The Mercenaries

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"Ten."

Barbousse announced grimly.

"Nine... Eight... Seven..."

Brim had to fight the controls with all his concentration. Come on, Barbousse!

"Four... three... two... one... Torpedoes running, Cap'm!"

In the wink of an eye, eight dark spindles flashed out from beneath Starfury's bridge and headed squarely for the battleship. Instantly Brim threw in full military power, pulled the nose up and rolled out into a violent jink. But he was moments too late.

With unbelievable concussion and sound, the whole forward tip of Starfury's starboard pontoon disappeared in a tremendous blast of radiant energy. Her hull jumped and quivered for a long moment and the generators skipped a beat as Brim fought to bring the skewed ship back under control.

Then, without warning, they were again blasted off course—this time by an even more stupendous explosion. The whole Universe seemed to light up by the birth of some hellacious new star...

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WARNER BOOKS EDITION

Copyright © 1991 by Merl Baldwin

All rights reserved.

Questar is a registered trademark of Warner Books, Inc.

Cover illustration by John Berkey

Cover design by Don Puckey

Warner Books, Inc.

1271 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N. Y. 10020

A Time Warner Company

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing: June, 1991

The Mercenaries

Bill Baldwin

CHAPTER 1

Bromwich, 52009

Commander Wilf Brim, I. F., scanned a mass of polychrome data cascading over his four readout consoles—then checked the panel clock, "It's time, Number One," he said, nodding to Lieutenant Nadia Tissaurd at the CoHelmsman's station beside him. "Let's pipe it on the blower."

"Aye, Captain," Tissaurd replied; a deft pass of her index finger triggered the starship's intercom.

"Hands to liftoff stations," she announced, her voice resounding into every cubic iral of the big starship.

"Hands to liftoff stations. Stand by mooring and fender beams!"

Abruptly, the bridge filled with noises of imminent departure: running footfalls, airtight doors slamming, the cadenced babble of thirty different checklists. Brim settled into his recliner with a full measure of excitement. Beneath his boots, I.F.S. Starfury's deck trembled to the steady beat of six Admiralty A876 gravity generators running at fast idle in long pontoons at either side of the main hull.

Above it all, he sensed (more than heard) the treble rush of steering engines as Engineering Officer Strana' Zaftrak carried out her last-moment checklist at the Systems Console behind him. No need for worry there. The Sodeskayan woman was thorough.

A scraping thud announced the brow had been swayed back to the edge of the gravity pool; anyone aboard now was on his way to the space trials—whether that was what he intended or not.

"Hands stand by for internal gravity," Tissaurd announced on the blower. A woman in her early forties from the Lampsen Provinces with laughing eyes, jet-black hair, and a compact figure, her matter-of-fact competency had been an asset since the day she signed on as First Lieutenant—only metacycles following Brim's own arrival as Commanding Officer. With the million-odd tasks to be accomplished before the new ship was commissioned, her kind of cheerful willingness had been doubly appreciated. Besides, she was sexy in her own way.

Once more Brim verified the flow of information over his console, then swallowed hard and nodded to Zaftrak's furry visage in a display. "Switch it, Strana'," he ordered quietly.

The Sodeskayan winked and passed a delicate, six-fingered hand over the gravity console beside her, changing sixteen flashing red indicators to steady blue—and savaging Brim's stomach in an avalanche of nausea as gravity cycled from planetary to the ship's artificial gradient. During twenty-nine years in space he had never become inured to the change, especially if it happened abruptly.

When his vision cleared, he shunted one of his displays to the PoolMaster in a control cupola on the rim of the gravity pool, twenty-five irals beneath Starfury's levitated hull. "Single up the moorings, if you please, Master Scirri, " he ordered.

"Singling up moorings, " replied Scirri's bearded face from the display. He had narrow lips, a sharp nose, and the humorless, close-set eyes of a sharpshooter. He was the best PoolMaster at Sherrington's.

Through the Hyperscreens—normally transparent crystalline windows that simulated conventional vision at Hyperspeeds—Brim watched a network of greenish mooring beams wink out one by one.

Presently, the ship was tethered by a single set of four springs projected from the corners of the gravity pool, flaring up and abating as Starfury moved to the wind.

Outside, the weather was moderating—at last. Bromwich city (indeed all of Rhodor's boreal hemisphere) had been stormy that winter. But at present, the air was clean and crisp over squalid, whitecapped Glammarian Bight. Brim looked out across the ship's snub-nosed prow, drinking in the pair of graceful ebony pontoons that jutted almost fifty irals beyond. From the tip of each, two 406-mmi disruptors continued forward for another seventy-five irals. Once exclusively reserved for use on the largest battleships, twelve of these deadly and brutally efficient ship-killing mechanisms could now be mounted on light cruisers like Starfury—but only by dint of recent technology, developed not a moment too soon. A sad, fragile peace that doggedly persisted among the Galactic dominions reminded Brim of the thin winter dayshine outside: it still managed a pallid light, but all the heat had long ago escaped. Even as he sat in his Helmsman's seat, the old enemy was constructing new, deep-space fortifications in a score of locations. War was about to break out all over the galaxy, and with a sadly depleted Imperial Fleet, only Starfury and the sister ships that would follow her from the Sherrington Works held any genuine promise for a bleak-looking future....

The bridge had grown quiet now, every console manned and active. "Ship's buttoned up, Captain," Tissaurd reported with a grin. "All hands are at stations and pretaxi checklists are done," she said. "Ready to proceed...."

"Good work, Nadia," Brim replied. He touched the COMM panel at his right hand. "Bromwich Ground," he sent, "Fleet K5054 requests immediate G-pool departure."

"K5054: affirmative. Cleared immediate G-pool departure."

"K5054," Brim acknowledged. Then, into the display: "Master Scirri, stand by springs!" He checked fore and aft through the Hyperscreens—all clear. Starfury had a quartering wind on her starboard bow. No particular problem, but it never hurt to be careful.... Narrowing his eyes, he waited for the proper balance of wind and mooring beams, before "Let go port springs!"

"All clear port, Captain," the bearded PoolMaster reported from his console.

The crosswind meant that Brim would have to go ahead on the back spring and get the stern to swing out to port. He touched his power console. Immediately two narrow amethyst damper rays warmed the palm of his hand, each controlled three of the ship's six gravity generators on its respective side. Nudging the starboard glow forward without altering its color, he called up only enough power to move the ship. "Let go the forrard spring!" he barked.

"All clear forrard, Captain," Scirri acknowledged.

Starfury's deck throbbed steadily to the increased beat of her Admiralty A876s; a mug of cvceese' rattled on a nearby console.

"Stow that mug," Brim snapped quietly.

"Aye, Captain," came someone's embarrassed reply. The mug disappeared immediately.

Brim regarded the spring tightening below. Too much strain and the poolside projectors would override—letting Starfury skid downwind into a sleek destroyer moored on the next gravity pool.

Unthinkable! He trained a second display aft, watching his gravity generators ram the view to shimmering haze, men remembered to breathe as afternoon light began to blank the blue glow of stationary repulsion units at the bottom of the pool. The stern was beginning to swing out, angling away while the solitary spring took the starship's slow thrust like a great leash.

Starfury was soon skewed across the gravity pool at about ten degrees, with the PoolMaster's cupola hidden beneath the port pontoon. Brim drew the starboard damper ray back to idle. "Let go aft spring!" he ordered.

"All clear aft, Captain!"

At the precise moment the last spring beam disappeared, Brim moved both damper rays forward together. With only a moment's hesitation the big starship eased off her gravity pool and out over the strand, hovering a regulation twenty-five irals above the unique, three-element footprint she pushed into the surface of the dirty water thumping and foaming beneath her hulls. "Bromwich Ground," Brim sent,

"K5054 requests taxi instructions."

"K5054: cross one seven left without delay and hold at locus six five."

"K5054," Brim acknowledged. He glanced off to starboard. A trio of Sherrington F.7/30 attack ships was running up at the landward termination of takeoff vector Seventeen Right, clouds of mist and spume mounting into the pale blue sky behind them. They'd have to salute Starfury, of course. "Ready to take the honors, Lieutenant?" he prompted Morris at the COMM console.

"Ready, Captain,"

Presently, old-fashioned characters flashed across his KA'PPA display, "may stars light all thy paths."

He looked up in time to see glowing KA'PPA rings shimmer out from Starfury's high beacon—the message would arrive instantaneously throughout the Universe, though all but the three F.7s would ignore it; "and thy paths, star travelers." Gradually moving both damper rays forward, he hurried across their path, then slowed and came to a hover with hold buoy number sixty-five off the tip of Starfury's port pontoon. Moments afterward, the malevolent-looking F.7s thundered past in close formation, trailing three lofty cascades of spray that doused Starfury's Hyperscreens like a waterfall before they abruptly subsided about a c'lenyt out on the bight, where the three ships soared gracefully into the sky.

Brim grinned to himself. Cheeky rascals, those young Helmsmen, just about as cheeky as he'd been himself twenty-live years ago in his native Carescria—especially when he thought he had a faster ship. They clearly hadn't heard of Starfury's dazzling acceleration—yet. He relaxed in his recliner and listened to Tissaurd and Zaftrak completing their liftoff checklist.

"Transponders and 'home' indicator?" Tissaurd asked.

"On," Zaftrak responded.

"Fullstop cell?"

"Powered."

"Warning lights?"

"On."

"Engineer's check?"

"Complete."

"Antiskid?"

"Skid is on."

"Speed brake?"

"Forward."

"Stabilizer trim—delete the gravity gradient, if you please."

"Gradient null."

"Course indicators?"

"Set and checked."

"Liftoff check is complete, Captain," Tissaurd reported.

"Very well, Nadia," Brim responded, then used the next brief moments to make his own audits of the starship's systems, finishing only moments before Ground Control came back on line. "K5054; taxi into position, hold one seven right," the controller sent. "Contact Bromwich Tower. Good day."

"Into position and hold, 5054. Good day," Brim acknowledged, easing forward again to follow a series of bobbing markers until a ruby light gleamed out of the distance. Then he put the helm over, turned into the wind, and centered the glimmer in a small circle projected on the Hyperscreen from his console. "Bromwich Tower K5054 in position and holding...."

"K5054 is cleared for liftoff," the Tower sent. "Wind three one five at two seven gusts four seven."

"Cleared for liftoff, K5054," Brim acknowledged. He flicked the blower. "All hands stand by for liftoff," he warned the crew, then glanced over his shoulder.

Zaftrak was holding her left hand up, thumb in the air. Starfury was ready.

In all his years at a helm, Brim had never outgrown the wild, almost-physical thrill of liftoff. "I'll have full military power, Strana'," he said.

"One hundred percent military," Zaftrak replied.

"Steering engine's amidships," Tissaurd added—the last item on Starfury's preflight checklist.

Taking a deep breath. Brim stood on the gravity brakes and cautiously moved both damper rays forward until they passed from amethyst to blue, then to green... yellow... orange... finally to flashing red.

The deep rumbling of the gravity generators changed voice to a thunderous bellow that shook Starfury's whole spaceframe and resonated deafeningly through the Hyperscreens as if the big ship were centered in the midst of some gigantic explosion. Astern, a long strip of the Bight had suddenly flattened into a madly flowing millrace that ended in a towering cloud of spray and ice particles soaring at least a c'lenyt into the pale winter sky.

"Six lights are on, Captain," Zaftrak called above the noise, "you've got one fifteen thrust!"

Brim cleared his flight path visually, made another pass over his readouts. "Here we go!" he shouted, then released the brakes....

Instantly, the big starship began to move forward—completely unlike generations of predecessors that took what seemed to be eternities at full power before they would even respond to their steering engines. In only moments Starfury was trailing lofty cascades of spray and plunging smoothly across the water at tremendous velocity. The enormous quantities of power available did little to interfere with the ship's naturally delicate, quick, and positive response to control manipulations. After a moment, her bows lifted slightly to the mighty beat of the generators, then fell again while speed increased through 165 c'lenyts per metacycle. At about 170, Brim eased back on the controls overcoming a slight tendency to nose down farther, then as she accelerated through 180, he lifted the bow and let the ship's weight transfer to the gravs, applying about a third rudder to check a normal swing to port during liftoff. A moment later she separated from her shadow and began climbing smoothly over the Sherrington Works on the way to the ultimate freedom of her native element: deep interstellar space.

"K5054 is at one thousand and climbing," Brim reported.

"K5054: turn port fifteen to join two thirty radial outbound blue, contact Blue District Departure Control," Sherrington Tower advised while Starfury bounced through light turbulence.

"K5054: turning port fifteen to two thirty radial outbound blue. Good day," Brim replied.

"Best o' luck on the trials, Commander."

"Thanks, Control, we can always use it."

As he trimmed the ship's head toward the assigned departure radial, Brim glanced down at fifteen Starfury-class warships on gravity stocks below—in various forms of completion. He'd inspected three of them the previous afternoon. Another fifteen —fitting out on bay-side gravity pools—were on hold status while Sherrington engineers awaited results of his prototype's space trials. He shook his head while the course indicator settled onto its new heading. Those ships down there were being put together on little more than faith alone: faith that I.F.S. Starfury's original design was sound—and a sincere hope that the mistakes she did embody could be easily and economically corrected. Major modifications to a fleet of thirty-one warships could actually spell financial disaster to the credit-strapped Imperial Fleet. They would almost certainly mean that Crown Prince Onrad would be deprived of his succession. The only son of Emperor Greyffin IV and heir to the Imperial throne at Avalon, Onrad had personally ordered Starfury's creation at the historic Dytasburg conference in Sodeskaya the previous year, then immediately funded thirty additional "prototypes" using discretionary development funds. He took these seemingly rash actions because he truly believed that war might soon engulf the "civilized" dominions of the galaxy, during a time when the once-great Imperial Fleet had been reduced to a mere shadow of its former might.

Abruptly, the COMM light blinked green. Tissaurd was in contact with Blue District Departure Control. "K5054, climbing through fifteen thousand on two thirty radial/" he reported.

"K5054," Control replied. "You are cleared through three hundred c'lenyts on two thirty radial outbound blue. Advise slower traffic approximately twenty-five c'lenyts off your bow. Contact Blue Planetary Control."

"K5054 cleared through three hundred c'lenyts on two thirty radial outbound blue. Contact Blue Planetary and acknowledge slower traffic approximately twenty-five c'lenyts off bow. Good day."

"Much success with the trials, Commander."

"Thanks, District," Brim acknowledged. "We'll give them our best shot." He nodded his head. A lot of people believed in Starfury and the royal orders that had put her into production. But that belief was by no means universal among the diverse peoples of the Empire. Since the year 52000 when the delusory Treaty of Garak ended open warfare between Nergol Triannic's League of Dark Stars and Greyffin IV's far-flung Galactic Empire, a sinister and powerful antimilitary organization had infiltrated the Imperial Government as well as the Admiralty itself.

Known as the Congress for Infra-Galactic Accord, and almost openly funded by the League itself, it was chaired by a one-time shipmate of Brims, Commodore Puvis Amherst. The CIGAs' avowed goal was dismantling—from within—the mighty Imperial Fleet that had nearly annihilated League Admiral Kabul Anak's spaceborne armadas. All, of course, in the name of "Peace."

Unfortunately, during almost nine-odd years of false truce, the craven Amherst and his CIGAs had been all too successful at their task—at the same time their League masters secretly rebuilt war-decimated battle squadrons at a feverish pace. And now they were working on their xaxtdamned space forts....

Brim had seen Onrad's courageous move raise a predictable hue and cry from CIGAs all over the Empire, but the Prince remained undeterred, indefatigable in his belief that the new ships constituted the absolute minimum counterforce necessary to insure survival of civilization. Clearly, he trusted that eventually he would be vindicated—and meanwhile, each new Starfury added to the possibility that the Empire might persevere into the second phase of a war that was coming as surely as helium follows hydrogen on the chart.

Brim's LightSpeed meter read .86 when he passed the three F.7s at nearly double their speed, leaving them tossing wildly in his graviton wake. He smiled briefly, imagining the consternation aboard the fast little ships as Starfury swept past them as if they were still sitting on a gravity pool.

Again, the COMM light flashed on the panel before him. "K5054 at two eighty c'lenyts on two thirty outbound and climbing," he reported.

"K5054: cleared direct to deep space and light speed. Knock 'em dead, Starfury!"

"Count on it," Brim answered. Then, moments later, the LightSpeed meter passed 1.0 and normal radio communications ceased.

They were fourteen Standard Days at Starfury's space trials, conducted for reasons of secrecy at the gigantic—and nearly abandoned—Fleet base on Gimmas Haefdon. Gimmas had been Brim's first duty station out of the Helmsman's Academy, nearly sixteen years previously, when he was assigned to Regula Collingswood's old T-class destroyer I.F.S, Truculent. Closed for nearly ten years now by CIGA-contrived "economic" concerns, the great base—covering much of the planet's land mass—would already be yielding to the corrosive effects of Gimmas's brutally frigid climate. Brim had been in contact with the trials party for nearly half a cycle when Starfury thundered down out of perpetually dense storm clouds over the tossing Sea of Garnatz; however, nothing could have prepared him for the barren, frozen wasteland that lay below. The base's great, ocean-spanning causeways appeared to be intact, but they were covered with snow and ice, and seemed to be no more navigable than the gray, ice-strewn sea they surmounted. Nothing moved as far as his eye could see. The planet's wearisome flatness was broken only by vast complexes of forlorn structures that looked as if they were constructed of nothing more permanent than the ice and snow that covered them.

Closer to the surface, Tissaurd pointed out vast compounds of battleship-sized gravity pools covered with drifted snow and locked in ice that must now extend all the way to the bottom of their feeder canals. In sprawling scrap yards, hundreds of discarded starships lay in slipshod rows beneath the drifted snow. Some of the hulls, by their very shapes, were obsolete. But far too many were clearly serviceable, modern starships, relegated prematurely to abandonment by industrious CIGAs—citizens of the Empire who were causing more damage to their own Fleet than all the powerful squadrons of warships Nergol Triannic had been able to effect in a fully declared war.

Within half a metacycle they were sweeping low past the colossal structures that were once the Base's Central Complex: lofty glass and metal towers so tall their exaggerated perspective gave Brim a brief feeling of vertigo as he sped past. Nearby was the enormous parade ground where he received his first medals from Crown Prince Onrad so many years ago—just before he'd been transferred to I.F.S. Defiant. From thirty thousand irals, the great tract appeared to be no larger than his thumbnail.

Broad—empty—avenues extended out from the deserted complex like c'lenyts-long spokes of some gigantic wheel whose interstices were filled by jumbles of odd-shaped structures, soaring conduits, rows of ship-sized tanks, huge mushroom-shaped reactor sites, and a maze of empty tram lines. All were covered by unblemished layers of drifted snow—except, strangely, the reactor sites. Every one of these appeared to be free of snow and clearly operational. Surrounded by soaring energy-transmission towers and topped by blazing beacons, their enormous collapsium domes gleamed as if they had only just been installed. Odd, Brim considered, that so much power was necessary for a purely maintenance effort, even if one counted the enormous energy needed to protect some of the base's larger, more valuable structures. But the Admiralty never had been noted for its logic —especially in peacetime.

Near the shore, and verging a prodigious expanse of half-buried maintenance structures, two small groups of buildings fronted six active gravity pools in a tiny aggregation of cleared streets and melted snow. Five of the pools were already occupied. As Tissaurd piped landing cautions throughout the hull, Brim picked out two speedy-looking V-class destroyers—those would act as chase ships during the trials. A large supply vessel in the colors of AkroKahn, the Sodeskayan space line, clearly housed shops and facilities for tuning Starfury's Drive components. On the next two gravity pools, a huge repair and salvage vessel and a smaller commissary transport completed the little squadron. He shook his head.

All for testing a single ship.

"Ironic, isn't it?" Tissaurd's voice broke into his thoughts.

"I was thinking 'wasteful,' myself," Brim muttered as Starfury bumped through turbulence over the shoreline. "But I'm sure it's ironic, too," he allowed grimly. Ahead, a five-c'lenyt-long section of ice was melting into a landing strip as he watched. Clearly, the reactors here were operating flawlessly, too.

"You bet it's ironic, Skipper," Tissaurd said firmly, "sending all these ships to provide trials facilities at one of the most significant military bases in the known Universe. The Admiralty should never have closed Gimmas in the first place. Someday, we'll be sorry we let Amherst and his CIGAs get away with it."

"A lot of us were sorry way back when it happened," Brim replied. "I wasn't even in the service then. I got bumped in the first Reduction In Force."

