The Mercenaries

"The celebration of Zaborew," Saltash answered. "It's a quasi-religious holiday period of some sort, though I doubt if anyone understands the whole significance anymore. Most of the feast days have something to do with a series of victories against some deadly force from outside the galaxy. But the exact nature of that force is never really described, at least in the feasts I've been privileged to attend.''

He grinned as they finally glided under the portico. "Lots of excellent food and magnificent, homegrown Logish Meem, so I've never found much reason to complain about their slipshod historical reckoning."

The Carescrian grinned as a red-clad footman stepped up to open the door. "A man after my own heart," he said. "Where good food and Logish Meem are concerned, wise men ask as few questions as possible. I learned that from friends in Sodeskaya,'' Then he stepped onto the pavement, adjusted his sword, and followed Saltash through the most ornate set of doors he had seen since the Grand Koundourities Hotel in Atalanta. Both were horridly overdone.

Brim was immediately relieved to find that an "audience" with Nabob Mustafa was not something that people did by themselves. To the right of a semicircular area curtained off by huge, red velvet draperies, at least thirty others were lined up, preening themselves and talking to one or more coadjutors.

The throne room itself was a lofty structure, shaped as if it were the interior of an incredibly large and ornate bedouin tent whose walls and roof were lined by giant carpets. Clearly, the Nabob's roots were nomadic—but well before the dawn of recorded history. "Anything I ought to know about this?'' he asked.

Saltash shook his head. "Old Mustafa holds these audiences every other day, year in and year out. And from what I understand, most of them are serious—requiring some sort of judgment that immediately becomes law. You'll make a nice change of pace for him."

"Good," Brim laughed. "I'll take very little of his time, then...."

"Don't count on it," Beyazh laughed, joining the two Imperials in the midst of their conversation.

"What you'll do is answer questions until he runs out of them. And he'll have a few, believe me. I've just spoken to him. He's excited that you're here—with Starfury, of course...." The Minister's next words were completely overpowered by a great braying of trumpets that terminated in respectful silence as the curtains parted to reveal the high throne of Fluvanna: A small, straight-backed chair made of what appeared to be solid gold. It was dramatically lighted by a single beam of ghostly luminescence.

Standing beside the throne, Mustafa IX Eyren, The Magnificent, was a small, stout man with a dark, round face; at least three double chins; small, perceptive eyes peering from behind a pair of enormous spectacles; and truly prodigious mustaches that ended in waxed spikes extending considerably outboard of his ears. He was dressed in baggy scarlet silk knee britches; brilliantly polished riding boots with pointed, turned-up toes; a high-necked tunic of white brocade embroidered in gold; and a crimson fez with a long, blue tassel denoting his royal status. When he clapped his hands twice in rapid succession, a large contingent of musicians began yerking out the national anthem and everyone in the room dropped to their knees—everyone except Brim and Saltash. Imperials bowed to no one, especially Imperials in Imperial uniforms. The traditional prohibition had been in effect since time immemorial, and was seldom taken to heart by dominions whose customs required outward signs of obeisance.

When the room had become silent, a voice from the rear snapped off half a dozen Fluvannian words, and a group of men made their way to a small, ornate carpet placed directly before the throne.

There, they once more dropped to their knees until sharp commands from the Nabob himself brought them to their feet. Mustafa now relaxed and sat on his throne, bidding the petitioners to begin with a casual wave of the hand.

"You won't have long to wait," Beyazh whispered under his breath. "Nabob Mustafa instructed me to inform you that he will hear two of the shortest cases first, in deference to his own countrymen.

You will be called third."

Brim nodded. "I appreciate that," he said.

"Mustafa appreciates Starfury," Beyazh chuckled darkly. "He isn't too anxious for a League takeover, either...."

As Beyazh predicted, the first audience lasted no more than fifteen cycles; the second lasted scarcely half that long. Abruptly someone pronounced a rapid-fire string of mostly unintelligible sounds that contained the words "Wilf Brim" and "Starfury" whereupon Saltash tapped the Carescrian on his arm. "We're up, Commander," he chuckled, starting across the floor toward the throne. "Let's see if the two of us together can put together a single interview—and don't forget, Nabobs always speak first."

The two men stopped a few irals from the throne and came to attention while Brim saluted.

Mustafa eyed them with interest, a small smile on his pudgy face. He twisted one side of his mustache, frowned, nodded, then smiled again and cordially pronounced a string of noises that sounded to Brim like a choleric Xythun warbling turtle.

"His Magnificence extends his personal welcome as well as those of his people," Saltash translated.

Brim thought a moment. "Please convey to His Magnificence that I am deeply honored by his greeting, as is the company of my starship."

Saltash grunted and warbled back, then fell expectantly silent.

Mustafa looked amused and nodded. Again he pronounced a string of grunts and warbles, this time with a very serious look on his face.

"His Magnificence has learned that Starfury is perhaps the greatest warship in the known Universe," the diplomat said. "He wonders if you agree."

Brim grinned and looked the Nabob directly in his eye. "Tell Mustafa that he can bet his kingdom on that ship and the crew that flies her," he said proudly. "As well as the Starfuries that will follow her from the building yards."

Saltash had just begun his warbling translation when Mustafa held an imperious hand in the air for silence. The little man looked Brim directly in the eye. "Because I very well may bet my kingdom on Starfury," he began in perfect, but Rhodorian-tinged, Avalonian, "I wish to hear in your own words what there is about this ship that makes you so certain of her fighting powers."

"Your Magnificence," Saltash interrupted in stunned astonishment, "I had no idea...."

Mustafa frowned over his eyeglasses. "Neither do most of your long-winded Foreign Office colleagues, Saltash,'' he chuckled. "Prince Onrad assures me you can be trusted."

Saltash's eyebrows raised appreciatively. "I am honored, Your Magnificence."

Mustafa nodded, then focused on Brim. "With that finished, we can now return to my original question, Commander—concerning what it is about this odd-shaped warship that makes you so certain of her fighting qualities."

Brim started to reply, but Mustafa raised his hand again. "Not yet, my Carescrian friend," he said.

"I have all of the facts concerning Starfury that Sherrington can supply, plus official data from your CIGA-riddled Admiralty," He grinned. "I even have a significant body of classified information that my friend Baxter Calhoun has forwarded during the past few Standard Months. So I already know a great deal about the ship and her unique qualities. The information I require from you is your 'feel,' your very personal instinct of how these unique qualities of Starfury-class starships have combined, now that you have had a chance to get to know her. Is she, Commander, a true 'fighting ship,' or merely an object of considerable beauty?" He smiled. "Like a lovely woman of little intelligence."

Brim considered for a long moment before he attempted a reply. Clearly, this Nabob was no mere figurehead. At some point in his life, he must have commanded starships—conceivably a number of them. Somehow, it made the job easier. "First off, Your Magnificence," he began at length, "Starfury is truly a Helmsman's starship. In every meaning of the word...." He described the feeling he had at her controls, the rock steady feel of her helm, the easy power from the reflecting Drives, the speed, the pure joy of being at the controls of a faultless ship. He described the perfect integration of man and machine that permitted a crew to concentrate on operating the ship—not the ship herself. He told about the improved cooling system installed at Gimmas Haefdon, described the incredible destructive power of her disrupter batteries. And all through his dialogue, Mustafa listened—not as surfeited royalty listens with boredom in his eyes, but with almost childlike intensity—and not a single interruption.

When at last Brim fell silent, the little Nabob smiled. "That good, eh?" he asked.

"That good. Your Magnificence," Brim assured him.

The Nabob considered for a moment, then nodded to Saltash. "Leave us for a moment, my Imperial friend," he ordered.

With a nod, Saltash stepped off the carpet.

"All right, Brim," the Nabob said. "For that kind of a discourse, you deserve to know that you have erased the last doubts from my mind. I shall permit our mutual friend Drummond to stew for a few days more, but it seems pointless that you should be deprived of the knowledge. You have convinced me—as all the literature in the galaxy could not—that I should accept Prince Onrad's offer. Before one of my weeks has passed, the concordat will be made." He smiled. " Zin ilegs'oh!" he said.

"Kud lubs'oh!" Brim replied, returning the Nabob's smile. With that, he saluted, stepped backward from the carpet, and the audience was at an end.

CHAPTER 5

The Volunteer

By the time Brim returned to Starfury, the ship was abuzz with news that the whole crew was invited to Mustafa's palace as part of the Feast of Zaborew. During Brim's audience, royal messengers had delivered separate invitations: one for the wardroom, one for the enlisted mess. Officers were summoned to a "Grand Banquet" followed by a formal cotillion; a carnival with a great festal board would be set up on the palace grounds for the lower decks.

"And it's not just for our crew," Tissaurd declared with an excited smite from across a wardroom table, "they've sent invitations to every government ship in the harbor, including the Leaguers."

"Folks take feasts seriously around here," Brim observed, sipping his cvceese' with a grin. "When is this grand soiree?"

"Tomorrow evening," Tissaurd replied, a wistful look momentarily passing her eyes. "I've arranged the watch so I can be there."

"Great, Number One," Brim replied. "Perhaps I can even get you to take my arm on the way."

The last seemed to slip out on its own, surprising Brim as much as it seemed to affect Tissaurd.

The petite officer smiled with a sidelong glance that made it clear she had not expected his words. "I'd have loved that, Skipper," she said with a disconcerted little frown, "but I'm afraid I'm already spoken for. Beyazh drove over with the first messengers, and... well...."

Brim felt his cheeks flush as a surge of disappointment swept him fore and aft. "Just my luck," he said with what he hoped was an easygoing smile. "The locals always have the first word."

"I'll save you a dance. Skipper," Tissaurd said encouragingly.

"Then the evening won't be a total loss," he said, now feeling more embarrassment than anything else—he had, after all, put a junior officer on the spot, "But a word of warning to you," he added, "I'm a dreadful hoofer."

"I'll look forward to having you prove that, Skipper," Tissaurd chuckled.

"Wear your heaviest boots, then," Brim quipped, hurrying off for the Drive chambers to inspect a plasma-tube repair. Afterward, however, try as he might, he had very little luck shedding a feeling of disappointment that naggled him throughout a restless night....

As luck would have it, Brim, Beyazh, and Tissaurd all arrived simultaneously at the main hatch the next evening. Lieutenant Herbig Günter, who had volunteered for Duty Officer during the fete on religious grounds, gave a low wolf whistle as the latter passed his station. "If I'd known you were going to look like that, Nadia," he said, "I mightn't have followed the church rules so closely and asked you myself."

"Too late, Günter," Tissaurd bantered, "I'm spoken for tonight. Ambassador Beyazh has taken on the job of escort for this sortie." She looked positively stunning in her black formal uniform. Edged with embroidered braid, her frock coat was cut away in the front over a low, square-cut bodice trimmed with lace that revealed large areas of ample breasts. Knee-length in back, the coat had two slits reaching to the waistline with a huge gold military button at the top of each slit. Narrow lapels faced with golden embroidery, shoulder boards bearing the three stars of a Lieutenant, and an impressive row of service ribbons completed the embellishments. Beneath the coat, she wore slender black silk breeches buttoned at the sides that extended over her knees and ended in narrow golden bands. Sheer black hose covered her shapely calves, and she wore high-heeled slippers that only just revealed her toes.

"Er, lucky you, Ambassador," Herbig said, his face coloring slightly as he opened the ship's register so that they could sign out.

Standing behind them, Brim felt his own cheeks flush. "Good evening, Ambassador. Er, taking in the dance?" he asked, feeling asinine as the words left his mouth.

Tissaurd finished signing and looked up with a distracted aspect while Beyazh turned and extended his hand to the Carescrian.

"Ah, good evening, Captain Brim," the diplomat said. "Yes, we certainly are taking in the ball. All day I have looked forward to escorting the loveliest woman at the palace. Even the Nabob will be envious tonight." He laughed. "All Magor will envy me."

Brim signed out and followed them uncomfortably through the throng of officers moving along the forward brow. Below, the parking area was filled with huge omnibuses of very recent manufacture.

Clearly, Fluvannian tastes ran to modern when it came to public transportation. Directly off the stairs, however, one of the Nabob's huge phaeton skimmers idled quietly at the curb: another great top-hampered vehicle of tremendous elegance and considerable antiquity. As Beyazh's boot touched the pavement, footmen came to attention on either side of the entrance hatch.

"Ride with us to the palace, Commander Brim," the diplomat offered grandly. "Mustafa the Magnificent has sent this lordly antique to carry only me and my lovely escort to the palace. We have ample room, as you can see. Will you do us the honor?"

Brim glanced at Tissaurd and attempted another gallant smile—that probably failed. "I thank you," he said with a little bow, "but I think it would be better for me to ride with the others. If you will excuse me?"

"I understand," Beyazh said. "I shall look forward to your presence at the ball, where I am certain, Nadia has saved you at least one dance."

Moments later Brim watched him gently hand her into a passenger compartment that almost defied description. High, arched windows of beveled crystal surmounted a luxurious gray velvet couch that appeared to run the entire circumference of the room except for the entrance—and there were pillows everywhere! Then the footman closed the door and the big machine glided from the parking lot like the wraith of a great ship.

Brim's own bus ride to the palace was much too rapid, even at the slow speed the huge bus could make through the crowded streets. Directly he was delivered to the ornate side entrance he had seen on his first visit. Inside, at the end of a long corridor, strains of gentle music vied with the murmur of conversation and the ringing assonance of crystal glassware. He checked his hat and queued up at a short line of officers waiting to enter the hall, fidgeting impatiently; he always felt remotely uncomfortable when he was announced. At last, he heard a paige proclaim, "Commander Wilf Brim, I.F., Captain of I.F.S. Starfury." Lively music battled the loud conversation and clinking of glasses as he stepped onto the broad staircase amid a smattering of polite applause. The warm air was thick with perfumes and spiced smoke from mu'occo and camarge cigarettes. Below, the room was packed with brightly colored gowns, half-bared bosoms, military uniforms of every hue and cast, and a farrago of people: Bears, flighted beings, and a host of other sentients.

No sooner had the Carescrian reached the bottom than Saltash bounced from the crowd, a goblet of meem in his hand. "Wilf—it's about time," he said, steering through the crowd toward a gilded alcove in the shape of a great seashell. The people inside were clearly influential, just because they were there. But they somehow looked influential, too. "A lot of important people have been waiting to met you," the diplomat said. "Mustafa's pretty well kept you to himself since you arrived."

As they passed, a tall Imperial Captain with a CIGA ribbon on his Fleet Cloak turned his head and glared. "War lover," he hissed angrily.

Brim passed the man without a glance. "I didn't know there were any of them here," he said.

"The zukeeds are everywhere," Saltash answered, shouldering his way between two gesticulating League officers who were, to all outward appearances, bickering over some arcane point of military courtesy, "including some of the people you are about to meet."

As they climbed two steps that set the seashell off from the rest of the room, a goblet appeared in Brim's hand, delicately placed there by a bright yellow-clad servant hovering nearby with a tray of replenishments. Moments later, the Carescrian found himself surrounded by a crush of curious faces. He shook hands with people whose names he forgot the moment they were pronounced and fielded a host of questions revealing a distinct sense of apprehension at the League's general posture toward their "precious Dominion." During a moment of relative quiet, he reflected on the real root of their fears: actual concern for their homeland or merely a hazard to the privileges they enjoyed under the present regime.

Clearly, they would be the farthest from the battle lines when the fighting began. The wealthiest always seemed to find some plausible excuse.

At that moment, Beyazh swept through the crowd with Tissaurd in tow calling, "Time to dine!

Time to dine!" The latter offered Brim her arm as she passed. "Grab on, Skipper," she called, "with this crowd of locusts, the good stuff can't last long."

Brim hooked on and was towed at high speed from the seashell (nearly tripping down the steps), through the rollicking crowd, and into a lavishly furnished banquet room whose tapestried walls and gilded sideboys might have graced an Avalonian palace. Mustafa truly honored his nomadic roots, but he also took a back seat to no one when it came to rococo sophistication and splendor. The three had just reached one of the long, sparkling tables piled high with food when they pulled up short at a flurry of activity near the huge pointed archway that formed one end of the room. Presently, Nabob Mustafa IX Eyren (The Magnificent) strode into the hall with a tall and exquisitely formed woman dressed from head to foot in light green robes of diaphanous material. She had an almond-shaped face framed by satiny black, shoulder-length hair, a long patrician nose, full lips, and enormous green eyes that fairly sparkled with cool intelligence.

Such a woman could only be Raddisma, the Nabob's favorite Consort, but no HoloPicturc Brim had seen came even close to doing justice to her beauty. He found himself straightaway fascinated by the woman's natural grace as the couple swept through the crowd like fast cruisers at a Fleet review. The moment they took their seats at center table, the guests eagerly sat in a great scraping of chairs and rustle of gowns.

Brim had little time to contemplate the Consort's exotic beauty, for the moment Beyazh had seated Tissaurd, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the chair next to her. "You'll not get off that easily this evening. Skipper," she pronounced with mock severity. "I'm determined to have my dance with you." As a footman passed, she held up her goblet for a refill of Logish Meem, then turned to toast something with Beyazh—who was already in deep conversation with a portly Galite'er from the League, When she returned her gaze to him. Brim noticed color in her cheeks, as if she had emptied more than one goblet prior to the banquet. If anything, it made her look even lovelier than normal, and Brim was feeling the two he had already downed himself. As the corps of servants in bright yellow uniforms began to serve their first course, he found himself at considerable pains to avoid staring at her décolleté. Again and again.

The feast itself would have slaked the appetites of a battle squadron during Brim's blockading days. There were whole courses of fish prepared in every conceivable manner. He recognized the lavender scales of a delicate Feloo trout; he'd eaten a whole meal of them in Sodeskaya during his Mitchell Trophy days. Most of the others were disguised by rich sauces. Next came twelve kinds of game fowl from Ordu's own dense Boreal forests, each prepared with a different kind of spiced dressing.

Afterward there were lavishly decorated courses of sweetmeats; vegetables, cold as well as hot; and uncounted trays of condiments and cheeses. And through it all, footmen constantly hovered over the table refilling goblets with Logish Meem of the finest vintages. Toward the end of the sweetmeats, he noticed with slight disapproval that Tissaurd had continued to drain her goblet a number of times—but, then, so had he. In fact, he was experiencing increased difficulty in his campaign to avoid staring at the ample expanse of breasts revealed by the deep cut of her formal uniform.

