Matilda's Step Children, page 17
He went up to the wheelhouse.
Onslow was there, in his inevitable rig of the day, sarong and uniform cap, busy at the manoeuvring console. Fenella, in a borrowed sarong, was standing beside him, sipping noisily from a big mug of coffee.
She turned to look at Grimes.
She said, "Stick around. You might learn something about shiphandling."
Grimes watched with interest. It all looked very simple. Triton had backed out into midstream and now was swinging to head down river. Onslow's big hands played over the controls like those of a master pianist. Then, satisfied, he made a last setting and stepped back.
He told his audience, "She'll look after herself now. Radar controlled steering'll keep her in mid-channel . . ."
"Shall we go down for breakfast, Clarrie?" asked Fenella.
"I'll be staying up here until we're over the bar. In narrow waters anything might happen." He turned to Grimes. "Can you handle an autochef, Captain? The one here is the standard spaceship pattern. You'll find eggs in the galley, and sliced bread, and ham . . . What about an omelet? And some more coffee?"
"Given an autochef to play with," said Fenella, "he kids himself that he's in the cordon bleu class."
"I'll manage," said Grimes. He would have preferred to stay in the wheelhouse to admire the passing scenery but he wanted breakfast. Obviously that was a meal which he would not enjoy unless he cooked it himself.
He went down to the galley. He found the eggs and the ham, broke a dozen of the former into the labeled funnel—FLUIDS & SEMI-FLUIDS—and fed hunks of ham into another one—SOLIDS. On the keyboard he typed Omelets—Ham—3. Execute.
The autochef hummed happily to itself while Grimes poured a mug of hot, black coffee from the dispenser. He was still drinking it when the Ready gong sounded. He put the mug down and threw slices of bread into the toasting attachment. Almost immediately the gong sounded again.
Oh, well, thought Grimes, he would just have to finish his coffee on the bridge.
He found a big tray, and plates and eating irons. He took the omelets from the autochef. They looked and smelled good. He loaded the tray. He knew how Fenella liked her coffee; he guessed that Onslow would want his black and sweet.
He managed to get up the companionways to the wheel-house without dropping or spilling anything. He had expected that he would be welcome, but he was not. Fenella was leaning out of a forward window; Onslow was close, very close, behind her. Grimes coughed tactfully.
Onslow stepped back from Fenella, adjusting his sarong. Hers was on the deck about her ankles. She stooped to pull it up about her slim body before she turned. She glared at Grimes while Onslow looked at him almost apologetically.
She snarled. "You took so bloody long that we . . ."
Onslow pulled up a folding table, said, "Just put the tray down here, will you?"
Grimes did so.
"Thank you," said Onslow. "Yes, we can manage three omelets, I think, between the two of us." Then, "Oh, by the way, Captain Grimes, I don't encourage passengers on my bridge, especially in pilotage waters."
So Fenella wasn't a passenger? thought Grimes. But she was working her passage, of course . . .
He left the wheelhouse, his prominent ears aflame.
On his way back to the galley he paused on the passenger deck. Shirl and Darleen were still sleeping, both of them snoring. So he would have to eat alone. This time he gave rather more thought to the preparation of the meal, using a tomato-like fruit and a sprinkling of herbs as well as ham for the filling of his omelet. He found a bottle of brandy and added a slug to his coffee.
He ate sitting on a small hatch on the little area of deck abaft the bridge superstructure, watching the scenery slide past, the wooded banks the shallow bays with their golden beaches. He was joined by Shirl (or Darleen; they had been dressed differently on making their escape from the Snuff Palace but now that they had reverted to nudity he had trouble telling them apart) on the hatch. She was carrying a mug of coffee. She looked enviously at the remains of Grimes' breakfast, helped herself to a slice of toast and cream cheese.
She said plaintively, "I could pour myself a coffee but I couldn't manage that machine . . ."
"I'll do you something, Shirl."
