Galactic Convoy

Chapter 1

ELEANDOR-BESTIENNE

Wilf Brim pointed into the shimmering globular display and glared across the drafting console, angry now in spite of himself. "If Nik Ursis says a waveguide installed like that could short the Vertical Generators," he insisted to a determinedly unpliant Senior Engineer, "then a xaxtdamned waveguide installed like that could short the Vertical Generators. Nobody understands antigravity like Sodeskayan Rears, and you bloody well know it!"

"Bears or no Bears, I was not placed in my position of trust and authority to question Admiralty plans, Lieutenant," the engineer sniffed haughtily. He was a tall, aristocratic man whose expression was the perfect physical manifestation of bureaucratic arrogance, though his features themselves were indifferent to the point of banality. "I build starships strictly to specification," he said, "and I greatly resent the interruption of my busy day with complaints from flight crews. You may be certain your superiors will hear of this insubordination.

Imagine, summoning a senior engineer—with wild tales of design flaws. Certainly you do not believe we meet production quotas by challenging Admiralty design teams, do you?"

"Voot's beard!" Brim exclaimed. "This has nothing to do with a challenge." He pointed to a drafting console. "Look for yourself—your design diagrams are just plain wrong! A hit anywhere near the KA'PPA tower could cripple both Vertical Gravity Generators—trip 'em out completely. And Verticals are the only things I know about that keep starships from falling outof the sky, at least when they're anywhere near something that's got gravity—like for instance the planet we're standing on.

Beside him, Ursis, a Great Sodeskayan Bear, frowned, shifted his peaked officer's cap between furry russet ears, and thrummed six tapered fingers on the console—clearly struggling with his own temper. Presently, he smiled, diamond fang stones gleaming in the bright lights of the quiet drafting room. "I thank you for your support, friend Wilf," he said in deep, carefully measured words, "but we have reasoned fruitlessly for more than twenty cycles, and I for one possess sufficient of this nonsense." With that, he gripped the massive drafting console and ripped it from its mountings in a cloud of sparks and acrid smoke.

"Perhaps now, my good man," he said, turning to the startled engineer, "you will have an easier time shifting your mind from symbolic diagrams to reality, eh? In spite of what you might think, starships have no lifting devices such as wings, or the like—only Vertical Gravity Generators keep them up. They are of critical importance, yet these could be disabled by as little as a chance lightning strike on the KA'PPA tower." Before the civilian could recover, Ursis lifted him by his ornately embroidered lapels to a position no more than a milli-iral from his huge, wet nose. "When I replace you on your feet, Mr. Senior Engineer," he growled ominously, "you will locate a workable drafting display and carefully study what Lieutenant Brim and I have attempted to explain this afternoon. Do you understand?"

The man's face drained of color. "B-but the p-plans s-show..." he stammered, pointing to the darkened drafting console as if it were still a functioning instrument. All the bluster had suddenly gone from his voice.

" Defiant is the first warship of her class," Uruis stated firmly. "The imaginary machine pictured by your precious plans has never so much as lifted from the image of a globular display, much less east off for deep space. There are bound to be errors. That is what you engineers are for—to catch mistakes before they hurt someone...." His laugh returned again, this time with a little of his normal humor. "It wouldn't be so good if one of your creations lost its Verticals and fell out of the sky, now would it? Someone could be hurt!"

The man only stared into the huge Bear's eyes, mesmerized.

"Well, civilian engineer?"

"N-no...."

"No, what?"

"N-no... ah, I, ah, w-wouldn't want a starship t-to f-all out of the sky..."

"And what will you do to ensure this does not happen?"

"F-fix it-t—the waveguide so the Verticals are b-better insulated from energy strikes...."

"Excellent," the Bear exclaimed, gently placing the engineer on his feet. "Your cooperation is most gratifying, civilian. I shall mention it favorably to my superiors. But," he added, "your equipment here is poor. Behold, Wilf, this very drafting display is not functional."

Brim could only nod as he fought the gale of laughter that threatened to overwhelm his control. "I'd noticed that," he choked.

"You should endeavor to find a workable instrument" Ursis advised the man seriously. "

Immediately. Otherwise, by the time you order this waveguide to be reversed, it will be a difficult operation—every metacycle that passes sees new equipment installed in Defiant's already crowded machinery spaces. Eh?"

"Of c-course, Lieutenant," the engineer whispered as if he were badly out of breath.

Suddenly, he turned and ran madly along the consoles until he disappeared through a door at the end of the room.

Ursis pursed his lips and frowned. "I only hope he really will do something about that waveguide," he said, "instead of just covering the mistake with a minor insulating job. Once the hull is buttoned up, there will be no way I can check." Then he smiled wryly and shook his head. "Groaning trees and growling wolves are all the same in a spring snowstorm, eh?"

"Huh?" Brim responded, looking up from the wreckage of the drafting table.

"An old saying from the Mother Planets," the Bear answered with a grimace, "and—it seems that I shall never learn to hold my temper," he observed. "Now we are probably both in trouble."

Brim shrugged. "A little, maybe. But it's at least possible now that something may be done to protect the Verticals. If we'd kept our mouths shut, nobody would even had looked.

Besides," he chuckled as they boarded an elevator for the observation balcony, "I've dealt with bullies all my life. Once you scrape away their rank, as you did so well, they're all the same sort of cowards." He winked. "Now, if you want to talk about real trouble, imagine us fighting a dead ship after something like a lightning strike tripped the Verticals at low altitude—maybe during a landing. Universe...."

Nergol Thannic's all-consuming galactic conflict seemed terribly remote that day among the ancient starship yards of EleandorBestienne. Outside a lofty Engineering Tower in the Orange-Eight district, cobalt skies and soft puffs of summer clouds ruled the late afternoon over Construction Complex 81-B. On an open balcony, a warm breeze rustled the blue Fleet Cape at Brim's neck and raised whitecaps out on Elsene Bay. It carried with it the clean fragrance of green vegetation—tempered by frequent whiffets of hot metal and fused logics from the frantic wartime construction below.

The object of Brim's attention—emerging from the waterfront clutter of bowing, swinging shipyard cranes—was the flattened teardrop shape of a half-finished starship hull that rested on a tangle of rusting construction stocks: I.F.S. Defiant Imperial hull designator CL.921, and the first ship in a whole new class of light cruisers. As such, she was new in many ways—and subject to all the ills of each. The morning's waveguide Incident was only one—albeit the most serious—of a hundred-odd irregularities and disorders uncovered since the starship's keel was laid. In spite of her great promise for the future, Defiant was starting life as a most troublesome ship....

While Brim mused, he overheard the voice of Lieutenant Xerxes O. Flynn joking with Ursis. Flynn was Defiant's medical officer—the position he had previously filled aboard I.F.S. Truculent. Ho was short, fair, and balding, with a reddish face and a quick smile. "I say, Nikolai Yanuarievich," he said, "do you suppose yonder Principal Helmsman has become Inpatient to fly already? He shows up this time every day to watch them build our ship."

"Well, Doctor," observed the Bear, "either impatience guides his actions—or a well-known compulsion to single-handedly confound the League of Dark Stars. As we say on the Mother Planets, 'When the mountain dances with ice maidens, cold wand comes quietly at the hearth.'" He grinned suddenly. "One imagines anything is possible of persons who spend most waking hours flying a simulator—even Helmsmen.

Brim turned to grin at his old shipmates, fellow survivors of Regula Collingswood's battle-shattered destroyer I.F.S. Truculent. "You're both right," he asserted, "I do spend most of my time flying 'The Box.' But I am clearly not the only one impatient to get back into space—or the war. In fact, I personally know a certain Great Sodeskayan Boar who spends most of his time checking starship plans—and I'm sure he has the same thing in mind.

Besides, it's rarely lonesome here on the balcony, as you both well know." He chuckled. "I understand people are starting to call it 'Point Defiant.'"

"Actually," Flynn admitted, "I might just prefer a battle zone if I had my choice—some place where I could occasionally contribute to the war effort by treating disorders more serious than meem hangovers." He shook his heed. "That one task seems to occupy most of my duty time while we wait for those bloody civilians to build our ship."

Ursis laughed as he charged the bowl of his Zempa pipe with Hogge'poa. "You must never underestimate your contribution here, my dear Doctor," he asserted, tamping the weed with a professional countenance. "Hangovers are important on worlds like EleandorBestienne. Especially since meem—and the drinking thereof—remains the principal diversion." He nodded sagely while he puffed a glow into the bowl of his pipe. "You will soon enough be up to your elbows in battle blood again."

Flynn nodded. "That's why I drink meem," he said wrinkling his nose as a cloud of smoke momentarily enveloped his face. "And they're my own hangovers, by the way."

While the two continued their salty banter in the lengthening shadows, Brim returned his attention to the stocks. For the thousandth time, he traced Defiant's convexed upper deck as it gently arced from a pointed bow and peaked a regulation thirty irals from four Drive outlets in her ponderously rounded stern. Dramatically larger than old Truculent, her very size seemed to Symbolize—dauntingly—the new responsibility Brim was about to shoulder as her Principal Helmsman. Abaft the forward mooring cupola, work gangs were energetically fishing heavy-gauge cable of some sort between two circular access hatches.

Farther back, a pair of surveyors appeared to be checking the hull's loft lines against a fat book of blue-prints. The ship's ebony hullmetal was everywhere marred by bright blue of welding, and her upper decks were littered with cuttings, fastener cartridges, cables, and general sweepings. Apparently a great deal of the morning's construction effort had been expended preparing for installation of the two ventral turret assemblies. With the acrid smell of Hogge'poa burning his nostrils, Brim watched a heavy mounting ring glide slowly beneath the starboard beam, towed by one of the ubiquitous yellow shipyard locomotives. The two dorsal twin-mounts had been in place abaft the bridge for a week now; they required only installation of their long-barreled 152-mmi disruptors. The final turret, however, a single-mounted 152 that would complete the ship's primary armament, was still marked by little more than a circular opening in the hullmetal directly forward of the skeletal bridge.

Presently, a fourth voice joined the others on the balcony. Elegant and polished, it belonged unmistakably to Commander Regula Colllngswood, Defiant's Captain and commanding officer. She was a statuesque woman, tall and well-shaped with a long, patrician nose, piercing hazel eyes, and soft chestnut hair that she wore in natural curls beneath her peaked uniform hat. An extraordinary commander of military warships, her appearance never for a moment let anyone forget she was also a woman, every milli-iral of her, She was known throughout Kabul Anak's fleets as a very dangerous adversary, and had lived with a price on her head for years. She seemed to enjoy the distinction. Brim saluted wit the others.

"I rather expected I might find the three of you here," she pronounced with a fatigued smile. "I too need tangible evidence that someday we shall find ourselves back in space.

Especially since I presently spend most of my life staring at desiccated verbiage in a display." She grimaced at the portfolio under her arm. And making peace with angry shipyard bosses," she added hotly, scowling first at Brim and then at Ursis. "What in the name of the Universe did you do to that poor engineer? His manager found him reduced to tears at a drafting display and mumbling nonsense about lightning strikes and Bears— as well as Carescrians. Wilf Ansor Brim."

Brim and Ursis began to speak at the same time, but Collingswood held up a perfectly manicured hand. "Don't bother, either of you. There was also the matter of the reversed waveguide that they installed—everybody in the yard was overjoyed that I declined to fuss to the Admiralty about that little blunder—a damned serious problem as I am given to understand."

"We, ah, did bring it to the engineer's attention," Brim stammered.

"Indeed," Ursis seconded, "one of the senior types initially found it difficult to separate his diagrams from the reality of hullmetal."

Collingswood closed one eye and wrinkled her nose. Then she nodded pointing an accusing finger at the Bear. "Of course!" she exclaimed. "You helped him understand how to do it, didn't you? That probably explains the uprooted drafting table. We all sort of wondered about that bit of mayhem." She shook her head again, then chuckled. "At any rate, now that the two of you have finished dealing with recalcitrant civilians on your own side of the war, I trust you have saved a little violence to counter the promises of our opposites from the League as well."

Her voice trailed off. Everyone in the Fleet knew Emperor Nergol Triannic's boast of slavery and death—at best—for every Imperial Blue Cape who stood in the path of his plans to sack and subjugate the galaxy for his League of Dark Stars. And for eight grim years, the badly outnumbered Fleets of Emperor Greyffin IV had spoiled those plans out of all proportion to the meager resources at their disposal. Now, thanks to efforts like the one in the shipyard below, those fleets were growing larger—and more powerful....

Sudden thunder boomed and crackled overhead as two pairs of starships plunged in formation from among the clouds. Brim identified them even before they entered the shipyard's landing pattern: Sinister-class light cruisers. At 315 irals overall, they were only a little smaller than Defiant and carried 150-mmi disruptors. Although they were known as handy ships with excellent habitability, experts considered that placement of blast deflectors near the aft deck house provided an ungainly appearance.

Ungainly-looking or not, these certainly could maintain formation. Perfectly synchronized, they banked into an abbreviated base leg, then rolled out on final, antigravity generators bellowing as they drew into line abreast and descended toward the bay. Cycles later, they were skimming the whitecaps, cooling fins whistling in the slipstream. Brim watched with professional judgment while their speed dropped and the ships gently unloaded mass onto the Verticals buried 'midships in their hulls. Each of the cruisers came to a hovering stop twenty irals or so above the thrashing footprint it pushed into the surface of the water, then turned smartly to taxi toward the wharves beyond the shipyard. Still in line abreast, they crossed between Brim and EleandorBestienne's close-set trio of suns, now setting on the horizon. For an instant, every hull plate stood highlighted in the rippled path of blazing colors; then the starships continued on their way and disappeared into the forest of gantry cranes.

"Did that landfall meet with your professional approva, friend Wilf?" Ursis asked quietly, bringing Brim once more to reality.

He felt his cheeks burn. "They all look good to me, Nik," he admitted with a grin. "I won't be able to judge until I've had a bit of real experience landing a light cruiser." Then he laughed. "But from what I've been able to simulate in The Box, I'd allow we were watching some pretty competent helmsmanship."

"I suspect you'll find yourself at real controls sooner than you think, Wilf," Collingswood interrupted with a knowing smile. "Something big seems to be in the wind." She paused significantly to look each of them in the eye. "I have been informed that management here has specially stepped up Defiant's completion schedule on direct orders of the Admiralty—even though the yard is already far beyond its rated capacity. That, and a few other hints I cannot share at this time, lead me to believe that we can expect a most difficult—and critical—assignment." She paused for a moment in thought, watching a destroyer stand out into the bay for takeoff. As its running lights pierced the early-evening darkness, she turned again to her three senior officers. "And," she continued, "before the year is over, we may well help decide the outcome of the entire war...."

Weary metacycles later, Brim's strenuous workday finally came to an end when he climbed gratefully from a simulator and signed out of the Training Operations Complex for the night. Under a mighty canopy of midgalactic star swarms, he waved off a hovering tram and made his way inland on foot, following a maze of streets winding circuitously through the shipyard complex. A damp bay breeze plastered the Fleet Cape to his side as he picked his way over glowing, multicolored tracks that crisscrossed the cracked and potholed pavements on the way to his temporary quarters. To either side, the shipyard's ear-splitting cacophony continued unabated from the daylight hours while shadowed forms of half-finished starships hovered under Karlsson lamps. Here and there hullmetal welding torches filled the sky with fountains of sparkling color, and high above it all the monstrous cranes swung and bowed to a rhythm all their own.

Brim smiled as the officers' quarters came into view from the top of a slight rise. His step quickened in spite of his deepening fatigue. Down there in his spartan room, a message would be waiting from halfway across the galaxy. Today was the day she customarily posted.

Casually returning salutes from sentries at either side of the doors, he strode across the lobby to the bank of lifts on the far wall. Cycles later, he entered the tiny cubicle that was his temporary home on EleandorBestienne. As he hoped, the message indicator was flashing over his bunk: YOU-HAVE-NEW-MAIL. YOU-HAVE-NEW-MAIL....

He closed the door and settled himself before the tiny desk that—along with its totally inadequate chair—constituted the only furniture in his tiny room. Instantly, a globular display materialized above the surface of the desk, then filled with a list of correspondence received since he last accessed his message queue. He smiled with pleasure, then selected the entry sourced "Margot Effer'wyck, Lt., I. F. @ Admiralty/Avalon 19-993.367."

A swirl of damp, golden curls and a flashing smile filled the display. Margot Effer'wyck was a princess in every respect. Tall and proud-looking, she was an ample young woman with oval face, full moist lips, sensually heavy eyelids, and the most endearing habit of frowning when she smiled. Her complexion was almost painfully fair and brushed with pink high in her cheeks. She had smallish breasts, a tiny waist for her size, and long, shapely legs. To Wilf Brim, she was the most beautiful woman who ever drew breath.

Discontent with nonproductive court life, she served on and off as an inordinately brave—and successful—young "operative" who risked her life on a number of clandestine assignments to Leaguer planets for Emperor Greyffin's Empire. Now—unwilling subject of that same emperor's protection—she still commanded a highly secret intelligence-gathering section at the Central Admiralty. But her days of life-threatening danger were now at an end.

She was too politically valuable to risk.

In the background, Avalon's trees wore their brilliant autumn colors under a gray and lowering sky. When she spoke, her voice was soft and modulated:

"I have toiled sufficiently for the Empire today, dearest," she began. "Now I'm free to walk home instead of taking the limousine, so I can steal a few moments alone to compose." She smiled and looked into the sky, eyes slitted against a misting drizzle. "Avalon has not yet quite accommodated itself to the coming of winter. On the side walks, leaves are sodden and slippery, and the rain has just let up a little."

She closed her eyes and smiled wistfully. "'Red o'er the city peeks the setting star,'" she recited, "`'The line of yellow light dies fast away That crowned the eastern roofs; and chill and dun Falls on the streets this brief autumnal day....'"

Presently she brightened. "That's not really my autumn, Wilf," she said. "Not when I dream of you. Anshelm's Ode to Autumn I think is much more like it: 'Season of gold and misted grace, Close bosom-friend of the life-granting sky; Enveloping all with thy warming embrace, Fruiting the vines the 'round my gardens lie....'" She shook her head slowly. "Oh, but how I miss the harvest of love you bring to my life, 'What gleaning half so sweet is As still to reap thy kisses Grown ripe in sowing? And straight to be receiver Of that which thou art giver, Rich in bestowing?'"

Brim frowned. Who wrote that last poem? Compton?...Calpon?... Campion! That was who. Thomas Campion—a little-known ancient from a long-forgotten star system. Only the playful lyrics survived him and his whole civilization. He shook his head. "All passes. Art alone endures," as Margot often put it. Smiling wistfully, he recalled the archaic love of verse they shared—a nearly forgotten art form that brought them together for the first time in old Truculent's wardroom. It seemed like a million years ago. Not many of Truculent's crew survived her last battle off the planet of Lixor in the Ninety-first Province.

"Oh Wilf, I miss you so today," Margot continued. "Not a sad missing anymore, mind you—not like just after we've been together when there's real pain." A sudden swirl of wind rushed leaves past her face; she absently pushed a curl back in place. "But, after six months or so, you are the warmest spot in my heart. You are the part of me that petty politics can never reach—and the sanctuary to which I can always escape."

The rain began again, and she pulled her Fleet Cloak tighter about her neck. "I use many routes to walk home from the Agency," she continued, "short and not so short. Usually I take the one that crosses the old Broix River bridge. You've seen the district: narrow streets and tall, beautiful houses. Tonight, though, I've chosen the longer one that passes the Lordglen House. It always reminds me of you somehow—and the ball they gave for..." Her laugh sparkled like sudden starlight. "I forget now. That's how important he was. But you were there—and you never did have a chance to stay the night in that great house of state, did you, poor Wilf? I shall always hope sharing my bed for the first time was adequate recompense...."

She blushed suddenly. "It's almost as if Gol'ridge wrote Ristobel about me that night—our night. Remember? 'Before my lover's gaze I bowed, And slowly teased myself around; Then drawing in my breath aloud, With loving pleasure, I unbound The coverings that concealed my breasts: My silken gown and inner vests, Dropt to my feet and full in view, Behold! my bosom to pleasure you— And legs and hips and secret place! / Oh come and fill me with thy grace!...'"

