like mucked up food with the real flavor disguised by garlic and pepper!"

"There is always choice, Ms. Connellan."

"What choice, sir? I've raised the point with Ms. Granadu, our so-called Catering Officer, time and time again."

"There was a perfectly good steak, to order, with French fried potatoes."

"French fried potatoes my a . . ." She caught herself just in time, finished the sentence with "foot."

"Potatoes reconstituted from some sort of flour, molded into shape and then fried. But not potatoes. On New Donegal we know our potatoes. I'll say this for the Commission-in their ships you get real potatoes!"

"Your last ship was Delta Crucis, wasn't she?" asked Grimes.

"Yes. What of it?"

"A cargo-passenger liner, Ms. Connellan. You get luxuries aboard passenger ships that you don't get in Epsilon Class tramps. You have a bio-chemist on the Articles who is practically a full-time gardener, who can amuse himself by growing all sorts of things in the hydroponics tanks. Here, Ms. Granadu has plenty to occupy her time without bothering about things that are hard to grow in aboard-ship conditions."

"You could have carried a few kilos of potatoes in the stores."

"Storeroom space is limited, Ms. Connellan."

"Everything in this bloody ship is limited. I should have had my head examined before I signed on here."

"I shall be happy to release you as soon as we get to Port Woomera," said Grimes coldly.

"Oh, will you, sir? Isn't that just typical. You use me, exploit me, and then you cast me aside like a worn-out glove."

"If it hadn't been for me," Grimes told her, "you'd still be in the Port Southern jail."

"And probably feeding a damn sight better than I am here."

"Ms. Connellan, you have made your complaint. I have listened to it. You are the only person aboard this ship who has found fault with the food. You are at liberty to make further complaints-to the Guild, to the Shipping Master, to whoever will listen to you-after we get to Port Woomera.

"That is all."

"But . . . ."

"That is all!" snarled Grimes.

She glared at him, turned sharply about and flounced out of his day cabin. Looking at her fat buttocks straining the material of her shorts almost to bursting Grimes thought that it was exercise she needed rather than more starch in her diet. If Sister Sue were a warship he would be able to order people to have a daily workout in the gymnasium. But Sister Sue was a merchantman and the powers of her captain, although considerable, were only a civilian shipmaster's powers.

Chapter 12

Sister Sue came to Port Woomera.

Grimes stared into the stern view screen, looking at what once had been a familiar view, the waters of the Great Australian Bight to the south and to the north the semi-desert, crisscrossed with irrigation canals, with huge squares of oddly glittering gray that were the solar energy collection screens, with here and there the assemblages of gleaming white domes that housed people and machinery and the all-the-year-round-producing orchards. Close inshore, confined in its pen of plastic sheeting, was a much diminished iceberg. Farther out to sea a much larger one, a small fleet of tugs in attendance, was slowly coming in toward what would be its last resting place.

Grimes applied lateral thrust to bring the ship directly above the spaceport. He could see clearly the white buildings, assemblages of bubbles, and the lofty control tower. And there were the smaller towers, metallically gleaming, that were the ships, great and small.

His berth had been allocated. He was to bring Sister Sue down to the Naval Station, about five kilometers to the east of the commercial spaceport. He could identify a Constellation Class cruiser, a couple of Star Class destroyers and what he thought was a Serpent Class courier. Adder? he wondered. That little ship had been his first command. But he doubted if the long arm of coincidence would be stretched to such an extent. It was extremely unlikely that there would be any ships or any people whom he had known, during his days in the Survey Service, at Port Woomera. He had never been attached to the Port Woomera Base.

The triangle of brightly flashing beacons marking his berth was clearly visible. It showed a tendency to drift away from the center of the screen. Grimes put on lateral thrust again to counteract the effect of the light breeze, decreased vertical thrust. On the screen the figures of the radar-altimeter display steadily diminished.

He allowed his attention to wander briefly, looked to the towers of Woomera City in the middle distance. He watched one of the big dirigibles of Trans-Australia Airlines coming into its mooring mast at the airfield at the city limits. Soon, he thought, he would be aboard one of those airships. His parents, in Alice Springs, would be looking forward to seeing him again after his long absence from Earth.

