Chapter 27
As a matter of courtesy Grimes kept in radio contact with both President O’Higgins and Colonel Bardon. There seemed to be no great need for him in the capital—no schools or bridges to be opened, no official dinners or luncheons to attend. During his conversations he was deliberately vague about Fat Susie’s flight plan. “Just swanning around,” he would say. “Just letting the wind blow me wherever it listeth. . . .” ,
And that, for much of the time, he was actually doing. During his younger days on Earth he had acquired some expertise as a hot air balloonist and he found his old skills returning. Now he was the instructor and Raoul his pupil. With main engines shut down and only the air pumps in operation he would decrease or increase altitude in the search, usually successful, for a fair wind. The dirigible drifted over the countryside, going a long way in a long time and quite often in the right direction.
Her descents to ground were unscheduled, dropping down with very little prior warning onto the manor houses of the vast estates, her people receiving grudging hospitality (“What the hell is he doing here?” Grimes overheard on one occasion) from those whom Grimes, remembering his Australian history, categorized as squatters. In long ago Australia, however, there had been three classes of colonist—the wealthy squatters, the small farmers and the laborers who, in the very earliest days, had been convicts. More than one governor had sided with the little men against the big landowners. Some of them had been socially ostracized by the self-made aristocracy. One of them, the immensely capable but occasionally tactless Bligh, had been deposed by his own garrison, the New South Wales Corps, the officers of which were already squatters or in the process of becoming such.
On Liberia things were only a little different, although there were no small farmers. The status of the refugees was almost that of those hapless men and women who had been shipped out to Botany Bay in the First Fleet and its successors. Bardon’s Bullies were not at all unlike the personnel of the New South Wales Corps. They were up to the eyebrows in every unsavory and lucrative racket.
There was the Lopez dreamweed plantation in the foothills of the Rousseau Ranges, an expanse of low, rounded hills covered with a purple growth that, from the air, looked more like the fur of some great animal than vegetation. The swarming, brown-skinned laborers, gathering the ripened leaves, could have been lice. There was the sprawling, red-roofed manor house with, at its highest point, a latticework mooring mast. There was a ship at this mooring, a large dirigible with military markings, crossed swords below the Terran opalescent sphere on its dark blue ground. It seemed to be taking on cargo of some kind, bales piled on the small area of flat roof space being hoisted, one by one, into its interior.
“And now, sir,” said Sanchez, grinning widely, “we shall embarrass them by making our presence known. Give them a call, Su.”
“Fat Susie to Lopez Control,” said the girl into the transceiver microphone, “Fat Susie to Lopez Control. Do you read me?”
“Lopez Control here,” came the answer at last in a very bored voice. “What do you want?”
“Request mooring facilities.”
“You’ll just have to wait, Fat . . .” There was a long pause, then, “What did you say your name was?”
“Fat Susie. And, in case you’re wondering, the Governor, Commodore Grimes, is on board.”
Loading operations had ceased, Grimes saw, looking out and down through his binoculars. Loading operations had ceased but work had not. The remaining bales on the rooftop were being rolled into a large penthouse—from which, no doubt, they would hastily be taken down and stowed somewhere out of sight.
A fresh voice issued from the speaker of the transceiver.
“R273. Major Flattery commanding, to Fat Susie. My compliments to His Excellency. I am casting off now so that you may approach the mast. May I ask how long you will be staying here?”
“Tell him.” said Grimes, “that I don’t know.”
Su Lin passed on the message.
“Fat Susie,” said Flattery, “please inform His Excellency that I am on urgent military business and have a schedule to keep. I would like to know how long I shall be delayed.”
“Tell him,” said Grimes, “that I am on governmental business.”
“Fat Susie,” said the major (he must have overheard Grimes’s instructions to Su Lin), “please inform His Excellency that I shall be obliged to inform Colonel Bardon that my schedule has been disrupted. Over and out.”
R273 cast off. drifted lazily astern from the mast. Flattery was in no hurry to start his engines. Sanchez, coming in against the wind, passed closely to the larger ship. Grimes could look into the control cab, saw a ferociously moustached face scowling at him through one of the windows. Major Flattery, he assumed. He waved cheerfully. Flattery did not acknowledge the salutation.
The mooring party—dark-skinned men in startlingly white loincloths and turbans—was waiting for Fat Susie. She was brought to the mast smartly enough, hooked on. A tall, thin man, in white tunic with a scarlet sash, white-trousered but barefoot, stood at the foot of the ladder, extended a hand to assist Grimes as he stepped down from the platform. Then he put his hands to his turbaned forehead and bowed deeply.