While the long message played, Brim marveled, as he did so often, that this young noblewoman—and quietly genuine war heroine—was actually in love with him. Of course, she was not entirely his in any sense—merely in love with him. Being a princess came with certain requirements, and Princess Margot Effer'wyck would soon enough pay her dues in a political marriage to (The Hon.) Rogan LaKarn, Baron of the Torond. Their wedding date—mandated by no less a personage then Emperor Greyffin IV himself—was to be set shortly.

And while Brim knew he could probably tolerate the marriage itself, he had long ago given up trying to make himself accept the fact that LaKarn would also share Margot's bed—even though he knew full well that no real love existed there. She was always careful that he understood where she stood on that point. In the privacy of her suite at the Embassy, she had concluded the message so erotically she left him sweating and short of breath. He fell asleep after his fifth replay....

Next morning, as Chief Steward Grimsby, Collingswood's ancient family retainer, chauffeured the foursome to the stocks, Flynn sat bolt upright in his seat the moment Defiant came into view. "Who is that? " he exclaimed, pointing through the skimmer's windscreen,

"and what in the Universe is he doing?" At the entrance, a huge, familiar figure was intently raising a great blue-and-gold banner onto a flagstaff newly attached to one of the gate uprights.

Brim recognized "who" in an instant, even though the man's broad back was turned from the road. "That's Barbousse!" he exclaimed, hopping through the hatch before Grimsby could fully bring the vechile to a stop.

"Lieutenant Brim," the huge rating bellowed, turning to salute with his free hand. He stood half an iral taller than Brim, was completely bald under his garrison cap, and might have weighed a quarter millstone—yet there was clearly not a measure of fat on his powerful body. He had gentle brown eys that shone with intelligence and compassion, the nose of an eagle, and a jaw that must have stopped a thousand fists—clearly to the detriment of the fists. He had large hands and feet, yet he was perfectly proportioned in every respect. And he wore a huge, ear-to-ear grin. " Defiant's a beauty, sir," he exclaimed, "every iral of 'er."

Collingswood followed Brim from the skimmer with Ursis and Flynn close on her heels.

"Utrillo Barbousse," she whispered, shaking her head in helpless wonderment, "you weren't supposed to report for at least a week. I thought you were on leave...."

"Aye, Captain," Barbousse admitted, saluting again, "that I was. But... Well... I sort of figured the four of you would have your hands full gettin' the new ship finished and all." He shrugged and blushed momentarily. "An' to tell the truth, I was gettin' tired of nothin'

important to do, so..." He saluted Ursis and Flynn, then nodded toward the ship while he secured the flag halyards to a cleat on the flagpole. "I thought it wouldn't hurt if I pitched in signin' on the new crew."

Collingswood suddenly seemed to have something in her eye. She looked up at the great flowing pennant with its colorful depiction of a deadly Rhondell falcon— Defiant's hallmark—then bit her lip for a moment before she spoke. "It's a most elegant banner, Barbousse," she said, "and we can certainly use your help with the crew."

Ursis kissed his fingertips and shook his great, furry head. "Utrillo, my friend," he interjected with a baleful eye, "this new banner will make such a fine impression on the entire shipyard that we shall have our hands full merely preventing other crews from signing on without orders."

Flynn frowned and stared at the great pennant flying lazily in the early-evening breeze.

"How in the world did you manage to get your hands on..." His voice trailed off and he winced. "Ah, belay that, my friend," he said hurriedly.

"Aye, sir," Barbousse mumbled, busying himself with the flag halyards again.

Brim stifled a laugh as Collingswood suddenly scanned the empty sky as if expecting the arrival of an extremely important starship. No one who had ever shipped with Barbousse really wanted to know how the big rating acquired war-vanished luxury items like cases of fine old Logish Meem, and flagstaffs with custom pennants far in advance of launch ceremonies, only the he could and did—with satisfying regularity.

"Barbousse," Brim choked presently, "your banner is perfect—as is your timing."

"True," Ursis agreed, nodding his head gravely. "'Winter songbirds trill lustily from autumn treetops,' as we say—and with your arrival, Utrillo, comes my own personal feeling that this war may yet be won by our tired old Empire...."

During the next days, specialists among Defiant's crew began to report aboard. For the most part, they were engineering technicians assigned to the big antigravity generators that lifted and propelled the ship at speeds below Sheldon's Great LightSpeed Constant. They went to work immediately on the two Admiralty CL-Standard-84 Verticals that would soon be needed when she was towed from the stocks for finishing.

One new lieutenant who was not assigned to the Engineering spaces appeared one morning at the simulators and reported directly to Brim. He was tall, redheaded, and barrel-chested—and he was not dressed in the blue cape of Emperor Greyffin's Galactic Fleet. Instead, he wore a stiff crimson collar, dark knee breeches with crimson side stripes, and lightweight, knee-high boots.

He could also fly—with no help from the machines. Midway between his shoulders, his tunic opened to accommodate a pillow-sized swelling common to his species known as a

"tensil." This protrusion covered an outgrowth of his reflexive nervous system that automatically coordinated the complex motions of an enormous pair of auburn wings—really a second, specialized, set of arms—that arched upward like sandy cowls trailing long flight feathers in cascades that reached all the way to the floor.

He was an A'zurnian, dressed in the wonderfully old-fashioned regimentals of his home planet, the mild, lushly vegetated world on the edge of Galactic Sector 944. Entirely populated by flighted—determinedly peaceful—being, A'zurn had been easily seized by League invaders early in the war. Less than a year previously, Brim distinguished himself in a daring raid to assist the very active A'zurnian resistance movement—and was subsequently decorated for his efforts by Crown Prince Leopold, leader of the Free A'zurnian gorvenment-in-exile at Avalon. There was something about the cut of this lieutenant's uniform that said "unusual." Especially his shiny, new Helmsman's insignia that fairly shouted of recent graduation from the Academy near Avalon. He had a wide forehead and narrow chin with a sharply chiseled nose. His huge eyes were those of a born hunter, and they sparkled with intelligence and compassion, as well as humor.

"Leading Torpedoman Barbousse suggested I report directly to you after I signed in," the young A'zurnian said in a strong, steady voice, saluting formally. "I am known as Aram of Nahshon, and I have wished to meet you since I learned that you personally freed my father on A'zurn."

"Your father?" Brim asked in astonishment.

"Yessir," the lieutenant said. "A man in a tricornered hat. You gave him your captured field piece—just before you boarded the launch for home. Do you remember?" he asked anxiously. "Torpedoman Barbousse did."

"Universe," Brim whispered. "Of course I remember—the nobleman."

Aram smiled. "Yes," he said. "First Earl of Xeres—and cousin to Crown Prince Leo who decorated you. The other A'zurnian in the field piece was Tharshish of Josias, our Prime Minister at one time. You and your men freed them both from the prison at the Research Center. It was by their personal petitions that you were awarded our Order of Cloudless Flight."

Brim ground his teeth as gruesome memories of the raid flooded back. The prisoners had all been horribly mangled—wings cruelly snapped in half to prevent their escape. To the Leaguers, such treatment was quite normal—there was no conscious desire to inflict punishment. Pragmatism ruled their entire military establishment—especially the black-uniformed Controllers. Wingless prisoners simply required fewer guards than one who could fly.

"Never for a moment pity them," Aram said gently, breaking the Carescrian's awful reverie. "Even though they are now flightless, they are still proud—and quite capable of considerable fight, as the Tyrant discovers each new day they are free."

Brim smiled and nodded his head. "Yes," he said quietly. "I understood that by looking into their eyes."

The A'zurnian lieutenant returned Brim's smile. "Thank you," he said simply. "Perhaps aboard Defiant I can somehow begin to repay my personal debt to you and Mr. Barbousse."

It took Brim a few moments to understand just what the young A'zurnian was talking about. Then he shut his eyes and shook his head. "No one owes anything to anybody," he stated firmly. "Barbousse and I were only doing our jobs as imperial soldiers." He laughed.

"Besides, if you have even half the guts of the other A'zurnians I met during that raid, then we'll all feel xaxtdamned lucky to have you aboard. We've got one hell of a war on our hands—all of us." With that, he motioned Defiant's new Helmsman Second Class into the simulator room. "Now, let's introduce you to this new ship of ours...."

On the stocks, Defiant herself gained a somewhat finished appearance amid the coils of wire, hullmetal plates, cables, ducting, hoses, rumbling generators, and other detritus that littered the construction site. Within two weeks, the officers' quarters were more or less completed, and Brim moved aboard—marveling that his fortunes had so improved that he now required two traveling cases instead of the one that bobbed at his heels when he first passed through the gates of the Eorean Complex on Gimmas Haefdon, fresh from the Academy.

While more systems were completed within the hull, each succeeding day saw larger groups of crew members muster through Barbousse's makeshift office near the main hatch, and the ship began to take on some aspects of an operational Fleet unit.

In due course, Defiant's hull and superstructure exteriors were finished, and the day arrived when the starship could be moved to an ordinary gravity pool for completion.

According to hoary tradition, a small launching ceremony marked the occasion—sadly rushed by a mysterious construction speed-up that had suddenly affected the entire shipyard.

Brim and Ursis witnessed the late-afternoon proceedings from Defiant's rain-soaked, half finished bridge with the ships two CL-Standard-84 Vertical Gravity Generators rumbling steadily in the background. Barbousse's great banner snapped and fluttered in the strong wind from a temporary flagstaff at the bow. Overhead, a dreary sky was pregnant with lowering, scudding clouds—sure precursors of another in a constant parade of violent summer thunderstorms that had darkened most of the day and wrinkled the lead-toned bay with whitecaps.

" Defiant is certainly a much larger ship than was our little Truculent," the Bear observed, standing at the forward starboard corner of the bridge beside the only control console yet installed. He was holding on to his hat and motioning toward a pair of large, humpbacked tugs that had turned from the main waterway and were battling into the teeth of the wind toward the stocks. The powerful vessels rode atop streaming clouds of spray and foam as they ploughed contemptuously over the deeps troughs. "I have often seen T-class destroyers moved with a single tug," Ursis observed with a grin, "but even incomplete, our Defiant requires at least two." He bent over the shoulder of Sublieutenant Alexi Radosni Provodnik to check the Vertical readouts personally. Provodnik, a new engineering officer fresh from Sodeskaya, was a much smaller Bear who had been assigned to Defiant only a short while.

He had sharper, more pointed ears than most of his colleagues and smaller fangs—inlaid with two positively immense Starblazes. The young Bear was clearly scion of an extraordinarily wealthy Sodeskayan family. He was also enthusiastic about anything that provided an opportunity to learn about starships, and had quickly become the darling of the whole crew.

Brim smiled as he leaned his elbows on a control ledge beneath empty frames for the ship's Hyperscreens—glasslike crytals that provided "normal" views of the outside at faster-than-light velocities. "From the feel of things in The Box, Defiant will be a lot bigger to fly, too," he observed with a chuckle. "Probably a lot like one of those tugs."

"If that is the case, friend Wilf," Ursis growled with a sparkle of humor in his eyes, "we shall tow Nergol Triannic to his doom. One fights with the weapons one finds at hand." His wink was punctuated by a lengthy rumble of approaching thunder.

Aft, at the beam ends of Defiant's stern, teams of shipyard workers dressed in reflective clothing were already balancing themselves on the slippery hullmetal while they retracted protective covers from stout optical cleats set in the afterdeck end of the sheer strakes. By this time, the tugs had lumbered into position some two hundred irals out from the stocks and were hovering just clear of the tossing waves. Presently, thick hawser beams flashed from their huge optical bollards, contacted the cleats, and brightened as the tugs smoothly shifted into reverse, laying on the tension against Defiant, which was still fastened securely to the stocks.

To landward, a small crowd had gathered at a temporary platform near the bow—automatic umbrellas bobbed and hovered nervously in the gusty wind. Someone read a short speech that was totally unintelligible on the bridge. Then a brass band energetically yerked out a few off-key bars of Heroic Music from the Grat'mooz Sector— that came through all too well, at least to Brim's way of thinking.

"Hull 921," a voice rasped suddenly from a temporary COMM module fastened to a stringer by two oversized C-clamps, "contact Lauch Operations on GTD zero five one. Good afternoon, sir."

"Hull 921 on GTD zero five one, and thank you," Brim answered, switching frequencies on the battered little box. "Hull 921 checking in from the stocks."

"Hull number 921, good day," a female voice answered promptly. "Verify readiness to melt the trennels, please."

"Hull 921, one moment," Brim answered. He looked as Ursis and raised his eyebrows.

"OPS wants to know if we're ready to melt the fastenings to the stocks," he said.

The bear bent to peer at the readouts again, frowned, then shook his head thoughtfully and spoke to Provodnik at the console. "Before the launch crew frees us from the stocks, Alexi Radosni," he said gently, "you may wish to balance the gain on the portside Hartzel feedbacks. We want Defiant to ride an even keel from the very beginning, eh?"

"I think ve mayeh have problem, here, Nikolai Yanuarievich," the younger Bear said, passing delicate hands over an array of power controls. Immediately, a bank of indicators turned from yellow to steady green. "Is third time port generators have lost balance in last couple of cycles," he asserted; "I vas about to bring this to your attention." As he spoke, the indicators suddenly changed color again. "Ah, like that, sir," he added. "One of the feedback circuits seems to drop control data. Ten'stadt Fields there in X-Damper quadrant dump all the vay to minus sixtyeh-seven just before it happens."

Ursis bent and glowered at the readouts. "Hmm," he muttered. "Isee what you mean." He frowned as he studied the flowing colors on the console readouts, then turned to Brim. "As you have probably gathered, Wilf," he said with a serious look on his face, "we have lost automatic balance of the port Verticals." He thought for a moment, staring out over the tossing gray water of the wind-swept sound. "Perhaps it would be wise to request a brief systems delay."

Brim nodded. "Hull 921," he announced after another, much louder, crack of thunder rattled to a conclusion in the distance. "Request five-cycle systems check, please."

There was a measurable pause before an answer came. "Hull 921: cleared for one five-cycle systems check," the woman's voice acknowledged with a slight edge. Brim understood that launch operations were meticulously timed, and delays of any kind could result in horribly tangled schedules. "Check in immediately when you complete, please," the controller added.

"Hull 921. Many thanks," Brim answered, then nodded to Ursis. "You've got five cycles, Nik," he said.

Ursis and Provodnik huddled for perhaps two cycles, conversing rapidly is Sodeskayan and exercising the controls. Presently the older Bear straightened and nodded to Brim. "It seems that we have serious problems indeed, my friend," he said, nodding his head gravely. "Probably Alexi and I can jury-rig a fix around the trouble in perhaps a metacycle.

Would you inquire as to what that might do to the launch schedule?"

Brim naddoed. "Hull 921. Requesting one-metacycle systems workaround," he said, but was pretty sure of the answer before he started.

The controller's voice returned almost immediately. "Hull 921: sorry, that is a negative. Do you need to scrub your launching?"

"Hull 921. How long before you could schedule us again, please?"

"Hull 921," the controller answered after a slight pause, "estimate ten standard days before we have openings."

Brim looked at the Bear, who had been listening to the conversation. "What now, Nik?"

Ursis turned to Provodnik. "We could take the starboard generator off Automatic and run it ourselves, Alexi Radosni," he suggested. "Otherwise, we cause immediate cancellation of the lauch—and put Defiant at least a week behind schedule." He stared the young Bear directly in the eye. "Do you think you can use the manual controls here to balance the generator with its mate to port?... If you feel any uncertainty at all, I should count it a privilege to take your place at the console—immediately."

Provodnik considered for a moment. "I am sorelyeh temptesd to claim that I can, Nikolai Yanuarievich," he said, sliding from his seat, "but that would be irresponsible. My sole experience with CL-Standard-84 generators is aboard this ship—and I arrived on EleandorBestienne only ten days ago from the Mother Planets."

"Your honesty is appreciated, Alexi Radosni," Ursis replied pointedly frowning up through a network of bare frames and stringers at the fast-approaching storm. "This is definitely no time for heroics of any kind." Then he pursed his lips and slid into the seat at the first drops of rain began to spatter the console. "Wilf," he said, "you will please to inform Operations that we shall be ready to proceed momentarily."

Brim nodded and touched the COMM. "This is Hull 921," he said, raising his voice to make it heard over the hiss of the rain. "Stand by for affirmative on launch decision."

"Hull 921: Much appreciated!" the woman's voice crackled from the COMM module.

"Standing by...."

" Defiant requires approximately one hundred ten on the Verticals," Ursis explained to the younger Sodeskayan as new color sequences began to cascade over the readouts. "So..." his hand hardy moved over the controls, but the generators changed pitch slightly and a number of indicators winked on the console. "Only the slightest lift while they melt the retaining trennels," he said, his voice now hardly audible over the drumming rain. He was all business now: a complete professional—totally consumed by his work. "Call out the vectors, Alexi Radosni—as they appear."

"One hundred ten in vertical," Provodnik repeated, staring at the readouts in rapt concentration. The rumble from 'midships increased noticeably as Ursis shifted a section of the control from green to a reddish orange. "And steady...."

The elder Bear looked up momentarily and nodded to Brim. "We are now ready when Operations is, Wilf," he said.

"Hull 921. Prepared to detach immediately," Brim reported.

The woman's matter-of-fact reply came within a moment: "Hull 921: stand by." Her words were almost coincident with the actual firings of the trennels that held the ship to the stocks.

Bright flashes strobed in the stormy grayness from beneath the hull, accompanied by an ear-splitting volley of sharp reports that cascaded from the bow to the stern and rocked the ship like low-altitude turbulence. Clouds of acrid smoke swept the deck and burned Brim's nostrils while Ursis's hands moved surely over the gravity controls and lightning flashed from the lowering storm.

"One hundred fifteen in vertical..." Provodnik intoned. "One hundred twenty and steady...."

The sound of the ship's Vertical generators rose almost neg ligibly and the deck swayed beneath Brim's feet. He looked out the Hyperscreen frame in surprise. Defiant was already halfway off the stocks and moving swiftly over the darkening shoreline in the wake of the two tugs. A sudden cacophony of air horns and sirens crashed through the teeming storm: Defiant's welcome to the world. A small knot of dockyard technicians lining the quayside broke out in cheering—all ragged and spontaneous. Shipwrights from other stocks paused to wave their helmets as she passed. These men had built countless starships, both in war and in peace, and—the Universe willing—they would build countless more. Their cheers reflected fierce professional pride and sent a gesture of goodwill to the star sailors who would man this, the latest result of their craft. Brim felt his eyes fill for a moment—it was not the rain....

Then all noise was abruptly swallowed in a stunning—deafening—strike of lightning on the high KA'PPA tower directly aft of the bridge. For a moment, the entire structure and its empty KA'PPA studs blazed out like some skeletal beacon. Brim was knocked gasping to the deck by the concussion—and a tremendous thunderclap that instantly proceeded from it.

Nearly deafened by the violent discharge, he climbed shakily to his feet only to catch the rasping shriek of a runaway gravity generator. He'd heard that ugly sound a number of times before on failing Carescrian ore barges. They all sounded pretty much the same. It was the port Vertical this time—clearly its automatic damper had been blown out by the lightning strike, and the big generator was now spooling up to full power!

More blinding flashes of nearby lightning burned images of Ursis's grim visage in Brim's eyes as the Bear desperately fought Defiant's controls. "Cap that machine, Alexi Radosni!" he roared to Provodnik as the deck canted up crazily to starboard, "NOW!" His words were nearly drowned by another cascade of crackling thunder. Eerie green light continued to flash from the empty KA'PPA masts and flickered along the network of open stringers above the bridge.

With no directional controls installed on the bridge, Brim could only hang on and watch helplessly while both deck crews aft slid across the streaming hullmetal in their protective suits, scrambling desperately for nonexistant handholds. One by one, the screaming men dropped over the metal precipice into the thrashing water beneath the ship. On the bridge, loose gear and small tools cascaded into heaps along the starboard bulkhead. Grabbing an open Hyperscreen housing, Brim hung on while the big starship tilted toward vertical, blanking the stormy sky with the darker mass of her own deck. She was going over on her back!

Suddenly through the driving downpuor, he saw Provodnik scramble across the crazily canted deck of the bridge using empty console supports for footholds. In mere clicks, the young Bear grabbed a handle on the emergency power panel, twisted the door open, and—incredibly without losing his grip—pulled a main fuse block to the automatic controls.

