Chapter 15
BRASIDUS DROVE OUT to the spaceport in the car that had been placed at his disposal. He realized that he was looking forward to what he had told Achron would be a long and wearing day. He enjoyed the freshness of the morning air, looked up with appreciation at the Spartan Navy still, in perfect formation, circling the landing field. But now he did not, as he had done so many times in the past, envy the airmen. He was better off as he was. If he were up there, a crew member of one of the warships, even the captain of one of them, he would not be meeting the glamorous, exotic spacefarers—and most certainly would not, in the course of duty, be spending the entire day with one of them.
Margaret Lazenby was already ashore, was waiting in Diomedes’ office, was engaged in conversation with the Security captain. Brasidus heard his superior say, “I’m sorry, Doctor Lazenby, but I cannot allow you to carry weapons. The cameras and recording equipment—yes. But not that pistol. Laser, isn’t it?”
“It is. But, damn it all, Diomedes, on this cockeyed world of yours my going about unarmed degrades me to the status of a helot.”
“And the Arcadians are not helots?”
“No. It should be obvious, even to a Security officer. Would a helot hold commissioned rank in the Federation’s Survey Service?”
“Then if you possess warrior’s status, your being let loose with a weapon of unknown potentialities is even worse insofar as we are concerned.” The fat man, facing Margaret Lazenby’s glare with equanimity, allowed himself to relent. “All right. Leave your pistol here, and I’ll issue you with a stun gun.”
“I shall not leave my weapon here. Will you be so good as to put me through to the ship so that I can tell the duty officer to send somebody ashore to pick it up?”
“All right.” Diomedes punched a few buttons on his board, picked up the handset, spoke into it briefly, then handed it to the Arcadian. He turned to Brasidus. “So you’ve arrived. Attention!” Brasidus obeyed with a military crash and jangle. “Let’s look at you. H’m, brass not too bad, but your leatherwork could do with another polish . . . But you’re not going anywhere near the palace, so I don’t suppose it matters. At ease! Stand easy! In fact, relax.”
Meanwhile, Margaret Lazenby had finished speaking into the telephone. She returned the instrument to its rest. She stood there, looking down at the obese Diomedes sprawled in his chair—and Brasidus looked at her. She was not in uniform, but was wearing an open-necked shirt with a flaring collar cut from some soft, brown material, and below it a short kilt of the same color. Her legs were bare, and her slim feet were thrust into serviceable-looking sandals. At her belt was a holstered weapon of unfamiliar design. The cross straps from which depended her equipment—camera, sound recorder, binoculars—accentuated the out-thrusting fleshy mounds on her chest that betrayed her alien nature.
She was, obviously, annoyed, and when she spoke it was equally obvious that she was ready and willing to transfer her annoyance to Brasidus. “Well, Brasidus,” she demanded. “Seen enough? Or would you like me to go into a song and dance routine for you?”
“I . . . I was interested in that weapon of yours.”
“Is that all?” For some obscure reason Brasidus’ reply seemed to annoy her still further. And then a junior officer from Seeker came in, and Margaret Lazenby unbuckled the holstered pistol from her belt, handed it to the young spaceman. She accepted the stun gun from Diomedes, unholstered it, looked at it curiously. “Safety catch? Yes. Firing stud? H’m. We have similar weapons. Nonlethal, but effective enough. Oh, range?”
“Fifty feet,” said Diomedes.
“Not very good. Better than nothing, I suppose.” She clipped the weapon to her belt. “Come on, Brasidus. We’d better get out of here before he has me stripped to a peashooter and you polishing your belt and sandals.”
“Your instructions, sir?” Brasidus asked Diomedes.
“Instructions? Oh, yes. Just act as guide and escort to Doctor Lazenby. Show her what you can of the workings of our economy—fields, factories . . . you know. Answer her questions as long as there’s no breach of security involved. And keep your own ears flapping.”
“Very good, sir. Oh, expenses . . .”
“Expenses, Brasidus?”
“There may be meals, an occasional drink . . .”
Diomedes sighed, pulled a bag of coins out of a drawer, dropped it with a clank on to the desk. “I know just how much is in this and I shall expect a detailed account of what you spend. Off with you. And, Doctor Lazenby, I expect you to bring Brasidus, here, back in good order and condition.”
Brasidus saluted, then followed the spaceman out through the doorway.
She said, as soon as they were outside the building, “Expenses?”
“Yes, Doctor . . .”
“Call me Peggy.”
“I have rations for the day in the car, Peggy, but I didn’t think they were . . . suitable. Just bread and cold meat and a flagon of wine from the mess at the barracks.”
“And so . . . and so you want to impress me with something better?”
“Why, yes,” admitted Brasidus with a certain surprise.
“Yes.” (And it was strange, too, that he was looking forward to buying food and drink for this alien, even though the wherewithal to do so came out of the public purse. On Sparta every man was supposed to pay for his own entertainment, although not always in cash. In this case, obviously, there could be no reciprocation. Or could there be? But it did not matter.)
And then, with even greater surprise, Brasidus realized that he was helping Margaret Lazenby into the hovercar. Even burdened as she was, she did not need his assistance, but she accepted it as her due. Brasidus climbed in after her, took his seat behind the control column. “Where to?” he asked.
“That’s up to you. I’d like a good tour. No, not the city—shall be seeing plenty of that when I accompany John—Commander Grimes—on his official calls. What about the countryside and the outlying villages? Will that be in order?”
