by Bill Baldwin
Brim peered at her lush beauty. "If only that return weren't necessary," he said.
" 'If only,' " Margot sighed with a faraway look. "The most melancholy words in the Universe, perhaps." She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. "I smoked my last pinch of The Weed just after we made love the last time—I waited until you were asleep. And within"—she peered at her miniature timepiece glowing from a bedside table—"within three metacycles I must return to the ship and beg for more or suffer the tortures of the specially damned. It's better than a chain, Wilf. They don't need guards. They know I'll be back." She stretched out her arms to him. "Hurry, my love," she urged, "make me forget that I no longer control this body of mine."
While tears stung his eyes, Brim knelt between her drawn-up legs and gently lifted her head. "Margot, darling," he whispered as he willed himself ready, "you're the one who knows about this... disease. Isn't there any cure?"
"Death," Margot whispered, almost as if she loved the word itself. "It has become my only hope." Biting her lip, she drew him on top of her. "Yes..." she sighed urgently, while he plunged himself into a tiny Universe of swollen, wet flesh. "Yes," she groaned through clenched teeth. Her voice caught momentarily, then she closed her eyes and clasped him fiercely. "Fill me now!"
* * *
Short metacycles afterward, Brim brooded in the right seat of a small launch with Tissaurd at the controls beside him. Since lift-off at the Levantine, only muted thunder from the spin-gray had broken the silence in the cockpit. At last, the tiny officer turned in her seat. "Skipper," she said, "you're mighty quiet for someone whom I suspect has spent the night making love. A lack of sleep perhaps or something else?"
Brim angled his head. "I haven't heard much from you, either, Number One," he retorted, unable to break his bleak mood.
"A healthy lack of sleep in my case," Tissaurd replied, glancing quickly at the NAV panels. "Your friend Moulding seduces very easily." Then she frowned. "You will notice, however, my dear Skipper, that I have a rather satisfied smirk on my face—which you do not. Did I make a bad assumption about how you spent the night?"
"No, Number One," Brim said, staring blindly through the windshield as they bounced through a turbulent area of clouds. "The Princess and I seduced each other early and often." He made a bitter little chuckle. "I'm even pleasantly tender from it all."
"But..." Tissaurd probed.
"But?"
"You sounded as if 'but' was the next word you were going to say."
Brim snorted. "Yeah," he admitted bleakly. "It was. Only I decided not to."
"You mean you don't want to talk about it," Tissaurd prompted.
"No," Brim answered after a time. "I suppose I wouldn't mind talking about it if I could only define what that particular 'it' is."
"I don't understand," Tissaurd said with a frown.
Brim nodded. "That's just it, Number One," he replied. "Neither do I. But after all that love making, there was something missing." He turned to face her as she flew. "And that 'something'—whatever it was—must be terribly important, because I've come away with this awful feeling of emptiness."
Tissaurd checked the autohelm and relaxed in her seat, turning her head only after long moments of what appeared to be concentration. "Interesting," she said, "the difference between last night and the previous time you two met at one of Mustafa's parties. It was my understanding that on her first visit, she was escorted by a bunch of Leaguers. Is that right?"
Brim nodded. "That's right,'' he affirmed, glad for the change of topic. "Mean thragglers, too. Four Varoldians."
"Universe," Tissaurd muttered. "They are mean. Sure sounds as if the zukeeds wanted to keep the Princess away from people."
"Seemed that way at the time," Brim agreed. "But they'd certainly gotten that nonsense out of their systems this trip. You saw it: she got there with only five retainers in tow—all from The Torond."
"Yeah," Tissaurd said, narrowing her eyes. "It doesn't make sense, somehow."
"Nothing seems to make much sense these days," Brim said, wrinkling his nose.
Tissaurd adjusted the autohelm and started a gentle descent toward the tattered gray cloud base. "Maybe that's true," she said after a long silence. Then she turned to look him full in the race, "But maybe, Wilf Brim," she said, "just maybe it makes all the sense in the Universe." Moments later she had picked up Varnholm's new localizer beacon, and there was little time for idle talk.
* * *
Precisely one week later, Sacha Muromets arrived again, completely unannounced as on her first arrival. Aboard were another load of scarce parts; Nik Ursis, now a Fluvannian Captain; and Commodore Baxter Calhoun, the latter casualty dressed in his white IVG uniform as if he had merely been away on an overnight trip to Magor.