"The first RIF—after the Treaty of Garak?" Tissaurd asked.

"That's the one," Brim said, banking into a course paralleling the long strip of ice mush that was now churning wildly from tremendous convection currents. "I'd been in enough action to know the Leaguers for the zukeeds they really are, so I wasn't exactly in a mood to stop fighting."

Tissaurd laughed wryly. "That must have been just about the time I graduated from the Helmsman's Academy," she said. "I suppose we cadets were more acceptable to them. We hadn't seen much of the real war."

Brim chuckled. "Well, you've certainly sullied your acceptability now, shipping out in Starfury the way you have," Brim observed. "The CIGA factions in the Admiralty are really upset about Starfury —they'll be keeping a sharp eye on anyone associated with her."

"That's what I wanted," Tissaurd replied. "You know, you've only a few Standard Years on me, Skipper—I've been around awhile myself. It was about time I declared a choice."

"A declaration, unfortunately, for Right, not Might," Brim observed, glancing into the rearview monitor. "Those CIGAs all but run the Admiralty these days.'' Nearly ten c'lenyts distant now, the patch of slush was now turned to water and the convection currents had already subsided. He pulled off power and rolled into a bank, hauling the big starship around in a tight curve until she lined up with the strip of gray water, already speckled with whitecaps from Gimmas's constant wind. "I'll have the landing checklist now, Number One," he said, men pushed the nose over and started for the surface.

When the last mooring beams had flashed out to Starfury's optical bollards and the ship was secure on her gravity pool, Brim switched the controls to Strana' Zaftrak and winked at Tissaurd. "I think we're getting the hang of this, Number One," he quipped.

Tissaurd grinned. "Best team in the Fleet"—she chuckled, sliding out of her seat—"and damned quickly, if I do say so myself."

"Just the same, we ought to keep on practicing for a while," Brim called over his shoulder as he looked out at the little group waiting at the entrance to the brow. Even in heated battlesuits, the few humans who had ventured into the frigid wind looked miserably cold huddled in the lee of the brow entrance.

The Bears who waited with them, however, were waving heartily at the big warship. Dressed in colorful Sodeskayan winter garb, they looked right at home in the driving snow. Sodeskaya, "Mother Planet" of the G.F.S.S. (Great Federation of Sodeskayan States), orbited a cool dwarf star named Ostra that meted out little more energy than Gimmas itself.

Brim quickly donned his heated Fleet Cloak and followed Tissaurd off the bridge, clapping Zaftrak on the shoulder as he passed. "Best damned team in the known Universe, Skipper," she called after him.

"Unknown Universe, too," Brim added from the companion way. "Don't sell us short!"

Nikolai Yanuarievich Ursis, one of Brim's oldest friends and Dean of the famous Dytasburg Academy on the G.F.S.S, planet of Zhiv'ot, met him at the end of the brow with an authentic Bear hug.

Standing a quarter again as tall as Brim, he had small gray eyes of enormous intensity, dark reddish-brown fur, a long, urbane muzzle that terminated in a huge wet nose, and a grin so wide that fang jewels on either side of his mouth blazed out in the light of the doorway. Although a Polkovnik in the Sodeskayan Home Guard (and an equivalent full Captain in the Imperial Fleet), he was dressed in his civilian persona. On his head he wore a colossal egg-shaped hat of curly wool that covered his ears and added at least an iral to his already formidable height. His black, knee-length greatcoat—embellished by two rows of huge gold buttons and jasmine waist sash—was cut in the old military style with a stiff collar, embroidered cuffs, and a wide skirt. Crimson trousers bagged stylishly over his thick calf-length boots, the latter of black leather so soft that it bunched at the ankles. His hands were protected by delicately embroidered, six-fingered gloves of ophet leather. "Wilf Ansor, my old comrade!" he roared- "Grand Duke Anastas Alexyi sends regards."

"Nik!" Brim exclaimed through a happy grin, "what in the Universe are you doing here? I thought you'd be tied up in Zhiv'ot this time of year."

Ursis looked serious for a moment. "Matter of relativity, Wilf Ansor," he said soberly. "Old Dytasburg Academy will survive well enough without me for little while—but not without Starfury, here," he said, gazing past Brim at the ship, "I doubt Nergol Triannic would permit such academic liberty as students there presently enjoy." He scowled grimly. " 'Freedom,' they say, 'is sure possession only of those who can defend it.' "

"I'm glad you're here," Brim said with feeling.

The Bear grinned, this time with good humor. "You will be lot more glad to learn that I am accompanied by large contingent from Krasni-Peych you see trooping across brow toward Starfury.

They, not I, will attempt to remedy any problems you may experience with new Reflecting Drive that gives them so much pride." He motioned toward a low building just visible through the driving snow.

"Operation's headquarters," he explained. "Come. I show you where you officially sign in your ship.

Then, you buy us both goblet of Admiralty's rather modest meem."

Brim nodded as the Bear led off along snowdrifted walkways toward the headquarters. "I've done my best to stock Starfury's wardroom," he said, "but I'll never do even half so well as Utrillo Barbousse—remember him?"

"But who could forget Barbousse?" Ursis mused with a grin. "Truly, I have lost track of that splendid individual. Greatest of all ratings. In midst of most austere wartime shortages he could supply literally anything—as if magic." He kissed the tips of his fingers. "Logish Meem that would make Universe itself jealous."

" 'Shortage' is only a relative term to people like Barbousse," Brim interjected, "like 'impossible.'

You knew he sent a message of congratulations when I took over Starfury, didn't you?"

"He did?" Ursis said with an interested frown. "And how did this missive arrive?"

Brim shrugged. "One of the ancient Cerendellian COMM channels. I'd never seen it used before."

Ursis smiled. "Impossible to trace, of course."

"Absolutely," Brim replied. "I tried. The last time I heard from him, he was in the Helmsman's Academy. Then after I was RIFed, I lost track of him. Something happened there, but I don't know what it was. He certainly wasn't able to finish school."

"I doubt if our one-time associate Amherst and his CIGAs had much use for ex-ratings," Ursis offered.

"Too much of a free thinker, anyhow," Brim added as they reached the building. "Whatever it was that happened to him, he disappeared. Completely."

"Somehow," Ursis mused, opening the door for Brim and stamping snow from his boots, "I have feeling we've not seen last of Mr. Barbousse. He will turn up when he can do some good; mark my words."

Brim never got a chance to answer. Before he could open his mouth, he was cut off by the familiar twang of Mark Valerian, chief designer for the Sherrington Starship Works and the virtual creator of Starfury.

"Brim, this is absolutely horrible!" me little man growled with a twinkle of laughter in his eye. "If I'd had any idea they'd pick an orbiting iceberg like this for the trials, I'd never have designed the xaxtdamned ship in the first place." Valerian was almost painfully slim with a sizable nose; damp, humorous eyes; and a drooping black mustache of truly prodigious size. As usual, his coat and trousers were made of soft-looking wool. These were coupled with an old-fashioned white shirt, necktie, and high, pointed boots cut in the Rhodorian style.

The Carescrian grinned happily as they shook hands. He'd seen very little of Valerian since driving the designer's M-6B to victory in the final race for the Mitchell Trophy nearly a year previously.

The hiatus was no reflection on their friendship; it was purely the times. Both men had all they could do simply keeping up with responsibilities. "Don't blame me for the weather," he quipped, casting a sidelong glance at Ursis. "I certainly didn't opt for this wretched stuff. We do, however, have associates who are known for their affinity to nippy climates."

"Who can deny the benefits of bracing wintery weather," Ursis sighed theatrically, his fang jewels glinting opulently. "Look how well preserved it keeps us Bears."

Valerian grimaced. "Nik's got a point, Brim," he declared—just as they were joined by a bantam Commodore with gray-blond hair, high cheekbones, piercing gray eyes, and a most sober bearing.

Beneath an open Fleet Cloak, his perfectly fashioned formal uniform looked as if it had been tailored only moments previously.

"Wilf, may I present Commodore Zorfrew Tor from the Fleet Design Bureau?" Ursis interjected quickly, "In command of this operation."

Brim extended a hand. "A pleasure, Commodore," he said.

Tor nodded and smiled a little. "Yes, I'm certain it is," he said without so much as raising an eyebrow.

"Er, yes," Brim allowed.

Suddenly Tor chuckled, the quick change in his aspect like sunrise after a particularly dark night.

"Ah," he said with a twinkle in his eyes. "You were listening."

"Well, ah..." Brim stumbled, "yes, I was."

"Nearly a lost art," Tor commented with raised eyebrows.

"What?" Brim asked.

" Listening," Tor replied with a little grin as he glanced through the windows in the front door.

"Watch...."

A moment later two civilians entered the foyer in a blast of cold air and snow. One immediately glanced over at the Commodore and smiled while he stomped snow from his boots.'' How goes it today, Doctor?" he asked.

Tor nodded his head affably. "Horrible," he said with a pleasant smile.

"Good—glad to hear it, Doctor,'' the civilian replied, opening his parka with cold-reddened hands. Then, with a friendly nod to Brim and the others, he opened the door for his partner, and the two of them hurried off along an inner corridor, deep in conversation.

The moment the door swung closed, Ursis and Valerian broke into gales of laughter. "Happens damn near every time," the designer gasped, wiping tears from his eyes. "He got me twice before Nik here finally let me in on the big joke."

Ursis's soulful eyes rolled toward the ceiling. " 'Night and green moonlight scarcely bother miners of small emeralds,' as they say," he recited with a wry smile. "It was only after I fell victim myself—three times yesterday—that I discovered the joke. Three times!"

"Unfortunately," Tor said with a culpable look on his face, "people do catch on." He extended his hand a second time. "Wilf Brim," he said, "I've heard a lot about you—I followed your every move in the Mitchell races."

"Thank you, Commodore," Brim said, "but it was Mark's ships that actually won. I just sat back and drove."

"I see," Tor said with a chuckle. "Easy as that, eh?" He smiled. "Well, I shall endeavor to make you a great deal busier, Commander, during the coming space trials. And since everyone has finally arrived, I suppose it is fitting that we launch our efforts with a get-together—on board my headquarters ship, I.F.S. Refit Enterprise." He nodded to himself. "How does that seem, everyone?"

"Horrible," Brim quipped with a straight face

"Splendid, glad to hear it." Tor chuckled with a wink. "At Evening:two, then." He closed his Fleet Cloak. "Oh, bye the bye, Brim," he added, opening the door to a blast of arctic air, "plan to have a similar affair aboard Starfury, if you please. The night we complete the trials."

"I shall look forward to both events, Commodore," Brim called, winking at Ursis. They both knew from experience that before the second party took place, everyone connected with Starfury's space trials would be quite ready for any kind of deliverance.

Later that evening, Brim found the business of simply getting away from his Captain's workstation was—in itself—no easy task. It seemed that as soon as he had battled one lengthy chore to a finish, a dozen others took its place. Because of it, the party aboard Refit Enterprise was well under way before he straightened the area around his workstation, donned his cold-weather gear, and set off for the main hatch. "Looks perfectly awful out there, Gromnik," he commented to the Duty Officer, a tall Sodeskayan Drive Lieutenant.

Gromnik grinned as he came to attention and saluted. "Aye, Captain," he answered. "It surely must be for those without a natural fur coat."

Brim nodded agreement, pulling the Fleet Cloak tight around his neck while he turned up the heat. Through a nearby viewport, he could see that at least only a gentle snow was falling—a far cry from earlier in the evening when full blizzard seemed to be the sole weather mode. He was about to open the outer hatch when Tissaurd appeared around the corner.

"Skipper," she exclaimed with raised eyebrows. "I thought you'd be long gone to the party."

"I might say the same about you, too, Number One," Brim grinned, suddenly happy to see her.

She had the sort of face that was charming even when mostly covered by the great collars of a Fleet Cape and a beaked officer's cap. "You're going to the party, I hope."

"With the kind of day I've put in"—Tissaurd chuckled—"I wouldn't miss Tor's get-together for a whole Universe—especially the free drinks. Local scuttlebutt has it the Commodore stocks his ship with good Logish Meem."

"I never refute scuttlebutt," Brim said, holding the hatch while she stepped onto the brow, "too often it's nearly truth." Outside, Brim could feel the crisp air bite his nostrils as he breathed. Almost without thinking, he offered his arm to her as they negotiated the slippery steel grating.

She took it with a little squeeze. "You don't think anyone at home would mind, do you?" she asked.

Brim smiled. "There is no one at home,'' he answered simply, thinking back over the many women who had drifted in and out of his life since he'd joined the Fleet; some suddenly, some over a long period of time. Even his first and dearest love, the Princess Margot Effer'wyck, not only had married someone else, she had become... He closed his eyes for a moment. He didn't even want to continue that thought.

"Caught you daydreaming, Skipper," Tissaurd said at the rim of the gravity pool.

Brim nodded and pursed his lips. "Yeah," he said, experiencing a definite visceral thrill at feeling her small, soft bulk close beside him. Shipmate or not, he laughed to himself, Tissaurd was a mighty attractive package—in any middle-aged man's book.

"That was awfully nice," she murmured as they stepped onto a heated walkway. After a moment, she released his arm. "I'll remember to keep my eyes peeled for slippery spots every time we walk someplace together," she said with a little smile.

Brim felt himself blush. "Me, too," he said awkwardly, then quickly peered up at Starfury's huge snow-cloaked silhouette standing out against the darkened sky. Docking beacons swung long beams of blue light through the falling snow while dim battle lanterns bobbed and hovered over her entrance hatches. Multicolored points of light glowed and blinked through the bridge Hyperscreens, and from the high mast, KA'PPA rings radiated lazily out to the far corners of the Universe as someone in the COMM center kept touch with the reality of everyday business.

"Beautiful, isn't she?" Tissaurd said quietly, her words breaking into his thoughts.

"Beautiful, at least," he mused. Somehow, it took another Helmsman to understand the way people could relate to starships. But then, Tissaurd seemed to understand lots of things about him. That's what made them such an effective team.

"Deadly, too..." she added. "Strange how such a graceful shape could have been created for the sole purpose of destruction."

" 'Protection' might be a better word," Brim offered.

"A nicer word, perhaps, Skipper," Tissaurd allowed softly, "but Starfury's primary purpose is still destruction, pure and simple. No matter how harmless we'd like to make her seem. Those ungodly disruptors give her true purpose away."

Brim nodded agreement as they walked. "Yeah," he said at length, "and our purpose as well. Just like those space forts the League seems to be putting up all over the galaxy." He took a deep breath of cold air. "One begets the other, I suppose...." Behind them, the graceful ship had already dwindled to a pattern of blurred lights. They continued wordlessly through the cottony solitude until Enterprise began to appear through the falling snow.

Brim never did have an opportunity to attend Commodore Tor's party. At the entry port, a message awaited him from Starfury. A top secret KA'PPA dispatch had just been received that required his personal receipt. Immediately directing Tissaurd to make his apologies, he trudged back to the ship only to discover that his urgent KA'PPA was merely notification of a state visit by one of the few influential politicians who remained untouched by the CIGAs. Nevertheless, it did require a direct personal answer, and he made it. After that he retired to his cabin for one of the few full nights of sleep he got during the trials.

Throughout the next fourteen Standard Days, some of their time was spent on dilapidated gravity pools, merely loading torpedoes, mines, and other expendable munitions. Other days' passed while they accomplished simplistic harbor exercises, while still others were devoted to actual space trials and the preliminary target exercises that would prove the ship's ability to fight. There could hardly have been more desolate surroundings in which to test the ship. The colossal maintenance yard to which they were assigned was occupied by gaunt, weatherworn figures of mammoth derricks and cranes silhouetted against storm-gray skies in the grip of perpetual winter; everything was covered by uniform layers of unceasing snow that had been unsullied by the tracks of living creatures for nearly a decade. The dying star Gimmas was long since dim beyond supporting any of the sentient life forms known in the Home Galaxy. There was a gaunt dignity to the surroundings, almost as if they were some gigantic vestige of a primordial civilization that pulled up cosmic stakes and departed long before the dawn of recorded history.

The crew had little enough time for pondering their surroundings and, for most, scant inclination to poke about the stormy landscape. Eyes and thoughts were constantly turned toward the ship and their tasks within her. Valerian's creation was already coming alive as more than ninety individual temperaments shook down together, melding into the single, unique personality that would become the mature Starfury. This was not only true in her wardroom—where the ship's leadership made the effect even more pronounced—but among the ratings as well. Like the cells of some bantling organism, they were beginning to work in concert, dedicating their energies and intellects on one exacting goal: operation of a powerful warship whose deadly function was important to them, and the ancient nation that they called home. Their battles were in the future; in an as-yet-undeclared war. But each of the specially chosen crew understood that sometime in the near offing there would be dangerous work to do, and it would be worth doing.

During a rare hiatus from the trials. Brim checked out an elderly launch from what remained of Base Operations and flew to the deserted Eorean Starwharfs, his home for nearly three Standard Years at the beginning of his career. Touching down near an abandoned skeleton of what was once an elevated tram station, he labored through knee-deep snow beneath rows of dark Karlsson lamps, past the staring, broken windows of a half-tumbled guard station, then along nearly a c'lenyt of stone jetties and crumbling gravity pools to a small sign that had nearly disintegrated with rust. "Gravity Pool R-2134," it read.

Once—nearly an eon ago as Brim reckoned time—his life in the Fleet had begun here.

For a moment his mind's eye carried back across the years to that snowy dawn when he had first laid eyes on the wedge-shaped form of starship T.83, I.F.S. Truculent, testing her moorings in the amber glow of repulsion generators thundering steadily within the gaping walls of this now-empty pool.

Only Gimmas's perpetual wind broke the lonely stillness as it wailed 'round emaciated forms of towering cranes, rattled corrugated sheets in dilapidated sheds, moaned through the yawning mouths of broken windows, and hurried powdery snow ghosts among the run-down jetties. Out of sight somewhere, an unsecured door slammed against its frame to a totally irrational rhythm. CIGAs had destroyed Gimmas Haefdon with politics mightier than the League's most powerful disrupters.

Brim shivered in his heated Fleet Cloak. Despite the loneliness, this place—the whole colossal ruin for that matter—was far from empty. Every square iral was peopled by ghosts of one sort or another. And in the silence of the deserted complex, he could still hear the shrill whines of gravity generators spooling up before thundering into ground-shaking reality. As if it were yesterday, he recalled ice-blue tongues of free ions shooting back from open waste gates, great ships marching ponderously out onto the half-frozen bay, then soaring into the overcast, heroic comrades of all races striving together to turn the tide of a war that initially cast them in the role of underdogs. He sighed. So many of those brave men and women had paid the supreme toll, and for what? When fortunes began to reverse, Emperor Triannic quickly duped the Empire and her allies with his deceitful Treaty of Garak, then set up cowardly Puvis Amherst as chief of the CIGAs to destroy his nemesis Fleet from within.

Now, the great ships had departed, replaced by lonesome wind and a banging shutter. All that presently stood between Triannic and his dreams of conquest were the tag ends of a once-mighty war fleet, the handful of half-finished Starfuries a'building at Sherrington's, and the dogged resolution of a few remaining warriors who still believed dial freedom was worth fighting for—to the death.

As afternoon shadows lengthened in the stillness, Brim grimly retraced his steps to the launch and took off into the scudding gray clouds. But instead of setting a direct return course for the Central Complex, whimsy guided him only a short distance through the darkening sky before he set down again, this time in a wide courtyard fronting a snow-covered jumble of peaked roofs and tall stone chimneys.

Over the great boarded-up doorway, a weathered sign swung to the wind on rusted chains that were clearly in their last days of existence. "mermaid tavern," the faded letters blazoned in the gray twilight. "established 51690." Opposite, through the rusting metal gate, he could see what was once a country road, now buried irals deep in everlasting snow. On either side, tangled forms of long-dead treetops wound away in snowy perspective, mute reminders of summers now gone forever as the dimming star Gimmas continued its long march toward ultimate death.

He hadn't been here in years, but the ghost of his earliest love affair was inextricably linked to this abandoned country inn. Its once-cozy, candle-lit interior was the place of his first liaison with Her Serene Majesty, Princess Margot of the Effer'wyck Dominions and Baroness (Grand Duchess) of The Torond.

A lot of snow had fallen on the old building during those intervening fifteen years, and clearly, it had served its last patron sometime previously, probably with the closing of the base. Inside, he could imagine me huge fireplaces dark and cold, with only swirling soot marks from the last fire to serve as evidence that the rooms had ever known life-giving warmth.

