Spartan Planet - A. Bertram Chandler [12]
"Doubtless some exotic beast you've run across on your travels. But, Lieutenant Commander, you keep on using these odd pronouns—'she' and 'her.' Are they confined to Arcadians?"
"You could say that." Grimes seemed to he amused by something. "Now, gentlemen, may I offer you refreshment? The sun's not yet over the yardarm, but a drop of alcohol won't kill us. Or would you rather have coffee?"
"Coffee? What's that?"
"Don't you have it here? Perhaps you would like to try some now."
"If you partake with us," said Diomedes cautiously.
"But of course." Grimes got to his feet, went to his desk, picked up a telephone. "Pantry? Captain here. I'd like my coffee now, please. Large pot, with all the trimmings. Three cups."
He took an oddly shaped wooden . . . instrument (?) off the desk top, stuffed a hollow bowl at the end of it with what looked like a dried brown weed, put the thin stem in his mouth, applied a flame from a little metal contraption to the open top of the bowl. He inhaled with apparent pleasure, then expelled from between his lips a cloud of fragrant fumes. "Sorry," he said, "do you smoke?" He opened an ornamental box, displaying rows of slim cylinders obviously rolled from the brown weed.
"I think that one strange luxury will be enough for one day, Lieutenant Commander," said Diomedes, to Brasidus' disappointment.
The door to the outside alleyway opened. A spaceman came in, by his uniform not an officer, carrying a large silver tray on which rested a steaming silver pot, a silver jug and a silver bowl filled with some white powder, and also three cups of gleaming, crested porcelain each standing in its own little plate. But it was not the tray at which Diomedes and Brasidus stared; it was at the bearer.
He was obviously yet another Arcadian.
Brasidus glanced from him to the picture, and back again. He realized that he was wondering what the spaceman would look like stripped of that severe, functional clothing.
"Milk, sir? Sugar?" the man was asking.
"I don't think that they have them on this planet, Sheila," said Grimes. "There's quite a lot that they don't have."
Chapter 7
SLOWLY DIOMEDES AND BRASIDUS made their way down the ramp from the airlock. Both were silent, and the Sergeant, at least, was being hard put to sort and to evaluate the multitude of new impressions that had crowded upon him. The coffee—could it be a habit-forming drug? But it was good. And that burning weed the fumes of which Lieutenant Commander Grimes had inhaled with such enjoyment. And the un-Spartan luxury in which Grimes lived—luxury utterly unsuitable for a fighting man. And this Interstellar Federation, an officer of whose navy—although it was called the Survey Service—he claimed to be.
And those oddly disturbing Arcadians (if they were Arcadians)—the doctor Lazenby, the steward Sheila, and one or two more whom the Spartans had glimpsed on their way ashore . . .
They were out of earshot of the ship now, halfway between the airlock and the gate, outside which Hector and the other hoplites had stiffened to attention. Diomedes said, "Come to my office, Sergeant. I want to talk things over with you. There's a lot that I don't understand, but much of it strengthens my suspicions."
"Of whom, sir? This Lieutenant Commander Grimes?"
"No. He's just a spaceman, the same as Captain Bill and Captain Jim of the Venus and the Hera. If his service prefers to tack a double-barreled label on him, that's his worry. Oh, I want to find out where the ship is from and what's the real reason for its visit, but my main suspicions are much nearer home."
They passed through the gate, opened for them and locked after them by Hector. Old Cleon approached them, was brushed off by Diomedes. They continued their march to the office, although in the case of Diomedes it was more of a waddle.
"In my job," went on the Security Captain, buckling on his pistol belt as he walked, "I'm no respecter of persons. I shouldn't be earning my pay if I were." He gestured upwards. "Flight Admiral Ajax up there, for example. He holds his rank—and