Chapter 12 
Chapter 12
THE ODD GODS OF THE GALAXY did not have their peace disturbed. Ditmar was a clean ship—clean, that is, from a custom officer’s viewpoint, although not necessarily from that of a spaceman. She was far scruffier than the generality of tramps. Painted surfaces were not only crying out for a fresh coat of paint but for the washing of what had been applied sometime in the distant past. The ghosts of every meal that had been cooked in her galley since her maiden voyage still haunted her accommodation; the dirt of unnumbered worlds was trodden into her deck coverings.
But she was clean. There was not even any pornography in her officers’ cabins. Nobody had a drop of liquor or a fraction of an ounce of tobacco over and above the permitted duty-free allowance. Her papers were in impeccable order. She was so clean, in fact, as to invite suspicion.
From the viewpoint of the authorities it was unfortunate that she was of Tanagerine registry. Had she been under any other flag it would have been possible to clap some of her personnel into jail on some trumped-up charge or another. A fight in a bar, started by a provocateur . . . The imprisonment of all participants and, if necessary, innocent bystanders. The administration of “blabberjuice” in food or water . . . Oh, it could have been done, but little, otherwise unimportant Tanager was a pet of the United Planets Organization. Billinghurst and the Port Last chief of police would have liked to have done it regardless, but orders were given to them to handle Ditmar with kid gloves before they could give orders of their own to their undercover agents.
Bugs, of course, were planted in the places of entertainment and refreshment frequented by Ditmar’s crew. They picked up nothing of interest. The Tanagerines seemed to be enthusiastic amateur meteorologists to a man and discussed practically nothing except the weather. Bugs were planted aboard the ship herself—a customs searcher, of course, knows all the good hiding places aboard a vessel. The only sound that they recorded was a continuous, monotonous whirrup, whirrup, whirrup.
All that could be done was to delay the ship’s departure on her return voyage to Eblis. At Grimes’ suggestion the Port Last Department of Navigation surveyor checked up on Ditmar’s life-saving equipment. One of her lifeboats was not airtight, and was condemned, and the stores in one of the others were long overdue for renewal. The faulty boat could have been repaired, of course, but the surveyor’s word was law. And, oddly enough, lifeboat stores were practically unprocurable at Port Last and would have to be shipped from Port Forlorn. So it went on. The master of a merchant vessel is peculiarly helpless when the authorities of any port take a dislike to him.
Meanwhile, Rim Malemute, her armament fitted, was almost ready for space. Grimes was taking her to Eblis. Officially he was visiting that world to inspect port facilities, as the Rim Worlds Navy was thinking of opening a base there. Billinghurst wanted to come with him, saying that he wished to make arrangements for the setting up of a customs office at Inferno Valley. Grimes told him that this would look too suspicious, both of them leaving Port Last in the same ship. This was true, of course, but the real reason for the commodore’s refusal to cooperate was that he did not wish to share the cramped quarters aboard the little Malemute with a man of Billinghurst’s bulk. Alternative transport was available, although not at once. TG Clippers’ cruise liner, Macedon, was due shortly at Port Last, and Inferno Valley was her next port of call.
“Eblis,” said Billy Williams, when he and Grimes were discussing matters prior to departure. “I’ve never been there, Skipper. What’s it like?”
“Its name suits it, Commander Williams, very well indeed. It’s mainly red desert, with rocks eroded by wind and sand into all sorts of fantastic shapes. It has volcanoes—big ones and little ones—like other worlds have trees. The atmosphere is practically straight sulphur dioxide. The inhabitants look like the demons of Terran mythology—horns and tails and all—but they’re quite harmless, actually. Earth tremors are more common than showers of rain on normal worlds. The odd part about it is that as long as you keep away from the really dangerous areas you’re as safe there as you are anywhere in the Galaxy. The planet is like a huge amusement park with all sorts of hair-raising rides; you get the illusion of risk with no real risk at all. That’s why it’s such a popular holiday resort.”
“Inferno Valley . . . isn’t that owned by a retired space captain?”
“Yes. Captain Clavering. He came out to the Rim quite some years ago, owner/master of a ship called Sally Ann. She was—of all things!—an obsolescent Beta Class liner. Far too big and expensive in upkeep for a little, one-ship company. He’d been getting by somehow, just making ends meet, but when I met him he’d come to the end of the line. I was able to put a charter in his way; the Rim Worlds Universities were sending a scientific expedition to Eblis and we, Rim Runners, hadn’t any ships either handy or suitable.
“So he went to Eblis. He and his wife, he told me later, quite fell in love with the valley in which the expedition set up its main camp. There are these quite fertile valleys all over the planet, actually, not too hot and the air quite breathable if you don’t mind the occasional whiff of brimstone. But what gave him the idea of a holiday resort was a remark that he’d heard somebody—it may have been me—make: ‘Anybody who comes out to the Rim to earn a living would go to hell for a pastime!’
“That was his start. He had people living in tents at first, with quite primitive facilities. He used his own Sally Ann to carry holidaymakers from the Rim Worlds to this amusement park inferno. Then TG Clippers, when they started cruising, got into the act. Then the Waverley Royal Mail. Even the Dog Star Line. And Clavering never looked back.
“His old Sally Ann is still there, I believe. He doesn’t use her himself—he’s too busy being a resort manager. And I don’t think he’s sufficiently sentimental to hang on to her for old time’s sake—it’s just that the market for secondhand ships of that size is a very limited one.”
Grimes carefully filled and lit his pipe. When it was going he said, “I rather liked Clavering, and I’m pleased that he’s done so well. I only hope that he’s not mixed up in this dreamy weed business.”
“I don’t see why he should be, Skipper. He must be coining money in his legitimate business.”
“Nobody is so rich that he can’t use a few extra credits—especially when they’re tax free. Too, very few people from the Inner Worlds would consider the possession, use, or even peddling of a drug like dreamy weed a crime. I’m not at all sure that I do myself. It’s when the racketeers get mixed up in the trade that it’s bad. It’s when two young people get blown into messy tatters by the bastards they’re working for.”
“And it’s when people make a religion out of what is, after all, just a pleasure,” said Williams, who had his puritanical moments.
“If all religions had been like that,” Grimes told him, “they’d have done far less harm over the ages.”
Williams was not convinced.