Looking back to the radar altimeter read-out he stepped up vertical thrust. Sister Sue was not a Federation Survey Service courier, or a deep-space pinnace like Little Sister, in which a flashy landing would be relatively safe. It wouldn't do for a ship of this tonnage to drop like a stone and then slam on thrust at the very last moment. Nonetheless, he thought, she would be able to take it. She was a sturdy enough brute.

One hundred meters to go . . . .

Ninety-five . . . . Ninety . . . .

Slight drift, thought Grimes. Lateral thrust again . . . .

He turned to look at his officers. Williams, he noted, was watching him approvingly. The Green Hornet hastily wiped a sneer from her face. Without his being a telepath Grimes knew what she was thinking, Anybody would think that the bloody ship was made of glass!

To hell with you, he thought. I won't have to put up with you for much longer.

Deliberately he took his time over the final stages of the descent. At last Sister Sue's stern vanes made gentle, very gentle contact with the apron. She rocked ever so slightly, then was still. Shock absorbers sighed as they took the weight when the inertial drive was shut down.

"Finished with engines," said Grimes smugly. He pulled his pipe from a pocket, filled it and lit it.

"Finished with engines, Skipper," repeated Williams and passed this final order on to the inertial-drive room. Then, "Shall I go down to the airlock to receive the boarding party? I see them on the way out."

"Do that," said Grimes.

Through a viewport he watched the ground cars scurrying out across the apron. Customs, he supposed, and Port Health and Immigration. One of them, however, was a gray vehicle looking like a minor warship on wheels-probably the Survey Service officer responsible for arranging for the discharge of Sister Sue's cargo. But what was that broad pennant fluttering from a short mast on the bonnet of the car? He got up from his seat, swung the big mounted binoculars to bear.

A black flag, with two golden stars . . . .

Surely, he told himself, a Rear Admiral would not be concerning himself with the offloading of an unimportant consignment of outdated bumf. Was the Survey Service still after his blood?

But if they were going to arrest him, he thought, they would have sent a squad of Marines, not a flag officer.

Nonetheless there was cause for worry. In his experience Admirals did not personally welcome minor vessels, minor merchant vessels especially. He went down to his quarters to change hastily into the least shabby of his uniforms and to await developments. As he left the control room he heard Ms. Connellan singing softly to herself-and at him.

"Sheriff and police a-coming after me . . . ."

Bitch! he thought.

Chapter 13

"So we meet again, Grimes," said Rear Admiral Damien.

"This is a surprise, sir," Grimes said. Then, "Congratulations on your promotion."

Damien laughed. "Once I no longer had you to worry about, once I wasn't always having to justify your actions to my superiors, I got my step up." Grimes waited until his guest was seated then took a chair himself. He looked at Damien, not without some apprehension. Apart from the extra gold braid on his sleeves his visitor looked just as he had when he was Commodore Damien, Officer Commanding Couriers, on Lindisfarne Base. He was as thin as ever, his face little more than a skull over which yellow skin was tightly stretched. He still had the mannerism of putting his skeletal fingers together, making a steeple of them over which he regarded whomever it was he was addressing. So he was now looking at Grimes, just as he had so often looked at him in the past when Grimes, a lowly lieutenant, had been captain of the Serpent Class courier Adder. On such occasions he had either been taking Grimes to task for some misdeed or sending him out on some especially awkward mission.

"Coffee, sir?" asked Grimes.

"Thank you, er, Captain."

Grimes called Magda on the telephone. Almost at once she was bringing in the tray with the fragrantly steaming pot, the cream, the sugar and the mugs. She looked at Damien curiously, then at Grimes.

She asked, "Will that be all, sir?"

"Yes, thank you, Magda."

She made a reluctant departure. Probably everybody aboard Sister Sue would be wondering why an Admiral had come to visit Grimes, would be expecting her to have the answers.

Grimes poured. He took both sugar and cream in his mug. Damien wanted his coffee black and unsweetened.

He said, "I suppose you're wondering, just as your Catering Officer was wondering, what I'm doing aboard your ship."

"I am, sir."

"It all ties in with my new job, Grimes. My official title is Coordinator of Merchant Shipping. When I learned that a star tramp called Sister Sue, commanded by John Grimes, was due in I was naturally curious. I made inquiries and was pleased to learn that Sister Sue's master was, indeed, the John Grimes."

