The Road to the Rim - A. Bertram Chandler [8]
"Please, Mr. Baxter!" admonished Jane Pentecost.
"Sorry, Miss. I got sort of carried away. But my young brother was Third Reaction Drive Engineer of the old Bunyip when she went missing. Nothin' was ever proved—but the Waldegrenese Navy was holdin' fleet maneuvers in the sector she was passin' through when last heard from. Oh, they're cunnin' bastards. They'll never go for one o' these ships, or one of the Trans-Galactic Clippers; it'll always be some poor little tramp that nobody'll ever miss but the friends an' relatives o' the crew. And, I suppose, the underwriters—but Lloyds makes such a packet out o' the ships that don't get lost that they can well afford to shell out now an' again. Come to that, it must suit 'em. As long as there're a few 'overdues' an' 'missings' they can keep the premiums up."
"But I still can't see how piracy can possibly pay," protested Grimes.
"O' course it pays. Your friend Black Bart made it pay. An' if you're goin' to all the expense of building and maintaining a war fleet, it might just as well earn its keep. Even your famous Survey Service might show a profit if you were allowed to pounce on every fat merchantman who came within range o' your guns."
"But for the Federation to condone piracy, as you're trying to make out . . . That's utterly fantastic."
"If you lived on the Rim, you might think different," snarled Baxter.
And Jane Pentecost contributed, "Not piracy. Confrontation."
V
AS SOON AS the meal was finished the Baxters left rather hastily to make their way to the bar, leaving Grimes and Jane Pentecost to the leisurely enjoyment of their coffee. When the couple was out of earshot Grimes remarked, "So those are Rim Worlders. They're the first I've met."
"They're not, you know," the girl told him.
"But they are. Oh, there are one or two in the Survey Service, but I've never run across them. Now I don't particularly want to."
"But you did meet one Rim Worlder before you met the Baxters."
"The Captain?"
She laughed. "Don't let him hear you say that—not unless you want to take a space walk without a suit!"
"Then who?"
"Who could it be, Admiral? Whom have you actually met, to talk to, so far in this ship? Use your crust."
He stared at her incredulously. "Not you?"
"Who else?" She laughed again, but with a touch of bitterness. "We aren't all like our late manger companions, you know. Or should know. Even so, you'd count yourself lucky to have Jim Baxter by your side in any real jam. It boils down to this. Some of us have acquired veneer. Some of us haven't. Period."
"But how did you . . . ?" He groped for words that would not be offensive to conclude the sentence.
"How did I get into this galley? Easily enough. I started my spacefaring career as a not very competent Catering Officer in Jumbuk, one of the Sundowner Line's more ancient and decrepit tramps. I got sick in Elsinore. Could have been my own cooking that put me in the hospital. Anyhow, I was just about recovered when the Commission's Epsilon Serpentis blew in—and she landed her purser with a slightly broken leg. She'd learned the hard way that the Golden Rule—stop whatever you're doing and secure everything when the acceleration warning sounds—is meant to be observed. The Doctor was luckier. She broke his fall . . . ." Grimes was about to ask what the Doctor and the purser had been doing, then was thankful that he had not done so. He was acutely conscious of the crimson blush that burned the skin of his face.
"You must realize," said the girl dryly, "that merchant vessels with mixed crews are not monastic institutions. But where was I? Oh, yes. On Elsinore. Persuading the Master of the Snaky Eppy that I was a fit and