Instantly, the ear-splitting shriek died to an even rumble as the runaway generator spooled down to default power settings and Defiant slowly returned to an even keel. Aft, the ungainly tugs had been caught off guard and were completely unable to react at all, except for the knots of crewmen that poured from the hatches, pointing with astonishment as the big ship settled back on an even keel.

Heart thumping wildly in his chest, Brim glanced forward toward the receding stocks just as ten broken bodies appeared in Defiant's frothing wake: remains of the hapless work crews who were caught in the maelstrom of raging gravitrons beneath the ship. His skin crawled. Such absolute destructive potential was only one reason why powerful vessels like starships were rarely permitted to fly across land masses—at least at low altitudes. He shuddered in the chill air—had he grabbed at the Hyperscreen housing even a click later than he did, he might have fallen from the bridge and joined them himself....

A few irals away, Ursis and the younger Sodeskayan were again totally engrossed in the control console, each running one of the generators by hand. Apparently Provodnik had suddenly received a great dose of confidence in his ability at a console. Sudden necessity had a way of making that happen—Brim understood the process well. The very best of Carescrian ore barges he had flown could supply three lifetimes' worth of sudden necessity—in a single trip!

Shaking his head, he realized for the first time that it was no longer raining.

The resulting inquest extended over nearly twenty-five interminable days, depriving Brim and Ursis of valuable metacycles they should have spent helping prepare Defiant for space.

It was time that had to be made up from their own lives—but manpower was too short in those wartime years to permit substitutes at any job.

When the tribunal ended, however, all three officers present on the bridge were pronouced to be "without fault," and references to the incident were deleted immediately from their Admiralty records. Surprisingly, the official "culprit" in the shipyard report was not the lightning strike. Instead, sole blame was fixed on the defective signal mixer whose improperly synchronized feedback logic had slowly destroyed both automatic control mechanisms during the preceding weeks of intense system testing. But Brim and Ursis both noted a great deal of coincident work being done on the KA'PPA-tower insulation—and complete reisolation of the Vertical's waveguide system.

Neither the Carescrian nor his Sodeskayan friend mentioned anything about the waveguide work outside Defant's immediate flight crew, but Commander Collingswood subsequently messaged a number of highly classified reports to Vice Admiral Plurton—a close friend in the Admiralty—in case the trouble should surface at some later tiem. "It never hurts to have one's political homework promptly done," as she stated one morning in the wardroom. "You never know when a folder of well-placed reports might come in very handy."

Perhaps the only positive result of the tragedy was a totally revamped Veritcal specification for the remainder of the Defiant-class ships. But the changes were far too late for Defiant herself—whose major systems were already on board and could only be retrofitted, not wholly replaced. Unfortunately, as Ursis often out it, "A whole year's worth of patches is often inferior to a five-minute design modification." In addition, Defiant herself was now widely known as a troubled ship, a reputation Brim suspected she would never fully escape.

And, of course, there was not much that could be done for the men who were killed.

Defiant's crew joined the shipyard workers in a generous collection for their families, but a few things in that day and age were still beyond the capabilities of technology....

With each new morning, the starship became more and more complete—inside and out—and crew members began to arrive in a steady stream. A new lieutenant commander reported aboard early one morning some two weeks following Defiant's near disaster. He was middle-aged, handsome in a weather-beaten way, and looked as if he were clearly accustomed to command—although he had only a reserve commission. There was a certain agelessness to his face, framed by a gray beard and mustache, and even from a distance his gray eyes sparkled with the keen wisdom and humor of a longtime starsailor.

One ring with an enorous StarBlaze graced his long fingers, and his new uniform, though casually worn, had clearly been fashioned for a prince—at a princely sum.

Brim was taking a fresh-air break when the man strode across the brow and stopped just short of the main entrance hatch. He leaned back to gaze at the bridge for a moment, then shrugged in a sort of pained resignation. This ritual completed, he stopped to critically inspect Brim as if the latter had purposely presented himself there for just such an occasion.

"They ca' me Baxter Oglethorp Calhoun," he said abruptly in a rich baritone. "I'm to be Defiant's Executive Officer—an', Mr. Wilf Brim, with myself on board, ye are no mair the only Carescrian in the crew."

Brim felt his heart skip a beat—he'd spent years losing the same sort of thick Carescrian burr he'd just heard. "A Carescrian?" he stammered.

"Ay, chield, 'tis indeed a thing you'd better believe," Calhoun said with a grin, "even if ye have decided to forsake the old tongue. But don't get your hopes up for any 'down-home'

commizzeratn'. 'Tis been so long since I ha' luiked upon that awful place, I hardly remember onything o't—except 'tis a good place to be from. Forever!"

"You'll get no arguments from me on that score, Number One," Brim vowed. "But how is it you happen to know me?"

"A better question is how might I ha' avoided it, mon," Calhoun declared. "Right noo, ye are the most Carescrian in the Empire—for which I am eternally grateful. The likes o' ye keeps the public eye off the likes o' me." He smiled with obvious satisfaction, then abruptly pushed his way past and continued on into the ship.

"I think I'm honored," Brim replied to the man's receding back. "What is it you normally do in peacetime?"

"I am no stranger to space, young mon," Calhoun muttered without even bothering to turn his head, "an' I may yet find my grave in it." He laughed. "For the nonce we'll say that I'm in what you'd call the salvage business—an' the less ye ask o't, the better. Understand?"

Brim started to reply, but by that time, Calhoun was busy at the sign-in desk, and Ursis was paging from the bridge. The young Carescrian chuckled as he made his way up a companionway two treads at a time. It looked as if Defiant was attracting a typical Collingswood gathering of miscellany. Somehow, he wasn't surprised—or disappointed—in the slightest.

Defiant's crew ranged all the way from seasoned space veterans to raw new recruits—officers and ratings alike. And all voiced happy surprise at conditions aboard their new ship. The wardrooms and spaceman's mess were constantly supplied with all sorts of normally unavailable food and potables—courtesy of the mysterious Barbousse. Already the ship was developing her own personality. Perhaps it was somewhat more clublike in pradigm than might be generally considered desirable throughout the Fleet. But then a very similar atmosphere had been—at least in Brim's opinion—largely responsible for old Truculent's success before its near destruction while battling three NF-110s off Lixor in the Ninety-first Province with Brim at the controls.

"If anything," Ursis rumbled to Brim one afternoon as they relaxed in comfortable wardroom chairs, "friend Barbousse has become even more discerning since leaving old Truculent." He lifted a ruby goblet to the light. "Look at that color, Wilf. Such meem can only be described as 'glorious.'" In the background, a number of his countrymen were toasting each other heartily: "To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya wo go!..."

Brim's tastes were in no way so sophisticated as Ursis's. before joining the Helmsman's Academy, he had experienced the pleasures of meem only twice in his life. "It certainly tastes 'glorious,' Nik," he said with a grim. "Iguess I'll have to take your word on the color—I'm still kind of low on experience."

"Then you vouch for the taste," the Bear said, "and I shall vouch for the color."

"We have a bargain, Nik," Brim laughed. "Now, all we need is to find somebody who is interested in what we think."

"That," the Bear said with a thundering laugh, "may be more difficult than the vouching itself."

"Not so," grumped a deep female voice from a couch behind them. "I only signed on this afternoon. And I don't know anything about this wardroom at all—except you, Wilf Brim."

Surprised, Brim whirled around to confront a woman of average height with wide shoulders, narrow hips, long thin legs, narrow feet—and a perfectly awesome bust. Her face was almost totally round, with a button nose, intelligent eyes, short fuzzy hair, and a toothy smile. He felt his jaw drop. Nobody else in the Universe looked like that. "Professor—

Commander—Wellington!" he exclaimed, scrambling to his feet. "I never missed a single one of your lectures at the Helmsman's Academy!" With a look of awe on his face, he placed a hand on Ursis's shoulder. "Commander Wellington, may I present Nikolai Yanuarievich Ursis, the finest Systems Officer in the Universe?"

"I am indeed honored, Commander Wellington," Ursis said, rising to his feet, then bowing deeply in the Sodeskayan manner. "And what place do you hold in Defiant's crew?" he asked.

"My orders read 'Weapons Officer,'" Wellington declared, scratching her head. "But it all happened so quickly. A week ago, I didn't even own a battle suit; I am really a historian, you know. Then—zap!—I got the assignment by message, and here I am. My head's still spinning."

"Commander Wellington is probably the Universe's expert on antique weapons systems, Nik," Brim added.

Wellington laughed. "Just between you, me, and the bedpost," she said, placing her hand conspiratorially beside her mouth, "I think they're getting a little desperate for crews."

"Say not so, good lady," Ursis said, eyes sparkling with good humor. "It would surprise no one if Defiant were to receive a battery or two of antique weapons."

"I thought of the possibility myself," Wellington quipped, "so I brought a few barrels of gunpowder with me in my kit. We may have a small problem with recoil in deep space, but..." She shrugged phlegmatically.

Ursis looked at Brim and grinned. "Nergol Triannic is in deep trouble now, my Carescrian friend," he said. "He might be able to fight radiation fires with N-rays, but how can he hope to counter cannonballs and grapeshot? You are clearly our secret weapon, Commander Wellington!"

"That's 'Dora,' please! I won't know who anybody's talking to."

"'Dora' it is, then," Ursis agreed. "Together, the three of us will blast the League of Dark Stars into spinning atoms."

"With a few deep-space recoil problems," Wellington piped in.

"Which it appears we shall soon toast with Logish Meem," Brim interjected as Grimsby magically appeared with a third filling goblet. "Probably not a half-bad idea, come to think of it," he mused as the ancient steward bowed and set the goblet before Wellington. "All problems dissolve eventually in this magic solvent."

"To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!" Ursis exclaimed. The three drained their meem in the fashion of Bears, then touched the goblets together upside down.

"Hear, hear!" Wellington replied with her eyes opened in surprise. She looked at the goblet. "By the Great Feathered Spirits of Higgins!" she exclaimed. "Where in the Universe did you find this? I haven't tasted anything like it since before the war started."

"We depend on a great deal of magic aboard this ship, Dora," Collingswood interrupted from the doorway. "When I discovered Glendora T. Wellington had volunteered for combat, I knew I'd found someone who could help sustain it. So I personally asked for you."

"Regula Collingswood!" Wellington squealed. "Well, I should have known."

The reunion lasted long into the hours of darkness....

During the next weeks, Brim and Aram were joined in the simulators by angeline Waldo, a Reserve Helmsman from the merchant service who decided she wanted a ship that could fight back, Galen Fritz, a veteran trooper-turned-Helmsman from the Bax cluster, and Ardelle Jennings, a junior Helmsman fresh from the Imperial Academy. Each, Brim found quickly, had a unique style at the helm.

Jennings, for example, flew absolutely by the book. She was so perfect it was almost annoying, and she left absolutely nothing to chance. Brim imagined that when she was at the controls, Defiant would leave a neat red pen tracing across space—exactly corresponding to the course she had laid out well in advance of their passage. He hoped she would be able to perform as efficiently in the heat of battle, where the best-laid plans could—and often did—change with each click.

On the other hand, Fritz and Waldo—both experienced Helmsmen—flew easily, almost casually. They were comfortable at the controls. Even during the most trying of circumstances the Master Simulators could throw at them, they remained calm and never

"lost" the ship. Brim knew that Triannic's minions would quickly come up with more taxing challenges than any the civilian operators might conjure, but he expected that both would rise to the occasion. So long as the ship was capable of flight, they'd make sure her gunners accomplished their mission. And that was what the war—and defiant—were all about.

Aside from that, Waldo had magnificent legs....

It was Aram, however, that Brim found truly astonishing. Beneath his formal A'zurnian veneer, he was both technically astute and relaxed at the controls. And he could learn anything at any time, even after the many Sodeskayan meem bashes, when everybody—including himself—had toasted far more than was even remotely sensible. Not only that, he was absolutely unflappable in The Box. Even after session that left Brim himself on the edge of taking a blast pike to the whole complex, Aram came through sweating but still firmly in control of every situation. The young Helmsman modestly explained that being naturally flighted made the act of piloting far easier for him, but Brim knew better. Arm was simply xaxtdamned good....

Gradually over the ensuing weeks, sounds of construction subsided inside the ship , and her passages and companionways became less cluttered wit loose wires, construction gear, and just plain dirt. Closed access hatches for the most part stayed closed as stores were packed away and secured for deep space. The smell of the ship changed, too: from dust, bonding chemicals, and drying paint to new carpeting, new electronics, hot food, and the unmistakable smell of polish—the universal element of every military starship that had ever been built.

During this time, the number of dockyard workers between decks and on the gangways also changed, thinning to a trickle as civilian contractors were replaced by ever-increasing numbers of the Blue Capes who would actually man the commissioned ship. And—much to the amazement of neatly everyone—the shipyard declared I.F.S. Defiant to be "officially" complete two days ahead of schedule.

The matter-of-fact announcement was delivered by one J. Leeland Blake, a tall, serious-looking builder's representative in the traditional stovepipe hat worn by all shipyard managers. He appeared during Collingswood's regular morning status meeting in Defiant's shiny new wardroom.

"Following the successful resolution of Action Reports 11235 through. 11781," Blake reported pretentiously, "Starship I.F.S. Defiant is hereby declared to be an operational vehicle and cleared for immediate flight trials...." He frowned and denied his throat while he peered into his display and adjusted a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. 'That, of course, specifically excludes Action Reports 791, 832, 5476, 9078, 9079, and 10517 through 11000," he added. "However, those have to do with interface modifications, and we agreed—I believe—to deal with them after Defiant's trial. Am I correct, Captain Collingswood?"

Collingswood smiled noncommittally and checked her own display carefully. "That is correct, Mr. Blake," she said after a. moment, then looked around the table at her senior officers. "You've heard the gentleman's words," she declared with a smile. "If any of you have disagreements, now is certainly an appropriate time to voice them. Nik, what of the system? They've been troublesome since Defiant was on the stocks. Are you satisfied?"

Ursis scowled for a moment, then nodded thoughtfully. "Defiant's systems are as thoroughly tested as we can make them, Captain," he said evenly. "In fact, Power and Propulsion appear to be virtually perfect." Then he held up a warning finger. "Admittedly, some electronic problems do persist," he added, "but nothing that appears serious—or schedule—threatening."

"Wad ye gi' her a full bill o' health noo, Nikolai?" Calhoun questioned, peering over his glasses.

Ursis nodded, "Yes," he said after some consideration. "Except perhaps for the starboard Vertical. That still functions somewhat on the rough side, thought it has been operating in a steady state for more than a week now." He shrugged philosophically. "I suppose I must admit that it is at least operational—although I do not fully trust it."

"There are no unresolved Action Reports on the Verticals, Lieutenant Ursis," the civilian replied defensively. "Both generators operate completely to specification, you know."

"Agreed," Ursis said dryly. "It is when I finally got to read the specifications themselves that I determined further complaints were useless." He crossed his legs and relaxed in the chair amid half-stifled guffaws and choked-back snickers. The builders had been less than gracious when asked for system specifications. Most other crews were satisfied with user operations and maintenance manuals.

"And you, Mr. Brim?' Collingswood interjected. "What have you to add on the subject?'

Brim pinned. "You've heard me grumble about our troublesome steering engines, Mr. Blake. But they've done well enough for a week now—and the new Chairman you downloaded is the best anywhere. The mods for parallel quantum/vector analysis seem to make a lot of difference in the way she keeps a course. At least that's the way she feels in The Box."

"I trust she'll come through at least as well during actual flight," Blake said proudly, regaining some of his good humor. "We've built some fine ships here over the past few hundred years— Defiant is one of the best, l am certain...."

The meeting went on for more than an hour afterward, but in the end the pact was made.

Collingswood signed the shipyard's Red Book, and Defiant was ready for commissioning.

The following morning just after dawn, everyone assembled outside the starship's main hatch while a polished brass nameplate was noisily fixed to a bulkhead with four old-fashioned rivets:

I.F.S. DEFIANT

JOB 29921

ELEANDOR-BESTIENNE YARD

19/51995.

In a simple ceremony, both Blake and Collingswood gave short speeches containing a number of necessary platitudes concerning the Emperor, home, hearth, and duty. Then a local beauty doused the bows with a bottle of Logish Meem, and—while Barbousse hoisted the Rhondell-falcon banner to the top of the KA'PPA tower— Defiant entered the Fleet lists as a "commissioned" vessel. Afterward, as the crew trooped back aboard to their stations (many first joining Collingswood when she stopped to polish the new plaque with her sleeve), a dockyard painting crew applied a Fleet Designator on both sides of her bow:

"CL.921." I.FS. Defiant was—at least officially—declared ready for flight.

Soon afterward taxi tests began, and the ship came through with a few minor snags, but surprisingly well considering her past record. Two weeks later, she slid for the first time into her own element space. In spite of her size, she appeared to be handy and maneuverable, surprisingly light on her feet and astonishing in the way she could accelerate. Only the most powerful destroyers could outspeed her into Hyperspace, and in nearby taverns and meem halls, her crew was quick to crow her talents. She was still known as a "troublesome" ship, nothing would ever change that. But she was early on known as a happy ship, too, Probably that made much of the difference....

Through the following days of space trials, Defiant's crew took their first real steps toward becoming a team, capable—at least—of flying the big starship into deep space to run—in her four Admiralty CL-Standard 489.3G Drive crystals. At Hyperspeeds, she once more proved to be an extremely swift and nimble ship. Designed for a top velocity of no more than 32000 LightSpeed, on her final set of speed trials she actually sustained 36100. Afterward, it was widely rumored among the crew that Ursis and a number of other Bears—including old Borodov from I.F.S. Truculent, now stationed at the Admiralty in Avalon—had contrived to alter her N(112-B) Power Chambers at the time the waveguides were being reoriented, but Ursis vociferously denied any such Sodeskayan conspiracy.

Of course, nobody believed him.

After the last of the speed runs were recorded, Brim reversed course for EleandorBestienne. There were last-minute modifications to be made following her first major excursion—and a number of discrepancies still required correction. Nevertheless, the ship appeared to be as ready as men could make her for actual service. It almost seemed as if she had outgrown her original propensity for trouble.

Almost...

Chapter 2

PREPARATION

Defiant had been slowed below Hyperspeed for more than a metacycle now and was cruising steadily toward EleandorBestienne on her four lateral lateral gravity generators alone. Inside the spacious bridge, only a few of her twenty-three consoles were occupied: Brim, Aram, Ursis, and Calhoun operated the ship while most of the other flight crew caught a few cycles' well-deserved rest. Ahead, the shipyard planet nearly filled the now-transparent Hyperscreens when Aram spoke up from the starboard Helmsman's seat: "I've just contacted Planetary Center for arrival information at Orange-Eight Distrct, Wilf."

"Let's hear it," Brim replied, reluctantly interrupted in the midst of a particularly stimulating fantasy. Margot Effer'wyck was never very far from the surface of his mind.

"Weather twenty-six thousand irals: scattered; twenty-three thousand: thunderstorms; visibility five c'lenyts; temperature one zero one; dew point seven six; wind calm; atmospheric density two nine eight two; visual approaches in progress," Aram recited from memory.

"Very well," Brim said, shaking his head and grinning. The red-haired A'zurnian's ability to recall was absolutely prodigious. "Mr. Chairman," he said, "check us in with Planetary Center for arrival at eighty-one-B, Orange-Eight."

"Aye, Lieutenant," the Chairman answered. "Check in Planetary Center for Orange Region, District-Eight yards, Complex eighty-one-B."

planetary Center responded presently from the surface. "Fleet CL.921 cleared direct to North-eleven-E synchronous buoy, Region Orange. On arrival, continue descent to two five zero c'lenyts and decelerate to velocity two three zero zero."

"Fleet CL.921 acknowledges direct North-eleven-E arrival," Brim replied. "We are at two nine zero zero c'lenyts and two five zero zero velocity. Decelerating to velocity of two three zero zero." Then he turned to Ursis. "How do the Verticals look, Nik?" he asked.

"My readouts appear normal," the Bear replied from the corner console directly to Aram's right. "Both have been running in auto-modulation for nearly a metacycle now, but I am also prepared for switching to manual control-at any time."

"Thanks," Brim responded, bringing up the gravity pressure on both generators as he slowed the ship. "I'll hope you don't have to do anything like that."

"So will I," Ursis growled. After Defiant's disastrous encounter with lightning on her first trip off the stocks, it was clear he meant it.

