Damien had another dinner guest, a tall, severely black-clad, gray-haired woman, with classic perfect features, who was introduced to Grimes as Madam Duvalier, First Secretary of the Aboriginal Protection Society. Grimes had already heard of this body, although it was of quite recent origin. It had been described in an editorial in The Ship Operators' Journal, to which publication Grimes subscribed, as an organization of trendy do-gooders obstructing honest commercial progress. And there had been cases, Grimes knew, where the APS had done much more harm than good. Their campaign on behalf of the down-trodden Droogh, for example . . . . The Droogh were one of the two sentient races inhabiting a world called Tarabel, an Earth-type planet. They were a sluggish, reptilian people, living in filth, literally, because they liked it, practicing cannibalism as a means of population control, fanatically worshipping a deity called The Great Worm who could be dissuaded from destroying the Universe only by regular, bloody sacrifices of any life-form unlucky enough to fall into Droogh clutches. The other sentient race on Tarabel had been the Marmura, vaguely simian, although six-limbed beings. It was with them that the first Terran traders had dealt, taking in exchange for manufactured goods, including firearms, bales of tanned Droogh hides. It was learned later—too late—that, at first, these hides had been the leftovers from the Droogh cannibal feasts. A little later many of the hides had come from Droogh who had been killed, by machine gun fire, when mounting unprovoked attacks on Marmuran villages, the purpose of which had been to obtain raw material for blood sacrifices to The Great Worm.
Somebody in the Walk Proud Shoe Factory just outside New York had become curious about obvious bullet holes in Droogh hides and had gone to the trouble of getting information about Tarabel and had learned that the Droogh were sentient beings. Then APS had gotten into the act. A SAVE THE DROOGH! campaign was mounted. Pressure was exerted upon the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs. A Survey Service cruiser was dispatched to Tarabel, not to investigate (which would have made sense) but to disarm the Marmura. This was done, although not without loss of life on both sides. Then the cruiser was called away on some urgent business elsewhere in the galaxy.
The next ship to make planetfall on Tarabel was a Dog Star Line tramp. Her captain did not get the expected consignment of Droogh hides— and, in any case, there weren't any Marmura for him to trade with. In the ruins of the small town near the primitive spaceport were several Droogh. These tried to interest him in a few bales of badly tanned, stinking Marmura skins. He was not interested and got upstairs in a hurry before things turned really nasty.
And the Droogh were left to their own, thoroughly unpleasant, devices.
Grimes remembered this story while he, the admiral and Madame Duvalier were sipping their drinks and chatting before dinner. Somehow the conversation got around to the problem of primitive aborigines introduced to modern technology, of how much interference with native cultures was justifiable.
"There was the Tarabel affair . . . " said Grimes.
The woman laughed ruefully.
"Yes," she admitted. "There was the Tarabel "affair." She extended a slim foot shod in dull-gleaming, grained, very dark blue leather. "You will note, captain, that I have no qualms about wearing shoes made of Droogh hide. I know, now, that the late owner of the skin was either butchered by his or her own people for a cannibal feast or shot, in self defense, by the Marmura. We, at APS, should have been sure of our facts before we mounted our crusade in behalf of the Droogh.
"But tell me—and please be frank—what do you really think of people like ourselves? Those who are referred to, often as not, as interfering do-gooders . . . ."
Rear Admiral Damien laughed, a rare display of merriment, so uninhibited that the miniature medals on the left breast of his mess jacket tinkled.
"Young Grimes, Yvonne," he finally chuckled, "is the do-gooder of all do-gooders, although I've no doubt that he'll hate me for pinning that label on him. He's always on the side of the angels but, at the same time, contrives to make some sort of profit for himself."
Madame Duvalier permitted herself a faint smile. "But you still haven't answered my question, captain. What do you think of do-gooders? Organized do-gooders, such as APS."
"Mphm." Grimes took a large sip from his pink gin, then gained more time by refilling and lighting his pipe. "Mphm. Well, one trouble with do-gooders is that they, far too often, bust a gut on behalf of the thoroughly undeserving while ignoring the plight of their victims. They seem, far too often, to think that an unpopular cause is automatically a just cause. Most of the time it isn't. But, on the other hand, anybody backed by big business or big government is all too often a bad bastard . . . ."
"He may be a son of a bitch," contributed Damien, "but he's our son of a bitch."
"Yes. That's the attitude far too often, sir."
"And so, young Grimes, you're interfering, as a free-lance do-gooder, every time that you get the chance."
"I don't interfere, sir. Things sort of happen around me."
"Captain Grimes," said Damien to Madame Duvalier, "is a sort of catalyst. Put him in any sort of situation where things aren't quite right and they almost immediately start going from bad to worse. And then, when it's all over but the shouting—or, even, the shooting—who emerges from the stinking mess, smelling of violets, with the Shaara crown jewels clutched in his hot little hand? Grimes, that's who. And, at the same time, virtue is triumphant and vice defeated."
