The Hard Way Up - A. Bertram Chandler [20]
"There are lessons," said Commodore Damien drily, "that a junior officer must learn if he wishes to rise in the Service. One of them is that it is unwise to throw a monkey wrench into the machinations of our masters."
"How was I to know, sir?" complained Grimes. He flushed. "In any case, I'd do it again!"
"I'm sure that you would, Mr. Grimes. No man in his right senses submits willingly to defenestration—and no gentleman stands by and does nothing while his companion of the evening is subjected to the same fate. Even so . . ." He drummed on his desk top with his skeletal fingers. "Even so, I propose to put you in the picture, albeit somewhat belatedly.
"To begin with, the late Mr. Alberto was criminally careless. Rather a neat play on words, don't you think? Apparently he officiated as usual in the High Commissioner's kitchen on the night in question, and Sir William had, earlier in the day, expressed a wish for pasta with one of the more redolent sauces. As a good chef should, Alberto tasted, and tasted, and tasted. As a member of his real profession he should have deodorized his breath before proceeding to Miss Madigan's apartment—where, I understand, he concealed himself in the bathroom, waiting until she returned to go through her evening ritual of opening the window of her living room. He was not, I think, expecting her to have company—not that it would have worried him if he had . . ."
"What happened served the bastard right," muttered Grimes.
"I'm inclined to agree with you, Lieutenant. But we are all of us no more than pawns insofar as Federation policy is concerned. Or, perhaps, Alberto was a knight—in the chess sense of the word, although the German name for that piece, springer, would suit him better.
"Alberto was employed by the Department of Socio-Economic Science, and directly responsible only to its head, Dr. Barratin. Dr. Barratin is something of a mathematical genius, and uses a building full of computers to extrapolate from the current trends on all the worlds in which the Federation is interested. Doncaster, I need hardly tell you, is such a world, and the League of Life is a current trend. According to the learned Doctor's calculations, this same League of Life will almost certainly gain considerable influence, even power, in that sector of the Galaxy, under the leadership of your Miss Madigan . . ."
"She's not my Miss Madigan, sir. Unfortunately."
"My heart fair bleeds for you. But, to continue. To Dr. Barratin the foreign and colonial policies of the Federation can all be worked out in advance like a series of equations. As you will know, however, equations are apt, at times, to hold undesirable factors. Alberto was employed to remove such factors, ensuring thereby that the good Doctor's sums came out. He was known to his employers as the Subtracter . . ."
"Very funny," said Grimes. "Very funny. Sir."
"Isn't it?" Damien was laughing unashamedly. "But when things went so very badly wrong on Doncaster, Barratin couldn't see the joke, even after I explained it to him. "You see, Grimes, that you were a factor that wasn't allowed for in the equation. Alberto travelled to Doncaster in your ship, a Serpent Class Courier. You were with Miss Madigan when Alberto tried to . . . subtract her.
"And you were captain of the Adder!"
The Tin Messiah
"I'm afraid, Lieutenant," said Commodore Damien, "that your passenger, this trip, won't be able to help out in the galley."
"As long as he's not another assassin, he'll do me," said Grimes. "But I've found, sir, that anybody who likes to eat also likes now, and again, to prepare his own favorite dishes . . ."
"This one does. All the time."
Grimes looked at his superior dubiously. He suspected the Commodore's sense of humor. The older man's skull-like face was stiffly immobile, but there was a sardonic glint in the pale grey eyes.
"If he wants galley privileges, sir, it's only fair that he shares, now and again, what he hashes up for himself."
Damien sighed. "I've never known officers so concerned about their