Less than half a metacycle after they surged past the North-eleven-E synchronous buoy, Defiant was well within the atmosphere and measuring altitude in irals rather than c'lenyts.

Collingswood had taken her place at the commander's console directly behind Brim when Planetary Center came back on the COMM. "Fleet CL.921: descend and maintain flight level two four zero."

"Fleet CL.921 will continue descent to two four zero," Brim acknowledged. He carefully checked through the Hyperscreens for local traffic. The Center's controllers were good-but they were also brutally overworked, as was their equipment, and approaches to the great shipbuilding center were extremely busy during all watches. Disastrous collisions had occurred despite everything, and-as the saying went-it took only one of those to ruin your whole day.

"Probably it's time to call the hands to stations, Number One," he said over his shoulder to Calhoun, who sat beside Collingswood's position in the second row of consoles. "We'll be down in half a metacycle."

The older Carescrian nodded. "Mr. Chairman," he said, "I wad ca' t' all stations, if ye please."

"You are connected to the blower, Commander," the Chairman acknowledged presently.

Calhoun pulled a tiny whistle from a breast pocket and sounded a silvery note throughout the ship. "All hands t' stations for landing," he boomed. "All hands t' stations for landing, ahoy."

With a smile of satisfaction, Brim listened to alarms sounding from the decks below. In the intraship monitors, he could see people gathering at their flight stations from every quarter of the big ship. Landfall in a starship was always a busy time-often too much so.

To starboard, he followed the lights of a departing ship that crossed their path as she climbed out toward space A look assured him that Aram had seen it, too. With a grin, he let Defiant plunge Through the ship's churning gravity wake like a tram on a bad sector of roadbed. "Morning, Dora," he said to a surprised Wellington while she took her seat at the corner console next to his. Behind him, he could hear the firing crews stumbling to their positions at weapons consoles along the port bulkhead.

He concentrated for a moment on the muted thunder of the four big lateral generators and the slightly higher-pitched rumble of the Verticals. A glance past Aram showed Ursis at his systems panel with an impassive look on his face. But the Bear's eyes never strayed from his readouts-especially the overhead sections where two suspect Verticals were displayed.

Something was not altogether right there; Brim knew it in his gut. But like his Sodeskayan friend, there was no way he could put his finger on anything specific. And Fleet repair policies ran on specifics. Otherwise, everybody would be so busy looking for things that might go wrong that they wouldn't have time to fight a war....

During the next few moments, Defiant descended into broken clouds and Brim felt the first jarring of the turbulence below.

"Ooo!" Wellington exclaimed gleefully beside him. The weapons officer seemed to love rough air.

Chuckling to himself grimly, Brim guessed she might soon get enough to last her a lifetime-maybe even a bit more, judging from all the lightning flashes in the distance ahead.

"Wonder if they'd let us deviate around to the south of that weather we're making for," he mused aloud.

"Somebody up there just asked for the same thing and they wouldn't let her do it," Aram replied. "The Orange-Eight zero one zero radial inbound."

Fleet CL.921: descend and maintain one zero thousand irals, altimeter is two nine one, and suggest now a heading of two five zero-two five zero-to join the Orange-Eight zero one zero radial inbound."

Brim frowned as he estimated the intensity of the storm ahead. It was a big one, with a lot of lightning. "Fleet CL.921," he replied, "I'm looking at a big storm cell just starboard of two five zero, My energy detector says it's pretty active, and I'd rather go around it one way or another."

"Fleet CL.921: sorry, sir. I can't take you there-District Eight has a line of takeoffs to the south. But I've had about sixty starships go through that area, and they're reporting good rides-no problems."

"Well, lady, fleet CL.921 is looking at another cell right now," Brim complained, "on the port side of that same heading, and its active, too. You've got us bracketed."

"Fleet CL.921," the Center replied in a resigned voice, "take a heading of 270-when I can, I'll turn you into the Orange-Eight beacon. It'll be about the one one zero radial."

"Fleet CL.921," Brim sent, "many thanks."

"She must be going to turn us before we get to those storm Cells," Aram observed.

"We'll want everybody down, then," Brim said over his shoulder to Calhoun.

"Aye, lad," Calhoun said. Instantly, chimes began to ring through the ship as the last duty hands raced for their seats.

"Lift augmenters at four," Brim directed.

"Lift augmenters at four," Aram replied. Noise level on the bridge increased as the Verticals spooled up to take the load.

"Atmospheric radiators out...."

Defiant shuddered as finned cooling radiators pushed out from either side of her stern like stubby wings roaring in the slipstream.

"Atmospheric radiators out and...two green lights-they're locked," Aram. reported presently.

"Fleet CL.921: proceed direct to intercept Orange-Eight beacon zero radial," the Center controller interrupted. "Cross the threshold at nine thousand altitude."

"All right," Brim replied, "Fleet CL.921 direct to Orange-Eight arrival; threshold at nine thousand and maintain altitude. Thank you, ma'am."

"Checklist: altimeters," Ursis warned from his seat beside Aram.

"Altimeters read nine one and nine two-within tolerances."

"Landing lights?"

"Check."

"The autopilot just disconnected," Aram reported as the big ship bounced and twisted through increasing turbulence.

"Check," Brim answered, glancing off to port. "Xaxtdamned glad we didn't have to go through either of those cells-look at the lightning, would you."

"Some of that ahead, too," Aram said calmly.

"Yeah," Brim said. "I thought I saw some." Outside, the clouds were closing in and the air was becoming increasingly rough. At he left, however, Wellington was still clearly having the time of her life.

"Fleet CL.921," the Center broke in, "turn ten degrees port, reduce speed to one eight zero."

"Fleet CL.921 acknowledges," Brim sent. "Crank in ten more on the lift augmenters, Aram-and start the landing checklist,"

"Augmenters at fourteen," Aram reported. "Checklist: continuous high-energy flow to the gravs, Nik?"

"On," Ursis reported, "and locked."

"Navigation switches?"

"Switches set-and reset."

"Auto flight panels?..."

"Fleet CL.921," the Center controller broke in, "as soon as you have reduced your speed, descend to five thousand."

"CL.921 slowing to one ninety, going to five thousand," Brim acknowledged. "Did you say Auto flight panels, Aram?"

"Auto flight panels."

"Checked."

"Airspeed EPR bugs?"

"One thirty-nine and cross-checked," Brim answered, altering course slightly while a powerful downdraft caught the starboard deck and threw the big ship on her side.

"Speed brake controls?"

"Neutral," Brim answered after he tolled back onto an even keel. He frowned; it was looking bad ahead again. Aft, the atmospheric radiators were now trailing thick clouds of condensation in the damp air.

"Lotsa lightning," Aram commented, looking up from the checklist display panel. "ILS check...."

"ILS is tuned and identified," Brim answered, continuing to monitor the storm ahead with growing concern. Bad enough flying through something like that at such low altitude, but with Verticals he didn't trust into the bargain... "This is Fleet CL.921," he transmitted to the Center "We'd like to go around a buildup we have directly ahead of us, Can we turn to port a little bit and go on the other side of it?"

"Negative, CL.921-traffic separation regulations. Please maintain present course.

Contact Complex eighty-one tower on one one nine four."

Brim grimaced in disgust. "Here's your xaxtdamned regulations," he muttered to himself.

"Say again, CL.921?"

"CL.921 maintaining present course," Brim grumped in embarrassment, "Checking in to Complex eighty-one-and good day."

"Good day, sir."

"I think we're going to give Defiant a bath," Aram said, staring out the forward Hyperscreens.

"And how," Brim answered. "Just look at that storm." It was getting downright difficult keeping the big cruiser on course, much less maintaining any sort of accurate descent-and he still couldn't see the surface of the water. "Complex eighty-one Tower: Fleet CL.921 with you at five thousand," he said, shaking his head.

"Good day Fleet CL.921," Complex eighty-one replied. "Reduce speed one seven zero and turn port two seven one."

"Fleet CL.921 going to two seven one at one seven zero," Brim answered. The clouds broke for a moment to starboard, and he spied a cruiser steering a parallel path no more than three c'lenyts away. He smiled. No wonder they hadn't let him deviate!

"Fleet CL.921: turn port to two four zero, descend and maintain three thousand,"

Complex eighty-one broke in.

"CL.921 is two four zero out of five for three," Brim said, glancing across Aram's console to lJrsis. The Bear was peerring at him with a concerned expression on his face. "How're those Verticals?" the Carescrian asked, guessing what was bothering his friend.

Ursis shook his head. "I debated raising an alarm, Wilf," he said, "Your question has saved me the trouble of a decision." He pursed his lips. "Somewhere the spirit of Voot is at work today-in this most damned of all damned mechanisms, something is yet amiss; I know it is. But I cannot isolate where or what it is."

"Well, at least we're almost down," Collingswood interjected. "You've had bad feelings about those Verticals since Defiant came off the stocks. This time, we're going to get them cleared up to your satisfaction before we leave the ground again. The war can wait long enough to make this a reasonably safe ship."

Ursis grinned and shrugged his broad shoulders, "For all we know, Captain, she may well be safe," he said, "So far, it is only me who raises alarms."

Brim nodded as an icy surge of misapprehension coursed along his spine. Nikolai Yanuarievich Ursis was rarely bothered by problems that had no real existence. " I'll listen to your concerns, Nik," he said. "Anytime..."

"In that case," the Bear answered, "you will be ready to react if lose one or both Verticals as they take the full load of the ship. It is my guess that if we are destined for a failure, it will occur then."

"I'll watch it," Brim promised as the cruiser bumped through another series of powerful updrafts. Then further conversation was interrupted from Complex 81.

"Fleet CL.921 is six c'lenyts from the marker," the controller reported. "Turn port heading one eight zero; join the localizer at or about two thousand three hundred; you are cleared for instrument landing vector one seven."

Brim could visualize that particular stretch of Elsene Bay. The vector was as close enough to shore that you could see the construction cranes of Area B from the bridge. It didn't give him much room for error. "Fleet CL.921 acknowledges all that. Many thanks," he answered as he bent Defiant on to her new course.

Overspeed warning horns for the atmospheric radiators sounded five times in close succession due to violent oscillations in the roiling air.

"Wants to rip the radiators off," Aram observed calmly.

Tell me about it," Brim grumbled as he struggled with the controls.

"Fleet CL.921: reduce your speed to one six zero, please."

"CL.921 will be glad to do that," Brim answered over the continuing noise of the radiator overspeed. "One six zero."

"One six zero," Aram repeated.

"Got the vector-one-seven glideslope and localizer," Brim reported presently. Then the warning horn sounded again, during another horrendous downdraft.

"The stuff is really moving in on us now," Aram said. "Lookout ahead...."

"You look," Brim joked. "I'd rather keep my eyes shut." Beside him, Wellington was no longer smiling. She was now sitting bolt upright and staring silently out the Hyperscreens, her hands suddenly gripping the armrests until her knuckles were white.

"Fleet CL.921 eighty-one-B Tower here; you are cleared to land; vector two five right, wind from nine zero at three five, gusts to nine zero."

"Thank you, sir," Brim said, mentally cringing at the potential turbulence ahead. This was not the time for trouble with anything, especially the Verticals. "Let's do the prelanding check, Nik," he said over his shoulder to Ursis.

"Atmospheric radiators?" Ursis prompted.

"Locked: two green lights."

"Vertical settings?"

"Thirty-three, thirty-three."

"Normal operation," Ursis commented.

"Lightning coming out of that one," Aram interrupted calmly.

"Huh?" Brim asked, looking up from his glideslope indicator.

"Lightning," Aram repeated, "coming out of that cloud."

"Where?"

"Right ahead of us."

"Oh, thraggling WONderful," Brim grouched.

"Faith, but ye sure get the gr'at landin' vectors, chield," Calhoun joked over his shoulder,

"Did ye tell 'em ye war' a Carescrian, perhaps?"

"That's got to be it," Brim laughed over his shoulder as the storm cloud loomed in the forward Hyperscreens. There was no avoiding it now. "Here comes that wash-off you were talking about, Aram," he said. "Better call out the altitudes for me." Suddenly everything turned black outside as Defiant plunged into the storm cell. Immediately a torrent of rain and hail began to hammer the ship, filling the bridge with the roar of its impact-an angry, bewildering, sense-shattering cascade that seemed to obliterate every other noise in the Universe. The starship bumped and bucked as if she were alive. It was all Brim could do to maintain any sort of glidepath at all. He pulled back on the forward vector and increased the Verticals to maximum in preparation for set down.

"Thirteen hundred irals," Aram intoned calmly.

Brim ground his teeth as he fought the storm with all his flying skill. At least the Verticals west running smoothly.

"Twelve hundred.... Eleven hundred...."

At that instant, Defiant's tall KA'PPA tower was struck almost simultaneously by three distinct bolts of lightning. Even inside the bridge, the sounds were deafening-like three tremendous explosions, each utterly echoless and flat in tone. Someone screamed in the rear consoles. Lamps pulsed, along with the local gravity, and every detail of the decks outside was lit with a blinding brilliance of white fire-muted only at the last moment by the protective Hyperscreens. In the midst of the chaos, the sound of the Verticals faded abruptly and the ship began to sink as if she had smashed into a solid obstruction.

"They've tripped out, Wilf!" Ursis yelled over the pandemonium, "The Verticals.... They're both gone!"

Suddenly they were tumbling sickeningly from the bottom of the storm, dropping like a brick toward the sea, which swept under them like a slate-colored torrent of wrinkled chaos-mountainous rollers and flying spume. With no Verticals to cushion the shock, Defiant would hit the water hard enough to smash her hull like an eggshell. From his right, Brim could hear Ursis and Provodnik frantically trying to restart the two generators.

"Six hundred.... Five hundred.... Four hundred...." Aram intoned as if there were no particular emergency.

"HOOT! HOOT! PULL UP! PULL UP!" the Chairman shrieked with emergency inflection.

"HOOT! HOOT!..."

Instinctively, Brim had been bringing the ship's bow up into a vertical position. Now he was ready to act. "Gimme everything you got on the Laterals, Nik," he yelled, baring his teeth with effort. " Dump 'EM!"

All four of the big generators suddenly erupted into violent overload as Ursis shorted the protective load limiters and dumped raw energy into every power chamber. But the big generators needed time to spool up to fullpower.... Defiant's hull trembled like a leaf, groaning and creaking throughout each joint of her starframe. In the corner of his eye, Brim could see the great rollers of the churning sea below. The aft deck must now be nearing the surface, It was going to be close....

"HOOT! HOOT! PULL UP! PULL UP! HOOT! HOOT!

HOOT!..."

In the midst of the confusion, one of the great waves smashed into Defiant's stern with a deafening rumble-clearly audible even above the mounting roar of the straining generators-and threatened to flip her over on her back like a rowboat. Heart in his mouth, Brim watched the horizon slide over the top of the Hyperscreens until-in a titanic upwelling of spray-the big cruiser's generators overcame her downward momentum and she began to rise hesitantly, straight up like one of the prehistoric chemical rockets.

"She feels it!" Calhoun yelled exultantly. "She feels it!"

Iral by painful iral by painful iral Defiant climbed away from the raging ocean, still tossed this way and that by the tremendous winds overhead in the storm, but safe for the moment....

"NIK, WHAT ABOUT THAT RESTART?" Brim yelled over the thunder of the straining generators. "We've got to get her down or head for space."

"One moment more, Wilf," Ursis rumbled back as the ship rocked violently in her vertical position. "Cold starting One," he said, almost to himself as his six-fngered hands ran surely over the controls. Suddenly, the rumble of the lateral generators was joined by the high-pitched whine of a single Vertical. "You can now start to ease her back into position," the Bear roared in triumph, "while we work on Number Two."

A few cycles later, Brim had Defiant back on an even keel and ploughing along under the cloud as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened at all-except for a hush that had suddenly come over the entire bridge. Aside from the generators, the only noise came from behind him as Collingswood and Calhoun frantically checked in with every duty section on the ship.

Presently, a hand touched his shoulder. "Well done, Wilf," Collingswood said from directly behind him, "We seem to have very little internal damage-after all that.

Unfortunately," she added in a voice tense with anger, "it appears as if our Defiant is still quite susceptible to energy strikes,"

Brim nodded. "It looks that way, Captain," he said.

"The backward waveguide, Nik?"

"I somehow doubt it, Captain," Ursis growled quietly. "They fixed that after the launch debacle-but it is related to that, or I miss my guess."

"Which is a thing you seldom do," she declared. "We shall this time insure Defiant is a lot more tolerant or we will not take her to war. I consider myself brave, but I am definitely not suicidal...."

"Fleet CL.921: do you see landing vector two five right yet?"

"Fleet CL.921. As soon as we break out of this rain shower we will," Brim answered.

"Yeah.... Now we've got it." Ahead, a solid ruby light flashed out of the gray distance.

Sudden gusts of wind pushed him to port and the light began to separate into horizontal lines. As he corrected to starboard, the light shimmered into vertical lines. One last correction to port and it coalesced again.

"Fleet CL.921: arrival detector reports you had a problem out there," a female voice said from the Tower. She sounded a little bit like Margot, but without the latter's perfect modulation.

"Fleet CL.921 is under control and on final," Brim answered calmly.

"Thank you, sir."

Off to port, a forest of shipyard cranes slid by in the rain-streamed Hyperscreens. Brim glanced down at the bridge decking beneath his feet. It was littered with the paraphernalia people usually kept on their consoles: purses, eyeglasses, cvcesse' cups, a bottle of hand lotion, a box of tissues. They'd get it all sorted out in time. He remembered the pulsing gravity, but hadn't realized it was that strong-too busy to notice, probably....

Only a hundred irals altitude now. He walked the steering engines, lining her up for flare-out and hover-down-then dropped the port deck against a stiff crosswind blowing from landward: the nose wandered a little toward the shore, but the big starship stayed on her original course like she was riding rails. Stable-the ruby landing vector ahead was still steady in the Hyperscreens. No wonder the shipyard was proud of Defiant-she was going to be a remarkable disruptor platform.

Now if she'd only learn to stay in the air....

Time to bring her in. Brim checked his instruments: descent rate, speed, pitch. All on the button. The starship began to sink as he pulled back on the Verticals-this time on purpose.

He eased off the steering engine; her bow swung back to line up perfectly with the ruby vector. He kept the deck slanted for the drift.... Nose up a little.... A little more.... He leveled the deck only an instant before gray cascades of water shot hundreds of irals into the air on either side of the hull and Defiant settled gently onto her gravity gradient.

They were down-in one piece, Barbousse's huge banner raised to the KA'PPA mast and snapping furiously in the wind.

The bridge suddenly erupted in wild jubilation. Three cheers for Wilf Brim!"

"He got us through!"

"Hurray for Wilf!"

"To ice, to snow, to Carescria we go!..."

Brim felt his cheeks burn. "I was only trying to save my own skin," he protested, but nobody seemed to believe him.

"Fleet CL.921: if you can make that next high-speed turnoff, cross one seven right and proceed to gravity pool three one three?"

"Fleet CL.921 copies," Brim answered over the continuing hullabaloo in the bridge.

Leaning on the gravity brakes, he skidded the big ship around a turnoff marker bobbing wildly in the heavy swells, then rumbled across a long procession of flashing buoys. Landing lights of a heavy starship shone brightly at the distant landward end. "Crossing one seven right and proceeding to pool three on three three," he said. "Good afternoon."

"Good afternoon, sir."

As if it had been a routine landing....

Before the stormy afternoon was over Collingswood had every civilian in the Complex running for cover. Literally hundreds of KA'PPA messages flashed instantaneously across the thousand-odd light years that separated EleandorBestienne from the Imperial Admiralty on Avalon, and presently Defiant was populated by the highest managers in the region.

Lateras soon as they could arrive-the top administrators on the planet joined their underlings cowering in the wardroom. And when Coffingswood was finished, the civilians received personal order from First Star Lord Sir Beorn Wyrood himself-via direct link with the Admiralty. Moreover, the orders were personally seconded by none other than Crown Prince Onrad, heir apparent to the Imperial throne at Avalon.

Both messages were short, to the point, and unmistakable. Defiant was to be put to rights immediately, at the highest priority possible. And this time, she was to be repaired permanently, or the Planetary General Manager and each member of his senior staff would be held individually-and personally responsible. Progress reports were to be forwarded to the Admiralty every fifteen metacycles until the job was finished, and thoroughly tested.

