"You're right, Captain," the officer agreed. "It sounds like a real challenge to me."
"Commander Brim," an expensively uniformed newcomer asked, "how long do we have to consider this, er, offer?"
"Until morning," Brim said. "We embark for Fluvanna as soon as the ship is prepared to lift."
"And if we decide we've had enough of that backwater, what then, Captain?"
"You get an instant transfer somewhere else in the Fleet," Brim replied. "That's why I've got to know your decision almost immediately. Replacements are difficult to find, and we're in a hurry."
"I'm ready now!" somebody shouted from the audience.
"Yeah, me, too," another seconded. "Where do we sign up?"
Half surprised by the response, Brim pointed to a work table that Barbousse and a Fluvannian representative had just plugged into a secure data outlet near the door. "You sign up with Mr. Barbousse at the table back there," he said. "He'll also help you transfer out, if you're of a mind to do that...."
Directly following the meeting, fifteen officers and seventy ratings had signed themselves into the Fluvannian Fleet, leaving one officer and five ordinary starsailors to be replaced the next day.
The following morning, however, pudgy Sublieutenant Vasil Huugo of the Communications Section, a native Avalonian, reported back aboard after consulting with his family during an all-night session. His signature completed wardroom staffing with no changes in personnel. But by midday, Barbousse appeared on the bridge with bad news. "It looks like none of the five refusing spacemen have shown a change of heart, Cap'm," he reported with a frown.
"Hmm," Brim muttered, looking up from a test sequence a Logics Mate was running on his power console. "Any of 'em going to be hard to replace?"
"Not if you know where to look, Cap'm," the big rating answered with a wink.
Within a metacycle, a sleek military van pulled up at the foot of the brow to disgorge five of the toughest-looking Petty Officers the Carescrian believed he had ever encountered: scars, eye patches, artificial limbs; collectively, they had them all. As the group stumped through the ship's hatch, each made a peculiar little bow to Barbousse, who stood quietly to one side with his arms folded, nodding in return.
Brim wanted to know nothing about their backgrounds. Barbousse had picked them, and he was certain they would turn out to be the most reliable—and able—hands on the ship.
In a few days, all forms and contracts were duly signed while ninety-two sets of Fluvannian uniforms changed hands. Brim and his crew of "mercenaries" set course for Magor on 31/52011 aboard a completely reprovisioned R.F.S. Starfury, newest, most modern warship in the Fluvannian Fleet. They made landfall at Varnholm little more than six days later (after another "unofficial" record run), where they discovered to their dismay that conditions were far worse than the Fluvannians had led them to believe.
The age-blackened stone ruin of Varnholm Hall was very desolate, standing some distance from the scruffy village it once ruled on a barren, rocky slope that overlooked storm-tossed Penard Bay.
Below, spoiling what little strand existed between the slope and the deep waters of the bay, lay two long rows of ancient stone gravity pools, remnant of a mining operation that had petered out more than a century in the past. Many of those on the seaward side had tumbled walls, victims of the storms frequenting that particularly depressing corner of the planet. As promised, however, four of the timeworn structures reported themselves to be operational when Starfury descended out of the overcast, and two of them appeared to be large enough for a cruiser.
Viewed from the air, the hall itself—or rather what remained of it—was a melancholy relic, tediously rectangular with crumbling stumps of towers at each comer and a half-ruined gate house on its landward end. A huge, central dome had rolled completely off the main foundations and lay to one side like some great shattered piece of crockery. Thick stone curtain walls between the tower stumps were reasonably complete, but any battlements on them had all but disappeared over the years.
"Not very promising," Brim commented bleakly as Tissaurd banked Starfury into a climbing turn and headed out to sea for a landing. He glanced back at the receding shoreline. "Especially the xaxtdamned gravity pools." In little more than one Standard Month, they would have to coax a minimum of fifteen into operation: eleven Starfuries and four ancient ED-4 freighters that Calhoun had managed to secure at the last moment. And that would allow no guests or—worse—spares when the century-old repulsion generators broke down, as they inevitably would, no matter how methodically they might be maintained.
Within cycles of their landfall, Tissaurd had taxied to the largest gravity pool, nudging Starfury's prow just over the seaward rim before she braked to a halt. ''Looks all right to me. Skipper," she said, peering over the nose through the Hyperscreens. "What do you think?"
Brim rubbed his chin. Below, six huge, extraordinarily old-looking repulsion generators were somehow filling the great pit with a reassuring amber glow. On top of the far wall, a number of villagers had gathered in small groups and were variously waving, jumping up and down, and holding their ears against the deafening rumble that would be coming from both the gravity pool and Starfury herself.
Clearly, the semi-abandoned star anchorage relied on local residents when it was time to deploy the pool's optical mooring devices. "I guess I don't have any gems of wisdom for you, Number One," he admitted at length. "Maybe you ought to play it safe like you did in Magor and keep a little lift on the ship herself—just in case."
Tissaurd nodded agreement. "Strana'," she said, "how about maintaining about five percent hover on her for a while?"
"Five percent hover is now minimum," Zaftrak responded presently.
Tissaurd nodded and turned her attention to a small monitor between the Helmsmans' consoles.
It displayed the visage of a bearded man with a large nose—and an even larger mustache —who wore typical Fluvannian apparel, including one of the ubiquitous crimson fezes. "Mr. Bogwa'zzi," she pronounced carefully, "I shall appreciate your assistance now."
The man nodded. "Switching I am the machine now to power," he said in Avalonian with a great toothy grin, clearly proud of this linguistic achievement. On the far wall of the gravity pool, a ruby light blazed out from what appeared to be a globe mounted on a tripod. The figure of a man beside it waved—at the same time Bogwa'zzi's head bobbed in the monitor. "Can you scrutinize this beam?" he asked.
"I, er, scrutinize the beam, Mr. Bogwa'zzi," Tissaurd acknowledged with a grin. "You may now activate its side lobes."
As Brim watched from his station on the port side of Starfury's bridge, the beam began to separate into vertical lines. He knew that it would remain steady for Tissaurd in her more central console, but for Powderham, the Navigator seated behind the starboard Hyperscreens, it would now be broken into horizontal lines.
"Side lobes, ah, how do you say... ?"
"Activated," Tissaurd prompted.
"Ah yes, activated," the Fluvannian reported a moment later.
"Thank you, Mr. Bogwa'zzi," Tissaurd replied, nodding to herself as if she had just completed some internal checklist. "All docking cupolas: stand by your mooring beams," she ordered over the blower. When each had acknowledged, she began to nudge the ship forward with deft thrusts of her fingers over the power console, then applied full gravity brakes almost immediately.