Chapter 18
SO THEY DROVE BACK to the ship swiftly, bypassing Kilkis—Brasidus had no desire to meet again the village corporal—taking roads that avoided all centers of population, however small. Peggy was in the back of the car, making soft, soothing noises to the querulous infant. Achron, thought Brasidus sullenly, would have appreciated this display of paternal solicitude—but I do not. And what did he feel? Jealousy, he was obliged to admit, resentment at being deprived of the Arcadian’s company. Perverts the doctors in the créche might be, but these aliens could and did exert a dangerous charm. But when it came to a showdown, as now, they had no time for mere humans, lavished their attentions only upon their own kind.
Suddenly the child was silent. The car was speeding down a straight stretch of road, so Brasidus was able to risk turning his head to see what was happening. Peggy had the stopper out of the wine flask, was dipping a corner of her handkerchief into it, then returning the soaked scrap of rag to the eager mouth of the baby. She grinned ruefully as she met Brasidus’ stare. “I know it’s all wrong,” she said. “But I haven’t a feeding bottle. Too, it will help if the brat is sound asleep when we get back to the spaceport.”
“And why will it help?” demanded Brasidus, turning his attention back to the road ahead.
She said, “It’s occurred to me that we have probably broken quite a few laws. Apart from anything else, armed assault upon the person of a police officer must be illegal.”
“It is. But you carried out the armed assault. We did not.”
She laughed. “Too true. But what about our interference with the Exposure? It will be better for both of us if your boss doesn’t know that the interference was a successful one.”
“I must make my report,” said Brasidus stiffly.
“Of course.” Her voice was soft, caressing. “But need it be a full report? We got into a fight with the wolf pack—there’s too much evidence littered around on the hillside for us to lie our way out of that. I’ve a few nasty scratches on my back and my breasts.”
“So that’s what they’re called. I was wondering.”
“Never mind that now. I’ve got these scratches, so it’s essential that I get back on board as soon as possible for treatment by our own doctor.”
“I thought that you were the ship’s doctor.”
“I’m not. I have a doctorate in my own field, which is not medicine. But let me finish. We had this fight with these four-legged sharks you people call wolves. I fell out of the car, and you jumped out and saved my life, although not before I was mauled a little. And that’s near enough to the truth, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Now, the child. She’ll fit nicely into the hamper you brought the provisions in. The poor little tot will be in a drugged stupor by the time we get to the spaceport, so she’ll be quiet enough. And with your tunic spread over her, who will know?”
“I don’t like it,” said Brasidus.
“That makes two of us, my dear. I don’t like having to conceal the evidence of actions that, on any world but this, would bring a public commendation.”
“But Diomedes will know.”
“How can he know? We were there, he was not. And we don’t even have to make sure that we tell the same story, exact in every detail. He can question you, but he can’t question me.”
“Don’t be so sure about that, Peggy.”
“Oh, he’d like to, Brasidus. He’d like to. But he knows that at all times there are sufficient officers and ratings aboard Seeker to handle the drive and main and secondary armaments. He knows that we could swat your gasbags out of the sky in a split second, and then raze the city in our own good time.” There was a long silence. Then, “I’m sorry to have gotten you into quite a nasty mess, Brasidus, but you realize that I had no choice.”
“Like calls to like,” he replied with bitter flippancy.
“You could put it that way, I suppose, but you’re wrong. Anyhow, I’m sure that I shall be able to persuade John—Commander Grimes—to offer you the sanctuary of our ship if you’re really in a jam.”
“I’m a Spartan,” he said.
“With all the Spartan virtues, I suppose. Do you have that absurd legend about the boy who let the fox gnaw his vitals rather than cry out? No matter. Just tell Captain Diomedes the truth, but not the whole truth. Say that it was all my fault, and that you did your best to restrain me. Which you did—although it wasn’t good enough. Say that you saved me from the wolves.”
They drove on in silence while Brasidus pondered his course of action. What the Arcadian had said was true, what she had proposed might prevent an already unpleasant situation from becoming even more unpleasant. In saving Peggy’s life, he had done no more than his duty; in helping to save the life of the deformed—deformed?—child he, an officer of the law, had become a criminal. And why had he done this? With the destruction of the laser-camera the alien had lost her only advantage.
And why had he known, why did he still know that his part in the rescue operations had been essentially right?
It was this strange awareness of rightness that brought him to full agreement with his companion’s propositions. Until now, he had accepted without question the superior intellectual and moral stature of those holding higher rank than himself, but it was obvious that aboard Seeker there were officers, highly competent technicians with superbly trained men and fantastically powerful machinery at their command, whose moral code varied widely from the Spartan norm. (Come to that, what about the doctors, the top-ranking aristocrats of the planet, whose own morals were open to doubt? What about the doctors, and their perverse relations with the Arcadians?)
Peggy’s voice broke into his thoughts. “She’s sleeping now. Out like a light. Drunk as a fiddler’s bitch. I think that we shall be able to smuggle her on board without trouble.” She went on, “I appreciate this, Brasidus. I do. I wish . . .” He realized that she must be standing up in the back of the car, leaning toward him. He felt her breasts against the bare skin of his back. The contact was like nothing that he had ever imagined. He growled, “Sit down, damn you. Sit down—if you want this wagon to stay on the road!”