With their positions-perhaps their lives, for all they knew-literally at stake, the shipyard managers caused absolute engineering miracles to be performed. Working around the clock for five solid days, technicians and engineers from all over the planet actually removed Defiant's bridge and superstructure, then completely rebuilt her Verticals according to the new specifications created as a result of her initial accident. She was buttoned up on the morning and afternoon of the sixth day, then flown by an exclusively civilian crew, including the Planetary Manager and his senior staff as passengers, through every thunderstorm that could be located in the entire northern hemisphere during the next week. After shrugging off at least one hundred fifty major lightning strikes in flight-and two more days testing against an actual battery of disruptors- Defiant was once more declared safe.

Following three additional days of deep-space trails with Blue Capes at the controls, even Ursis seemed content with the ship and her systems, and Collingswood formally accepted the starship from the builders a second time. This time, the little wardroom ceremony was attended by none other than Reynard J. Eliott, the Planetary General Manager himself, who had lately been very much in evidence around Defiant's gravity pool.

From his tired eyes, it was clear that the man had not seen his palatial residence in the planet's hemisphere since shortly after Collingswood invoked her powerful influence at the Admiralty. He was a small, buck-toothed civilian with a sallow complexion and the brisk air of one who is comfortable being important. His hair was carefully combed to cover a balding head, and he acted as if he were teetering between being annoyed on one hand and uneasy on the other.

Brim had never seen the man wear anything but expensive looking business suits, and wondered if perhaps he had been born in one. Of course, he also carried the archaic, narrow-brimmed stovepipe hat of a shipyard manager. He might been born with that, too, for all Brim knew. But then, it was doubtful that people at his exalted level often got that close to the shipyards they managed.... It was somehow satisfying to the Carescrian that the man's expensive shoes were this evening covered with the same construction dust as his own.

"Well, Commander," Eliott said loftily to Collingswood, "does the ship meet with everyone's approval this time?" Without waiting for an answer, he opened the Red Book and placed it on the table before her. "Box number 921, please-above your previous signature."

Collingswood made no move to acknowledge the book's presence. Instead, she glanced meaningfully at Brim, then at Ursis. "Well?" she said, placing her elbows on the table and steepling her fingers, "last chance, gentlemen."

Brim pursed his lips and nodded thoughtfully. At his personal insistence, he'd remained on board during the brutal disruptor testing-and had personally flown nearly all the deep-space trials. "I have no more problems, Captain," he said in a confident voice. "I'll fly her anywhere now."

Ursis narrowed his tired eyes. He, too, had been aboard during the disrupter testing. "At last I am satisfied with Defiant's systems, Captain Collingswood," he declared with a wry smile. "It is high we turn our energies once more toward combating the forces of Nergol Triannic."

At this juncture, Collingswood turned to the Book and applied her signature. Then she sat back and looked up at the General Manager. "Thank you for everything you've done," she said magnanimously. "You've been a great help...."

For a moment, anger seemed to overtake the man's fear. Then he suddenly relaxed and nodded his head-clearly awed by this mere Commander whose ire could invoke the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Crown Prince.

"You are most welcome, Captain," he said evenly. He retrieved the Book and slipped it under his arm as if he were suddenly afraid she might change her mind. "I don't think the ship will disappoint you again."

"Shall we seal that with a goblet of meem?" Collingswood asked, nodding to Grimsby in the panty nearby.

At first, Eliott shook his head, then brought himself up short and smiled the first genuine smile Brim had seen on his face. "Yes, I think I shall, Captain," he said. "I should be proud to drink to this gallant ship-and her extraordinary crew." After the usual toasts were offered, he raised his glass to Collingswood alone. "Not too late to wish you luck, too, Captain," he said.

Collingswood raised her glass to his silently. Brim knew her mind was already elsewhere. Defiant was under orders to depart in the morning for the Escort Training School on Menander-Garand, and in her own way she had already reduced this overblown civilian to a cipher. She was off to more important considerations than conquering nettlesome Planetary Managers.

The single-day flight to the training base passed without incident. Waldo and Aram flew Defiant to a flawless landfall-in flawless weather on a flawless evening, just as the huge binary-star system Menander was setting on the western horizon. After that, they all worked without letup for five solid weeks. The course was designed to harden new crews and accustom them to the conditions in which they would wage their part of the great intragalactic war. The entire ship's company, from Collingswood to the newest able starman, was under constant stress nearly every metscycle. If they were not out performing maneuvers, they were practicing disrupter drills, or running through Action Stations... or battling mock radiation fires, or landing the big ship with only part of her propulsion systems operational. And when they were not out in space, everyone attended cross-training classes about some part of the vessel that-before then-he or she had completely taken for granted.

Thus, Brim learned a great deal about propulsion systems-firsthand. And Ursis flew a starship for the first time in his life-astonishingly well. One afternoon, Wellington and her weapons experts even found themselves in the Drive chamber, reorienting the sixteen primary tesla coils-a heavy job nobody ever wanted to do-but one without which Defiant might lose her ability to travel at Hyperspeeds. During their ordeal, every member of the ship's crew-including even-tempered Collingwood-was driven to the point of near-despair.

They were tired beyond tiredness and deathly sick of constant stress that sacked what little of their strength remained at the end of each watch.

For the most part, however, each of them realized that this was the only chance they would ever get to become an integrated fighting team capable of surviving be savagery out in the convoy lanes-wherever they might be. And if the price of preparation was overwork to the point of pain, the other price-the one they might surely pay if they weren't prepared-was infinitely more expensive.

At first, they were not very effective as a crew. Individually, many were extraordinarily talented, but they had yet to form a coordinated team-and to experience the excellence that only synergy can produce. Little by little, however, they progressed. They smoothed off their rough edges and learned to work with each other. Moreover, it was a sort of progress that all could see, for the ship herself functioned better-on a daily basis. Soon, they were more often than not declared winners in the vicious hunter-killer games staged daily by professional "aggressor" crews aboard captured League warships.

Not only did they learn each other, they also learned the ship-all her little idiosyncrasies and quirks. And her strengths. Wellington was overjoyed at the disruptor batteries she had to work with. Perhaps her crew showed the most marked improvement, right from the beginning. Something about the woman's personality welded her weapons experts into effective teams first off. In only a few days, they were destroying targets even ships that had nearly completed the course could hardly track. And Defiant became known as a ship of marksmen-extraordinary marksmen. Before long, 152-mmi disruptors became known as "Wellingtons" throughout the huge training complex.

It was little enough time to prepare for what a few-like Collingswood-had known for some time now: that the war was about to enter a new and even deadlier phase. Brim learned about it one morning more than two-thirds of the way through the course when a scheduled maneuver was abruptly canceled for Defiant's officers and senior enlisted personnel. Half dead with fatigue, they were marched from their duty stations into huge skimmers and bussed overland to the central training complex.

There-in a most secret briefing-they learned that all was not well within the League of Dark Stars. Nergol Triannic, it seemed, had promised his nobles at the war's outset that mastery of the galaxy would be theirs in no more than two years. To that end, he sent his minion Kabul Anak on a bloody march of conquest across the stars that-at its zenith-reached out its claws for Avalon herself. However, since those first dark days, the rolling storm from the League had largely been stemmed-held to almost a deadlock as the Imperial commonwealth gathered itself into a war footing, then began to force Anak and his invaders to pay dearly for each star and planet, battle for each asteroid.

Now, more man eight years after the first savage attacks, Triannic found himself under intense pressure to make good his promise-however late. The League's most important ports were securely blockaded; the overall economy was almost totally stifled; and maintenance of his Controllers with their ever-burgeoning military empire was bleeding the economy white.

In a desperate attempt to accomplish his original covenant-and thus preserve his sovereignty-Triannic had ordered a sharp revision in strategy. The first inkling of this manifested itself when Anak's attacks became increasingly less frequent, then, in the last months, ceased almost entirely. Simultaneously, League shipyards nearly doubled their output-sacrificing whole cities for raw materials to feed the new building programs.

Working round the clock, Imperial intelligence gathering-and-analysis units had pieced together interlocking bits of information revealing Triannic's newest ploy. In one great throw of the conqueror's dice, he planned to send Kabul Anak and his new fleets on a direct attack at Avalon with an armada so powerful the Empire could not place sufficient counterforce in its path to save the capital before defenses crumbled and the government itself finally came under the League's collective thumb.

As a secondary objective, most of the Imperial squadrons would also be destroyed in the process, ground into space debris by concentrated fire from the most powerful starfleet in the known Universe.

A major complication in the League plan, however, was Avalon's location within the tempestuous galactic center. The five Home Planets and their triple star, Asterious, were surrounded by a nearly impregnable sphere of mighty asteroid shoals and blazing ramparts of drift, swarms of neutron stars, celestial debris, free atoms, and cosmic deserts-all of it swept by treacherous gravity storms and particle avalanches. Only one reasonable invasion path existed. This was an opening very much like the iris of an eye-with the great star harbor and military base of Hador-Haelic at its very center. A very powerful fleet would be required to force this passage, but such was precisely what Triannic-and his minion Admiral Kabul Anak-planned to bring about in the minimum time possible.

To that end, in heavily defended star harbors near the League capital of Tarrott, powerful battle groups were already assembling-under cover of great secrecy. Triannic had no idea that so much of his plan was already compromised. But now it was the Empire's task to fortify Hador-Haelic before the attack came. The one key item of information Avalon's forces lacked was when the attack might take place.

A great, historic clock was inexorably counting off cycles-and only the Leaguers knew how long it would run. But when Anak did choose to launch his great thrust, it was clear to Brim that Defiant would be on hand for the titanic struggle to contain it. And that was precisely where he wanted to be.

During the last hectic week of training, Defiant was pitted against a group of three captured League warships; this time she was cast in a role of an attacker. It was clear that the highly trained "aggressor" ships were ill-prepared to cope with the new light cruiser's surprising speed. And Collingswood used the ship's advantage brilliantly, forcing her "enemies" to fight by her own rules, attacking when they least expected it and never remaining in one locality long enough for them to use what would amount to their superior firepower. Unfortunately for the "aggressors," each time they did maneuver into a position to benefit from their combined disruptors, the wily Collingswood used her speed-plus Brim's extraordinary helmsmanship-to outmaneuver them, thus sustaining only minor "damage" to Defiant while Wellington scored sufficient "hits" to win the desperately fought mock combats.

At the end of the training period, the tired "aggressors" good-naturedly KA'PPAed a surrender.

"We give up," they messaged. "We'd rather fight Anak's people any day!"

Brim smiled to himself as a signal officer read off the message on the ship's blower.

Tough as they'd made things seem, he well knew that Defiant's real test would not occur until she faced actual combat. Nothing could quite simulate the real threat of death....

Two days after the mock battles-and following a ceremonial flyby of the week's graduating ships for Rear Admiral (the Hon.) Nabonasser K. Comtist, Commander of the Escort School- Defiant and her crew were granted a short leave before reporting for convoy duty at Hador-Haelic. Brim had been half expecting this might happen, and had somehow found time-and energy-during the hectic curriculum to form his plans accordingly.

He got a civilian KA'PPA message off only cycles after Defiant was safely moored and he had personally secured her helm:

TO: MARGOT EFFER'WYCK, LT., I.F. ® ADMIRALTY

AVALON 19-993.367

FROM: WILF A. BRIM, LT, I.F. @ MENANDER-GARAND

341.98-R31

personal:

MARGOT: FIVE DAYS' LEAVE AND A ROUND-TRIP HOP

TO AVALON ALLOW NEARLY A FULL DAY ON

AVALON! I.F.S. ALBATRON MAKES LANDFALL TWO

DAYS FROM NOW AT ZECHLEY FLEET BASE ON LAKE

MERSIN: NINE BELLS OF THE AFTERNOON WATCH. I

SHALL CONTACT AMBRIDGE. YOUR CHAUFFEUR AT

THE EFFER'IAN EMBASSY.

ETERNALLY-WILF

Afterward, he frantically packed a small traveling bag and-with Ursis and Provodnik driving an open skimmer at breakneck speed through the base-arrived at Albatron's gravity pool while they were just about to collapse the brow. He was last aboard the little LK-91, a fast packet he had learned to fly at the Helmsman's Academy, squeezing through a half-closed hatch on his way to the cramped bridge. There, he traded places with the ship's regular pilot-a tall fellow with wispy moustaches, a great woolly head of hair, and a most relieved look on his face.

"Universe, Brim," the man said as he climbed nervously out of the Helmsman's seat, "I thought I was going to end up having to fly the Avalon run anyway. You don't believe in cutting things close or anything, do you?"

Brim laughed. "I'm here-and now you can go ahead and get married. What else matters?"

"I'll think of something by the time you get back, you rascal!" the man called as be galloped into the companionway to the main deck.

Moments later, Brim watched him run at full speed across the brow and into the arms of a dark, long-haired woman waiting outside a small skimmer near the brow portal. Then he occupied himself with the controls-too busy now for much of anything except making his own personal schedule to Avalon. He wasn't racing off to be married or anything like that-but he certainly had related thoughts at the back of his mind....

The spaceways between Menander-Garand and Avalon were well within Avalon's sphere of influence, and the speedy tittle packet made her Hyperlight journey without incident, despite the great war that raged elsewhere in the galaxy. Brim smoothly made landfall and taxied to the military complex through a clear, sunlit winter afternoon, arriving at his assigned lakeside gravity pool three cycles before nine bells sounded in the bridge. He braked to a stop at precisely the same instant that a graceful black limousine skimmer slowed to a hover just outside the entrance to the brow, engulfing the bare trees in a cloud of blowing snow.

Only in Avalon, he laughed to himself. The capital city was so full of limousines that many were actually used as delivery vehicles. This one would be picking up some important element of the ship's cargo, for there was certainly nobody of any particular importance aboard.

"Shut 'em off, Mack," he called over his shoulder to the Systems Engineer, men with the generators spooling down in the background, he braced himself for the switch to internal gravity. It was a transition that even in the best of circumstances made him staggeringly dizzy for a few moments-no matter how many times he went through it. And it happened at the precise moment he thought he spied a huge, green-liveried footman open the door of the limo for a strangely familiar figure bundled in a Fleet Cape-whose short blond curls in wanton disarray started his heart pounding all out of control.... He blinked his blurred eyes as the figure hurried through the portal and out over the brow. No one else in the entire Universe looked like mat. "Margot!" he gasped, nearly tripping as he fought his way out of the helmsman's seat. "See you tomorrow," he called, grabbing his bag and plunging wildly into the companionway.

"Yeah," the engineer called after him. "If ya' don't break your xaxtdamned neck before that!"

As Brim ran toward the main hatch, he felt cold winter air rushing into the ship along the passageway. There was perfume in it! Special perfume. And then she was there, standing at the end of the brow with the most beautiful smile be had ever seen. All he wanted in the whole Universe-and be simply didn't have any words. But then, neither did she-which turned out to be all right anyway, because both their lips were abruptly too busy communicating in a much more Universal language than formal Avalonian.

Her arms were still tightly around him when he finally wrestled his breathing under control.

Dockyard workers were pushing their way past into the starship when he guided her into a little alcove beside the hatch and out of the traffic. AtAt that moment, not even direct orders from the Emperor himself would have made him interrupt this most magical interlude.

After a while, she half opened her eyes in the sleepy kind of way he knew-and loved-so well. He started to speak, but she placed a finger on his lips. "'Swiftly coursed o'er Space and Time -Spirit of the Night,'" she recited in a breathless whisper. "'Out of the firmament sublime, Where from the yet ungazed starlight, Thou weavest dreams of joy and fear,

That make thee terrible and dear, /-Safe was thy flight.'"

Brim let the poetic lines of Laerites's "Ode to the Void," sweep over him from out of the past. "We shouldn't waste even a moment, Margot," he whispered. "This ship is due out again late tomorrow morning."

She grinned and rhythmically ground her torso into his. "You've got me off to a magnificent start already, Lieutenant Brim," she said a little breathlessly. "If it were warmer outside, I think I'd show you what I don't have on under this cape right here and now."

Brim laughed and squeezed her to him tighter, thrusting himself rhythmically against her.

"Wouldn't I love that," he whispered in her ear.

"Oo-o," she giggled, as if she were suddenly out of breath. Her eyebrows arched and she smiled happily. "I'd hoped you might be off to that same kind of start." Her eyes suddenly sparkled. "The limousine has one-way glass, Wilf. Let's have Ambridge drive us to the embassy so we can do something about these hormones of ours. After that, perhaps we can love each other a little more rationally."

Taking a deep breath, Brim placed his hands at the small of her back and drew her even closer. " 'Come let us twine together, you and I,'" he answered as she crouched slightly and opened herself to him, '"The moments we may love are far too few, And helpless through Time's corridors we fly, Embraced-you to I and I to you....'" For a few moments afterward, he was too busy kissing to think of anything else except warm breath and wet, wet lips.

Then, surreptitiously checking the hallway-which was empty-he backed her farther into the alcove and gently raised the hem of her cape to her waist. "Great Universe," he gasped while his knees began to tremble almost out of control.

"Would I try to deceive you, my love?" Margot asked, licking her lips and looking at him with what could only be described as a totally shameless smirk.

"Or did you merely need reassurance that I am still a blonde?..." True to her royal word, in addition to a heated Fleet Cape, Her Royal Highness, The Princess Margot Effer'wyck, was wearing only boots....

In the rapidly fading winter afternoon, neither Brim nor Margot found they would-or necessarily could-wait until they reached the embassy. Therefore, the surprise of the limousine's swerve and the grating shriek of collapsing metal came as a double shock.

"Voot's ear!" Margot spluttered, thrown spread-eagled to the floor of the limousine.

"W-what was that?"

"I think we've had an accident," Brim said, still on the seat and shakily focusing his eyes through the cracked glass at an Army staff skimmer that appeared to have embedded itself in the limousine's engine compartment. A large crowd was gathering even as he spoke.

"Sweet, thraggling Universe," Margot exclaimed as she frantically struggled to retrieve her cape-it had somehow become jammed under a console-"where are we?"

"Mm-m," Brim grunted, discovering to his dismay how thoroughly trousers can become entangled with boots. "I don't know. It's a part of town I've never seen. Looks like some sort of ethnic sector, though. Everybody's got on weird colors."

Presently, Ambridge appeared outside in the glow of emergency lamps, frowning and stroking his chin as he inspected the damage. He was joined almost immediately by a short, rumpled Army captain with suspicious, rheumy eyes, a thick brown moustache, and a lantern jaw to rival any professional Corbut wrestler's. The officer had just raised an accusatory finger in Ambridge's direction when he was interrupted by a grating voice that absolutely set Brim's teeth on edge.

"I SAY! Can't you idiot civilians EVER learn to drive properly?"

Brim felt his eyebrows-and hackles-rise as a familiar figure swaggered into view outside.

"Sweet, clotted crumbs of xorkfrew," he swore. "I knew I recognized that voice. It's thraggling Hagbut!" He shook his head as memories returned in a flood. General (the Hon.) Gastudgon Z' Hagbut, Xce, N.B.E., Q.O.C., Imperial Expeditionary Forces (Combat) was the same small, intense-looking superpatriot of middling years under whose command he had served during The A'zurnian campaign. Red-faced and custom-tailored as always, Hagbut still spoke as if he disliked showing his teeth.

"Hagbut?" Margot demanded, attempting to comb her hair and apply makeup at the same time. "You mean General Hagbut?"

"I see you've already met him, too," Brim said dryly, watching the Captain and a number of gaily dressed onlookers muscle his clearly disabled vehicle to the opposite curb.

"I can't believe it!" Margot growled under her breath. "What perfectly horrible luck." She shook her head. "You were with him on A'zurn, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Brim acknowledged dismally, "bad luck then, too. "

"I'll bet," Margot said, adjusting her service cap, "I have to work with that perfect stuffed shirt at least once a week." She peered glumly through the one-way glass. "I think I heard somebody say he's from the Ornwald region of the galaxy-and I'll bet we're in mat section of town."

"YOU, in there!" Hagbut roared imperiously, pounding on me roof over Brim's head.

"COME OUT OF THAT LIMOUSINE whoever you are!" Then he pointed to Ambridge as if the man were an especially dangerous adversary. "How DARE you exercise right-of-way over a General Officer of the Imperial Army?"

"B-but General," Ambridge protested. "The signal was dearly in the favor of my limousine. I was already started into the intersection when your staff car hit me."

