"A good place, I hope," she said with a quizzical frown.
"I don't know," Brim said, staring off into an infinity of thought while he pulled on his boots. "I didn't used to think so, but now...." He shrugged and shook his head. "I simply don't know...."
FleetPort 19's wardroom was a page of Ariel's pre-war past, more like Benwell's richly appointed wardroom than the stark utilitarianism of FleetPort 30's interior spaces. Low ceilings with authentic-looking wooden beams, darkly paneled walls, carved wood-and-leather furniture glowing with years of careful polishing all gave the room an aura of the exclusive supper clubs Brim associated with the very wealthy. Bustling waiters dressed in well-tailored uniforms, the subtle odors of good food and spicy camarge cigarettes, an indistinct hum of urbane conversation, and the musical jangling of expensive crystal completed his illusion—and made it nearly impossible to believe that a war was going on in the same sky only a few light-years distant.
Seated in a darkened alcove beside a blast-shuttered window that once would have looked out over the gentle curve of Ariel's far-off horizon, Eve Cartier was absolutely stunning. It took her a few moments to recognize him at the entrance, but once their eyes met, she smiled and beckoned to him.
Magically, she had again transformed a regulation fleet uniform into as seductive an outfit as he could remember. It took a real woman to get such an effect from everyday Fleet vestments, "What was all that aboot only havin' a battlesuit to wear?" she asked with a surprised little smile, smoothing her long, black hair.
"Faith, I told only the truth," Brim said, slipping easily back onto his Carescrian accent. " 'Twas Barbousse who packed m' extra uniform. I knew nothin' aboot it."
She relaxed in her chair and crossed her long legs, for a moment exposing a length of frantically white thigh. Then she smoothed her skirt. "Won't you sit, my handsomely dressed Captain?" she asked.
Brim grinned. "I thought you'd never ask," he said, taking the chair beside her. "And thanks for the loan of the jump suit."
"The battlesuit would hae been fine," she replied.
"Not with you looking the way you do," he said. "You've somehow managed to turn a commonplace uniform into something rather splendid."
She laughed. "How long has it been since you've seen a woman, Captain?" she said in mock seriousness.
''Hey," Brim laughed defensively, "I'll brook no questioning of tastes here. I'm the one at this table with special hardware for judging female appearance."
"Weel, thank you, then," she said. Color rose slightly in her cheeks, but Brim could tell she was quite accustomed to being called beautiful. She simply was.
"So what do you recommend in a Logish Meem here?" he asked.
"I fear I don't know what to recommend," she said, drawing her lower Hp between her teeth.
"Unlike you, Captain, I've spent most o' my life as a Carescrian, w' just plain meem—an' that on very special occasions." She laughed a little sadly. "I only tried m' first Logish Meem a few short years ago."
Brim nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I went through the same thing twenty years ago, myself. And it's always embarrassing. Everybody else had been doing the 'right thing' all their lives—an if you didn't know what that was, you were a xaxtdamned fool."
"It war tougher then, warn't it, Wilf?" she asked suddenly.
Brim nodded. "In some ways," he said. "I was the first Carescrian in the Helmsman's Academy, and if you think people are prejudiced now, you should have been around then." He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the indifferent cruelty his wealthy, often-titled classmates visited on him. Only a disastrously rising casualty list among Helmsmen had opened the Academy to lower-class cadets—at the price of surprisingly vile reactions from the gentry who had exclusively populated Imperial military schools for more than a thousand Standard Years. He shook his head as he returned to the present. "On second thought, you shouldn't have been around then."
"I know it's a different story today, Wilf," she said. "You took the heat for all of us."
"Oh, I took heat," Brim agreed, signaling a rating who hurried over to their table and bowed.
"Captain Brim," he said, "it is an honor to serve the man who retired the Mitchell Trophy. What can I bring for you and the Commander?"
Brim considered for a moment. "Thank you, Yeoman," he said presently. "And I think I remember a Medoc with the Logish appellation, vintage 51019, Is that correct?"
The rating's eyebrows rose. "It is, Captain," he said. "Logish Medoc, oh-nineteen. An excellent choice. But how did you know we had any? That is rare treasure."
"My Chief Petty Officer Barbousse," Brim replied with a smile. "He knows that I favor Logish Medoc from the late teens, and evidently checked out your cellar before I got here. I found this pinned to my uniform." He showed both the waiter and Carrier.
Logish Medoc, 51019, partial case.
Logish Soma-Medoc. 51012, two cases.
Logish Monor-Savill, 51017, one case.
"The Monor-Savill oh-seventeen is excellent also, Captain," the rating murmured.
"We'll start with a bottle of the Medoc," Brim said.
"Aye, sir," the rating said with another bow and disappeared into the dimness.
Cartier smiled. "I take it at least some of the heat is gone," she said. "Certainly where Logish Meem is concerned."
"Yeah," Brim agreed with a grin. "Oh, I've learned the art of ordering Logish Meem—and a few other so-called 'social graces,' Eve. But the heat is never gone completely. It returns—often in the xaxtdamndest times and places." He shrugged. "Like everything else, one way or another, it all depends on people."
"Yes," she said presently, "people." For a moment she peered at him as if she could place herself within his soul. Then she relaxed. "There's no menu, in spite of the surroundings, Wilf Brim."
Brim laughed. "I'd hope not," he said. "Because if there were, we'd most certainly be somewhere on the surface in a private club—and absent without leave."
"A pretty serious offense, in anybody's book," Cartier said as the rating delivered their meem in a gloriously dusty bottle.
"Go ahead and open it," Brim ordered. "Commander Carrier will put it to the proof."
"Aye, Captain Brim," the man said, touching a narrow band ringing the bottle's narrow neck. It sparked a few times, then fizzled. "Well sealed, Captain," the man observed with raised eyebrows. "Shall I try again?"
"By all means," Brim said, savoring the rich purple color of the meem inside.
The rating carefully place a small wire around the scorched groove produced by the fizzled opener. Moments later, this blazed up and decapitated the bottle in a small cloud of sparks.
"You said the lady will taste, Captain?"
Brim nodded. "Eve?" he said.
"But, Wilf," Carrier protested, "I do na' know onything aboot meem—especially Logish Meem."
"You'll know if you like it, I'd wager," Brim replied.
"Weel, yes," she allowed. "No question aboot that."
"If you don't like it, we'll order something else for you," Brim prompted. "See what you think."
Cartier took a careful sip from a tiny silver goblet the rating had partially filled. Then her eyes grew wide. "Great Universe, Wilf," she said. " Tis marvelous!"
Brim grinned. "So are you, Eve," he chuckled, then turned to the rating. "Mister," he said, "you may pour for both of us."
"An' perhaps bring us some supper, so I do na end up on the floor from this," Cartier laughed.
Then settling back in her chair, she grasped the stem of her goblet delicately and raised it. "Here's to the heat, Wilf Brim," she said. "You take it an' I take it, but the mair we use up of it, the less there'll be for those who follow us from Carescria."
"To the heat," Brim said, hardly believing he was saying the words—especially sober as a judge.