Chapter 5
EPSILON CORVUS came in while Grimes, standing in Little Sister’s airlock to keep out of the persistent rain, was receiving the stores that he had ordered. The transfer of funds to his account with the Galactic Bank had been made with quite amazing promptitude and, for one of the few times in his life, he felt rich. He was having to restrain himself from spending money like a drunken spaceman.
The Commission’s ship dropped down through the grey overcast, glimpsed fitfully through the slowly drifting veils of rain, the arrhythmic clangor of her inertial drive muffled by the downpour. Finally she sat down decisively in the center of the triangle formed by the marker beacons. The driver of the ship chandler’s truck which delivered the stores remarked sourly, “She’s here. At last. And much good will she be to us.”
“Who’s us?” asked Grimes politely.
The driver gestured to the name painted on the side of his vehicle. “Bannington and Willis, that’s who. I’m Willis. Those cows . . .” he jerked his thumb towards the freighter “. . . don’t buy a single item here apart from private orders. Bloody Venus strawberries. Tiralbin’s one claim to fame. Ha!” He brightened slightly. “You didn’t order any, Captain. I’ll be back at the spaceport before you push off, I’ll be delivering aboard the Old Crow, so what about putting you down for a couple of dozen cans?”
“No thank you,” said Grimes.
“Don’t need ‘em, hey? You’re lucky. Mind you, they don’t work on everybody. Not on me, for one. If they did I wouldn’t be selling them! Ha! Well, sign here Cap for what you’ve got.” Grimes signed. “Sure you won’t change your mind about the strawberries? From what I hear you may be needing them after all . . .”
“No thank you,” said Grimes again. He was mildly annoyed by the assumption that a man and a woman alone together in a small spacecraft must inevitably fall into each other’s arms. Since his appointment to his first commercial command, The Far Traveller, he had studied the Space Shipping Act. He had learned that any master or officer forcing his attentions on a female passenger or crew member was liable to the suspension or cancellation of his certificate of competency. Grimes possessed a civilian master astronaut’s certificate, having been required to pass that examination before his promotion to Lieutenant Commander in the Survey Service. He had no desire to lose it.
The truck drove off and Grimes went inside the pinnace to stow his stores. He was still finding it strange to have to do everything himself but was rather enjoying it. He sang untunefully:
“Oh, I am the cook and the captain bold
And the mate of the Nancy brig . . .”
A strange voice called, “Ahoy, Little Sister! May I come aboard?”
Grimes stowed a carton, then turned towards the airlock. He said, “This is Liberty Hall. You can spit on the mat and call the cat a bastard.”
His visitor was a small, wiry man in grey working uniform with master’s epaulettes on the shoulders. He introduced himself. “I’m Halley, from the Old Crow, as they call her here. I couldn’t help noticing your little ship when I came in and thought I’d like a closer look at her. The port officials told me that she’s built of gold . . .”
“She is, Captain,” said Grimes. He waved his visitor to a chair, took one himself. “Coffee?”
“Thank-you.”
Grimes got up again, went through to the galley and returned with two steaming mugs.
“Ex Survey Service, aren’t you, Captain?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“And now you’re one of us, more or less.”
“I’m trying to be.”
The other man grinned. “I’m afraid that you haven’t tried quite hard enough. As well as being Master of Epsilon Corvus I’m an official of the Guild. A Committee-man, as a matter of fact. You, sir, are about to embark on a commercial voyage in a ship not commanded by a Guild member. I have to tell you that members of the Guild and of the space-associated unions have no option but to declare you black.”
“Which means?” asked Grimes.
“Which means that you will receive no clearance to lift from Aerospace Control, for a start.”
Grimes shrugged.
“It means, too, that Aerospace Control on Boggarty will be informed that you are black if you do, illegally, lift from Port Muldoon . . .”
“Call me Ishmael,” muttered Grimes.
“What? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. I’m sorry, Captain, but that’s the way of it. As a Survey Service type you’ve led a sheltered life. You’ve no idea of the struggle we’ve had, and are still having, to maintain and to improve conditions.” He grinned. “I understand that you’re owner as well as master, so your own conditions are up to you. But if you were, as an employee, in command of this spacecraft you’d be entitled to hard-lying money and short-handed money. You’ve no cook or steward, no engineer . . .”
I should have included hard-lying money and short-handed money in my estimated costs, thought Grimes. I will in future.