"You had NO BUSINESS in that intersection when I was coming through," Hagbut interrupted, Then he pounded on the limousine again. "COME OUT OF THERE and face the consequences, you damned civilians!"

Brim glanced at Margot, who now seemed to be reasonably satisfied with her appearance. Her cheeks, however, had come flushed enough to be noticeable, even in the comparative darkness of the limousine. And her eyes were narrowed to slits. He had just reached for the door button when she placed a restraining hand firmly on his sleeve.

"Wait," she said between clenched lips, "this is my problem." With a dark look on her face, she climbed past him opened the door herself. Ambridge was in the process of explaining again that the traffic signal was enabled for their direction when Hagbut interrupted him in midsentence.

"Here on Avalon, signals are of little concern to vehicles on IMPORTANT OFFICIAL BUSINESS," he blustered. "AND FURTHERMORE..." Abruptly, his voice trailed off while his jaw dropped. "P-princess Effer'wyck," he gasped.

"You tell 'em, General," the Captain growled, still directing his anger-and his attention-entirely to Ambridge. "Damned civilians, anyway..."

"SHUT UP, Captain!"

"Huh?..."

"Princess Effer'wyck! What an extreme pleasure to see you here, YOUR HIGHNESS.

How unfortunate of my clumsy aide to cause this accident...."

"I caused what?"

"Ah, good evening, General Hagbut," Margot answered coolly. "I believe that I heard you say Ambridge caused the accident?"

"Yeah, General, I ah..."

"Will you BE QUIET, Captain? You know perfectly well it was your fault."

"B-but, General, you was the one that was hungry. I didn't want to run the signal. They'd have kept our reservation at the restaurant...."

Hagbut's face turned a deep crimson, and he started to speak, but Ambridge-who had returned to the chauffeur's compartment-used that moment to spin up the limousine's traction engine. It failed to catch, however, and drifted to silence. Momentarily distracted, Hagbut glanced past Margot into the limousine. "BRIM!" he exclaimed in surprise. "What the name of Kaehler are you doing in a limousine with a princess?"

"Good evening, General," Brim said, stepping to the pavement and saluting. "It is good to see you again, sir," he lied, raising his voice over a second unsuccessful attempt to start the limousine's traction engine.

"AH, YES," Hagbut crowed, clearly on the lookout for any distraction from the present situation. "I'm sure it is, young man!" He turned to Margot. "Last year," he said boastfully, "I only helped further this young Carescrian's military career, but I-PERSONALLY-provided him with the tactical advice that enabled him to perform an OUTSTANDING mission and win an A'zurnian medal."

Brim gritted his teeth while Ambridge made a third unsuccessful attempt to start the limousine. Were the truth known, during the A'zurnian raid, he'd saved both Hagbut's career and his skinny neck....

"I say, DIDN'T I?" Hagbut prompted, pulling on Brim's sleeve.

"It was a fine mission, General," the Carescrian replied.

"A 'fine' mission?" Hagbut exclaimed blusteringly. "Is that all you have to say about it?

Why, thanks to me, it made you part of MY SUCCESS. Part of an IMPERIAL TRIUMPH!"

"Your Highness," Ambridge interrupted from the driver's seat. "I'm afraid the traction engine won't start. I have another car on its way from the Embassy, but the driver requires at least half a metacycle to drive here."

"MOST UNFORTUNATE," Hagbut boomed with a sudden look of concern. He frowned for a moment, then abruptly broke into a smile of sorts, one of the few Brim could remember.

"With such a long time to wait, Princess," he said, shooting his cuffs grandly, "surely you will join me for supper. That way, your embassy driver need not hurry to pick you up-and I can enjoy your company whilst I endeavor to ATONE for the CLUMSINESS OF MY AIDE." He glared at his crestfallen companion while a gaggle of street urchins helped Ambridge push the Effer'ian limousine onto a side street.

Brim watched Margot's eyebrows rise-clearly, she hadn't expected anything like this. She opened her mouth....

"Oh, come on, now, Your Highness," Hagbut interrupted, turning on all the charm he could muster. "As a native Ornwaldian, I know this section as if it were my home. We have an excellent dining establishment only A FEW STEPS from this VERY intersection: the Golden Cockerel; I dine there often. AND, I shall even EXTEND my invitation to Captain Quince-I believe you have met him, Your Highness-as well as Lieutenant Brim. The two of them can discuss, er, MILITARY matters and so forth whilst we speak on more CULTURED subjects.

Now, what do you say? In the interests on intra-Empirical relations..."

Margot turned to Brim with a frantic look in her eyes. "W-well..." she stammered.

It was the first time he could remember seeing her flustered. Of course, Hagbut could have no idea that she and a mere Carescrian planned to spend the evening making love.

Most royalty considered that Carescrians were hardly sentient.... And then it hit turn like a sack of rocks-if they joined Hagbut in a restaurant, she'd be expected to take off her cloak!

"Really, General," Margot imparted, color rising to her cheeks again. "It was only a minor accident-no one was hurt. Wilf and I can wait in the limousine until..."

"Nonsense, Your Highness," Hagbut countered. "I shall hear none of it. Quince caused you this inconvenience in MY service,"-he glared momentarily at the captain-"and I MUST make some restitution, at least."

"General," Margot articulated, unconsciously pulling her cloak closer around her neck, "I certainly appreciate your concern, but, please. None of this is necessary."

"It most CERTAINLY is," Hagbut protested, his glance flashing angrily to Brim. "OR," he continued, smiling sardonically, "should I report to the Intelligence Council that Your Highness is showing definite favoritism toward the Fleet?"

"How could you even say such a thing, General?" she protested. Brim could see that her hands were now balled into fists behind her back. Hagbut had scored a telling point.

"I jest, of course," Hagbut guffawed, clearly sniffing victory.

"Of course," Margot said sullenly.

"Well-l-l!" Hagbut crowed, moving quickly now. "That settles that, doesn't it?"

Panic flashed across Margot's eyes. She touched her throat for a moment, then took a deep gulp of air-like a diver facing a long descent. "I capitulate, General," she sighed presently. "Perhaps it is time we sat down together. Wilf, I believe there was something you planned to purchase on our way to the Embassy. Perhaps you ought to get that out of the way before you join us at the table?"

Brim frowned. "A purchase, Princess?" he asked.

Margot fixed him with an urgent expression in her eyes. "Yes," she said. "Remember?

Size fourteen over point three thirty-nine."

Size?... Understanding suddenly dawned! "Er... yes," be stumbled. "Yes, the special purchase! What was the... ah, Duchess's... ah, size again. Princess?"

"Fourteen over point three thirty-nine," Margot repeated with a look of undiluted relief on her face.

"Thank you," Brim said, bowing with great deference. "I shall see to the matter immediately. General, a matter of great importance to the Effer'ian embassy."

Hagbut nodded-as usual, he hadn't been paying attention. "Well, don't be too long, m'boy," he advised, pulling Brim close to his face. "Oh, I know that you Carescrians don't frequent establishments like this one," he whispered in a fatherly tone. "Very high class and all that." His breath smelled as if he seldom brushed his teeth. "But don't let that drive you off. Simply follow me in your actions, and you will be quite acceptable. Quince!" he ordered, dismissing Brim like a street beggar. "Quick step ahead and secure a larger table for us, man. The name of HAGBUT is well known there!" With that, he deftly grasped Margot's elbow and marched her along the street like a prisoner.

Brim stood for a moment on the teeming sidewalk transfixed, Now what? He was prepared to handle any starship in the galaxy-or fight a hundred Leaguers single-handed-but this was a different kind of problem entirely! He started in the opposite direction, shaking his head in consternation. Displays of women's clothing were everywhere, in positively bewildering arrays of colors and styles! How did they choose anything to wear?

From time out of mind, he'd worn nothing but uniforms-and there were too many versions of them for his liking. He chuckled to himself. Thank the Universe for uniforms....

Uniforms!

Of course. He could certainly handle the purchase of a woman's uniform-especially since he knew the correct size formula! And it stood to reason that at least a few of the many dress shops would offer Fleet garb.... This time, he started off with a bit of assurance in his stride....

After considerable walking and searching, however, it became clear that his newfound confidence was lamentably misplaced. Nowhere in the at least eleven billion display windows he had stuthed so far was there anything that looked even remotely like a Fleet uniform.

And there was precious little time to search any farther. He could imagine Margot's attempts to explain why she wanted to dine in her cape!

Close to something mat felt a lot like panic, he stumbled reluctantly toward a large store whose windows displayed manikins that appeared to be about Margot's size and shape.

However, except for a beautiful meem-colored gown she'd once worn to a ball, he'd only seen her in-and out of-her uniforms. He had absolutely no idea what she might choose for herself.

Inside, the sales floor was moderately crowded-all women-and every one of them was conspicuously ignoring his very male presence. Even Leaguers looked friendlier! Feeling his face burn with embarrassment, be picked his way to the sales console through a maze of little counters filled with silky-looking undergarments.

"Yes-s-s?" a woman said, glaring over her glasses. She was at least a head taller than Brim, with mean little eyes, mousy gray hair, and protruding teeth. She looked like a professional virgin.

"Ah," he stammered, "I need... um... a woman's outfit...."

"For yourself?" the woman asked.

Brim ground his teeth. Whoever said that war was hell never tried shopping for women's garments! Swallowing a great lump in his throat, he pointed to a dress on a nearby manikin.

"One of t-those." he stammered desperately. It was a tight-fitting bluish something that would at least go well with Margot's boots. And it also seemed as if it might be the proper shade for a blonde to wear, even though it certainly showed a lot of manikin. He shrugged to himself. If nothing else, it was clearly fashionable-he'd seen a lot of similar outfits on the street outside the store.

"That one?" the woman asked, her eyebrows raised in a surprised expression.

"That one," Brim said, trying to act as if he were even the slightest bit confident of his decision. He could feel sweat beading out on his forehead.

"Hmmph!" the woman muttered under her breath. "Well, it certainty takes all kinds."

By now, it seemed as if everyone in the store had stopped her shopping and was either looking at him in absolute repudiation or talking about him with a scowl on her face. Trying to stretch a collar that had somehow grown too tight, he gave the saleswoman Margot's size formula and his HoloID card. Then he stood by uncomfortably trying not to notice the lacy garments he usually glimpsed only in bedrooms.

The clerk required at least six standard months to complete his transaction, then another year or so to retrieve and wrap a blue outfit of the proper size. Finally-with a huge red box under his arm-he beat a hasty retreat back to the street, soaked with perspiration and embarrassed beyond belief. In comparison, Defiant's launching had been a breeze!

Brim arrived puffing in the elegant rococo foyer of the Golden Cockerel after a much longer hike than he'd expected. Dance music wafted softly from the dining room while an abbreviated, crimson-uniformed major-domo bowed so deeply that the great feathered turban he wore nearly fell from his head.

"The Hagbut party," Brim said.

"Ah, yes-you must be their missing lieutenant," the little man purred. "General Hagbut awaits you in the dining room."

"First," Brim said, handing the man his package-with a sizable credit note on top-"Princess Effer'wyck will turn up here looking for this shortly after I am seated. Be sure that you deliver it into her hands privately. Is that understood?"

The major-domo pocketed the note as if it had never existed. "I shall personally see to it, Lieutenant," he said quietly, placing the package beneath a counter. Then be led Brim grandly through the foyer.

In the crowded, noisy dining room, Hagbut's table was located close to the tiny dance floor, Margot was seated rigidly upright at the General's right-and looking more than just a little distracted. At her fingertips, a barely sampled trio of meem, salad, and soup gave mute testimony to her discomfort-and lack of appetite. Brim could almost feel her look of relief when he took his seat and discreetly nodded toward me foyer. She excused herself within moments and disappeared through the arch.

"Harrumpf," Hagbut growled, rending a great chunk from his dinner roll. "The Princess claims she has a chill or something. Just like a woman. I suppose she isn't feeling well, is she?..."

"Ah, not entirely," Brim replied, "but she may pick up once she has something to eat."

"She sure hasn't eaten much so far," Quince observed with his mouth full. "Look at the good soup she's wastin'."

Brim tried a spoonful of his own-it was excellent although a bit cool by now. "Well," he added, "perhaps the main course will do it."

While they waited for Margot to return, Hagbut and Quince droned on without letup. The General was just hitting his stride in a noisy discourse on military discipline when he idly glanced toward the foyer, stopped in the middle of his sentence, then suddenly turned a chalky shade of white. "EGAD!" he exclaimed, his eyebrows hoisted to a state of caricature.

Simultaneously, the entire dining room lapsed into utter silence-except the orchestra.

That was squelched a moment later by a stupendous crash when one of the waiters dropped his tray of dishes. Brim whirled in his chair just in time to see Margot stride regally across the floor in the blue dress with a look of triumph on her face.

She looked terrific! No wonder everyone in the dining room was staring.

Close in her wake scurried the major-domo-who for some reason had a positively distraught look on his thin face. He caught up just as she arrived at the table. "P-princess..." he , stammered, clearing his throat nervously, "ah...."

Margot stopped behind her chair and looked down at him. "Wilf" she asked imperiously.

"Um.. .your.. .um..." He nodded-apparently at her bosom. "Um... Your Highness's... um..."

He nervously pinched the fleshy part of his hand. "Um... nothing, Your Highness."

"Then what, may I ask, are you waiting for? Help me into my chair," she commanded haughtily. "Clearly, none of my companions seems to remember his manners this evening."

On the instant, all four men scrambled in a comic attempt to reach her chair, but Margot slid into place by herself as if they hadn't moved, "Too late," she said, surreptitiously winking at Brim while the major-domo beat a hasty retreat back to the safety of his foyer. Moments later, their main course was served.

. During the next few cycles, it rapidly became apparent that something had mysteriously inverted everyone's roles' at the table. Now it was Hagbut and Quince who only picked at their food-silently. For the most part, they sat with their heads pulled in like turtles, staring uneasily at their plates as if they were unwilling to meet the eyes of others in the room.

Margot, on the other hand, was feasting as if she hadn't eaten for a week. Clad in her seductive blue dress, she was chattering ebulliently to everyone at the table. "Excellent fare, General!" she exclaimed happily. "And a wonderful choice of restaurant. I shall certainly return here again and again."

"Harrumpf...."

"Why, General!" Margot said, peering at Hagbut's plate, "my stars, you have hardly touched your supper. And you, too, Captain Quince. Perhaps we should have new plates brought from the kitchen." She pushed her chair back. "I shall call the major-domo...."

"Egad! Harrumpf. Ah, no, Princess," Hagbut stammered. "Indeed, that will not be necessary. Captain Quince and I must be leaving upon the moment." He rubbed his nose lightly.

"Ah, yeah," Quince affirmed, squirming in his seat. "P-pressin' matters an' all. You know."

He nodded toward the foyer, where a tired-looking soldier with a driver's arm band leaned against the wail talking to Ambridge and another green-liveried embassy chauffeur.

"General Hagbut!" Margot asserted with a pout. "That cannot be! I am here, after all, at your invitation. Can these pressing matters be so important that you will not favor me with at least one dance set? Must I report to my Uncle Greyffin that you abandoned us after Captain Quince attacked my limousine?"

Hagbut's face turned a bright red again, and his eyes looked as If he had just been shot with a high-energy blaster. "D-dance set?..." he stammered.

Margot giggled. "Of course, General," she said, flaunting her bosom from the low-cut dress. "Certainly the great General Hagbut would not deny a poor princess the pleasure of dancing to such an elegant orchestra." She angled her bead and fluttered her eyelashes. "I have often heard you tell my associates that you are a superb dancer." She turned to Brim with a look of victory in her eyes. "Lieutenant Brim," she ordered, "my chair, please!"

Perspiration beading his forehead, Hagbut got to his feet like someone facing a firing squad. His face had taken on a mottled effect: part angry crimson, part chalky white. "A-at your service, Princess," he said in a clipped, squeaky voice.

"Oh, thank you, General," Margot twittered, grabbing his arm and practically dragging him onto the dance floor. Brim had never before realized what a perfectly erotic walk she had. Of course, he'd never seen her in such a dress before, either-almost better than without one....

It was clear that Quince had also noticed Margot's charming way of walking. He was sitting with his jaw hanging open and shaking his head in clear disapproval. "Universe," he whispered under his bream.

Brim frowned. "What seems to be the matter, Captain?" he demanded. "Both you and the General appear to be awfully upset over something."

"Xaxtdamned good and right we're upset," Quince sulked. The very idea. I can sort of imagine a lowlife Carescrian like you thinkin' something like that's all right-but holy Gort, you'd expect a princess would have a little more pride."

Brim felt his race flush with anger. He considered the source, then shrugged it off-Carescrians could easily spend ill their spare time dueling with dimbulbs like Quince. "I don't understand," he said evenly. "What does pride have to do with anything?"

"Huh?" Quince said, turning his full face toward Brim for the first time. "You sound like you really don't know what's goin' on."

"I wasn't aware that anything was going on, Captain," Brim said, "especially concerning the Princess. But if there is, I want to know about it-right now."

Quince frowned and nodded toward the dance floor, where Margot and Hagbut-who didn't look any too sure of himself-were moving to a complex, and quite energetic, version of the Zubian triple-hop. "Well, how about that whore's dress, for starters?" he asked resentfully.

"Whore's dress?"

"F'xaxt sake, yeah. Who else in this joint is dressed like one of them Ornwald prostitutes?"

Brim felt himself stiffen. He was about to grab the Captain by his lapels when a chilling thought hit him like a thunderbolt. "What's an Ornwald prostitute?" he asked, heart in his mouth: He was suddenly afraid he already knew the answer....

The Captain made a face and shook his head. "Well, you sure must of seen a few of 'em on the street outside tonight. They're all over the place-lookin' just like the princess does.

The Ornwald Bureau of Health makes the girls wear them blue dresses any time they're workin'-an' all the women's shops in the district has to carry 'em by law. Keeps the neighborhood nice an' clean." He shook his head sourly. "Still can't figure what a royal princess is doin' with one on, though-but it's sure steamed the General some. I mean, he's a proud man."

Brim felt his heart sink. Margot and Hagbut were now virtually alone on the dance floor-everybody was watching them and applauding. He squeezed his eyes shut in mortification. "Blue dresses like that are uniforms for prostitutes?" he asked, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

"Xaxtdamned right."

"Oh, thraggling WON-der-ful...."

"Huh?"

"Nothing, Captain," Brim said. "Just clearing my throat."

After that, Quince began wolfing down the remains of his supper and only stopped when Hagbut hove into view, towed by a grinning, triumphant-looking Margot Effer'wyck. By now, the General looked as if he'd lost some vast territorial campaign. His eyes had taken on a gaunt, hunted look and his face was even redder than his epaulettes.

"My chair, General?" Margot asked, batting her eyelashes.

"Harrumpf...HAW!"

"Oh, thank you," Margot went on breathlessly. "You are indeed an excellent dancer. Why, 1 declare, simply everyone was admiring us out there, weren't they?"

"Ee-gad!"

"Um... General," Quince exclaimed rising suddenly from his seat with a worried look. "I'm gonna get him out of here," he said to Brim as he took Hagbut's arm. "He gets this way sometimes...." With that, he led the tottering man out into the foyer.

Margot smiled a little ruefully, her cheeks still flushed with excitement. "I probably shouldn't have done that," she said, "but the old goat had it coming for such a long time."

Brim stiffened. "What do you mean?" he asked.

Margot giggled. "I mean, I shouldn't have upset the old fool so."

"You know why he was upset?" Brim asked. It was like waiting to be hit by a disruptor.

She smiled at him, then reached across the table to take his hand. "By the look on your face, I can tell that Quince let you know about the dress you bought."

"Great Universe," Brim exclaimed, "you must have been ready to kill me."

Margot laughed. "Well," she admitted with a grin, "I was upset for a few cycles. But then I thought, 'Why not?' With legs like mine, I was bound to look great-and what a wonderful way to get at a stuffed shirt like Hagbut-so I wore it."

Brim bit his lip. "Margot," he said, "I swear I had no idea, believe me. How can I ever begin to tell you how sorry I am?..."

She batted her eyelashes again. "Do I look as sexy as 1 think I do?" she asked, thrusting her bosom at him.

"Universe," Brim whispered, "like a zillion credits!" Abruptly, he felt her foot caressing his leg.

"Hey, starsailor," she whispered, nodding toward the foyer, "you lookin' for good time, huh? Weeth handsome stud like you, I do it for notheengs...."