He stood before the derelict inn only a few cycles before something drove him away. The cold?

The snow? Perhaps the lonesomeness? Whatever it was, he soon climbed back into the launch and departed shortly thereafter for the warmth and fellowship of Starfury's wardroom. Certain memories were simply too painful to countenance.

As the days passed. Brim began to settle more comfortably into his role as commanding officer.

It was a proprietary sort of feeling, and it became more firmly established as the ship proved herself. She was all he'd expected, and then some. Quite apart from her prodigious turn of speed, she was enormously easy to fly and maneuverable at nearly any speed. Her only major snag, if a major snag really existed, was with her new reflecting Drive units: three crystal shells grown around a central core in layers.

During normal operation, all layers fired aft as a unit, with the shells contributing nearly thirty percent of the unit's total thrust. However, when short bursts of speed were necessary, the outer shells could be reversed, firing forward into a ring-shaped focusing reflector that fed back this specially modulated energy directly to the core and increased the power output by nearly fifty percent.

The process, of course, exuded tremendous heat as a byproduct, and it had to be radiated quickly lest its blistering presence damage portions of the hull; collapsiums like hullmetal had physical limits like everything else. But therein lay a problem. Even Starfury's prodigious radiating surfaces were insufficient to continuously dissipate heat energy from four Wizard Cs running flat out in reflecting mode.

And because of it, speed runs at absolute flank speed had to be suspended when the Drive crystals passed maximum operating temperatures, usually after no more than fifteen cycles. The situation also required a great deal more diligence at the helm, especially at high speeds. Brim had no problem managing the situation. Except when running under unusual or dangerous conditions, he flew with a sixth sense anyway. But not every Helmsman was so fortunate to be born with his perfect eyesight and coordination. The Sodeskayan engineers from Krasni-Peych would have to do something about that minor flaw before combat conditions changed it to "major."

And fix it they did, in a most amazing manner. No more than a fortnight after Strana' Zaftrak's first complaints, a new and much-more-efficient space radiator system had been fabricated and was waiting for installation when Starfury made landfall after her second series of disrupter trials. The starship was laid up only two days while the immense system was installed—by a much larger party of technicians than Brim had guessed were housed aboard the Sodeskayan supply vessel. But then the huge system had been fabricated in a seemingly miraculous fashion also. Besides, it worked, and that was the only important point, anyway. Years ago he had learned that unnecessary questions could be a matter of embarrassment for everyone concerned.

The morning before their last day on Gimmas, Brim found a large notice on the ship's bulletin board:

NEW ABSOLUTE VELOCITY RECORD SET

The Imperial HyperDrome

Alcott-on-Mersin, Avalon, 369/52009

Today, nearly a year after the Mitchell Trophy was permanently retired here at the Imperial HyperDrome near Avalon, Commander Tobias Moulding, I.F., set a new absolute speed record over the Standard three-light-year course at 111.97M LightSpeed. Moulding, a member of the Imperial Fleet's High-speed Star Flight Team, set the new record in the same Sherrington M-6 Beta that he would have flown as backup, had Commander Wilf Brim, then Principal Helmsman to the Imperial Starflight Society, failed to capture the trophy himself. Moulding's M-6B was powered this year by a specially prepared Krasni-Peych WizardS (for "sprint") Drive.

The Carescrian smiled as he read the brief bulletin. Toby Moulding was one of his closest friends, and he was genuinely glad the man had a chance at the record. But even more, it made him aware of Starfury's potential. During her final trials, she reached 80.723M LightSpeed, approaching seventy-five percent of Moulding's new absolute speed record! If Sodeskayan intelligence estimates were correct, this easily made her the speediest warship in the galaxy.

Eventually, Brim presided over a small ceremony in the wardroom where he cleared all but a few minor Action Reports pending against the ship and her systems, then signed Sherrington's crimson Builder's Book on page 5054. Starfury was now ready for her official commissioning, which occurred promptly the following morning. At precisely Dawn:2;00, her entire crew plus most of the lonely base personnel assembled in the bitter cold outside her main hatch. In a simple ceremony. Brim formally muttered a few official platitudes concerning Emperor, Duty, Home, and Hearth. Then Tissaurd stepped to the bow and broke a bottle of meem against the docking cupola, after which two burly mechanics affixed a polished brass plate to the aft bulkhead just inside her main boarding hatch:

I.F.S. STARFURY

JOB 5054

SHERRINGTON STARSHIP WORKS

BROMWICH, RHODOR

388/52009

With that, Starfury entered the Fleet lists as a fully "commissioned" warship, and Brim led her crew back to their stations by stopping at the new nameplate and burnishing it with the sleeve of his Fleet Cloak. It was a tradition he'd learned on old Truculent, established by his greatest commander, Regula Collingswood herself. He swore to abide by it so long as he commanded a ship— any ship.

Immediately after the commissioning ceremony, activities got under way for the celebration Brim scheduled for the conclusion of Starfury's space trials. Tired as everyone was, the idea of a party, where everyone could let down their hair and relax for the first time in weeks, seemed to create its own energy.

At least there was enough energy to clean and decorate the wardroom as well as ice down a great quantity of Logish Meem in the ship's freezers.

But once again, Brim never got to celebrate. This time, however, neither did any of Starfury's crew. Less than two metacycles before the first guests were to arrive, Brim received a secret transmission from Prince Onrad himself, in his persona as Commander in Chief of the Imperial Fleet. The ship was ordered immediately to Bromwich where an urgent, top-secret dispatch waited for personal delivery.

Onrad's message was met with considerable grousing from the exhausted crew, including a few choice words from Brim. But within a scant twenty cycles, Strana' Zaftrak connected her four Admiralty A876 gravity generators to the mains, and Starfury was spaceborne less than a metacycle afterward, coursing across the galaxy at maximum cruise velocity for Bromwich and the Sherrington plant. As Brim set the big starship on autohelm, he shook his head. Here we go again, he thought.

"What's going on. Skipper?" Tissaurd queried from the CoHelmsman's recliner beside him.

"Nobody told us anything back there, except that we had to leave in one perdition of a hurry."

"That's about all the information I got myself," Brim chuckled. "Only, mine was marked 'secret.' "

"Oh, wonderful," Tissaurd fumed. "You mean this sort of thing happens all the time?"

''Sort of comes with the territory when you have the only ship like Starfury in the known Universe," he said with a grin. "But I can't imagine you'll be any busier than you were when we were fitting out. There are just so many metacycles you can fit into a day."

Tissaurd nodded thoughtfully. "That's probably true," she said with a grin. "And I loved every cycle of it, too. Isn't that awful?"

Brim answered with a wink. Here's hoping you still feel that way a year from now, he thought. Life could be pretty exciting, as well as dangerous, when Prince Onrad was calling the shots.

And all too often it was the latter.

CHAPTER 2

Intrigue

Once they'd secured Starfury at the Sherrington plant in Bromwich, Brim had hardly stepped clear of the brow when a face at the rear of the boarding room sent his mind racing far into a wartime past: gray beard, gray mustache, and ageless gray eyes sparkling with the keen wisdom and humor of a lifelong starsailor. "Baxter Calhoun!" he gasped, detouring from his original course to the message center, "what in Voot's name brings you to Bromwich?"

"Tis you that brings me here, young Brim," the man answered, extending both his hand and a steely grin. "But afore I answer any mare of your questions, laddie, we'll both hie along to the message center an' collect the dispatch bonnie Prince Onrad ha' sent to you. It'll save a lot of explainin' once we begin to talk."

Brim sighed in capitulation. Of course Calhoun knew about the top-secret message. He always knew about things like that; nothing had changed at all over the years. At the far end of middle age, the man looked every inch a proper old starsailor: his chiseled countenance was handsome in a weather-beaten way and his eyes carried the imperious look of one long accustomed to command-—as well as the limitless depths of intragalactic space. He was dressed in an expensive-looking white linen suit of casual finery that appeared as if it had been tailored that very morning. Gossip had it that he was wealthy beyond all belief, and the enormous StarBlaze ring that flashed from his left hand as he pushed open the door lent powerful credence to the hearsay.

At Sherrington's message center, Brim identified himself and signed for his mysterious dispatch, which was delivered to his hand in the characteristic blue and gold plastic envelope of the Imperial Courier Corps.

"It's why we didn't simply send it to your ship, Commander," the clerk explained. "We were only permitted to store this one. It was delivered to us by hand."

Nodding thanks to the clerk, Brim frowned at Calhoun. "You know all about this, don't you?" he demanded.

"Weel," Calhoun replied with a little smile, "I've ne'er exactly seen inside yon envelope, but I probably know a wee of wha's written there." He looked at the clerk. "Is yon a secure room?" he asked, pointing to a door beside the counter.

"Aye, Mr. Calhoun," the clerk assured him, "category three at minimum."

"Hie you in there and read the message, young Brim," Calhoun said. "It wull na take you lang. I'll wait here, and afterward we'll be able to talk."

Placing the envelope under his arm, Brim entered the secure room, turned on the lights, and sealed the door, seating himself on a hard, straight-backed chair at a bare table. Thoughtfully he touched his right index finger to the plastic envelope's seal— which clearly approved of his fingerprint because it immediately opened in a puff of odorless smoke. With a growing sense of excitement, he withdrew a single sheet of light blue plastic, engraved in gold with the Royal Seal of Crown Prince Onrad, heir to the Imperial Throne at Avalon.

The Imperial Palace,

Avalon, 388/52009

My dear Commander Brim,

This letter comes to you under Our personal signature as introduction to Baxter Calhoun, not that you should need such after serving with him on I.F.S. Defiant during the past hostilities.

First, be aware that Calhoun is no longer a civilian, although he will be most certainly dressed as one when you first encounter him in Bromwich. He is on special assignment, serving in the Fleet under Our direct orders with the rank of Commodore, I.F. His mission: to thwart the plan of high-handed annexation Nergol Triannic has concocted against the Dominion of Fluvanna, which now includes one of the League's new deep-space fortifications.

Commodore Calhoun has devised an extraordinary plan that requires both your skill as a Helmsman and the excellent ship that you command. He will personally describe this plan and the role you will play in its early stages. It is Our desire that you provide all support within your purview as both Commander and citizen of the Empire.

Until you receive further orders from Us personally, Commander Brim, you will covertly serve under Commodore Calhoun's direct command, although your "official" documents may state otherwise.

Accept, Commander, the assurances of Our highest consideration, etc., etc.

Onrad, Vice Admiral, I.F.,

and Crown Prince to the Throne at Avalon

Clipped to the message was a note scrawled in a hand that matched Onrad's signature: "Brim," it read, "I can't imagine whatever got into me when I agreed to team you two lunatic Carescrians together.

See if you can at least stay out of major trouble." It was signed, simply, "O."

Slouching comfortably in the hard wooden chair, Brim read the dispatch twice more and frowned. Fluvanna, a tiny domain astride the Straits of Remic, supplied Greyffin IV's Empire with nearly one hundred percent of its celecoid quartz kernels: the rare—absolutely pure—crystalline "seeds" from which Drive crystals were manufactured under tremendous temperature and pressure. Well, it wasn't as if he hadn't predicted trouble since long before Nergol Triannic usurped political power in Rogan LaKarn's Torond, once the Empire's primary source of the rare and all-important crystals. Eventually, he folded the page in half, touched his thumb to the top right-hand corner, and the message evaporated into thin air as if it had never existed.

When Brim exited the room, Calhoun was in rapt conversation with a gorgeous strawberry blonde stationed behind the message counter. From their eye contact, Brim could see that his newly appointed commander had already chalked up another conquest. The gorgeous woman was Calhoun's sort of luck. She had clearly replaced the fat, middle-aged clerk who earlier delivered Brim's own message—no doubt as his last act on the shift.

"Brim, mon," Calhoun called over his shoulder, "while you pack your duffel. Miss Phillpotts and I plan to share a spot of lunch, noo. Meet me at the main lobby in, say, two metacycles and I'll drive you to my ship."

"My duffel?" Brim asked. "Your ship...?"

"Aye, laddie," Calhoun said. "Pack enough for a couple o'weeks. We'll be gone at least that lang."

"Cal!" Brim protested, "I can't leave just like that. I've got my own ship to command."

Calhoun frowned, whispered a few words to Phillpotts—who smiled delightedly—then strode across the room. "What's troublin' you, young Brim?" he asked.

"My ship, Cal," Brim answered. "I can't just walk off and leave her."

"Sez who?" Calhoun asked with a grin. "Are you under special orders that I don't know about, or should I conclude that yon shapely Tissaurd is incompetent in her job as Number One?''

"Neither," Brim said. "It's just that...."

"That wha?" Calhoun insisted. "If it's not secret orders that're holdin' you back, then we'll go right away and replace Ms. Tissaurd with someone who can handle her job."

"Oh, damnit, Cal," Brim replied hotly, "Tissaurd is a fine officer. It's just that... I don't feel I ought to leave the ship yet."

"If that's true, young Brim," Calhoun charged, poking a finger into the younger Carescrian's chest, "then you are a damned poor warship captain. What would happen to Starfury if—Universe forbid—you got yourself killed in action?"

Brim swallowed hard. Calhoun's point was definitely well taken. He had been running everything since his arrival at Sherrington's, long before Starfury's launch. He'd given no one a chance to get along without him.

Calhoun smiled. "Tissaurd can take over for a while," he said. "She looks reasonably competent."

"She is," Brim grumped. "Very competent."

"Then it's settled," Calhoun said phlegmatically. "We'll meet in the lobby of the Sherrington headquarters at''—he consulted his old-fashioned gold timepiece and glanced at the smiling Phillpotts—"Brightness-one and a half; in two metacycles. That ought to allow us both enough time to conduct our business."

"I'll be there," Brim assured him, and started off toward the door.

"If I'm a wee late," Calhoun called after him, "you'll understand?"

"I'll understand," Brim chuckled. It was reassuring to know that Calhoun still had his priorities straight.

Nearly three metacycles later, Calhoun strode into the lobby with a lopsided grin. "Sadly," he said, "'tis time for us to be gone from this wonderful place. I would spend considerable time learning about young Miss Philfpotts."

" 'The exigencies of the Service,' is how they put it, I think," Brim offered.

"Ah yes, the exigencies," Calhoun said mournfully, opening the door. "Wull, another exigency waits for us outside." He nodded toward a small, nondescript skimmer hovering at the curb. "Poor but reliable transportation, young Brim," he said. "But it wull get us to my ship without causin' undue notice."

"Lead on. Commodore," Brim chuckled, striding through the door with his duffel bobbing at his heels. "Where you and I started out lives, waterproof boots were considered first-class transportation.

Remember?" Carescria was perhaps the most beggarly province of Greyffin IV's Empire.

"True," Calhoun agreed with a wry nod. "How soon we forget...."

Bromwich was located midway along a nightward-facing crescent formed by Glammarian Bight, and the Sherrington plant occupied its most boreal districts. From there, the main surface route to Cruden City paralleled the bay, running along a highly industrialized corridor. Once out of the plant, Calhoun set course directly for this artery. Brim hung on to an armrest as the light suspension reacted to Calhoun's high-speed urging over an ancient cobble-surfaced road. On either side were cheapside redbrick buildings with small windows that reminded him of Carescria. "Pick-and-shovel" workers seemed to gravitate toward such housing everywhere in the galaxy.

"First and foremost," Calhoun explained as they bounced across a narrow intersection, "you must understand one under-lyin' fact. Nergol Triannic means to take the wee dominion o' Fluvanna an' her supply of celecoid quartz Drive crystal seeds—as soon as he can. He's e'en buildin' ane o' his new space forts no mare than a few thousand light-years from their capital."

Brim nodded, marveling at the light traffic for that time of day. "Onrad mentioned that in his letter," he replied. "He also said you have a strategy to thwart Triannic's plans."

"O' course I do," Calhoun replied, "as promised." He pulled into the high-speed lane, blithely ignoring a flashing maximum safe speed exceeded on the instrument panel. "And I've based the whole plan on legal means, in spite o' the wild stories that circulate about my many enterprises in space."

"I'm all ears," Brim responded with a grin. Calhoun had been prime suspect for a long list of deep-space acts of piracy for years, but the courts never successfully proved the link between him and the crimes. Probably this was due to the peculiar fact that Imperial ships had never fallen victim to the attacks.

"It all has to do with the Mutual Defense Treaty Onrad put in place with Fluvanna a few years ago," Calhoun began as they passed a huge metal salvage yard, glinting in the sunlight. "That scrap of plastic he signed may turn out to be a most important document."

"How so?" Brim asked.

"Wull," Calhoun replied, steering toward a steep up ramp, "the way I see things, that zukeed Triannic's wanted Fluvanna for a long time now, even before the Treaty of Garak in the year 52000.

He'd have gone right after it once the war was officially suspended. But when Onrad inked his Mutual Defense Treaty, the Leaguers had to take us on first. And after losing the battle of Atalanta, their squadrons were in no condition to do anything like that, even though Fluvanna never had much of a fleet."

Brim nodded grimly while the skimmer careened giddily across a deckless repulsion bridge.

Hundreds of irals below, a toiling switcher dragged its string of barges toward a sprawling factory. "I haven't kept up with Fluvanna lately," he said, "but the CIGAs have certainly changed the odds with our Fleet."

"You've got that right, laddie," Calhoun growled, "though we've na lost all our teeth just yet. The Tyrant's still proceedin' with a little caution." He winked. "His latest ploy is to set up an 'incident' that wull give him a legal excuse to take military action. His CIGAs wull instantly tie up our General Parliament in endless debate aboot retaliation while he invades Fluvanna's capital at Magor, and afore we know wha's hit us, we'll hae lost our supply of Drive crystals. That wull put paid to most o' our new warship construction, an' one day he'll be able to walk into Avalon essentially unopposed."

"Unless we develop some sort of new Drive technology that doesn't start with celecoid quartz kernels," Brim interjected. They were now astride a grotesque-looking complex of thick glowing transmission conduits suspended from huge spirals that towered at least two hundred irals overhead. He remembered wondering about the structures from the air, but could make no more sense of them from the ground.

"We both know that's a few years away at best," Calhoun retorted. "Too far in the future to have much effect on the short-term events that are starting e'en as we speak. That's why we've got to make certain the Fluvannians can take care o' themselves—an' yon Leaguer space fort. Wi'out our Imperial Fleet."

Brim frowned, staring out the window at a long row of weathered storehouses that fronted a muddy, filth-tittered canal. Each was connected to one of the mysterious transmission conduits. "Not an easy task," he said thoughtfully, "if what I've heard about their fleet is correct."

"And wha's that?" Calhoun queried.

"It's said they fly some of the oldest starships in the galaxy," Brim replied. "Real antiques."

Calhoun pursed his lips. "True enough," he said. "I've seen them—e'en flown in a few. But there's a lot mair to a fleet than that. Fluvannian crewmen rate as some o' the most professional starsailors in the galaxy. An' those auld ships are in magnificent repair."

"Could they stand up to the League's new Gantheisser killer ships?" Brim asked, staring out the window at the blur of a high-speed train thundering past in the same direction, lost in clicks as it hurtled above the roadway through the glowing coils of a helical bridge.

"Depends on wha' you mean by 'stand up,' " Calhoun answered after a little thought. "Disruptors are disrupters, after all. The Fluvannians clearly couldn't survive a toe-to-toe sluggin' match wi' a squadron of Gantheissers—or that new space fort. But if they decided on suicide, they could inflict a lot of damage afore they were ground into space dust."

"Ground-up space dust doesn't stop an invasion fleet," Brim said, wondering what Calhoun was leading up to.

"That's true enough," the other allowed. "But Starfuries could."

"Starfuries?" Brim demanded, turning to face Calhoun in surprise. "I don't understand."

"You will directly," Calhoun assured him with a smile, "because Starfuries are a major part of my plan."

Brim frowned. "Cal"—he chuckled—"I'm all ears."

"Simplest thing you could think of,'' Calhoun explained, "an' it even makes a bit of business sense.

We'll simply transfer I.F.S. Starfury to the Fluvannian Nabob along with the next ten Starfuries to complete. In return, Fluvanna wull send their entire production of celecoid quartz kernels to the Empire.

That way, they can defend themselves wi' the same ships we wad, and the xaxtdamned CIGAs won't hae onything to say about it."

"You may have a spot of trouble with that one," Brim cautioned. "Starfuries are the most restricted ships in the Empire. Even if Prince Onrad could get the sale approved somehow, the Bears at Krasni-Peych would never consent. The reflecting Drive is their latest technology."