"Commodore!" Brim whooped in surprise at the foot of the brow. "You've had a number of us worried, the last month or so."
"Rumors o' my demise are often vastly overrated," Calhoun drawled modestly, returning Brim's salute. Hands on his hips, he sauntered to an inland wall of the gravity pool with the two officers in his wake. "Nik tells me you've done guid, thorough work here," he said, peering up and down the berthing area where eleven Starfury cruisers now floated in a seemingly random pattern optimized to reduce the effect of an attack from space. "I'd have a hard time refutin' him from whar I stand." He smiled. "Good job, young Brim. O' course," he added with a wink, "I should hae expected nothin' less—especially wi' Barbousse and the comely Lieutenant Tissaurd to do most of the really difficult work."
"I hardly needed to lift a finger," Brim said sardonically,
"Oh, I'm certain o' that, laddie," Calhoun chuckled, clapping the younger Carescrian on his shoulder. "But nonetheless, it's guid progress you've made in my absence. I'm right proud o' you."
"I'll be more than glad to turn everything back over to you now—except Starfury," Brim said.
"Oh, you will, will you?" Calhoun said. "What makes you think I'll be able to gat it all done? Outside o' brother Ursis here, hae you seen any Fluvannian staff officers come off the brow?"
Brim frowned. "Not a one, Commodore," he admitted.
"What does that lead you to believe, young Brim?" Calhoun asked, winking slyly at the Bear.
"Somehow," Brim said, "I have the oddest feeling that you have it in mind to delegate some authority."
"Nothing odd aboot mat," Calhoun said. "I plan to parcel the management o' this place among a number of you—at the general crew members' meeting that you wull call for Evening:3:00 in Sacha's hold. All right?"
"Sounds good to me," Brim said, "I think."
"Whar's your sense of adventure, m'boy?" Calhoun asked.
"Commodore," Brim said, "when you get a look like that in your eye, it's usually time to go underground."
"Trust me," Calhoun said.
"Should I do that, Nik?" Brim inquired of the Bear.
Ursis rolled his eyes to the heavens. "Probably not," he said, "but since both of us work for him now, I see little choice in matter."
"Evening:3:00, Commodore," Brim repeated. "I'll have them here." Then, saluting once more, he started back along the top of the gravity pool. As usual, he had a lot of work to do and only a limited time in which to do it.
* * *
By Evening:2:40, with still ten cycles to go, Sacha Muromets's cavernous main hold was filled with nearly eleven hundred IVG mercenaries. Only a few duty officers remained with their various warships. Everyone had heard about the legendary Baxter Calhoun; few, however, had ever as much as seen his face.
A speaking platform of packing crates had been jury-rigged against a forward bulkhead; the IVGs sat on the floor or stood three and five deep around the periphery. At precisely Evening:2:48, Barbousse climbed to the rostrum, paused for the crowd to notice him, then shouted "THE COMMODORE!" in his loudest voice.
It took a few moments before that many people could scramble to their feet and come to attention, but at precisely Evening:3:00, Commodore Baxter Calhoun, R.F.
S., mounted to the boards in utter silence, his footfalls and the ship's distant generators were the only sounds that could be detected in the giant chamber. He stood for a long moment, handsome and ageless as he had been when Brim first encountered him aboard I.F.S. Defiant at the beginning of that ship's tragically short career. Then he seemed to relax and his face twisted into what passed for a grin of approval. "Seats," he said. He hardly had to raise his voice.
Moments later, when quiet had again returned to the room, Calhoun placed his hands on his hips and began, legs akimbo, as if he were braced on the deck of some ancient surface vessel. "Fellow Imperials," he held forth in a strong, confident voice, "we are aboot to embark on a desperate an' dangerous mission. 'Tis o' wee importance whose uniform we wear: blue capes or white, the enemy wull be the same—and but little changed from the last cycle o' war we lived through. Leaguers are capable, brave, an' utterly merciless. I've seen them up close as well as their ships. Both are excellent—and dangerous." He let the words soak in for a moment before he continued. "In a lot o' places these days, they are already considered to be invincible. But," he said with great emphasis, "they can be beaten! I hae seen it done with gr'at regularity by ill-equipped forces o' much smaller size. An' I am here to show you how it is done...."
