"Won't you have a chair while we talk, Mr. Brim?" Notrom suggested, indicating a place beside her and opposite from Orgoth.
As he sat, Valentin and LaKarn took the remaining seats.
Notrom made a peaked roof with her long, bony fingers while their chairs scraped the elegant parquet floor. Then, when silence returned, she looked directly at Brim. "I shall come to the point quickly," she declared. "You have a race to fly tomorrow, in what appears to be an extremely dangerous ship. Is that correct?"
"I have a race to fly tomorrow," Brim agreed, "but I doubt if our M-fives are any more dangerous than the other racing starships here, your Gantheissers included."
"But dangerous, for all that," she persisted.
Brim nodded. "I suppose."
"And last year, you almost died in a cobbled-up ship that should never have left Sherrington's factory,"
Notrom continued, "—when you knew resonance flutter was a distinct possibility. We have a recording of your conversation with Valerian just before you took off." She frowned. "You are to be congratulated for such a deduction. Both Gantheisser and Gorn-Hoff engineers also came to that conclusion, but only after much calculation."
"Under normal circumstances, the flutter was controllable," Brim asserted, avoiding the whole subject of his "deduction."
"Granted," Notrom allowed, "but the real question has more to do with motivation than with anything else. What we really want to know is what motivates you to take such risks in the first place. They benefit a dominion that has historically treated all Carescrians with tremendous callousness. Your 'friends' rewarded your wartime heroism in a most unappreciative manner."
The words hit Brim like a meteor. He hadn't expected to hear anything like them. And worse yet, he had no answer. Except for the bilge about his M-5, she was absolutely correct. Historically, a word like callous couldn't even begin to describe the appalling treatment meted out by the Empire to its subjugated citizens of the Carescrian sector. And the scars that had formed over his own mental wounds were far from healed.
"Well, Mr. Brim?" Notrom prompted.
Brim shook his head as he desperately tried to come up with some meaningful retort, not just one of the empty slogans the media had blathered during the Great War. He looked around the table at Gorton Ro'arn, the very soul of relentless police brutality; Hanna Notrom, an insane liar known throughout an entire galaxy for her extreme bigotry; Hoth Orgoth, who was deceitfully building a fleet that subverted every extant peace treaty in the galaxy; Kirsh Valentin, cruel, brutal, and utterly without compassion; and finally the high-born Rogan LaKarn, spineless lickspittle to a whole nation of Leaguers—and the misbegotten cretin who had managed to destroy Margot Effer'wyck. He bit his lip as they peered at him expectantly: the very scum of a whole galactic civilization. He should have been able to blow them away with chapter and verse of patriotic dogma. Voot knew that it existed. But he couldn't; he knew the real inequities as well as anyone—and so did these people. That was why they'd brought him here! After what seemed at least a metacycle, he took a deep breath and answered simply, "I don't know what motivates me."
"A straightforward answer to a difficult question, Mr. Brim," Notrom said. "My congratulations again."
Brim kept his silence.
"It was also the answer we expected," Notrom went on. "You never were one for lies—official or ordinary. Otherwise, you could never have survived the Helmsmen's Academy." She crossed her hands on the table and leaned toward him earnestly, her probing gray eyes drilling into his very being. "What if we, the people at this table, could guarantee you not only a better life but the rewards you merit and the recognition you deserve? What if we could provide you the rank and privilege that your talents warrant?
Wilf Brim," she asked fervently, "would you really want to remain a no-account civilian taking all the risks while others who are more privileged glean the rewards of your labor?"
"Think of it, Wilf," Orgoth broke in. "Think of being a commissioned officer once more. Think of being a member of a fleet, an honored member, not merely tolerated because of your great talents!"
"Think security, Wilf," Notrom continued. "We do not drop our honored starsailors when the combat is over—as Greyffin's Empire dropped you. You have seen Tarrott. The uniforms are still there. Honored. Loved. Not vilified. You don't find our heroes in the galley of a starliner working as a Slops Mate or begging cvceese' from Gradygroat priests."
"Or running hazardous equipment like a beam axe, or enduring boors like Cravinn Townsend," Orgoth added.
"We can guarantee your dreams, Wilf Brim," Gorton Ro'arn said, finally breaking his silence, "—if you will accomplish only one act: become a citizen of the League immediately. Tonight." He snapped his fingers. "Here," he said as one of the guards entered the room carrying a Controller's cape. On its shoulders were the insignia of a Provost—the same rank as Valentin. "You will find that this uniform is a perfect fit. And in its pocket," he added while the guard fished out a thin, golden card, "is a Purser's account with Praefect's pay accrued from the moment of your ignoble discharge at Gimmas-Haefdon."
For a moment, his square, glowering countenance took on a look that might even pass for friendly.
"Clearly, Brim," he continued, "our new Gantheissers will outperform all other entries tomorrow, including Valerian's M-five. So your acceptance of our offer will have little effect upon the outcome of the race.
What do you say?"
Brim found himself dumbfounded. There was no denying that the Leaguers knew very well what strings to pull. One by one, they'd offered him most of the dreams of his lifetime. Wealth, privilege, a uniform—even some security for a change. But it wasn't the right wealth or the right privileges or the right uniform. Greyffin's old Empire might be far from perfect—Universe knew he saw the flaws clearly enough—but for better or for worse, it was his genesis, his home. And all the Controller's uniforms in the Universe couldn't make up for the worn Fleet cloak he'd had to surrender. He knew he'd pawn his very soul if that would get it back. He shook his head unconsciously. These Leaguers couldn't buy him because they didn't have the right kind of currency. Only the shoddy old Empire had that, and there was no substitute. He took a deep breath. "It's a generous offer, there is no denying that," he admitted at last, "but I'm afraid it's not for me."
All three principals looked at him in utter disbelief. "You are turning all this down?" Orgoth asked incredulously. "How can you do such a thing?"
"A moment, Admiral," Ro'arn said, his face flushed with ill-concealed anger. He looked at Brim and wrung his hands as if his thick fingers were encircling a neck. "What else can we offer, Carescrian?
Which of your needs did we overlook? With what we've already offered, we couldn't have missed much."
"I wish nothing more..." Brim began, but he was interrupted by Notrom.
"Somehow I thought you might make a basically wrong-headed decision like that, Brim," she said, her voice rising shrilly. "And yet you have seen the corruption from close range. You have seen the stupidity.
Brim, you have suffered because of it. In the name of the Universe, what is it about your degenerate Empire that is still acceptable?"
Brim shook his head. While she talked, the answer had came to him, simple, direct, and true. He paused for a moment to make sure of the words, then got slowly to his feet and gripped the edge of the table.