"I didn't say anything about a sale, young Brim," Calhoun chuckled. "What I mean to do is lease them the ships."

"All right," Brim allowed. "Maybe you could get some sort of leasing arrangement past the Bears, but who would man the ships? Damned near half the systems aboard are classified, with a no foreign nationals caveat. Even our closest allies are barred from the Drive chambers and the control systems."

Calhoun smiled as he urged the little skimmer around a fast-moving lorry. "Well, there you are," he said, cutting back in front of the lumbering vehicle and careening onto an exit ramp. "You already know who would man them, then. Who else but their present crews?"

"Cal," Brim objected, "you know better than that. The Imperial Fleet Oath strictly forbids us from anything like—"

"True enow," Calhoun interrupted. "But if you weren't in the Fleet anymore, you simply wadn't ha' that problem, noo, wad you?"

Brim considered that for a moment, then gasped in horror. "Are you suggesting that everyone simply resigns?"

"Not permanently," Calhoun answered. "Only lang enough to do a wee bit of fightin'—defendin', that is." The skimmer was now speeding along the perimeter of a small private spaceport Brim had often spotted from the air.

"Voot's beard," Brim growled, "whoever heard of a temporary resignation? The CIGAs would love it. They'd never let us in again."

"How about if Greyffin IV himself guaranteed your return?"

"Greyffin IV? He knows about this?"

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure," Calhoun admitted, "but Onrad does, as you well know."

Brim considered that while they pulled to a hover beside a large gravity pool. He'd only regained his long-revoked Fleet commission a year previously, and many of his civilian-life recollections weren't all that comfortable. "I'm not sure anything less than an Imperial guarantee would be acceptable anywhere," be concluded at length. "I know I'd certainly have a hard time with it."

"I think I understand," Calhoun said. "I hae pretty strong feelin's myself." He put his hand gently on Brim's shoulder. "When the time comes, if our plan's right, we'll hae little trouble gettin' Greyffin to back us. Wha's important noo is to start the groundwork in Avalon. We're a lang way from settin' course for Fluvanna."

Brim climbed out of the skimmer. "I take it then that we're headed for Avalon," he said, glancing up at a large starship floating on the pool, its ebony hullmetal coated stunning white. A curious red circle glimmered just aft of its bridge Hyperscreens, enclosing what could only be an old-fashioned blue hat folded into a "tricorn" shape.

"Avalon it is, young Brim," Calhoun replied. "An' welcome to my yacht, S.S. Patriot," he said over the roar of the pool's repulsion generators.

Mounting a short stairway to the pool's rim, Brim shaded his eyes and took in the angular lines of Calhoun's "yacht." A curious craft; with her trilon-shaped hull she looked more like someone's idea of a very fast attack vessel, pre Starfury, than someone's expensive toy. And she mounted no disrupters, of course: visible ones, at any rate, Brim considered with a smile.

"What do you think o' her?" Calhoun shouted proudly. The repulsion generators were even louder here.

"Powerful-looking," Brim called out. He guessed she was in the neighborhood of 500 irals long with a beam of perhaps 250, and by the size of the four Drive outlets in her squared-off stem, she was probably powered by Admiralty HyperDrives of some sort. "Where'd you find her?" he asked. "She's got Imperial lines right out of the last war, but I've never seen anything like her."

Calhoun smiled proudly. "That's because I own the only three e'er built," he explained, passing Brim onto the brow with a wave of his hand.

The moment his foot touched the runners, a trio of white-cloaked starsailors at the top snapped to attention. Each was armed with a large blaster bolstered on his hip.

"And you're right about the era," Calhoun continued as they moved out across the brow. "They're prototypes o' fast attack ships that were to be built on an out-o'-the-way planet called Arret—in the Rhodorian province. Your Medical Officer, Penelope Hesternal, comes from there. They make damme fine deep-space cruisers, they do. But after the Treaty of Garak, there wasn't all that much demand for new warships. And then the CIGAs declared 'em surplus. That's when I got 'em. Bought all three hulls as scrap metal." He stopped at the entry port and gazed up at the wide line of Hyperscreens fronting the bridge. The angle at which they were set gave a brooding look to the ship, like some great spaceborne creature of prey, "They'd removed all the weapons and propulsion systems, but they were scrappin' so many ships at the time I had no trouble replacin' onything."

As they approached the entry port, two of the sentries gave an Imperial Fleet salute and held it while the third blew two shrill notes from a tiny silver whistle. At that moment, a fourth white-uniformed crew member appeared inside the large airlock. Even at a distance, she was stunning.

"At ease," Calhoun said, standing aside while Brim stepped over the coaming.

Inside, the woman saluted, in a most military fashion.

Instinctively, Brim returned her salute, upon which, she met his surprised gaze with a most charming smile. She was tall and slim with high cheekbones; a sharp, attractive nose; soft eyes; small breasts; and legs that seemed to go on forever. Her black, shoulder-length hair was cut in severely coiitured bangs, and she wore two full gold stripes on the cuffs of her white cloak: a Lieutenant Commander of some sort. Brim guessed. And try as he might to maintain a professional attitude toward her, she was simply beautiful.

"Make you feel at home?" Calhoun chuckled proudly.

"Especially the white Fleet Cloaks," Brim equivocated, struggling to dismiss the seductive woman who still held his glance. "Almost as if I'd never left Starfury."

"Commander Brim, meet Lieutenant Commander Cartier," Calhoun said perfunctorily, indicating the woman with his hand. "She's Patriot's Number One."

"Eve Cartier," the woman said, extending her hand. "An' it's quite a pleasure to meet you.'' Her face colored for a moment. "I've heard much aboot you from the Governor."

"Any of it good?" Brim asked.

"A wee," she chuckled in a soft voice.

"Eve," Calhoun interrupted, "I'm on my way to the bridge. Show the Commander to a stateroom so he can stow his gear, then bring him along as soon as possible. I'll hae the skipper begin his start-up checklists the moment I get there."

"Aye, Governor," Cartier said. "But you'll find the checklists done already; Patriot's ready for generators on a moment's notice. All we need are your orders."

"How about that for a seasoned crew?" Calhoun asked, starting toward the far end of the airlock.

Brim nodded. Clearly, Calhoun had established a little Carescrian Admiralty, with himself as First Lord.

As the older Carescrian passed Patriot's builder's plaque he stopped to polish it with the sleeve of his coat. "A wee trick I learned from a mutual friend," he called over his shoulder to Brim. Then he disappeared into a companion way.

Only cycles after Brim stowed his duffel in the most luxurious stateroom he'd ever encountered, he followed Cartier onto Patriot's roomy bridge. It was laid out in the standard warship manner with twelve rows of consoles split along the ship's center line by a wide aisle. Through a tremendous expanse of Hyperscreens that wrapped completely around the bridge, he could see nearly the whole upper deck.

"Nice view," he whispered to no one in particular.

"Nice view indeed," Cartier answered. "And you, Commander, are one o' the very few individuals who hae e'er been up here to see it, except for the flight crews, o' course." She smiled.

"Greyffin IV was here for a wee flight, and Prince Onrad's been wi' us on numerous occasions. Regula Collingswood's been here, too—she an' Admiral Plutron."

Brim nodded, peering out at two circular plates expertly fitted into the center line of the forward deck. Each was perhaps thirty-five irals in diameter. Two more occupied the aft corners of the triangular hull. "How long does it take to remount the turrets?" he asked nonchalantly.

"Something less than three Standard Days—at the Governor's private facilities in Rhodor,"

Cartier answered as if it were common knowledge. "That includes the twa' twin-mounts that by noo you've guessed we can carry ventrally." She laughed quietly. "Tis why few outsiders ever get a glimpse o' the ship from her bridge."

No need for comment on that, Brim thought. A powerful warship like this in private hands would be enough to unnerve any politician. Three could cause an absolute panic! He grinned as he caught sight of Calhoun seated at one of two raised stations behind the Helmsmans' positions. He was staring intensely at his console and uttering short phrases from time to time. By the multitude of glimmering rings diffusing outward from Patriot's high KA'PPA mast, Brim guessed "The Governor" was making up for time he'd lost playing chauffeur during the morning.

At that moment, a tall, aristocratic man strode onto the bridge, took one look at Brim, and thrust out his hand. He had three stripes on the cuffs of his white Fleet Cloak. "Aha, 'tis you, young Brim—finally. We've been a long time in meetin', but I used to watch you flyin' ore barges years ago in Carescria. I knew your family afore they were killed in the war."

"Universe," Brim said, shaking the man's hand. "That's a few Standard Years ago."

"Don't I know," the man agreed, rolling his eyes.

"Probably I ought to introduce the twa' o' you afore you've become auld friends," Cartier laughed. "Captain Melbourne Byron: Commander Wilf Brim."

"Byron," Brim said, testing the name with his mind. "That does sound familiar, but..."

"I wadn't expect you'd remember," Byron said with a chuckle. " 'Tis been a number of years noo, and you war' in a mighty big hurry to get on wi' your life."

"You've been with Calhoun long?" Brim asked.

"A wee," Byron replied, his eyes momentarily peering far into the past. "Since his first ship." He smiled. " Which reminds me that I'd best gat to my console. The Governor is anxious to be under way.

We'll talk further ower a cup o' cvceese' once we're spacebome."

"I'll took forward to it," Brim said. He turned to Carrier. "Guess I'd better find myself a place to sit," he said. "I take it the jump seats are over there along the starboard 'screens."

"They are," Carrier answered with a look of surprise, "but nae ane's sittin' there this trip, at least to my knowledge."

"What do you mean'no one'?" Brim asked with a grin. "I'm someone, aren't I?"

"Well, o' course you are," Cartier said with a raised eyebrow. "But...." Then she frowned. "Wait a cycle. Fit bet the Governor ne'er told you, did he?"

"Told me what?"

She laughed. "That you're to replace him at the right-hand command console. Beside Captain Byron."

At that moment, Calhoun swung himself out of his console and strode toward them along the main aisle. "Come on forrard, Brim," he said with a grin. "This trip, I've nae time for gawkin' thro' the Hyperscreens. An office is a better place to prepare for sellin' m' plan. Besides," he added, clapping Brim on the shoulder, "I've been told that you'd ne'er believe we war' off the ground if you didn't watch the takeoff. So I thought I'd make things easy on you." Before Brim could answer, he was through the hatch and clattering down the companion way.

"I was wrong," Cartier chuckled. "He did tell you, after all."

"When you said it, you were correct," Brim mumbled, shaking his head.

"All hands to stations for liftoff!" piped over the blower. "All hands to stations for liftoff!"

Within fifteen cycles, they were headed for deep space.

Four Standard Days out from Bromwich—and less than a week from the turn of the year—Brim watched Cartier lay Patriot in through heavy traffic for a perfect landing on an autumnal Lake Mersin just off Avalon's sprawling Grand Terminal: civilian gateway to a thousand-odd civilizations scattered throughout the galaxy—and beyond. Swinging off toward shore, they followed three gleaming liners and an old tramp into the prodigious mooring basin of bustling canals, fanciful bridges, gravity pools, reactors, and towering goods houses that surrounded the terminal, all connected by fleets of high-speed pool trams that made the mammoth complex feasible.

Under a high overcast, the sky was never without starships of one sort or another coming and going in all directions at all altitudes. War might be looming throughout the galaxy. Brim considered, but the interlocking gears of commerce still managed to turn and mesh as if little were amiss. Trade was the very lifeblood of civilization; when it stopped, whole dominions died, as had nameless thousands during the long march of history.

General Harry Drummond of the Imperial Army met them at the terminal. An enigmatic character who appeared to rove at will among all Imperial Services—including the Foreign Diplomatic Corps—Drummond often exercised extraordinary prerogative and clearly served someone with tremendous political power as a military wild card. Small and perfectly tailored in the tan and red uniform of Greyffin IV's Imperial Expeditionary Forces, he had a long narrow face, a prominent nose, and laughing eyes with an irrepressible natural humor. "Cal... Brim," he said, shaking their hands, "it's good that you have come. The time is ripe."

"I kind o' thought so, Harry," Calhoun replied. Then he looked the General over critically. "An'

you haen't luiked so good in years. You must be takin' care o' yourself."

"No more than usual," Drummond replied with a smile. "Maybe it's that plan of yours that gives me a bit more hope these days, Cal, You know, those xaxtdamned CIGAs have made it pretty rough on those of us who stayed loyal to the Fleet."

Calhoun grinned. "Tell that to my friend Brim here," he said. "He knows."

Drummond nodded at Brim. "I've heard," he said.

"An' I've also heard that you hae a most attractive chauffeur, General," Calhoun continued.

"My chauffeur?" Drummond said, his cheeks reddening slightly. "Why," he blustered, "I suppose I hadn't noticed."

Calhoun grinned. "Weel, I consider myself to be an extraordinary noticer. An' my sources say that she's really somethin'," he pronounced, snapping his fingers to summon his traveling case. "Maybe Brim and I ought to hae a luik at her. That way, we can make a mair honest judgment. What do you think, Wilf?"

"Sounds like a great idea to me, Commodore," Brim agreed.

"Absolutely," Calhoun mused. "An' while we do that, we'll let her drop us off at our hotel, killin' twa' birdies with ane stone. How aboot it, General?"

"Unfortunately, you'll have to wait till morning for her," Drummond chuckled. "I decided I'd drive you to your hotel myself this afternoon." Then he winked. "But yeah," he admitted, his cheeks coloring, "she is a knockout. You'll see in the morning." With that, he led the two Carescrians through the huge terminal to a skimmer parking lot.

Next morning, Brim regretfully climbed from his luxurious hotel bed and stretched agreeably.

Starship bunks were never more than just bunks—built more for durability than comfort. After a quick shower, he dressed in the living room while scanning the media. Nergol Triannic and Grand Baron Rogan LaKarn of The Torond had just issued a joint warning to Fluvanna concerning use of the Grompton Corridor, a narrow strait through the teeming asteroid shoals of Kara'g. The fact that the strait had been swept by the thrifty Fluvannian government for nearly five hundred years clearly meant little to Gorton Ro'arn, Triannic's Minister of State Security. It was no surprise to Brim who had met the man years before during a Mitchell Trophy race. Even then, Ro'arn appeared to be a most pragmatic politician.

Elsewhere, CIGAs were manning twelve, disparate, anti-Fleet demonstrations throughout the Empire. Two of the larger gatherings were being kicked off simultaneously in Avalon at that very metacycle; one was before the gates of the Imperial palace; the other at the Admiralty in Locorno Square. Both would be vociferant protests against Onrad's order for Starfury production. Brim grinned in spite of himself as he strode downstairs two at a time. If nothing else, the demonstrations proved that the Leaguers felt they had little to counter Sherrington's new warships....

A chilling rain began just before Drummond's big limousine pulled up to the curb. Brim knew better than to hope that it would dampen the CIGAs' enthusiasm for their demonstrations. Zealots thrived on bad weather, it seemed.

"Morning, Wilf," Drummond said as Brim climbed into the jump seat.

"Mornin', young Brim," Calhoun said, handing over a plastic mug of steaming cvceese'. "Thought this might come in handy."

"And how," Brim said, sipping the hot, sticky-sweet liquid. Somehow, cvceese' and Fleet work seemed to go together. So did Felicity, the chauffeur. Drummond had made no exaggeration the last afternoon, at least from what he could see. Long blond hair, a profile that would gladden the heart of a pin-up artist, keen blue eyes, full lips, and a captivating smite. Her wink told Brim all he needed to know.

Good for Drummond!

The rain continued without let up all the way across town, along with a brisk wind that littered the streets with a rainbow of fallen leaves. As they glided across a second ruby arch spanning the Grand Achrite Canal, two humpbacked tugs below were dragging a long string of barges toward Lake Mersin, presumably for transshipment to some remote part in the galaxy. Farther on, past the great domed tower of Marva, only a few damp-looking tourists had gathered in the Palazzo Edrington to look up at the Desterro Monument with its colossal spiral of sculpted flame. It was the kind of morning when sensible people avoided the out-of-doors at all costs; tourists simply didn't fit that category.

Nor CIGAs. Outside the Imperial palace, Courtland Plaza was a seething mass of malcontents marching around the Savoin gravity fountain and its onyx reflecting pool. Most carried the costly holographic placards that characterized all CIGA gatherings.

old men declare wars;

youths fight them.

stop the admirals!

-----------------------------------------

ponder galactic peace

-----------------------------------------

a war worth waging:

close the admiralty,

once and for all!

The marchers were sheltered by bobbing shoals of hovering, multicolored umbrellas struggling to keep station against the wind. Brim nodded to himself as the limousine slowed to a crawl in the single lane that remained open to traffic. Puvis Amherst needed extravagant resources to imprint pretentious posters like that, especially since they were supplied to CIGAs all over the Empire. He also needed considerable credits to pay for the large brass band that had set up in front of the guard station in a position unquestionably calculated to produce the most difficulty for Avalon's Peace Officers.

peace is made by the hearts of men,

not warships!

stop the starfuries!

"Leaguer money," Drummond growled as rain streaked the windows. "Triannic knows just where to put his credits. Voot's beard, we couldn't make that much trouble in Tarrott with half the Fleet."

even freedom may be purchased

at Too high a price! No starfuries!

"Or what's left of half the Fleet," Calhoun laughed wryly. "Just look at those zukeeds. I'd like to see anyone try something like this outside Triannic's palace in Tarrott."

peace won by compromise

of principles Is short-lived.

stop onrad! stop the star furies!

"Oh, they could try," Drummond put in. "They'd simply be jailed for their pains."

"Or shot," Calhoun snorted.

Brim peered into the crowd, concentrating on individuals here and there. He'd seen them all before; ordinary CIGAs exhibited a certain conformity. Most were elegantly costumed, except those who favored the currently fashionable simulated tatters known among the modish as "poverty chic." All but a few appeared to be well fed, too; in fact, a significant number were overly so. They marched in little bunches, seldom more than three or four to a group, and only a few had the look of bona fide zealots.

Soft-looking innocents: most were babbling and laughing impulsively—well nigh nervously—as if out for some shady childhood lark. Doubtless, few had fought to protect the privileges they enjoyed. Certainly their leader had done no fighting during the last war. Puvis Amherst was one of the most craven individuals Brim had ever encountered. Until his father—Admiral Amherst—was able to extract him from blockade duty aboard I.F.S Truculent, the man had spent most of his time cowering in any available hiding place.

From time to time, the marching CIGAs made furtive glances at a thin line of determined-looking men and women who marched in an opposite direction, surrounding the whole demonstration area.

Hardened-looking individuals these were, dressed in ordinary clothing—some wearing portions of old Fleet uniforms from the last war. They carried hand-lettered, amateurish placards of a much different type.

why Is it nobody listens when

history repeats

itself?

remember atalanta!

-----------------------------------------

keep our freedoms safe.

back prince onrad!

build star furies!

-----------------------------------------

don't sell our children

into triannic's slavery!

down with CIGA traitors!

"Glad to see those," Brim remarked, nodding through the window.

Drummond nodded. "Aren't we all?" he growled. "They've only just started to show up at these affairs." He shrugged. "It's taken a long time for the CIGAs to push people over the brink, but some of our citizens are finally waking up to what's going on. There'll be others. In the end, nobody really wants to lose his freedom."

Continuing on, they passed Avalon's imposing Admiralty building where a second CIGA demonstration had traffic in Locorno Square tied in knots. Here again, fifteen, perhaps twenty, counterdemonstrators were carrying pro-Fleet placards.

we are committed to the mission.

back the fleet!

-----------------------------------------

build starfuries!

in defense of our empire,

there can be No second best!

-----------------------------------------

courage and starfuries:

the fleet team!

Brim smiled dourly. There weren't many of them, certainly not in comparison to the thousand-odd CIGAs who had shown up for the main demonstration. But everything had to start somewhere. The very fact that even a small segment of the population was now sufficiently aroused to take definitive and visible action in the face of overwhelming odds said a lot about the state of the Empire.

Once in the historic Beardmore Section—as always abounding in reconstruction scaffolding and derricks—Felicity slowed at two heroic marble statues of Cerenian asteroid wizards done in the classical Barrett style, turned onto ancient, tree-lined Gregory Street, and pulled to the curb before a half square of fusty old office buildings done in the flamboyant style of a bygone age. The rainy gloom made them look gray and tired, their gallant colonnades and statues out of place in these shameful days of CIGA-induced privation within the Fleet. Brim recognized the structures instantly: the old Admiralty Annex buildings. If they could only speak!

