The Hard Way Up - A. Bertram Chandler [61]
Mrs. Dalwood went to her gown, shrugged it on, thrust her feet into her sandals. She walked gracefully to the door. She did not look back at the man on the bicycle, the girl on the rowing machine.
As soon as the door had shut behind her Rosaleen stopped rowing.
She said, "Phew!"
Grimes went on pedaling.
"Hey, Captain. Take five. Avast, or whatever you say."
Grimes stopped. He said, "You'd better carry on with your rowing."
The girl grinned. "We're quite safe, Captain. She is so used to having every order implicitly obeyed that she'd never dream of coming back to check up on us."
"You know her better than I do," admitted Grimes.
"I should." She got up from the sliding seat of the rowing machine, then flopped down on to the deck. She was, Grimes decided, at least as attractive as her mistress, and she had the advantage of youth. And there was so much more of her. The spaceman looked her over, studying her almost clinically. Yes, she had been losing weight. Her skin was not as taut as it should have been.
She noticed his look. She complained, "Yes, I'm starved . . ."
"You get the same as we do, Rosaleen."
"That's the trouble, Captain."
"But you have this sort of feeding all the time."
"Like hell I do. I have my nights off, you know, and then I can catch up on the pastries and candy, and the hot rolls with lots of butter, and the roast pork, with crackling . . ."
"Please stop," begged Grimes. "You're making me ravenous."
She went on, "But aboard your ship I have to toe the line. There's no escape."
"I suppose not."
"But surely you can do something. You've storerooms, with bread . . ."
"Yes, but . . . "
"You aren't scared of her, Captain?" She looked at him through her big, dark eyes. He had thought that they were black—now he saw that they were a very deep violet.
"Mphm." He allowed his glance to stray downwards, then hastily looked back at her face. There had been invitation in every line of her ample body. He was no snob, and the fact that her status was that of a servant weighed little with him. But she was the Commissioner's servant. A lady has no secrets from her lady's maid—is the converse true? Anyhow, they were both women, and no doubt happily prattled to each other, disparity of social status notwithstanding. She said plaintively, "I'm hungry, Captain."
"So am I, Rosaleen."
"But you're the Captain."
Grimes got off the bicycle. He said, "It's time for my sauna." He threw his shorts in the general direction of the hook on which his robe was hanging, strode to the door of the hot room, opened it. She followed him. He stretched out on one of the benches, she flopped on one opposite him. She said, "I'm hungry."
"It's those damned robots," complained Grimes. "Always hanging around the galley and storerooms."
"They won't be there tonight."
"How do you know?"
"They're much more than cooks. Even I don't know all the things they've been programmed for. This I do know. She has been working on a report, and tomorrow it will be encoded for transmission. The way that she does it is to give it to John—he's the one with the little gold knob on top of his head—to encode. And James decodes each sheet as John finishes it, to ensure that there are no errors."
"Are there ever any?"
"No. But she likes to be sure."
"She would." He wondered when he was going to start sweating. The girl was already perspiring profusely. "Tell me, when does this encoding decoding session take place?"
"After dinner."
"And there's no chance of her breaking it off?"
"None at all. When she starts something she likes to finish it."
"Mphm." The sweat was starting to stream out of Grimes's pores now. The girl got up, began to flick the skin of his back lightly with the birch twigs. He appreciated the attention. "Mphm. And are you free while all this Top Secret stuff is going on?"
"Yes."
"And she should have her nose stuck into it by 2000?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Then meet me outside the galley at, say, 2015 . . ."
"Yes!"
"Thick buttered toast . . ." murmured Grimes, deciding that talking