Abruptly, Beyazh excused himself to escort a Lutzian Army General to Mustafa's table, and Tissaurd lost no time capturing Brim's eyes with hers. "Skipper," she charged in a confidential voice, "you have been staring at my breasts all evening." She ran her tongue over her lips for a moment, men winked.

"Tell me, do you like what you see?"

Brim felt his face flush. "You've clearly caught me, Number One," he admitted with an embarrassed grin. "And, yes, I like what I see very much. The only word that really comes to mind is 'magnificent.'"

He was saved from further embarrassment by Ogmar Vossell, the Prime Minister, who abruptly gathered his ample potbelly within a voluminous set of robes and stood with a full goblet of meem raised to the room. "And now," he bellowed in a deep bass voice that easily carried above the hubbub, "before the ladies retire, I hereby present the royal toast!"

Chairs scraped and glasses spilled (to the accompaniment of shrieks and anguished groans) while the tipsy guests clamored unsteadily to their feet. Considerable time elapsed before the room quieted sufficiently for the ceremony to proceed.

"To his Fluvannian Majesty, Nabob Mustafa IX Eyren, The Magnificent!" Vossell shouted at length, weaving slightly from side to side.

"His Fluvannian Majesty, Nabob Mustafa IX Eyren, The Magnificent!" the guests bellowed in return. "Long may he rule! Long may he live!" Shortly after their cheering subsided into ambient hubbub, Beyazh returned to his seat and, nodding politely to Brim, proceeded to monopolize Tissaurd until all rose and the women began their traditional migration into the ballroom.

"I think I may be embarrassed in the morning for what I said. Skipper," she whispered as she stopped beside his chair.

"I don't know why," Brim answered quietly. "I was staring, you know."

"I sort of hoped you might be, Skipper," she said, squeezing his forearm for a moment. "After all, I did have them out for you to admire tonight, even if it's Beyazh who plays with them later on." Then, with a rush of color in her cheeks, she joined the throng of women exiting the dining hall. "Don't forget my dance," she called over her shoulder, and was lost almost instantly in a crush of much taller women.

Brim marveled to himself. On a starship's bridge, Tissaurd was clearly one of the best, most talented First Lieutenants in the Fleet. But she was also a damnably good-looking, sexy woman when she wanted to be. And ethically distant as they might be to each other while serving on the same bridge, he felt quite honored that she had thought enough of him to reveal the flesh-and-blood woman he knew lived beneath her professional veneer.

Cigarettes and pipes of all manner, form, and content were quickly passed among the guests by a whole platoon of yellow-clad footmen. Brim refused them all; smoking never had been one of his vices.

He did, however, accept a huge snifter of delightful (and elsewhere ridiculously expensive) Fluvannian spring brandy that he managed to nurse while he listened to the talk around him. It was mostly political, as foreign to him as the bridge of a starship would be to most of them. He tried to concentrate on the trivial questions of influential people with whom Saltash constantly confronted him, but somehow Tissaurd's voice kept interrupting with, "After all, I did have them out for you to admire tonight." It was awfully good to know that she was human.

Mercifully, Nabob Mustafa relinquished his hold on the male attendees earlier than usual and forthwith gave his royal permission for the ball to begin....

Brim was a terrible social dancer. He'd received scant training in the art, and what little education he'd been forced to endure at the Helmsman's Academy he'd wasted out of pure embarrassment. He could throw the trickiest starships around with the best in the galaxy. He had utter confidence in his ability to make safe landfall in ships that others would have abandoned as derelicts or crashed. He even reckoned himself a reasonably competent lover; certainly he'd endured no open complaints in the last few years. But put him on a dance floor with responsibility for leading a woman in time to music (about which he understood nothing!) and he immediately turned into a rumbling, staggering nitwit whose hands went embarrassingly cold anytime he even thought about the arcane business. As was his habit at such affairs, he stayed well away from the actual dance floor, usually at the bar, carrying on conversations with whom he could and keeping a watchful eye for women who were not familiar with his particular brand of abominable footwork.

He was doing just that, in one of Mustafa's intimate, darkly paneled palace bars when, without warning, Tissaurd poked her head inside and pointed a gloved finger as if it were a blaster. "I-T-'S T-I-M-E," she mouthed theatrically.

Brim felt his heart thump in panic while his hands instantly drained of warmth. His mind whirled with the million-odd excuses he had catalogued over the years. None seemed to fit.

Grinning at his obvious discomfort, Tissaurd motioned with her head toward the ballroom.

"N-O-W!" the gamin officer mouthed, thrusting her breasts ever so slightly toward him while maintaining an aspect of virginal innocence.

At that Brim gave up in a rush of meem-induced self-indulgence. If he could dance with anyone, it would certainly be Tissaurd! After all, weren't they the finest flight-bridge team in the known Universe and beyond? Downing the last dregs of his meem, he swept around the end of the bar, gathered her in his arm, and led the way toward the ballroom as if he actually knew what he was doing.

Unfortunately, once deployed on the dance floor with the tiny officer in his arms, he still could only shuffle, more or less with what he supposed people referred to as "the beat."

Surprisingly, Tissaurd didn't seem to mind; she even appeared to enjoy herself as she impudently pressed her breasts into his chest. And wonder of wonders, he even found himself enjoying the experience, especially the sensation of holding his tiny comrade close in his arms. Somehow, he had failed to notice before, but her short hair was scented with the most erotic perfume imaginable!

He had just begun to relax and enjoy himself when, most abruptly, there was no more music. He felt his face flush, wondering how long he had continued his silly shuffling without it. Other couples were already changing partners or heading off the dance floor completely. He looked down at Tissaurd to find her eyes closed and her head resting on his chest as if she hadn't noticed, either. She was still moving to his own ungainly rhythm. Taking a deep breath, he awkwardly whispered, "I think it's over, Nadia."

"I know, Wilf," she replied languidly, with her eyes still closed. "I've decided to ignore it. We'll both be back aboard Starfury all too soon as it is. I'll have to be 'Number One' again instead of Nadia, and you'll be the Skipper who can't even think of cuddling me like you're doing right now. So I've simply willed time to stop. One can do anything she pleases when she's drunk."

"Nadia..." Brim started to say, but a hand grasped his shoulder firmly.

"Sorry, Commander," a tall diplomat declared with a smile, "but this is my dance with the Lieutenant, I believe."

Instantly, Tissaurd came awake. "Legate Zumwalter," she exclaimed, winking surreptitiously at Brim as she slipped from his arms. "Why, I was just looking for you!1'

Brim bowed. "It has been a pleasure, Lieutenant," he said.

"It has indeed been a pleasure, Commander," she replied, capturing his eyes in hers and holding them for a moment, "one I shall not soon forget."

"Nor I," Brim answered, then bowing to the diplomat, he turned and made his way to the sidelines.

Soon afterward, he returned to the ship and a very lonely night.

In the days following the ball, Saltash returned Brim to the palace often for presentations to influential Fluvannians both in the government and civilian sectors. One morning, after hectic presentations to flag-grade officers of the Fluvannian Home Fleet, they were strolling back to the embassy skimmer through the great hall of the palace when Brim spied a hulking figure who somehow looked familiar. With a great hooked nose and a shaggy red beard, the man was dressed in flowing white robes topped by a brilliant blue fez and looked a great deal like the images of Pasha Korfuzzier that Brim had seen. He was moving stealthily from pillar to pillar in a most suspicious manner. "That's the Pasha, isn't it?" Brim asked.

"Sweet merciful Universe," Saltash swore under his breath, "it is." He stopped in his tracks with a worried look on his face, scanning the room. "And there's Ambassador Zacristy," he gasped a moment later, "directly across from us." Even as he spoke, Korfuzzier drew two snub-nosed blasters from his robes and raised them in the general direction of the Leaguer diplomat. But before he could so much as aim, tiny sirens began to shriek throughout the crowd, and at least ten Imperial agents appeared from nowhere, resolutely trying to wrestle him to the pavement.

Korfuzzier was a huge man, however, and not easily overpowered. Roaring with maniacal fury, he sent hapless agents flying in every direction, then aimed the powerful weapons at two of his assailants, burning them completely in half before he turned to search out his original quarry. By this time, however, Zacristy was nowhere to be seen, so in frustrated rage, Korfuzzier began to randomly spray the crowd.

At the first shots, Brim blindly threw himself over a nearby woman, pressing her close to the cold marble floor as great bolts of lethal energy crackled close overhead. Moments later he roared in pain as a wild shot burned across his back. Grinding his teeth, he struggled to remain motionless and avoid a second burst while the hard-working Imperial agents again subdued Korfuzzier. This time, however, they disarmed him as well. Gradually the screaming subsided, and the hall fell into a shocked silence. "Are you all right?" Brim whispered to the woman, instantly feeling foolish because she couldn't possibly understand his language.

"I shall be quite all right as soon as you let me up," she returned laughingly—in perfect Avalonian.

Before he could comply, however, the shocked Brim found himself harshly dragged to his feet and pinioned between two enormous eunuchs dressed in the black-and-gold checked robes of the Harem staff who shouted at him angrily in what must have been Vulgate Fluvannian. in the distance, he could see Saltash haplessly trying to push his way through the noisy crowd.

"How dare you defile Raddisma, the Nabob's most cherished Consort, pagan?" a third eunuch demanded in Avalonian. This one was at least a quarter again as large as his partners. "Speak," he growled shrilly, "before we make you speak!"

Brim helplessly glanced at the woman he had tried to protect—indeed, it was Raddisma, favorite Consort of the Nabob. And today, he noticed—in spite of the circumstances—she had managed to be even more beautiful than he remembered from the banquet.

When the woman commanded something imperiously in Fluvannian, at least a dozen servants gathered to help her to her feet. At the same time, the three eunuchs released Brim with chastened looks on their faces.

"A fine way to reward you, Commander," Raddisma laughed in a dusky, feminine voice while she straightened her hair. "You very probably saved my life," she added with an appraising look.

Brim had no sooner opened his mouth to answer when he, the eunuchs, and the Consort were surrounded by a solid wall of scarlet-uniformed soldiers who opened a narrow passage in their ranks to admit Nabob Mustafa himself. "Raddisma," the little man puffed, clearly out of breath, then continued with an unintelligible string of Fluvannian.

The tall woman bowed and answered with a long soliloquy, also in Fluvannian, nodding often toward Brim.

"Commander Brim," the Nabob said at length in Avalonian, turning for the first time from his Consort. "Forgive me," he said. "My mind was clearly elsewhere." He placed a ring-bedecked hand on Brim's forearm. "Raddisma tells me that you saved her life by shielding her with your own body. Are you hurt?"

Brim smiled. "Only my Fleet Cloak, Your Magnificence," he said. "The rest of me seems to be in fine fettle."

The Nabob smiled grimly. "This bravery of yours will not go unremembered, Commander," he said with a serious mien. "I find I am considerably in your debt this trip."

"Not at all, Your Magnificence," Brim replied. "I was honored to serve."

Abruptly the little Nabob saluted in a contemporary manner. "Nevertheless," he said, "you will find that I do not forget those whom I owe."

Startled, Brim returned the salute, but before he could utter a word, the wall of troops opened once more, then followed the Nabob across the floor in the direction from which he had come, leaving Brim once more with Raddisma and her eunuchs.

Mustafa's Consort still had that appraising look in her eyes. "You are Commander Brim?" she asked. "Captain of the Starfury?" she asked.

"At your service, ma'am," Brim replied.

"I think you did save my life, Commander," Raddisma declared with a mysterious smile on her full lips. "There can be no question about it. Someday, I shall see to it that you are appropriately rewarded, in a personal manner, of course."

Brim bowed gallantly. "Your safety is my greatest reward, ma'am," he said, but when their eyes met, he thought she might just have something specific on her mind. "I shall look forward to our next meeting," he added with a great deal of truth.

"As will I," she answered regally. " As will I...." Bowing slightly, she swept by his arm, passed him a secret little wink, and disappeared into the crowd that had again begun to move freely through the colossal hall.

Moments later, Saltash arrived at his side. "When I saw who you tackled," the envoy said, "I reckoned the best thing was to let you work things out for yourself."

Brim nodded phlegmatically. "Mighty decent of you, neighbor," he quipped. "I enjoyed the eunuchs especially. Big zukeeds, those."

"Well"—Saltash shrugged—"except for them, it couldn't have been all that uncomfortable. I mean, Raddisma isn't the worst person to end up on a floor with, now, is she?"

"I can't remember," Brim grumped. "I was so thraggling scared, I didn't notice a thing until the eunuchs got me, that is. And just look what happened to my Fleet Cape." He turned his back.

"Ouch," Saltash swore. "That will be difficult to fix."

"I'm going to bill the Fleet," Brim chuckled darkly. "It's a fine-of-duty reimbursable if I ever saw one and they're xaxtdamn lucky they don't have to repair me, too."

"In all seriousness," Saltash said, "we couldn't have wished for anything better to happen."

"We what?"

"Well," Saltash answered, "both the Pasha and his favorite bedmate are unquestionably in your debt—and by proxy, so is Fluvanna. That lady calls a lot of the shots around here."

"I get the distinct impression she didn't call those shots," Brim quipped.

"Very funny," Saltash chuckled. "Nevertheless, I think you'll find that your discomfiture was all for a good cause."

Brim grinned. "I'll try to remember that the next time some dimbulb tries to broil my back with a blaster. Voot's greasy beard!"

During the next week, in his capacity as Commander of a visiting warship. Brim attended more State receptions than be cared to remember. He also put on weight from all the rich food, in spite of his three-and four-c'lenyt morning exercise runs (the normally sedentary Fluvannians thought him quite mad, and often shouted their opinions as he puffed along the dawn-shadowed streets).

One evening, he and Saltash were at a refreshment center after completing the reception line for still another midweek ball when the diplomat nodded toward the main entrance. "I say!" he exclaimed with obvious interest. "Now there's one I haven't seen before. Simply exquisite!"

Chuckling, Brim turned his head for a glimpse; Saltash seldom missed a well-turned ankle.

Suddenly his heart stopped and he almost dropped his goblet. "Sweet suffering Universe," he gasped under his breath.

"What was that?" Saltash asked, his face taking on a look of consternation. "Wilf, old boy," he said, "you've gone absolutely pale. Are you all right?"

At that moment, a paige's voice called out from the ballroom, "Grand Duke Rogan LaKarn, Absolute Ruler of The Torond, and Grand Duchess Margot Effer'wyck-LaKarn, Princess of the Effer'wyck Dominions."

Brim could only stand dumbfounded, his whole being absorbed by the moment. Once, a thousand years before, Margot Effer'wyck-LaKarn had been his one true love, and he, hers. They met nearly fourteen years previously at a wardroom party aboard old I.F.S. Truculent at the beginning of Brim's military career.

"Intriguing," Saltash mused, peering at Brim with considerable interest. "If I remember correctly, she was forced into a political marriage with LaKarn by Emperor Greyffin IV himself. Usually we keep track of friendships with important people. We should have had notification of one like that."

Brim could only shake his head—all references to his relationship with Margot Effer'wyck had been quashed years ago on direct orders from the palace. While Saltash continued to talk, he watched Margot enter the reception line and turn her face for a moment toward the refreshment area, instantly locking gazes with him. She seemed to falter for a moment, recovered, then continued into the line with a startled expression on her face, As always, her strawberry-blond hair was piled in fashionable disarray, framing a perfect oval face, languid eyes, generous lips, and a brow that frowned when she smiled—as it did while she charmed the Nabob within an inch of his life. She wore a glamorous gown in her favorite shade of apricot that set off her ample figure in a most voluptuous way. A small, snug string of elegant Zenniér pearls shone fashionably at her neck.

Behind the Princess stood Rogan LaKarn, her husband. His body was still hideously twisted after a run-in with Brim years previously. He was dressed in an elegant formal outfit that hid some of the damage, but not all. He turned momentarily with a quizzical frown on his countenance, then met Brim's eyes with a flash of abhorrence.

Brim returned his look with a stony implacability until the once-handsome Baron turned to meet the Nabob himself.

"Doesn't look as if that one much likes you," Saltash remarked. "I take it the two of you have squared off before?"

"It's a long story," Brim growled pointedly; then he let the subject drop.

Wisely, so did Saltash....

Brim found himself busy almost the entire evening, meeting what seemed like half of the Fluvannian population. He and Margot Effer'wyck locked glances a number of times, but one of them always seemed to be busy when the other was momentarily free. At last, however, Zacristy, the League Ambassador, disappeared with LaKarn and a scowling Mustafa IX Eyren through one of the Nabob's secret exits. Immediately, the ball settled into what was clearly a second phase; this one more of relaxed socializing than the spirited political mixing after the reception line. Brim was all too glad to accompany Saltash to the bar for another goblet of Logish Meem.

"Hmm," the diplomat mused, "a private audience, no less. Well, I don't suppose I ought to be surprised. After all, LaKarn is more or less the equivalent of a king back in The Torond, even if he is only a figurehead for the Leaguers."

Brim was about to comment when he felt a hand gently touch his arm. Turning slowly, he felt his heart catch once more. "Margot," he whispered, peering into her liquid blue eyes and hoping his voice wouldn't betray the emotion he felt. Clearly, she had aged. She had lines on her face that he couldn't remember. And at close range, he could see that her figure was considerably more ample than when she specialized in perilous covert missions to League planets. Too, her eyes now showed a muzziness that hadn't been there before the TimeWeed. But for all that, to him she was at least as beautiful as she ever had been, perhaps even more so in her maturity. "Baroness LaKarn," he said calmly as he could, "m-may I present The Honorable George Saltash of His Imperial Majesty's Foreign Service? Sir Saltash, Her Serene Majesty, Princess Margot Effer'wyck of the Effer'wyck Dominions and Grand Baroness of The Torond."

"I am honored, madame," Saltash mumbled, bowing deeply from the waist to kiss her gloved hand.

"As am I, Sir Saltash," she said, narrowing her eyes coolly. "You are well known by my husband's diplomatic services."

"Yes," Saltash said, "I suppose I am." He met her gaze with a steely look that told Brim they may never have met, but clearly each had encountered the other's power at one time or another. The diplomat bowed again, this time with a formal click of his heels. "Princess," he said formally, "Commander Brim: I am summoned for a moment to our limousine."

"By all means, Sir Saltash," Margot purred, extending her hand for another kiss.

For a long time following the diplomat's departure, Brim and Margot stood silently, staring into each other's eyes. Then, as if they had been together only metacycles before, she took his hands in hers.

"Hello, Wilf Brim," she said in her dusky, perfectly modulated voice. "It's been a long time."

