by Bill Baldwin
“Like it?” Margot asked softly, her voice soft in the stillness of the tiny passenger compartment.
Brim could only nod emotionally.
“Wait till you see the inside,” she said, smiling.
Still shaking his head, Brim opened the door and stepped into cold air scented with the sharp spice of wood smoke. Snow tingling on his nose and cheeks, he held the opposite door while she stepped out, a long, shapely leg escaping from her slit skirt in a giddy flash of white. Brim felt himself blush as his breath caught in his throat. Then all too soon she was on her feet, Fleet cape wrapped demurely around her.
She smiled impishly. “Did that pass inspection?” she asked, eyes sparkling with good humor.
Brim felt his face flush anew, thanking Providence for the darkness. “I suppose I'm sorry I stared,” he stammered in embarrassment. “I'd forgotten the uniform included anything like a dress gown.” Then he chuckled. “And, yes,” he admitted, “you certainly pass any inspection I'll ever give.”
“In that case, I shall take it as a compliment,” she said, wrinkling her nose and smiling. “I always did have great legs.” Then she started for the entrance, Brim trailing in utter disarray.
He opened one of the huge wooden doors — it moved silently on massive hinges so perfectly balanced he thought for a moment it might be servo-activated. Then he smiled to himself as he helped her over the high stone stoop. No automatics here. In a place like the Mermaid Tavern, servomechanisms would be an intrusion.
Inside, with the doors closed, the spicy odor of burning wood was much stronger, an impossible luxury here on Haefdon, where the last tree must have died hundreds of years in the past. They were standing in a dark room with a low, beamed ceiling and rough-textured walls decorated with ancient landscapes mounted in massive frames. Flickering candelabra softly illuminated stout wooden furniture, richly patterned carpets, and a gleaming stone floor. Liveried domestics in long, ornate coats with oversized golden cuffs and collars materialized from nowhere and quietly helped them from their Fleet capes, then disappeared into one of many doorways leading from the room in all directions.
“Good evening, Princess Effer'wyck, Lieutenant Brim,” a voice said softly from beside a high wooden desk half hidden in the darkness. “We are most gratified you have chosen the Mermaid Tavern.” Brim frowned as he turned to face the speaker.
Like the domestics of his employ, the steward of the Mermaid Tavern wore a long red coat with oversized cuffs and collar. There, however, resemblance ended. If by no other means, he was utterly distinguished by an explosion of curly white hair that reached all the way to his shoulders. A veritable landslide of ruffled lace separated lavishly embroidered lapels, and his silken breeches were white as his hair. Huge golden buckles decorated his gleaming shoes. He spoke with the guarded, inexpressive mien of those used to dealing with wealth and power — no trace of subservience, only a practiced grace and an unerring precognition of what people expected.
Brim nodded silently when the man offered his arm to Margot. The place made him remotely uncomfortable, though he couldn't pinpoint the reason why. He had the feeling it had more to do with his Carescrian background than anything else.
He followed them through another of the many doors into a second candle-lighted room with a low ceiling and exquisitely carved beams. The tables were placed on islands of rich-looking carpet where shadowed couples sat close by each other in the soft warmth; here and there, he glimpsed badges of unimaginable rank. Eight formal musicians in black ruffles played quietly from a raised dais in the center of the room. They made a sound of such exquisite elegance Brim was reminded of his visits to Collingswood's cabin. Perhaps the same music or composer? He listened, enraptured. Another kind of poetry, he guessed. It would bear study someday — if he survived the war.
The shadow of Valentin's face suddenly intruded in his mind, and his skin prickled with remembered agony. He ground his teeth. Before he might involve himself in anything so beautiful as music, he would first have to deal with that evil zukeed and a lot more like him. Then he grimaced to himself and forced the anger from his mind. Tonight… Tonight, there was Margot. And he didn't intend to share her with anyone in any way — especially thraggling Leaguers!
The quiet music blended with the murmur of intimate conversation and the gentle, ringing assonance of goblets. At the far end of the room, huge glowing logs blazed in a high stone fireplace. Delicate odors of spice and rich perfume blended with the smooth effervescence of meem, hogge'poa, and burning wood, the whole muzzy atmosphere creating an aura of absolute luxury Brim found difficult to believe.