Grimes's prominent ears flushed. Was the Duvalier female looking at him with admiration or amusement?
The sound of a bugle drifted into Damien's sitting room—which could have been the admiral's day cabin aboard a grand fleet flagship. (Damien was a great traditionalist.) Damien got to his feet, extended an unnecessary hand to Madam Duvalier to help her to hers. He escorted the lady into the dining room, followed by Grimes.
The meal, served by smartly uniformed mess waiters, was pleasant enough although, thought Grimes, probably he would have fed better aboard his own ship. But in Sister Sue it was his tastes that were catered to, here, in Flag House, it was Damien's. The admiral liked his beef well done, Grimes liked his charred on the outside and raw on the inside. Even so, Grimes admitted, the old bastard knew his wines, the whites and the reds, the drys and the semi-sweets, each served with the appropriate course. But it was a great pity that whoever had assembled the cheese board had been so thoroughly uninspired.
During dinner the conversation was on generalities. And then, with the mess waiters dismissed, Damien and his guests returned to the sitting room for coffee (so-so) and brandy (good) and some real talking.
"Yvonne," said the admiral, "is one of the very few people who knows that you are back in the Survey Service, as a sort of trouble shooter. She thinks that you may be able to do some work for APS."
"Since the Tarabel bungle," the woman admitted, "APS doesn't have the influence in high government circles that it once did. But there are still wrongs that need righting, and still powerful business interests putting profits before all else . . . ."
"And how can I help?" asked Grimes. "After all, I represent a business interest myself, Far Traveler Couriers. Unless I make a profit I can't stay in business. And if I go broke I just can't see the Survey Service taking me back into the fold officially . . . ."
"Too right," murmured Damien.
"And I couldn't get into any of the major shipping lines without a big drop in rank. I don't fancy starting afresh as a junior officer at my age."
"Understandable," murmured Damien. "And I hope that you understand that you need the Survey Service, even though you are, in the eyes of most people, a civilian, and a rich shipowner."
"Rich!" interjected Grimes. "Ha!"
"Just try to remember how much of your income has been derived from lucrative business that we have put in your way. All the charters, time or voyage. Such as the one that you have now, the shipment of not very essential and certainly not urgently required stores to the sub-base on Pleth."
"And after Pleth? What then?"
"Arrangements have been made. It will just so happen that there will be a cargo offering from Pleth to New Otago. Pleth exports the so-called paradise fruit, canned. Have you ever sampled that delicacy?"
"Once," said Grimes. "I wasn't all that impressed. Too sweet. Not enough flavor."
"Apparently the New Otagoans like it. Now, listen carefully. Your trajectory will take you within spitting distance of New Salem. What do you know of Salem?"
"I've never been there, sir, but I seem to remember that it's famous for the animal furs, very expensive furs, that it exports. Quite a few of the very rich bitches on El Dorado like to tart themselves up in them. Oh, yes. And this fur export trade is the monopoly of Able Enterprises . . . ."
"Which outfit," said Damien, "is run by old cobber Commodore Baron Kane, of El Dorado."
"No cobber of mine," growled Grimes.
"But you know Kane. And you know that any enterprise in which he's involved is liable to be, at the very least, unsavory. Well, APS have heard stories about this fur trade. APS have asked me to carry out an investigation. After all, I'm only a rear admiral. But I have clashed, in the past, with the El Dorado Corporation and gotten away with it . . . ."
"With me as your cat's-paw," said Grimes.
"Precisely. And, admit it, it does give you some satisfaction to score off Kane. Doesn't it?"
"I suppose so."
"It does, and we both know it." He turned to Madame Duvalier. "Grimes and Kane are old enemies," he explained. "Apart from anything else there was rivalry for the favors of the Baroness Michelle d'Estang, who is now Kane's wife— hence his El Doradan citizenship."
Then, speaking again to Grimes, he went on, "I wanted to send a Survey Service ship to Salem on a flag-showing exercise but there just aren't any ships available. So I have to fall back on you."
"Thank you. Sir." Then, "But I shan't be bound for Salem."
"Officially, no. But look at it this way. You are bound from Point A to Point C, by-passing Point B. But then, in mid-voyage, something happens that obliges you to make for a port of refuge to carry out essential repairs or whatever . . . ."
"What something?" demanded Grimes.
"Use your imagination, young man."
"Mphm . . . . A leakage, into space, of my water reserves . . . . And, after all, water is required as reaction mass for my emergency rocket drive as well as for drinking, washing, etc. And so I get permission from the Salem aerospace authorities to make a landing, fill my tanks and lift off again. But I shall be on the planetary surface for a matter of hours only."