For the next solid metacycle, he delivered a top-level glimpse of the Leaguers and the tactics they used. "To beat them," he urged, "learn how privateers fight their battles. They are always outnumbered by squadrons of defenders, but they seldom find themselves deprived of the quarry they seek." He described how privateers battle in pairs, using ultra-fast ships to drive through hostile formations, shooting quickly and accurately with heavy armament, then breaking away before massed superior firepower can be brought to bear against them—often without scoring clean kills. In his view, serious damage spread widely among the ships of an enemy squadron could win more battles than actual kills. He claimed he'd seen the principle proven time and time again as the outnumbered ships of Beta Jago slashed squadrons from The Torond to ribbons. "And the poor Beta-Jagans war usin' surplus ships from the last conflict," he asserted. "Your Starfuries were literally made for this kind o' fighting—the right ships at absolutely the right time...."
At the end of his discourse, the assembled IVGs broke into wild applause that lasted until the grinning Calhoun was forced to hold up his hands and demand silence. When the chamber had again quieted sufficiently that he could make himself heard, he called Brim and McKenzie to the platform. "Startin' today," he continued in a clear voice, "I hae decided to group your ships into twa squadrons; we'll call 'em the Reds and the Blues for the moment. Brim here will command the Reds, our offensive element, with eight ships; McKenzie's Blues will patrol near Ordu as a base defense with the remaining three reserve ships...."
Immediately after the meeting, Brim asked Moulding if he would lead the second attack quad. "Probably signing you up for suicide," he said, only half in jest. "But then, you already did that when you came aboard the IVG in the first place."
The aristocratic Moulding smiled grimly. "You and I made a bloody good team against the League during the Mitchell Trophy races," he said. "It would be a damn shame to deprive Nergol Triannic the benefit of our services over something so inconsequential as death."
They started their campaign early the next morning....
* * *
Within three weeks, nine Starfuries had been damaged in training accidents and thirty IVGs had gone back home because of the utterly primitive existence at Varnholm. Calhoun doggedly drove Brim and McKenzie to instruct their charges in tactics and put them through wartime maneuvers in the new starships—that continued to suffer damage by crews unfamiliar with the powerful craft under conditions of maximum performance. One waggish Commander painted five Fluvannian flags over the main hatch of his Starfury; he'd caused an accident that laid up five other ships for a week, thus qualifying himself and his crew as Leaguer aces. Even the practiced Moulding, accustomed to quick, near-vertical landings in Sherrington racers, nearly wiped out one evening after a tiring mock battle because the infinitely heavier Starfuries were designed for long, gentle approaches. He then poured on too much power when he lifted the porpoising starship off for another attempt at landfall and nearly blew up a whole row of generators. Gradually, however, the accidents subsided, and the hard-working IVGs began to hammer their squadrons into tough, capable fighting units.
Unfortunately, the training had cost Calhoun many of the spares Brim so carefully hoarded. And none of the ships had yet seen actual combat of any kind....
* * *
During the next six weeks, relations between Fluvanna and the League rapidly deteriorated, the latter taking issue with nearly every element of foreign policy introduced by Mustafa's Foreign Ministry. Almost on a daily basis, OverGalite'er Hanna Notram's Ministry for Public Consensus filled all possible news channels with her demands for "justice" on one trumped-up pretense or another.
Then, on 273/52010, R.F.S. Rurik, an ancient Fluvannian armored cruiser, disappeared without a trace in close proximity to a League-Torond battle exercise. When Fluvannian Search and Rescue squadrons converged on the last reported position of the old vessel, they were brusquely warned off with tremendous disruptor fire from strange new warships in the conformation of double chevrons. And the powerful barrages were clearly not fired in warning; they were ranging shots.
After a few weeks, the old ship was written off and added to the long catalog of vessels that had simply vanished into the great maw of the Universe. But R.F.S. Rurik—and her crew—were not easily forgotten, either in Fluvanna or the Imperial Admiralty. And whispered accusations surfaced from one end of the galaxy to the other.