The steward assisted Margot into a high-backed chair at a table close to the warmth of the fireplace — the other was placed so the table's occupants were compelled to sit together facing the fire. Somehow, the whole arrangement gave an illusion of privacy. Once they were seated, it was almost as if they occupied a warm, spice-laden room all their own. In the softly flickering firelight, Margot's lovely oval face seemed even more beautiful than ever, her moist red lips and sleepy eyes more desirable than any he could remember, or imagine.
“You're quiet, Wilf,” she said with her smiling frown. “Is there something wrong?”
“No,” Brim answered bemusedly. “Nothing's wrong at all. It's more like nothing has ever been quite so right.”
“That's good,” she said, closing her eyes and leaning back in her chair. “It's awfully nice for me, too.” She smiled. “'All precious things discover'd late,/To those who seek them issue forth.' “
Brim nodded. “'For life in sequel works with fate,/And flings the veil from hidden worth:’ Latmos the Elder always did write your kind of verse, you know,” he added.
Margot kissed her fingertips in admiration. “My kind?” she asked.
“Well,” Brim said, “so much of you as I know.”
She blushed. “I'm terribly honored,” she said.
“You should be,” he commented, watching a domestic serve from a dust-covered bottle of Logish meem. “He wrote for no one else but you — and did so more than five hundred years before you were born. Makes you quite special, you know.”
She laughed. “You're pretty special yourself, Lieutenant Brim. And you don't even need Latmos.”
“Me?”
“You,” Margot affirmed. She frowned. “You know, Wilf, I haven't heard a word from you about what you really went through out there, only the technical detail.” She raised her eyebrows and moved her face close to his. “Anybody else would still be crowing about how brave he was.”
Brim snorted. “Nothing much to brag about,” he said. “They beat me up some, and we lost the merchantman we went after in the first place.”
“You did have something to do with stopping the corvette, though. “
“Well,” Brim admitted with an embarrassed chuckle. “Yes, I suppose I did. But anyone could probably have done the same. The brave ones were Ursis and Barbousse; they started the commotion that let me get away.”
She laughed — a wonderful, honest laugh Brim wished he could somehow keep going for the rest of his life. “Wilf Brim,” she declared, “you are impossible. Nothing to it, eh?”
Now it was Brim's turn to laugh. “Well,” he said, “I had to let one of them shoot me, if I remember correctly.”
Her face was suddenly serious, and she brought her face close to his again. “That's what I mean,” she said. “You are special. Do you have any idea how many people wear the Fleet uniform — call themselves Blue Capes — and never even hear a shot fired. People like me, Wilf.”
“Wait a cycle,” Brim protested suddenly. “Getting shot at or not getting shot at has little to do with much of anything. It just turns out that I fly starships pretty well. And people naturally shoot at starships — big targets.” He shrugged, looking her in her sleepy eyes. “If I could do something else better, they'd probably have me doing that.”
Margot sighed. “I stand by my words, Mr. Brim,” she said. “You are impossibl
e.” She smiled sleepily, her face soft in the firelight. “Given sufficient impossible people, we might even win this awful war.”
Later, they dined sumptuously on food Brim recently thought he would never live to savor again. And they talked — about starships, the war, poetry, and love. But as the evening passed, they settled more on matters of love. For a while, Margot drew him out, listening to his words with a faraway look in her eyes. Later, she spoke of her own first lover. “I was terribly fortunate,” she told him, her eyes focused across unbridgeable gulfs of space and time. “He had so much love to give. So gentle...”
Brim felt a thickness in his throat. He knew he would carry her words to the end of his days — and an irrational jealousy he would never manage to overcome. Without thinking, he took her hand, then panicked when he realized what he had done. To his surprise, she responded with her own hand, then looked silently into his eyes.