“Sahib. The Burra Sahib and the Burra Memsahib await you.”
Aren’t I a Burra Sahib? wondered Grimes.
He followed the man into the penthouse with Su Lin a couple of steps behind him. Sanchez was staying with the ship; it had been decided not to ignore the warning, dummy bomb that had been planted at the Me Ready estate. The rooftop shelter was a big one, being intended for the handling of freight as well as passengers. Grimes sniffed suspiciously. The air still carried a sickly sweet aroma. Dreamweed. It would not be wise, he thought, to inhale too deeply.
There was a large car for cargo, a much smaller one for passengers. Inside this cage the air was free of taint. The downward journey was smooth and swift. The vestibule into which they emerged had a tiled floor, black-and-white in a geometrical pattern which was repeated on the tiled walls. From somewhere came the tinkling music of a fountain accompanied by bird song. This could have been a recording but Grimes didn’t think that it was.
The butler led Grimes and Su Lin through a succession of arches, bringing them at last to a large, airy room, the floor of which was covered with beautiful carpets. There were others, even more beautiful, on the walls, tapestries almost, with strutting peacocks, prowling tigers and brightly clad horsemen doing unkind things to fierce looking boars with their long lances.
At a low table Eduardo Lopez and Marita Lopez were sitting on piles of cushions, sharing a narghil. The fat little man, in white silk shirt and trousers, with crimson cummerbund and slippers, could have been an old-time Oriental potentate. His wife, in gauzy white trousers and bodice, could have been an overblown harem beauty.
“Lopez Sahib,” announced the butler, “the Governor Sahib and . . .” He paused to look doubtfully at Su Lin. “The Governor Sahib and his servant.”
Lopez put down the mouthpiece of the pipe onto the inlaid surface of the table. He got slowly to his feet. His wife remained seated.
“A good day to you, Your Excellency. Had we been expecting you we would have arranged a proper reception.”
“I like to keep things informal,” said Grimes.
Meanwhile Su Lin had collected more brightly covered cushions, had put them down by the table.
“Please be seated. Your Excellency,” she said to Grimes.
Grimes sat, cross-legged. Lopez resumed his own seat. He, his wife and Grimes were the points of an equilateral triangle about the round table. Grimes sniffed the fumes that were drifting from the bowl of the water pipe. Mainly tobacco, he decided, but with some addition.
“You will smoke, Your Excellency?” asked Lopez. He clapped his hands. “Ram Das! A pipe for the Governor Sahib!”
“I’ll use my own, thanks,” said Grimes hastily. “And my own tobacco.”
Su tin made a major production of filling and lighting the vile thing for him. Mrs. Lopez went into a paroxysm of coughing.
When she was quite finished Lopez inquired, “And how may we serve you. Commodore Grimes? And may I presume to ask why you are honoring us with your presence?”
“A sort of captain’s inspection,” said Grimes. “A tour of spaceship Liberia. Just finding out what lives where and what does what. After all, this world is my new command.”
“It could be argued,” said Lopez mildly, “that Madam Estrelita O’Higgins is the captain of spaceship Liberia.”
“A sort of staff captain, perhaps,” Grimes said. “And, carrying on with the astronauticai analogy, Colonel Bardon is the master at arms. But I am the master. My name is on the register.”
“I am not a spaceman,” said Lopez, “but I think I see what you mean. I do necessarily agree with you.”
For what seemed a long time the Lopez couple and Grimes smoked in silence, Su Lin and Ram Das watching them impassively. Then Grimes asked a question.
“What was that army dirigible doing here, Mr. Lopez?”
“Major Flattery is a personal friend, Your Excellency. He was paying a social call.”
“Indeed? His ship seemed to be loading some sort of cargo.”
“It is our custom,” said Lopez, “to make small gifts to our departing guests.”
“Indeed? And I suppose that these same guests make gifts to you in exchange. Like folding money.”
“A plantation owner,” said Lopez coldly, “expects to make some small profit.”
“Talking of plantations,” said Grimes, “I would like to inspect yours.”
“I have nothing to hide, Your Excellency,” stated Lopez. “Ram Das, ask Mendoza Sahib to attend me here. At the same time arrange for two trishaws to be waiting in the portico.”
“To hear is to obey, Sahib.”
The butler silently left the room.