"Universe, Brim," the man said as he climbed nervously out of the Helmsman's seat, "I thought I was going to end up having to fly the Avalon run anyway. You don't believe in cutting things close or anything, do you?"
Brim laughed. "I'm here-and now you can go ahead and get married. What else matters?"
"I'll think of something by the time you get back, you rascal!" the man called as be galloped into the companionway to the main deck.
Moments later, Brim watched him run at full speed across the brow and into the arms of a dark, long-haired woman waiting outside a small skimmer near the brow portal. Then he occupied himself with the controls-too busy now for much of anything except making his own personal schedule to Avalon. He wasn't racing off to be married or anything like that-but he certainly had related thoughts at the back of his mind....
The spaceways between Menander-Garand and Avalon were well within Avalon's sphere of influence, and the speedy tittle packet made her Hyperlight journey without incident, despite the great war that raged elsewhere in the galaxy. Brim smoothly made landfall and taxied to the military complex through a clear, sunlit winter afternoon, arriving at his assigned lakeside gravity pool three cycles before nine bells sounded in the bridge. He braked to a stop at precisely the same instant that a graceful black limousine skimmer slowed to a hover just outside the entrance to the brow, engulfing the bare trees in a cloud of blowing snow.
Only in Avalon, he laughed to himself. The capital city was so full of limousines that many were actually used as delivery vehicles. This one would be picking up some important element of the ship's cargo, for there was certainly nobody of any particular importance aboard.
"Shut 'em off, Mack," he called over his shoulder to the Systems Engineer, men with the generators spooling down in the background, he braced himself for the switch to internal gravity. It was a transition that even in the best of circumstances made him staggeringly dizzy for a few moments-no matter how many times he went through it. And it happened at the precise moment he thought he spied a huge, green-liveried footman open the door of the limo for a strangely familiar figure bundled in a Fleet Cape-whose short blond curls in wanton disarray started his heart pounding all out of control.... He blinked his blurred eyes as the figure hurried through the portal and out over the brow. No one else in the entire Universe looked like mat. "Margot!" he gasped, nearly tripping as he fought his way out of the helmsman's seat. "See you tomorrow," he called, grabbing his bag and plunging wildly into the companionway.
"Yeah," the engineer called after him. "If ya' don't break your xaxtdamned neck before that!"
As Brim ran toward the main hatch, he felt cold winter air rushing into the ship along the passageway. There was perfume in it! Special perfume. And then she was there, standing at the end of the brow with the most beautiful smile be had ever seen. All he wanted in the whole Universe-and be simply didn't have any words. But then, neither did she-which turned out to be all right anyway, because both their lips were abruptly too busy communicating in a much more Universal language than formal Avalonian.
Her arms were still tightly around him when he finally wrestled his breathing under control.
Dockyard workers were pushing their way past into the starship when he guided her into a little alcove beside the hatch and out of the traffic. AtAt that moment, not even direct orders from the Emperor himself would have made him interrupt this most magical interlude.
After a while, she half opened her eyes in the sleepy kind of way he knew-and loved-so well. He started to speak, but she placed a finger on his lips. "'Swiftly coursed o'er Space and Time -Spirit of the Night,'" she recited in a breathless whisper. "'Out of the firmament sublime, Where from the yet ungazed starlight, Thou weavest dreams of joy and fear,
That make thee terrible and dear, /-Safe was thy flight.'"
Brim let the poetic lines of Laerites's "Ode to the Void," sweep over him from out of the past. "We shouldn't waste even a moment, Margot," he whispered. "This ship is due out again late tomorrow morning."
She grinned and rhythmically ground her torso into his. "You've got me off to a magnificent start already, Lieutenant Brim," she said a little breathlessly. "If it were warmer outside, I think I'd show you what I don't have on under this cape right here and now."
Brim laughed and squeezed her to him tighter, thrusting himself rhythmically against her.
"Wouldn't I love that," he whispered in her ear.
"Oo-o," she giggled, as if she were suddenly out of breath. Her eyebrows arched and she smiled happily. "I'd hoped you might be off to that same kind of start." Her eyes suddenly sparkled. "The limousine has one-way glass, Wilf. Let's have Ambridge drive us to the embassy so we can do something about these hormones of ours. After that, perhaps we can love each other a little more rationally."
Taking a deep breath, Brim placed his hands at the small of her back and drew her even closer. " 'Come let us twine together, you and I,'" he answered as she crouched slightly and opened herself to him, '"The moments we may love are far too few, And helpless through Time's corridors we fly, Embraced-you to I and I to you....'" For a few moments afterward, he was too busy kissing to think of anything else except warm breath and wet, wet lips.
Then, surreptitiously checking the hallway-which was empty-he backed her farther into the alcove and gently raised the hem of her cape to her waist. "Great Universe," he gasped while his knees began to tremble almost out of control.
"Would I try to deceive you, my love?" Margot asked, licking her lips and looking at him with what could only be described as a totally shameless smirk.
"Or did you merely need reassurance that I am still a blonde?..." True to her royal word, in addition to a heated Fleet Cape, Her Royal Highness, The Princess Margot Effer'wyck, was wearing only boots....
In the rapidly fading winter afternoon, neither Brim nor Margot found they would-or necessarily could-wait until they reached the embassy. Therefore, the surprise of the limousine's swerve and the grating shriek of collapsing metal came as a double shock.
"Voot's ear!" Margot spluttered, thrown spread-eagled to the floor of the limousine.
"W-what was that?"
"I think we've had an accident," Brim said, still on the seat and shakily focusing his eyes through the cracked glass at an Army staff skimmer that appeared to have embedded itself in the limousine's engine compartment. A large crowd was gathering even as he spoke.
"Sweet, thraggling Universe," Margot exclaimed as she frantically struggled to retrieve her cape-it had somehow become jammed under a console-"where are we?"
"Mm-m," Brim grunted, discovering to his dismay how thoroughly trousers can become entangled with boots. "I don't know. It's a part of town I've never seen. Looks like some sort of ethnic sector, though. Everybody's got on weird colors."
Presently, Ambridge appeared outside in the glow of emergency lamps, frowning and stroking his chin as he inspected the damage. He was joined almost immediately by a short, rumpled Army captain with suspicious, rheumy eyes, a thick brown moustache, and a lantern jaw to rival any professional Corbut wrestler's. The officer had just raised an accusatory finger in Ambridge's direction when he was interrupted by a grating voice that absolutely set Brim's teeth on edge.