It was suddenly difficult to breathe in the tropical wash of her perfume. She was speaking as she squeezed his hand. She had a confused look in her sleepy eyes. “I hardly know you, Wilf,” she was saying hesitantly. “What's the matter with me?” Then she closed her eyes and shook her head — but kept her tight grip on his hand. In a moment, she seemed to regain herself and took a deep breath. “Hello, Lieutenant Brim,” she said huskily as she opened her eyes.
“Hello,” Brim answered. He took her other hand, oblivious to anyone else in the room, then abruptly threw caution to the winds. “I noticed they have rooms upstairs,” he said. “Should people find themselves, ah…”
“O-Overcome...” she stammered.
“Yes. By, ah, whatever,” Brim finished. .
She laughed suddenly. “'Whatever,'“ she repeated. “I hate that terrible word, Wilf. My mother used it when she wanted to avoid me.” She drained her goblet. “And, yes,” she said, bringing her face close to his. “They do have rooms upstairs.” Then she looked at her hands as if she were afraid to say the rest.
Brim never wanted anyone the way he wanted Margot Effer'wyck now, ever in his life. He squeezed her hand, took a firm grip on his fast-eroding emotions. “Th- Then…” he stammered shakily, “'then, would you…?” Before he could finish, he was stopped in midsentence by a hand on his shoulder, and taken completely by surprise, he turned in the seat, heart pounding, to confront the tavern's white-haired steward.
“A thousand pardons, Lieutenant Brim,” the man whispered. “Your transponder.”
“Sweet thraggling Universe,” Brim swore fiercely under his breath. The thrice-xaxtdamned personal transponder he'd swallowed! He closed his eyes in total and absolute defeat. “Very well,” he said with resignation. “Let's have the bad news.”
The steward handed him a tiny message packet, which he authenticated with a fingerprint and placed in his ear.
“You are summoned immediately to I.F.S. Prosperous.” it said, “at emergency priority. Your kit is already packed and delivered from Truculent.”
“I deeply regret the intrusion, Princess Effer'wyck,” the steward said as he turned to leave. “We had no choice.”
“I understand,” Margot answered with a wry look. Then she turned to Brim. “What?” she asked.
“I.F.S. Prosperous,” Brim whispered. “I've been summoned.”
With an incredulous look in her eyes, Margot suddenly dissolved into giggles. “A transponder?” she asked incredulously. “You really swallowed one of those things, didn't you?”
“Yeah,” Brim admitted, cheeks burning from sudden embarrassment.
“Oh, Wilf,” she exclaimed. “Didn't anybody tell you?”
“No,” he admitted. “I haven't been around long enough to learn much of anything that's not in a textbook.”
She shook her head. “Well,” she said, “you've just had lesson one.” She smiled sadly. “There's no getting out of emergency priority. At least none I know.” She squeezed his hand for a moment more, then gently withdrew. “I can probably save you a few steps in my skimmer. We Assessment types get cleared for all sorts of strange places.”
They were on their way back down the tree-lined road in a matter of cycles.
No sooner had Margot swung onto the causeway than the Mermaid Tavern, the fire, everything but the woman herself quickly faded to an aura of unreality. Even with shared expenses, he'd never before spent so much for a single meal, nor been in a position where he could. He had no illusions about why everything had gone so well. The name Effer'wyck was well known — often feared, he understood — all over the galaxy and beyond. But she'd never mentioned it. He smiled to himself. This beautiful young woman had no need to try to impress anyone; she simply did.
The wind had picked up considerably since the third watch, and she drove skillfully in the gusts, picking her way among rapidly forming snowdrifts. Now, it was she who was strangely silent when they quit the main thoroughfare, this time for a side road crowded with heavily loaded vehicles of all kinds. She drew to a stop before one of a dozen heavily guarded sentry booths and offered her ID card. It flashed an unusual color passing through their reader (which it did, Brim noticed, with singular ease). “I'm delivering Lieutenant Brim,” she said simply as she handed his card through the window after her own. Both were returned with a half-heard, “Thank you, Princess,” then they were waved through into the milling confusion of the loading complex.
