He opened his eyes slowly, shut them again hastily. He was lying on his back, he realized, on some hard surface, staring directly into a bright, harsh light
He heard a vaguely familiar voice say, "He's coming round now, sir."
He heard a too familiar voice reply, "Just as well, Doctor. They'll want him alive back at Base so they can crucify him."
Delamere, and his ship's surgeon . . .
He moved his head so that he would not be looking directly at the light, opened his eyes again. Delamere's classically handsome face swam into view. The man was gloating.
"Welcome aboard, Grimes," he said. "But this is not—for you—Liberty Hall. There's no mat to spit on and if you call my ship's cat a bastard I'll have you on bread and water for the entire passage."
Grimes eased himself to a sitting posture, looked around. He was in a small compartment which, obviously, was not the ship's brig as it was utterly devoid of furniture. A storeroom? What did it matter? Delamere and the doctor stood there looking down at him. Ranking them were two Marines, their sidearms drawn and ready.
He demanded, "What the hell do you think you're playing at? Kidnapping is a crime on any planet, and I'll see that you pay the penalty!"
"Kidnapping, Grimes? You're still a Terran citizen and this ship is Terran territory. Furthermore, your . . . arrest was carried out with the assistance of certain local police officers." He smirked. "Mind you, I don't think that Her Ladyship the Mayor would approve—but she'll be told that you were last seen going down to the beach for a refreshing swim after a hard, hot day at the spaceport." He laughed. "You might kid yourself that you're a little friend to all the universe—but there's plenty of people who hate your guts."
"And you're one of them," said Grimes resignedly.
"However did you guess?" asked Delamere sardonically.
"I must be psychic," Grimes said.
"Save your cheap humor for the court martial, Grimes."
"If there is one, Delamere. If you get me back to Lindisfarne. The Mayor will know that I'm missing. She knows the sort of bastard that you are. Shell have this ship searched . . ."
Delamere laughed. "Her policemen have already boarded, looking for you. They weren't very interested but we showed them all through the accommodation, including the cells. Oh, and they did see a couple or three storerooms—but not this one. Even if they had gone as far as the outer door the radiation warning sign would have scared them off."
"Is this place hot?" asked Grimes, suddenly apprehensive.
"You'll find out soon enough," said Delamere, "when your hair starts falling out"
But Handsome Frankie, thought Grimes with relief, would never risk his own precious skin and gonads in a radioactive environment, however briefly.
Delamere looked at his watch. "I shall be lifting off in half an hour. It's a pity that I've not been able to obtain clearance from the Acting Port Captain, but in the circumstances . . . ."
Grimes said nothing. There was nothing that he could say. He would never plead, not even if there was the remotest chance that Delamere would listen to him. He would save his breath for the court martial. He would need it then.
But was that muffled noise coming from the alleyway outside the storeroom? Shouting, a hoarse scream, the sound of heavy blows . . . Could it be . . . ? Could it be the police attempting a rescue after all? Or—and that would be a beautiful irony—another mutiny, this one aboard Vega!
He remarked sweetly, "Sounds as though you're having trouble, Frankie."
Delamere snapped to his Marines, "You, Petty and Slim! Go out and tell those men to pipe down. Place them under arrest"
"But the prisoner, sir," objected one of them. Grimes watched indecision battling with half decisions on Delamere's face. Handsome Frankie had no desire to walk out into the middle of a free fight but he had to find out what was happening. On the other hand, he had no desire to be left alone with Grimes, even though his old enemy was unarmed and not yet recovered from the stungun blast.
There was a brief rattle of small arms fire, another hoarse scream. The Marines hastily checked their pistols—stunguns, as it happened—but seemed in no greater hurry to go out than their captain.
And then the door bulged inward—bulged until the plating around it ruptured, until a vertical, jagged-edged split appeared. Two slim, golden hands inserted themselves into the opening, took a grip and then pulled apart from each other. The tortured metal screamed, so loudly as almost to drown the crackling discharge from the Marines' stunguns.
A woman stepped through the ragged gap, a gleaming, golden woman clad in skimpy ship's stewardess's uniform. She stretched out a long, shapely arm, took the weapon from the unresisting hand of one of the Marines, squeezed. A lump of twisted, useless metal dropped with a clatter to the deck, emitted a final coruscation of sparks and an acridity of blue fumes. The other Marine went on firing at her, then threw the useless stungun into her face. She brushed it aside before it reached its target as though she were swatting a fly.
Another woman followed her, this one dressed as a lady's maid—black-stockinged, short-skirted, with white, frilly apron and white, frilly cap. She could have been a twin to the first one. She probably was. They both came from the same robot factory on Electra.