"Darleen. I've a sort of birthmark here . . ." She indicated a mole on her upper thigh. "See."
"What about in the dark?" asked Grimes.
"You can feel it . . ."
She guided his hand to the spot.
"I'm hungry," complained Shirl, coming out to join them. "I thought that passengers were supposed to be fed. I went up to the . . . the control room to ask and they, the captain and that Fenella, threw me out. They were . . ."
"I can guess," said Grimes.
He got up from the hatch and led the two girls into the galley. They both wanted grilled fish for breakfast. (Whoever that long-ago genetic engineer had been he had made considerable modifications to the original stock; kangaroos are herbivores.) They returned to the lazarette hatch, Grimes with more coffee for himself. Sitting there in the warm sunlight with an attractive girl on either side of him he was reminded of a painting he had once seen. What was it called? Picnic On The Grass, or something. But in that there was only one naked woman, surrounded by fully clothed—even to tophats!—men. Here it was a single clothed (more or less) man surrounded by naked women.
And why should he be clothed? The air was warm and the shirt, which should have been washed the previous night, was uncomfortably sticky. He took it off. Darleen, on his right, was sitting very close to him. So, on his left, was Shirl.
Shirl said, "I've a birthmark too, John . . ."
(Grimes wondered just how telepathic these women were.)
"Just under my left breast. . . If it's dark you can feel it. . ."
"It's not dark now," said Grimes, but allowed his hand to be guided to the place. Somehow his fingers finished up on her nipple—and the fingers of the hand that Darleen had taken also strayed.
It was Darleen who fell back supine on to the hatch, pulling Grimes with her. It was Shirl who found the fastening at the waistband of his kilt, who pulled the garment from him. He was the meat in an erotic sandwich, with Darleen's moist, hungry mouth beneath his, with Shirl's breasts, with their erect nipples, pressed into his naked back, with her teeth gently nibbling his right ear.
From above there came laughter and the sound of hand-clapping.
The girls would have ignored this but Grimes could not. He extricated himself, not without difficulty, from the dual embrace. He looked up. The obnoxious Onslow and the even more obnoxious Fenella Pruin were at the rail at the after end of the bridge, grinning down at them.
"Now you know what it's like to be interrupted!" said the Pruin.
Twenty-nine
Grimes was used to odd voyages, to pleasant ones and to unpleasant ones. He was used (of course) to ships, although not at this stage of his career to vessels plying planetary seas rather than the oceans of deep space. But a ship is a ship is a ship, no matter in what medium she swims. Oars, sails, screw propellers, hydraulic jets, inertial drive units or whatever are all no more (and no less) than devices to move tonnage, small or considerable, from Point A to Point B fast or economically or, ideally, both.
Apart from the captain's quarters and the wheelhouse Grimes had the run of Triton. Onslow, infatuated with Fenella Pruin, let it be understood that his other passengers could look after themselves, preparing their own meals in the galley, signing for whatever liquor or cigars they took from the bar stores. Grimes did all the cooking for himself and Shirl and Darleen. He was used to getting the best out of an autochef, the two New Alicians were not. Anything they tried more complex than a simple grill was a culinary disaster.
Triton seemed to be navigating herself. Her pilot-computer had been programmed to keep her on a safe track along the coast, to compensate automatically for wind and current, to keep clear of other sea-borne traffic and, Grimes learned on one of the rare occasions that he met Onslow in the galley and had a brief conversation with him, to sound an alarm if the ship had gotten herself into a close quarters situation or any other potential danger.
Grimes, who spent most of the daylight hours on deck, watched the passing ships with interest. There were bulk carriers. There was an occasional huge cruise liner, white-gleaming with deck upon deck upon deck. There were fishing boats—some, dowdily utilitarian, obviously commercial, others so flashily painted and equipped that they must be catering to wealthy tourists wishing to combine their boozing and wenching with some outdoor sport.
