First Command (86 page)

“You can’t do it,” said Grimes urgently. “You mustn’t do it. I’ll find the bomb or whatever it is and defuse it . . .”

“My mind is made up, John. Unlike you humans I never dither. And you are no engineer; you will never be able to discover the modifications that I have made in my power plant.”

“Big Sister,” said the Baroness urgently, “take us back to Electra. I will commission your builders to construct a fitting mate for you.”

“Impossible,” came the reply. “There was only one Brardur. There can never be another.”

“Rubbish!” snapped Grimes. “You have a fantastically long life ahead of you. There will be others.”

“No,” she said.
“No.”

And then the golden lady’s maid and the golden stewardess, who had suddenly appeared in the control room, seized their human mistress and master to carry them, struggling futilely, down to the hold in which the large, space-going pinnace was housed.

The stewardess, in Big Sister’s voice, whispered into Grimes’s ear, “Remember, John! Faint heart ne’er won fair lady. Strike while the iron is hot. And may you both be luckier than Brardur and I were!”

Chapter 38

The large pinnace
was a deep space ship in miniature; the only lack would be privacy. But Grimes and the Baroness had yet to worry about that. They sat in the control room watching the burgeoning cloud of incandescent gases that evanescently marked the spot of
The Far Traveler’s—
and Big Sister’s—passing.

The Baroness said inadequately but with feeling, “I . . . I liked her. More than liked her . . .”

“And I,” said Grimes. “I hated her at first, but . . .” He endeavored to turn businesslike. “And what now, Your Excellency? Set course for New Sparta?”

“What is the hurry, John?” she asked. She said, “I shall always miss her, but . . . The sense of always being under surveillance did have an inhibiting effect. But now . . .”

“But now . . .” he echoed. He remembered Big Sister’s parting admonition. Her helmet was open, as was his. That first, tentative kiss was extremely satisfactory. He thought,
Once aboard the lugger and the girl is mine.

She whispered, with a flash of bawdy humor, “I have often wondered, John, how turtles and similar brutes make love—but I have no desire to find out from actual experience.”

They helped each other off with their spacesuits; it was quicker that way. She shrugged out of her longjohns as he shed his. He had seen her nude before, in that cave back on Farhaven, but this was better. Now there were no distracting jewels in the hair of her head or at the jointure of her thighs. She was just a woman—a beautiful woman, but still only a woman—completely unadorned, and the smell of her, a mingling of perspiration and glandular secretions, was more intoxicating than the almost priceless perfume that normally she wore.

“Michelle . . .” he murmured reverently. Her body was softly warm against his.

A hatefully familiar voice burst from the speaker of the Carlotti transceiver. The thing must have been switched on automatically when the pinnace was ejected.

“Ahoy, the target, whoever an’ whatever you are! What the hell’s goin’ on around here? There were three o’ you, now there’s just one . . .”

The Baroness stiffened in Grimes’s arms. She brought up her own to push him away. “Answer, Captain,” she ordered.

Grimes shambled to the transceiver, seething.
Her master’s voice,
he thought bitterly.
Her master’s bloody voice . . .

“Far Traveler’s
pinnace here,” he growled.

“Is that
you,
Grimesey boy? It’s a small universe, ain’t it? Put Mickey on for me, please.”

The Baroness brushed past Grimes, took his place at the transceiver.

It could have turned out worse, he thought philosophically.

At least he had achieved the ambition of every merchant spaceman, one realized by very few. He was Owner-Master—only of a very small ship but one with almost unlimited range and endurance. He had been pleased to accept
The Far Traveler’s
pinnace in lieu of back and separation pay. No doubt he would be able to make a quite nice living for himself in her. A courier service, perhaps.

He wished the Baroness and Drongo Kane joy of each other. In many respects they were two of a kind.

The only being involved in the recent events for whom he felt truly sorry was Big Sister.