To Prime the Pump - A. Bertram Chandler [39]
Grimes stared, shocked, incredulous.
Crinolines and hussars' uniforms would have added the final touch but not, relieved (accentuated) only by masks and sandals and jewellery, nudity.
And yet . . .
He shifted uneasily in his seat, acutely conscious of his telltale ears. He muttered, "Surely not the Old Man and the Chief Quack . . ."
And then, as though the Monitor had heard his words (perhaps it had), he was looking directly at Captain Daintree and Commander Passifern. The two officers were not among the naked dancers. They were seated at a table against the wall, stiff and incongruous in their dress uniforms. With them was a lady, elderly, elaborately clothed, one of the few people on this world of perpetual youth and near immortality showing her age and not ashamed of it. There was a silver ice bucket, bedewed with condensation; there were three goblets in which the wine sparkled.
Fascinated, Grimes stared at the faces of his superiors. Daintree—he would—was playing the part of the disapproving puritan, his mouth set in a grim line. But his eyes betrayed him, flickering avidly, almost in time to the music, as the nude men and women swirled past. Passifern was more honest, was making no pretence. A shiny film of perspiration covered his plump features. There was more than a suggestion of slobber about his thick lips.
"Your Grace," he muttered, "I . . . I almost wish that I could join them."
The old lady smiled, tapped the Doctor on the arm with her fan. "Naughty, naughty, Commander. You may look but you mustn't touch."
"I wish that I could . . ." sighed Passifern, while Daintree glared at him.
The scene shifted again to an overall view of the ballroom. The scene shifted and, once more, the music seemed to Grimes to carry the subtle discordancies of Ravel's distortion of the traditional Viennese waltz.
The scene faded.
"Decadent," whispered Grimes to himself. "Decadent."
"Do you think so, John?" asked the Princess. She answered herself, "Yes, I suppose that it is. But erotic stimulation carried to extremes is one of the ways that we have tried to deal with our . . . problem. And there are other ways . . ."
Although the screen was still dark, from the speakers drifted a throb and grumble of little drums. Gradually there was light, faint at first then flaring to brilliant reds and oranges. It came from a fire and from torches held aloft by white-robed men and women. It grew steadily brighter, illuminating the clearing in the forest, in the jungle, rather. It shone on the altar, on the squatting, naked drummers, on the rough-hewn wooden cross that stood behind the altar, its arms thrust through the sleeves of a ragged black coat, a band of white cloth, like a clerical collar, where a human neck would have been, the whole surmounted by a battered black hat.
Grimes was an agnostic, but this apparent blasphemy shocked him. He turned to look at the girl. "John!" she whispered, "if you could only see your face! That cross is the symbol of a religion at least as valid as any of the others. It represents Baron Samedi, the Lord of Graveyards. But watch!"
A huge man, black and glistening, was bowing before the altar, before the . . . the idol? He was bowing low before the altar and the frightening effigy of Baron Samedi. He straightened, and Grimes saw that he carried a long, gleaming knife in his right hand. He turned to face the celebrants. His eyes and his teeth were very white in his ebony face. Grimes recognized him, saw that it was the Hereditary Chief Lobenga. Lobenga, the exile from New Katanga, the dabbler in black magic, in voodoo.
The enormous Negro called, his voice a resonant baritone, "De woman! Bring out de woman! "Prepare de sacrifice!"
"The woman!" a chorus of voices echoed him. "The woman!"
And while the drums throbbed and muttered, a figure, wrapped in an all-enveloping black cloak and hood, was led to the altar by four of the white-robed worshippers. Their clothing made it impossible for Grimes to determine their sex, but he thought that two of them were men, two of them women. Lobenga