"A century, at least," Brim stammered. "H-how have you been, Margot? I mean...."

"Are you asking about the TimeWeed, Wilf?" she asked, her eyes peering all the way to his soul.

Brim nodded silently.

"Nothing has changed, Wilf," she said with almost no emotion. "For addicts, death is the only release. The Weed now keeps me alive."

"You appear to have it a lot more under control than before," Brim observed, recalling more than one time when she had seemed to be almost totally under its influence, tike a drunk.

"I won't need more until morning," she replied. "Increased tolerance permits larger doses—they're cumulative, in case you hadn't heard. It provides me with longer stretches of being human than I had before." She lifted a goblet of Logish Meem from a passing servant's tray and looked thoughtfully into it before taking a sip. "Life is still treating you well?" she asked at some length.

Brim took a deep breath. "Years ago when we met," he said, "I would never have believed how generous Lady Fortune has been to me lately." Then he paused, reminded sharply of the loneliness he had experienced after dancing with Tissaurd, and suddenly it seemed to be time for conversation on any other subject. "How is your son Rogan?" he asked.

"Growing into a young man," she replied, "nearly six. Can you believe it?"

Brim smiled, "I remember when he was born," he said, staring off into the past. "It was the day of the first post-war Mitchell Trophy race."

"You remember well," Margot said with a little smile. "Then I am not completely gone from your life, am I?"

Surprised, Brim peered into her eyes and frowned. "Gone?" he asked, then stared at the floor while he attempted to comprehend her words. "Margot," he continued at length. "There is no way you will ever be gone from my life—at least from my past. Many of my most fond memories center around you."

"But your future?" she pressed quietly. "What of your future, Wilf? Am I any part of your dreams?"

"Should you be?" he asked. "You have not touched me for years."

She frowned. "How could I have touched you? Half a galaxy has separated us until today."

"One touches," Brim said gently, "and then one touches." He gently placed his hand on her arm.

"Margot," he continued, "addicts touch only their addictions, and you are clearly not addicted to me."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Perhaps it seems that way, Wilf," she said, barely whispering, "but..."

At that moment, a tall Leaguer dressed in a Controller's severe black service uniform, peaked cap, and knee-length riding boots forced his way so close beside her that she nearly lost her balance. His gold shoulder straps bore two large diamond-shaped devices, indicating that he was a Galite'er, the equivalent of a Rear Admiral in the Imperial Fleet. "Is this person bothering you, Princess?" he asked with grandiose disdain.

"N-no, Galite'er Hoffman," she replied, "he is an old friend."

"A friend?" Hoffman said, narrowing his eyes and turning his head to peer disdainfully at Brim.

"How can that be? He is nothing but an Imperial."

Brim smiled and calmly looked up into the Leaguer's face. The blue cast of his skin and total lack of body hair identified him as a Varoldian from the Ta'am Region. "How badly is it you want trouble, mister?'' the Carescrian asked in a quiet voice. "With the kind of manners you've shown me so far, I can be very creative."

"Wilf, no!" Margot gasped in a frightened whisper. She took the Leaguer's arm. "Come, Galite'er Hoffman," she said. "I am ready to return to the ship.''

"An intelligent decision," Hoffman said, examining his spotless blue fingernails. "Your Imperial friend here is deeply in your debt. I should have enjoyed breaking him in half."

Brim gripped the back of a nearby chair, stayed from mayhem only by the look of panic in Margot's eyes. "Until we meet again, Princess," he said, bowing deeply from the waist.

Without acknowledging him in any way, she followed Hoffman into the colorful throng. Brim watched her reappear shortly afterward at the main entrance, where three more Varoldians conducted her into a black limousine waiting under the portico.

"What in the Universe was that all about?'' Saltash demanded, pushing his way to Brim's side with a look of concern on his face.

"I wish I knew," Brim answered, the shock of hearing Margot's voice just beginning to sink in.

"Well, what did you say to him?" Saltash asked.

"Who?" Brim answered distantly.

"Wilf—the Galite'er."

Brim chuckled, "Oh, the Galite'er? Don't pay any attention to him; he's only a guard."

"But why did he take the Princess away? What were the two of you talking about?"

"We had really only begun to talk," Brim replied with a frown. "Odd, that. In retrospect, it almost seems as if the bloody Leaguer had been waiting for something to happen."

"And that's all?"

"I'm afraid that's it, friend," Brim said, draining his goblet. "Damned strange evening, though. I haven't seen Margot for years, yet there she was, talking to me as if... well... as if we'd been apart only days. And then..." He stopped in the middle of his sentence as Rogan LaKarn hobbled painfully into the refreshment center. Once handsome, the man's face had become as twisted with hate and anger as his body. It would still be years until his spinal nerve trunks had regenerated to a point that they could be rebuilt by a healing machine.

"Ah, Brim," the Baron muttered, ignoring Saltash's presence completely, "I am told that my so-called wife is no better at staying away from you today than she was years ago." He laughed. "Well, you'll want to think twice before jumping into bed with her now that she's on TimeWeed. Let me guarantee that she needs it after a dose of love—physically must have it. And, as I am certain you are aware, the smoke she exhales will kill you, especially in the doses she now requires."

Brim looked grimly at the man's twisted body. "LaKarn," he growled, "if it would save that woman from the filth of TimeWeed, I'd break your spine again. Gladly. But since there is nothing I can do about Margot, I am simply going to leave." Turning to Saltash, he clapped the diplomat on his shoulder. "You can talk to him if you wish, my friend, but I am heading back to Starfury."

"Ah yes, Starfury, " LaKarn crowed as if he had heard nothing Brim uttered. "Then you will be most interested in the arrival tomorrow afternoon of an old acquaintance of yours." He laughed bitterly. "I am certain that you will be on hand to welcome Kirsh Valentin when he arrives in a preproduction model of the League's new Gorn-Hoff P.1065. I understand that you and that shameless space pirate Baxter Calhoun have spent considerable time assessing covert recordings of the prototype."

Brim stiffened as yet another shock from the past collided with his mind. Kirsh Valentin.

Handsome, intelligent, accomplished, and in too many ways as talented as himself, Valentin had been the Carescrian's arch enemy since the Leaguer egregiously tortured him as a helpless prisoner aboard a Leaguer patrol ship. Afterward, their paths continued to cross, in both war and the ensuing peace. And each time they did. Brim managed to frustrate Valentin's evil aspirations until the Leaguer's original disdain turned to cold and bitter hate. "I cannot imagine the meaning of your words concerning Baxter Calhoun," Brim lied calmly, "or recordings of some new Gorn-Hoff."

LaKarn's eyes filled with cold hate. "But you do remember Kirsh Valentin, don't you, Imperial gangster?"

Brim nodded, ignoring the insult from a man who could no longer defend himself. "How could I forget a man who has almost killed me three times?" he asked with a dour smile. Valentin had been responsible for at least three—and perhaps more—attempts at Brim's life in the fifteen Standard Years that had elapsed since their first encounter.

"Perhaps next time will prove the charm," LaKarn countered with a smile. "Or the time after that."

"I wouldn't hold my breath," Brim countered evenly, "Kirsh isn't really very good at it, you know."

"Practice makes perfect, Brim," LaKarn growled, then abruptly turned to Saltash. "My respects, Councillor," he said, awkwardly clicking his heels. Without a backward glance, he hobbled back into the crush of revelers.

During the ride home in Saltash's sleek limousine. Brim began to prepare himself for another "peacetime" encounter with his old enemy. He had neither seen nor spoken to the man since the Mitchell Trophy races, where he had been involved in an unsuccessful plot that would have blown Brim and his Sherrington M-6B into subatomic components. But even as he stepped onto Starfury's entry chamber, he found that Tissaurd had the ship at liftoff stations with orders to loose for space immediately, destination: Avalon....

Starfury raised Avalon in record time, mooring in the military complex near Grand Imperial Terminal on the sixth day out from Magor. Had anyone at the Admiralty been interested in those sorts of things, the crossing could have gone into the record books. But setting records in Starfury was almost too easy. And actually recording the event in an "official" manner required a lot of advance planning that simply wasn't possible with an active military ship.

Brim switched the propulsion controls to Strana' Zaftrak and got to his feet, idly watching a big government limousine draw to a halt at the foot of the brow in a cloud of powdery snow. Its sleek lines were somehow out of place among the angular dockyard vehicles parked nearby. Curious, he leaned his elbows on the coaming behind his recliner and watched while a liveried chauffeur hurried to open the passenger compartment door for a familiar-looking woman in mufti... Regula Collingswood— his skipper from I.F.S. Truculent.

"Take over, Tissaurd!" he barked. "Farnsworth. Call down to the Duty Officer on the double!

Order him to watch for Captain Regula Collingswood at the main port; then tell Chief Barbousse to show her to the wardroom—he'll recognize her!"

"Aye, Captain," the two officers replied in unison, switching on their intercoms with raised eyebrows that seemed to have replicated themselves everywhere on the bridge.

Brim felt his face burn as he sprinted for the companionway. How soon people forgot. In her days of active service, Collingswood had been one of the finest skippers in the Imperial Fleet. At his cabin, he rinsed his face and struggled into a clean uniform, then dashed into the corridor, dodged along three crowded companionways, and arrived at the wardroom just as Barbousse served the elegant ex-officer a sparkling goblet of Logish Meem. "Captain Collingswood!" he huffed before she could take the first sip. "What a great surprise!"

Collingswood was a statuesque woman who never, even for a moment, let the power of her high station interfere with the basic femininity that shaped virtually everything about her personality. She was statuesque, tall, and ageless with a long patrician nose, piercing hazel eyes, and soft, graying chestnut hair that she wore in natural curls. Dressed in a beige business suit with huge, puffed shoulders, and fronted by great cascades of lace, she appeared to be completely ageless—which, Brim considered, she probably was. Shortly after Nergol Triannic foisted the disastrous Treaty of Garak on the war-weary Empire, she had resigned her commission and married Admiral Erat Plutron, her whispered longtime lover, who—as a recently elected member of the Imperial Parliament—had become a major opponent of the CIGAs. Now, for some reason, she was here in Avalon to meet I.F.S. Starfury. She smiled as she indicated a second chair Barbousse had drawn to the table. "Wilf Brim," she demanded, "when are you going to remember that my name is Regula—not Captain?"

Brim bowed, took her hand, and kissed it. "Right now—I think," he said, slipping into the chair just as Barbousse quietly placed a goblet of Logish Meem before him. "Thanks, Chief," he said, touching the big rating's arm. "Sometimes, only very special friends will do."

Barbousse gave a little wink and smiled. "Special friends are most honored to offer their assistance, Captain—er— Captains." Then he vanished into the Steward's room like a specter.

"I thought you were still at Bemus Manor," Brim said. "And here you are in a government limousine, no less. What's happening?"

Collingswood smiled. "Well," she explained, "ever since Erat was elected to Parliament, I seem to have become more and more involved with the Admiralty, at least the non-CIGA people there. And since starfleets require organizers as well as disrupters, Harry Drummond asked me to become his Operations Director." She laughed. "I even get a salary."

Brim rolled his eyes. "What are you going to do with all that wealth?" he asked jestingly.

"Donate it to the Fleet Relief Drive, of course," she said with a little smile. Then she chuckled.

"As willing as I was to trade in my Blue Cape for a comfortable business suit, I never could get that far away from the Fleet. It's been a part of me too long."

Brim savored the ancient Logish Meem that Barbousse had ordered from the ship's well-stocked meem vaults. "Somehow, I didn't think you'd last," he admitted, "especially after you got involved with the Imperial Starfiight Society." Then he frowned. "But..."

Collingswood grinned. "But why am I here?" she interrupted.

"Well," he answered, "with nothing but a two-and-a-half-stripe Commander for her Captain, Starfury isn't often met by Directors in big government limousine skimmers."

Collingswood nodded. "Probably that is true sometimes, Wilf," she said. "But today, you are expected at the Imperial palace in a little more than a cycle so you can personally assist Commodore Calhoun and General Drummond when they brief Greyffin IV on the Fluvanna Plan. They scheduled the whole thing around Starfury's return, and you know what a hectic schedule Greyffin IV keeps every day." She smiled. "So at least for this exercise, you're a very important person, Wilf Brim."

"It's not difficult to be important when you command the only starship in the game," Brim chuckled. "I suspect I'll be a lot less in demand when deliveries start on the production Starfuries."

Collingswood sat back to sip her Logish Meem with an enigmatic smite on her face. "We'll see about that. Captain Brim," she said. "We'll see...."

"Saltash tells me that you've taken Magor by storm," Drummond chuckled, clapping Brim on the back as they sat in one of the palace's elegant waiting rooms.

"Tough on clothes, tho'," Calhoun interjected. "I signed the order for your replacement uniform yesterday." He chuckled. "Brim, you act like a lightnin' rod when it comes to trouble."

The younger Carescrian laughed. "If it weren't for the honor of the thing. Commodore," he quipped, "I'd just as soon someone else had the title."

"Aye," Drummond said. "I can understand that, all right."

"At any rate," Calhoun declared, "Mustafa is ane hundred percent in support o' the plan. An' a lot o' that decision had to do wi' his impression o' you. He's already ordered his embassy here on Avalon to sign the papers just so soon as we draft them up."

"Now," Drummond interjected with a nod of his head, "all we have to do is to make certain our own Emperor's behind the plan."

"An'," Calhoun said, nodding toward the door of the elaborate waiting room, "I believe that we gat to begin that process immediately."

Brim turned to confront an Imperial paige, dressed in a traditional high-collared blue uniform with four gold frogs down the front of the tunic. He carried a gilded AnGrail reed at least six irals tall.

"This way, gentlemen," the paige said, bowing from the waist. Straightening, he pointed his AnGrail at the rear of the room and part of the wall simply vanished. Beyond was a huge oval chamber whose elegant walls were entirely lined by lofty beveled mirrors inscribed with intricate scrollwork.

Colorful renderings of legendary flighted beings and baroque starships decorated the ceiling above a trompe l'oeil arbor "supported" on ornate columns separating the mirrors. At one end of the room was a huge rococo table beneath a canopy of deep blue velvet, and beside the table stood the slim form of Emperor Greyffin IV, Grand Galactic Emperor, Prince of the Reggio Star Cluster, and Rightful Protector of the Heavens.

A spare man of medium build—neither young nor old— Greyffin still looked surprisingly like the portraits that hung in every Fleet starship large enough to have a wardroom. He was dressed in a magnificently tailored Fleet uniform adorned by the insignia of a full Admiral. His hair, a little grayer than Brim remembered, was stilt short, parted on the left, and combed straight back from his narrow face. He had close-set gray eyes on either side of a prominent, squarish sort of nose and a diminutive, pointed beard. As the three officers approached his table, he returned their salutes with that particular bearing of total impenetrability that seems to define people who are both very wealthy and very powerful.

Offering his hand first to Baxter Calhoun, then to General Drummond, he turned at last to Brim and smiled warmly. "Good afternoon, Commander," he said, extending his hand. "It has been quite some time since I've been referred to as 'His Nibs,' to my face."

Brim felt his cheeks flush. He'd done that inadvertently the night Greyffin awarded him the Imperial Comet. Then, as now, the Emperor seemed to value the little slip as a rather good joke. "Your Majesty," he said, solemnly shaking the Emperor's hand, "I have been extremely careful ever since to look before I speak."

"A pity," Greyffin chuckled under his breath. "You're probably spoiling everyone's fun." Then nodding to Calhoun, he took his place in a huge, high-backed chair behind the table. "Baxter," he said, "Onrad's privately described your plan to save Fluvanna in spite of the CIGAs." He raised his eyebrows.

"About time to let me in on the details, eh?"

"Aye, Your Majesty," Calhoun replied, immediately swinging into what must have been his ten-thousandth presentation. Brim and Drummond stepped clear of the projectors and took seats at the side of the room, doing their best to appear as if fresh information were reaching their ears, too.

Mercifully, the elder Carescrian had prepared a capsulated version for the Emperor, so he spoke for little more than a half metacycle. But during that short time, he covered every important factor. And just as he finished, Prince Onrad strode into the room to stand by Greyffin's side.

"Well, Father," he asked with a grave look, "what do you think?"

The Emperor nodded thoughtfully, joining the tips of his fingers and thumbs. "Wonderful," he pronounced at length. "Just the right treatment. Completely beyond the CIGAs. Bloody wonderful. In fact, Baxter," he said, angling his head toward Calhoun, "during the past week, I have mulled over some ideas about your staffing problem."

"I'm all ears, Your Majesty," Calhoun declared. "We need ev'ry bit o' help we can gat wi' that particular problem."

The Emperor took a deep breath and frowned. "It seems that the bloody CIGAs have forced some of our finest officers and starsailors from the Fleet in the last few years," he mused grimly.

"Commander Brim knows," he added with a wink, "Now assuming that some of them have the forbearance and patriotism he exhibited, what would happen if I personally extended them an offer to rejoin the Fleet at their old grades plus one promotion? Shouldn't at least a few of them come through for us?"

"Counting Starfury herself, we'll need to find volunteers for eleven ships," Onrad warned.

The Emperor shook his head. "Commander Brim already has a crew," he said. "If what I hear is correct, he will lose only a few when he announces that Starfury's been leased. So you will only need enough for ten." He looked around the room while passing his fingers among the beams from a tiny panel of lights near his right hand. "Here, let me read an offer I've had drafted." He frowned as he peered onto his tabletop where a display lit his face from beneath. "First," he began, "by Imperial Edict, all candidates, officers, and enlisted alike will be offered special one-year reserve commissions and enlistments in the Imperial Fleet at their previous grade plus one. To obtain these, however, they will be required to 'disappear,' serving in the Fluvannian Fleet as mercenaries in what will be known as the Imperial Volunteer Group, or IVG for short."

"What happens after the year is over?" Onrad asked.

"Afterward," Greyffin continued, glancing up from the table, "if I decide not to extend the term of service, I shall personally guarantee each volunteer a permanent place in the Imperial Fleet—working at his or her IVG specialty and rank." He looked at Brim and smiled. "I shall extend the same sort of offer to certain persons who already have positions in the Fleet, including Starfury's entire crew. It will, of course, require them to resign their commissions. But each will have my personal guarantee that they may return." Turning to Calhoun, he raised eyebrows. "How does that sound, Baxter?"

Calhoun grinned. "I think your personal guarantee wull do it nicely, Your Majesty," he said.

"That's all I would ever need."

"Good," Greyffin said. "Harry? Wilf? Is there anything you want to change?"

"Nothing, Your Majesty," Calhoun said.

