Brim chuckled in spite of the solemnity of the occasion. "I managed to read one complete draft, Your Highness," he said. "I'm no space lawyer, but it seems all right to me."
"The Fleet takes another hit," Onrad said facetiously. "Scratch one Commodore and a Commander."
"Yes," the Emperor agreed dourly. "And the absurd part of it is that we aren't even CIGAs." He shook his head sadly. "A terrible darkness is settling over the galaxy, even as we meet here. What a terrible shame that we may contend with it only in secret and by guile for fear of inciting the enemy...."
The next evening, Brim dined alone in a quiet bistro just off Courtland Plaza where he and Margot used to rendezvous during the early years of her marriage to Rogan LaKarn. It was a place known for stiff white linen, discreet service, excellent food, and what the Carescrian had grown to know, and respect, as "good music." He came here often when he was in Avalon, after the press of the dinner crowd, to dine quietly and reflect on his day's activities, which today centered around Nergol Triannic's Treaty of Garak. The document had served its creator well during the spurious "peace" it had enabled.
But it was quite clear that both the treaty and its peace had outworn their usefulness to the League of Dark Stars—and both would soon be shattered by their creator.
He stared blindly off into the dark, smoky room as he sipped a goblet of Logish Meem and mused about the year ahead. There would be a war; that was almost a given. What concerned him even more than the war was its ultimate outcome, because win or lose, it would also end the familiar, centuries-old civilization that Greyffin IV's Empire had enjoyed in relatively affluent comfort. He frowned a little as a tall figure stopped beside his table and, when it didn't go away, glanced up—in sudden disgust.
There, glowering like the threat of a bad cold, was the choleric visage of Puvis Amherst, chief of the CIGAs. With a Fleet Cloak draped across the right shoulder of his impeccable dress uniform, the man still cut an impressive figure—in spite of a most conspicuous absence of battle ribbons on his chest.
"Well, Carescrian," he said with a curled lip, "you have clearly continued your warlike activities in spite of my personal warning to you last year in the Admiralty, What do you have to say for yourself?"
Brim fought down a strong urge to punch the overweening clown in his nose, then relaxed with a smile of contempt. "Your warning wasn't frightening enough, Amherst," he said. "I assume that you have noticed I am still very much alive."
"Antagonism toward our friends in the League will yet cost your worthless life. Brim," Amherst spat back with venom. His eyes narrowed. "And you will address me by my title of Commodore, as regulations require, Commander Brim. I have warned you about that often."
"Not often enough, zukeed," Brim said quietly. "As I said last year, the best title you'll get from me is 'traitor,' at least so long as you remain the local CIGA boss."
Amherst glared at Brim for a moment, clutching the lapels of his tunic. "Grand Imperial CIGA Dominator," he snarled, his face now crimson with rage.
"Traitor," Brim corrected with an assured smile.
"Arrogant Carescrian zukeed," Amherst gasped, as if he were short of breath. "You have no more respect for the uniform of your dominion than does that perfectly awful countryman of yours, Baxter Calhoun."
"It's not the uniform we discredit, Amherst," Brim amended with a grin, "just the wearer. Nothing stupid about Carescrians."
Only a reddening face betrayed the effect of Brim's retort. "So you will become a Fluvannian thrall with your reprehensible mentor, will you?" Amherst growled. Then he laughed arrogantly . "
Nothing that you or your warmongering associates carry out escapes my purview."
Brim shrugged with equanimity and kept his silence.
"Warmonger," the CIGA snapped after long moments of silence. "You will yet bring disaster down on our heads, in spite of our labors to preserve the peace."
Brim shook his head. "That's where you're wrong, Amherst," he said, locking glances with his old shipmate. "We talked about that a year ago in your office. I don't want war any more than you do—or any of your CIGAs. In fact, I work toward peace every bit as desperately as anyone else, yourself included. The difference is that I want an honorable peace: one that preserves our Imperial heritage with all the very mortal faults that make it habitable. And that can only be done with strength, like a powerful fleet. You and your CIGAs would preserve the peace by capitulation. But in that way, we become slaves to Nergol Triannic's League of Dark Stars, under the yoke of his TimeWeed-soaked Controllers. And no matter how imperfect our old Empire has become over the years, it is a thousandfold better than anything like that."
"You would still sacrifice men and women to the insatiable maw of war," Amherst demanded, "when you have seen firsthand—as well as I have—how horrible that is?"
"Now that defines a principal difference between you and me," Brim replied steadily. "Battle was shattering to you. I saw that in person while we shipped together aboard old Truculent. It was so frightening that your father used his influence to remove you from all further combat assignments.'' He narrowed his eyes. "The rest of us, on the other hand, went on fighting—and do so today—because the loss of our freedom frightens us a lot worse than the loss of our lives! Without freedom, life doesn't have much value for most of us. Believe me, Amherst, I've seen that on every planet we've had to liberate from your good friends, the Leaguers."
Amherst's eyes narrowed in dark anger. "Are you," he asked with a quivering voice, "suggesting that I am a coward?"
"No accusation at all, Amherst," Brim stated calmly. "It's a statement of fact. You are a coward, pure and simple. And so are the rest of your craven CIGAs."
Amherst went completely rigid, his hands trembling as he drew his fingers into fists. "I shall make you pay dearly for that, Brim," he spat through colorless lips stretched over clenched teeth.
"We'll see, Amherst," Brim replied calmly. "But you'd better keep an eye on your own back, or you'll eventually lose the chance. If the League wins, the first Imperials they'll use for target practice are you CIGAs. They always get rid of unstable elements first. Makes places easier to rule." He laughed grimly as he held the man's gaze with his own. "And if the League doesn't win after it restarts the war," he added, "then likely as not, you'll gasp out your life swinging at the end of a rope, because lynch mobs don't wait for legal justice."
A momentary shadow of fear clouded Amherst's proud visage, but he recovered swiftly and again grasped his lapels in a pose of high dudgeon. "Were you in uniform, Brim, I should have you thrown in Avalon's darkest prison for that sort of presumptive insolence."
"But you can't," Brim replied with a smile. "In the first place, you don't have a witness. And besides, zukeed, you implied it yourself: I am now an officer in the Fluvannian Red. Throwing me in prison would cause an international incident."