He scaled the massive front staircase while his hovering umbrella dodged this way and that in a plucky (but ineffective) struggle to outguess the chancy air currents set up by the huge stone edifice before them. With cold rain dripping from his nose, he returned a salute by four imperious-looking guards at the portico, then followed his two companions across a sculpted colonnade and into a lofty room encircled by five levels of balconies. Overhead, a vaulted ceiling holographically depicted cavalcades of historic starships that soared off toward destinations so far removed in time that some now existed only in memory.

Brim recognized many of the famous vessels at a glance: graceful I.F.S. Valorous, the renowned battlecruiser that cleared the Lorandal Cluster of space pirates for the first time in recorded history; S.S. Pericole Enterprise, a plucky little freighter that ran the deadly Qu'oodal blockade thirty times; even little I.F.S. Idrovolante, a classic example of Mario Castoldi's fine hand that to this very day held the speed record for starships powered by old-fashioned Agello Drive systems.

"Hey, Wilf," Drummond called out with a guffaw. "That's a great way to trip over your feet or run into a wall!"

"Oh, right," Brim said, feeling his cheeks burn as he lowered his gaze. "I always was an easy mark for old starships."

"Makes sense," Drummond chuckled. "Who else would the Admiralty put in charge of their newest Fleet iron?"

At the elevator lobby, a frosted-glass partition slid back and two pairs of eyes scrutinized each of the three before they passed into the lifts. On the seventh floor, they were stopped by three marines checking fingerprints and retinal images before they passed into a high-ceilinged hall whose length was clearly designed to foil intruders. The guard at the far end would have extra moments to activate whatever safety devices he deemed necessary before potential threats could move from one end to another. A truly ancient device. Brim considered with a smile. But effective for all that.

Once past that guard station, he found himself in a large, rectangular room like all the others he had seen in the complex over the years: row upon row of workstations, quietly humming electrical equipment, the occasional clatter of switches and keystrokes, a muffled cough or the creaking of a chair.

The air was filled with odors from hot electrical equipment, whiffets of perfume, Hogge'Poa smoke indicating Bears somewhere in the area, and the all-pervading odor of mustiness from the ancient building itself. Brim's sense of history even imagined the brittle redolence of paper, though that primordial substance had been available only in museums for more than five hundred years.

"In here," Drummond said, keying open the door to a side office with his holobadge.

Brim found himself mildly shocked as he entered. Unlike the other offices he'd seen, this room was bright and airy. Tall windows with ornately rounded tops and high ceilings completely dwarfed both desks and a huge conference table that dominated the room. The latter had been carefully lined with decanters, ready for whatever libations accrued to various Admiralty dignitaries who would be briefed in the office.

"Executive office," Drummond explained to Brim's raised eyebrows. "It's also one of the best briefing rooms in the complex. I'll demonstrate soon as you've had a chance to look around. You'll want to know what the Leaguers have come up with to counter Starfury."

Calhoun nodded, "Aye," he said. "We'll need to know that, all right." He looked around the room appreciatively, men frowned and peered over the top of his eyeglasses, "I assume you won't hae time to personally escort us in and out for the next couple of weeks," he added.

"Your IDs ought to be here within the metacycle," Drummond countered. "I've got to get some army work done, after all." He nodded toward the door. "Just so you don't get too homesick for deep space, you'll find the office cvceese' brewer behind the panel outside with the usual tin for credits. There are reasonably clean mugs on the shelf. Standard rules: when you're done here, leave 'em the way you found 'em."

"The place is secure?" Calhoun asked.

"Electronically: as perfect as we can make it Actually, it's secure as the Bears can make it.

Xaxtdamn CIGAs have the same clearances as we do, but the Sodeskayans... well... they have a few extra levels all their own, so they swept the room. It's clean."

"How about the people outside?" Brim asked.

Drummond thought about that for a moment. "Most of them have higher clearances than either of you," he said. Then he frowned and pointed a finger at Brim. "What's the most reliable way you know of to tell a CIGA from an ordinary starsailor?" he demanded without warning.

Startled, Brim frowned. "I don't know, General," he said, rubbing his chin, "Unless I have some personal knowledge, or a tip from somebody I trust, there's no reliable way I can tell—at least until someone does something overt."

"That's the point, Wilf," Drummond answered with a serious look. "We can't, either. That's why we've got a good door, a good lock, and Bears to do a daily sweep. Most of the real security will be up to you Fleet types." Then he glanced through the door. "You're lucky, though. Cal let us re-recruit one of your old shipmates about a month ago. He's had most of the duty setting up an office here and working with the Bears."

Brim noticed Calhoun break into a wide smile. "He'll also be your new Master Chief Petty Officer when you get back to Starfury," he added with a wink. "Come in, Chief, while I help brother Drummond set up his League briefing."

"Aye, aye, Commodore," an oddly familiar voice replied from the hall.

Suddenly Brim caught his breath as a tall, powerfully built figure strode into the room.

"Barbousse!" he shouted, a huge grin breaking across his face. "Utrillo Barbousse!"

CHAPTER 3

The Annex

Brim returned the huge man's salute, then strode across the floor to shake hands. "There were times I thought I'd never see you again. Chief," he said, fighting back a wince as his fingers were crushed in a viselike grip. "What ever became of you?"

Barbousse smiled wryly. "That's a long story, Cap'm," he said.

"Something in the neighborhood of ten years long," Brim replied, his mind rushing back in time like a whirlwind. He'd just received a transfer as First Lieutenant aboard I.F.S. Thunderbolt; Barbousse was off to the Helmsman's Academy; Nergol Triannic was on the run; and the future had at last begun to show some promise after nearly five years of military disasters. "Seems like a couple of lifetimes since you dropped me off at the Atalanta Terminal," he said. "Will you ever forget how we sighted our first bender?"

"Couldn't forget that, sir," Barbousse said with a faraway grin. "By accident it was. You, Polkovnik Ursis, an' me—aboard old S.S. Providential. She'd been abandoned close to some gas giant... um...."

"Yeah," Brim said, pursing his lips "...yeah... Zebuton Mu! That's what it was called."

Barbousse snapped his fingers. "Right you are, sir! Zebulon Mu. And you just got us out of there in the nik of time!" His eyes looked off somewhere into a distant past. "Those were promising days," he said with a shrug. "Somehow, they simply... stopped...."

"What happened to you at the Academy?" Brim asked quietly.

"I lasted awhile," he said, taking a deep breath. "Did pretty well, too, sir, if I do say so. But they RIFed me out, in the first Reduction... not long after the Treaty of Garak." He pursed his lips. "I imagine you must have lost your commission in the same RIF—they were cuttin' 'way back on everything at the time."

"You've got that right," Brim said. "It seemed like everyone in the Fleet was out of work those days—all looking for those few jobs I thought I could land myself." He grinned wryly. "I must have gone through a hundred of 'em, each a little worse than the last."

Barbousse nodded. "My life started to go that way, too," he said, "but I got lucky. The Governor, er, Commodore Calhoun signed me on one of his ships. Things got considerably better afterward—and exciting."

Brim knew enough about Calhoun to resist asking any more about that job.

"You worried a lot of people when you disappeared, beggin' the Cap'm's pardon," Barbousse continued. "We all breathed a sigh of relief when you surfaced in Atalanta."

The Carescrian felt his cheeks burn. After smashing up a clapped-out ED-4 (through no fault of his own), he'd fallen on such hard times he literally fled from Avalon. Shipping out as a Slops Mate on a liner, he ultimately jumped ship in the great starport of Atalanta—his friends caught up with him there. "I learned a couple of big lessons on that trip," he said reflectively.

Barbousse smiled. "I learned a few myself before I left the Fleet, sir," he said. "But the most important one of all I learned at the Academy."

"What was that?" Brim asked. The big man was seldom conspicuously introspective.

Barbousse furrowed his brow. "It's hard to put into words, Cap'm," he said. "I did well at the Academy; number two in my class toward the end. But, well, even then I was askin' myself if I really was in the right place—doin' the right thing. And I kept coming up with 'no.' "

"Second in your class and doing the wrong thing?" Brim asked. "How could that be?"

"There's them whose lot is to be officers, Cap'm," he said, "and them that's happier bein' a rating. I'm one of the ratings, that's all."

Awestruck, Brim looked the big man directly in his face. Not many people knew themselves that well. "You were the greatest Chick in the Fleet when I knew you," he said with genuine admiration.

"Thank you, Cap'm," Barbousse said, meeting Brim's eyes with a steady gaze. "I've always tried t' do my best."

"Ah... when you two ancient veterans finish comparing war stories, I'm ready to begin my briefing," Drummond interrupted with a chuckle.

"Aye, sir... I'll cover the door. Commodore," Barbousse said, immediately restored to his normal decorum.

Brim quickly took a seat opposite Calhoun at the forward end of the table.

"About time I got the two of you back on the same ship," the elder Carescrian chuckled gleefully.

"I can't think of much worse that could happen to the League."

As the room lights began to dim, Drummond looked up from his podium controls and smiled. "All right, gentlemen," he announced in a theatrical voice, "presenting Gorn-Hoff's new light cruiser prototype, the P.1065." He was immediately obscured by the three-dimensional, holographic representation of a rocky desert just before dawn—or just following sunset; it was impossible to tell. After a few moments, the distant rumble of spaceborne gravity generators overlaid the lonesome sound of wind moaning along a rocky desert floor. In the narrow band of lighter sky above the right horizon, Brim's trained eye immediately caught a distant speck of movement traveling toward him at high velocity—a starship making landfall. As the form resolved itself, he could see that the Leaguers had built their new ship in the angular silhouette of a double chevron, the smaller one nestled inside its considerably larger counterpart.

"Sorry to say that none of us are sufficiently cleared that the Bears would divulge where these holograms were taken"— Drummond's voice intruded over the rising thunder—"but unless I miss my guess, it's close to one of their remote test ranges in the Gelheim Sector. At any rate, the content ought to more than make up for other information we tack."

Before the angular Gorn-Hoff could pass "overhead," it gently reversed course over a pulsing crystal tower that cranked rapidly into the air from the desert floor. During straight and level flight, the ship appeared to carry yellow lights at each tip of the large chevron and a red light mounted at its apex.

The latter was visible from both fore and aft. When the new cruiser changed course over the tower, however, a bright red ventral strobe began a flare that illuminated its entire underside.

"You'll note white belly markings during the strobes," Drummond pointed out. "The Leaguers have put a pair up front and a few more arranged asymmetrically aft. We don't know what they are, yet, but we think they might be part of a new weapons system. Wilf, that separation line at the midspan trailing edge break: what does that look like to you?"

Brim squinted as the display froze in place. "Hard to tell from this distance," he said, voice booming at first in the abrupt silence, "but by the shape, I'll wager it's some kind of outboard control emitter for the steering engine; especially if that's a Drive exhaust area at the trailing edge of the smaller chevron."

"Our feelings exactly," Drummond said, starting the display—and the sound—again. "Our on-site observer thought so, too. And for the record, he estimated its altitude at about eight thousand irals, with a speed of maybe four hundred fifty to five hundred c'lenyts per metacycle. Probably not ground-shaking information by itself, but you'll note the lack of a shock wave anywhere. That means that the Gorn-Hoff designers are finally starting to pay attention to planetary performance. In an atmosphere. ''

Abruptly, the desert dissolved into a classic starscape somewhere in deep, silent space. "Now," the still-invisible Drummond said in a much lowered voice, "we'll show you what the ship looks like out in its real element. We took these shots ourselves, from one of our newest benders: I.F.S. Apparition, the first ship we've built that can transmit all spectra through her hull, even N-rays." He laughed. "Don't get your hopes up for her, gentlemen. Even though she's really quite imperceptible to every detector we know about, Apparitions only marginally better in performance than the rest of the benders: theirs and ours. Her extra transmission capability takes its usual toll in power. So a lot of the shots were made while she was simply dodging out of the way."

As Brim watched, fascinated, the angular Gorn-Hoff appeared again, this time at the left side of the display, moving slowly across the starscape at a much-increased LightSpeed number.

"This sequence was taken during one of the earliest flights," Drummond explained. "The crew appeared to be getting her ready for some sort of trials. You'll notice Brim's 'control emitter' is partially deflected downward, and four auxiliary cooling panels mounted over what we think are the Drive chambers have deployed."

Moments later two Gantheisser 380 chase ships appeared at the edge of the display, moving much faster than the Gorn-Hoff in the same direction.

"Those two are going in for a 'rolling pickup,' " Drummond commented as the new cruiser began to gain speed with her control surfaces moving slowly to a fair position. After a few moments only the outboard steering emitters displayed any detectable movement while both chase ships moved into place on her flanks.

The Gorn-Hoff continued to accelerate straight ahead and quickly outpaced the much slower Imperial spy ship. She seemed to maintain this constant acceleration for several cycles, trailing a strangely wavering green wake that was wider, but not so bright, as ones from the single-crystal Gantheisser chase ships. She had gained several c'lenyts when she started a shallow-banked turn to starboard: the first noticeable attitude change since the start of its run. This continued until she reversed direction completely, rolling level on a collision course with the bender—which rapidly moved out of the big ship's flight path as it passed close to starboard.

Throughout this maneuver, the lead Gantheisser stayed some 250 irals away from the cruiser's starboard tip, closing briefly to a distance of perhaps half the span of the main chevron during the flight.

The second Gantheisser maintained a much wider spacing throughout the trials, moving from one side to the other in maneuvers that Brim felt were clearly made to attain optimum holography angles.

For the next few cycles, the Leaguers conducted standard stability, control, and handling maneuvers. Brim recognized pitch and yaw doublets, bank-to-roll performance checks, level turns, and a final "wind-up turn" before the Gorn-Hoff resumed its high-speed cruise—away from the clearly hard-driven bender.

"She looks good to a number of our analysts," Drummond observed. "She's 'nimble,' in their words. Especially her roll rate, which appears excellent for such a big starship. They also characterize her as 'well damped—very good directionally.' "

Brim silently agreed. He'd caught only a single overshoot in response to a yaw doublet. Clearly, she would be an excellent disrupter platform.

The Leaguers were now making quarter banks and moving at a relatively high rate of attack when they turned once again into the path of the bender, flashed past, and headed off toward a small squadron of support ships that materialized off toward galactic center. To Brim, she looked rock solid—easy to control.

"You mentioned disrupters a while back," Calhoun said. "I have na seen onythin' that luiks like ordnance to me. What do we know about her weapons systems?"

"Very little," Drummond admitted. "Detailed analysis on these holograms has turned up mounting rings for seven large turrets, probably twin-mounts like Starfury's. But that's the only hard information we have.'' He nodded, as if making a decision. "My own guess says they'll carry the new 375-mmi disrupters they've licensed from Theobold Interspace in Lixor."

"Good old Lixor," Calhoun growled. "Wee wonder they're always neutral. They build such a bankroll sellin' to both sides that they still show a hefty profit after payin' off the eventual victors."

"Whatever else people say about the credit-grabbing zukeeds," Drummond said with a laugh, "they make damned fine disrupters."

Brim nodded. "From what I've read, those new Theobolds are superfocused. First production models of a whole new technology. And fourteen ought to land a lot of energy at the target."

"Right on both counts, Brim," Drummond agreed. "They are superfocused and a salvo ought to land a tremendous load of energy. But that's precisely where we think we've caught them in a very serious mistake."

"Mistake?" Brim asked.

"Aye," Calhoun assured him. "Sounds like they've made quite a ship from where I sit."

"True enough," Drummond said. "They have—except for one small detail. You'll note how thin the cross section is."

Calhoun shrugged. "Small target at a lot of angles—plus tremendous thrust diffusion. And everybody knows what that does for maneuverability. What's wrong with that?"

" Starfury's firepower came as a terrible blow to the Gorn-Hoff designers," Drummond said.

"They'd designed their new ship with ultra-high performance foremost in their minds—Theobolds had already taken care of their artillery issues. They didn't have a reflecting Drive, however, so they had to achieve their performance in other ways, including that new hull shape. But that very low-profile shape deprived 'em of the two extra plasma generators we put in Starfury just to power the disrupters. And the new Theobolds take a lot of energy."

Brim felt his eyes widen. "You mean...?"

"Precisely, my good Helmsman," Drummond said with a smile. "While Starfury can fire a full twelve-disruptor salvo—at full power—every twenty clicks, we've calculated that the P.1065 here can MAX-fire no more than six of its fourteen Theobolds simultaneously, and even that will drastically alter the ship's velocity—above or below LightSpeed." The display dissolved again, this time to reveal the General standing at the podium beneath a strong spotlight. He pursed his lips, thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Of course," he added, "they could fire all fourteen of 'em at some low-energy setting, but..." He shrugged. "It's all theoretical right now, of course. But despite the energy problems they've run into: those Leaguers have come up with something very good again. And if I know anything about their xaxtdamned starships, it will probably also be very dangerous."

Brim had little trouble supporting Drummond's prediction. Over the years, he had been through enough battles with the Leaguers—and their machines—to underestimate neither....

Shortly after dawn, Brim and Calhoun inaugurated briefing operations on stolid, old Admiral Carlisle A. H, Gumberton, Chief of Fleet Operations. With him were Admiral Frank B. Farleigh, a flighted being from A'zurn who had worked his way from the ranks to the post of Commander in Chief, Home Fleet; Admiral Bruce Meedars, a graduate of the Dytasburg Academy and Director of Fleet HyperDrive Propulsion since Brim could remember; Rear Admiral John F. Varn, newly appointed Commandant of the Helmsman's Academy; and the scholarly Vice Admiral Daniel L. Cowper, Chief of Imperial Operations for Bender Technology. All were old-line, battle-hardened warriors whose true feelings concerning CIGAs and their ilk were well beyond question.

Calhoun led off with a detailed description of The Plan, immediately after which he became embroiled by what can only be described as a three-way grilling by Admirals Gumberton, Meedars, and Cowper that lasted nearly two metacycles. The staff officers were all highly cautious, neither damning nor adopting the ideas as presented; people at that level of responsibility had to be extremely careful.

Gumberton, for example, concerned himself with the issue of resources: Fleet strength. "The CIGAs have made these hard times, Cal," he asserted. "Ship numbers are way below critical levels. The whole Empire—at least the part that gives a damn—is counting on those units. What would we do if war suddenly broke out and we suddenly had to destroy some of those new Leaguer space forts...?"

Calhoun fielded that question along with nearly a hundred others before the day was over. It was apparent from the beginning that selling Calhoun's idea was going to be no easy thing. Yet, doubtlessly, it was possible. If the Flag Officers were hesitant, they were also interested: at least willing to consider Calhoun's proposition on its face value. Moreover, during the next weeks, they promised to send their subordinates to be briefed, also. And those officers, the advisers, would become the advocates who would actually sell the project.

When Brim's turn came to speak, he barely encountered resistance at all. His subject matter had to do with black-and-white topics such as engineering and performance depictions of Starfury and the ships that would follow her from the stocks. The men he faced were all starsailors whose very blood flowed with a love of starships and the vast open reaches of the starry Universe. They were all ears, and clearly liked what they heard.

As usual, Brim's stay in Avalon was nearly all work—often all day and all night. And during his all-too-few moments of free time, he was frequently so tired that he could only stagger to a chair for a few moments of catnapping. Clearly, it was not an idyllic time in his life; there simply was too much work for that. But it kept him from thinking how lonely he had become. It seemed to be a matter of course.

Only a single worrisome incident marred those hectic weeks at the Admiralty Annex—aside from almost-incessant CIGA demonstrations against one thing or another all over the city. Anti-CIGA security at the old building was nearly airtight, as it should have been, considering that it was quietly managed by Sodeskayans. But even Bears were tried to their limits by the nearly impossible restrictions that had to be placed on their activities in the name of secrecy. For example, the old complex was, after all, Admiralty property. Ostensibly, therefore, it was open to Blue Capes of every persuasion—including CIGAs. The Bears (and their colleagues) had outright responsibility to recognize Congress members and direct them to "safe" areas where they could be properly evaluated. But they could expect no help from other security organizations—nor did they particularly want it.

Visitors who arrived at the old complex by mistake, or out of genuine curiosity, were dealt with pleasantly and sent on their way. Others, clearly there to discover what it was that attracted so many senior officers to an out-of-the-way building complex, were offered "verifiable" false information by apparently pro-CIGA guards. However, those who were not satisfied with these measures were dealt with swiftly, meeting with disastrous traffic accidents or fast-acting viral illnesses before they could report to their masters. Fortunately, only a few CIGAs required such extreme treatment: too few to raise flags of alarm among the traitors.