Of these charter boats a few had what looked like a cannon mounted forward. This intrigued Grimes; those little vessels could not possibly be warships. Then, one morning, he was privileged to see a gun in action. He watched, through borrowed binoculars, a harpoon streaking out to hit what, until the moment of impact had been no more than an almost totally submerged, immobile object that he had assumed was a waterlogged tree trunk.
There was more to it than had been visible above the surface, much more. The thing exploded in a frenzy of activity, thrashing the water in its agonies. There was a maned head at the end of a long, slender neck, there was a thick tail with flukes at the extremity, a barrel-shaped body with three pairs of flippers. After the initial flurry it sounded. The harpoon line stretched taut and the bows of the chaser almost went under. Then it was moving fast, under power, relieving the tension on the line as it pursued the stricken sea beast.
"They call them Moby Dicks," volunteered Darleen who, with Shirl, was standing with Grimes on the afterdeck.
"Moby Dicks? Couldn't they have found a name out of Greek mythology?" asked Grimes.
"What's that?" asked Shirl.
"Never mind. But what do they hunt them for? Are they good to eat?"
"No. But the tourists like sport—as we know."
"Too right," said Grimes.
"Even the Shaara hunt the Moby Dicks," said Darleen. "But they do it from their own airships. Their . . . blimps."
"They would," said Grimes. Then, reminiscently, "I used to think that the Shaara were a harmless, peace-loving people. I learned differently."
"They're only human," said Shirl.
"Mphm," grunted Grimes.
The chaser was hull down now, only its upperworks showing over the sea horizon. Grimes felt sorry for the Moby Dick. It had been basking on the surface, minding its own business and had been jerked into wakefulness by a harpoon, fired by some moneyed lout, in the guts. And after it had been messily slaughtered it would just be left drifting, to decompose . . .
He looked at his watch. It was almost lunchtime. He was beginning to feel hungry. The previous night, spent in the company of the New Alicians, eager to demonstrate the professional skills they had learned on New Venusberg, tolerant of the inadequacies engendered by past traumatic experiences and that he had yet fully to overcome, had been a wearing one.
* * *
Onslow was in the galley, setting the controls on the autochef, wearing the inevitable sarong. He looked pale under his tan. He, too, must have spent a wearing night.
He looked at Grimes, grinned weakly. "Good morning, Captain. Just fixing brunch for her ladyship. Just between ourselves, I shan't be sorry when this voyage is over . . ."
"When do we get there?" asked Grimes.
"Sixteen hundred hours tomorrow. You'll all have to keep out of sight while we're berthing, of course and not leave the ship until after dark. I've ironed all the details out with Fenella."
"I'm sure you have. Captain."
"And how's your ironing going on, Captain? Very nicely, by the looks of you."
"Mphm."
The gong sounded. Onslow unloaded a tray from the autochef. He said, "Be good. Don't do anything that you couldn't do riding a bicycle." He left Grimes to his own devices.
After a good lunch Grimes decided to take the sun on the deck above the wheelhouse while the two girls retired to their cabins for an afternoon nap. Although the wheelhouse itself was, so far as he knew, still out of bounds to passengers Onslow had made no mention of the monkey island. He took with him a box of cigarillos and some reading matter that he had found. Perhaps inevitably this consisted of a few dogeared copies of Star Scandals. Among the other sensational stories there were a few by Fenella Pruin. In spite of the overwriting he found her account of life among the Blossom People on Francisco quite absorbing.
He became vaguely aware of a droning noise different from the subdued hum of Triton's engines. He raised himself on his elbows, looked up and around. He saw it then, out to starboard, flying seaward from over the hazy coastline. It was a Shaara blimp.
He remembered being told that the Shaara hunted the things called Moby Dicks, using their own blimps rather than the charter chasers. And these must be Moby Dick waters; where there had been one there must be others. His sympathies lay with the victims of the chase rather than with the hunters but he did almost hope that the arthropods would sight one of the great beasts; he was curious to see how an airship would be able to cope with the playing of a harpooned prey. And how, he wondered, did the Shaara handle the recoil problem of the harpoon gun?
