Chapter 14 
Chapter 14
“AERO-SPACE CONTROL to Rim Malemute. Leave your inertial drive on Stand-By until your stays have been rigged and set up. Over.”
“Stays?” asked Williams. “Stays?”
“Yes,” Grimes told him. “Stays. Lengths of heavy wire rope, with bottle screws and springs. Necessary in case there’s an exceptionally heavy earth tremor.”
“And I suppose if there is one, before I’ve been tethered down, I have to get upstairs in a hurry.”
“That’s the drill.”
Grimes, Williams, and Rim Malemute’s officers looked out through the control room viewports. A man had come on to the apron, dressed in white shirt and shorts that were like a uniform, although they were not. He was giving orders to a squad of about a dozen natives. These looked as though they should have been carrying the traditional pitchforks instead of spikes and spanners. In appearance they were more like kangaroos than dinosaurs—but scaled kangaroos, with almost human heads. Almost human—their goatlike horns and the gleaming yellow tusks protruding from their mouths made it quite obvious that they were not. They wore no clothing, and their reptilian hides ranged in colour from a brown that was almost black to a yellow that was almost white. Three of them climbed up the Malemute’s smooth sides, using the sucker pads on their hands and feet, carrying the ends of the wire cables after them with their prehensile tails. Swiftly, efficiently, they shackled these ends to conveniently situated towing lugs. Then they scampered down to join their mates on the ground. The stays were stretched, set up taut. From the transceiver came the voice of Aero-Space Control, “Rim Malemute, you may shut down your engines and leave your ship at your discretion.”
Grimes had been using binoculars to study the face of the man who had directed mooring operations. “Yes,” he said at last. “That’s Clavering. He’s put on weight, lost that lean and hungry look, but he hasn’t changed much.”
He led the way down from the control room, followed by Williams. He was first down the still extruding ramp. Clavering came to meet him, threw him a sort of half salute. “Welcome to Inferno Valley, sir,” he said not very enthusiastically. Then recognition dawned on his face. “Why, it’s Commodore Grimes!” Then, with an attractive grin, “I’d have expected you to be in command of something bigger than this!”
“I’m not in command of Rim Malemute,” Grimes told him. “I’m just a passenger. This is Commander Williams, Captain Clavering, who had the dubious pleasure of bringing me here.”
There was handshaking all round, then Clavering said, “Come to my office, and tell me what I can do for you.”
Grimes and Williams looked about them curiously during their walk from the spaceport. It should have been gloomy in the deep ravine, with the murky yellow sky no more than a thin ribbon directly overhead, but it was not. The canyon walls—red, orange, banded with gold and silver—seemed to collect all the light that there was and to throw it back. Here and there on the sheer cliff faces vegetation had taken hold, static explosions of emerald green in which glowed sparks of blue and violet. Similar bushes grew from the firm, red sand that was the valley floor.
Two natives passed them, bound on some errand. They waved to Clavering, grinning hideously. He waved back. He said, “You get used to their horrendous appearance. They’re good, cheerful workers. They like to be paid in kind rather than cash, in all the little luxuries that cannot be produced on this planet. Candy, they love. And they’ve acquired the taste for the more sickly varieties of lolly-water. Which reminds me—you are in from Port Last, aren’t you? Did you see anything there of Ditmar? She brings my supplies in, and takes back the chemicals produced at my plant on the Bitter Sea, not far from here.”
“I’m afraid she’s going to be late,” said Grimes. “She ran into all sorts of trouble with the Department of Navigation. Safety equipment was in a shocking state.”
“I’m not surprised, Commodore. But you can’t blame Captain Reneck entirely. His owners seem to be a bunch of cheeseparing bastards. Still, he might have let me know he was delayed.”
“You can’t blame him for that, either,” said Grimes. “The post office boys on Ultimo are playing up.”
