Instantly, Tissaurd came awake. "Legate Zumwalter," she exclaimed, winking surreptitiously at Brim as she slipped from his arms. "Why, I was just looking for you!1'
Brim bowed. "It has been a pleasure, Lieutenant," he said.
"It has indeed been a pleasure, Commander," she replied, capturing his eyes in hers and holding them for a moment, "one I shall not soon forget."
"Nor I," Brim answered, then bowing to the diplomat, he turned and made his way to the sidelines.
Soon afterward, he returned to the ship and a very lonely night.
In the days following the ball, Saltash returned Brim to the palace often for presentations to influential Fluvannians both in the government and civilian sectors. One morning, after hectic presentations to flag-grade officers of the Fluvannian Home Fleet, they were strolling back to the embassy skimmer through the great hall of the palace when Brim spied a hulking figure who somehow looked familiar. With a great hooked nose and a shaggy red beard, the man was dressed in flowing white robes topped by a brilliant blue fez and looked a great deal like the images of Pasha Korfuzzier that Brim had seen. He was moving stealthily from pillar to pillar in a most suspicious manner. "That's the Pasha, isn't it?" Brim asked.
"Sweet merciful Universe," Saltash swore under his breath, "it is." He stopped in his tracks with a worried look on his face, scanning the room. "And there's Ambassador Zacristy," he gasped a moment later, "directly across from us." Even as he spoke, Korfuzzier drew two snub-nosed blasters from his robes and raised them in the general direction of the Leaguer diplomat. But before he could so much as aim, tiny sirens began to shriek throughout the crowd, and at least ten Imperial agents appeared from nowhere, resolutely trying to wrestle him to the pavement.
Korfuzzier was a huge man, however, and not easily overpowered. Roaring with maniacal fury, he sent hapless agents flying in every direction, then aimed the powerful weapons at two of his assailants, burning them completely in half before he turned to search out his original quarry. By this time, however, Zacristy was nowhere to be seen, so in frustrated rage, Korfuzzier began to randomly spray the crowd.
At the first shots, Brim blindly threw himself over a nearby woman, pressing her close to the cold marble floor as great bolts of lethal energy crackled close overhead. Moments later he roared in pain as a wild shot burned across his back. Grinding his teeth, he struggled to remain motionless and avoid a second burst while the hard-working Imperial agents again subdued Korfuzzier. This time, however, they disarmed him as well. Gradually the screaming subsided, and the hall fell into a shocked silence. "Are you all right?" Brim whispered to the woman, instantly feeling foolish because she couldn't possibly understand his language.
"I shall be quite all right as soon as you let me up," she returned laughingly—in perfect Avalonian.
Before he could comply, however, the shocked Brim found himself harshly dragged to his feet and pinioned between two enormous eunuchs dressed in the black-and-gold checked robes of the Harem staff who shouted at him angrily in what must have been Vulgate Fluvannian. in the distance, he could see Saltash haplessly trying to push his way through the noisy crowd.
"How dare you defile Raddisma, the Nabob's most cherished Consort, pagan?" a third eunuch demanded in Avalonian. This one was at least a quarter again as large as his partners. "Speak," he growled shrilly, "before we make you speak!"
Brim helplessly glanced at the woman he had tried to protect—indeed, it was Raddisma, favorite Consort of the Nabob. And today, he noticed—in spite of the circumstances—she had managed to be even more beautiful than he remembered from the banquet.
When the woman commanded something imperiously in Fluvannian, at least a dozen servants gathered to help her to her feet. At the same time, the three eunuchs released Brim with chastened looks on their faces.
"A fine way to reward you, Commander," Raddisma laughed in a dusky, feminine voice while she straightened her hair. "You very probably saved my life," she added with an appraising look.
Brim had no sooner opened his mouth to answer when he, the eunuchs, and the Consort were surrounded by a solid wall of scarlet-uniformed soldiers who opened a narrow passage in their ranks to admit Nabob Mustafa himself. "Raddisma," the little man puffed, clearly out of breath, then continued with an unintelligible string of Fluvannian.
The tall woman bowed and answered with a long soliloquy, also in Fluvannian, nodding often toward Brim.
"Commander Brim," the Nabob said at length in Avalonian, turning for the first time from his Consort. "Forgive me," he said. "My mind was clearly elsewhere." He placed a ring-bedecked hand on Brim's forearm. "Raddisma tells me that you saved her life by shielding her with your own body. Are you hurt?"
Brim smiled. "Only my Fleet Cloak, Your Magnificence," he said. "The rest of me seems to be in fine fettle."
The Nabob smiled grimly. "This bravery of yours will not go unremembered, Commander," he said with a serious mien. "I find I am considerably in your debt this trip."
"Not at all, Your Magnificence," Brim replied. "I was honored to serve."
Abruptly the little Nabob saluted in a contemporary manner. "Nevertheless," he said, "you will find that I do not forget those whom I owe."
Startled, Brim returned the salute, but before he could utter a word, the wall of troops opened once more, then followed the Nabob across the floor in the direction from which he had come, leaving Brim once more with Raddisma and her eunuchs.
Mustafa's Consort still had that appraising look in her eyes. "You are Commander Brim?" she asked. "Captain of the Starfury?" she asked.
"At your service, ma'am," Brim replied.
"I think you did save my life, Commander," Raddisma declared with a mysterious smile on her full lips. "There can be no question about it. Someday, I shall see to it that you are appropriately rewarded, in a personal manner, of course."
Brim bowed gallantly. "Your safety is my greatest reward, ma'am," he said, but when their eyes met, he thought she might just have something specific on her mind. "I shall look forward to our next meeting," he added with a great deal of truth.
"As will I," she answered regally. " As will I...." Bowing slightly, she swept by his arm, passed him a secret little wink, and disappeared into the crowd that had again begun to move freely through the colossal hall.
Moments later, Saltash arrived at his side. "When I saw who you tackled," the envoy said, "I reckoned the best thing was to let you work things out for yourself."
Brim nodded phlegmatically. "Mighty decent of you, neighbor," he quipped. "I enjoyed the eunuchs especially. Big zukeeds, those."
"Well"—Saltash shrugged—"except for them, it couldn't have been all that uncomfortable. I mean, Raddisma isn't the worst person to end up on a floor with, now, is she?"
"I can't remember," Brim grumped. "I was so thraggling scared, I didn't notice a thing until the eunuchs got me, that is. And just look what happened to my Fleet Cape." He turned his back.
"Ouch," Saltash swore. "That will be difficult to fix."
"I'm going to bill the Fleet," Brim chuckled darkly. "It's a fine-of-duty reimbursable if I ever saw one and they're xaxtdamn lucky they don't have to repair me, too."
"In all seriousness," Saltash said, "we couldn't have wished for anything better to happen."
"We what?"
"Well," Saltash answered, "both the Pasha and his favorite bedmate are unquestionably in your debt—and by proxy, so is Fluvanna. That lady calls a lot of the shots around here."
"I get the distinct impression she didn't call those shots," Brim quipped.