Delamere was remarkably quick on the uptake. "Piracy!" he yelled. "Action stations! Repel boarders!"
"You've two of them right here," said the supine Grimes happily. "Why don't you start repelling them?"
The stewardess spoke—but her voice was the cold voice of Big Sister. She said, "Commander Delamere, you have illegally brought Port Captain Grimes aboard your vessel and are illegally detaining him. I demand that he be released at once."
"And I demand that you get off my ship!" blustered Delamere. He was frightened and making a loud noise to hide the fact.
The stewardess brushed Delamere aside, with such force that he fetched up against the bulkhead with a bone-shaking thud. She reached down, gripped Grimes' shoulder and jerked him to his feet. He did not think that his collarbone was broken but couldn't be sure.
"Come," she said. "Or shall I carry you?"
"I'll walk," said Grimes hastily.
"Grimes!" shouted Delamere. "You're making things worse for yourself! Aiding and abetting pirates!" Then, to the Marines, "Grab him!"
They tried to obey the order but without enthusiasm. The lady's maid Just pushed them, one hand to each of them, and they fell to the deck.
"Doctor!" ordered Delamere. "Stop them!"
Tm a non-combatant, Captain," said the medical officer.
There were more of the robots in the alleyway, a half dozen of them, male but sexless, naked, brightly golden. They formed up around Grimes and his two rescuers, marched toward the axial shaft. The deck trembled under the rhythmic impact of their heavy metal feet And there were injured men in the alleyway, some unconscious, some groaning and stirring feebly. There was blood underfoot and spattered on the bulkheads. There were broken weapons that the automata kicked contemptuously aside.
Somebody was firing from a safe distance—not a laser weapon but a large caliber projectile pistol. (Whoever it was had more sense than to burn holes through his own ship from the inside—or, perhaps, had just grabbed the first firearm available.) Bullets ricocheted from bulkheads and deckhead, whistled through the air. There was the spang! of impact— metal on metal—as one hit the stewardess on the nape of her neck. She neither staggered nor faltered and there was not so much as' a dent to mark the place.
They pressed on, with Grimes' feet hardly touching the deck as he was supported by the two robot women. There was an officer ahead of them, guarding the access to the spiral staircase that would take them down to the after airlock. Holding a heavy pistol in both hands he pumped shot after shot at the raiders and then, suddenly realizing the futility of it, turned and ran.
Down the stairway the raiding party clattered. The inner door of the airlock was closed. The two leading robots just leaned on it and it burst open. The outer door, too, was sealed and required the combined strength and weight of three of the mechanical men to force it. The ramp had been retracted and it was all of ten meters from the airlock to the ground. Two by two the robots jumped, sinking calf-deep into the turf as they landed.
"Jump!" ordered the stewardess who, with the lady's maid, had remained with Grimes.
He hesitated. It was a long way down and he could break an ankle, or worse.
"Jump!" she repeated.
Still he hesitated.
He cried out in protest as she picked him up, cradling him briefly in her incredibly strong arms, then tossed him gently outboard. He fell helplessly and then six pairs of hands caught him, cushioned the impact, lowered him to the ground. He saw the two female robots jump, their short skirts flaring upward to waist height They were wearing no underclothing. He remembered, with wry humor, Billinger's expressed preference for something in soft plastic rather than hard metal.
They marched across the field to The Far Traveler. Somebody in Vega's control room—Delamere?—had gotten his paws on to the firing console of the destroyer's main armament. Somebody, heedless of the consequences, was running amok with a laser cannon—somebody, fortunately, who would find it hard to hit the side of a barn even if he were inside the building.
Well to the right a circle of damp grass exploded into steam and incandescence—and then the beam slashed down ahead of them. Perhaps it was not poor shooting but a warning shot across the bows. The lady's maid reached into a pocket of her apron, pulled out a small cylinder, held it well above her head. It hissed loudly, emitting a cloud of dense white smoke. The vapor glowed as the laser beam impinged upon it and under the vaporous umbrella the air was suddenly unbearably—but not lethally—hot. And then the induced fluorescence blinked off. They were too close to the yacht and even Delamere—especially Delamere!—would realize the far-reaching consequences of a vessel owned by a citizen of El Dorado were fired upon by an Interstellar Federation's warship.
They tramped up the golden ramp, into the after airlock. Supported by the two female robots, Grimes was taken to the Baroness's boudoir. She was waiting for him there. So were Mavis, Shirley, Jock Tanner and Captain Billinger. The yachtmaster was not in uniform.