Chapter 22 
Chapter 22
GRIMES WAS FAR FROM HAPPY and was wishing, most sincerely, that the Navy had assigned somebody else to work with the Customs in this drug-running investigation. What put him off the job more than anything else was being obliged to accept Clavering’s hospitality—it was impossible to live aboard Rim Malemute until such time as she was righted. He had insisted that the ex-captain send the bills for himself and the tug’s officers to the Rim Worlds Admiralty, but there were still the rounds of drinks on the house and, with Williams, dining every night at Clavering’s table. He was more than ever sure that he was not cut out to be a policeman. But the memories of those three young people—two dead and one with his career ruined—persisted.
He talked matters over with Williams while the two of them paced slowly along the left bank of the Styx. The tug skipper was but a poor substitute for Sonya on such an occasion, but he was the only one in whom Grimes could confide.
He said, “I don’t like it, Commander Williams.”
“Frankly, Skipper, neither do I. Clavering ain’t all that bad a bastard, an’ his wife’s a piece of all right, an’ here we are, sleepin’ in his beds, eatin’ his tucker an’ slurpin’ his grog. An’ if all goes well, from our viewpoint, we’ll be puttin’ him behind bars.”
“Mphm. Not necessarily. His legal status, like that of his world, is rather vague. Even so, the Rim Worlds governments, both overall and planetary, could make life really hard for him. For example, somebody might decide that Inferno Valley is the site for a naval base. But I’m not concerned so much with the legalities. It’s the personal freedom angle. If somebody wants to blow his mind, has any government the right to try to stop him?”
“I see what you mean, Skipper. But when that same somebody is in a position of responsibility, like young Pleshoff, he has to be stopped. Or when somebody, like Clavering, is making a very nice profit out of other people’s mind-blowing . . .”
“In most of the Federated worlds it’s the governments that make the profits, just as they do from every other so-called vice—liquor, tobacco, gambling. . . . Damn it all, Williams, is Clavering a sinner, or is he just a criminal, only until such time that somebody sees fit to liberalize our laws?”
“I’m not a theologian, Skipper.”
“Neither am I. But both of us, when sailing in command, have been the law and the prophets. Both of us have deliberately turned a blind eye to breaches of regulations, whether Company’s or Naval.”
“When you’re Master Under God,” observed Williams, “you can do that sort of thing an’ get away with it. The trouble now is that we have far too many bastards between us an’ the Almighty. It’s all very well our hearts fair bleedin’ for Clavering—but we have to keep our own jets clear.”
“Mphm. All right, then. You suggest that we regard ourselves as policemen, pure and simple.”
“I’ve known a few simple ones,” said Williams, “but I’ve yet to meet one who’s pure.”
“You know what I mean!” snapped Grimes testily. “Don’t try to be funny. Now, we think that the dreamy weed is coming in through Eblis, and that it’s transshipped from here to Ultimo or wherever in Ditmar. Clavering tells me, by the way, that she’s still held up. Her yeast vats were condemned. But where was I? Oh, yes. We think that the contraband is shipped from somewhere to Eblis. Through the spaceport? No, I don’t think so. Too many people around, even when there’s no cruise ship in, who might talk out of turn. Only a dozen of the people here are Sally Ann originals; the rest are Rim Worlders. The head waiters, the chef and his assistants, the mechanics in the repair shops . . . So. So this is a fair hunk of planet, and I’d say that the only man who really knows it is Clavering, and Clavering, by putting the Malemute and her boats out of commission, has made sure that we don’t get really to know it.
“Our fat friend Billinghurst is due here shortly, in Macedon, and he’ll be relying on us to lay on transport. And we can’t lay it on, and I can’t see the master of Macedon lending us one of his boats.”
“So we just go on sittin’ our big, fat butts doin’ sweet damn’ all,” said Williams. “Suits me, Skipper.”
“It doesn’t suit me, Commander Williams. Much as we may dislike it we have a job to do. And as long as we’re the ones who’re doing it we stand some chance of protecting Clavering from the more serious consequences.”
“That’s one way of lookin’ at it, Skipper. And Mrs. Clavering, of course. Pardon me bein’ nosey, but she an’ you seem to be gettin’ on like a house on fire. Long walks by the river after dinner while Clavering’s in his office cookin’ his books.”
“If you must know, Commander Williams, she has asked my help, our help. She knows that her husband is mixed up in something illegal, but not what it is. She has told me about the prospecting trips that he makes by himself, and about the Carlotti transceiver that he keeps, under lock and key, at his bottling plant by the Bitter Sea.”
“Nothin’ wrong with that. When he’s out there he has to keep in touch with home.”
“Yes, but an NST transceiver would do for that. You should know by this time that a Carlotti set is only for deep space communications.”
“Just a radio ham,” suggested Williams. “When he gets tired of hammering the stoppers on to bottles he retires to his den and has a yarn with a cobber on Earth or wherever.”
“Mphm. I doubt it. Anyhow, Mrs. Clavering is far from happy. She’d like to see her husband drop whatever it is he’s doing, but she wouldn’t like to see him in jail. If we can catch him before that fat ferret Billinghurst blows in we shall be able to help him to stay free. If Billinghurst gets his claws into him, he’s a goner.”
“You sure make life complicated, Skipper,” complained Williams.
“Life is complicated. Period. Now, your work boat . . .”
“In working order. But if you intend a long trip it’ll be so packed with power cells that there’ll be room for only one man.”
“Good enough. And your engineers, I think, have been passing the time doing what repairs they can to Malemute, and have been in and out of Clavering’s workshop borrowing tools and such.”
“Correct.”
“By this time they should be on friendly terms with Clavering’s mechanics.”
“If they don’t know by this time which of the boats it is that Clavering takes out to the Bitter Sea, they should.”
“They probably do know.”
“I’d like a transponder fitted to Clavering’s boat, and the necessary homing gadgetry to your workboat. I don’t know quite how Clavering’s boat can be bugged without somebody seeing it done—but, with a little bit of luck, it should be possible. Mphm. Suppose, say, that the inertial drive main rotor has to be carried to the shop so that work can be done on it with one of the lathes. Suppose that everybody—everybody but one man—is clustered around the thing, admiring it. And suppose this one man manages to stick the transponder to the underside of the hull of Clavering’s boat when nobody is looking.”
“Possible, Skipper, just possible. We already have transponders in stock; they’re used quite a lot in salvage work. We’ve plenty of tubes of wetweld in the stores. An’ if Clavering’s mechanics know nothin’ about the drug racket they’ll not be expecting any jiggery pokey from my blokes. Yair. Could be done.”
“And how’s the repair work on our Carlotti set coming on?”
“Not so good.”
“A pity. I’d like to do some monitoring. Just who does Clavering talk to?”
It was some time before the plan could be put into effect. The boat that Clavering usually used for his trips to the Bitter Sea—and for his prospecting trips—was undergoing an extensive and badly needed overhaul. Even without wind-driven abrasives to severely damage the exterior of an atmosphere craft, the air itself was strongly corrosive. Too, most of the work force was engaged on necessary maintenance to make Sally Ann thoroughly spaceworthy for her charter trip.
Macedon came in, and aboard her, as a passenger, was Billinghurst. Sub-Inspector Pahvani was with him, and a half-dozen other customs officers. Unlike policemen, customs officers, when out of uniform, look like anybody else. Billinghurst and his people had no trouble in passing themselves off as ordinary tourists.