"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.