"Thanks, Chief," Brim said, starting to shut the door.
"Oh, an', Cap'm..." Barbousse added.
"Yes, Chief?"
"Probably, you won't want to wait until morning to read the message I brought," the big rating said with a quick salute. Then he hurried off down the hall.
Brim settled wearily into an expensive ophet-leather recliner. It was one of the few luxuries he afforded himself in Starfury's commodious Captain's cabin. He peered at the envelope. No clue there: Barbousse had sealed the message into a standard unclassified hardcopy container. Frowning, he ripped off the side of the envelope, puffed it open, and extracted a single sheet of common message plastic used to record unclassified KA'PPA messages. It was from an old acquaintance, and its short message made his heart feel as if it would burst from his chest.
QQOW-97RTRV762349HUSE GROUP KJ64L 132/52010
FROM: H. AMBRIDGE, RUDOLPHO, THE TOROND
TO: LCDR. W. A. BRIM, R.F.F.
CAPTAIN, R.F.S. STARFURY
VARNHOLM HALL, ORDU, FLUVANNA.
COMMANDER BRIM:
HER SERENE MAJESTY, GRAND DUCHESS MARGOT
EFFER'WYCK-LAKARN BIDS ME INFORM YOU OF HER PLANNED
MORNING ARRIVAL IN MAGOR 136/5210 ABOARD T.S.S. KATUKA FOR
THE STATE CELEBRATION OF NABOB EYREN'S FIFTIETH BIRTH
ANNIVERSARY. THE DUCHESS WILL REPRESENT THE TOROND IN LIEU
OF GRAND DUKE ROGAN WHOSE SCHEDULE PRECLUDES HIS
ATTENDANCE. SHE SENDS THESE WORDS FOR YOU:
O' THAT 'TWERE POSSIBLE
AFTER LONG GRIEF AND PAIN
TO FIND THE ARMS OF MY TRUE LOVE
ROUND ME ONCE AGAIN!
LARITIEES /31887
THIS MESSAGE ALSO CONTAINS MY OWN WARMEST REGARDS FROM
OVER THE YEARS, COMMANDER.
SINCERELY,
HOGGET AMBRIDGE,
CHAUFFEUR TO PRINCESS MARGOT
QQOW-97RTRV762349HUSE
It was almost as if the message had been sent by the Margot of old—the woman he had known and loved before her disastrous addiction to the Leaguers' TimeWeed. Even the old poetry was there—a deep bond they had shared only moments after they met. In seven days he would see her again—an invitation to the Nabob's huge soiree had already been delivered to all the officers of the IVG. Would she turn out to be real, or was this another perversity dreamed up by the Leaguers? Seven days!
Starfury's Captain passed an exceedingly unsettled night....
Even with Brim's normal overload of work, the next seven days passed like seven years— Standard Years. Three of his ED-4s arrived with overloads of critical materiel, and close on their heels was another Starfury: I.F.S. Starspite, captained by a longtime friend of Brim's from Atalanta, Commander Stefan MacAlda. And still another pair of Starfuries was due early the following week.
Events like these seemed only remotely significant, at least on a personal level. Did miracles really occur?
Could Margot someday actually conquer her deadly addiction? At one point, he actually calculated the metacycles (Standard as well as local) remaining before he would have a chance to see for himself. And the daydreaming affected his work. Not a lot, but enough that at least one of his crew recognized that his mind was often elsewhere—and she had no problem bringing it to his attention.
"Voot's beard, Skipper," Tissaurd demanded the morning before Margot's arrival, "where in xaxt are you these days?" She'd found him alone on the bridge, staring out to sea at a time when he should have been making quarters inspections. "All of a sudden, you're not Wilf Brim anymore," she protested in frustration, "except when you're at the controls. And even then you fly like some sort of an analog. What gives? Your insufferable friend Barbousse knows, but I can't get a thing out of him."
Brim reached inside his tunic and silently handed her his message from Ambridge.
Frowning, Tissaurd seated herself at the right-hand helm and unfolded the sheet of plastic, staring at the text as if she were trying to insert herself inside the words. "I guess I'm not surprised," she said at length. "Word got around that you two met at one of Mustafa's parties a while back."
Brim nodded. "The last I'd seen her was a couple of years ago, and she'd been in bad shape. I guess I just"—he shrugged—"wrote her off at the time. It was terrible."
Tissaurd narrowed her eyes as she rose from her seat and quietly took a place behind him. "Isn't she the Leaguer Baroness who got herself addicted to Time Weed?"
"She's not exactly a Leaguer," Brim protested.
"Sorry, Skipper," Tissaurd replied, "but The Torond's close enough for me."
"I know," Brim conceded without turning around. "I guess I just don't see her that way. You had to know her before she married that zukeed LaKarn. She was a different person then— and she seemed like her old self at the ball."
"She seemed like she'd thrown the habit, then?" Tissaurd asked, gently kneading the back of his neck.
"No," Brim replied. "She talked about having a greater tolerance for it, or something. But she looked... well... normal, for lack of a better word. And she acted rationally, too. You know, almost as if everything were all right, again."
"That's pretty unusual from what I hear about TimeWeed."
Brim closed his eyes. "Who knows?" he responded at length. "I certainly have no idea."
"Sounds to me as if you hadn't really written her off, Skipper."
"That's not entirely right, Number One," Brim corrected. "I had written her off; I just hadn't slopped caring. And until I got the note, I didn't realize how much I still cared."
Tissaurd rested her hand gently on his shoulder. "It's not that easy to shut off an old love, is it, Skipper?" she said.
Brim turned in his seat and shook his head. "Sounds as if you know from experience. Number One," he said.
"Yeah," Tissaurd answered, her eyes focused somewhere else in both space and moment, "I do."
"I'm sorry," Brim ruminated, "I didn't know."
"I never told you about him, Skipper," she said. "And neither of us is famous like you and your princess, so you'd never have heard. But he was beautiful."
"I'm still sorry," Brim said, touching her hand. "Do you still think of him a lot?"
She nodded. "Too much," she said. "It gets in the way at the damndest times." Then she looked him in the eye. "Luckily," she said, placing both hands on his shoulders, "I am not captain of this ship, so it isn't much noticed. And when it is, well, I'm simply having an off day. But you, Captain Brim, aren't allowed to have off days."
Brim winced. "It shows that much?" he asked, feeling his cheeks burn.
"Probably not that much," she assured him with a little smile. "But those of us who know and love you do notice. And, of course, Starfury doesn't run as well—nor does this confounded base you've managed to carve out of nowhere." She scowled. "By Voot's beard, if that LaKarn woman were a Leaguer, this would be one clever way of undermining the Empire's attempt to establish a base here."
It was now Brim's turn to scowl. "You didn't know her during the war, Number One," he said hotly. "Margot may have become a lot of things I don't approve of, but she's not a traitor. I know that in my heart."
Tissaurd looked him in the eye. "I'd be the last one to question your judgment, Skipper," she returned, "but the heart seems like a poor place to look for danger, if you ask me."
"Nobody's asking, Number One," Brim said pointedly.
"I understand," Tissaurd replied quickly. "Still, I'm looking forward to meeting this woman. You will introduce me, won't you?" she asked. "I've always wanted to meet a Princess."