Brim shook his head, bemused at hearing the Emperor use his first name. "Nothing, Your Majesty," he seconded.

"In that case," Greyffin declared, applying thumb and forefinger to a minute signing window on the tabletop, "it is now a proclamation. Onrad, call in the Fluvannian Ambassador and we shall begin 'recruiting' immediately."

In less than a cycle, they were joined by a tall, slender woman in fashionable Avalonian dress.

She had straight black hair that reached her shoulders and bangs cut straight across her high forehead.

Her calm, almond-shaped eyes complemented a long, narrow nose and wickedly thin lips. She wore a restrained business suit, all in black, with a white ruffled blouse and a skirt so long it revealed only high-heeled slippers and a hint of slim ankle. "Your Majesty," she said, bowing almost double.

"Madame Orenzii," Greyffin said, nodding from his chair. "These men are the vanguard of the warship crews who will soon fortify your fleet. May I present General Harry Drummond, Commodore Baxter Calhoun, and Commander Wilf Brim."

Orenzii bowed to Onrad, then looked from one officer to the other until her eyes stopped at Brim. "You are captain of the Starfury, are you not?" she asked with no trace of an accent.

"I am, Madame Orenzii," Brim answered.

The woman laughed. "Raddisma made me promise that I should not leave the castle without thanking you once more for saving her life," she said.

Brim felt his cheeks burn again. "I think Consort Raddisma gives me credit for a great deal more than I accomplished," he replied.

Orenzii bowed with only a wink for comment, then turned to face the Emperor. "Your Majesty," she said, "I have been empowered by Nabob Mustafa IX Eyren, The Magnificent, to begin recruiting as soon as qualified space crews can be located."

At that, Calhoun stepped to the Emperor's table and bowed. "I should count it an honor to become the first volunteer," he declared proudly.

"Your Majesty," Orenzii asked, turning to the Emperor, "is your office perhaps available for this historic occasion?"

Greyffin smiled, peering down at the work surface of his table. "I detect the fine hand of my son here," he commented with a chuckle. "The necessary documents have already appeared on this display—including my own. Even the signing window is activated, no doubt for the Commodore's fingerprints, eh?"

"Well," Onrad admitted, "I did make a few preparations for this meeting. Nothing elaborate, of course, but..."

The Emperor shook his head. "Hmm," he muttered wryly, "since everything appears to be in good order, I suppose we proceed. Commodore," he said, rising from his chair, "come sit here. You may as well be comfortable while you sign away a year of your life.''

Calhoun took his place at the table, carefully reading the displayed contracts. "All right," he said at some length, "I'll sign." Twice, he placed his thumb and forefinger on the signing windows with a flourish. Then, Orenzii signed for her government.

"Congratulations!" she said, shaking Calhoun's hand with great gusto. "You are now a Commodore in the Royal Fluvannian Fleet."

"It is a great approbation, madame," Calhoun said gallantly as he stepped back from the table and fixed his eyes pointedly on Brim.

His were not the only eyes peering in that direction. "Well, Commander," the Emperor said, "shall I assume you also intend to volunteer?''

"Poor Brim," Onrad observed with a broad smile. "He only won back his commission two years ago."

Greyffin chuckled gently. "Don't think of this as losing your commission again, Commander. The next year ought to be much like an assignment to a very special covert mission. That should be nothing new to you."

"Aye, Your Majesty," Brim agreed, settling into the Emperor's chair. Before him, shimmering on the surface of the table, were three lettered documents. On his left was a Form 889A, VOLUNTARY TERMINATION OF FLEET SERVICE, everyone joked about the forms, but in the eyes of idealists like Brim, they were suicide notes. Next to it was a one-year commission for service in the Fluvannian Fleet at the rank of Commander. On its right, the Emperor's guarantee was dynamically changing contents as writers elsewhere in the palace attempted to hammer out a legal document at a dead run. Brim waited until the characters had stabilized, then read the new parts, and eventually signed all three documents. "Good of you to sign," Onrad remarked. "I noticed Father's pledge going through at least three drafts while you tried to read it."

Brim chuckled in spite of the solemnity of the occasion. "I managed to read one complete draft, Your Highness," he said. "I'm no space lawyer, but it seems all right to me."

"The Fleet takes another hit," Onrad said facetiously. "Scratch one Commodore and a Commander."

"Yes," the Emperor agreed dourly. "And the absurd part of it is that we aren't even CIGAs." He shook his head sadly. "A terrible darkness is settling over the galaxy, even as we meet here. What a terrible shame that we may contend with it only in secret and by guile for fear of inciting the enemy...."

The next evening, Brim dined alone in a quiet bistro just off Courtland Plaza where he and Margot used to rendezvous during the early years of her marriage to Rogan LaKarn. It was a place known for stiff white linen, discreet service, excellent food, and what the Carescrian had grown to know, and respect, as "good music." He came here often when he was in Avalon, after the press of the dinner crowd, to dine quietly and reflect on his day's activities, which today centered around Nergol Triannic's Treaty of Garak. The document had served its creator well during the spurious "peace" it had enabled.

But it was quite clear that both the treaty and its peace had outworn their usefulness to the League of Dark Stars—and both would soon be shattered by their creator.

He stared blindly off into the dark, smoky room as he sipped a goblet of Logish Meem and mused about the year ahead. There would be a war; that was almost a given. What concerned him even more than the war was its ultimate outcome, because win or lose, it would also end the familiar, centuries-old civilization that Greyffin IV's Empire had enjoyed in relatively affluent comfort. He frowned a little as a tall figure stopped beside his table and, when it didn't go away, glanced up—in sudden disgust.

There, glowering like the threat of a bad cold, was the choleric visage of Puvis Amherst, chief of the CIGAs. With a Fleet Cloak draped across the right shoulder of his impeccable dress uniform, the man still cut an impressive figure—in spite of a most conspicuous absence of battle ribbons on his chest.

"Well, Carescrian," he said with a curled lip, "you have clearly continued your warlike activities in spite of my personal warning to you last year in the Admiralty, What do you have to say for yourself?"

Brim fought down a strong urge to punch the overweening clown in his nose, then relaxed with a smile of contempt. "Your warning wasn't frightening enough, Amherst," he said. "I assume that you have noticed I am still very much alive."

"Antagonism toward our friends in the League will yet cost your worthless life. Brim," Amherst spat back with venom. His eyes narrowed. "And you will address me by my title of Commodore, as regulations require, Commander Brim. I have warned you about that often."

"Not often enough, zukeed," Brim said quietly. "As I said last year, the best title you'll get from me is 'traitor,' at least so long as you remain the local CIGA boss."

Amherst glared at Brim for a moment, clutching the lapels of his tunic. "Grand Imperial CIGA Dominator," he snarled, his face now crimson with rage.

"Traitor," Brim corrected with an assured smile.

"Arrogant Carescrian zukeed," Amherst gasped, as if he were short of breath. "You have no more respect for the uniform of your dominion than does that perfectly awful countryman of yours, Baxter Calhoun."

"It's not the uniform we discredit, Amherst," Brim amended with a grin, "just the wearer. Nothing stupid about Carescrians."

Only a reddening face betrayed the effect of Brim's retort. "So you will become a Fluvannian thrall with your reprehensible mentor, will you?" Amherst growled. Then he laughed arrogantly . "

Nothing that you or your warmongering associates carry out escapes my purview."

Brim shrugged with equanimity and kept his silence.

"Warmonger," the CIGA snapped after long moments of silence. "You will yet bring disaster down on our heads, in spite of our labors to preserve the peace."

Brim shook his head. "That's where you're wrong, Amherst," he said, locking glances with his old shipmate. "We talked about that a year ago in your office. I don't want war any more than you do—or any of your CIGAs. In fact, I work toward peace every bit as desperately as anyone else, yourself included. The difference is that I want an honorable peace: one that preserves our Imperial heritage with all the very mortal faults that make it habitable. And that can only be done with strength, like a powerful fleet. You and your CIGAs would preserve the peace by capitulation. But in that way, we become slaves to Nergol Triannic's League of Dark Stars, under the yoke of his TimeWeed-soaked Controllers. And no matter how imperfect our old Empire has become over the years, it is a thousandfold better than anything like that."

"You would still sacrifice men and women to the insatiable maw of war," Amherst demanded, "when you have seen firsthand—as well as I have—how horrible that is?"

"Now that defines a principal difference between you and me," Brim replied steadily. "Battle was shattering to you. I saw that in person while we shipped together aboard old Truculent. It was so frightening that your father used his influence to remove you from all further combat assignments.'' He narrowed his eyes. "The rest of us, on the other hand, went on fighting—and do so today—because the loss of our freedom frightens us a lot worse than the loss of our lives! Without freedom, life doesn't have much value for most of us. Believe me, Amherst, I've seen that on every planet we've had to liberate from your good friends, the Leaguers."

Amherst's eyes narrowed in dark anger. "Are you," he asked with a quivering voice, "suggesting that I am a coward?"

"No accusation at all, Amherst," Brim stated calmly. "It's a statement of fact. You are a coward, pure and simple. And so are the rest of your craven CIGAs."

Amherst went completely rigid, his hands trembling as he drew his fingers into fists. "I shall make you pay dearly for that, Brim," he spat through colorless lips stretched over clenched teeth.

"We'll see, Amherst," Brim replied calmly. "But you'd better keep an eye on your own back, or you'll eventually lose the chance. If the League wins, the first Imperials they'll use for target practice are you CIGAs. They always get rid of unstable elements first. Makes places easier to rule." He laughed grimly as he held the man's gaze with his own. "And if the League doesn't win after it restarts the war," he added, "then likely as not, you'll gasp out your life swinging at the end of a rope, because lynch mobs don't wait for legal justice."

A momentary shadow of fear clouded Amherst's proud visage, but he recovered swiftly and again grasped his lapels in a pose of high dudgeon. "Were you in uniform, Brim, I should have you thrown in Avalon's darkest prison for that sort of presumptive insolence."

"But you can't," Brim replied with a smile. "In the first place, you don't have a witness. And besides, zukeed, you implied it yourself: I am now an officer in the Fluvannian Red. Throwing me in prison would cause an international incident."

"Low-life Carescrian slime," Amherst swore under his breath. "Then I was right!" His face became a mask of ghastly anger. "You will know my power someday, mark those words well." With that, he whirled around and stormed away from the table—directly into a busboy laden with a large tray of dirty dishes. The clattering avalanche of disintegrating plates and silverware focused every eye on the CIGA leader.

In the shocked silence that followed, Brim whispered over his shoulder, "Psst! Commodore...."

Momentarily stunned with embarrassment, Amherst turned. "What now, Brim?" he demanded.

"Watch your step, old man," Brim warned him with a straight face.

The enraged CIGA nearly lost his footing on the pile of shattered crockery, then retreated among the tables toward the door. As he exited, he was trailed by a beautiful blond man wearing the uniform of an ensign.

Brim took a deep breath as conversation resumed in the dining room, then shook his head in frustration. It was people like that who had doomed the comfortable civilization he lived in. With the Admiralty riddled by powerful CIGAs like him and the Fleet reduced to a shadow of its former self, the next war was going to be a lot more destructive than most Imperials could imagine. He'd just missed seeing the League's new Gorn-Hoff killer-cruiser in Fluvanna, but it promised to be a most destructive ship. It would have to be, if only to survive fights with Starfuries. He sipped his meem thoughtfully. Before the coming war was over, even Avalon itself would feel the power of ships like that just as the poor souls in the outskirts of the Empire—like Carescria—did at the beginning of the last war. People had no idea what was in store for them. As the Emperor had so aptly put it, a terrible darkness was settling rapidly over the whole galaxy, and everyone—without exception—would in one way or another be most devastatingly affected by it.

Only days later, Calhoun departed abruptly—and in mufti— for little Beta Jago, a small but wealthy dominion that had been high on Nergol Triannic's "want list" since before the previous war. Only great sacrifices on the part of the Imperial Fleet had saved the little star system then, and now the League clearly intended to finish the job they had started so many years previously.

When Brim saw him off from the Sodeskayan section of the Grand Imperial Terminal, he had real feelings of concern, not only for Calhoun who was knowingly putting himself at risk, but also for himself.

Without question, if anything happened to the elder Carescrian, he would be forced to take on much more of the IVG's administrative and political tasks. And he did not feel he was ready to perform either of the duties, especially the political ones.

Precisely one week later, civilized dominions throughout the galaxy received their first electrifying shock of what many recognized to be the beginning of the next war: Nergol Triannic's League attacked and overrun the tiny dominion of Beta Jago, capturing all five populated planets in little more than three Standard Days. Almost immediately, news of atrocities began to leak from behind the little dominion's sealed borders. Brutal Controllers were quick to extract a frightful toll of the citizens, phlegmatically murdering thousands of the weak and elderly, as well as notable enemies, merely to satisfy the basic expedient of reducing occupation costs. Significantly many of the staunchest Leaguer proponents among the native Beta Jago populace were among the first to die. As the Bears always predicted, traitors were considered to be among the most inconsistent elements in a civilization. And inconsistency was a most notably difficult attribute to govern.

Messages from Calhoun, of course, ceased immediately. But by that time, Brim had no more time to squander on worries. He was caught up with preparations for transferring Starfury—and as many of her crew as possible—to a new base of operations in Fluvanna, Clearly, that strategic little dominion would be next on Triannic's list of conquests.

CHAPTER 6

Fluvanna

"Almost time, Cap'm," Barbousse warned.

Grimly, Brim checked his timepiece; it was. "Thanks, Chief," he said, straightening his Fleet Cloak. It was a job he found most difficult—notwithstanding years of practice. "Let's get it over with," he grunted.

Barbousse nodded and stepped out onto the stage, paused dramatically for a moment, then shouted, "THE CAP'M!"

Directly, Starfury's ninety-one officers and ratings jumped to their feet in a confusion of scrapes and coughs that belied any capacity whatsoever for running a starship.

When the room became still, Brim strode to the lectern, peering apprehensively out into the auditorium Drummond had reserved for him in the Admiralty Annex. He was going to considerably upset these people before much more of the morning had passed. "Seats," he ordered crisply.

After another round of shuffling and scraping, a semblance of quiet returned to the room.

"I have a strange announcement this afternoon," Brim continued abruptly, "as well as what may be the strangest proposition you've been offered this side of Voot's tangled beard."

Frowns of curiosity appeared everywhere.

"First," he continued briskly, "it is my bizarre duty to inform you that I.F.S, Starfury has been leased to the Fluvannian government for a period of at least a year. She will depart Avalon as soon as she can be prepared."

A momentary stillness fell like a chill over the room, followed by an angry stir of bewildered dismay.

"Starfury?" someone asked. "Leased?"

"To Fluvanna... ?"

"Somebody sure sold us out to the CIGAs this time."

'"Oo 'av the bloody Wogs got to crew her, anyhow? She's no thraggling antique like the rest of their so-called Fleet!"

Brim held up his hand. "Before you say anything more," he enjoined, "let me offer that proposition I mentioned."

Grudgingly, order returned to the room.

"How many of you would like to sign up for the Fluvannian Fleet," he asked, "with no change in rank?"

This time, the room stayed silent for a few shocked moments. "Captain Brim," one of the Drive Room officers called out by and by, "have you joined the CIGAs, or something?"

"Yeah!" another joined in hotly. "Why in the Universe would any of us want to join the Fluvannian Fleet?"

"Well," Brim replied easily, "one reason might be to continue serving in Starfury, As Petty Officer Kenzie pointed out, someone's got to run her, and right now, we're the only ones in the known Universe with any practical experience."

"When you use the word 'we,' Captain Brim," one of Barbousse's assistants demanded warily, "does that include you, too?"

"You bet it does, Singleton," Brim replied. "I signed up more than a week ago, with Commodore Calhoun. They're fitting our new Fluvannian uniforms as I speak." Smiling, he held up his hand once more for silence—he definitely had their attention now. "Here's the whole story," he continued and launched into an abbreviated version of Calhoun's standard presentation—to which he added a description of Greyffin IV's guarantee. By the time he finished, the room had become very still indeed. "The deck is again open for questions," he offered, "this time, I'm accepting serious ones."

After a long time, a single hand went up. "What about the ones of us who might be killed in the line of duty?" a Gunnery Officer asked.

"Good for the estate, if nothing else," Brim answered grimly. "Death and disability benefits are separately paid by each government, giving you a one hundred percent increase, because both Services pay Admiralty scale."

"How about maintenance for the ship, Captain?" another asked.

"That," Brim answered truthfully, "will be a real challenge. You've seen Magor yourselves, and we're to be based at a place called Varnholm, nearly a thousand c'lenyts nearer the boreal pole—where facilities are described by the Fluvannians themselves as... he consulted his notes... 'somewhat deteriorated.' I've only seen HoloPictures, but I tend to agree with the descriptions."

"You're right, Captain," the officer agreed. "It sounds like a real challenge to me."

"Commander Brim," an expensively uniformed newcomer asked, "how long do we have to consider this, er, offer?"

"Until morning," Brim said. "We embark for Fluvanna as soon as the ship is prepared to lift."

"And if we decide we've had enough of that backwater, what then, Captain?"

"You get an instant transfer somewhere else in the Fleet," Brim replied. "That's why I've got to know your decision almost immediately. Replacements are difficult to find, and we're in a hurry."

"I'm ready now!" somebody shouted from the audience.

"Yeah, me, too," another seconded. "Where do we sign up?"

Half surprised by the response, Brim pointed to a work table that Barbousse and a Fluvannian representative had just plugged into a secure data outlet near the door. "You sign up with Mr. Barbousse at the table back there," he said. "He'll also help you transfer out, if you're of a mind to do that...."

Directly following the meeting, fifteen officers and seventy ratings had signed themselves into the Fluvannian Fleet, leaving one officer and five ordinary starsailors to be replaced the next day.

The following morning, however, pudgy Sublieutenant Vasil Huugo of the Communications Section, a native Avalonian, reported back aboard after consulting with his family during an all-night session. His signature completed wardroom staffing with no changes in personnel. But by midday, Barbousse appeared on the bridge with bad news. "It looks like none of the five refusing spacemen have shown a change of heart, Cap'm," he reported with a frown.

"Hmm," Brim muttered, looking up from a test sequence a Logics Mate was running on his power console. "Any of 'em going to be hard to replace?"

"Not if you know where to look, Cap'm," the big rating answered with a wink.

