"Because, Hanna Notrom," he said, "no matter how bad and degenerate Greyffin IV's Empire seems to me—and I know it is bad—at its absolute worst, it is far superior to anything I see in your League."
Clearly holding on to the last shreds of his temper, Orgoth rose and met Brim's stare. "Do you have any idea what you are giving away?" he asked. "Do you think for a moment that your beloved Empire will survive when Nergol Triannic returns to his rightful throne?"
"Enough, Admiral," Ro'arn growled curtly. As he turned to Brim, his thick lips drew back into a cruel smirk. "Clearly," he said, "we have not yet sweetened the offer sufficiently." He laughed. "However," he went on, "our young friend and ally Rogan LaKarn has supplied one further inducement. Rogan," he ordered, "show Mr. Brim the special inducement you have for him."
"At your service, General," LaKarn said, striding to a wall switch and dimming the lights. Then, with no further comment, he set out across the floor toward what appeared to be a small stage at Brim's end of the room.
Brim turned to look at the doorway through which he had entered. It was now blocked by two burly guards—both armed with wicked-looking Schneldler blast pikes.
"Don't bother with the door yet," LaKarn called with a great smirk on his face. "We want you to pay close attention here." Then he giggled. "It may just prove to be the one factor that decides you in favor of my friends in the League. Because," he said, opening the curtain, "I'm willing to give this away."
Brim turned and gasped in utter horror. There, just inside the open doors, Her Serene Majesty, Princess Margot of the Effer'wyck Dominions and Baroness of the Torond lay nude on a huge pile of cushions, languidly smoking TimeWeed with her once-sparkling eyes empty and half-closed.
"Join the League, Brim, and she's yours whenever you want her," LaKarn said. He laughed. "We all know how much pleasure you've had together."
Losing the last vestiges of his control, Brim snarled like a wild animal and with a single leap, knocked LaKarn to the floor, manically wringing the man's throat and dashing his head violently against the hardwood tiles until with a mighty wrench, someone yanked him upright. Still beserk with anger, he turned on this new antagonist until he discovered that he was now trying to strangle... General Drummond. Abruptly, a mask covered his face and a cool vapor of some sort instantly calmed his blood rage while other hands gently but firmly pushed him into a chair. As sensibility returned, he glanced around the room. Drummond and eight burly men, all dressed in unmarked military fatigues, were bent over the inert form of Rogan LaKarn who lay crumpled on the floor, his head at an odd angle with blood oozing from his nose and mouth. Both door guards lay sprawled on the floor, either unconscious or dead.
Orgoth, Ro'arn, Notrom, and Valentin all sat scowling against the wall, bound and gagged. And Margot remained on the pillows, calmly smoking her Time Weed as if she were utterly alone.
"Brim, you all right?" Drummond asked, turning from LaKarn. "We've got to get ourselves out of here—right away! We've blanked all communications for about a half-c'lenyt—but they're starting to penetrate it already."
"I'm fine, General," Brim panted, starting for Margot's drugged form. "It's her we've got to get out of here, though."
"Sorry, Brim," Drummond said, holstering a big Wenning .985 autoblaster. "But the Princess stays here."
"No!" Brim demanded. "We can't. Universe—look what they're doing to her..."
Drummond got a sad look on his face. "Unfortunately," he said quietly, "they're not doing anything to her. She's doing it to herself. Nobody is required to start smoking Time Weed."
"B-but," Brim pleaded, pointing to Margot. "We can't just..."
"Son," Drummond said, taking Brim's arm in a grip that suddenly felt like a hullmetal band, "in my business, I see a lot of this. Sure, you love her, she was a magnificent woman once—still looks great, for that matter. But now she's also a smoker, and there's nothing you can do for her." He shook his head sadly for a moment. "Nobody ever said that life was going to be fair," he continued, "—only that it goes on. Now move, before we all end up in prison, and possibly charged with murder. If LaKarn lives, it won't be any fault of yours."
Biting his lip in helpless frustration, Brim followed the General at a dead run, past at least twelve tough-looking commandos-cum-civilians, out of the house, and into a waiting skimmer. Angry sirens were already wailing in the distance as they departed.
He found himself debriefed and back at the embassy long before evening watch ended, but sleep determinedly shunned his lonesome room. After a few cycles of aimless pacing, he pulled on a jacket and took a lift to the roof garden. Flashing his pass to a trio of guards (armed tonight with powerful Trenning NT-53A blast pikes), he wandered out under the stars and slumped into a rustic bench, vowing to resolve once and for all his tattered relationship with the naked blond woman LaKarn had offered. Not too long ago, she had been the very center of his hopes and dreams.
Only where to start? He'd been over the same thing in his head at least a million times before. Pursing his lips, he idly watched a giant starliner thunder out of the heavens, then line up on Lake Garza, her hull reflecting soft yellow radiance from the city below. Lights from a thousand scuttles glimmered along the big ship's massive flanks while enormous flashing beacons at the peak of her KA'PPA tower warned smaller ships away from her wake. He gazed at her huge, glowing form. In many ways, the big ship was a remarkably good presentment of Margot herself. Beautiful almost beyond reason, she had burst into his life with a radiant surge of emotion that carried both of them soaring above the turmoil of a devastating victory and much of the disastrous peace that followed it.
Unfortunately, the metaphor extended all too well into the present, for he could no more have checked her inexorable descent into tragedy than he could have stopped the liner from his perch on the embassy rooftop.
He laughed grimly at the thought, but only for a moment. Once, he'd actually believed in such miracles—she'd taught him how. Tonight, however—years older and a war wiser—he had come to the irrevocable conclusion that some things were beyond even the power of love itself.
He absently peered over the wall at the terraced gardens below. Did he still love her? In all honesty, he could no longer claim what he felt was love. During her years of virtual confinement in the Torond, profound changes had come over their relationship. First, there was Rodyard himself. The child's very existence finally brought to an end the few stolen moments he and Margot had once managed to share.
Clearly, neither realized how much those all-too-brief rendezvous meant at the time. They were nearly everything, now that he thought about it—the promise of excitement and passion that could make long intervals of loneliness almost bearable. And when those promises ceased, the relationship had inexorably begun to wither.
Early on, Brim had perceived the change in himself through his growing attachment to Anna Romanoff.
And after some reflection, he'd also come to the conclusion that Margot's addiction had probably began with the selfsame hopelessness—assuming, of course, that she had truly returned his love in the first place. In any case, the Time Weed had been a last straw. At some point following the Leaguer's debacle of a "meeting," he'd bid a sad farewell to the dream that was Princess Margot Effer'wyck.
He pulled the collars of the jacket tighter around his throat. A chill midnight wind was now blowing in off the lake, and his tired eyelids told him it was time he turned in. He meant to do the best job he possibly could in the coming race—too many people were counting on him to win.