"1 have no idea what you are talking about, Baron," Brim said with an expressionless face-inside, however, he was churning like a gravity storm.
LaKarn smiled wryly and continued as if Brim had never opened his mouth. "It is also a fact that I cannot blame you in the slightest for how you feel-she is a splendid woman, by the Universe. There are times when I think I could even love her myself, were you out of the picture...." He shut his eyes for a moment, then shrugged with his hands turned up at his sides. "That's it, Lieutenant Wilf Ansor Brim-and lover to my wife. It's off my conscience now." He turned to leave, then stopped for a moment to point a finger in the center of Brim's chest. "You may not always think so in the years ahead, but you are a fortunate man indeed."
"And you, Baron," Brim answered quietly, "are a gallant man." No other words seemed appropriate.
Long after LaKarn's limousine departed, Brim stood at the boarding hatch staring sightlessly along the empty road, moved to the very core of his existence. Shortly after takeoff, he withdrew to his cabin and seldom emerged until the rendezvous with Defiant two days later. During that period of nearly total isolation, his rival's hopeless words echoed constantly in his mind: "...I think I could actually love her myself, were you out of the picture...."
Brim's guilt festered rapidly in the loneliness of his tiny cubicle-especially when he came to realize that Margot must often find herself as despondent and lonesome as he did. He remembered the frantic ending to their lovemaking in the back of the limousine-when they were forced to squander their precious moments with the fool Hagbut. And later the few stolen metacylces in her suite when they had to fight back sleep even while they tried to make love. And that was all they had to show for nearly a year of their lives-except for a few-sweet stolen kisses in an empty cloakroom. He shook his head. If it was bad for him, it had to be at least as bad for her. Was that really what he wanted to achieve for this magnificent woman who loved him: a life of embarrassment and frustration? Suddenly he held his ears and shook his head violently. What in the bloody Universe was he trying to do?
Long before the great turning wheels of Defiant's convoy filled the little packet's Hyperscreens, Brim had resolved to remove himself from the love triangle that he knew he had created....
Back aboard Defiant, Brim soon learned that more of Anak's support squadrons had sortied from various starports throughout the League, but his main fleets stubbornly remained in harbor at Tarrott. During the subsequent run to Haelic, it became amply clear that the Leaguers were busy marshaling every warship they could locate for the assault.
Over its entire route, the convoy was troubled by only three attacks, and these were mere tokens of their former ferocity.
Interestingly enough, top secret situation reports posted in the COMM room additionally revealed that no benders had yet been observed in direct attacks against Imperial Fleet units. Yet the Leaguers by now were obviously finished with the bulk of their training operations. So far, five had attacked Prize-and she had methodically destroyed each of them in turn. Change was clearly in the wind, as an earlier generation of Helmsmen once put things. Brim knew in his bones that another phase of his life was rapidly drawing to a close.
Defiant was on final into Atalanta when the crew was informed that the base had been officially placed on ALERT-1 status. After this, circumstances began to evolve with mercuric suddenness. By the time Brim taxied to a gravity pool and secured his console, the ship had been transferred from COMCONVOY to COMFLEETOPS and reassigned to the Task Group/16-Haelic that had been forming in zones H1 and K24-29 for the past two weeks. The move was not surprising. Along with Leaguer attacks, the convoys themselves were also beginning to wind down. Atalanta was now using its hard-won provisions to ready the hosts of Fleet units that had been arriving in a steady stream to swell the ranks of the defenders.
That afternoon, when Brim collected his mail, a note from Claudia explained that she had been summoned to chair a conference in the university city of Pelleas halfway around the planet and would not return for the next two days. "However," she wrote, "I shall need a lift home from the Civilian Terminal, gate 31A, Evening watch plus three. My ticket indicates coach 91. If you find yourself otherwise unoccupied, you can pick up the code key to my skimmer-parked in its usual place at Headquarters-from Rabelais Gastongay in my office.
Don't worry if you can't make it-he will. Claudia."
Brim smiled wryly. He'd make it, all right. By that time, he figured he'd need her company badly. Especially after he accomplished his personal plans for the next Dawn watch....
Early the next morning, with Defiant temporarily laid up for refitting, Brim grimly put his personal resolution into effect. In the Drive Room, he destroyed the few physical mementoes of his relationship with Margot, then carefully wrapped the ring she had given him in her stained handkerchief and mailed it by way of Borodov. Inside the package, he sealed a short note:
Dearest Margot,
Even though it grieves me more than words can express, I must cease my interference with your marriage and the happiness you might otherwise obtain were I absent from your life. I have hopes that, given proper encouragement, Rogan will one day become the loving husband you must have before your life is complete. After much reflection concerning our latest evening together, it is clear to me that my relationship with you has more potential for bringing pain than happiness. And happiness, after all, is what life is all about; I wish you a surfeit of both. Please know that I have loved you truly and well since the day we met.
Maid of Av'lon! I am gone:
Think of me, sweet! when alone.
Though I range the Galaxy,
Av'lon's where my heart shall be:
Can I cease to love thee? No!
Eternally,
Wilf
For the next two days, everyone in Defiant's crew participated in a personal inspection of the Atalanta Fleet Base by Star Admiral Sir Gregor Penda. Fundamentally, this consisted of polishing everything visible inside or outside the ship-including the ship itself-then waiting all day until the Admiral passed their gravity pool at high speed in his limousine. For Brim, it served as a welcome diversion, in a way. Sending the package to Margot was one of the most unpleasant episodes of his life-and he couldn't get her off his mind.
He joined the throng waiting at gate 31A in the Civilian Terminal at plus 2.70 of the Evening watch-a few cycles before Claudia's passenger express thundered up from one of the long-distance runnels, its bullet-shaped traction engine still glowing from the heat of its passage. Turning onto an amber track-tube siding, the serpentine chain of metal cylinders slowed, then floated smoothly to a stop alongside the platform. Brim found coach 91 third from the rear, and made his way through the noisy throng just in time to see Claudia descend the steps. Her face lit up as their eyes met; then she stepped to the platform and was swallowed up in the press of departing passengers.
Brim marveled as he pushed through the crowd. Claudia Valemont was so remarkably beautiful that each time she appeared in his life he had to reaccommodate himself to her loveliness all over again. Moments later, her quick public embrace and kiss left his lips moist with a promise of delights to come. Her sparkling brown eyes also said that she was glad to be with him for all the other considerations that encompassed a true-intimate-friendship.