The Sodeskayan guards did their work so quietly that the building's inhabitants were normally unaware of their activities. One morning nearly two weeks into the Avalonian new year, however, while Calhoun was busy presenting to Flotilla Commanders of the 108th Attack Squadron, Brim noticed an attractive Lieutenant enter the room behind a steward carrying steaming decanters of fresh cvceese'. The elder Carescrian himself was so deeply engrossed with a huge holographic representation of Fluvanna that he clearly failed to notice the woman, even when her eyes began to dart everywhere.

Brim watched the woman carefully. Something about her didn't check. A look in her eye? A bearing that belied her rank of Lieutenant? Perhaps it was the way her hands nervously twiddled with her collar buttons? Whatever it was, something began to set all his personal danger flags. He decided to take no chances and started out of his chair to investigate, but before he was halfway across the floor, Barbousse arrived at the woman's side, bowing courteously and requesting her identification disk.

With no provocation whatsoever, she began to shout at the big rating. "How dare you question an officer?" she shrieked, stopping Calhoun in midsentence and turning every head in the room while she moved quickly toward the exit.

Brim stopped in his tracks, then swung off toward the door, reaching it before her hand could activate the latch. " I question you," he said firmly. "Will you please produce your ID for the Chief, Lieutenant?"

The woman's eyes narrowed as she nervously played with the two gold buttons on either side of her collar, "What right have you to ask for my identification?" she demanded, her eyes betraying a moment of fear as a huge Bear entered the room from a sliding panel in the rear waif. "Can't you see I'm a Blue Cape like the rest of you?" she shrieked. "Is it a crime to be lost in an old government building like this?"

The Bear bowed politely, then stepped directly in front of the woman, his great bulk blocking her view of the room while he rolled his head backward to peer nearsightedly through a pair of huge eyeglasses. "I doubt it, madame," he rumbled in a gentle, cultivated bass voice. "Although I am not a member of the Imperial Fleet, as such, I am certain that it is never a crime to become lost. Especially in such a confusing edifice as the old Admiralty building here. Otherwise, I should have become incarcerated weeks ago."

"See?" she demanded, looking from Brim to Barbousse. "You heard him. Now, let me out of here. I have important business—"

"One slight problem, madame," the Bear interrupted, placing a six-fingered hand on the woman's sleeve as she attempted to move to one side of him.

"And what is that?" she demanded, staring angrily at the Sodeskayan.

"Your collar buttons, madame," he replied uncomfortably, as if somehow dismayed by his own words. "They are ingeniously concealed cameras—but then, you know that." He sighed. "What a shame," he added, "that you succeeded in some small part of your mission. The buttons were already transmitting when my machines detected their radiation—and of course squelched them. Let us hope that the purloined information you managed to send was at least limited. Mr. Barbousse," he said, turning to the big rating, "would you open the door for my Imperial colleagues? They will need to process this charming young woman."

Instantly, the woman's hand opened to reveal a tiny vial that she raised almost to her mouth.

The Bear's reaction belied his massive size. He grabbed the woman's wrists before her hands were halfway toward her lips.

"It would be a great disgrace," he said, "were such a beautiful human as yourself to take her own life." Then his eyes hardened, and curled lips revealed his fangs. "Especially," he added, "before my Imperial colleagues can wring some useful information from your traitorous personage."

Moments later three able-looking Blue Capes gagged the woman and muscled her from the room. "My deepest apologies, sirs," the Bear said, bowing deeply at the door. "It is always most difficult maintaining security in a free domain." Grimly he tripped the latch. "May the Universe grant us all that my job never, ever grows easier...." Then he stepped into the hall and gently closed the door behind him.

As Calhoun completed his part of the briefing, Brim could only stare at the floor and worry. Even though the Sodeskayan had managed to limit how much information the woman could transmit, there was no telling just how much she had managed to get out—nor what it would ultimately mean to the Leaguer analysts who would receive the covert information.

Midway through their third week of briefings, Barbousse chauffeured Brim and Calhoun to an out-of-the-way Imperial Marine installation where they could meet Drummond with no question about security whatsoever.

"Your briefings have gone well, gentlemen," the General said, leaning back in a tall chair with his hands around a thick mug of cvceese'. "Everyone's got real concerns about Fluvanna and our dependence on her crystal seeds, so your ideas have been most welcome."

Calhoun pursed his lips. "I could usually tell when I ha' them in the palm o' my hand," he said, "soon as the questions started." He nodded at Brim. "And o' course every Blue Cape worth his salt wanted to hear aboot Starfury, so my countryman here couldn't miss. They loved ev'ry word he spoke.

But there's ane question I ne'er did get an answer for, Brother Drummond. Is anybody willin' to help me staff these new ships?"

Drummond smiled soberly and shook his head. "Pretty sparse crowd banging on my door to do that," he admitted. "We're not the only ones who see a war coming, you know. And everyone wants to keep his own organization staffed so he can fight it." He furrowed his brow and pulled himself to the table again. "Unfortunately, that's not your only problem, Cal," he continued.

"What else?" Calhoun demanded, his brow wrinkling in concern.

Drummond's face took on a rare look of annoyance, almost frustration. "It's another 'people problem,' " he replied, "and one that I'm half ashamed to mention. You see, a number of otherwise-loyal officers refuse to support the plan at all, even though they believe in it. Their fear is that influential, high-ranking CIGA brass within the Admiralty may get wind of the operation, and if it fails, they'll root out the ones who cooperated and ruin their careers."

"I thought of that myself," Calhoun said, taking a deep breath. "I simply did na want to b'lieve it."

He frowned and chewed his lower lip. "If that's the kind of slime we have to rely on these days, we might as well join Amherst's xaxtdamned CIGAs. At least they have some sort of common goal."

Drummond smiled bleakly and nodded understandingly. "I know how you feel, Cal," he said. "I hate dealing weakness like that, myself. But until we encounter a sentient that doesn't have emotions, we're going to have to endure cupidity of one form or another. The one recompense is that the Leaguers put up with the same things—and their thralls, the CIGAs, have to be prime examples of that sort of weakness. Imagine what it's like to deal with utterly contemptible pukes like Puvis Amherst.'"

Calhoun abruptly chuckled. "Aye," he said, winking at Brim with a look of comic satisfaction. "I can na imagine much worse punishment myself." Then he returned his attention to Drummond- "Neither does it do much to change the situation, either," he continued at length. "There are a lot of normally loyal officers in the Fleet who simply don't support the plan. And that's bad, because Prince Onrad's one requirement was that we generate some solid support among—"

Abruptly Barbousse opened the outer door and stepped inside. "His Highness, Vice Admiral Onrad," he announced as calmly as if the appearance of a Crown Prince were an everyday occurrence.

Barbousse was unflappable.

Onrad strode into the room only a heartbeat after all three officers jumped to attention. He wore an open Fleet Cloak over the standard Flag Officer's service dress: peaked cap with a double row of embroidered oak leaves, blue reefer jacket, and matching trousers with black boots. Four and a half stripes were embroidered on his cuffs. He wore no decorations save his Battle of Atalanta Service ribbon. "Seats, gentlemen," he said briskly, throwing his cloak onto a desk across the room and taking an office chair beside Calhoun. "Well, Drummond," he demanded, "how have our two Carescrian friends faired with the Admiralty staff?"

Drummond pursed his lips. "They've done brilliantly, Your Highness," he said after a moment's thought. "I've heard reports of only a few disagreements, and those are from known malcontents." Then he frowned. "I think if there has been any ill-fairing, it's been with our Admiralty itself. Everybody gives us lip service, but nobody is willing to provide crews."

Onrad nodded and slouched easily in the straight-backed office chair. He was one of those catlike persons who could look comfortable in a thousand-odd positions yet lose none of his dignity for it. "Yes," he said. "I suppose I'd expected that. I don't believe I would want to give up staff were I in their positions, either." He turned his gaze at Brim. "Wilf," he demanded, "how do you feel about temporarily resigning your commission in the Fleet to get this job done? Would you go along with something like that?"

Caught off guard by Onrad's forthright question. Brim needed a moment to sort out his thoughts.

Finally he looked the Prince directly in his eye. "Your Highness," he said calmly, "after doing a lot of thinking about how things seem to be going for the Empire right now, I'd take my chances and follow Commodore Calhoun into the Fluvannian Fleet. But I'd only do that because I believe that unless we act quickly we are liable to lose our Empire itself, and then my commission won't be worth much anyway."

"Well then," Onrad said with a smile. "That pretty much settles things, as far as I can see...."

Brim interrupted by raising his index finger. "You didn't let me finish, Your Highness," he said.

Onrad raised an eyebrow, clearly unused to such interruptions. "All right, Brim," he said.

"Continue."

"Thank you, Your Highness," Brim said. Over the years, he'd learned that the headstrong Prince actually counted on such interruptions, even though he had never learned to like them. "If I hadn't given a lot of thought to the state of our Empire," he started, "if I hadn't read a lot of exceedingly classified intelligence about what is really going on within the League, then probably I would turn the Commodore's offer down flat."

Onrad's eyebrows joined over the bridge of his nose in a mighty scowl. "And just what do you mean by that?"

"Well," Brim started, "imagine for a moment that you were not Crown Prince of an Empire but rather some career member of the Fleet—officer or rating, it doesn't matter." He poured himself a mug of cvceese' while he put the proper words together. "It's not all that easy to get a career berth in our Fleet," he continued. "Officers have to successfully complete a formidable education—then demonstrate its results in a battery of daunting tests. And ratings must fulfill all sorts of difficult skill and intelligence requirements." He took a deep breath and peered into the Prince's eyes. "If you don't have proper connections—and most of us Blue Capes don't—then entering the Fleet takes a long time, and sometimes a bit of luck, too."

Onrad nodded in agreement. "I understand all you've told me, Brim," he said. "But I've already said that they'd leave the Fleet only temporarily. I fail to see any problem there."

Brim continued unperturbed. "The problem, Your Highness," he said, "is that nowhere have I heard a guarantee that an officer's commission would be waiting or that a rating would regain his berth when this Fluvanna operation terminates."

"What?" Onrad growled. "Haven't I already said it?"

"Begging Your Highness's pardon," Brim retorted, "but I know what it's like to be legislated out of the Fleet. And believe me, so do a lot of other people. Nearly everyone on today's active-duty roster has seen how easy it is to find one's self on the outside, including the CIGAs who are going to consider this to be the most beneficial purge of the organization possible—lots of the best old-time fighters gone in one easy sweep. Were I a CIGA, I'd do my utmost to make sure none of them ever got a chance to serve again. Much as we all dislike the fact, Puvis Amherst heads up a very powerful, Empire-wide organization—enough to make me awfully leery about putting my commission in any kind of jeopardy."

Onrad frowned in sudden understanding. "Yes," he said, stroking his beard thoughtfully. "I see what you mean now. It's going to take some sort of tangible guarantee, isn't it?"

"To my way of thinking it is," Brim replied. "Oh, there will be a number of us who will go along without one, but I suspect we won't be enough to staff eleven Starfury-class ships."

"For what it's worth, I think he's right, Your Highness," Drummond seconded.

"What sort of guarantee would they want?" Onrad demanded.

Calhoun smiled. "Like in a game of cre'el, Your Highness," he said. "Something that beats a CIGA resource."

"Like what?" Onrad persisted.

"These days, only Emperors beat CIGAs," Drummond said, "begging the Prince's pardon, of course."

Suddenly Onrad closed his eyes and nodded. " Now I understand," he said. "They'd want something 'in writing,' to coin an ancient phrase."

"That's the way I see it, Your Highness," Brim said, relaxing in his chair. He'd done his part; the rest was now up to Onrad.

The Prince leaned an elbow on Drummond's desk and stroked his short beard again, deep in his own thoughts. After a long pause, he nodded to Brim. "It's reasonable," he said. "The damn CIGAs are going to lose their power shortly after we find ourselves in a war with the League again. But until they are shown up for the wrong-headed idiots they are, we'll need that guarantee. And I'll provide it—through my father, the Emperor, of course. Some sort of immutable warranty that people can carry with them."

He nodded his head. Count on it, gentlemen." Then he looked up and smiled. "Do we have that out of the way, now?"

"Next topic, Your Highness," Calhoun said with a lopsided grin.

"How about you, Brim?" Onrad demanded.

"I'm ready, Your Highness."

"Drummond?"

The General's nod was all Onrad needed. "All right, then," he chuckled to Calhoun, "To continue with the original purpose of my visit, it appears that you and Brim have sold the Fluvanna concept. I can find almost no active opposition among the people who count. In fact, there even seems to be a groundswell building for its implementation, although as you have eloquently pointed out no one is clamoring to staff the ships."

Calhoun began to speak, but Onrad pointed a finger at him.

"You're going to tell me about the idiots in the Fleet who fear the CIGAs and won't back you because they think you might fail. Right?"

"Aye, Your Highness," Calhoun said with a grin. "I figured you had a right to know everything, e'en if some of it was na good."

"I always try to understand the downside issues first," Onrad said. "Often, that's the quickest way to see the bright side."

"Xaxtdamned cowards don't bother Your Highness?" Calhoun demanded hotly.

"Oh, they bother me, I suppose," Onrad replied. "But people like that are usually just weak, not disloyal. I pretty well know who they are, now—largely through your fortuitous efforts the last few weeks. Not so much threats as empty spaces that need to be filled." He nodded thoughtfully. "We'll simply never assign them a position of responsibility again. That way, they can still be useful to us without putting anyone in danger during times of stress."

"In that case," Calhoun said with a nod, "it's probably time to involve the Fluvannians, too. We've made a lot of assumptions aboot their willingness to be part of this wee scam."

"They'll come through for us," Drummond assured him. "I've known the Nabob since he was a child and I had just joined His Majesty's Foreign Service." He frowned. "A singular sort of person. But you know that, Your Highness. You've met him."

Onrad nodded. "Mustafa's 'singular,' all right," he said. "But only in how he reflects a society very much unlike ours. And of course, he's an absolute ruler. Feels he's Nabob by divine pronouncement—from the Universe itself. He doesn't have to put up with a legislature at all. He calls all the shots he wants to call; delegates the rest."

''Luckily, he's delegated considerable power to a real friend of the Empire," Drummond observed.

"Yes," Onrad agreed. "Old Beyazh, the Ambassador—one of the great rue' of our times, from what I hear."

"At least he'll listen," Drummond said. "Might have to find him a good-looking blonde for a while, but he'll come around."

Calhoun grinned conspiratorially. "I'll tell you how to gat on old Beyazh's guid side, in a hurry"—he chuckled—"aside from providin' him some guid-lookin' woman. He's an auld starsailor.

Years ago, he commanded ane o' those antiques that make up their 'Fleet.' I'll wager he'd swap his eye teeth for a ride in a ship like Starfury."

"Hmm," Onrad said with raised eyebrows as he turned to peer at Brim. "How is our 'pocket battlecruiser' these days?"

Brim felt his cheeks burn. "I've only got secondhand news. Your Highness," he admitted, "but Lieutenant Tissaurd reports that Starfury's fit-out is almost complete—with all trials modifications finished last week."

"Would you like to get back to your ship?" Onrad asked.

Brim peered at Calhoun. "Would I, Commodore?" he asked histrionically.

"You'd think I'd dragged him from his own first-born child, Your Highness," Calhoun guffawed.

Then he turned to Brim. "All right, my fellow Carescrian," he said, "I suppose it's time I let you go back and take over your ship. You've certainly done me proud here in Avalon."

"And I suspect we'll be needing Starfury soon for a bit of bribery after brother Calhoun here works his magic on Ambassador Beyazh,'' Onrad observed with a chuckle. "All very legal, of course."

"But of course, Your Highness," Brim said with as serious a mien as he could muster.

"Think you could come up with some quick transportation back to Bromwich for Commander Brim?" Onrad asked Drummond.

The latter looked up from his workstation. "Thought that might be coming, Your Highness," he said, winking at Brim. "S.S. Empress of Brockton embarks at midday tomorrow. Suppose you could be aboard?''

Brim smiled. "I could leave tonight," he said.

"Good," Drummond said. "In that case, I won't have to switch your tickets."

Brim frowned. "I don't understand," he said.

"Well," Drummond explained, "I thought you might be a little bored in the evenings, so I ticketed both you and your friend Barbousse on the S.S. Arkadia. She lifts in just five metacycles...."

A week later, with Barbousse thoroughly in command of Starfury's seventy-five nonrated starsailors, Brim had a chance to meet with Tissaurd in the newly carpeted wardroom, bringing himself up-to-date concerning the ship's fitting out. Like most wardrooms on major Imperial warships, Starfury's was divided into two richly wood-paneled compartments: a dining room and a lounge separated by a serving pantry with counter access to both. The dining area contained a U-shaped table hand-hewn from dark rennel oak, twenty-five matching chairs, and a number of wooden sideboards for serving. In the lounge, a score of leather armchairs and divans generally faced the ship's crest: a crimson shield outlined in gold containing stylized bolts of yellow lightning discharging from a blazing orange star. Above this, the ship's motto, "Go Boldly!" appeared in old-fashioned symbolic characters. On an adjoining bulkhead hung the same large portrait of Emperor Greyffin IV that Brim had encountered In his first ship at the beginning of his career. Below this was an array of workstations; Brim and Tissaurd sat at the leftmost display/interface, and from Tissaurd's exquisitely detailed records, the Carescrian could see that nearly a full complement of stores had already been stowed, and that nearly all Admiralty inspections had been passed with high grades. He looked at the woman beside him who had so ably shouldered his duties and shook his head in wonder. "You've done well. Number One," he said.

"Better than you expected, Skipper?" she asked, clearly daring him to admit he'd worried that she could handle the job without him.

Brim laughed in spite of himself. "Yeah," he admitted, looking around the comfortable room, "I suppose that's true." Was it because she'd caught him being himself, or was it because she was so damned cute—or a combination of both.

"It's all right," she said with a mysterious little smile. "I just wanted to make certain I could read you."

"Read me?" Brim asked.

"I read people," Tissaurd stated calmly. "I've been doing it for years."

"I don't understand," Brim said.

Tissaurd gently patted his shoulder. "You don't have to," she said. "I'll take care of it for both of us."

Owen Morris, Starfury's COMM Officer, strode into the wardroom before their conversation could continue. He handed Brim a sealed plastic envelope—the kind that usually contained ship's departure orders. "Hot from the crypto-KA'PPA, Skipper," he announced. "Untouched by human hands."

The envelope was marked secret; all sortie orders were sent as classified documents in peacetime; classification rose precipitously during wartime. Both Tissaurd and Morris were cleared for top secret and better, so Brim opened the envelope immediately.

ASD86DASFLKJH8QT3-05 GROUP 35291 31/

52010

[SECRET]

FM: ADMIRALTY COMFLEETOPS, AP34T

TO: W. A. BRIM, COMMANDER, I.F. @K 5054 INFO: DRUMMOND

@AG-9200J

DEPARTURE ORDERS

1. YOU WILL PREPARE FOR DEPARTURE BROMWICH SOON AS

PRACTICABLE. IMMEDIATELY NOTIFY AP34T ESTIMATED DATE/TIME

OF LIFTOFF.

2. SET DIRECT COURSE FOR MAGOR CITY, ORDU, DOMINION OF

FLUVANNA. PREPARATIONS YOUR ARRIVAL ARE CURRENTLY UNDER

WAY.

3. YOU WILL BOARD SPECIAL DIPLOMATIC PASSENGER AT

GALACTIC COORDINATES

ZC931/460:19.

[END SECRET]

ASD86DASFLKJH8QT3-05

Brim showed the brief message first to Morris, then to Tissaurd. "How soon can we lift ship, Number One?" he asked.

The tiny officer frowned for a moment. "Move over, Skipper," she said. "I'll need to check a few items at the workstation."

Brim slid aside, then stood to watch over her shoulder.

"The ship herself is ready," Tissaurd said absently, calling floods of multicolored data cascading over the workstation's display, merging it with other streams, then blending elements into synthesized journals. "We're missing a second spare-parts kit for the K-P Drives and a few supplies the Admiralty considers critical—like gortam sealant."

"Gortam sealant?" Brim exclaimed. "Ridiculous. I use gortam sealant around the ion-chamber window on my gravcycle. That stuff's been around for a millennium."

Tissaurd smiled over her shoulder. "I know," she said with a shrug. "But that didn't stop K-P from using it in their newest reflecting Drives. And we have to stock it—with some other out-of-the way stuff that has me pretty well stymied. I've got a couple of search parties out combing the city. But if we can't find it in Bromwich, then we'll probably have to lift ship without it."