"Not if your inertial drive goes seriously on the blink just as you're landing."
"I'm not an engineer, sir, as well you know."
"But you have engineers, don't you? And among them is a Ms. Cassandra Perkins. Calamity Cassie."
"What do you know about her, sir?"
"I know that Lieutenant Commander Cassandra Perkins is an extremely skillful saboteur—or should that be saboteuse?"
"So she's one of your mob . . . ."
"And your mob, Captain Grimes. Federation Survey Service Reserve."
"All right. So I'm grounded on Salem for some indefinite period. And I suppose that I shall be required to do some sniffing around . . . ."
"You suppose correctly."
"Then why can't you do as you did before, give me one of your psionic communication officers, a trained telepath, to do the snooping? You will recall that I carried your Lieutenant Commander Mayhew, as an alleged passenger, when I was involved in the El Doradan privateering affair."
"At the moment, Grimes, PCOs are as scarce as hen's teeth in the Service. The bastards have been resigning in droves, recruited by various industrial espionage outfits. You may have heard of the war—yes, you could call it that—being waged by quite a few companies throughout the Galaxy against the so-called Wizards of Electra. But you have Shirl and Darleen who, despite their official human status, possess great empathy with the lower animals."
"And so, with the skilled assistance of your Ms. Perkins . . . ."
"Your Ms. Perkins, Grimes. She's on your books."
" . . . I'm to prolong my stay on Salem as long as possible, find out what I can, and then write a report for you."
"Yes. And, hopefully, act as a catalyst. You always do."
"That's what I'm afraid of," said Grimes.
Yvonne Duvalier broke the brief silence.
She said, "I don't think that you have put Captain Grimes sufficiently into the picture, admiral. To begin with, captain, there was what Admiral Damien refers to as a flag-showing exercise on New Salem. The destroyer Pollux. She carried, of course, a psionic communication officer. He was not a very experienced one but he suspected, strongly, that at least one of the species of fur-bearing animal on New Salem, the silkies, possessed intelligence up to human standards. They can think and feel, but their thought processes aren't the same as ours. And they are slaughtered for their pelts. Somehow his not very detailed report fell into our hands, at APS. The admiral has long been a friend of ours and promised to do something about it. And then, as you know, there was the Tarabel fiasco and the consequent reluctance of the authorities to rush to the aid of unpleasant and vicious extra-Terrans.
"Although the fur of the silkies is beautiful, as you probably know, they are ugly beasts. They have, in the past, attacked the coastwise villages of the human colonists of New Salem. They have mutilated rather than killed, biting the hands off men, women and children. There are some rather horrid photographs of such victims.
"The New Salem colonists are the descendants of a religious sect that emigrated from Earth during the Second Expansion. Fundamentalists, maintaining that God gave Man dominion over all other life forms. They have their own version, their own translation of the Holy Bible, the Old Testament only. Their God is a jealous God, taking a dim view of any who do not believe as the True Believers, as they call themselves, do. But they do not mind taking the money of those who are not True Believers. They have a huge account in the Galactic Bank, more than enough to pay for the occasional shipments of manufactured goods that they receive from the industrial planets. Popular belief is that, eventually, their funds will be used for the building of a huge Ark in which they, and they alone, will escape the eventual collapse of the Universe."
"Where will they escape to?" asked Grimes interestedly.
Damien laughed. "I don't suppose they know themselves. Perhaps they just hope to drift around until the next Big Bang, and then get in on the ground floor and start the human race again the way it should be started, free of all perversions . . . ." Suddenly he looked at Grimes very keenly. "Talking of perversions, young man, I hear that you are perverting Survey Service Regulations."
"Me, sir?"
"Yes. You. The regulations regarding wild robots. I hear that you have one such aboard your ship. You have neither deactivated it and returned it to its makers nor destroyed it."
"I suppose that Mr. Steerforth told you, sir."
"Never mind who told me. I just know."
"I'd like to make it plain, sir, that my ship is my ship. I am the owner as well as the master. Until, if ever, she is officially commissioned as an auxiliary unit of the Survey Service she is a merchant ship. The regulations to which her personnel are subject are company's regulations. In this case, my regulations."
"Always the space lawyer, Grimes, aren't you?"
"Yes. I have to be."
Damien grinned. "Very well, then. I'll just hope that your Seiko, as I understand that you call the thing, will be just another catalyst thrown into the New Salem crucible. Two wild girls, one wild robot and, the wildest factor of all, yourself . . . ."
"I almost wish that I were going along on the voyage," said Madame Duvalier.
"Knowing Grimes as I do," said the admiral, "I prefer to wait for the reports that I shall be getting eventually. Reports which I shall not pass on to higher authorities until they have been most thoroughly edited."