"You flatter me, sir."

"Nonetheless, Grimes, this is not altogether a social call. No, I haven't come to place you under arrest. Or not yet, anyhow. There were, of course, very extensive inquiries into the Discovery mutiny and you were more or less cleared of culpability. More or less. There are still, however, those in high places who would like your guts for garters."

"Mphm."

"Cheer up, Grimes. I haven't come to shoot you." He sipped. "Excellent coffee, this, by the way. But you always were notorious for your love of life's little luxuries." He extended his mug for a refill. "I suppose that this ship keeps quite a good table."

"I like it, sir."

"I must invite myself to lunch some day. But this morning we will talk business."

"Business, sir?"

"What else? You're not only a merchant captain, you're a shipowner. You're the one who has to arrange future employment for your ship, yourself and your crew."

"That thought had flickered across my mind, sir. Perhaps you could advise me. It is some many years since I was last on Earth."

"I've found you jobs in the past, Grimes. Whenever there was something too out of the ordinary for the other courier captains you were the one who got it. Now, I'll be frank with you. As Coordinator of Merchant Shipping I work very closely with Intelligence. And Intelligence doesn't consist only of finding out what's happening. Sometimes it's making things happen. Do you get me, Grimes?"

"Dirty Tricks, sir?"

"You can put it that way. Also countering other people's dirty tricks. You know El Dorado, don't you?"

"I was there once, sir, when I was a junior officer in Aries. And for a while I was yachtmaster to the Baroness Michelle d'Estang, one of the El Doradan aristocracy."

"And you know her husband, Commodore Baron Kane."

"He's hardly a friend, sir."

"But you know him. Well, I want you on El Dorado. There's a shipment of luxury goods to be carried there; wines, caviar, fancy cheeses and such. Normally one of the Commission's ships would be employed-but, as requested by the Admiralty, the Commission will not have a vessel available. So they will have to charter something. And that something will be your Sister Sue. Who was Sue, by the way?"

"Just a girl . . . ."

"The young lady on the bicycle exchanging glares with our Commander Lazenby?" Damien got up from his chair to look at, first of all, the solidograph of Maggie, then at the golden statuette of Una Freeman. "H'm. I seem to have seen that face before somewhere . . . . On Lindisfarne Base, wasn't it? That Sky Marshal wench you were supposed to be working with. But, unless my memory is playing tricks, her name wasn't Susan . . .

."

"It wasn't," said Grimes. "It still isn't."

"Of course, you've seen her recently . . . ."

(Was that a statement or a question?)

"She's the Port Southern Police Commissioner," said Grimes. Damien seemed to lose interest in Grimes' art gallery, returned to his chair.

"Now, Grimes, this charter . . . ."

"What's the catch, sir?" asked Grimes. "I somehow can't believe that anybody in the Admiralty loves me enough to throw lucrative employment my way."

"How right you are, Grimes. You'll have to work your passage. To begin with, you will be reenlisted into the Survey Service-on the Reserve List, of course, but with your old rank. Commander."

And when I'm back in the Service, thought Grimes, they'll have me by the balls.

He said, "No thank you, sir. I'm a civilian and I like being a civilian. I intend to stay that way."

"Even though you have civilian status, Grimes, you can still be compelled to face a court-martial over the Discovery affair."

"I thought you said that it had been swept under the carpet, sir."

"Carpets can be lifted. Quite a number of my colleagues would rather like to lift that one."

"I'm a member of the Astronauts' Guild, sir. They've tangled with the Survey Service more than once in defense of their people-and usually won."

"They probably would in your case, Grimes-but you must know that the legal profession doesn't know the meaning of the word 'hurry.' While the lawyers were arguing your ship would be sitting here, idle, with port dues and the like steadily mounting, with your officers wanting their three square meals a day and their salaries. It'd break you, Grimes, and you know it." Damien was right, Grimes knew.

He said, "All right. But if I do join the Reserve I'd like a higher rank, with the pay and allowances appertaining while on active duty." Damien laughed. "Always the opportunist, Grimes! But there's no such animal as a Reserve Admiral and you'll find Reserve Commodores only in the major shipping lines." He laughed again. "Far Traveler Couriers can hardly be classed as such."