“It's been a wonderful evening, Margot,” Brim said lamely as she drove carefully through the crowded system of ramps leading to the 'midships brow. Beyond, a mammoth liner floated on a gravity pool of truly heroic proportions — easily five or six times the size of those in the Eorean starwharves. The Fleet's ebony hullmetal could by no means hide her thoroughbred lines. She was Prosperous, all right. More than 950 graceful irals of blue riband starliner, with speed and power in her gigantic hull to outrun all but the fastest warships.
Margot stopped the skimmer short of the orderly mob passing through the gate, then turned his way, face softly lighted by the instruments. Her heavy-lidded eyes were moist, and she had a serious appearance that Brim had never seen before.
“It was a wonderful evening, Wilf,” she said. She blew her nose softly on a lace handkerchief. “And I think I owe you an apology. I'm afraid I let things get way out of hand back there.”
“We both did,” Brim agreed. “But then, nothing really came of it, either.”
“No,” she said quietly. “But you don't understand “
“I don't want to understand anything,” Brim asserted suddenly, surprised at the force of his own voice. “I want your lips, Margot-after that, we can reset and start over again. But I want a kiss from you more than anything else in the Universe. “
Without a word, she was in his arms, her lips pushing eagerly against his, wet and open — and hungry. Her breath was sweet in his nostrils as she clung to him, big in his arms; an ample woman. Their teeth touched for an instant, and he opened his eyes; hers opened too, blurred out of focus before they gently closed again. He felt her tremble, then her grip suddenly loosened. She took a great gulp of air, and he released her.
They sat in panting silence for a moment, Brim's heart pounding all out of control.
“I th-think I'd better go right now, Wilf,” Margot said in a shaken voice. “My 'reset' is going to be difficult enough as it is. “
Opening the door of the skimmer to the noisy bustle and confusion outside, he nodded wordlessly and jumped to the snow, touching his fingers to his lips. She returned the salute as he gently pressed the door closed, then moved off in a cloud of snow and was quickly lost in the throng of vehicles.
With an unaccountably heavy heart, Brim pushed his way through the crowd toward the guard shack where someone who looked very much like Utrillo Barbousse waited with a familiar battered traveling case.
“Barbousse ?”
The huge starman saluted as Brim stepped into the lighted area at the entrance to the brow. “Lieutenant Gallsworthy thought you might need some assistance, Lieutenant, sir,” he sh
outed above the noise of the big ship's generators. “An' I hadn't made plans for the layover, so I took the liberty of signing on the cruise with you.” He handed Brim the side-action blaster. “It's the kind of mission you might be needin' this.”
Brim shook his head and grinned with honest appreciation. He clapped the big starman on the shoulder (which felt like Octillian shore granite). “Let's be on our way, then, Barbousse, my friend,” he said. “It's becoming very clear I have an awful lot to learn about the Fleet — and everything else as well.”
CHAPTER 5
Swept along in the lines of soldiers and military vehicles coursing up the wide lanes of the brow, Brim and Barbousse caught only glimpses of the great starliner as she hovered on her monster gravity pool. She seemed to stretch for c'lenyts on either side, and lighted only by the weak glow from beneath, she still looked splendid. Her forward deck tapered gently upward from a conoid bow to a high, rakish superstructure surmounted by two enormous KA'PPA beacons and a dwarfed control bridge, the latter providing the ship with a nearsighted and, to some extent, surprised expression overall. The remainder of the wide, shallow hull — at least three-quarters of her overall length — appeared to be covered by cascading Hyperscreen terraces, which gleamed brightly from within as the big ship loaded.
Below, streams of tarpaulin-covered cargo lumbered along under the lights of at least a dozen cargo-level brows; Brim glimpsed giant cargo tractors levitating a line of self-propelled disruptor cannon into an access hatch deep in the hull. Enormous machines. A great turret squatted on each flattened hull, ridiculously small for the apparent weight it bore, and angular glassed-in driving cabins projected awkwardly like afterthoughts from the forward port and aft starboard corners. Inboard of these, massive cooling systems were ample proof of the prodigious energy required to fire the thick, stubby disruptors that protruded from the turrets.
“What do you make of those?” he asked Barbousse, nodding toward the big vehicles crawling along below.