Within cycles, he and Margot were once again alone in the privacy of a limousine. But now they sat calmly, she sheltered by his arm with her blond curls in disarray on his shoulder.

"Bad luck," she whispered quietly.

Brim smiled. "We're together-I call that the best luck in the Universe."

She nestled deeper in his arm. "You know what I mean, Wilf," she said sadly. "We've lost a lot of time-and we didn't have very much to start with. You flew a long way to be with me for one night-and oh, how I wanted to make that worth your while. Every click."

Well," Brim said, "you'd certainly made a fine start of it before the wreck -Hogan's third eye, but you're good at that."

She leaned over and kissed him on his cheek while they cruised past the great domed tower of Marva. "But we didn't get to finish before we crashed," she said reflectively, "and then I had to waste time dancing with that old fool Hagbut." She shrugged a little. "At least the whole mess makes it easier for me to say what I've got to say sometime tonight, Wilf."

Brim felt his heart catch. He knew what was coming, and tried to make it easier on her. "I guess you and LaKarn have finally set the date for your marriage," he stated, trying to sound as if the words didn't hurt.

Margot nodded and pursed her lips thoughtfully. "Yes," she said after a little while, "we have. There was simply no use postponing it. Greyffin IV put too much pressure on me."

Brim ground his teeth a moment as Ambridge stopped for a signal at the entrance to Courtland Plaza-he stared at the great Savoin gravity fountain without even seeing it.

"When?" he whispered. He was afraid to look at her for fear he might lose what little emotional control he had.

"Soon, Wilf," Margot replied, her eyes filling with tears. "One month from tonight."

Brim squeezed her hand. "Don't cry," he whispered. "It's not the end of us-unless of course you want it to be that way."

She turned to him with a hurt look on her face. "Please, Wilf, don't ever say anything like that. I never loved before I met you-and there's no room left in my heart for anyone else.

Besides," she added, "Rogan's so busy with his career, he doesn't have that much time for me."

"So long as I am never an anchor for you, Margot," Brim said.

She stared at the floor of the limousine for a moment, then took a deep breath and appeared to gather some reserve of strength around herself. "That," she said looking him directly in the eye, "is really what we must discuss tonight."

"My being an anchor?" Brim asked while a hollow of cold fear suddenly formed in the pit of his stomach. He'd always been afraid dial...

"No," Margot answered. "My being an anchor-for you."

Brim frowned. "What?" he asked incredulously.

"We've been over it before, Wilf," she reminded him. "I simply can't ask you to live a celibate life, especially since I do not intend to discourage Rogan from-well, his rights as my husband. It wouldn't be fair-to him or to me. I couldn't live that way either." She pointed a finger at his chest and looked deep into his soul. "Wilf, dearest, face it. If we-our love-is to survive this marriage I am being forced into, you are going to have to share some other beds yourself. Otherwise, no matter how much you think you love me now, there will be lonely nights when your mind dwells on thoughts of me with him-like that-and it will poison your love for me just as surely as Avalon orbits the Asterious triad."

Brim started to protest. "I couldn't do anything like that," be said, but she gently closed his mouth with her lingers.

"Remember how tenuous our privacy was tonight-and I'm not even married yet," she whispered. "Then think about what difficulties the future may bring after..." Her voice trailed off. Suddenly she kissed him again, this time on the lips. "Tomorrow is time enough for reality, dearest," she said, '"tonight is ours to love-and I find that I have once again adverted to the generalized debauchery, venery, and lecherousness which seems to overtake me whenever I find myself within ten million c'lenyts of your person. Look," she said, pointing out the window, "the Boulevard of the Cosmos. We're almost there. Hold me, Wilf; hold me...."

Shortly after that, the limousine arrived at the Effer'ian Embassy, where they made love until they lost their desperate struggle with exhaustion and fell asleep in each other's arms, I.F.S. Albatron departed for Menander-Garand the next afternoon precisely on schedule.

But the takeoff credit was recorded in the Cohelmsman's log book. Wilf Brim was asleep in the bridge long before the ship passed into Hyperspace.

Chapter 3

CONVOY DUTY

After more than a week at Hyperspeed, Convoy C'Y/98 was still battering its way through attacks so vicious that oldtime flight-crew veterans called it the worst trip in memory. Off-duty for the moment, Wilf Brim and Nik Ursis occupied two jump seats on the bridge, watching a brace of Hyperflares erupt around distant ranks of merchant ships in the van. Heavy flashes of disruptor fire followed immediately. Soon afterward, reverberating thunder from Defiant's Drive rose in fullness and shook the bridge while Provodnik gated reserve combat energy to the cruiser's energy chambers-in case it was needed....

"Here they come again," Jennings stated emotionlessly from the Helmsman's console.

"Too right," Collingswood agreed in tired resignation from her console-she never got to relax in a jump seat; mere was only one captain. "I see the flares...."

Brim took a deep breath and mentally cringed. He'd personally faced a lot of danger in his thirty years, but never anything like the last few days. Endless successions of assaults made him feel like a hoary veteran of the convoy lanes already-and it was only Defiant's third escort mission. Was this the ninth attack-or the hundredth-since he'd gone off duty? He could feel tension mount rapidly as the crew waited for their inevitable dose of terror. Lately, Kabul Anak seemed to be committing every killer ship he could find in his frenzied quest to starve the Empire's key Fleet base at Hador-Haelic.

"Oh Universe, but they're t-taking their own sweet time getting here," a nervous voice stuttered from the rear of the bridge. "They must really be tearing things apart up ahead this time."

Brim recognized the high-pitched voice immediately. Tina Rasnovski was not only a first-trip midshipman, she was also the junior navigator of the crew. He couldn't blame her for the outburst. Tired as he was, he found himself almost desperate to get back to Defiant's controls. At times like this, he needed to do something. Anything. The day-in, day-out passiveness of a navigating console would quickly drive him out of his mind, and he knew it.

"Thank your lucky stars we've been sharing their favors, lady," a sarcastic voice grated anonymously from the weapons area. "We might have them all to ourselves before you know it." Scanty laughter trickled from other points of the bridge, but it lacked real substance-like thin sunlight on a winter afternoon. Brim understood that, too....

From experience, he also knew that complex, three-dimensional zigzag maneuvers-aligned on the galactic disk-would begin during the next few moments. He was just tightening his seat restraints in preparation when three blinding lights suddenly exploded from aft in a giant, convoy-straddling triangle of brilliance. One of the enemy scouts actually eclipsed its own Hyperflare for a heartbeat before it disappeared among the flowing stars.

The blazing illuminators surged wildly forward along the convoy as they picked up speed, scalping the thin camouflage of darkness from nearby merchantmen, and tracing their outlines in the dazzling over-spectrum most visible to League target directors.

Default's Hyperscreens darkened protectively on the instant, but not before a chorus of groans and curses escaped the bridge crew, now half-blinded in the streaming brilliance.

Outside, more than three hundred irals of graceful armored deck and smoothly indexing disruptors appeared below in ghostly brilliance, disclosing radiation-blackened patches from hits already suffered since the convoy set out from the port of Harmon-21 nearly a quarter-galaxy distant.

"Stand by to begin zigzag pattern E-28 in five clicks," Calhoun intoned.

Brim shook his head grumpily. They didn't have a lot of choice- Defiant was presently

"attached" to the convoy itself, and had been for the last three watches. At any given time, only a few of the escorts could be released to "independent" roving and attack. The majority were required to maintain position within the convoy, ensuring that the major defensive firepower remained among the merchantmen that were being protected.

Stars skidded abruptly toward low port as each ship in the large convoy executed the course change simultaneously. At the same instant, a great pulsing flareup toward the van marked another unarmed merchant ship that would never reach port. Brim clenched his fists in a paroxysm of angry helplessness. The Leaguer ships just kept attacking, no matter how many of them were destroyed-and the odds were clearly on their side. During the preceding year, 1,299 unarmed merchantmen-totaling forty-four million milstons-had been reduced to burned-out space wreckage, and then' critical cargoes lost, at a cost to the Leaguers of only eighty-seven attack craft. The escorts could try to minimize the toll-but not even a squadron of battlecruisers could completely protect the slow-moving convoy: its overall speed was limited by the slowest members to only 12,000 LightSpeed.

As if triggered by Brim's dismal thoughts, every disruptor mounted by two "independent"

escorts off to low port opened up at lengthening fingers of green light in the distant blackness: drive plumes of attack ships headed their way. On the far side of the bridge, he could see Wellington's gunlayers grimly setting up their disruptors, faces lighted from below by tile flowing colors of the readouts.

"Just coming on the bearing now. Commander: Red 332, range 1778..."

Another skidding turn by the convoy; this time the stars slid to high starboard. Still no command for independent action from COMCONVOY, the Escort Commander. Brim gritted his teeth with helplessness. He wanted something to be done....

"Range 1650..."

Suddenly one of the green traces in the distance welled into a huge pulsing light.

"A hit! Somebody got a hit!..."

"By the bleeding Universe-look at 'im tern!"

"Still comes the attack," Ursis intoned, breaking his grim silence as the attack ships-visible now as long-range NF-110s-steadied on course toward the two near escorts.

One was I.F.S. Obstinate, easily recognizable by her squared-off silhouette: an old but long-legged O-class escort destroyer. Behind her moved the distinctive outline of a powerful CJ-class frigate, probably I.F.S. Perillan. "Bastards are out to get the escorts, this trip, eh?" the Bear asked.

Brim nodded mute agreement as others in the bridge began to shout ineffectual encouragement to the Imperial gunners-and still no release from COMCONVOY for Defiant.

He watched in silence, reflexively angling his head as the cruiser slid into still another violent course change with the squadron.

Off to port Obstinate and Perillan flew as if tethered in line, turrets indexing smoothly and firing as if neither had just altered course at all. Abruptly, the leftmost NF-110 exploded in a molten burst of flame and wreckage. A moment later, debris struck the attack ship beside her. Immediately out of control, that ship pitched convulsively, launched her unprepared torpedoes far beyond the speeding destroyer, then exploded in a great flash of quivering brilliance. The deadly missiles themselves, however, described a wild spiral, then suddenly wobbled toward Defiant herself....

Brim and the bridge crew watched in fatalistic silence as the confused swarm of torpedoes steadied on course. It looked to Brim as if each was individually targeted on his particular jump seat.

"There's time to take care of those, Alpern," Collingswood said sharply in the still bridge.

"Aye, Captain," the ECW Officer responded in a quiet voice. Abruptly, Defiant began to radiate with a glimmering web of bluish fire. Presently, a lustrous pseudopod formed to port, hesitated for a moment, then detached itself and shot up over the bridge, pulsing with a life all its own.

Immediately, the torpedo swarm pivoted and lit off after the decoy, eventually disappearing in a vivid fireball that nearly engulfed Defiant herself. Despite the cruiser's powerful built-in gravity, her bridge deck seemed to lift and shake until it threatened to shatter the Hyperscreens. Something heavy smashed into the starboard corner of the superstructure, cracking the corner Hyperscreen directly beside Provodnik's console, then battering itself along the deck until it disappeared into the wake.

And suddenly, they were in the clear again, flying on an even keel as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Voof!" Ursis commented with a phlegmatic shrug of his shoulder. "Close! As we say in the Mother Planets: 'Boulders and trees seldom rock a Bear's cradle willingly,' eh?"

"You bet, Nik," Brim replied with a tired grin. He was keeping his eyes on the remaining four NF-110s as they pressed home their assault on Obstinate, now weaving violently along her course and continuing her deadly fire with every disruptor that would train. At maximum distance, three of the Leaguers released their torpedoes, then stampeded out of range in a hail of disruptor fire from both escorts. The fourth, however, continued its run, boring in through an almost solid wall of concentrated energy. "Obstinate's not using her decoy," Brim whispered.

"Ah, perhaps she waits for the last torpedo," the Bear suggested.

"She'll be too late in a few seconds," Waldo hissed from clenched teeth.

Defiant abruptly changed course again.

At the last possible moment. Obstinate launched her decoy. The three torpedoes visibly wavered as their logic systems debated between two tempting targets.

After an eternity in Brim's reckoning, they chose the decoy-which disappeared when all three missiles exploded harmlessly in the destroyer's throbbing wake.

"You ought to watch how they do it, Alpern," someone commented from the systems consoles. "It's a lot better when we can fly around the explosion, don't you think?"

"I'll take that under advisement," the ECW Officer grumped good-naturedly.

Ursis continued to watch, wiggling his long rumpled whiskers in perplexed interest. "Last ship continues on torpedo run, would you believe?" he said, scratching delicately below the band of his peaked hat. "A puzzlement...."

"The torpedo must have hung up in her launcher," Brim said.

"Ah, that might be so!"

"Voot's beard, Obstinate, shoot!" Brim urged uselessly. So did a chorus of shouts from other parts of the bridge.

"Get him!"

"Fire, for xaxt's sake!"

At length, Obstinate did shoot, effectively concentrating her fire at short range and promptly reduced the bow and bridge of the fourth Leaguer to a fused, glowing mass of energy and radiation flame. In moments, the ship and her remaining torpedoes exploded in a giant, whirling fireball that engulfed both assailant and intended victim.

"Voof," Ursis ejaculated quietly. "It is all over now, Voot take it."

When Obstinate emerged from the fireball, cries of horror echoed everywhere among the consoles. Her bridge was completely gone, with a glowing section of the enemy's Drive chamber embedded in its place. The old destroyer slewed off as a solid mass of radiation flame suddenly vomited from her opened hull. She swiftly fell behind and was soon lost in the darkness, Perillan maneuvering wildly to avoid the glowing wreckage as she drove past to fill in the gap.

Following the next change of course, Defiant passed two more burning wrecks-cargo starships-as the remaining attackers lined up in the distance to start their next run. One of the cripples blew up a few moments later in a tremendous explosion, accompanied by flashes nearly as bright as the enemy flares.

"Poor bastards," Brim mused, more to himself than to anybody else, "they never even got a chance to fight back." Then he scratched his head in puzzlement. "Funny," he said to Ursis, "she looked like there wasn't that much wrong with her when we passed."

"Strange indeed," Ursis replied. "Almost as if there was another Leaguer out here we didn't notice."

"Looks like it's our turn next," Waldo interrupted.

"Perhaps," Ursis said, peering out a side Hyperscreen, "but I mink not. 'Caves and ice grottoes hold neither winter nor spring,' as they say,"

"Is true, Nikolai Yanuarievich," Provodrdk agreed.

Brim raised his eyes to the Hyperscreens. As if by some visible sign, the remaining Leaguer starships were turning tail and losing themselves in the starry distance at high speed. Soon afterward, a whole squadron of heavy Drive plumes arrowed obliquely past the convoy and extended rapidly in the direction of the enemy ships. Indistinct in the dying light of the enemy flares, titanic silhouettes of cascading bridges, wide-shouldered hulls, and monstrous disruptor arrays proceeded the two thickest wakes.

"Did you see those?" Brim exclaimed in excitement. "Capital ships...."

"Did I see?" Ursis repeated with a weary smile. "But how could I miss? Battlecruisers, one guesses-I had been expecting them. A little late for poor Obstinate and her crew, perhaps, but 'Old wolves often die alone beneath the trees,' as they say." Then he shrugged and shook his great furry head in sadness. "The war goes on," he rumbled to no one in particular, "and on and on and on...."

Convoy C'Y/98 fetched the great star Hador within the next eighteen metacycles, making landfall at watery Haelic's sprawling Fleet base of Atalanta without further incident. Fleet battlecruisers appeared to nave a dampening effect on the Leaguers' heroism.

At gravity pool 997/A/12, Wilf Brim stood atop Defiant's bridge and shaded his eyes against the pitless sunlight. Aft past her curving deck was the great expanse of gravity pools and serpentine canals that made up the Empire's ancient Fleet base at Atalanta. Beyond, the deep blue of Grand Harbor ended in a distant horizon of brown haze that supported a dome of pure, blistering light streaming from the star Hador, presently at its zenith.

To port, the three neighboring gravity pools had been reduced to a single oblong crater with a filthy lake of stagnant water and accumulated wreckage at its bottom. Frequent attacks from League raiders had turned many sections of the great naval base into enamel houses of concrete and twisted hullmetal. The hot wind smelled constantly of burned paint and scorched metal-no matter from what direction it blew.

Directly aft, a blackened, twisted KA'PPA mast protruded from the debris-strewn feeder canal: what was left of S.S. Eu'lull from the distant Rogell Cluster. On her last journey she'd carried a critical cargo of gravity generators for the shipyard, and almost completed the voyage unscathed. Raiding Leaguers caught her only a few yards short of the gravity pool on which Defiant now rested.... Afterward, dockyard workers unloaded the desperately needed cargo from the bottom of the canal. Orange buoys now marked the extremes of the ship's torn hull.

It had been like that all the way in from the landing vector at Grand Harbor: wreck after burned-out wreck. S.S. indigo, a goods ship from LORA'L-91 that crashed and broke her back across a generating station (the big machines were now running under temporary wooden sheds making a terrible racket, even in the middle of the busy afternoon); I.F.S.

Gallant, a small escort that had fought her last battle on the surface-and lost; S.S. Vicronn Enterprise, an old Niolanian starship with a cargo of murderous disruptor flash chambers that threatened to destroy the whole harbor during the week she burned in the center channel of the main canal.

There were too many more....

Defiant, with her lustrous hullmetal, thundering auxiliary generators, and decks full of bustling activity, stood in vivid contrast to the areas of blasted, cratered desolation everywhere around her. On her port side, a frowning, angular Sodeskayan transport, S.S. Pyech V. Bezapanost, noisily readied for a return to space. The big ship's generous expanses of deck swarmed with a confusion of hurrying Bears in colorful native dress dogging down access hatches and stowing portside gear even while final pallets of Drive crystals and gravity generators were lifted from her cargo holds.

Haelic's great Fleet base at Atalanta was miraculously still in full operation-but the price paid to maintain it had so far been utterly gigantic.

Forward, Defiant's bow pointed inland across a further maze of canals toward weathered concrete walls and stone bastions that led upward in ever-distant terraces to the top of a great crag-capped hill. Every square iral of the slopes appeared to be totally covered by a most haphazard and fanciful collection of sunbaked structures-some with flat roofs, some with spires and minarets, others topped by gleaming domes, dazzling turrets, and colonnades of every conceivable shape and form. Surmounting this, the imposing Gradgroat-Norchelite monastery with its awesome, flame-shaped spire dominated everything below. Brim watched a tiny ferry lift in a cloud of dust from the ancient campus and claw its way upward toward one of the thirteen ancient forts still orbiting Haelic that The Order had constructed during a previous, paramilitary existence.

Atalanta: a most critical port, even before the Age of Star Flight when only seaborne ships from the planet's more important continents called at her already-crumbling stone jetties and piers. But while the planet's other land masses eventually lost their identities in the backwash of galactic events, militant Gradgroat-Norchelite monks changed the very course of galactic history. And insular little Atalanta became key to the very existence of an empire so large that the city's founders would have been without vocabulary-much less thoughts-to describe it. Now she was paying dearly for the Great Imperial Fleet base that crowded her polluted shores. Wherever Brim's eyes stopped, he could pick out flattened buildings, gaping roofs open to the sky, tumbled arches, and empty window frames in walls that stood without their fellows in the dusty sunlight.

Beside him on the bridgetop, a work crew had just completed adjustments to the N-ray splitter that fed five radiation dampers faired into the forward break of Defiant's Hyperscreens like a row of old-fashioned searchlights. N-rays were Universally employed throughout the galaxy to fight radiation conflagrations-runaway cascades of pure, released energy-resulting from disruptor hits on hullmetal. These five dampers were designed to cover the forward dorsal deck and the single 152-mmi battery mounted directly below the bridge.

A yeoman-sweating in spite of his cooled battle suit-had just shut and dogged down the inspection door, and the crew was now eagerly clambering into the coolness of the bridge below. Brim followed and pulled the hatch closed-carefully dogging it down with the typical thoroughness of Helmsmen everywhere. Air conditioning swept over him in a wave of luxury as he hurried down a companionway to the wardroom. He would be just in time for the Officer's introduction to the naval base and to the city of Atalanta that had grown up around it. It was planned that Defiant would remain at least a week in port, receiving critical, last-cycle modifications KA'PPAed in from EleandorBestienne-and repairing some light damage sustained during the convoy run.