Within a metacycle, a sleek military van pulled up at the foot of the brow to disgorge five of the toughest-looking Petty Officers the Carescrian believed he had ever encountered: scars, eye patches, artificial limbs; collectively, they had them all. As the group stumped through the ship's hatch, each made a peculiar little bow to Barbousse, who stood quietly to one side with his arms folded, nodding in return.

Brim wanted to know nothing about their backgrounds. Barbousse had picked them, and he was certain they would turn out to be the most reliable—and able—hands on the ship.

In a few days, all forms and contracts were duly signed while ninety-two sets of Fluvannian uniforms changed hands. Brim and his crew of "mercenaries" set course for Magor on 31/52011 aboard a completely reprovisioned R.F.S. Starfury, newest, most modern warship in the Fluvannian Fleet. They made landfall at Varnholm little more than six days later (after another "unofficial" record run), where they discovered to their dismay that conditions were far worse than the Fluvannians had led them to believe.

The age-blackened stone ruin of Varnholm Hall was very desolate, standing some distance from the scruffy village it once ruled on a barren, rocky slope that overlooked storm-tossed Penard Bay.

Below, spoiling what little strand existed between the slope and the deep waters of the bay, lay two long rows of ancient stone gravity pools, remnant of a mining operation that had petered out more than a century in the past. Many of those on the seaward side had tumbled walls, victims of the storms frequenting that particularly depressing corner of the planet. As promised, however, four of the timeworn structures reported themselves to be operational when Starfury descended out of the overcast, and two of them appeared to be large enough for a cruiser.

Viewed from the air, the hall itself—or rather what remained of it—was a melancholy relic, tediously rectangular with crumbling stumps of towers at each comer and a half-ruined gate house on its landward end. A huge, central dome had rolled completely off the main foundations and lay to one side like some great shattered piece of crockery. Thick stone curtain walls between the tower stumps were reasonably complete, but any battlements on them had all but disappeared over the years.

"Not very promising," Brim commented bleakly as Tissaurd banked Starfury into a climbing turn and headed out to sea for a landing. He glanced back at the receding shoreline. "Especially the xaxtdamned gravity pools." In little more than one Standard Month, they would have to coax a minimum of fifteen into operation: eleven Starfuries and four ancient ED-4 freighters that Calhoun had managed to secure at the last moment. And that would allow no guests or—worse—spares when the century-old repulsion generators broke down, as they inevitably would, no matter how methodically they might be maintained.

Within cycles of their landfall, Tissaurd had taxied to the largest gravity pool, nudging Starfury's prow just over the seaward rim before she braked to a halt. ''Looks all right to me. Skipper," she said, peering over the nose through the Hyperscreens. "What do you think?"

Brim rubbed his chin. Below, six huge, extraordinarily old-looking repulsion generators were somehow filling the great pit with a reassuring amber glow. On top of the far wall, a number of villagers had gathered in small groups and were variously waving, jumping up and down, and holding their ears against the deafening rumble that would be coming from both the gravity pool and Starfury herself.

Clearly, the semi-abandoned star anchorage relied on local residents when it was time to deploy the pool's optical mooring devices. "I guess I don't have any gems of wisdom for you, Number One," he admitted at length. "Maybe you ought to play it safe like you did in Magor and keep a little lift on the ship herself—just in case."

Tissaurd nodded agreement. "Strana'," she said, "how about maintaining about five percent hover on her for a while?"

"Five percent hover is now minimum," Zaftrak responded presently.

Tissaurd nodded and turned her attention to a small monitor between the Helmsmans' consoles.

It displayed the visage of a bearded man with a large nose—and an even larger mustache —who wore typical Fluvannian apparel, including one of the ubiquitous crimson fezes. "Mr. Bogwa'zzi," she pronounced carefully, "I shall appreciate your assistance now."

The man nodded. "Switching I am the machine now to power," he said in Avalonian with a great toothy grin, clearly proud of this linguistic achievement. On the far wall of the gravity pool, a ruby light blazed out from what appeared to be a globe mounted on a tripod. The figure of a man beside it waved—at the same time Bogwa'zzi's head bobbed in the monitor. "Can you scrutinize this beam?" he asked.

"I, er, scrutinize the beam, Mr. Bogwa'zzi," Tissaurd acknowledged with a grin. "You may now activate its side lobes."

As Brim watched from his station on the port side of Starfury's bridge, the beam began to separate into vertical lines. He knew that it would remain steady for Tissaurd in her more central console, but for Powderham, the Navigator seated behind the starboard Hyperscreens, it would now be broken into horizontal lines.

"Side lobes, ah, how do you say... ?"

"Activated," Tissaurd prompted.

"Ah yes, activated," the Fluvannian reported a moment later.

"Thank you, Mr. Bogwa'zzi," Tissaurd replied, nodding to herself as if she had just completed some internal checklist. "All docking cupolas: stand by your mooring beams," she ordered over the blower. When each had acknowledged, she began to nudge the ship forward with deft thrusts of her fingers over the power console, then applied full gravity brakes almost immediately.

Starfury came to a stop nearly halfway over the pool with her stern still extending out over the roiling strand, kicking up a hail of rocks from the shallow bottom.

Abruptly Tissaurd rose and stood with hands on hips, surveying the situation for nearly half a cycle, before appearing to reach some decision. "Send the bow beam over," she commanded. Instantly a powerful shaft of greenish-yellow light shimmered out from Starfury's bow and contacted a great optical bollard centered in the inland wall of the pool. "Send over the forward bow springs, too," she ordered after a further moment of study, "port and starboard." Instantly the forward springs crackled to matching bollards on the side walls.

Brim nodded in approval. Tissaurd was playing it safe. Starfury could winch herself onto the old gravity pool. With the primitive docking devices available, it was an intelligent course to follow. Even at their lowest power settings, the ship's gravity generators were clearly too powerful for this kind of maneuvering without high-precision tracking devices these ancient pools clearly lacked.

"Take the bow and forward springs to the warping head and heave 'round," Tissaurd continued in terms that considerably predated star flight itself. The first three mooring beams flashed brilliantly as they took the strain and began to draw the big ship forward onto the pool. A moment later the diminutive officer ordered both aft bow springs sent over and followed these with the two sets of quarter springs as the optical cleats came in range of their particular bollards on the pool walls. Only when Starfury's stern approached the seaward wall did she give the order to avast heaving on the three beams forward. The cruiser now had sufficient headway to coast the rest of the way into the pool on her own.

At last, with the stern just inboard of the wall, Tissaurd projected the stein beam to the seaward wall and immediately called for a "check," holding heavy tension on the blazing shaft of light, but letting it slip as necessary to prevent it from overloading the projector circuits and possibly blowing a fuse.

Moments later, Starfury snubbed to a gentle halt—amid a round of applause on the bridge. The ship was almost perfectly centered over the six generators beneath her hull. "Double up all beams," the grinning Tissaurd ordered as she secured her helm and joined hands above her head in a little sign of victory.

Brim smiled to himself as a rust-mottled brow squeaked and squealed out from the ancient control shack. Tissaurd richly deserved the applause. She had done a magnificent job.

During the next week, Brim's worst concerns proved far too conservative. Had the base been only "somewhat deteriorated," as advertised, things might have been reasonably manageable.

Unfortunately, "nonexistent'' did a better job of describing many of the critical services necessary for sustaining a fleet of up-to-date starships like Starfury.

He had been reasonably prepared, for example, to deal with the remote area's dearth of up-to-date medical facilities, and had made certain that Starfury's sickbay was crowded with medical supplies. In addition, the first ED-4 was already on its lumbering way with much of its cargo hold dedicated to healing machines and life-support systems. But he still had to find somewhere to house the whole medical complex. Good as they might be, starship sickbays could offer temporary care at best.

Unfortunately, he had few choices outside the ruined castle itself.

At least housing and administrative spaces posed no problem to operations. Nor did sustenance for the crews. Ships that could operate for extended periods in deep space simply provided these amenities as part and parcel of their essential operations. Repair and maintenance facilities were, however, totally lacking, and those constituted another matter completely. He'd dispatched his other three ED-4s to Bromwich for spare parts the day he'd lifted Starfury for Fluvanna. But maintenance parts were not the same as maintenance facilities, and both would be necessary if there were any chance at all of keeping the IVG ships spaceworthy— especially under combat conditions.

He'd first attempted to find help in Fluvanna itself. However, shortly after the Leaguers found out about Starfury's affiliation with the Fluvannian Fleet, all attempts to procure heavy equipment from local sources fell on deaf ears. Beyazh had used his considerable influence to change the situation, but Nergol Triannic's minions had a powerful presence in Magor, and they were now exerting every scrap of influence they could muster to insure failure of the new "Imperial base" so close to the capital they coveted.

Likewise, procurement efforts from home produced little in the way of results—except that these refusals were at least sent with sympathy. Even Drummond's best efforts had been stopped cold by the enraged Puvis Amherst and his CIGAs, whose anti-Fleet efforts had been further galvanized when the Emperor's IVG offer became public. Some of their demonstrations had even become violent, including one in Courtland Plaza on the Admiralty stairs that left seven Fleet officers and fifteen riot police injured—along with fifty-nine hospitalized CIGAs.

Brim had just returned from a hike to the ruined manor and was sitting disconsolately in the wardroom nursing a short meem when Tissaurd slid into a chair beside him and signaled the Steward for a goblet of her own. "You don't look happy, Skipper," she said with a serious mien. "And you haven't since we got here. Want to talk?"

Brim grimaced. "I guess I'm not very good at hiding my feelings, am I?" he said.

"Not from somebody who's gotten to know you as well as I have," she chuckled. "And that doesn't even count my little verbal indiscretion at the Mustafa's party a while back."

"I wish it were as easy as admiring your décolleté, Number One," he replied with a grin,

"Unfortunately, this problem has to do with heavy maintenance equipment."

"I kind of thought that might be it," she said, lifting her goblet from the Steward's tray. "Especially since the manor's old meem cellars will serve nicely as our base hospital. So what's the problem?

Barbousse's work crews have already repaired five gravity pools. And except for Starfury herself, you'll be starting off with brand-new starships and all the spares you can use for a while."

"What's the problem?" Brim demanded in a harried voice. "Tissaurd: an easier question might be what isn't a problem. Gravity pools are only the beginning of starship maintenance— especially in combat situations. What we need are machine shops, gantry cranes big enough to change Drive crystals, gravity pads." He thought for a moment. "You know," he said presently, "the kind of heavy equipment Refit Enterprise provided at Gimmas Haefdon. They couldn't have changed our space radiators without that kind of support."

Tissaurd shrugged and sipped her meem. "Sorry, Skipper," she said gently. "I guess I knew all that. I simply wasn't ready to start tackling those problems yet. They're too far in the future."

"Problems are never too far in the future," Brim said didactically.

"They are if there's nothing you can do about them," Tissaurd countered firmly. "I've found that when I've reached a brick wait about a problem that's still off in the future, it's a good idea to simply step back and wait for something to change. It usually does, and then I can go at the problem again using a different set of parameters—with perhaps a better chance of doing something about it."

Brim nodded. "Tell me about brick walls," he grumbled. "I've done everything I could think of today and achieved no perceptible results at all."

"Oh, you may have gotten more results than you imagine," Tissaurd said with a little nod. "Maybe you started that very something that will eventually make everything work out the way you want. Of course, you may not have, either. The only thing you know for certain right now is that nothing is for certain. And that's good, because if nothing changes, then you're still at your brick wall. Right?"

"Right," Brim admitted sheepishly. After that, they sat in silence for a long while with nothing to say.

"Good meem," she said at last, staring into her goblet.

"Yeah," Brim replied.

"Too bad we're shipmates," Tissaurd said quietly, draining the last of her meem.

"Why do you say that, Number One?" Brim asked.

"Because," the petite officer answered, setting her goblet on the table and getting to her feet,

"with your problems, you need a woman to take you to bed for a spell—and it can't be me."

Brim looked up and shook his head. "I think you're right, Nadia," he said wryly. "Twice."

"I'm sorriest about the second part," she said as she started for the hatch.

"So am I," Brim called after her, then she was gone.

After the landfall of their first ancient ED-4 transport and its cargo of medical equipment, Commander Penelope Hesternal, Starfury's Medical Officer, immediately established an excellent field hospital in the deep, cool cellars of the ruined hall—staffing it with a bevy of handsome male nurses she recruited during a diplomatic run to Magor, Only days later, the other ED-4s arrived from Bromwich with spare parts literally cramming their holds. Within metacycles, Barbousse and three crews of starsailors (augmented by hefty teams of locals) commenced 'round-the-clock efforts to reactivate the site's ancient gravity pools. And for those not otherwise occupied, either Brim or Tissaurd took Starfury aloft twice a day for gunnery drills and "swapping" classes during which everyone got a chance to suffer someone else's duty station. It allowed little time to become bored with the desolate surroundings or grouse about the primitive conditions—or focus on any of the hundred and one troubles that can result from a combination of monotony and the close proximity of shipboard life.

Almost before they knew it, a morning arrived when the first pair of Starfury MK-1s were due: R.F.S. Starsovereign and R.F.S Starglory. Brim and Ambassador Beyazh had just emerged from an inspection tour of the new hospital, and were standing alongside the crumbling stone walls of Varnholm Hall where the Ambassador's launch hovered, ready for takeoff.

"Captain," the Ambassador prompted, cocking his head to one side and staring out to sea, "did you hear that?"

Brim nodded. "Sounds like Admiralty-type gravity generators to me," he said, looking out over crested, gray-green rollers marching endlessly against the ancient gravity pools at the foot of the piebald slope. "It's either our first two Starfuries or the very grandfather of all thunderstorms, Mr. Ambassador,"

he replied. Starfury herself hovered quietly below on one of the inboard pools, testing her moorings in the gusty—and perpetual—wind.

"So the adventure resumes," Beyazh said grimly, glancing up at Varnholm's perpetual overcast as if he could see the ships from where he stood.

Brim nodded. "And the wounds and the deaths," he added.

The Ambassador pursed his lips as the thunder swiftly rose in volume. "Why is it we always end up shooting at each other when we have disagreements?" he growled. "If mere really is a Universe who cares and loves, like the Gradygroats teach, then how can war be permitted to happen?"

Brim had no response to the man's words—in any case, they were all but drowned out by the velvet thunder of two Starfury-class starships descending majestically out of the overcast little more than a c'lenyt offshore. The big ships paralleled the coast for a time, keeping close formation and tearing the cloud base into long tubes of furiously swirling tatters. Abruptly Starfury's KA'PPA beacon began to strobe from the pool site, and in perfect concert, the MK-1s heeled fifty degrees to starboard and swung out to sea, their massive shapes hazed by wild vortices of gravitons pouring from their pontoons before they disappeared in Varnholm's perpetual sea mist.

Less than a cycle afterward, a siren wailed and the renewed section of gravity pools came alive with groups of people gathering here and there to don protective garments, start repulsion generators, move large wheeled cylinders about, and make last-moment adjustments to a multitude of tripod-mounted globes that glowed with every color of the spectrum. The prodigious figure of Barbousse could be seen at the end of an instrument jetty, his Fleet Cloak streaming in the wind as he activated one of Varnholm's ancient magnetic beacons with an enormous metal crank. Brim watched the operations with emotional fascination —almost pride. Imperial Blue Capes possessed a certain mystique: a whole set of skills and mettle that were never totally understood by landsmen. No matter what was required of them, they carried out their duties with an air of confidence and imperturbability that came as much from constant testing as it did from millenniums-old tradition. And it made them practically infallible.

Far out to sea, the thundering generators abruptly changed pitch, then continued in a much reduced note. "Sounds as if they're down," Beyazh observed, "and you'd better be on your way to greet them, Mr. Base Commander."

Brim laughed. "Not me," he protested. "I've got my hands full just trying to keep Starfury out of trouble."

The Ambassador frowned. "Captain," he said in a very serious voice, "whether or not you like it—or even feel particularly ready for it—you are right now in command of this so-called base. It was set up on your orders by people from the starship you command. In other words, it's yours. At least until Commodore Calhoun finds his way back from Beta Jagow."

Brim bit his lip. "I suppose you're right, aren't you," he said.

"Never question a Diplomatic Officer," Beyazh chuckled. "Greatest bunch of know-it-alls in the galaxy. Sometimes, we're even right—as I am now."

"I guess I hadn't been thinking about much else except how to get the base in shape," Brim replied. "And if I had thought of taking charge," he added with a chuckle, "I might have quit work on the spot."

"Too late for that now," Beyazh said didactically, sending a perfectly horrid parody of the Fleet salute Brim's way. "You'd better get yourself down there so you can greet the newcomers when they arrive. Someone has to be in charge, my friend."

Brim returned the salute and started down the hill. "See you again, Mr. Ambassador," he said.

"Safely—in Avalon, one hopes," Beyazh called after him. "Once you take out that space fort the Leaguers are building."

Brim laughed in spite of himself. Clearly, few secrets escaped the purview of His Excellency. In the next moments, two shadows, darker than the mist, loomed perhaps one and a half c'lenyts out to sea.

These rapidly defined themselves into R.F.S. Starsovereign and R.F.S Starglory with their distinctive tri-hulls and great batteries of disrupters. The two starships were keeping close station abreast as they drove toward shore, majestic and powerful, the sea creaming away from triple footprints while shimmering KA'PPA rings spread deliberately from tall masts that remained serenely steady against the gray sky. Within cycles, Starsovereign had lined up on the number 23 gravity pool, and presently the big ship was secured. Moments later the noise of her generators died in a haze of stray gravitons that drifted away in the afternoon grayness in a big, shimmering cloud. Starglory moored on pool number 19 shortly afterward —just as Brim arrived at the brow.

"You'll be goin' aboard, Captain Brim?" the brow operator, a leading Torpedoman, called over the noise of the repulsion generators while he guided a newly painted gangway toward the ship's main hatch.

Brim considered for a moment, peering up at the bustle in Starsovereign's bridge, then he shook his head. "I don't think so, Garrivacchio," he said. "But when you have the connections secure, make to the Captain... ah... 'Thanks in advance for... the bottle of Logish Meem you will bring with you to my cabin aboard Starfury at Evening:0:30.' Got that?"

" 'Thanks in advance for the bottle of Logish Meem you will bring with you to my cabin aboard Starfury at'... um... 'Evening:0:30,' Captain," Garrivacchio repeated with a grin.

"You've got it," Brim said. "And pass that same message on to the Captain of R.F.S. Starglory immediately you secure the brow."

"Ave, Captain," the Torpedoman assured him with a quick salute. "I'll have the same message delivered within five cycles."

