"Did that landfall meet with your professional approva, friend Wilf?" Ursis asked quietly, bringing Brim once more to reality.
He felt his cheeks burn. "They all look good to me, Nik," he admitted with a grin. "I won't be able to judge until I've had a bit of real experience landing a light cruiser." Then he laughed. "But from what I've been able to simulate in The Box, I'd allow we were watching some pretty competent helmsmanship."
"I suspect you'll find yourself at real controls sooner than you think, Wilf," Collingswood interrupted with a knowing smile. "Something big seems to be in the wind." She paused significantly to look each of them in the eye. "I have been informed that management here has specially stepped up Defiant's completion schedule on direct orders of the Admiralty—even though the yard is already far beyond its rated capacity. That, and a few other hints I cannot share at this time, lead me to believe that we can expect a most difficult—and critical—assignment." She paused for a moment in thought, watching a destroyer stand out into the bay for takeoff. As its running lights pierced the early-evening darkness, she turned again to her three senior officers. "And," she continued, "before the year is over, we may well help decide the outcome of the entire war...."
Weary metacycles later, Brim's strenuous workday finally came to an end when he climbed gratefully from a simulator and signed out of the Training Operations Complex for the night. Under a mighty canopy of midgalactic star swarms, he waved off a hovering tram and made his way inland on foot, following a maze of streets winding circuitously through the shipyard complex. A damp bay breeze plastered the Fleet Cape to his side as he picked his way over glowing, multicolored tracks that crisscrossed the cracked and potholed pavements on the way to his temporary quarters. To either side, the shipyard's ear-splitting cacophony continued unabated from the daylight hours while shadowed forms of half-finished starships hovered under Karlsson lamps. Here and there hullmetal welding torches filled the sky with fountains of sparkling color, and high above it all the monstrous cranes swung and bowed to a rhythm all their own.
Brim smiled as the officers' quarters came into view from the top of a slight rise. His step quickened in spite of his deepening fatigue. Down there in his spartan room, a message would be waiting from halfway across the galaxy. Today was the day she customarily posted.
Casually returning salutes from sentries at either side of the doors, he strode across the lobby to the bank of lifts on the far wall. Cycles later, he entered the tiny cubicle that was his temporary home on EleandorBestienne. As he hoped, the message indicator was flashing over his bunk: YOU-HAVE-NEW-MAIL. YOU-HAVE-NEW-MAIL....
He closed the door and settled himself before the tiny desk that—along with its totally inadequate chair—constituted the only furniture in his tiny room. Instantly, a globular display materialized above the surface of the desk, then filled with a list of correspondence received since he last accessed his message queue. He smiled with pleasure, then selected the entry sourced "Margot Effer'wyck, Lt., I. F. @ Admiralty/Avalon 19-993.367."
A swirl of damp, golden curls and a flashing smile filled the display. Margot Effer'wyck was a princess in every respect. Tall and proud-looking, she was an ample young woman with oval face, full moist lips, sensually heavy eyelids, and the most endearing habit of frowning when she smiled. Her complexion was almost painfully fair and brushed with pink high in her cheeks. She had smallish breasts, a tiny waist for her size, and long, shapely legs. To Wilf Brim, she was the most beautiful woman who ever drew breath.
Discontent with nonproductive court life, she served on and off as an inordinately brave—and successful—young "operative" who risked her life on a number of clandestine assignments to Leaguer planets for Emperor Greyffin's Empire. Now—unwilling subject of that same emperor's protection—she still commanded a highly secret intelligence-gathering section at the Central Admiralty. But her days of life-threatening danger were now at an end.
She was too politically valuable to risk.
In the background, Avalon's trees wore their brilliant autumn colors under a gray and lowering sky. When she spoke, her voice was soft and modulated:
"I have toiled sufficiently for the Empire today, dearest," she began. "Now I'm free to walk home instead of taking the limousine, so I can steal a few moments alone to compose." She smiled and looked into the sky, eyes slitted against a misting drizzle. "Avalon has not yet quite accommodated itself to the coming of winter. On the side walks, leaves are sodden and slippery, and the rain has just let up a little."
She closed her eyes and smiled wistfully. "'Red o'er the city peeks the setting star,'" she recited, "`'The line of yellow light dies fast away That crowned the eastern roofs; and chill and dun Falls on the streets this brief autumnal day....'"
Presently she brightened. "That's not really my autumn, Wilf," she said. "Not when I dream of you. Anshelm's Ode to Autumn I think is much more like it: 'Season of gold and misted grace, Close bosom-friend of the life-granting sky; Enveloping all with thy warming embrace, Fruiting the vines the 'round my gardens lie....'" She shook her head slowly. "Oh, but how I miss the harvest of love you bring to my life, 'What gleaning half so sweet is As still to reap thy kisses Grown ripe in sowing? And straight to be receiver Of that which thou art giver, Rich in bestowing?'"
Brim frowned. Who wrote that last poem? Compton?...Calpon?... Campion! That was who. Thomas Campion—a little-known ancient from a long-forgotten star system. Only the playful lyrics survived him and his whole civilization. He shook his head. "All passes. Art alone endures," as Margot often put it. Smiling wistfully, he recalled the archaic love of verse they shared—a nearly forgotten art form that brought them together for the first time in old Truculent's wardroom. It seemed like a million years ago. Not many of Truculent's crew survived her last battle off the planet of Lixor in the Ninety-first Province.
"Oh Wilf, I miss you so today," Margot continued. "Not a sad missing anymore, mind you—not like just after we've been together when there's real pain." A sudden swirl of wind rushed leaves past her face; she absently pushed a curl back in place. "But, after six months or so, you are the warmest spot in my heart. You are the part of me that petty politics can never reach—and the sanctuary to which I can always escape."
The rain began again, and she pulled her Fleet Cloak tighter about her neck. "I use many routes to walk home from the Agency," she continued, "short and not so short. Usually I take the one that crosses the old Broix River bridge. You've seen the district: narrow streets and tall, beautiful houses. Tonight, though, I've chosen the longer one that passes the Lordglen House. It always reminds me of you somehow—and the ball they gave for..." Her laugh sparkled like sudden starlight. "I forget now. That's how important he was. But you were there—and you never did have a chance to stay the night in that great house of state, did you, poor Wilf? I shall always hope sharing my bed for the first time was adequate recompense...."
She blushed suddenly. "It's almost as if Gol'ridge wrote Ristobel about me that night—our night. Remember? 'Before my lover's gaze I bowed, And slowly teased myself around; Then drawing in my breath aloud, With loving pleasure, I unbound The coverings that concealed my breasts: My silken gown and inner vests, Dropt to my feet and full in view, Behold! my bosom to pleasure you— And legs and hips and secret place! / Oh come and fill me with thy grace!...'"