"Captain will do," said Grimes magnaminously. "But what exactly do you want me for, sir? How does it tie in with that charter to El Dorado?"

"I can't tell you that until you're officially back in the Service." Damien got slowly to his feet like a carpenter's rule unfolding. "But I'll not rush you. I'll give you until tomorrow morning to make your mind up. Don't bother to come with me, Grimes. I can find my own way down to the airlock." As soon as he was gone Grimes rang for Magda Granadu. "And bring the coins and the book with you," he said.

* * *

Head and two tails . . . Yin. And again, and again, and again, and again, and again . . . K'un.

"The superior man," said Magda, "faithfully serves those who can best use his talents. There will be advantage in finding friends in the south and west, and in losing friends in the north and east. In quiet persistence lies good fortune . . . ."

"But I've already found friends in the south," said Grimes. "On Austral, at Port Southern. Yosarian. You and Billy Williams. Even Una Freeman. But where does the west come into it?"

"There are still southerly aspects to consider. Woomera, where we are now, is in Earth's southern hemisphere. And perhaps we should take initial letters into consideration. 'S' for south, 'W' for west. 'S' for Survey Service.

'W for Woomera."

"Mphm? But finding friends here? Commodore Damien was never a friend of mine."

But wasn't he? Grimes asked himself. Wasn't he? Time and time again, during his captaincy of Adder, the little Serpent Class courier, Grimes had gotten away with murder, now and again almost literally. Damien, then Officer Commanding Couriers, must have stood up for him against those Admirals who wanted to make an example of the troublesome young officer.

"I think," Magda said, "that the Rear Admiral is a friend of yours. He looked into my office for a brief chat on his way ashore. He said, in these very words, 'You've a good captain here. Look after him.' "

"Mphm. Well, he's not such a bad old bastard himself. But we still have that prophecy about losing friends in the north and east. El Dorado is to the galactic north. And its name starts with an 'E' . . . ."

"And do you have friends on El Dorado, Captain?" she asked.

"Well, I did. The old Duchess of Leckhampton . . . . I wonder if she's still alive. And the Princess Marlene . . . . And the Baroness Michelle d'Estang . .

. . All friends, I suppose . . . ."

She read again from the book. "The superior man finds a true master and chooses his friends among those whose natures are compatible with his own."

Grimes snorted. "There's one person aboard this ship whose nature is not compatible! The Green Hornet. I'd like you to get her pay made up so that I can get rid of her. There should be no shortage of qualified officers here, on Earth."

"On what grounds will you discharge her, Captain?"

"Just that her face doesn't fit."

She frowned thoughtfully. "I'm afraid that you'll not be able to make it stick. Hasn't Billy told you about the Guild on this world? It's just a junior officers' trade union. When I was late here, in Borzoi, the Old Man tried to get rid of the third mate, one of those really obnoxious puppies you get stuck with at times. He paid him off-and then the little bastard ran screaming to the Guild. The Guild not only refused to supply a replacement but brought a suit for wrongful dismissal. And slapped an injunction on us so that we couldn't lift until the case had been heard. Captain Brownlee didn't improve matters by saying, in court, just what he thought about the legal profession. It did not prejudice the judge in his favor. So he lost the case and we had to take the third mate back. The Dog Star Line was far from happy, of course. Their ship had been grounded for weeks. The captain showed me the Carlottigram he got from Top Office. It was a long one, but one sentence sticks in my memory. 'We judge our Masters not by their navigation or spacemanship but by the skill with which they walk the industrial tightrope.'"

"And what happened to Captain Brownlee?" asked Grimes.

"Transferred to a scruffy little ship on one of the Dog Star Line's more unpleasant trades."

"At least," said Grimes, "I don't have any owners to worry about."

"But you have an owner's worries, Captain. You can't afford to be grounded by legal hassles when you should be flitting around the galaxy earning an honest living."

"That's true. But are you sure that Ms. Connellan will scream to the Guild if I try to pay her off?"

"She's already screamed."

"Oh. I'd have thought, to judge from the way that she's been complaining, that she'd be glad to see the last of us."

"She's not altogether a fool," said Magda. "She knows that she's virtually unemployable. She's got a job and she means to hang on to it."