Galactic Courier: The John Grimes Saga III Read Online Free PDF Page B

control that brought the back of his chair upright and, with the other hand, restarted the inertial drive. There was acceleration again, substituting for gravity. Up was up and down was down.
    He looked to his passenger. She was still in the reclining position. Her face was very pale. He said, “Don’t look through the ports if it frightens you.” He touched the switch that opaqued the transparencies. He went on, “Space from a ship under interstellar drive is a scary sight, especially for the first time . . .”
    She said, “But I haven’t looked out of the ports. It was just a . . . It was . . . real. What happened . . .” She looked at him, then down at herself. “But it couldn’t have been, could it?”
    He said, “I should have warned you. Quite often when the interstellar drive is started, when the temporal precession field is building up, there are these . . . flashes of precognition.” He smiled reassuringly. “But don’t worry, it may never happen. From every now there’s an infinitude of futures.”
    She said, “I’m not worried. I was just . . . startled. Now, if you’ll unshield the ports, I’ll have a look at what space is like when it’s warped out of all recognition.”
    She stared out at the dim, coruscating nebulosities that should have been hard, bright stars and then, when Grimes rolled the pinnace slightly, down at Tiralbin, which had the appearance of a writhing, roughly spherical, luminescent amoeba.
    She shuddered. “Don’t you spacemen,” she asked, “usually celebrate the start of a voyage with a stiff drink?”
    “It has been done,” conceded Grimes, letting her precede him into the main cabin.

Chapter 7

    HE BUSIED HIMSELF with the drinks and a tray of savories.
    He raised his glass, “Here’s looking at you.”
    She was worth looking at. Her severe blue and gold uniform suited her. It could almost have been painted on to her splendid body.
    She said, “Here’s looking at you, Grimes.” She sipped. “I hope you have enough of this excellent gin to last out the voyage.”
    He said, “I make it myself. Or, to be more exact, the autochef does.”
    She said, “A versatile ship. As versatile as her master.”
    “Versatile?” he asked.
    “Aren’t you? Survey Service officer, yacht skipper, ship-owner, courier . . .”
    He laughed. “I’ll try anything once.”
    “Will you?” There was something odd in the way she said it.
    Grimes finished his drink, said, “Now I’ll get on with the minor modifications that we shall require. I should have done it before lift-off, but the plaspartit sheets didn’t come down until this morning, with the rest of the stores.”
    “Plaspartit sheets?” she asked, lifting her eyebrows.
    “You know the stuff. Sticks to anything. Used for erecting temporary partitions.”
    “What for?’” she asked.
    “I just told you.”
    “But what for?”
    “To make a light, longitudinal bulkhead in this cabin. The folding bunk on the starboard side is mine. The one on the port side is yours . . .”
    She faced him over the table, looking into his eyes. Her own seemed preternaturally large, hypnotic in their intensity. She said, “I rather thought that it would have to happen, sooner or later. You’re a man, not unattractive. I’m a woman, with all the right things in the right places. When you turned on that Time-Space-twister of yours I had a sort of preview—a very vivid one. So now I know that it’s going to happen. Why put it off?”
    Why indeed? Grimes asked himself.
    He had not seen her touch any fastenings, but her shirt was open. Her breasts were large, firm, the pink nipples prominent and a stippling of color against the pearly pallor of her skin. She stood up and, moving with slow, deliberate grace, almost as though she were doing it to music, took off the shirt then pushed trousers and undergarments down her long, straight legs. She practiced all-over depilation, Grimes noted with almost clinical interest—or, perhaps, the