The situation was headed rapidly from bad to worse when Brim abruptly received another message from Ambridge, Margot's chauffeur. The Princess would again visit Magor during the next Standard Week, this time on what the old servant termed a "last-moment peacekeeping mission." Of course, she hoped that Brim would be available for an evening rendezvous; she would contact him when she arrived.
Tissaurd was distinctly negative when the subject came up during an early morning with Brim in Starfury's wardroom. "And I'm not alone in this, Skipper," the tiny officer declared, shaking her finger at him. "The Chiefs upset, too. I asked him."
Brim frowned. "The Chief?" he demanded. "What does Barbousse know about all this?" He paused. "And how did you find out about it before I told you?"
"Skipper," Tissaurd said, "you know as well as I do. When a personal message comes into the COMM room, the whole ship knows what it says, especially when the Skipper's on the address. It's called a 'grapevine.' "
"A 'grapevine'?" Brim demanded. "What the xaxt is a grapevine?"
"Real grapevines are something like a logus bush, I think," Tissaurd answered with a frown. "Spreading plants of some sort that grow on one of the little Rhodorian planets. But you get the meaning. Look how the word spread when you got the unclassified message about old R.F.S. Rurik."
"WUN-der-ful," Brim grumped. "Isn't there any privacy at all?"
Tissaurd smiled. "Not through the unclassified message room, there isn't."
Brim was about to open his mouth when Tissaurd put her hand on his arm, "And I'm not finished, Mister Wilf Brim," she continued. "We'll clear up the thraggling COMM center some other time. Right now—when there's nobody else in the wardroom—I want to talk about that Princess of yours, because, frankly, I don't think she has your best interests at heart. And that's putting it mildly."
"What're you trying to tell me?" Brim demanded.
"Is that question coming from Captain Brim or my friend and associate Wilf?" she demanded,
"Wilf," Brim grumped.
"In that case," Tissaurd said, looking him directly in the eye, "it is my studied opinion that your Margot Effer'wyck—or whoever is in control of that particular Margot Effer'wyck—is out to make serious trouble for you."
"Trouble? Margot?"
"That's the way I
read things the one time I spoke to her," Tissaurd answered. "Possibly serious trouble. I think a liaison with her right now might prove to be dangerous."
"Oh, come on, Nadia," Brim snapped with a sudden feeling of harassment. "I know I said something was missing in our lovemaking a while back. But surely that doesn't qualify as danger, does it?"
"There is no way I can prove anything, Wilf," Tissaurd said. "But since the Chief thinks there's something wrong, too, maybe you ought to talk to him before you simply dismiss this out of hand."
By this time, Brim had heard enough. With a faltering grip on his temper he rose to his feet and scowled down at the tiny officer. "Nadia," he growled, "I understand and appreciate your concern for my well-being. I also appreciate the Chief's. But xaxtdamnit, I will not tolerate you two prying any further into my personal life, no matter what your good intentions are. Do you understand?"
"Your call, Wilf," Tissaurd said with an easygoing shrug. "You won't hear any more from me. Sorry I got you upset."
Brim turned toward the door. "I am not upset," he grumped as he started for the bridge. But he was. And for the next two days, avoided all but the most official contact with either Tissaurd or his old friend Barbousse....
* * *
As Ambridge promised in his message, Margot contacted Brim shortly after her arrival in Magor aboard another of The Torond's powerful Dampier D.A. 79-II cruisers. "Tonight," she pledged breathlessly, "I have informed my retainers that I shall dine at the Palmerston—alone. Can you join me?"
"Of course," Brim answered. Somehow, it made sense. The Palmerston Club, located at the edge of Magor's diplomatic sector, was a purlieu of those who longed for the distant elegance of cities in more sophisticated homelands. To Brim, it always invoked thoughts of the quiet, elegant clubs in Avalon's urbane Courtland district. "It will be perfect..." he said.
It was.
He caught an early-afternoon shuttle to Magor and arrived at nearly the same instant as she. They surrendered their rented skimmers to white-gloved valets in happy silence before walking arm in arm under a long canopy toward the elaborately carved stone doorway of the Palmerston. Inside, a very formal majordomo dressed in ruffled shirt, cutaway coat with long tails, satin knickers and stockings, and slippers—all in white—recognized them by name and bowed elaborately. "Ah, Captain Brim, Baroness LaKarn," he rhapsodized, "you honor our humble establishment."