Afterward there were lavishly decorated courses of sweetmeats; vegetables, cold as well as hot; and uncounted trays of condiments and cheeses. And through it all, footmen constantly hovered over the table refilling goblets with Logish Meem of the finest vintages. Toward the end of the sweetmeats, he noticed with slight disapproval that Tissaurd had continued to drain her goblet a number of times—but, then, so had he. In fact, he was experiencing increased difficulty in his campaign to avoid staring at the ample expanse of breasts revealed by the deep cut of her formal uniform.
Abruptly, Beyazh excused himself to escort a Lutzian Army General to Mustafa's table, and Tissaurd lost no time capturing Brim's eyes with hers. "Skipper," she charged in a confidential voice, "you have been staring at my breasts all evening." She ran her tongue over her lips for a moment, men winked.
"Tell me, do you like what you see?"
Brim felt his face flush. "You've clearly caught me, Number One," he admitted with an embarrassed grin. "And, yes, I like what I see very much. The only word that really comes to mind is 'magnificent.'"
He was saved from further embarrassment by Ogmar Vossell, the Prime Minister, who abruptly gathered his ample potbelly within a voluminous set of robes and stood with a full goblet of meem raised to the room. "And now," he bellowed in a deep bass voice that easily carried above the hubbub, "before the ladies retire, I hereby present the royal toast!"
Chairs scraped and glasses spilled (to the accompaniment of shrieks and anguished groans) while the tipsy guests clamored unsteadily to their feet. Considerable time elapsed before the room quieted sufficiently for the ceremony to proceed.
"To his Fluvannian Majesty, Nabob Mustafa IX Eyren, The Magnificent!" Vossell shouted at length, weaving slightly from side to side.
"His Fluvannian Majesty, Nabob Mustafa IX Eyren, The Magnificent!" the guests bellowed in return. "Long may he rule! Long may he live!" Shortly after their cheering subsided into ambient hubbub, Beyazh returned to his seat and, nodding politely to Brim, proceeded to monopolize Tissaurd until all rose and the women began their traditional migration into the ballroom.
"I think I may be embarrassed in the morning for what I said. Skipper," she whispered as she stopped beside his chair.
"I don't know why," Brim answered quietly. "I was staring, you know."
"I sort of hoped you might be, Skipper," she said, squeezing his forearm for a moment. "After all, I did have them out for you to admire tonight, even if it's Beyazh who plays with them later on." Then, with a rush of color in her cheeks, she joined the throng of women exiting the dining hall. "Don't forget my dance," she called over her shoulder, and was lost almost instantly in a crush of much taller women.
Brim marveled to himself. On a starship's bridge, Tissaurd was clearly one of the best, most talented First Lieutenants in the Fleet. But she was also a damnably good-looking, sexy woman when she wanted to be. And ethically distant as they might be to each other while serving on the same bridge, he felt quite honored that she had thought enough of him to reveal the flesh-and-blood woman he knew lived beneath her professional veneer.
Cigarettes and pipes of all manner, form, and content were quickly passed among the guests by a whole platoon of yellow-clad footmen. Brim refused them all; smoking never had been one of his vices.
He did, however, accept a huge snifter of delightful (and elsewhere ridiculously expensive) Fluvannian spring brandy that he managed to nurse while he listened to the talk around him. It was mostly political, as foreign to him as the bridge of a starship would be to most of them. He tried to concentrate on the trivial questions of influential people with whom Saltash constantly confronted him, but somehow Tissaurd's voice kept interrupting with, "After all, I did have them out for you to admire tonight." It was awfully good to know that she was human.
Mercifully, Nabob Mustafa relinquished his hold on the male attendees earlier than usual and forthwith gave his royal permission for the ball to begin....
Brim was a terrible social dancer. He'd received scant training in the art, and what little education he'd been forced to endure at the Helmsman's Academy he'd wasted out of pure embarrassment. He could throw the trickiest starships around with the best in the galaxy. He had utter confidence in his ability to make safe landfall in ships that others would have abandoned as derelicts or crashed. He even reckoned himself a reasonably competent lover; certainly he'd endured no open complaints in the last few years. But put him on a dance floor with responsibility for leading a woman in time to music (about which he understood nothing!) and he immediately turned into a rumbling, staggering nitwit whose hands went embarrassingly cold anytime he even thought about the arcane business. As was his habit at such affairs, he stayed well away from the actual dance floor, usually at the bar, carrying on conversations with whom he could and keeping a watchful eye for women who were not familiar with his particular brand of abominable footwork.
He was doing just that, in one of Mustafa's intimate, darkly paneled palace bars when, without warning, Tissaurd poked her head inside and pointed a gloved finger as if it were a blaster. "I-T-'S T-I-M-E," she mouthed theatrically.
Brim felt his heart thump in panic while his hands instantly drained of warmth. His mind whirled with the million-odd excuses he had catalogued over the years. None seemed to fit.
Grinning at his obvious discomfort, Tissaurd motioned with her head toward the ballroom.
"N-O-W!" the gamin officer mouthed, thrusting her breasts ever so slightly toward him while maintaining an aspect of virginal innocence.
At that Brim gave up in a rush of meem-induced self-indulgence. If he could dance with anyone, it would certainly be Tissaurd! After all, weren't they the finest flight-bridge team in the known Universe and beyond? Downing the last dregs of his meem, he swept around the end of the bar, gathered her in his arm, and led the way toward the ballroom as if he actually knew what he was doing.
Unfortunately, once deployed on the dance floor with the tiny officer in his arms, he still could only shuffle, more or less with what he supposed people referred to as "the beat."
Surprisingly, Tissaurd didn't seem to mind; she even appeared to enjoy herself as she impudently pressed her breasts into his chest. And wonder of wonders, he even found himself enjoying the experience, especially the sensation of holding his tiny comrade close in his arms. Somehow, he had failed to notice before, but her short hair was scented with the most erotic perfume imaginable!
He had just begun to relax and enjoy himself when, most abruptly, there was no more music. He felt his face flush, wondering how long he had continued his silly shuffling without it. Other couples were already changing partners or heading off the dance floor completely. He looked down at Tissaurd to find her eyes closed and her head resting on his chest as if she hadn't noticed, either. She was still moving to his own ungainly rhythm. Taking a deep breath, he awkwardly whispered, "I think it's over, Nadia."
"I know, Wilf," she replied languidly, with her eyes still closed. "I've decided to ignore it. We'll both be back aboard Starfury all too soon as it is. I'll have to be 'Number One' again instead of Nadia, and you'll be the Skipper who can't even think of cuddling me like you're doing right now. So I've simply willed time to stop. One can do anything she pleases when she's drunk."
"Nadia..." Brim started to say, but a hand grasped his shoulder firmly.
"Sorry, Commander," a tall diplomat declared with a smile, "but this is my dance with the Lieutenant, I believe."