Brim stepped back from behind the workstation chair. "You'd lift ship without a full complement of Admiralty stores?" he asked in feigned horror.

"Maybe not the Drive spares," Tissaurd said calmly, "but I'd damned well hate to hang up a whole starship over a case of gortam sealant."

"You mean that, don't you?" Brim asked with a frown, looking the tiny officer directly in the eye.

"You bet,'' Tissaurd answered. "Would you have it any other way. Skipper?"

"Not on your life, Number One," he replied, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"That's a relief," Tissaurd laughed. She looked up at Morris. "Owen, my friend," she said, "you could have been witness to the destruction of a budding career just now."

"I wasn't terribly worried," the COMM Officer said with a grin.

"Either was she"—Brim chuckled—"I think she can read my mind."

"You'd be surprised what I can read," Tissaurd bantered.

"Hmm," Brim said theatrically, "do you suppose you can read the whereabouts of a spare-parts kit?"

Tissaurd closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "Yee-e-e-s-s," she said, "it is coming to me." Suddenly she was busy with the workstation again. "Ah yes!" she exclaimed. "The answer magically springs to life in the crystal before me. Behold!"

" 'This evening, Darkness:45,' " Brim quoted from the workstation display. "Truly conjured magic."

"What can I say?" Tissaurd said modestly, examining the perfect manicure of her right hand.

"Madame Tissaurd foretells all, especially with the workstation before her."

"I wouldn't have believed any of this if it hadn't gone on before m' very eyes," Morris said in feigned amazement.

"Either would I," Brim said, glancing out a Hyperscreen port where a large, old-fashioned skimmer had just pulled up to the brow entrance at the side of Starfury's gravity pool. On its side, large letters proclaimed:

interstellar sealants

SERVING BROMWICH SHIPWRIGHTS SINCE 51005

Moments later, he watched the huge figure of Utrillo Barbousse returning through the brow with a large carton balanced on his broad right shoulder. gortam sealant was stamped prominently along the side. "How does tomorrow morning sound for lifting ship?" he asked.

Tissaurd thought for a moment. "Moming:2:00?" she offered presently.

"Sounds good to me," Brim said. "Morris," he said with a nod, "send that as an estimated time of departure to AP34T, the Admiralty. Got that?"

"Aye, Skipper," Morris acknowledged. "ETD of Morning:2:00 to Admiralty AP34T. I'll get out the word."

Starfury departed precisely on time the next morning—with all required stores in place.

Less than five Standard Days later, Dawn:3:10 found the new cruiser charging through the blackness of space a few hundred c'lenyts aft of perhaps the most distinguished Imperial battleship of all times, I.F.S. Queen Elidean, name ship of the five massive battleships that first mounted 406-mmi disrupters and, on completion thirty years previously, were considered to be the finest, most powerful warships in existence. Now fresh from a two-year refit, the grand old starship looked even more splendid than ever, with a multifaceted, box-type superstructure that housed everything that her old-fashioned stacked bridges had carried: navigating room, communications center, and conning tower topped by a powerful HyperLight rangefinder on the top. Even the KA'PPA tower was reduced in height and repositioned aft, yet there was no mistaking the huge, superfiring casemates with their monstrous disrupters that had blasted Kabul Anak's super-battleship Rengas to tangled wreckage in the great battle for Atalanta. Despite his many years in space, Brim had yet to see a starship that approached her beauty in simple perfection of line and layout. At the time she was launched, she quickly gained a reputation as the best-looking warship of her day, with none able to match the perfect balance of her design. He had loved the old ship the moment he laid eyes on her.

And no matter how often their paths crossed afterward, he never failed to be awestruck by her colossal dimensions. Steadying himself, he began the ticklish business of conning Starfury to the old battleship's starboard boarding aperture. He'd sent Tissaurd to the extreme port side of the bridge with bearing scanners as soon as he had solid visual sighting of the old battleship—and, of course, KA'PPAed a proper Imperial salute. For the last few cycles now, he'd checked the Queen's course and speed with his own eyes, steering a few degrees from the signaled course and a bit faster.

Some Helmsmen he knew considered close-in approaches to a target ship as exhibitions of prowess at the helm, often bragging that such maneuvering facilitated the rigging of optical moorings and

"pipes," as midspace connecting brows were called. During his early career on Carescrian ore barges, that kind of precarious maneuvering was part of his workaday existence, so it represented nothing special to him. However, over the years, he'd proven to himself that it seldom had any beneficial effect on the time required for docking evolutions. And in the Fleet it was foolish to get unnecessarily close to any other ship, since the only serious mistake one could make was getting so close as to cause a collision. If the years had taught Wilf Brim anything, it was pragmatism when it came to driving starships.

As demanded by protocol, Starfury, in her role of junior ship, would moor to the Queen's pipe, and to that end, he presently watched hatches sliding open in the battleship's flanks to uncover an array of fender projectors centered on the boarding aperture. "Ready, Number One?" he asked.

"Ready on the starboard wing," Tissaurd reported. Save for the velvet thunder of the Drive from below, her voice was the only sound in Starfury's bridge—the other occupants were either completely immersed by their duties or themselves enthralled by the very drama of the moment.

"STARFURY CLEARED TO APPROACH QUEEN ELIDEAN, STARBOARD

EMBARKING APERTURE," Brim's KA'PPA display announced directly. "LOCAL GRAVITY

INFLUENES NEUTRAL." Simultaneously, Queen Elidean's director lamps began to flash a pattern amidships.

"All hands to stations for deep-space mooring," he directed on the blower. "All hands to stations for deep-space mooring. Muster honor party to the main boarding chamber on the double." Then, turning to the KA'PPA system, he dispatched his own signal, "STARFURY ACKNOWLEDGES STARBOARD EMBARKING APERTURE." Now, it was time for the business of helmsmanship.

Carefully increasing speed, he began by bringing Starfury's head a little more to port with deft control inputs that gently increased the Queen's relative bearing in reverse proportion to her distance ahead, checking every few moments with Tissaurd, who had glued her eye to the bearing scanners. When the old battleship was about a thousand irals ahead, Tissaurd reported a bearing of three points from course; by the time they narrowed the distance to approximately five hundred irals, the bearing had doubled. And while he flew, Brim also made his own checks, glancing aft to compare Starfury's flowing cobalt Drive plume with Queen Elidean's broad wake of emerald-green. Long ago he'd developed his own rule of thumb to cover such maneuvers: he was usually well positioned during an approach whenever he maintained some fifteen irals of space between the two wakes.

Brim's instruments showed Starfury to be traveling at some five times the battleship's cruising velocity when he arrived off a point approximately three hundred irals astern of her aperture. Judging now by instinct alone, he gradually reduced power and allowed momentum, or "surge," to cover the remaining irals to the boarding aperture, while natural HyperLight retro-induction (toward Sheldon's Great Constant at LightSpeed) bled off velocity proportional to the cube root of Starfury's net mass. By the time she was abreast the battleship's aperture, the pipe had already started to deploy in a flashing welter of director beams.

"Stand by to receive pipe alongside to port," he piped. "Stand by to receive pipe alongside to port!"

Moments later he gradually reversed two of the ship's Drive units; until both starships were running about fifty irals apart, matched perfectly in course and speed, while the pipe connected noisily to Starfury's main accommodation port. He'd done it again....

Taking stock of his control settings, he slaved his helm to the battleship's, relinquished the con to an exhausted (but grinning) Nadia Tissaurd, and set out at a run toward the main deck to welcome the Fluvannian dignitary.

CHAPTER 4

Showing the Flag

Puffing after his sprint from the bridge, Brim arrived at the main boarding chamber only clicks before the Fluvannian Ambassador. Starfury's little marching band had already begun braying out the intolerable agglomeration of groans, squeaks, and wheezing noises that, in aggregate, composed the perfectly awe-inspiring Fluvannian national anthem, "Our Dulcet Star Rises Shrill O'er the Fo'zelii."

Calhoun and Drummond both had sent the Carescrian introductory literature about Fluvanna and Fluvannians. But none of it was adequate preparation for the individual who appeared as the great boarding hatch popped inward, then slid aside on its massive guides.

Beyazh the Ambassador was erect, fierce, and patriarchal in every feature. Were it not for his stately progress across Starfury's main boarding lobby, he might have been mistaken for some heroic statue come to life from Courtland Plaza in Avalon. Wearing very full and baggy black cotton bloomers, a high-necked white shirt under a short black silken jacket, and a crimson fez around which was tied a white turban, the man looked like every Fluvannian travel poster Brim had ever seen—even to soft, black leather boots turned up at the toes. He had great, dense eyebrows; glowering, deep-set eyes that spoke of ten thousand days peering into the blackness of Hyperspace; and a gigantic ebony mustache whose stilettolike ends were twisted nearly vertical. He was followed out of the airlock by a confused gaggle of bobbing travel cases in every color of the spectrum.

After what seemed to be a lifetime, Starfury's hard-pressed volunteer musicians (most from Disrupter sections, with exception of two clearly tone-deaf cooks) ceased their dreadful labors, and the boarding chamber fell silent except for muted thunder from the Drive. The Fluvannian bowed deeply from the waist, then straightened and touched first his forehead and next his lips in a sweeping gesture that ended with his right hand turned palm upward toward Brim—an intergalactic gesture of goodwill.

"Fluvannian diplomatic party requests permission to board I.F.S. Starfury," he announced solemnly, rising to a dignified position of attention and this time saluting in a more contemporary style.

Impressed, Brim returned the salute briskly. "Permission granted. Your Excellency," he said, "with my personal welcome."

"Stand by to cast off the pipe," Tissaurd's voice ordered over the blower, "Stand by to cast off the pipe." Moments later the massive hatch glided silently back in position and sealed itself with a quiet hiss.

Brim dismissed the ship's band while Beyazh strode across the chamber offering his hand in a modern handshake—and abdicating the job of transferring his luggage to a crew of bemused ratings.

"If I remember anything about my days as a starsailor," the big man said, "you are anxious to oversee our disengagement from the Queen, Captain Brim."

Heavy repulsion motors whirred inside the aperture—above them on the bridge, Tissaurd was already retracting the huge lug bolts that held Queen Elidean's pipe in place. "You remember well. Your Excellency," Brim remarked. "Would you grant me the honor of your company on the bridge?"

"As our Sodeskayan friends might say, Captain," the Fluvannian replied with a smile, " 'Coarse winds and bitter snow deter no crag wolves.' Is that not so?"

Brim swallowed. "Absolutely, Your Excellency," he replied with hardly a pause. "This way please." Fluvanna promised to be an unusual place indeed.

Brim and Beyazh found jump seats on the bridge just in time to watch Queen Elidean's golden pipe disappear into its aperture. Moments later the battleship's director beams winked out. "Deep-space mooring operations are completed," Tissaurd piped throughout the ship. "AH hands carry out normal and routine work in accordance with previous instructions."

Beyazh contemplated Tissaurd with ill-concealed interest. "Your First Lieutenant?" he asked.

"She is, Your Excellency," Brim replied.

The Ambassador's eyebrows rose momentarily. "Truly alluring," he remarked, raising an eyebrow, "tiny, yet so perfect—and no youngster, either. Captain," he said. "I must meet this gorgeous woman at the first opportunity."

Momentarily taken aback, Brim opened his mouth, but the Ambassador continued with a sigh.

"Ah, Captain," he said, "calm yourself. I shall not force myself on your most seductive First Lieutenant. I have more breeding than that. But if she is conducive to—shall we say— the inconsequential attentions of a middle-aged man with a salt-and-pepper beard, well...." He shrugged casually, but his eyes warned that he meant business.

Brim forced aside a grin. He didn't blame the Ambassador one iota; he almost told the man so, but at the last moment decided that he ought to be as professional as possible with this high-level diplomat, at least until he got to know him. "Lieutenant Tissaurd's personal life is of no concern aboard ship, Mr. Ambassador," he said stiffly, "except in that it affects her performance as an officer." Suddenly he felt as stuffy as his words.

"Excellent," Beyazh commented absently as he peered at Tissaurd through narrowed eyes. "I should enjoy a tour of the ship, Captain. Do you suppose you could arrange to free this magnificent woman from her duties?"

"Er... now?" Brim asked.

"But of course," Beyazh answered with a look bordering on disdain. "Only a fool would dawdle when presented with such an opportunity. Come, Captain. I applaud your professional disregard of this seductive woman's obvious charm. But I have no such impediment, and only a limited time to act." He raised his bushy eyebrows. "Shall we be about it, then?"

"I shall relieve her myself," Brim said, leading Beyazh forward to the two Helmsmans' stations.

Now here was a man of action, clearly attracted to beautiful women. And Tissaurd was a beautiful woman.

"I am eternally in your debt," the bearded man said in a tone that strongly augured otherwise.

Clearly, he was also used to getting his own way most of the time.

When they reached the forward end of the bridge, it was almost as if Tissaurd had been expecting them, for she turned in her seat the instant Brim touched her shoulder. Her smile was enough to light the whole bridge. "Why, Captain Brim," she said, "who is this utterly handsome man you've brought onto the bridge with you?"

Beyazh didn't wait for an introduction. Sweeping past Brim, he grasped Tissaurd's perfectly manicured fingers and kissed them gravely. "Lieutenant Tissaurd," he murmured, looking into her eyes from a deep bow, "I am known as Beyazh, a humble Fluvannian politician—and I am deeply honored to be in thy presence."

Brim swore he could hear Tissaurd purr like a Halacian Rothcat.

"I am honored by thy presence," she said quietly—almost privately. Her eyes were completely alert, yet her face had a languid aspect that could only be described—at the moment— as carnal. "How may I make this passage more meaningful to thee?" she asked, a little too assertively for Brim's likes.

"Ah, Lieutenant," Beyazh sighed, "I have so little time to discover the delights of this ship.

Perhaps I can persuade you to be my tutor. By all that is holy, and perhaps a little that is unholy, as well,"

he added with a wink, "I vow to inwardly digest thy every word as if it were an on of the purest gold.''

"I should be honored to be thy guide in all the passages and chambers of this ship," Tissaurd said, gleefully settling into her role. "Just so soon as my watch at the helm is finished."

"My passion for this ship is such that I may not be able to tarry that long," Beyazh moaned. He looked beseechingly at Brim. "Captain," he said. "You did promise to relieve Lieutenant Tissaurd of her present duties, did you not?"

Brim took a deep breath. "I did," he admitted, now struggling to smother the smile that threatened to inundate his face.

"In that case, I beseech you to do your duty," the Fluvannian said, his eyes again fastened on Brim's as if the request were actually an order.

"Number One," Brim said, feeling ridiculously as if he were about to relate something that the good-looking officer already knew, "I promised Ambassador Beyazh that I would stand the last metacycles of your watch myself."

"Oh, Captain," Tissaurd said in an excited voice, "how thoughtful! And of course, Starfury is already running under autohelm."

Brim smiled in spite of himself as Tissaurd led Beyazh into the aft companionway. She could be so awfully appealing. And whatever else he might turn out to be, it seemed clear that the Fluvannian Ambassador was a man of action who also recognized a well-turned ankle when he saw one. All in all, Starfury's first trip to Fluvanna promised to be a lively one—at the very least.

FLUVANNA ______________________________

Kingdom of Fluvanna

Nabob: Mustafa IX Eyren, The Magnificent

Planets: 916; Inhabited: 8

Andronicus, Calleri'l, Dragases, Ordu, Voso Gannit, Voso Gola, Voso Tuvalu, and Wogoria

Population: (est. 52009) 47,250,000 (average annual growth: 2.2%) Capital: Magor, Ordu

Monetary Unit: Fluvannian Credit

Language: Fluvannian

Economic Summary: Gross Dominion Product: C166 billion; Per-capita Income: C1,460; Habitable Land used for agriculture: 43%; Principal Products: cotton, mu'occo tobacco, cereals, sugar beets, nuts; Labor Force in Industry: 16%; Major Products: celecoid quartz kernels, textiles, processed foods, hullmetal; Natural Resources: celecoid quartz kernels, chromate, copper; Exports: celecoid quartz kernels, cotton, mu'occo tobacco, fruits, nuts, processed livestock; Major Trading Partners: The Empire and associated states, esp. Sodeskaya.

GENERAL

Most modern travelers visit Fluvanna to observe its rich heritage of archaeological sites and historical monuments. Numerous cultures have flourished there over a span of millennia, at least ten abandoning unique artifacts before the dawn of recorded history. Magor, the capital city, is located on Ordu, largest of eight planets supporting permanent population centers. With an enormous variety of topography and scenery ranging from semitropical vacation planets with white sand beaches and rivieras of colorful flora (Ordu, Andronicus, and Dragases), dense rain forests and vcee' plantations (Wogoria and Calleri'l), to rugged landscapes of the Voso Triad, gateways of the domain's celecoid quartz kernel growing areas, linchpins of Fluvannian economic life.

As many writers on Fluvanna have remarked, this is a domain that stands astride two mutually repelling elements: an overwhelming historical heritage and the inexorable march of progress. With one foot in the past and the other in the present, the population is gripped in a cultural schizophrenia that often seems confusing to outsiders, but which is always a source of considerable interest.

Contemporary Fluvanna may at first strike the visitors as a somber and troubled domain, having suffered in recent years from severe economic and political problems. But this has not in the least diminished the genuine warmth and friendliness of the Fluvannians themselves, whose hospitality to visitors is proverbial. One should be prepared to encounter the Fluvannian greeting wherever he goes on these friendly planets; "Zin ilegs'oh!" (Welcome!), responding with "Kud lubs'oh!" (We are pleased to be here!).

Brim piloted Starfury to lightward over downtown Magor while Beyazh provided a running travelogue from his observer's seat directly behind Tissaurd in the CoHelmsman's position.

"Magnificent!" the diplomat enthused, waxing poetic as he peered out over the starship's nose. "A golden island surrounded by a garland of waters, if you will." He pointed through the Hyperscreens. "That garland is the Hiemial, an incomparably beautiful waterway that flows from Lake Gonfall—which we overflew only moments ago—into the Gulf of Varn, that large body of water you can see ahead of us. Its two branches separate the ancient, insular part of the city from its more modern boroughs and suburbs on either side. I myself live just beyond the left branch, near the great domed structure atop that first range of hills."

"The harbor section is on the far bank of that branch, I take it," Brim commented.

"Correct, Captain," Beyazh said. "The 'Levantine Quarter,' as it is known. A military base forms its boundary upriver, farthest from the Gulf. You can see a number of our capital ships are in port today."

Brim nodded musingly. Even from this altitude he could see that the warships were clearly from bygone epochs. Calhoun's advisement of their years, however, had done little to prepare him for how really ancient they were. The fleet yard looked more like a colossal museum man a military base. Two were clearly of the ancient Charles Martel design with ventral armament in the "lozenge" arrangement favored by starship designers of more man five hundred Standard Years past: twin-mount center-pivot turrets mounted fore and aft and two more on either beam sponsoned out over the tumblehome. Others shipped two squat KA'PPA masts with flying decks running between them. Altogether, an odd collection of antiquated warships from all over the galaxy.

"Opposite the Levantine," Beyazh continued after a deep breath, "across that large bridge midway along the island—is the most impressive basilica ever constructed by the Gradgroat-Norchelites."

"With exception of the great monastery of Atalanta, perhaps," Brim interrupted dryly, trimming the ship's head a little beyond the published landing vector to adjust for a strong crosswind.

"Ah yes," Beyazh said, interrupting his discourse, "I have admired the Atalantan campaign ribbon you wear. You were there at the Battle of Atalanta to see the monastery go, weren't you?"

"No," Brim answered. "I was out in space aboard Regula Collingswood's Defiant," Brim replied. "But I followed the action by KA'PPA after Nik Ursis deciphered the Norchelite maxim."

" 'In destruction is resurrection; the path of power leads through truth,' " Beyazh quoted while his hand unconsciously began to massage the back of Tissaurd's neck. "What a surprise that turned out to be!"

Brim nodded, glancing across at the man just in time to see Tissaurd smile a little, then slap the caressing hand without taking her eyes off the readouts before her.

"Imperial K5054," a Fluvannian controller warned from the COMM panel. "Traffic lightward bound: League cruiser L1037, twelve irals at red-orange."

Brim glanced out the starboard Hyperscreens as a big Gorn-Hoff GH-210 cruiser materialized out of the distance in a tight bank, curving around onto a parallel path into the landing zone. "Thank you, ma'am," he acknowledged, "I have him."

