Chapter 3
Grimes watched Sister Sue lift off from Port Woomera.
He stood there, on the stained and scarred concrete of the commercial spaceport apron, staring up at the dull-gleaming spindle that was the ship—his ship—climbing steadily until it was no more than a speck in the cloudless blue sky, listening to the cacophony of the inertial drive until it was no more than a faint, irritable mutter. And then the sky was empty and the only noises were those normal to a working spaceport at ground level—the whining of motors, the occasional clank and rattle from conveyor belts and gantries, now and again a shouted order.
Williams would do all right, he thought, despite his initial diffidence, even though the ex-Mate had made it plain that he had hoped that Grimes would be along in an advisory capacity.
(“The old ship won’t be the same without you, skipper,” he had said. Then, “I’ll look after her for you. You’ll be back. I know you will.” And Grimes had thought, But ten years is a long time.)
And now Sister Sue was up and away, outbound for Caribbea with a cargo of manufactured goods, everything from robotutors to robutterflies, the beautiful little devices that had been developed to deal, lethally and expeditiously, with flying insect pests. (They would sell well enough. Grimes thought, while the craze lasted.) Her discharge completed she would go on Time Charter to the Interstellar Transport Commission, carrying anything and everything anywhere and everywhere.
At least, thought Grimes, Williams had a good crew. Magda Granadu was still Catering Officer/Purser and the two old-timers, Crumley and Stewart, were still Reaction Drive Chief and Radio Officer respectively. The other engineers, Reaction Drive and Mannschenn Drive, were real space engineers, not refugees from universities and bicycle shops. (Their predecessors, together with their false memories, had been given passage back to Austral.) The Chief, Second and Third Officers were all young, properly qualified and actually employees of the Commission which, by the terms of the charter party, was required to supply necessary personnel.
So that was that.
Ex-Captain Grimes, ex-Company Commodore Grimes, soon-to-be-Governor Grimes climbed into the ground car that had been waiting to take him to the airport from where he would fly to Alice Springs to spend a few days with his parents before leaving for Liberia.
They met him in the waiting room at the base of the mooring mast.
Grimes senior, a tall, white-haired old man, greeted his son with enthusiasm. “I envy you, John,” he said. “I really do. I just write about adventures; you have them!”
Matilda Grimes—also tall, red-haired and pleasantly horse-faced—frowned disapprovingly. “Don’t encourage him, George. Ever since he left the Survey Service he’s been doing nothing but getting into trouble, I hoped to see him become an admiral one day. I never dreamed that he’d become a pirate.” She turned on her son. “And what do you intend to do now, John? You’ve had your Certificate taken from you . . .”
“Only suspended,” said her husband.
She ignored this. “You’ll never command a ship again, not even a merchant vessel. And after that trial. . . .”
“Court of Inquiry, my dear.”
“. . . nobody will ever employ you.”
“As a matter of fact, Matilda,” Grimes said, “I shall shortly be going out to take up a new appointment.”
“What as?” asked Grimes’s father.
“Governor, as a matter of fact. Of Liberia.”
“I’ve always thought,” said his mother, “that the standard of intelligence in the World Assembly is appallingly low. Now I am sure of it. And I’ve never trusted Bendeen. Any man who would give up a career in the Survey Service for one in politics must have something wrong with him. Appointing a pirate as governor. . . .”
“There are precedents,” said George Whitley Grimes. “Sir Henry Morgan, for example.” He realized that the other people in the lounge were looking curiously at the small family party and said, “I suggest that we continue this discussion at home.”
The robutler brought in drinks. The Old Man must be doing well, thought Grimes. The machine was one of the very latest models, a beautifully proportioned and softly gleaming cylinder moving on silent treads rather than something unconvincingly humanoid. From a circular port midway up the thing’s body a sinuous tentacle produced the drinks ordered—dry sherry, chilled, for Matilda Grimes, a pink gin for Grimes and beer for his father. A dish of assorted nuts, placed on the coffee table, followed.
“Here’s to crime,” toasted George Whitley Grimes, raising his glass.
“I’ll not drink to that!” snapped his wife. Nonetheless she gulped rather than sipped from hers.
Grimes sampled his pink gin. He could not have mixed a better one himself.
He said, “You seem very prosperous, George.”
“Yes. It was that If Of History novel.”
“The Ned Kelly idea that you were telling me about the last time that I was here?”
“No. The one after that, based on the Australian Constitutional Crisis. If Gough Whitlam, the Prime Minister, had refused to relinquish office after the Governor General fired him. . . .”
“Don’t go putting ideas into his head,” admonished Matilda. “The last time that he was here the pair of you talked about privateering and piracy—and look what happened! The next thing we hear will be that he’s fired the President of Liberia!”
“Perhaps I shall,” murmured Grimes. “Perhaps I shall. . . .”
His father looked at him intently over the rim of his condensation-beaded glass. He said softly, “Tell me, John, did you really leave the Survey Service?”
“I did.”
“Did they call you back?”
“Did they?” pressed his mother, suddenly alert.
It was useless, he knew, to try to lie to her.
He said, “No comment.”
“And isn’t it true,” his father went on, “that after your piratical antics a bill was pushed through the Assembly making privateering illegal anywhere in the Federation of Worlds?”
“You read, watch and listen to the media, George.”
“I do. And there have been some nasty rumors recently about Liberia. But you can’t tell us anything, can you?”
“I can’t. And I think that you’d both be wise to keep your suspicions to yourself.”
“We shall,” promised his father. “But I shall be tempted, mind you, to give them an airing in a novel.”
“Please don’t. The El Dorado Corporation might add two and two to make five and then be after my blood.”
“All right.” The older man finished his beer and, ignoring his wife’s frown, demanded a refill from the robutler. “And now, young John, I am going to put an idea into your head—one that even Matilda will approve of. You’re really a spaceman, aren’t you? That’s all you want to be, ever will want to be. And you don’t want to wait ten years to get your Certificate back—especially when you’ve a ship of your own of which you should be the captain. You’ll be governor, of a world called Liberia. When in Liberia do as the original Liberians did. . . .”
He talked, drawing upon his historical knowledge.
Grimes listened intently, as did his mother.
When his father was finished Grimes grinned happily. “It could work,” he said. “By all the Odd Gods, I’ll make it work!”
“But you will have to finish the job that you’re being sent out to do,” said his mother, frowning worriedly. “ You’ll have to finish that job first.”
“Of course,” Grimes assured her. “Of course.”