"I don't suppose you'd like one," she said.
"I wouldn't know," Brim responded with fascination. "I only heard about them during the initial Embassy briefing. Are they like Hogge'poa?"
"May the Gods grant us everlasting protection from Hogge'poa." She laughed. "But, yes, Wilf, they're pretty much like Hogge'poa-except for the smell. And if you haven't tried them yourself, then I shall smoke for both of us-at least tonight."
Brim smiled as the drinks arrived. "Sounds like a good idea," he said evenly. She didn't seem to be laughing at him. Carescrians were very sensitive to that. "I have a feeling there's a lot I can learn about Haelicians."
"We're people, basically," she said, sipping the clear liquid in her long-stemmed flute.
"Love us, we love; hurt us, we fight. We're a pretty tough lot, I guess...."
"You'd have to be," Brim said. "I know what raids are like when you can't fight back." Then he looked her directly in the eye. 'Tell me more about the war, here," he asked, "from the civilian side."
Claudia frowned at him for a moment, then raised her eyebrows. "Why would you want to know?" she asked quietly..
"I guess war's been pretty fortunate for me, so far," Brim admitted. '"The business of barbarians,' as some forgotten emperor named it. Seems to me that I have an obligation to find out what it really means."
Claudia raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "I didn't expect that kind of honesty," she said after long moments of silence. "But I'll give as good as I've gotten, by Zamp. And perhaps you'll help me understand what it's really like on the warships I service." Then she lit her cigarette with a tiny golden match.
Through a second round of drinks they talked about the endless combat that penetrated nearly every part of their galaxy-and Claudia seemed as fascinated by his views as he was by hers. Both agreed that armed conflict was hardest on noncombatants helpless civilians who happened to be in me way of the rolling, insane juggernaut military minds had long ago named "war."
After third and fourth rounds of drinks-and a second cigarette-their conversation returned to the raids on Atalanta, and finally to the one that nearly killed Claudia.
"I suppose it wasn't a total loss," she joked wryly. "After they sealed me up, I've never had to worry about, shall we say, the 'aftereffects' of a good romp."
Brim smiled at her good-natured frankness. "In other words, blood flows pure in your veins, unsullied by preventive chemicals," he said.
"By those chemicals, at least," she said. "But the plumbing they removed used to provide other chemicals that had a lot to do with my makeup as a woman." She took a last draught from her cigarette, then crushed it out in a tiny shower of perfumed sparks. "I've always been kind of wild-even my first time. Voot's hairy beard, Wilf," she laughed quietly, "he was hung like a gratzhorse. And I took him on gladly! It hurt about as much as it felt wonderful."
Brim laughed at her, remembering his own fumbling initiation-appropriately enough, in the hold of a starship.
"Well," she continued, "I'd been in the hospital about two weeks when it suddenly dawned on me that the wildness was all gone! Wilf, I didn't give a damn for that good stuff anymore.
And I panicked-right there in the healing machine. They'd taken everything out to save my life, and I wasn't sure at that moment I wanted to be bothered with what they'd left me...." She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. "Luckily," she continued after a time, "as long as I let them slip a lozenge into my arm now and then, I still get my urges, so..." All at once, she looked Brim in the eye and shook her head. "Sorry," she said with an embarrassed little smile. "I shouldn't get carried away like I do. Especially in front of someone who I understand was pretty badly wounded on his first tour of duty."
Brim reached across the table and took her hand. "I also survived." he said quietly. "And I didn't lose any plumbing."
"Wilf Brim," she declared with a grin, "I had no doubt about that at all." He was about to press on with that encouraging line of conversation when suddenly she stared at her timepiece. "By the beard!" she exclaimed, "do you know what time it is?"
Taken aback, Brim glanced at his own timepiece-in utter surprise. The civilian manager and his two women had long since disappeared, and dawn was only short metacycles away.
"Universe, how could I?" Claudia muttered as she rummaged in her purse. "Wilf, I've got to get you back to the base right away, or I shall never get to bed."
Brim almost commented on that, then thought better of it. Clearly, the mood of romance evaporated as soon as it met the air. "I suppose I could call a cab," he suggested.
Claudia laughed. "That would be a terrible thing for me to do to you-especially when it was my idea to come here in the first place." She squeezed his hand. "No, Lieutenant Wilf Brim, I shall take you directly back to your ship in my skimmer. But this time, I shall use a much more direct route."
True to her word, Claudia arrived at the entrance to Defiant's gravity pool within twenty cycles of her departure from Nesterio's. As she drew to a rattling halt, Brim shook his head.
"I didn't think this could go so fast," he said, only a little in jest. "Was it entered in the Mitchell Cup race?"
"Someday, I may even tell you about those races," she said with a soft smile. "But it won't be tonight." Abruptly, she grabbed his cheeks in her hands and deposited a wet kiss directly on his lips, then she sat back in her seat, and revved the grav. "Good morning, Lieutenant," she said firmly. "I simply must be on my way home-now."
Reluctantly, Brim stepped to the pavement. "Will I see you again he asked.
"If you like," she answered noncommittally, then smiled gently once more. "Thank you for a wonderful evening, Wilf," she added. "It was one I won't soon forget, believe me." A moment later-before Brim could think of anything else to detain her-she was gone.
He watched the taillights of her little skimmer until they disappeared on the far side of the Harbor Causeway. Then, trudging over the brow in the relative quietness of Haelic's early-morning watch, he showed his pass to the guard and made his solitary way to his cabin.
For the remainder of the short night, he tossed and turned on his bunk-tired but utterly sleepless. Somehow he was angry with himself. Should he have made some sort of pass at the beautiful Haelician? In retrospect, probably he should have-especially if his last experience with Margot were any indication of the future. But the signals she gave were all so conflicting. Over and over he rehearsed their conversations-sometimes serious, sometimes erotic in the extreme.
In any case, he'd done nothing to feel guilty about so far as Margot was concerned-even though he knew full well he'd have been glad to had he been given the slightest chance. He finally fell asleep wondering if she were pleasuring LaKarn at that very moment. A devil of a way to end such a promising day....
Chapter 4
ATALANTA
Late the next evening-after the new launch and its cradle were securely installed on Defiant's boat deck-Brim checked the assignments roster and found himself completely free of duty during the next full watch sequence. Nothing of that nature had happened since Menander-Garand, and then he'd had a chance to see Margot. He shrugged. This time, he had only one day-and no way to get himself back to Avalon even if he did have more time.
Hands in his pockets, he wandered aimlessly in and out of the nearly empty wardroom, along a corridor past his solitary cabin, and finally through Defiant's main hatch into the cooling glow of a summer evening. Hador was in the process of turning the sky a dozen glorious hues of red and orange while it set behind Atalanta's City Mount Hill. As he made his way forward along the main deck, Defiant's ebony hullmetal took on its own reddish hue and transformed the great starship into a dreamlike landscape of glowing, streamlined forms and deep shadows. Then, even before he reached the starship's bows, these brilliant colors rapidly faded to magentas, and finally to lavenders as lights began to flash and flicker in the city beyond. He turned for a moment to face Defiant's superstructure, now a deep-purple form against the still-blue sky. Pinpoints of colored light glowed and flickered from the navigating bridge-his eyes could pick out movement there, but details no longer penetrated the oncoming darkness.