The briefer-a lanky, sun-browned Embassy staffer dressed in white-linen mufti with an old-fashioned sun helmet-was clearly a longtime civilian veteran of Imperial Station Atalanta. It was also clear that she was making her presentation for at least the ten thousandth time. Middle-aged and somehow desiccated with permanently squinting eyes, her mourn was rimmed with the thin, colorless lips of a habitual nag. She had just launched into her presentation when Brim quietly stepped through the hatch and hiked himself to the top of a nearby table....

The woman described Atalanta as essentially a small, provincial center-in spite of its great age and size. She characterized its permanent citizens as brave, tenacious almost to a fault, and extremely proud of their unique and ancient heritage-as they had been since the dawn of recorded history: for tee most part, they were also reverent-many openly worshiped with the Gradgroat-Norchelites-pragmatic, and extremely proud of their personal accomplishments. Numerous expatriates-educated and trained in far-flung learning institutions all over the galaxy-had eventually returned to the city of their birth and joined highly respected professional guilds-cadres of local talent without which the huge Fleet base would quickly cease to exist.

And although the heart of the city's economy was the Fleet base, a host of other activities went on in support of other pursuits. For example, the last of the famous Mitchell Trophy races had been flown out of Atalanta just before the war started. And, along less technical lines, a surprising number of farmers eked out livelihoods on neighboring hillsides, along with shepherds, an occasional vintner bottling e'lande, an extraordinarily potent form of meem, and numerous other food producers. There was even a small fishing fleet, or there had been before many of the fragile wood-and-varnish boats had been destroyed in the raids.

A number of the local spacecraft-called "Zuzzuous" and peculiar to the planetary system around Hador-were still in service, although, their numbers were dwindling nearly as fast as the little fishing boats. Brim remembered seeing a few on gravity pools in civilian areas of Grand Harbor as Defiant passed-brightly painted little vessels with broad bands of lavender, red, and bright yellow around their narrow, angular hulls. Passenger cabins were pierced by rows of arched windows, and their control bridges-traditionally white with green stripes-were perched high over the stem like miniature Nimidan Hallo Houses. The unique ships could not exceed LightSpeed, and were most normally employed as interplanetary ferries.

For all its picturesque history, the town had been under almost constant attack for nearly a standard year now-fourteen seasonals, as Atalantian natives reckoned time-except when Imperial capital ships were in the area, as they presently were.

The devastating raids were likely to occur at any hour of the day, and were almost totally unpredictable. Because Defiant was scheduled for an extended stay, the woman from the Embassy went into lavish detail as to how one might identify shelters in various sections of the city: large green holoposters with white umbrellas appearing to float "inside" over animated directional arrows throughout Atalanta and her suburbs. Shelters themselves, however, were often uniquely marked in different sections of the city: some with icons of the Archangel Marvin-from the Kreejkl pantheon. Brim remembered, wondering how he had managed to store that particular element of trivia-some displaying holographs of the Emperor Greyffin IV, others using the grim visage of Nergol Triannic. During alerts, all were required to energize a strobing lavender beacon-at least until the raiders were actually sighted. And anyone out on the streets after that deserved whatever he got.

At the end of the woman's long briefing, Brim found himself with a real desire to see more of the ancient city and its fascinating people. He resolved to do some exploring before departed the port.

Hador was nearly at its blinding zenith when Calhoun and Brim met Rabelais T. Gastongay, Defiant' s dockyard representative, on a jetty near the ship's gravity pool. "At your service," the man said, raising his hand, palm open, in traditional Haelician greeting.

He was young and muscular with a great wide chin and a beard that resembled a rick of sun-dried hay. His spotless but worn trousers had a tiny waist-all out of proportion to his massive chest-and his smile beamed with the sunlight of Hador itself. "We've received quite a list of items the Admiralty wants 'corrected' on your Defiant here," he said.

"I can imagine," the older Carescrian responded smoothly, returning the same Haelician salute as if he'd visited the old port a thousand times. "How many of those 'corrections', luik like they might actually be important, would ye say, noo?"

Gastongay laughed and peered up at the ship as she tested her moorings in the hot afternoon breeze. "Hard for me to make calls like those, Number One," he said, frowning. "I don't have to fly on her. But we'll be glad to do whatever makes you people feel right about your ship."

Calhoun turned to Brim. "Well, laddie," he said, "if anybody has the feel of the ship, it's a Helmsman. What'll make her right for you?"

Brim grinned and handed a small plastic memosquare to Gastongay. "When we saw an advance copy of the Admiralty list," he said, "a few of us got together and wrote up our absolute 'has to be done' list. Like changing out the starboard power dynamos-the ones that overheated and shorted out power to the Navigation tables."

Gastongay wiped mock perspiration from his brow. "That," he said earnestly, "is the kind of list we pray for around here."

"I assume that ye included the change order for the new mop handles in Hamper K, Station J-eighty-one, Lieutenant Brim," Calhoun said sternly.

"To tell the truth, Cat, I did leave those out," Brim admitted, touching the bridge of his nose in mock anguish. "I thought I might substitute something like a request for a launch to replace the one that got carried overboard when that torpedo part hit us. What do you think, Rab?"

"Well," Gastongay said, joining the spirit of their easy banter, "I've spent enough time in the Fleet to appreciate the importance of the proper mop handles-but I think I'd probably put replacing that launch a mite higher on my priority list." He frowned for a moment, scratching his head. "Unless, of course, you don't mind jumping a couple hundred c'lenyts between starships out there in intragalactic space. We get crews like that from time to time, you know."

"Not us," Calhoun said. "But sometimes young Brim here does try to land the ship with no Verticals. I'll bet that's almost as exciting...." Abruptly, he focused his eyes between the two younger men toward a neighboring gravity pool and frowned. "Who," he said at some length, "is that?"

Gastongay glanced for a moment over his shoulder, then grinned. "That's Claudia," he responded with a chuckle. "She manages this division of the Yard-really something, isn't she?"

Curious, Brim also turned-and confronted a startlingly beautiful young woman whom the term "something" didn't even begin to describe. She was small and almost the perfect antithesis of Margot Effer'wyck. She wore her dark-brown hair almost to her waist in gently flowing waves that framed a countenance graced by wide-set brown eyes with long eyelashes, an almost, but not quite, pug nose, generous lips, and a strong chin. She was gorgeous! She also had an ample bust-neither emphasized nor obscured by the snug, fashionably short pelisse she wore that revealed a modest waist, perfect legs, and tiny feet in old-fashioned, high-heeled sandals. As she approached, she looked Brim directly in the face with the half-smile of a woman who is quite accustomed to having a sizable impact on men.

"... may I present Lieutenants Calhoun and Brim?" Gastongay was saying when the younger Carescrian forced himself back to his senses. He half heard Calhoun respond with some magnificently gallant-meaningless-words. Then the laughing brown eyes were on him again.

"I, ah, didn't catch the name," he stammered helplessly as he reached out to take the tiny warm hand she extended in Standard Avalonian greeting.

"Claudia," the woman said squeezing his fingers in a perfect feminine handshake,

"Claudia Valemont."

"l am honored, ma'am," Brim said, starting to regain his senses.

"I think it is I who am honored, Lieutenant," she demurred. "You are the famous Carescrian Helmsman, are you not?"

"1 doubt if I am all that famous," Brim responded, feeling his face bum, "but I am a Carescrian...."

"Even if he fails t' sound like ane," Calhoun teased.

Claudia smiled warmly. "We Haelicians usually can't recognize accents anyway, Commander Calhoun," she said in a soft voice that sounded like sunlight. "We hear every spaceborne dialect in the Galaxy-but never listen for them." She then turned toward Defiant with a professional eye. "So that's the new class of light cruiser," she remarked with a suddenly professional air. "Fine lines for such a large ship. Rumor claims she's fast, too."

"Very fast, m'lady," Calhoun answered.

"But she needs a new launch," Gastongay interjected.

"I noticed that," Claudia said, frowning. "According to the drawings, she should have two of them abaft the bridge. I only see one-and the dented area of scorch. How did that happen, Lieutenant Brim?"

"We got a bit too close to some jettisoned torpedoes," Brim explained. "When they went off, part of one hit us."

Claudia squinted up at the sunlight. "Yes." she said. "I can see the path it took. The Hyperscreens are cracked there above the large dent where the damage starts."

"When do you suppose we are going to find another launch for these people?"

Gastongay asked. "I don't remember any coming in with the spares."

"If one did," Claudia said, "I'd personally kill the person who shipped it. We need that kind of room for important goods-like more spares." Then she laughed. "But we do indeed have a launch here. Remember, Rab?"

Gastongay frowned and cocked his head. "From one of the wrecks, maybe?"

"We probably would find a few launches if we searched the wrecks," she agreed. "But I wouldn't want to vouch for the condition they're in." Her eyes sparkled in the sunlight as she smiled. "No, the one I'm thinking about came in for I.F.S. Intractable almost a year ago.

Remember it now?"

Gastongay shut his eyes and grinned. "Oh, that one?" he said with a guffaw.

"That one," she said, sighting over her thumb toward Defiant. "I'll bet a bottle of e'lande it'll fit right there when we get those dents out. She's got a bit of room on her boat deck."

Gastongay scanned Defiant's boat deck, too. "Yeah," be agreed, wrinkling his nose.

"You're right; it probably will fit, but..."

"But what?" Brim broke in warily.

"Well," Claudia laughed, "it is sort of an unusual launch."

"Actually, more what you might call an attack launch," Gastongay added with a smile.

"An attack launch?" Calhoun demanded. Then he shut his eyes and snapped his fingers.

"Of course-I.F.S. Intractable, the attack transport! In fact, she was headed here when she hit that space mine, wasn't she?"

"That's the one," Claudia acknowledged. "They originally built her to capture the orbital citadels at Lazenwold. She wasn't very big, but she could carry four hundred fully armed space troops-I saw her the one time she made landfall here."

"But an armed launch?" Calhoun asked. "What would she need something like that for? If I remember right, she carried a few 125-mmi disruptors herself."

"That's right," Gastongay interjected. "But she also had all that hullmetal freeboard." He laughed. "She showed up on detectors like the Desterro Monument in Avalon-flame sculpture and all. Boffins at the Admiralty built the launch to make up for it. They designed her to barge into the vicinity of the forts without being recognized, then cause enough confusion and damage to let the mother ship land her troops."

"A single launch can do all that?" Brim asked incredulously.

"Not just any single launch," Claudia assured him. "This one's got a pair of experimental spin-gravs that can take her to .95 LightSpeed in less than fifteen cycles, if I remember correctly. And, I think, she mounts a 75-mmi disruptor, too."

"Spin-gravs?" Brim gasped. "With power plants like those, it's no wonder they expected to generate some confusion." He shook his head. "You say she's still here at the Atalanta Base?"

"I passed her only yesterday in one of the deep warehouses," Claudia said. "That's why I remembered. We kept her ready for combat months after Intractable got herself blown up-figuring the Admiralty would need it for the replacement they built. But I guess plans changed, because a couple of months ago they sent Queen Elidean to take the citadels out completely. And after that, the launch sort of lost its mission."

"We've tried to give her away a couple of times since then," Gastongay admitted. "But we've had no takers so far."

"What's wrong with her?" Brim asked.

"Well, she only holds about ten passengers," Claudia admitted.

"I heard that she's also a real handful to control," Gastongay added, pointedly looking Brim in the eye. "You know that Abner Klisnikov-the last Mitchell Trophy winner-was chief Helmsman on Intractable. He volunteered to fly the mission himself, and the launch was built to his personal specifications. From what I understand, he could fly anything."

"Abner Klisnikov," Brim repeated, shaking his head reverently, "the famous racer. I'd been told he was killed, but they never said where.... I think I've simulated every mission he recorded."

"So?" Claudia asked. "Do you think you could handle a launch built for his hands?"

"Probably," Brim said. "I don't expect to run trophy races or attack any forts with it-at least not soon."

"A sensible answer," Claudia replied. Her brown eyes met Brim's for only a moment-but flashed a clear message of interest before glancing away toward Defiant once more. "And she is the only launch we've got in flying shape at the base. We could probably fix one up for you from a wreck, of course, but it would take some time...."

"What do you think, Wilf?" Calhoun interjected. "If you are half the Helmsman they say you are, we've got ourselves a new launch."

"But it'll only carry ten passengers," Brim protested. "Do you think the Captain will want it?"

Calhoun laughed. "If I know anything about Collingswood," he said, "she'll agree a launch that carries ten is a lot better than an empty spot on the boat deck that carries naught."

"Can I show it to you, Lieutenant Brim?" Claudia asked, nodding toward a battered, sun-bleached skimmer with a canvas top that was hovering nearby. "I happen to be on my way to that warehouse right now."

Calhoun winked at Brim and grinned. "I think ye ought to go nab a luik," he said.

"Especially if this lovely lass is willing to take ye there. I can probably finish up with Mr. Gastongay here without any mair help."

Brim turned to Claudia. Whatever else she might be, she certainly was lovely. "At your service, ma'am," he said, squinting in the sunlight. "I'd love to see a launch like that."

Not half a metacycle later, Brim found himself shivering in the chill dry air of a warehouse five hundred irals beneath the lowest streets of Atalanta. Beside him, Claudia calmly piloted her little skimmer through the trackless maze of ancient stone tunnels and storerooms as if she traveled them every day-which, on reflection, she probably did. At every turn, their headlights picked out bewildering collections of every spare part imaginable: crated interrupters, gravitron compensators, wave shunts, dynamos, telsa coils, amplifiers, generators, multipliers, Drive oscillators, resonance waveguides, Deighton modulators, the billion and one items necessary to maintain a sizable fleet aloft and in fighting trim.

Atalanta's substantial accumulation of goods was mute testimony that convoys did work, even though Brim was certain that its cost was far beyond mere credit accounting, dearly, for every milston of equipment delivered, at least two more had been destroyed by League raiders. And unfortunately, he estimated, it would take only a single major battle to empty the great store rooms again in very short order.

At the fifth level, Claudia abruptly turned left and headed the little skimmer back along a shadowed avenue of palletized J-type crystal synchronizers that led-eventually-to the entrance of a darkened, virtually empty room. Stopping for a moment, Claudia switched out her headlights and grinned at Brim in the glow of the instruments. "I have a feeling, Lieutenant," she said, thumbing a small controller at her side, "that you will find this immensely interesting."

She was correct. Brim suddenly caught his breath when the lights switched on. "Voot's left ear!..." he gasped, blinking his eyes in the harsh brightness. At the far end of a vast, but otherwise empty, stone chamber rested one of the truly startling auxiliary vessels be had ever set eyes upon. Claudia brought the skimmer to a halt just under its snub-nosed prow.

Resting on a wooden shipping dolly and covered by a layer of fine, whitish dust, the graceful little spaceship was no more man forty irals long, with remarkably clean lines and a relative lack of angles anywhere. Wordlessly, Brim jumped to the pavement and walked around its slim ovoid hull, marveling at the flowing, compact design that looked almost as if it was originally created for high-speed work within an atmosphere of some sort. Two great teardrop nacelles-as gracefully streamlined as the hull itself-clearly contained the ship's spin-grav generators. These were slung from the outer ends of wide, bladelike sponsons attached at the widest point of the hull perhaps eight irals aft of the prow. The rounded tips of the nacelles came even with the launch's stubby nosecap.

A tiny glassed-in bridge placed the Helmsman and Coxswain side by side over the leading edge of the sponsons. The forward location would certainly provide a splendid view through the V-shaped windscreens on landing, Brim surmised. But as the top of the bridge was faired almost flush with the rise in the fuselage aft, he silently predicted it would also be troublesome during a stem attack. Of course, if Claudia were correct in her claims about the little ship's power plants, that threat might well be minimized.

Abaft and below the flight bridge, five small portholes on each side of the hull fixed the position of double passenger seats. A quartet of .303 blasters protruded through the nose just above the distinctive barrel of a Brentanno MK-8, 75-mmi antitank disruptor in a pivot housing. Brim was not simply impressed, he was astounded. The deceptively graceful hull was clearly capacious enough to house such weapons under the flight bridge floor alone....

"Should I assume you like her, Lieutenant?" Claudia broke in, almost startling Brim from his reverie.

"You may," he chuckled. "And, by the bye, my real name is not 'Lieutenant,' Donna Valemont," he added, using the Haelician polite form of address he'd learned at the briefing.

"All right," she said, smiling more with her eyes than anything else, "I shall call you Wilf if you will call me Claudia. A deal?"

"A done deal," Brim said with a grin.

"'Done' deal?"

"Happily agreed on," Brim explained, trying to concentrate on her existence as a highly placed professional. Her quiet, almost casual air of competence made this easy to do, but the occasional hints of nipples pressing through her close-fitting pelisse made it difficult to forget that she was also an extremely sensuous woman. Somehow, in Claudia Valemont, neither intruded on the other-both were there in easy view because she wanted things that way. It was becoming abundantly clear to Wilf Brim that he was in the presence of an extraordinary woman. With no little sense of culpability, be conceded that he would like to know a lot more about her....

On the cramped flight bridge, Brim seated himself at the Helmsman's console and studied the array of instruments-amazingly well placed. The little ship was a work of art. He located the generator controls, steering gear, collective, navigation instruments, lights, trim, IFF detonators, fire extinguishers, flight-path scanners-all where they ought to be and easily grouped for natural interfacing.

After a few moments, Claudia joined him in the stale air of the powered-off spaceship.

Climbing through the tiny starboard hatch, she inadvertently revealed a leg nearly all the way to the stunning whiteness of her inner thigh. Brim tried not to stare as she quickly rearranged her skirt, but a familiar stirring began in his loins and continued while she took her place at the console beside him. After a few cycles of rubbing shoulders while he pointed out the firing controls on the coxswain's console, he knew he would require a few moments' cooling off before he could stand outside the flight bridge again. His jumpsuit was also reasonably form-fitting-especially where it would show....

Altogether, two full metacycles passed as if they were no more than a few elapsed clicks.

All too soon, Brim found himself back under the blazing sun, and Claudia was dropping him off at Defiant's brow. "You think you can fly Her, then?" she asked as she braked the skimmer to a halt.

"I don't suppose I'll really know until I've tried her out," he answered truthfully. "But I certainly want to give it a try. When could you have her delivered?"

"Soon," she said, looking him in the eye. "But I shan't promise when."

"You'll be around to check when she arrives?" he blurted out as he stepped to the pavement. He certainly hadn't planned to say anything like that-and truth to tell, he felt a little guilty about the whole thing. After all, he'd never even mentioned Margot....

"Perhaps," she said, revving the little grav. Then she smiled and smoothed her long hair.

"I shall try to stop by. But if I can't, and Defiant leaves before I see you again, good luck with her, Wilf. Consider that you owe me a drink someday when you're back in town." Then, before he could answer, she was gone in a rush of heated afternoon air.

As he watched the skimmer disappear along the dusty road, ft feeling of loneliness suddenly descended on him-and didn't go away even when he subsequently resumed his duties.

The next morning before work was scheduled to begin on the Hyperscreens, Brim was up early running checks on Defiant's homing apparatus when Ursis stuck his head through the bridge hatch.

"Wilf," the Bear called, "Captain Collingswood finds herself 'invited' to a surprise briefing at headquarters immediately. We are expected as well, it seems."

"We got briefed yesterday, didn't we?" Brim asked with a frown, entering a PAUSE command at the console.

"Concerning the city and the base, yes," Ursis said. "Today's, however, carries a high security classification-so I think it will be something new."

"Another lecture on social diseases, I suppose."

The Bear grinned while he replaced his Zempa pipe in its pouch. "Possibly," he allowed.

"But it matters little in light of the fact that our attendance is required. Commanding officers, Executive Officers, Principal Helmsmen, Principal Systems Officers, Principal Weapons Officers, and selected civilians," he recited, counting each category on each of his six fingers.

"Voot's beard." Brim laughed. "I was going to get some useful work done this morning."

"Fleet Regulations forbid useful work when in port," Ursis stated flatly. "Had you forgotten? After all, 'Blue snow brings cheer to the young hearts of red meer cabbages,' as we say."

"Yeah," Brim said, keying in a test exit and returning the console to the system.

"Will there be anything else?" the Chairman asked.

"Not today," Brim said. "Admiralty rules, I guess."

"It does," the Chairman acknowledged as Brim and Ursis passed through the companionway. "It certainly does...."