At precisely thirty cycles past the Evening watch, Barbousse answered a polite tapping on the door to Brim's stateroom.

"Come in, gentlemen," Brim said, extending his hand to the first officer over the coaming, "Wilf Brim, here."

"Fortune McKenzie, of Starglory," the other said with a grin, offering his hand while he turned over a bottle of obviously Logish Meem to Barbousse. He was a short man, stocky and powerfully built, who clearly had not an ounce of fat on his body. His foursquare face was framed by a close-cut beard and short gray hair. He had a small, rather common nose, a thin mouth, and the mortally precise eyes of a savant marksman. Brim recognized the man immediately. Long ago, Starglory's Master had served with Commander Englyde Zantir, the famous leader of Destroyer Flotilla 91, as an Imperial Marine. Indeed, there was nothing phony about the man's prowess as a military Helmsman, either. Two great scars ran from his forehead to his chin, souvenirs of a thousand-odd hand-to-hand skirmishes with the League—and he had applied the same fighting skills to piloting an E-Class destroyer in the Battle of Atalanta: keen eyes, swift reactions, and a dashing spirit. "I think the gentleman behind me will need little introduction to you," McKenzie added, grinning.

Brim looked up just in time to see a tall, blond Commander in an impeccable uniform step over the coaming. He had blue eyes that sparkled with good-natured humor, a grand promontory for a nose, and the droll, confident smile reserved for the very rich. "I say," the man muttered with a fictitious look of confusion, "have you chaps any idea which way Avalon might be. I'm from Starsovereign, and our navigator got frightfully confused about a day ago...."

"Toby Moulding!" Brim exclaimed. "What in the crazy name of Voot are you doing here?"

Moulding grinned and handed Barbousse a magnum of Logish Meem so ancient that the bottle was actually made of glass. "I suppose I shall be doing the same as you and Commander McKenzie," he said, grasping Brim's hand. "It's my understanding that the poor benighted Fluvannians have hired us to fly these bloody buses around, frightening Leaguers, and such. That's how I'm to earn my modest living, at any rate."

"I suppose you two have more time in Starfuries than anyone else in the Universe," McKenzie said with a grin. "If I weren't so hardheaded, I think I'd be intimidated."

"Let him intimidate you," Moulding replied, pointing to Brim, "not me. Aside from the metacycles I've spent training in Starsovereign, all I've done is chase the man around in some of Mark Valerian's racers."

"Well, that's chasing I never got a chance to do," McKenzie replied.

"Before this is over," Brim predicted, "we'll all probably have more chasing than we want."

"Amen," the ex-gunner agreed, taking a goblet of Logish Meem Barbousse served discreetly from a magnificent silver tray that Brim couldn't remember seeing before.

"And speaking of 'tired,' old chap," Moulding interjected, "you must be damned tired yourself after getting this base set up." He sipped his meem and looked appraisingly into the goblet. "Excellent," he said at length, "like the job you've done around here. Calhoun's lucky they had you to put in charge."

Brim was about to comment about that when Beyazh's words echoed in his ear: Someone has to be in charge, my friend. The man was right. "Only till the Commodore shows up," he hedged.

" That could be a while," McKenzie commented. "Last I heard of Baxter, he was somewhere in Beta Jagow when the League attacked."

"True," Brim said with a grimace, "but I'm far from giving upon him yet."

"If I know Calhoun," Moulding interjected, "he's not only safe in Beta Jagow, he's also doing something that will eventually cause the bloody Leaguers a lot of trouble. Mark my words."

"I hope you're right," Brim said, peering into his meem for a moment. "I certainty hope you're right."

By the time the evening was over, the three officers managed to resurrect at least an aeon of war history, while putting away a lot of Logish Meem.

Early next morning, Brim balanced himself—and one mighty hangover—atop Starfury's bridge, a dizzying seventy irals from the surface of the gravity pool while Barbousse supervised a sealant repair to Hyperscreen panel 81D. As their little party of maintenance ratings eased the heavy crystal plate back in place, his ears picked up the thunder of approaching gravity generators. Big ones. And they were definitely not the Galaxy 10-320-BlCs that powered ancient ED-4s below Light Speed velocities.

Looking up into the overcast, he frowned. "If those are League ships, we could be in big trouble," he grumbled to Barbousse. "Wonder why Tissaurd hasn't sounded some sort of warning."

Barbousse nodded. "I can't say as I know, Cap'm," he replied, "but I'd really find that hard to believe that Lieutenant Tissaurd is prone to makin' mistakes like that."

Brim nodded, but the noise continued to vex him, especially since the mysterious starship continued to circle, hidden in the dense overcast. Finally Tissaurd herself popped through the hatch. "Oh, there you are, Skipper," she called. "That's a ship from the Sodeskayan national space line, AkroKahn, up there with a cargo of spare parts. And your friend Nik Ursis is on board, demanding Chief Barbousse's personal guarantee of a bottle of good Logish Meem before they'll land."

Brim and Barbousse looked at each other for a moment. "Thank the Universe the crews got those extra pools going yesterday," the latter whispered, casting his eyes skyward.

Brim looked down at Tissaurd for a moment. "Seems to me you said a few words about starting something that could bring down a wall, didn't you?"

The tiny officer grinned. "Watch out for flying bricks," she said. Then, spontaneously, both broke out laughing.

"What do you think, Chief," Brim said to Barbousse after a few moments, "are you going to let 'em land?"

"I think I'd better, Cap'm," the big rating said with a look of mock concern. "Strikes me they might just stay up there till we do." Then he winked. "Besides, I've stashed away a few cases of Grompers, vintage '81, that I know Polkovnik Ursis especially relishes."

"Why am I not surprised?" Brim laughed. "Then we'll deliver a case in person! Number One," he ordered, "message Ursis that the Chief capitulates unconditionally, and"—he thought for a moment—"yes, as soon as they moor, he will lead a party to their brow and surrender the meem,"

"I'll have that relayed to the Bears," Tissaurd chuckled with an overdone salute and disappeared into the hatch.

"Call Moulding and McKenzie, too," Brim called after her with a grin. "They ought to share in the capitulation, after all."

"An' we'll finish here in plenty of time for all that, Cap'm," Barbousse promised, casting a baleful eye at the three maintenance hands, "won't we, gentlemen?"

"Aye, Chief!" the trio said in unison, bending to their work with renewed fervor. No one ever questioned Barbousse's ability to get action out of work parties.

Indeed, the work detail completed their task in record time. Brim finished his inspection long before the giant, bluff-bowed AkroKahn freighter thundered in from the swirling mists, stark white except for the line's distinctive red hull stripe and wreathed six-pointed stars on either side of the bridge, aft of the Hyperscreens.

Sacha Muromets was one of the Sodeskayan Morzik-class freighters: big, good-looking starships of twenty thousand milstons, intended for the general carrying trade, but each had accommodations for passengers as well. Out of the corner of his eye, the Carescrian saw a beacon begin to flash on one of the newly refurbished gravity pools and the starship's taxiing speed dropped off as the Helmsman brought her head around. Then, as she came abeam of the beacon, she swung hard to port with the gray waters thumping and foaming under her hull until she drove onto the pool like a ship half her size, putting mooring beams across in a most spacemanlike manner. The Imperial ground crews had her secured in a matter of cycles.

"Nice," Barbousse said quietly. "I'll wager it's a Bear at the helm."

"Nice indeed," Brim chuckled, leading the way back through the hatch and into the starship, "but I wouldn't touch your wager with a ten-iral pole...." The occasional Bears who chose to fly starships were always superb pilots. Cursed with relatively poor eyesight in comparison to other spacefaring races, most Sodeskayans preferred to employ their vast intellectual energies by engineering vessels for others to operate.

Trailed by a dusty-looking case of rare old Logish Meem, the little party arrived at the gravity pool only moments before Ursis stepped from the brow, resplendent in full Sodeskayan military regalia: high black boots, an olive-green greatcoat, and a billed service cap, all trimmed in crimson. Bright crimson epaulettes with the three gold stars of a Sodeskayan Polkovnik embellished his broad shoulders.

Brim saluted. "I thought you'd be at Dytasburg," he shouted over the din of six thundering repulsion generators. "It can't even be time for midterms yet, is it?"

"Academy is in good hands, Wyilf Ansor," Ursis replied, returning the salute with a sober look.

"Dr. Borodov has come out of retirement to act as Dean until I return. My place is here at present; Sodeskayan intelligence organizations believe Great War will shortly resume." Then his brown eyes softened as he extended his hand. "Is good to be working with you again, my furless friend."

Brim gripped the huge Bear's delicate, six-fingered hand. "I'm awfully glad to see you for a number of reasons, Nik," he said, looking his old friend in the eyes. "And I've brought a number of people whom I know feel the same way."

Ursis looked up and grinned as the others saluted in unison. "Ah yes," he boomed, returning the salute with a huge, toothy grin, "Chief Barbousse and his surrender party! Come!" he ordered, sweeping the little group into the brow with his arm. "At top of stairs, Steward will lead you to place where we sacrifice some prisoners!"

Cycles later, in the Muromets's comfortable main dining saloon, he greeted Moulding and Tissaurd, then introduced himself to McKenzie before shaking Barbousse's hand. "Chief," he said, placing a fraternal arm around the big rating's shoulders, "is been long time. Where did you manage to disappear after war? You did even better job than friend Brim here."

Barbousse blushed for a moment, then grinned. "Other people have asked me that, too, Polkovnik Ursis," he said with a mock-serious look, "but I can't seem to remember. Must be one of those memory lapses they talk about."

"I understand," the Bear replied, matching Barbousse's look of concern. Then he winked. "I think Calhoun himself must have had lapse when he put three of us on another operation together, eh?"

"You've heard from Calhoun?" Brim interrupted.

"But of course, Wyilf Ansor," Ursis replied. "Message came through secure network—from covert field operative, of course. He said you needed maintenance apparatus. So I brought some of what you need—a whole ship full, vould you believe? And more is on way."

Brim shook his head in amazement. Somehow, it all made some sort of sense. Bear sense, anyway. "When did you hear from him?" he asked.

Ursis shrugged. "Perhaps two Standard Weeks ago," he replied with a frown. "The Commodore isn't in touch with you?"

"I don't suppose he could be, now that I think about it," Brim said. "Beta Jago's an occupied dominion now, and most of our Imperial intelligence organizations are riddled with CIGAs."

"He got in touch with us instead," Ursis said, lighting up one of the Sodeskayan's dreaded Zempa pipes. "Is same thing; we Sodeskayans are Imperials, too, in own way. So you got your supplies and me—although tomorrow I must temporarily return with Muromets to Sodeskayan before my own induction into Fluvannian Fleet." Then he smiled broadly. "But," he added, "according to friend Harry Drummond, combination of you, Chief Barbousse, and myself comprises perhaps greatest threat to League in existence. Is that not so?"

"If nothing else," Brim said, trying unsuccessfully to ignore the Zempa smoke that—at least to humans—smelled a lot like burning yaggloz wool, "we are certainly a great threat to much of the Universe's Logish Meem."

"Aha!" the Bear said, grinning now so his fang gems gleamed. "Until war actually does resume, we should certainly attempt to make good on such threats. Speaking of which...."

"Speaking of which..." Brim continued, "you said something about Grompers, vintage '81, didn't you. Chief?"

"Absolutely, Cap'm," Barbousse replied with a twinkle in his eyes, indicating the dusty meem case that hovered just inside the room.

"Grompers '81?" the Bear said, holding an index finger in the air. "Ah. but I knew there must be good reason I travel nearly halfway across galaxy to end up in remote parts of Fluvanna. Chief, you will do honors...?"

Just before a slightly woozy Brim turned in that evening, he heard a light tapping at his door.

Barbousse was in the hall with a sealed envelope. "Personal message for you, Cap'm," he said quietly. "I thought I'd seal the hardcopy and deliver it personally on the way to m' cabin."

Brim nodded. "Which is all the way at the other end of the hull," he observed with a frown.

"Beggin' the Cap'm's pardon," Barbousse said, handing over a sealed blue plastic envelope,

"but... well, it was a personal message, an' all."

Brim squeezed the man's forearm. "You take damned good care of me, Utrillo Barbousse," he said.

Barbousse grinned. "Don't want anythin' to happen to you, Cap'm," he said. "It'd be too easy goin' back to the Governor's privateer—an' then I'd probably get myself killed."

"What makes you think it'll be any different with me?" Brim asked. "We went through some pretty hairy times during the last war."

"Well, Cap'm," Barbousse replied emphatically, "there's no way I can refute that, now. But if I do have to get myself killed, at least with you I'll go in service to the Empire. An' that's mortally important to me." He shrugged. "Besides," he added, "we have had some excitin' times together, haven't we, sir?

Like when we captured that bender with the little spin-grav launch from I.F.S. Intractable."

"It's rarely been boring," Brim chuckled, recalling that they had nearly been vaporized a number of times during that desperate action.

"Good night, Cap'm," Barbousse said, interrupting Brim's reverie. "You'll want to be woken early so you and Polkovnik Ursis can work on settin' up that covert supply line to Commissioner Gallsworthy at the Atalanta Fleet Base. Sacha Muromets is scheduled to lift before midday."

"Thanks, Chief," Brim said, starting to shut the door.

"Oh, an', Cap'm..." Barbousse added.

"Yes, Chief?"

"Probably, you won't want to wait until morning to read the message I brought," the big rating said with a quick salute. Then he hurried off down the hall.

Brim settled wearily into an expensive ophet-leather recliner. It was one of the few luxuries he afforded himself in Starfury's commodious Captain's cabin. He peered at the envelope. No clue there: Barbousse had sealed the message into a standard unclassified hardcopy container. Frowning, he ripped off the side of the envelope, puffed it open, and extracted a single sheet of common message plastic used to record unclassified KA'PPA messages. It was from an old acquaintance, and its short message made his heart feel as if it would burst from his chest.

QQOW-97RTRV762349HUSE GROUP KJ64L 132/52010

FROM: H. AMBRIDGE, RUDOLPHO, THE TOROND

TO: LCDR. W. A. BRIM, R.F.F.

CAPTAIN, R.F.S. STARFURY

VARNHOLM HALL, ORDU, FLUVANNA.

COMMANDER BRIM:

HER SERENE MAJESTY, GRAND DUCHESS MARGOT

EFFER'WYCK-LAKARN BIDS ME INFORM YOU OF HER PLANNED

MORNING ARRIVAL IN MAGOR 136/5210 ABOARD T.S.S. KATUKA FOR

THE STATE CELEBRATION OF NABOB EYREN'S FIFTIETH BIRTH

ANNIVERSARY. THE DUCHESS WILL REPRESENT THE TOROND IN LIEU

OF GRAND DUKE ROGAN WHOSE SCHEDULE PRECLUDES HIS

ATTENDANCE. SHE SENDS THESE WORDS FOR YOU:

O' THAT 'TWERE POSSIBLE

AFTER LONG GRIEF AND PAIN

TO FIND THE ARMS OF MY TRUE LOVE

ROUND ME ONCE AGAIN!

LARITIEES /31887

THIS MESSAGE ALSO CONTAINS MY OWN WARMEST REGARDS FROM

OVER THE YEARS, COMMANDER.

SINCERELY,

HOGGET AMBRIDGE,

CHAUFFEUR TO PRINCESS MARGOT

QQOW-97RTRV762349HUSE

It was almost as if the message had been sent by the Margot of old—the woman he had known and loved before her disastrous addiction to the Leaguers' TimeWeed. Even the old poetry was there—a deep bond they had shared only moments after they met. In seven days he would see her again—an invitation to the Nabob's huge soiree had already been delivered to all the officers of the IVG. Would she turn out to be real, or was this another perversity dreamed up by the Leaguers? Seven days!

Starfury's Captain passed an exceedingly unsettled night....

Even with Brim's normal overload of work, the next seven days passed like seven years— Standard Years. Three of his ED-4s arrived with overloads of critical materiel, and close on their heels was another Starfury: I.F.S. Starspite, captained by a longtime friend of Brim's from Atalanta, Commander Stefan MacAlda. And still another pair of Starfuries was due early the following week.

Events like these seemed only remotely significant, at least on a personal level. Did miracles really occur?

Could Margot someday actually conquer her deadly addiction? At one point, he actually calculated the metacycles (Standard as well as local) remaining before he would have a chance to see for himself. And the daydreaming affected his work. Not a lot, but enough that at least one of his crew recognized that his mind was often elsewhere—and she had no problem bringing it to his attention.

"Voot's beard, Skipper," Tissaurd demanded the morning before Margot's arrival, "where in xaxt are you these days?" She'd found him alone on the bridge, staring out to sea at a time when he should have been making quarters inspections. "All of a sudden, you're not Wilf Brim anymore," she protested in frustration, "except when you're at the controls. And even then you fly like some sort of an analog. What gives? Your insufferable friend Barbousse knows, but I can't get a thing out of him."

Brim reached inside his tunic and silently handed her his message from Ambridge.

Frowning, Tissaurd seated herself at the right-hand helm and unfolded the sheet of plastic, staring at the text as if she were trying to insert herself inside the words. "I guess I'm not surprised," she said at length. "Word got around that you two met at one of Mustafa's parties a while back."

Brim nodded. "The last I'd seen her was a couple of years ago, and she'd been in bad shape. I guess I just"—he shrugged—"wrote her off at the time. It was terrible."

Tissaurd narrowed her eyes as she rose from her seat and quietly took a place behind him. "Isn't she the Leaguer Baroness who got herself addicted to Time Weed?"

"She's not exactly a Leaguer," Brim protested.

"Sorry, Skipper," Tissaurd replied, "but The Torond's close enough for me."

"I know," Brim conceded without turning around. "I guess I just don't see her that way. You had to know her before she married that zukeed LaKarn. She was a different person then— and she seemed like her old self at the ball."

"She seemed like she'd thrown the habit, then?" Tissaurd asked, gently kneading the back of his neck.

"No," Brim replied. "She talked about having a greater tolerance for it, or something. But she looked... well... normal, for lack of a better word. And she acted rationally, too. You know, almost as if everything were all right, again."

"That's pretty unusual from what I hear about TimeWeed."

Brim closed his eyes. "Who knows?" he responded at length. "I certainly have no idea."

"Sounds to me as if you hadn't really written her off, Skipper."

"That's not entirely right, Number One," Brim corrected. "I had written her off; I just hadn't slopped caring. And until I got the note, I didn't realize how much I still cared."

Tissaurd rested her hand gently on his shoulder. "It's not that easy to shut off an old love, is it, Skipper?" she said.