“Oh. And I shall have a strike on my hands if I try to pay my devils in cash instead of kind. Still, if worst comes to the worst I shall be able to do a deal of some kind with Sobraon’s catering officer. Now, this is the Devil’s Stewpot that we’re coming to. Between ourselves the story that the waters have marvelous rejuvenating properties is just a story—but a good soak and a good sweat never did anybody any harm.”
The heat from the huge, circular, natural pool was almost overpowering even though they passed several meters from its rim. The people in it were not engaged in any violent physical activities. They just lay there in the shallows, only their faces, the breasts of the women and the protuberant bellies of both sexes appearing above the steaming surface.
“There are times,” said Clavering, “when I wish, most sincerely, that young people could afford to come on these TG cruises.”
“That one’s not bad,” said Grimes, nodding towards a woman who had just emerged from the water and who was walking slowly towards the next pool.
“Not bad at all,” agreed Clavering. “She’s old Silas Demarest’s secretary, quote and unquote. You know—Demarest, the boss cocky of Galactic Metals. Now, this next bath, the Purgatorial Plunge, is not natural. Quite a few of my . . . er . . . customers give it a miss after they’ve sweated all the sin out of themselves. But it’s amazing the extremes of cold that the human body can take after it’s been well and truly heated.”
“Mphm.” Grimes watched with appreciation as the naked girl dived into the clear, blue-green, icy water and propelled herself to the other side with swift, smooth strokes.
“And after the Purgatorial Pool you have the choice of swimming back to the Lucifer Arms—that’s my hotel—in the River Styx, or walking along its banks. Or, if you’re really keen, jogging along its banks. The temperature of the Styx is normal, by the way, what we refer to as pee-warm.”
The girl, Grimes saw, was swimming back, which was rather a pity, especially as she was a fast swimmer.
“Just around this bend you’ll see the Lucifer Arms and the other buildings. Or ‘inflations.’ I had an architect staying here who tried to convince me that ‘inflation’ was a more correct word. This is earthquake country—this is an earthquake planet—and any normal construction wouldn’t last long.”
And there, on the north bank of the Styx, was the Lucifer Arms. Imagine an igloo. Color it. Put another one beside it and color that, being careful to avoid a clash. Put another one beside the first two. Put one on top of the triangular base. And so on, and so on, and so on . . .
Dome upon dome upon dome, and every one a bubble of tough, stiffened plastic, its double skin filled with pressurized gas. It was as though some giant had emptied tons of detergent into the sluggishly flowing river and then stirred it violently so that the iridescent froth was flung up on to the bank. The edifice should have been an architectural nightmare—but, fantastically, it was not. Those soft-hued demispheres should have been in violent contrast to the harsh, red, towering walls of rock on either side of the rift valley—but in some weird way they matched the awe-inspiring scenery, enhanced it, even as did the ghost gums that Clavering had planted along the banks of the river, raised from saplings brought all the way from distant Earth. (But the management of TG Clippers, of course, had probably charged only nominal freight on them.)
The ex-captain led the way to the hotel’s main entrance, through the force screen into the air-conditioned interior. It was only then that Grimes realized how sulphurous the hot air outside had been. It was a matter of contrasts. After the atmosphere of Rim Malemute, far too small a ship for any sort of voyage, even the natural air of Eblis had smelled and tasted good.
Clavering took Grimes and Williams to his office, itself a dome within the assemblage of domes. The three men seated themselves in very comfortable chairs that, too, were inflated plastic. A grinning devil, his scales highly polished, came to take their orders for drinks. Save for a tendency to hiss his sibilants his Galactic-English was very good.
Clavering sat back in his chair, which molded itself to the contours of his body. Save for his almost white hair he had aged very little since Grimes had seen him last—how many years ago? He was as smooth and as smug as a well-fed cat—in that, he had changed.
After the native had brought the tray of drinks, in tall glasses misted with condensation, he asked, “And now, Commodore Grimes, just what can I do for you?