His guest pulled a sheaf of papers from the inside breast pocket of his uniform coveralls. “I’m not holding a pistol at your head, Captain, but I do strongly advise you to join the Guild. Apart from anything else we guarantee you full legal protection—as master, that is, not owner. But it’s as a master that you’re always liable to come up against a court of enquiry. So, if you’ll just fill in the details and sign here . . .”
Grimes sighed. “How much?” he asked.
“Joining fee, five hundred. Annual dues another five hundred.”
It wasn’t much compared to the profits that Grimes hoped soon to be making, compared to the salary that he was paying himself on paper. And, he reluctantly admitted, Guild membership was an essential to a merchant spaceman. He filled in the forms and signed them. He made out a check for one thousand credits to the Interstellar Astronauts’ Guild, signed that. He received a small plastic card, with his name already printed on it, in exchange.
Business over, Halley was once again quite affable. He said, “Well, that was quite painless, wasn’t it? Welcome aboard and all that.” He relaxed in his chair, cast an appraising eye around the cabin. “You know, Captain, I rather envy you. No owners to get on your back. No crew to get in your hair, no passengers . . .”
A female voice called from the airlock, “May I join the party?”
“Meet my passenger, Captain Halley,” said Grimes.
***
Halley and Tamara Haverstock were already acquainted. Neither much liked the other. The Superintending Postmistress was, to the shipmaster, yet another officious official to make his life a misery, with her unreasonable demands, each and every time that he was in Port Muldoon. Halley, to Tamara Haverstock, was the unobliging representative of the cordially disliked Interstellar Transport Commission.
“Are you actually travelling in this, Miss Haverstock?” Halley asked.
“Your ship, Captain Halley, seems never to be proceeding in a direction suitable to my requirements. And now, if you will excuse me, I have business to discuss with Captain Grimes.”
Halley rose to leave. “Bon voyage,” he said. “And don’t do anything that you couldn’t do riding on a bicycle. Remember Paragraph 118 (c) of the Space Shipping Act. If you do fall foul of it, the Guild will back you up.”
“What was he talking about?” asked the Postmistress after he was gone.
“I don’t know,” said Grimes. Actually he didn’t, but strongly suspected that Paragraph 118(c) was the one setting out the penalties for rape, or alleged rape.
Miss Haverstock looked at her watch. She said, “The consignment of parcel mail, together with my baggage, will be here very shortly. Are all your stores on board? Good. Have you paid your port dues and obtained Customs clearance? Good. If you have no objections we will lift as soon as the mails and baggage have been stowed.”
Grimes said, “This was certainly a quick turn-around. I was hoping to see something of Tiralbin. Apart from one evening in the Gentlepersons’ Club in Muldoon I haven’t been off the ship.”
She told him, “You haven’t missed anything. As far as we are concerned here in the south it’s monsoon weather over the entire damned hemisphere, and winter’s set in north of the equator. As you may have noticed, we have no land masses at all in the tropical and sub-tropical zones. So it’s a choice between getting soaked or frozen.”
“Frankly,” said Grimes, “I’ve often wondered why people live on some of the worlds that they do . . .”
“Are you getting in a nasty dig at this one? Well, Grimes, I was born here. I’m used to it. At times I even like it, but I don’t suppose I’d like much the planet that you were born on. Earth, wasn’t it? I thought as much. You Terries always contrive to convey the impression that you own the whole damn galaxy but don’t think much of it anyhow . . .”
Grimes laughed. “Surely we aren’t as bad as that.”
“Aren’t you?” She grinned at him. “Anyhow, much as I love Tiralbin I want a change of scenery. And my leave does not officially start until I have delivered the mail to its consignee on Boggarty, so, by the time we get there, I shall still have several standard months due . . .”
A man in a drab blue uniform came into the cabin without first announcing himself. He accorded the Postmistress a grudging salute then turned to Grimes. “You the skipper?”
“Yes.”
“Mail’s here, an’ some travellin’ bags. Where do you want ‘em?”
Grimes saw the single mail sack—it was heavy, and obviously held square boxes or cartons—stowed in the locker that he had cleared for the purpose. Tamara Haverstock’s baggage went into a storeroom off the galley-cum-engineroom. He signed the receipt for his cargo. The man left.
The high-ranking postwoman said, “What’s holding you, Captain? The mail must fly!”
“I suppose I’d better think about getting upstairs,” admitted Grimes.