Brim turned in his seat and shook his head. "Sounds as if you know from experience. Number One," he said.

"Yeah," Tissaurd answered, her eyes focused somewhere else in both space and moment, "I do."

"I'm sorry," Brim ruminated, "I didn't know."

"I never told you about him, Skipper," she said. "And neither of us is famous like you and your princess, so you'd never have heard. But he was beautiful."

"I'm still sorry," Brim said, touching her hand. "Do you still think of him a lot?"

She nodded. "Too much," she said. "It gets in the way at the damndest times." Then she looked him in the eye. "Luckily," she said, placing both hands on his shoulders, "I am not captain of this ship, so it isn't much noticed. And when it is, well, I'm simply having an off day. But you, Captain Brim, aren't allowed to have off days."

Brim winced. "It shows that much?" he asked, feeling his cheeks burn.

"Probably not that much," she assured him with a little smile. "But those of us who know and love you do notice. And, of course, Starfury doesn't run as well—nor does this confounded base you've managed to carve out of nowhere." She scowled. "By Voot's beard, if that LaKarn woman were a Leaguer, this would be one clever way of undermining the Empire's attempt to establish a base here."

It was now Brim's turn to scowl. "You didn't know her during the war, Number One," he said hotly. "Margot may have become a lot of things I don't approve of, but she's not a traitor. I know that in my heart."

Tissaurd looked him in the eye. "I'd be the last one to question your judgment, Skipper," she returned, "but the heart seems like a poor place to look for danger, if you ask me."

"Nobody's asking, Number One," Brim said pointedly.

"I understand," Tissaurd replied quickly. "Still, I'm looking forward to meeting this woman. You will introduce me, won't you?" she asked. "I've always wanted to meet a Princess."

Brim reined in his temper. "Yeah," he conceded, "I'll introduce you." Then he shrugged. "And I'll make xaxtdamned sure that I quit going around like a love-struck teenager," he added, "at least in public." He grimaced. "I'm sorry if I've acted like a fool, Number One."

"Like a human," Tissaurd corrected. "Like a man."

With that, she headed for the aft companion way, leaving him alone with his thoughts in Starfury's quiet, empty bridge.

On Mustafa's birth anniversary the next day, Brim and nearly half of the wardroom mess embarked for Magor aboard one of Starfury's fast launches, flying in finger-four formation with launches from the other three ships. Moulding flew wingman for Brim, and McKenzie led Starconstant's Carrie Hogan to form the second pair. Back at Varnholm Hall, the remaining IVG crew members had been placed on increased alert status, just in case. Too many unidentified "civilian" ships were now passing overhead each day to warrant any complaisance at all so far as Brim was concerned. The new base was nowhere near any of the planet's established commercial airways.

On final over Magor's harbor, Brim had little difficulty locating T.S.S. Katuka, The Torond-manufactured Dampier DA79-11 that would have borne Margot to the celebration.

Unquestionably the most important warships manufactured so far by The Torond, these new Dampiers had quickly established themselves as tough competitors during the short battle for Beta Jago. Angular in design (the only way to produce in quantity with skills and tools available in The Torond), these deltoid ships were powered by three P.XI RC.40 Drive crystals and a brace of primitive, but reliable, Schleicher ASK 13 gravity generators. The one parked below on a gravity pool appeared to carry six 280-mmi disrupters in triple-mount turrets mounted at the two aft topside vertices of its null; from intelligence briefings, Brim knew these were matched by three additional triple-mounts in similar belly mountings at all three hull vertices. The ships had been highly successful against the outmoded starships of Beta Jago, but Brim guessed they would quickly meet their match in new generations of fighting machines like Starfury.

The ex-Imperials had no sooner landed and secured their launches to mobile gravity pads in Magor's Levantine District than they were ushered into three magnificent omnibus skimmers that set off for the palace immediately. As base commander by default, Brim found himself seated in the front of the first omnibus with a Fluvannian General who clearly had been detailed to escort them by virtue of his ability to speak Avalonian. The man made it very evident he felt the job was largely beneath his station, especially since his highest ranking charge was two grades short of his own. "How do you find working for the Fluvannian Fleet, Commander?" he drawled without introducing himself, clearly uninterested in Brim's answer, whatever it might be.

"It's working out, General," Brim said noncommittally. "We've made a lot of progress with the base."

"Ah, yes, Varnholm Hall," the General said, peering approvingly at his perfectly manicured fingernails. "A bit out of the way, I suppose, but a fine location for you mercenaries."

Brim frowned. "I see," he said, stifling a smile. Mercenaries, were they? He'd been called a lot of names over the years, but never a "mercenary." In a perverse sort of way, he almost felt honored by the sobriquet....

After clearing the reception line, Brim and Tissaurd quickly located another of Mustafa's glorious little palace bars. This one's walls were covered in odd-shaped mirrors framed by elaborate baroque scrollwork and embellished in gold. The ceiling was formed in the shape of a giant seashell, glowing 'round about its scalloped periphery with muted light. And, of course, it had a good view of the Grand Entry Hall. Brim had been most adamant about that.

"You haven't taken your eyes off the doorway since we arrived, Skipper," Tissaurd commented, sipping a Logish Meem. She wore her dress uniform even lower on her breasts than it bad been at the last ball. "How come you aren't ogling my cleavage tonight?" she asked salaciously, shifting her torso to reveal a hint of dark, studded aureole in the folds of lace. "Mustafa certainly seemed to enjoy what he saw."

Brim grinned as he felt his cheeks burn. "Oh, I haven't missed those, Number One," he assured her, peering quite deliberately now.

Deftly, she checked the bartender—who was noisily occupied with an ice machine at the other end of the room—then momentarily slipped the top of her dress far enough to reveal a small distended nipple, stunningly brown against her creamy skin and the folds of Imperial lace. "Do you think your friend Moulding might be interested in this as much as you seem to be?" she asked.

"I have no doubt you'll get his attention," Brim answered, experiencing a very compelling sensation in his own loins. Tiny as she was, the woman had magnificent breasts. He marveled at how she managed to conceal them as well as she did.

"Good," she replied, nodding her head thoughtfully. "Because I intend to seduce that man tonight, just as soon as I meet this Princess who's got her claws in you years after she ought to." Abruptly she frowned and focused her eyes into the hall beyond. "And I'll bet that's her out there right now," she said, nimbly moving the top of her dress higher again.

Brim peered into the hall for the millionth time. This time, however, there she was, being helped out of her evening coat by five severe-looking women outfitted in bright green dress uniforms from The Torond. He felt his heart soar. She was dressed in a high-necked silken apricot dress with spike-heeled slippers that made her statuesque legs look even longer than they were. And as always, her strawberry-blond hair was arranged in carefully styled disarray. "Margot," he whispered more to himself than to anyone else.

Beside him, Tissaurd squeezed her chin in thought for a moment. "Well," she commented cattily, "they clearly eat well at Baron LaKarn's court, don't they?"

Brim smiled. In truth, the ample Princess had become even more so with the passing years.

"Yeah," he had to agree, "she's put on a few stoneweights. Number One." Even so, she was still almost perfectly proportioned, and—at least to Brim—perhaps the most voluptuous woman in the Universe.

Once, he'd known each secret alcove and recess of her body as well as be knew his own.

Afterward, they sat in silence, watching the Princess make her way through the long reception line. When—at last—Mustafa finished his ogling (clearly, his tastes were similar to Brim's), Tissaurd looked up and nodded. "All right, Skipper," she said, sliding gracefully from the bar stool, "let's get this inspection over with. I've had an itch—in a very personal location—to ravish your aristocratic friend Moulding since the day he arrived."

Brim frowned as he stepped to the floor. "Well, don't feel this is some sort of task you have to accomplish," he said, slightly chafed by her attitude.

"Oh, but I do," she assured him, then she looked him directly in the eye and winked. "I'm simply doing what I can to make sure you stay in one piece for a while, Skipper. Sooner or later, one of us will be transferred; then it'll be your turn to be seduced. I'm looking forward to that."

Brim laughed. "Don't hold your breath, Number One," he said with a grin. "You're the best First Lieutenant I can imagine. I'm not about to let you go for a long time."

"I can wait, Skipper," the gamin officer said as they made their way across the floor. "I'm being, shall we say, 'serviced,' on a pretty regular basis now that the other ships are beginning to arrive. But I keep wondering how long you can hold out, because I don't have the impression anybody's taking care of you," She peered through the crowd at Margot. "Hmm," she said appraisingly. "Perhaps...." Taking his arm, she stopped him and looked up into his face. "Wilf Brim," she said with a very serious expression on her face, "if you can talk that one into a bed tonight, do it. I'll personally guarantee transportation back to Starfury after, say"—she thought for a moment—"I ought to have your friend pretty well worn out by midday. So call me after that. All right?"

Brim shook his head gloomily. "I doubt if I'll have to bother you, Nadia. This will be the first time we've been together for a lot of years."

"Good," Tissaurd laughed. "She'll be all the more appreciative once she's on her back. And for xaxt sake, remember to take your time!" Then she smiled. "Now get yourself over there and say hello so you can introduce me."

Margot met his eyes only moments later, and almost instantly, the one-time lovers were hand in hand, as if they had been apart no more than a few short days. "Wilf," she whispered breathlessly, "thank the Universe. I was so afraid you might not come."

"But you sent a message," Brim said. "How could I ignore something like that from you?"

Margot dropped her eyes to the floor. "It took more than a year for me to discover why you'd broken Rogan's back," she said. "I must have seemed like some sort of animal, lying there naked on the floor while he offered you my body if you'd join the League."

"You were too far gone with TimeWeed to know anything about it," Brim replied, trying desperately to force the abominable scene from his mind. "And what I did to your husband afterward,"

he added through pain-clenched teeth, "was the product of... well... simple insanity, I suppose. I hardly remember doing it." He drew her closer. "You seem to be different now," he added after a long silence.

"I am," she answered with a sad little nod, "but only to the extent that I described the last time we met." She shook her head. "Don't let it fool you, Wilf," she warned. "When I need it, I need it.

Withdrawal symptoms are disastrous—and they occur almost immediately following the first cravings...."

Suddenly, Tissaurd appeared beside them. "Skipper," she interrupted with a guileless smile, "I can't wait forever for an introduction."

Frowning, Margot turned to glance at the tiny officer's intrusion, then abruptly went rigid, as if something had momentarily startled her. "Hello," she said warily, brushing an offending lock of blond hair back in place.

"Margot—er... Princess Effer'wyck LaKarn," Brim stammered, "may I present Nadia Tissaurd, First Lieutenant of His Magnificence's starship R.F.S. Starfury?"

"Oh, yes, it is R.F.S., isn't it?" Margot remarked, her eyes narrowing as if she were suddenly facing some sort of menace. "Well, it pleases me to meet you, Nadia,'' she replied, extending her gloved hand to be kissed in the Grand Manner. "I'd heard you were all Fluvannians now," she said.

"Not Fluvannians, mercenaries," Tissaurd corrected, looking up at Margot with a little smile. She took the proffered hand and shook it politely, then for a few moments, she seemed to freeze time while she peered deeply into the Princess's eyes.

Suddenly Margot blanched as if she had been physically penetrated. "W-what have you done in my head?" she demanded, her eyes widening with something that looked a lot like fear.

Tissaurd slowly relaxed like a small viper uncoiling. "Done, Princess?" she asked with a malign little smile that Brim had never encountered before. "I don't understand." Abruptly she stepped back and resumed her original artless pose—except for her eyes. They had taken on a look of implacable anger.

Margot impulsively brought her fingertips to her lips. "Well..." she stammered, clearly at a loss of words.

"No matter," Tissaurd continued, raising a hand in gentle approbation. "Your Highness," she said, "it has truly been an honor to make your acquaintance, and I look forward to the next time we meet."

Then, turning to Brim: "Captain, I shall await your summons early tomorrow afternoon." Before either could utter a word of reply, her tiny form had disappeared in the evergrowing crowd of revelers.

The two stood in relative silence for long moments before Margot recovered sufficiently to speak. "That woman is your First Lieutenant?" she demanded.

Brim nodded. "She's the best, so far as I'm concerned."

"But, do you trust her—really?"

"Often with my life," Brim replied.

"That may someday turn out to be a foolish decision, Wilf Brim," she warned quietly.

"I noticed a few sparks fly when you two got within firing range," Brim joked in a lame attempt to defuse the ticklish situation.

"Sparks flew on both sides," Margot said, appearing to quickly recoup her aplomb. "An interesting one, that Tissaurd," she mused. "She might be good at what she does around a starship, but were I you, I'd never take my eyes off her."

Brim grimaced. "I... ah... will try to... keep that in mind, Margot," he equivocated.

"Well, no matter, Wilf," Margot said after a few more moments of silence. "I certainly have no business criticizing your crew in the first place. It's just that I should certainly hate to have anything untoward happen to you," she added, placing an arm around his waist. "Especially now that we will finally have some access to each other after all the years of separation."

Brim felt her breast pressing his arm and took a deep breath. "Margot," he sighed, "what will that access do to us? Haven't we been through enough pain over each other?"

"Pain, like gratification, is a part of life, my once and future lover," she whispered, guiding him toward the door. "I think Mustafa decreed romantic dancing in a number of his ballrooms. Let's see what threads of pleasure we can pick up after all the years we've been apart."

Immediately, Brim felt the old fear of dancing suddenly rise in his chest. Then he recalled the delight he'd felt while Tissaurd matched his artless shuffle. She'd even seemed to enjoy it! He shrugged—why not? "I'd love to, Margot," he said while his hands begin to warm all by themselves. Less than a metacycle later, they decided to share the night.

CHAPTER 7

Command

Brim awoke in a lavish suite belonging to one of Magor's larger downtown hotels. Early dawn softly illuminated the room from behind an ornate shade and Margot's golden curls tickled his ear as she slept peacefully in the crook of his arm. Only a slight odor of Time Weed permeated the air, she had taken care of her addiction in an adjoining bedroom.

Gently easing her head to the pillow, he sat up and regarded her luxuriant form beneath the stained silken bed linen. In many ways, she was even more beautiful than she had been years in the past.

Heavier, of course, but somehow all the more desirable for it. And she'd made love as ingeniously and strenuously as ever. Universe, had she! He found himself quite tender following her spectacularly uninhibited ministrations. She indeed had made it a night to remember, almost as though she were trying to atone for the missing years.

Yet in the light dawn, he realized that something had been subtly absent during their lovemaking.

Oh, his lust had been as well slaked, no doubt about that. And unless the Princess-cum-Baroness had lately become a talented actress in her own right, so had hers. Nevertheless, something had been missing. He couldn't quite focus in on its exact nature; but instinctively he understood it was quite central to the passion they once shared. And without it, he found a strange void in his soul that in the past would have been fulfilled during their lovemaking.

What was it?

Lack of sleep benumbed his concentration as he struggled to somehow characterize the emptiness. Was it even real, or had he dreamed of a reunion with Margot for so many years that nothing could live up to his expectations? And for that matter, why was Tissaurd so skeptical about the whole thing? Suddenly nothing made sense anymore, and the comfortable fulfillment he had anticipated only metacycles before was quickly turning to bewildered misgivings.

As he fretted, Margot opened her eyes and smiled languidly, pushing the sheet down past her knees. "Good morning, my lover," she whispered while a hint of last evening's perfume caressed Brim's nostrils from the warmth of her lush body. " 'The night is past and all its sweets are gone!' " she recited in a whisper. " 'Sweet voice, sweet lips, strong hand, and stalwart breast....' Oh, Wilf, so few moments of this heaven remain with us. Can you fill me with your manfulness once more before I must return to another existence?"

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 liftoff 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 two 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."

"Thank you, Westley," Brim said. "It is always a pleasure to visit the Palmerston." With Margot on his arm, he followed the man along a thickly carpeted passageway lined with huge portraits of antique landscapes. This led into a candle-lit chamber filled with the most compelling odors of food, perfumes, and smoke—both from a great fireplace and spiced cigarettes of a dozen exotic persuasions. The ceiling was low for its expanse, and supported by huge wooden beams that gave the impression of antiquity.

Sinuous music from a string orchestra blended with the faint clatter of tableware and hushed conversations in a dozen languages as they made their way among tables occupied by all manner of patrons; human, Bearish, flighted, reptilian—even a threesome of the pellucid Spirit races from outside the Home Galaxy who had only recently deigned to trade with their more substantially propagated neighbors. Brim's table, not far from the glowing fireplace, was perfectly located for discreet privacy.

"I love this place, Wilf," Margot whispered as the steward decanted a fine old vintage of Logish Meem.

''I do too," Brim agreed softly. The warm, dimly lighted room was comfortable in a very intimate manner that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

"What does it remind you of?" she asked suddenly.

Brim frowned. "Well,," he began, sipping the superb old meem, "it does look a lot like those places off Courtland Plaza in Avalon, I suppose."

Margot smiled and nodded. "It's designed to look like one of those. But what else does it remind you of?"

Brim peered around the room. He'd dined here on a number of occasions, and indeed, there had been something familiar about it. But he'd seen so many similar establishments over the years... then it struck him. "The Mermaid Tavern on Gimmas Haefdon!" he exclaimed. "Of course."

"Isn't it wonderful?" Margot said dreamily. "It brings back so many good memories. Remember the first time we met there?" Her eyes focused somewhere in a different time and space. "You'd swallowed one of those locator transponders, and just as you were going to ask me upstairs, the Base called you up for duty."

"I never was certain," Brim said with a rueful smile. "Would you have gone upstairs with me?"

Margot smiled mysteriously. "That's my secret," she said. "But I will confess I was giving it some thorough preconsideration at the time—just in case you might ask."

Brim sighed theatrically. "Life is a lot too short to miss chances like that.''

"Over the years, we've more than made up for that one opportunity, wouldn't you say?" Margot asked with a suggestive little smile.

"Even once or twice at the Mermaid Tavern, if memory serves," Brim answered easily. "Yet I'm not sure we ever did make up for that particular night—or could. Some opportunities are so fundamentally unique they pretty much exist in their own Universe. Think about it," he said, looking Margot directly in the eye. "That was during the one special time in our lives when we weren't yet certain how the other would react, A time of... exploration, I suppose—special excitement." Instinctively, he took her hand. "By the time we did eventually fall in bed together, we were good friends, and I think both of us knew it was only a matter of time until it happened. Remember? You had most of your dress off just inside your suite at the Embassy. And we were rutting for all we were worth only a few cycles later."

"Yes," Margot whispered, her cheeks coloring. "I'd built up to it in my mind the whole evening."