“It will, Peggy,” Brasidus said. (And why should the use of that name be so pleasurable?)
“And if you’ll explain things to me as you drive . . .”
The car lifted on its air cushion in a flurry of dust, moved forward, out through the main gateway, and for the first few miles headed toward the city.
“The spice fields,” explained Brasidus with a wave of his hand. “It’ll soon be harvest time, and then the two ships from Latterhaven will call for the crop.”
“Rather . . . overpowering. The smell, I mean. Cinnamon, nutmeg, almond, but more so . . . And a sort of mixture of sage and onion and garlic. But those men working in the fields with hoes and rakes, don’t you have mechanical cultivators?”
“But why should we? I suppose that machines could be devised, but such mechanical tools would throw the helots out of employment.”
“But you’d enjoy vastly increased production and would be able to afford a greater tonnage of imports from Latterhaven.”
“But we are already self-sufficient.”
“Then what do you import from Latterhaven?”
Brasidus creased his brows. “I . . . I don’t know, Peggy,” he admitted. “We are told that the ships bring manufactured goods.”
“Such as?”
“I don’t know.” Then he recalled the strange book that he had seen in the créche. “Books, perhaps.”
“What sort of books?”
“I don’t know, Peggy. The doctors keep them for themselves. But we turn off here. We detour the city and run through the vineyards.”
The road that they were now following was little more than a track, running over and around the foothills, winding through the terraced vineyards on either side. As far as the eye could see the trellises were sagging under the weight of the great, golden fruit, each at least the size of a man’s head, the broad, fleshy leaves. Brasidus remarked, “This has been a good year for grapes.”
“Grapes? Are those things grapes?”
“What else could they be?” Brasidus stopped the car, got out, scrambled up the slope to the nearest vine. With his knife he hacked through a tough stem, then carried the ripe, glowing sphere back to Peggy. She took it, hefted it in her two hands, peered at it closely, sniffed it. “Whatever this is,” she declared, “it ain’t no grape—not even a grapefruit. Something indigenous, I suppose. Is it edible?”
“No. It has to be . . . processed. Skinned, trodden out, exposed to the air in open vats. It takes a long time, but it gets rid of the poison.”
“Poison? I’ll take your word for it.” She handed the fruit back to Brasidus, who threw it onto the bank. “Oh, I should have kept that, to take to the ship for analysis.”
“I’ll get it again for you.”
“Don’t bother. Let the biochemist do his own fetching and carrying. But have you any of the . . . the finished product? You did say that you had brought a flagon of wine with you.”
“Yes, Peggy.” Brasidus reached into the back of the car, brought up the stone jug, pulled out the wooden stopper.
“No glasses?” she asked with a lift of the eyebrows.
“Glasses?”
“Cups, goblets, mugs—things you drink out of.”
“I . . . I’m sorry. I never thought . . .”
“You have a lot to learn, my dear. But show me how you manage when you haven’t any women around to exercise a civilizing influence.”
“Women?”
“People like me. Go on, show me.”
Brasidus grinned, lifted the flagon in his two hands, tilted it over his open mouth, clear of his lips. The wine was rough, tart rather than sweet, but refreshing. He gulped happily, then returned the jug to an upright position. He swallowed, then said, “Your turn, Peggy.”
“You can’t expect me to drink like that. You’ll have to help me.”
You wouldn’t last five minutes on Sparta, thought Brasidus, not altogether derisively. He turned around in his seat, carefully elevated the wine flagon over Peggy’s upturned face. He was suddenly very conscious of her red, parted lips, her white teeth. He tilted, allowing a thin trickle of the pale yellow fluid to emerge. She coughed and spluttered, shook her head violently. Then she gasped, “Haven’t the knack of it—although I can manage a Spanish wineskin. Try again.”
And now it was Brasidus who had to be careful, very careful. He was acutely aware of her physical proximity, her firm softness. “Ready?” he asked shakily.
“Yes. Fire at will.”
This time the attempt was more successful. When at last she held up her hand to signal that she had had enough she must have disposed of at least a third of the flagon. From a pocket in her skirt she pulled a little square of white cloth, wiped her chin and dabbed her lips with it. “That’s not a bad drink,” she stated. “Sort of dry sherry and ginger . . . but more-ish. No—that’s enough. Didn’t you ever hear the saying, ‘Candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker’?”
“What is candy?” asked Brasidus. “And liquor is quicker for what?”
“Sorry, honey. I was forgetting that you have yet to learn the facts of life. Come to that, there’re quite a few facts of life that I have to learn about this peculiar fatherland of yours. What is home without a mother?” She laughed. “Of course, you’re lucky. You don’t know how lucky. A pseudo-Hellenic culture and nary an Oedipus complex among the whole damn boiling of you!”
“Peggy, please speak Greek.”
“Speak English, you mean. But I was using words and phrases that have dropped out of your version of our common tongue.” She had slipped a little tablet into her mouth from a tube that she had extracted from her pocket. Suddenly her enunciation was less slurred. “Sorry, Brasidus, but this local tipple of yours is rather potent. Just as well that I brought along some soberer-uppers.”
“But why do you need them? Surely one of the pleasures of drinking—the pleasure of drinking—is the effect; the . . . the loosening up.”
“And the drunken brawl?”
“Yes,” he said firmly.
“You mean that you’d like to . . . to brawl with me?”
Brasidus glimpsed a vivid mental picture of such an encounter and, with no hesitation, said, once again, “Yes.”
“Drive on,” she told him.