The Leaguer ship was as angular as Starfury was contoured, and had clearly just come directly from outer space because her complex conformation of deck houses and great frowning bridge were still glowing from the heat of entry. She also appeared larger, by perhaps ten percent, although her heterogeneous nature made this nearly impossible to estimate by sight. The bristling armament she carried, however, was anything but equivocal: fifteen 321-mmi disrupters were a powerful battery by anyone's reckoning, even though any one of them was smaller than Starfury's twelve battleship-size 406s. Brim watched cautiously as the big ship bore down on him at what seemed like reckless speed—sailing in peacetime rig and war paint, as the saying went.

"Coming this way awfully fast, isn't he?" Beyazh commented in a needling tone of voice. "Do you suppose you ought to give way to him?"

Brim continued steadily on course. "He's probably coming a bit faster than necessary," he said calmly, "but I doubt if he's outside the control envelope for that type of Gorn-Hoff. I'm keeping an eye on him."

Silence descended on the bridge as the crew watched thirty-some thousand milstons of hullmetal bearing down on them like a meteor. Only at the last possible moment did the Leaguers swing onto a new heading, impinging on Starfury's airspace by nearly half a c'lenyt before settling down on a parallel track.

"Sloppy helmsmanship," Tissaurd commented after a few moments, but even her voice had a slight edge to it.

"Do you think perhaps they wanted us to move over?" Brim asked with a grin.

"I was about to suggest something like that," Beyazh said, but there was clear approval in his eyes.

"Imperial K5054: you are four c'lenyts from the marker," announced the controller. "Secure the localizer above two thousand five hundred irals. You are cleared for instrument landing, two seven left approach."

"Cleared for instrument landing two seven left approach Imperial K5054," Brim acknowledged.

Checking his altitude, he gently heeled the cruiser into a shallow bank—away from the Leaguer ship at the same time it banked in the other direction, obviously getting its own simultaneous landing clearance. "I think we'll keep an eye out for that one," Brim said, starting down toward a ruby beacon that had just begun to flash from the distant surface of the Gulf. On the nav panel before him, two units of different hues quickly merged into a third,

"Localizer and glideslope captured," Tissaurd advised.

"Imperial K5054, contact Levantine Tower one two six five five," the Controller directed.

"Good day from Imperial K5054, and thanks for the help," Brim responded.

Moments later Tissaurd was on the blower: "All hands to landing stations. All hands to landing stations." From aft, a siren howled, accompanied by the sound of running feet. Odd bumps and rumbles throughout the bridge spoke of cvceese' mugs and personal gear being stowed in all sorts of unapproved nooks and crannies.

"COMM frequency redirected," Tissaurd announced.

Brim confirmed her on the panel. "Thanks, Number One," he replied. "Imperial K5054 checking in at two thousand on final for two seven left approach."

"Imperial K5054: Tower Levantine clears for two seven left landing approach; wind zero nine zero at fifteen, gusts to forty-five."

The genius of Starfury's designer Mark Valerian always shone like a star during landings. The ship was steady as a rock, in nearly any kind of weather—and today's could only be classed as perfect.

The spoilers deployed automatically at fifteen hundred irals without the slightest rumble or pitch change.

At the helm, one could feel a slight sinking sensation when the speed brakes deployed, but unless you were actually at the controls, it was nearly impossible to notice.

Brim glanced over at Beyazh, who was staring at the back of Tissaurd's head as if the two were alone on the bridge. Grinning, he concentrated on landing the starship. There was a lot of residual thrust from the six big Admiralty A876 gravity generators, so he normally flew right at reference velocity during descents (instead of adding a little speed for windage, as was the practice), unless of course mere were heavy gusts or the possibility of sheer. But if there was too much speed, Valerian's new design wouldn't come to hover at standard elevation; she would simply float on and on and on.

With the ruby landing vector beacon steady in the Hyperscreens, he ignored his urge to flare and kept coming down with the gravs at idle until her gravity gradient kissed the whitecaps and launched great cascades of spray soaring past the side Hyperscreens. These diminished to a broad rolling wake as they bled off energy and Brim blipped the gravity brakes, sending successions of great spray clouds forward that deluged the Hyperscreens as the big ship thundered to a smooth halt with her pontoons hovering precisely twenty-five irals above the three contoured "feet" she pushed in the surface of the bay. Through the overhead Hyperscreens, Brim could see an Imperial flag soaring to the apex of the high KA'PPA tower, followed by a brilliant white ensign emblazoned by Starfury's crest. Clearly, Barbousse was back on the job!

"My congratulations," Beyazh said in an awed voice. "A most perfect landing."

"All in a day's work for this Helmsman," Tissaurd remarked with her sunny grin. "Isn't it, Skipper?"

"Thanks, Number One," Brim said half in embarrassment, but her compliment made him proud as a schoolboy.

Suddenly the voice of Surface Control demanded his attention. "Imperial K5054, intersect one seven right without delay; control buoy six five after you cross, then cleared to Levantine G-pool four sixty-seven. Follow pilot boat ninety-one at boreal river entrance."

"Imperial K5054 crossing one seven right for pilot boat ninety-one," Brim acknowledged, taking up a direct course for an antiquated little watercraft that appeared at the mouth of the river. Abruptly, however, the Gorn-Hoff reappeared from starboard with all flags flying. She was on a collision course with Starfury—and moving much too fast to be in a harbor.

"Our Leaguer friends again," Beyazh commented with the same taunting look on his face. "It seems as if this time they really mean to cut you off." He spoke as if he were waiting to see what Brim would do about it. "There is always a long wait for pilot boats this time of day in Magor," he added pointedly.

"I see," Brim growled, deliberating only a few clicks before deciding on a course of action—one that matched Starfury's motto, "Go Boldly!" It was clear that the Leaguers had no conception of Starfury's post-landing capabilities; it was also high time someone put a stop to their foolish antics before they did something dangerous. "I'll have military energy to gravs two, three, four, and six, Strana'," he ordered. "Number One: sound the collision alarm to starboard."

"Military to gravs two, three, four, and six," the Bear acknowledged from a display on his console. Her voice was all but drowned out by of sirens sounding through the ship.

"Stand by for collision, starboard side, frame seven fifty-five," Tissaurd announced on the blower.

"Stand by for collision, starboard side. All hands close airtight doors forward of frame seven fifty-five."

The cruiser was closing very rapidly now and throwing a huge wake that rose high enough to hide the aft portion of her hull. Without a doubt, the Leaguers intended that Starfury would slacken speed or give way, thus relinquishing the pilot boat. The imperials would then be forced to wait at the entrance to the Levantine—in clear view of the whole harbor as well as the Fluvannian Fleet—until such time as the next pilot became available.

"If you speed up, you will maintain your right-of-way," Beyazh urged, his voice more of a challenge than a comment. "He'll eventually have to give way." Then he chuckled. "Of course, if he does get ahead of you, you will then be an overtaking vessel—and he will perpetually have the right-of-way."

Brim nodded wordlessly, judging distance between the two ships and giving Starfury's crew time to reach their collision stations, just in case.

"Will you really permit him to accomplish this indignity?" Beyazh demanded in a bantering voice.

"The pilot boat is assigned to you after all."

For Brim, it was almost as if he were back in Carescria as a youth flying the incredibly dangerous ore barges of the region and racing to be first at the weighing stations. He had quickly discovered that a fractional load delivered first at the receiving station was worth a lot more than a full load delivered later.

So he'd learned to come back with the holds only partially full on those early runs—it gave him critical reserve maneuverability, acceleration, and—most important—braking energy he needed to win the post-landing "races" that helped bring him to the attention of the Imperial Helmsman's Academy so many years ago. He smiled as he watched the Gorn-Hoff. Whoever was running that ship had never spent much time in Carescria. She was unquestionably moving at her maximum surface speed with no reserve whatsoever.

Abruptly, Brim moved both damper rays forward until they passed from amethyst through to greenish yellow. A sudden growl rose to a crescendo from the pontoons and Starfury drove forward in a tremendous burst of speed, throwing prodigious cascades of green water and spray backward into the harbor. Easily drawing ahead of the lumbering Leaguer ship, she first smashed it broadside with a tremendous wave that had begun to curl off below her bows, then drowned it from stem to stern in the tremendous backward deluge from her oversize gravs. Moments later Brim hauled back on the power and applied his gravity brakes, watching in the stern viewers as the Leaguer emerged from the cloud of spray, skewed almost sideways. A great wash shot sideways from her steering engines, but the ship was too far out of control for that. She spun end around three complete revolutions, snapping her KA'PPA tower in a great burst of sparks, and came to a stop canting heavily to starboard with her bow ignominiously dragging the surface.

"Dispatch a signal to the Leaguers," he ordered in a matter-of-fact voice.

"Ready, Captain," a startled COMM rating answered from a display.

"Can we be of assistance?" Brim dictated.

After a moment of silence, the rating cocked his head to one side. "That's all, Captain?" he asked.

Brim smiled. "It'll do for now."

The signal went unanswered.

At the entrance to the canal, Brim looked down over Starfury's nose at the little pilot boat in admiration. A real floating boat. He couldn't help wondering what it must be like to look up from a wildly tossing wooden deck to see thirty thousand milstons of starship suspended twenty-five irals above three great, thrashing imprints in the water little more than a hundred irals distant. The noise alone would be dumbfounding. Yet there they were, two men in the yellow slickers common to seafarers everywhere: one was at the controls, the other signaling with flags using the most basic expressions known in the galaxy. Probably, Brim considered, with only a few basic commands to communicate, it was a lot more pragmatic to rely on flags than try to match the thousands of known COMM protocols.

As he carefully followed the little boat into Magor's vast system of canals, he got his first close-up look at the city proper. Fleets of ferries, both floating and levitating, darted to and fro among lumbering starfreighters, some larger than Starfury. And dodging catlike through all of the disarray, veritable squadrons of fragile-looking sky-caiques took off and landed at all angles with open decks burdened by cargo bound for riotously colored, tented bazaars that topped the age-blackened stone walls of the canal. To port—past at least half a dozen ranks of gravity pools occupied by merchant ships of every size and description—rose the low hill on which the crowded old city was built. Most common among the structures visible through the whitish mist that Beyazh described as "sea haze" were dome-capped buildings of all sizes and heights, many topped by long, elaborately decorated spikes. The lofty cupolas were overlaid in a profusion of materials, ranging from burnished gold and silver to clay tiles—some of the latter magnificently decorated. Interspersed among the domes were slim towers, many reaching hundreds of irals above the other structures. Here and there between stolid-looking stone walls, trees pushed themselves into the light, dwarfed and stunted by years of struggling with the city for essential room to grow. Whiffets of smoke streamed from chimneys as well as the interstices between domes that must have been streets. In a way, its ancient vigor reminded him of the famed starport of Atalanta, half a galaxy away. But where Atalanta—in appearance—was clearly an outpost of Greyffin IV's Empire, Magor looked foreign to Brim in every respect.

Within the metacycle, Starfury was moored on a gravity pool whose outer perimeter was constructed of stones so badly weather-blackened they reminded Brim of Gimmas Haefdon. Below, a score of thundering repulsion/levitation units dated from at least three centuries in the past. After a moment of consideration, he leaned over the console and directed Tissaurd to order additional levitation energy from Starfury's own gravity units—just in case the ancient units failed. However, he was nearly five cycles too late. Tissaurd had been bothered by the same thing and had already issued me orders on her own. For a moment their eyes met and she smiled, providing Brim with a most bothersome feeling of... well... deficiency. As if something important were missing from his life—something like Tissaurd herself. Taking a deep breath, he attempted to dismiss the strange mood, but perversely, it refused to withdraw.

"You look pensive, Skipper,'' Tissaurd said with an enigmatic sort of presentiment on her face.

"Is everything all right?"

Brim looked her in the eye, almost embarrassed by his thoughts, which were at that moment decidedly unprofessional. "Fine," he declared absently. "Just a little tired. You'll be in charge while I pay the Empire's respects at the palace," he said, the words stiff and ceremonious in his own ears.

"Give my regards to His Nibs, the Magnificent," she said with a little laugh. "I'll try to keep things in one piece here until you return."

Brim made a deep theatrical bow in parody of Beyazh, then strode off aft toward the companionway with a deep frown set on his brow. No time to worry about his own feelings. He had a lot of important things to take care of right now.

Changed into parade dress with a Captain's ceremonial pyrosaber at his left side. Brim stepped off the end of an antique-looking brow into warm, late-afternoon sunlight. He was as ready as Barbousse could make him for his audience with Mustafa IX Eyren, Nabob of Fluvanna. Beneath a stiff, peaked military cap, he wore a Fleet Blue tunic whose narrow lapels were embellished by the single diamond insignia of an Imperial Commander. It was further decorated by a full-dress silver belt, gold buttons, and a gold aiguillette draped over his right shoulder. His white jodhpurs were adorned by two broad blue stripes that ran from his hips into the tops of his riding boots. Hampered by devilish white gloves (that he normally found impossible to draw on without losing his temper at least three times) he felt—as he always did in parade dress—like a doorman for some great, overstuffed hotel. He much preferred the simpler Fleet Cloak that, as ceremony would have it, now draped over his left shoulder like a great, empty sack.

Out in the parking area two gleaming limousine skimmers hovered just off the age-crazed pavement. One, a sleek limousine of contemporary design and manufacture, displayed the Imperial crest of Greyffin IV. Two figures waited beside this elegant vehicle, a green-clad chauffeur and a lanky individual dressed in the dark gray livery of the Imperial Foreign Service. The other conveyance, a great, top-hampered phaeton of astonishing antiquity—as well as unequivocally perfect maintenance—flew a large Fluvannian national flag from its angular starboard bow. Crimson-uniformed footmen stood rigidly at attention on either side of its open passenger door as if waiting for the Nabob himself. Grinning to himself, Brim wondered who looked the more ridiculous, the footmen or himself.

At that moment Beyazh stepped from the brow, accompanied by Tissaurd. "Welcome to my little Universe, Captain Brim," he rumbled, "I see that your embassy has acted with its accustomed efficiency, so I shall not offer a lift to the palace. Besides," he added under his breath with a wink at Tissaurd, "I am certain they will want to brief you on the latest concerning the bloody idiot Pasha Radiman Korfuzzier."

"Who?" Brim asked.

"Hmm," Beyazh mused. "If you don't already know, perhaps it would be better that you find out from your own people.''

"I don't understand," Brim protested with a frown.

"You will, Commander," Beyazh said. Winking at Tissaurd, he started off for the antique limousine, followed by two of Starfury's ratings and the unruly shuffle of traveling cases that accompanied him on his arrival at Starfury's boarding chamber. "I shall join you later. Brim, during your audience with Mustafa Eyren," he called over his shoulder.

Tissaurd turned to reenter the brow. "I don't know anything about it, Skipper," she said.

"Honest."

Brim chuckled. "I believe you, Number One," he replied as she started up the moving stairs.

Moments later the Foreign Service man was at his side. A tall, slim man with narrow face, balding head, and intelligent, piercing eyes, he had the serious anonymous demeanor of a lifetime government executive. "Commander Brim," he said, extending his hand—and a holobadge with his picture. "The name's Saltash, George Saltash. Welcome to 'Hospitable Magor,' as the tourist brochures put it." His face broke into a lopsided grin. "We watched your landing out on the bay," he said. "Glad to see Nergol Triannic's bloody minions get what they deserved."

"It appears as if Leaguers try to play rough around here," Brim observed, relieved at once that the man didn't sound like a CIGA. "They certainly wouldn't get away with that sort of bilge at any of the other major space ports," he added as they walked across the pavement toward the Imperial limousine.

"And through the whole thing, our friend Beyazh was doing everything he could to make me take a more aggressive role. Interesting sort of chap,"

"Interesting chap, indeed," Saltash observed, watching the ancient Fluvannian skimmer lurch out of the parking lot. "Seems to know everything we know, at just about the same time we learn it."

"Hmm," Brim pondered momentarily. "He mentioned a Pasha Radiman Korfuzzier. Called him a bloody idiot, or something."

Saltash chuckled grimly. " Well, there you are," he said. "I'm here personally to tell you about that same bloody idiot—which he certainly is." He nodded to the chauffeur and climbed in, motioning Brim to follow. "And the reason I'm here is because the information about Korfuzzier is so sensitive they didn't want to beam it to your ship outside intelligence channels. So much for encryption."

Brim followed the man through the opening, gripping the clumsy pyrosaber so he wouldn't trip himself. "Pretty serious stuff, eh?" he asked as the heavy door closed silently behind him.

Saltash nodded emphatically. "The League's trying to jump in here with both feet," he said, tapping on the window that separated the passenger compartment from the driver. "To the palace, Reynolds."

"Aye, Mr. Saltash," the chauffeur replied. Effortlessly, the heavy skimmer lifted and accelerated through a narrow alleyway between mountainous stacks of packing boxes, scattering furry little animals right and left as it gained momentum. After about a thousand irals, this opened onto a somewhat wider thoroughfare that ran between a canyon of squalid—clearly ancient—goods houses, some crumbling from their very antiquity, others relatively new.

"Somehow, I am far from surprised to hear about the Leaguers," Brim chuckled. "I can't imagine they wouldn't want to wield a lot of influence here, considering that nearly one hundred percent of our Drive crystals now come from this dominion."

"Indeed," Saltash agreed, almost offhandedly. "But there is a good deal more to it than that. You see, Triannic's friends have decided to annex the whole dominion, and are even now in the midst of their final plans...." As he spoke, the chauffeur veered smoothly left into a cross street, then headed out across a wide bridge whose side lanes were clogged by a riotous confusion of tents in which merchants seemed to be offering every sort of merchandise recognized in the known Universe.

The bridge, at least, was one Brim recognized from the air, and he was able to get his bearings as the limousine weaved and dodged through the clamorous traffic. Once back over land, the crowded avenue veered to starboard and continued directly for the center of a colossal, dome-topped building.

While the chauffeur fought his way along the teeming thoroughfare, Saltash provided Brim with information received only that morning, courtesy of the same Sodeskayan Intelligence services that had time and time again proven to be nearly infallible. According to the Bears, Pasha Radiman Korfuzzier, an unintelligent and rather hotheaded brother of the Fluvannian Grand Potentate, had been carrying on an affair with a beautiful woman who, unknown to him, was a clandestine agent of the League. By clever manipulation, she had made Korfuzzier insanely jealous of the League's own Ambassador—who, himself, was ignorant of the plot. The agent had been given permission from Tarrott to "sacrifice" the Ambassador by having him publicly murdered by her royal lover—thus precipitating a carefully orchestrated campaign of denunciation against the Fluvannian government that would culminate in a "provoked" League invasion and takeover.

Further, the Sodeskayans intimated that, as planned, the incident would take place spontaneously, making it extremely difficult to predict—and thereby prevent. Because of this, the Imperial Foreign Service had quietly assigned 'round-the-clock, plainclothes guards to both Korfuzzier and the Ambassador whenever either departed his quarters. Presently, all possible preparations had been accomplished; now, the Imperials could only wait for the actual deed to transpire....

Saltash's Imperial limousine was admitted to the palace grounds scant cycles after the diplomat finished his briefing. "We'll talk more of this later," he said. "Inside the grounds, here, we can't be certain of our security, even in a protected limousine. The Leaguers have made some impressive inroads."

Brim's eyebrows rose. "They've wired the palace grounds?" he asked in amazement.

"We think so," Saltash replied. "The Fluvannian state security organization is riddled with Leaguers." Then he sat back in the seat and indicated the vast palace gardens that surrounded them.

"Might as well enjoy the scenery," he said. "It's quite well known throughout the galaxy, and not everyone gets to see it in person."

Brim looked around him; Saltash certainly had a point. And although the spacious courtyard could never compare to the huge campus in which the Gradgroat-Norchelite monastery had once rested, it was altogether impressive in its own—"foreign"—way. Outlined by a wall that Brim remembered from the air as being roughly octagonal in shape, the Royal Compound was dotted by colossal shade trees in reds, oranges, and greens, accented by lofty fountains; domed, pergolalike structures with intricately carved surfaces and massive balustrades; huge stone urns in myriad graceful shapes; and a network of glistening walkways arranged in wild, geometric patterns. Heroic statues had been erected where walkways intersected, and vivid banners thundered in the breeze from lofty flagpoles. The limousine drew to a halt at the end of a queue of similar vehicles that extended into a stately portico of crimson stone. At least thirty footmen, dressed in matching crimson, stood in attendance. "What's the significance of all the red?" Brim asked as the big car inched its way forward.