She smiled. "I couldn't wait to feel you inside me. I'd been drenching my scanties since our first dance."

"Even though I stepped all over your feet?" Brim asked.

"I wasn't really concentrating much on my feet at the time, Commander Brim," she laughed. "Or anybody I danced with, that night either—except you.'' She smiled. "But if I remember correctly, lover, you were exceedingly ready yourself that evening."

Brim nodded, his cheeks burning. "I'll admit that I'm beginning to feel that way right now," he said, experiencing a characteristic fullness in his loins. "If we keep talking like this, I'm not going to be interested at all in supper. At least until we... ah."

Margot smiled, considerable tinges of pink appearing high in her cheeks. "We shall, my lover," she said, raising her goblet. "But first, shall we fuel the fires of our passion?"

"Seems like a more sane idea to me," Brim admitted, raising his own goblet to hers. "That way, we won't have to interrupt anything later. Besides," he said with a smile, "the Palmerston Club is a wonderful place to dine."

"I chose it for a number of reasons," she said, staring with half-closed eyes as she sipped her meem. "The atmosphere and food go without saying—but the location: that serves our other needs as well."

Brim frowned. "They have rooms here?" he asked, instinctively staring toward the ceiling.

"Well," Margot giggled, "not quite upstairs, my impatient lover, but only a short distance away—through a little park—is a lovely country inn, converted from an ancient grist mill; the old millrace is even intact beside it. Part of the Palmerston, of course." She licked her lips sensually. "Since an evening begun in a place like this can only appropriately end in a bed..."

"...It seems natural that they provide the beds," Brim finished with a grin.

"But of course," Margot assured him. "Anything else would be a downright waste. That is why, Commander Brim, I reserved a suite there for us when I called for the table."

Even with that resolved, Brim found himself hurrying through an excellent supper. Some instincts were much stronger than others....

Brim felt just the slightest bit tipsy as he and Margot crossed the street arm in arm and entered the little park across from the Palmerston. Ahead in the dim glow of ancient street lamps, a picturesque inn beckoned from the far end of the path. "Tell me about your scanties tonight," he whispered in her ear, savoring the perfume of her hair.

"You'll have firsthand information shortly," she giggled, squeezing his waist. "How about yours?"

"Probably that's the reason they keep it so dark in there," he replied as a breeze cooled his face, "otherwise a number of us would have been embarrassed." They were approaching a copse of young trees and bushes planted around the periphery of what appeared to be a sizable boulder. Ahead, he could hear the millrace. He listened for a moment, relishing the sound. Then above the rushing water came a momentary scraping ahead in the dark copse. He tensed, hairs bristling on (be back of his neck.

"Did you hear that?" he whispered.

Margot put her hand to her throat and took her arm from around his back. "N-no, Wilf," she replied in a voice suddenly tight with fear. "I heard nothing."

The sound came again. This time, there was no mistaking his imagination. Brim stopped in his tracks. "Something's wrong, Margot," he whispered instinctively, pushing her into a clump of bushes.

"Stay here and don't move," he ordered, then drew his service blaster. At the same moment two dark figures burst silently at him from the left. Whirling while he fired a long, high-energy burst, he saw them jackknife in a froth of blood as the powerful weapon literally cut both in half.

An instant later he sensed scuffling in an archway behind him. Going to the ground again, he glimpsed three figures racing his way, each firing silenced blast pikes from the hip. As he rolled behind a bush, a blinding thunderbolt shredded his hiding place in a blizzard of branches and leaves. Reflexively, he snapped to a firing position and let off another long volley of shots, but these went wild as the trio scattered and dove for the flagstones.

At that moment the energy pack in his blaster bleeped empty.

"Voot, you miserable zukeed!" he swore under his breath, but it was his own fault. In spite of regulations, he habitually neglected his side arms. After all, it was peacetime, wasn't it? Before his assailants could properly aim, he desperately sprinted for the boulder and dove behind its mass through an eerily silent fusillade of wild shots, blinding flashes of light, and stinging stone chips. Struggling desperately to catch his breath, he snapped out the old energy pack and snapped in a new one, forcing himself to take a long, deep breath before tensing his legs in a shallow crouch. A split click later, he came out from behind the boulder firing for all he was worth, but again the men had disappeared.

Or had they?

Spontaneously flinging himself to the ground again, he only just dodged a whole welter of silent discharges that rent the air precisely where he had been standing. Firing blindly, he jumped behind the boulder again, trembling like a leaf, in the instant he'd had to take stock of the situation, there appeared to be at least ten people running toward him from the center of the park, shooting silently as they came.

Brim pursed his lips and frowned. Surprise and audacity had saved him before—and they were his only hope now. That, and saving his one remaining energy pack. With no time to worry about Margot, he thumbed the blaster to its lowest conservation setting—any hit would disable at this distance—and started making his way carefully toward the other side of the boulder. Abruptly he froze in his tracks: someone was running toward him from that direction—and making a terrible racket as he trampled cocksuredly through the weeds. Clearly, whoever it was didn't consider Wilf Brim to be much of a combatant....

The first thing to appear around the side of the boulder was the barrel of a blast pike, extended almost an iral by the ribbed barrel of a silencer. Brim grabbed it and nearly screamed in pain; his fingers instantly froze to the supercooled metal, but he hung on grimly for all he was worth. From that point, things were quick and silent. He jerked the silencer fiercely and pulled with all his might. Clearly surprised by the onslaught, his assailant stumbled and nearly lost his footing, but recovered quickly and tried to bring the big weapon to bear anyway. With the detached calm of a longtime warrior, Brim stepped in close to block the swing, gripped his assailant by both biceps, and brought up his knee hard. With a look of utter agony, the man dropped his pike and sucked in breath for a howl of pain. But before a sound could escape his lips, Brim stiff-armed, crooked his hand into a right angle, then drove it under the man's jawbone like a pile driver. A stab of pain flashed along his arm and shoulder as he heard neck bones crack—his assailant went down like a sack.

Retrieving the blast pike, Brim ran a quick self-test while he peered at the body, already rank with the odor of feces. Masked. Powerfully built. Dressed in black with no obvious means of identification. A professional, he considered with a shudder—probably one of the Leaguer Agnords; they'd made an attempt on his life the previous year. Only Lady Fortune—and a large dose of Leaguer arrogance—had so far saved him from their second try.

The pike sounded quietly as its self-test ended—three-quarters charged. It would do a lot more damage than his blaster. As he replaced the latter in its holster, he heard skimmers brake to a halt out in the park. Turning, he quietly retraced his steps while doors slammed and a sudden fusillade of heavy weapons flashed and snorted to a quick crescendo that quickly evolved into quieter sounds of running feet and muffled grunts of pain. He had just rounded the boulder again when he froze—this time in horror, his heart thumping wildly in his chest.

Now he had been mortally careless—and was about to pay dearly for his own foolish imprudence....

On a patio not ten irals distant, the figure of a man was illuminated from the side by the lights of two van skimmers. He was pointing a blaster directly at Brim's face, but for some reason had not yet fired. As the Carescrian trembled in terrified fascination, the man slowly lowered his powerful weapon, almost as if he had changed his mind.

Still staring at Brim from a masked face, he slowly leaned forward and crumpled onto his knees, the blaster clattering heavily to the flagstones. After moments that passed like years, he noisily struggled for breath, then leaned forward again, this time going to his hands. Slowly—in utter silence—he bowed his head, no longer showing any interest in Brim at all. There came a sound of wet gagging, and finally the man's arms gave out. He slumped forward on his face and lay quite still, as if he had gone to sleep. A throwing knife protruded from between his shoulder blades, just to the right of center, buried nearly to its hilt. At least twenty irals beyond, the huge silhouette of Utrillo Barbousse stood motionless against the lamplight, arms folded, legs akimbo.

Out in the park, guarded by two of Barbousse's tough replacement Chiefs and Nadia Tissaurd, six more bodies sprawled on the grass in awkward attitudes of violent death. Miraculously, the furious little skirmish had taken place without disturbing anyone in the Palmerston, no more than four or five hundred irals distant. Brim found himself trembling as he looked at the bodies, mouths agape as if they were gasping for air. One of them could have easily been him! Then—abruptly—he blundered to his senses. "Great thraggling Universe!" he exclaimed. "Where's Margot?"

"Yes," Tissaurd said, peering around the park as she bolstered her blaster, "where is that LaKarn woman?"

Brim sprinted for the bushes where he had pushed her, but she was gone, only an indentation in the grass remained to prove that anyone had been there at all. "Have you seen her, Chief?" he demanded.

"No, Cap'm," Barbousse said. "When we arrived in the vans, all we could see was the crowd of Agnords—and a lot of quiet blastin'."

"Sweet mother of Voot," Brim swore, suddenly terrified for her life, "we've got to find her."

"You bet we've got to find her," Tissaurd growled again, her eyes hard with anger. Putting her fingertips to the bridge of her nose, she closed her eyes, and began to turn slowly this way and that. She continued in silence until, after some moments, she stopped abruptly. "There," she said, pointing her arm unequivocally toward a small maintenance building beside the far bridge approach wall. She took two steps forward. "Bring her to me," she said as if her eyes were open, "from the shed!"

Immediately, the two Chiefs set off at a trot, covering the distance in a matter of clicks. Together, they dove into the little building and emerged moments later, supporting a figure between them that could only be Margot LaKarn. She was stumbling along between them as if she were drunk.

Stunned—as much by Tissaurd's feat as by the sight of Margot in the hands of the Chiefs—Brim could only shake his head. "How did you manage that, Number One?" he whispered.

"I... ah... just happened to see her move in the doorway," the tiny officer said, clearly at pains to avoid his eyes.

"Gorksroar," Brim said quietly. "Your eyes were closed."

"Begging the Captain's pardon," she said, "but that's my explanation. Take it or leave it—sir, this is a bad time for a disagreement."

Brim frowned, then nodded. "For now, Number One," he said, "I'll take it." He had to.

While they waited for Margot and her captors to arrive, three more of Barbousse's Chiefs reappeared from the trees nearby. Two were half carrying a clearly wounded assassin; the third was dragging still another corpse by its feet. Without a word, Brim and Barbousse took charge of the wounded man, holding him erect by throwing his arms over their shoulders. "What do you think, Cap'm?" the big rating asked as he peeled the man's mask from his face. "Looks like an Agnord to me."

"That's the only thing I could think of," Brim said, struggling to steady his voice.

The man groaned when Barbousse lifted his chin to the light, and a thick bubble of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth. "I'll make sure," Barbousse said, then quietly mumbled a few unintelligible phrases into a blood-smeared ear.

These seemed to momentarily revive the prisoner, who croaked out a weak reply before his head fell limply to his chest again.

"Definitely an Agnord, Cap'm," Barbousse said in a matter-of-fact voice. "I ran into plenty of them during my tours on the Governor's ship. I slipped him the 'First Precept'—in his own language."

"The 'First Precept'?"

" 'Death before capture,' " Barbousse explained. "Assassination's sort of a religion with them. The worst humiliation they know is being taken prisoner. The ones I've run into so far really would rather die."

"So what did he say?" Brim demanded as the three Chiefs began to dump bodies off the bridge and into the millrace.

"He begged me to kill him," Barbousse said matter-of-factly.

"Maybe he's trying to protect secret information," Tissaurd said, keeping a weather eye on the hesitant approach of Margot and her captors.

Barbousse shook his head. "I rather doubt if he has much information to protect. Lieutenant," he said deferentially. "From what I've been able to learn, Agnords mostly take other people's orders and carry them out."

"Then, y-you'd actually... kill him?" she asked with a look of horror.

"Aye, ma'am," Barbousse said calmly, "unless you or the Commander has objections. We'll have to do something with him, no matter what we decide about anything else. The Leaguers won't admit they've seen him before. And it'll be dicey getting him back to Varnholm the way he is right now.

Somebody'll sure want to know how he got hurt—right before they demand the ID he doesn't have."

"Why can't we just leave him here?" Brim asked as the two Chiefs brought Margot to an unsteady halt directly in front of Tissaurd.

"Well," Barbousse answered with perfect logic, "if we leave him here and he does die, then there's another body that should have been thrown off the bridge. With the millrace spreadin' 'em around the neighborhood a bit, there'll be less cause for a big investigation...."

"... And if he doesn't die," Brim finished with a nod, "then he can cause a pile of trouble for us with assault charges. Even if we could manage to explain the whole thing away. Just getting involved would be bad for the IVG. They take stuff like this seriously here in Fluvanna."

"That's the way I see the situation, Cap'm," Barbousse seconded. "And since this Leaguer gentleman really does want to cash in, I can't see any reason to ignore his wishes."

Brim was suddenly aware of Margot, who seemed to be avoiding everyone's eyes—including his own. Her hair was disheveled and she fairly reeked of TimeWeed. No wonder she'd looked the way she did. Forcing back a rising gorge, he nodded to Barbousse. "Kill him," he said.

"Aye, Cap'm," Barbousse replied, knuckling his forehead. Gently lifting the wounded Agnord in his arms, he headed for the stand of young trees nearby.

Brim turned as Tissaurd began to speak. "What were you doing in that building, LaKarn?" she demanded. "You didn't lift a finger to help the Captain. Why?"

"I—I did everything I could," Margot said in a dull voice, still avoiding Brim's eyes. "But I wasn't armed," she slurred, weaving back and forth on her feet. "I... er... ran for the inn to call for the police."

"Interesting," Tissaurd said. "I wonder where those police are. You'd think even Fluvannians would have shown up by now."

"I c-couldn't get anyone to answer the door," Margot answered. "I t-tried...."

From the corner of his eye. Brim watched Barbousse emerge on the far side of the trees, striding briskly toward the bridge with a limp form slung over his shoulder.

"Nobody answered the door?" Tissaurd exclaimed in open disbelief. "That's Gorksroar, pure and simple! Palmerston managers are at that desk all night, every night. I ought to know; I get laid there now and then myself!" She shook her head for a moment, then dismissed the Baroness with an angry wave of her hand, "Let her go," she said to the Chiefs. "That was all I needed to hear."

The two immediately released their prisoner, who staggered a few steps, then lost her balance and collapsed in a heap on the grass.

"WUN-der-ful," Tissaurd growled while Brim hurried to help Margot to her feet. "Skipper, how in Voot's name can you do that when this blond zukeed just set you up for a pack of Agnords?"

"We can't just leave her here," Brim replied, nearly overcome with anguish.

"The Cap'm's right, Lieutenant," Barbousse put in, cleaning his knife with a dark-colored handkerchief. "I think we probably had better get the Princess back to her ship; otherwise..." He raised his hands in supplication.

"1 know," Tissaurd pouted, "another 'inter-domain incident.' Right?"

"Aye, Lieutenant," Barbousse said quietly.

While Brim helplessly supported the flaccid wreck of a woman he had once loved, he saw bright headlight beams swing into the park and race toward him. At the last moment, their source —an arrogant Majestat-Baron limousine skimmer—slewed sideways and came to a halt no more than twenty irals from where he stood, its powerful generators purring at idle. Four tall Controllers from the League catapulted out of the passenger compartment and strode imperiously toward Brim and Margot, completely ignoring the array of powerful blasters aimed at their heads.

"Baroness," one of them said as if she were alone in the park, "where have you been, my dear? We were worried."

Margot absently touched a lock of her hair and turned slowly to face the four sinister figures before her. "I h-have... been out to supper," she slurred, reaching toward him like a small child.

"We shall return you to your ship immediately. Your Highness," the Controller said, taking an outstretched arm,

"Get your xaxtdamned hands off her," Brim growled, but Barbousse appeared wraithlike at his side to gently place a restraining hand on his forearm.

"It's better this way, Cap'm" the big rating said in a low voice. "She'll need her TimeWeed soon enough."

Brim ground his teeth while bitter tears filled his eyes. Barbousse was right. It was the only way.

Now completely supported by the big Controller, Margot turned toward him one last time, and he felt he could almost touch her mind. Almost.... With an unfathomable expression in her eyes, she stumbled into the limousine; a moment later she was gone once more from his life in a cool breeze of gravitons and receding tail lamps.

Followed by Tissaurd in one of the IVG vans, Brim returned his rented skimmer, then climbed in beside his diminutive First Lieutenant while she drove back to the launch that had carried her and the Chiefs from Varnholm. The woman was clearly angry: too much for any relevant conversation. All she would say concerning the fracas that night—and for a long time to come—was, "That LaKarn woman is no longer your friend, Wilf Brim. Mark my words. She is out to have you killed."

During the three weeks following Brim's "incident" at Palmerston Park, relations between the League of Dark Stars and Fluvanna deteriorated at an even speedier rate than before, with accusations and counteraccusations spicing each new edition of the media. Strangely enough—at least to Brim—the Leaguers themselves continued to breathe life into the disappearance of R.F.S. Rurik. Insisting that the old armored cruiser was being hidden somewhere by Fluvanna's own Admiralty, they continued a succession of accusations that she was actually a spy ship. Further, they alleged that she had been used routinely for covert operations against the League and her allies, especially The Torond. The aspersions made no sense, but then, politics of any ilk made little sense to Brim.

One morning just before dawn, he was on his way back to Starfury from a chilly, predawn jog along the strand when Ursis met him at gravity pool one, where S.S. Maksim Litvinov, one of the big AkroKahn cargo liners, had moored the night before. The Sodeskayan had a look of deep concern on his face as he waved Brim to a halt.

"Morning, Nik," Brim panted, grabbing the Bear's huge biceps in friendship. "You look mighty concerned for such an early juncture."

Ursis nodded and placed a six-fingered hand over Brim's. "Deeply sorry to interrupt exercise, Wilf Ansor," he called over the roar of nearby repulsion generators, "but Commodore Calhoun asked that you be notified immediately."

Brim frowned, noting the uninterrupted succession of ghostly rings spreading from the ship's tall KA'PPA tower—something was definitely up. "Notified about what?" he asked. "Sounds bad."

"Perhaps 'inevitable' is better word than 'bad,' " the Bear said, "but 'appalling' also applies—'disastrous,' as well. In short, my furless friend, war has restarted or"—he checked the huge, old-fashioned timepiece he kept in a special pocket—" will have started in about two metacycles." He shook his head. "Sodeskayan intelligence organizations are best in Universe, yet not infallible. Were they perfect, we should have information you are about to learn at least two Standard Days in past. As things stand, we know what is about to happen, but we have no time to prevent it without revealing our sources." Glancing up for a moment at the big ship's lofty bridge, he bowed and indicated the brow.