"Er, lucky you, Ambassador," Herbig said, his face coloring slightly as he opened the ship's register so that they could sign out.
Standing behind them, Brim felt his own cheeks flush. "Good evening, Ambassador. Er, taking in the dance?" he asked, feeling asinine as the words left his mouth.
Tissaurd finished signing and looked up with a distracted aspect while Beyazh turned and extended his hand to the Carescrian.
"Ah, good evening, Captain Brim," the diplomat said. "Yes, we certainly are taking in the ball. All day I have looked forward to escorting the loveliest woman at the palace. Even the Nabob will be envious tonight." He laughed. "All Magor will envy me."
Brim signed out and followed them uncomfortably through the throng of officers moving along the forward brow. Below, the parking area was filled with huge omnibuses of very recent manufacture.
Clearly, Fluvannian tastes ran to modern when it came to public transportation. Directly off the stairs, however, one of the Nabob's huge phaeton skimmers idled quietly at the curb: another great top-hampered vehicle of tremendous elegance and considerable antiquity. As Beyazh's boot touched the pavement, footmen came to attention on either side of the entrance hatch.
"Ride with us to the palace, Commander Brim," the diplomat offered grandly. "Mustafa the Magnificent has sent this lordly antique to carry only me and my lovely escort to the palace. We have ample room, as you can see. Will you do us the honor?"
Brim glanced at Tissaurd and attempted another gallant smile—that probably failed. "I thank you," he said with a little bow, "but I think it would be better for me to ride with the others. If you will excuse me?"
"I understand," Beyazh said. "I shall look forward to your presence at the ball, where I am certain, Nadia has saved you at least one dance."
Moments later Brim watched him gently hand her into a passenger compartment that almost defied description. High, arched windows of beveled crystal surmounted a luxurious gray velvet couch that appeared to run the entire circumference of the room except for the entrance—and there were pillows everywhere! Then the footman closed the door and the big machine glided from the parking lot like the wraith of a great ship.
Brim's own bus ride to the palace was much too rapid, even at the slow speed the huge bus could make through the crowded streets. Directly he was delivered to the ornate side entrance he had seen on his first visit. Inside, at the end of a long corridor, strains of gentle music vied with the murmur of conversation and the ringing assonance of crystal glassware. He checked his hat and queued up at a short line of officers waiting to enter the hall, fidgeting impatiently; he always felt remotely uncomfortable when he was announced. At last, he heard a paige proclaim, "Commander Wilf Brim, I.F., Captain of I.F.S. Starfury." Lively music battled the loud conversation and clinking of glasses as he stepped onto the broad staircase amid a smattering of polite applause. The warm air was thick with perfumes and spiced smoke from mu'occo and camarge cigarettes. Below, the room was packed with brightly colored gowns, half-bared bosoms, military uniforms of every hue and cast, and a farrago of people: Bears, flighted beings, and a host of other sentients.
No sooner had the Carescrian reached the bottom than Saltash bounced from the crowd, a goblet of meem in his hand. "Wilf—it's about time," he said, steering through the crowd toward a gilded alcove in the shape of a great seashell. The people inside were clearly influential, just because they were there. But they somehow looked influential, too. "A lot of important people have been waiting to met you," the diplomat said. "Mustafa's pretty well kept you to himself since you arrived."
As they passed, a tall Imperial Captain with a CIGA ribbon on his Fleet Cloak turned his head and glared. "War lover," he hissed angrily.
Brim passed the man without a glance. "I didn't know there were any of them here," he said.
"The zukeeds are everywhere," Saltash answered, shouldering his way between two gesticulating League officers who were, to all outward appearances, bickering over some arcane point of military courtesy, "including some of the people you are about to meet."
As they climbed two steps that set the seashell off from the rest of the room, a goblet appeared in Brim's hand, delicately placed there by a bright yellow-clad servant hovering nearby with a tray of replenishments. Moments later, the Carescrian found himself surrounded by a crush of curious faces. He shook hands with people whose names he forgot the moment they were pronounced and fielded a host of questions revealing a distinct sense of apprehension at the League's general posture toward their "precious Dominion." During a moment of relative quiet, he reflected on the real root of their fears: actual concern for their homeland or merely a hazard to the privileges they enjoyed under the present regime.
Clearly, they would be the farthest from the battle lines when the fighting began. The wealthiest always seemed to find some plausible excuse.
At that moment, Beyazh swept through the crowd with Tissaurd in tow calling, "Time to dine!
Time to dine!" The latter offered Brim her arm as she passed. "Grab on, Skipper," she called, "with this crowd of locusts, the good stuff can't last long."
Brim hooked on and was towed at high speed from the seashell (nearly tripping down the steps), through the rollicking crowd, and into a lavishly furnished banquet room whose tapestried walls and gilded sideboys might have graced an Avalonian palace. Mustafa truly honored his nomadic roots, but he also took a back seat to no one when it came to rococo sophistication and splendor. The three had just reached one of the long, sparkling tables piled high with food when they pulled up short at a flurry of activity near the huge pointed archway that formed one end of the room. Presently, Nabob Mustafa IX Eyren (The Magnificent) strode into the hall with a tall and exquisitely formed woman dressed from head to foot in light green robes of diaphanous material. She had an almond-shaped face framed by satiny black, shoulder-length hair, a long patrician nose, full lips, and enormous green eyes that fairly sparkled with cool intelligence.
Such a woman could only be Raddisma, the Nabob's favorite Consort, but no HoloPicturc Brim had seen came even close to doing justice to her beauty. He found himself straightaway fascinated by the woman's natural grace as the couple swept through the crowd like fast cruisers at a Fleet review. The moment they took their seats at center table, the guests eagerly sat in a great scraping of chairs and rustle of gowns.
Brim had little time to contemplate the Consort's exotic beauty, for the moment Beyazh had seated Tissaurd, she grabbed his sleeve and pulled him into the chair next to her. "You'll not get off that easily this evening. Skipper," she pronounced with mock severity. "I'm determined to have my dance with you." As a footman passed, she held up her goblet for a refill of Logish Meem, then turned to toast something with Beyazh—who was already in deep conversation with a portly Galite'er from the League, When she returned her gaze to him. Brim noticed color in her cheeks, as if she had emptied more than one goblet prior to the banquet. If anything, it made her look even lovelier than normal, and Brim was feeling the two he had already downed himself. As the corps of servants in bright yellow uniforms began to serve their first course, he found himself at considerable pains to avoid staring at her décolleté. Again and again.
The feast itself would have slaked the appetites of a battle squadron during Brim's blockading days. There were whole courses of fish prepared in every conceivable manner. He recognized the lavender scales of a delicate Feloo trout; he'd eaten a whole meal of them in Sodeskaya during his Mitchell Trophy days. Most of the others were disguised by rich sauces. Next came twelve kinds of game fowl from Ordu's own dense Boreal forests, each prepared with a different kind of spiced dressing.