Atalanta: a most critical port, even before the Age of Star Flight when only seaborne ships from the planet's more important continents called at her already-crumbling stone jetties and piers. But while the planet's other land masses eventually lost their identities in the backwash of galactic events, militant Gradgroat-Norchelite monks changed the very course of galactic history. And insular little Atalanta became key to the very existence of an empire so large that the city's founders would have been without vocabulary-much less thoughts-to describe it. Now she was paying dearly for the Great Imperial Fleet base that crowded her polluted shores. Wherever Brim's eyes stopped, he could pick out flattened buildings, gaping roofs open to the sky, tumbled arches, and empty window frames in walls that stood without their fellows in the dusty sunlight.
Beside him on the bridgetop, a work crew had just completed adjustments to the N-ray splitter that fed five radiation dampers faired into the forward break of Defiant's Hyperscreens like a row of old-fashioned searchlights. N-rays were Universally employed throughout the galaxy to fight radiation conflagrations-runaway cascades of pure, released energy-resulting from disruptor hits on hullmetal. These five dampers were designed to cover the forward dorsal deck and the single 152-mmi battery mounted directly below the bridge.
A yeoman-sweating in spite of his cooled battle suit-had just shut and dogged down the inspection door, and the crew was now eagerly clambering into the coolness of the bridge below. Brim followed and pulled the hatch closed-carefully dogging it down with the typical thoroughness of Helmsmen everywhere. Air conditioning swept over him in a wave of luxury as he hurried down a companionway to the wardroom. He would be just in time for the Officer's introduction to the naval base and to the city of Atalanta that had grown up around it. It was planned that Defiant would remain at least a week in port, receiving critical, last-cycle modifications KA'PPAed in from EleandorBestienne-and repairing some light damage sustained during the convoy run.
The briefer-a lanky, sun-browned Embassy staffer dressed in white-linen mufti with an old-fashioned sun helmet-was clearly a longtime civilian veteran of Imperial Station Atalanta. It was also clear that she was making her presentation for at least the ten thousandth time. Middle-aged and somehow desiccated with permanently squinting eyes, her mourn was rimmed with the thin, colorless lips of a habitual nag. She had just launched into her presentation when Brim quietly stepped through the hatch and hiked himself to the top of a nearby table....
The woman described Atalanta as essentially a small, provincial center-in spite of its great age and size. She characterized its permanent citizens as brave, tenacious almost to a fault, and extremely proud of their unique and ancient heritage-as they had been since the dawn of recorded history: for tee most part, they were also reverent-many openly worshiped with the Gradgroat-Norchelites-pragmatic, and extremely proud of their personal accomplishments. Numerous expatriates-educated and trained in far-flung learning institutions all over the galaxy-had eventually returned to the city of their birth and joined highly respected professional guilds-cadres of local talent without which the huge Fleet base would quickly cease to exist.
And although the heart of the city's economy was the Fleet base, a host of other activities went on in support of other pursuits. For example, the last of the famous Mitchell Trophy races had been flown out of Atalanta just before the war started. And, along less technical lines, a surprising number of farmers eked out livelihoods on neighboring hillsides, along with shepherds, an occasional vintner bottling e'lande, an extraordinarily potent form of meem, and numerous other food producers. There was even a small fishing fleet, or there had been before many of the fragile wood-and-varnish boats had been destroyed in the raids.
A number of the local spacecraft-called "Zuzzuous" and peculiar to the planetary system around Hador-were still in service, although, their numbers were dwindling nearly as fast as the little fishing boats. Brim remembered seeing a few on gravity pools in civilian areas of Grand Harbor as Defiant passed-brightly painted little vessels with broad bands of lavender, red, and bright yellow around their narrow, angular hulls. Passenger cabins were pierced by rows of arched windows, and their control bridges-traditionally white with green stripes-were perched high over the stem like miniature Nimidan Hallo Houses. The unique ships could not exceed LightSpeed, and were most normally employed as interplanetary ferries.
For all its picturesque history, the town had been under almost constant attack for nearly a standard year now-fourteen seasonals, as Atalantian natives reckoned time-except when Imperial capital ships were in the area, as they presently were.
The devastating raids were likely to occur at any hour of the day, and were almost totally unpredictable. Because Defiant was scheduled for an extended stay, the woman from the Embassy went into lavish detail as to how one might identify shelters in various sections of the city: large green holoposters with white umbrellas appearing to float "inside" over animated directional arrows throughout Atalanta and her suburbs. Shelters themselves, however, were often uniquely marked in different sections of the city: some with icons of the Archangel Marvin-from the Kreejkl pantheon. Brim remembered, wondering how he had managed to store that particular element of trivia-some displaying holographs of the Emperor Greyffin IV, others using the grim visage of Nergol Triannic. During alerts, all were required to energize a strobing lavender beacon-at least until the raiders were actually sighted. And anyone out on the streets after that deserved whatever he got.
At the end of the woman's long briefing, Brim found himself with a real desire to see more of the ancient city and its fascinating people. He resolved to do some exploring before departed the port.
Hador was nearly at its blinding zenith when Calhoun and Brim met Rabelais T. Gastongay, Defiant' s dockyard representative, on a jetty near the ship's gravity pool. "At your service," the man said, raising his hand, palm open, in traditional Haelician greeting.
He was young and muscular with a great wide chin and a beard that resembled a rick of sun-dried hay. His spotless but worn trousers had a tiny waist-all out of proportion to his massive chest-and his smile beamed with the sunlight of Hador itself. "We've received quite a list of items the Admiralty wants 'corrected' on your Defiant here," he said.
"I can imagine," the older Carescrian responded smoothly, returning the same Haelician salute as if he'd visited the old port a thousand times. "How many of those 'corrections', luik like they might actually be important, would ye say, noo?"
Gastongay laughed and peered up at the ship as she tested her moorings in the hot afternoon breeze. "Hard for me to make calls like those, Number One," he said, frowning. "I don't have to fly on her. But we'll be glad to do whatever makes you people feel right about your ship."
Calhoun turned to Brim. "Well, laddie," he said, "if anybody has the feel of the ship, it's a Helmsman. What'll make her right for you?"
Brim grinned and handed a small plastic memosquare to Gastongay. "When we saw an advance copy of the Admiralty list," he said, "a few of us got together and wrote up our absolute 'has to be done' list. Like changing out the starboard power dynamos-the ones that overheated and shorted out power to the Navigation tables."