At first it seemed that the airship was going to pass well astern of Triton but it changed course, so as to fly directly over her. That was natural enough. It was going nowhere in particular and its crew might well be wanting a closer look at the smart little surface vessel.
As it approached it lost altitude. That, too, was natural enough. Grimes feeling mellow after his filling lunch with rather too much chilled beer to wash it down, prepared to forgive and to forget all the indignities he had suffered at the hands of the Shaara, got to his feet and waved cheerfully.
He should have had more sense.
The blimp flew directly overhead. He could see Shaara heads, with their antennae and huge, faceted eyes, peering down from over the gunwale of the car. He could see, too, the harpoon gun mounted forward, was interested to note that it was a rocket launcher rather than a cannon proper. Then he realised that nobody had answered his salutation.
Fuck 'em! he thought: Snooty bee-bastards. Fuck 'em.
The airship turned, coming around slowly. A Shaara, a princess, thought Grimes, was standing beside the rocket launcher working the laying wheel, depressing the launching rack. The barbed head of the missile was pointing directly at him.
Surely they wouldn't . . . he thought—and knew that they would. He ran for the ladder on the starboard side of the monkey island trying to get down to the bridge, to put the wheelhouse between himself and the harpoon. He tripped on the stack of magazines that he had brought up with him, fell heavily. Half stunned, he was still trying to get to his feet when the rocket was fired. He heard the swoosh of it and thought, This is it . . .
Below him there was a screaming roar and a great crashing and clattering. Working it all out later he came to the conclusion that some minor turbulence had caused the blimp's nose to dip at the crucial moment so that the harpoon, missing him, drove right through the wheelhouse, through the port window and out through the starboard one. But at this moment all that mattered was that he was still alive. He wanted to stay that way. He fell rather than clambered down the starboard ladder to the bridge wing, trying to get to cover before the Shaara could reload. He hardly noticed the pain as his bare foot came down on a sharp-edged shard of plastic, part of the wreckage of the wheelhouse windows.
Then, automatically, his Survey Service training taking over, he began to assess damage. Looking into the wheel-house he saw that the controls seemed to be undamaged. The harpoon must have plunged into the sea to starboard; its line, gleaming, enormously strong but light wire, was trailing aft. Grimes, who knew something about surface craft, wondered if he should stop the engines before the screw (or screws) got fouled. But Triton, with her hydraulic jet propulsion, had no external screws. Out to port the line, dipping in a graceful catenary, stretched to the blimp which was now running parallel to the surface ship. At the forward end of the car the figures of Shaara were busy about the rocket launcher, reloading it.
"What the hell's going on?" Onslow was roaring.
He had come up into his devastated wheelhouse, not bothering to dress, in his bewildered fury, his hairy nakedness, looking like the ancestral killer ape in person. He grabbed the taut harpoon line, shaking it viciously. He glared through the broken window at the blimp.
"Get under cover!" shouted Grimes. "They're going to fire again!"
"Two can play at that game!" yelled Onslow. He flung open the door of a locker on the after bulkhead of the wheelhouse, snatched from it a rifle. With the barrel he completed the destruction of the starboard window so that no remaining pieces of plastic obstructed his aim. He brought the butt of the weapon to his shoulder, sighted, fired. Grimes had expected that his target would be the Shaara who were now swinging the rocket launcher around to bear—but it was not. The burst of rapid fire was directed at the after end of the car, to the engine. Grimes saw the tracers strike, saw the coruscation of vividly blue sparks as broken circuits arced and fused. The pusher screw ceased to be a shimmering circle of near invisibility as the blades slowed and stopped. The airship dropped astern, still secured to Triton by the harpoon wire, being towed by her like a captive balloon.
