"Do you think it might also be that we share so much in the way of our essentials?" she asked.
"Because we're both from Carescria?" he asked.
"Weel, my good lover," she said, "in its own way, Carescria gave us beginnings that are rather exceptional." She looked him in the eyes. "Have you given any thought to who you are since last we talked on it?"
Brim crossed his legs and sat beside her on the bed, "I was wondering when you'd get to that,"
he said, more seriously than he'd intended.
"Were you noo?" she asked with raised eyebrows. "I knew I maun regret tellin' you wha' I was thinkin' at the time," she said.
"Nothing to regret," Brim said, shaking his head. "It made me give some real consideration to myself."
"About who you are?"
He smiled. "Some," he said. "But more about my being independent—and lonesome."
"They all go hand-in-hand, the way I see them," she said. "Tell me first aboot who you are, then.
I want to know."
"All right," he agreed. "But it isn't going to answer your question—it's only brought about more questions for me."
"And?"
"And crazy—or stupid—as it may sound, I guess since I joined the Fleet, I've gone through life pretty well defining myself as who I'm not."
"Then, who are you not. Wilf Brim?" she asked.
"Well," he said, "first and foremost, I'm not a Carescrian."
"Oh? So you really do deny Carescria, Wilf Brim?" she asked.
"Er, yes..." Brim started, shrugging uncomfortably. "Yes, I do. I certainly brought nothing out of there but the clothes on my back."
"Hmm," she said with a smile. "An' here I thought you learned to fly starships at the asteroid mines luik I did." She giggled for a moment. "I learned a lot mare than that there, too." she added.
This time, it was Brim's turn to grin. "I thought so!" he said, placing his hand gently on her stomach. "I learned a lot about life there, too. But I never knew you could do what you did in gravity."
"Noo you do," she said with a little smile.
"Yeah," he said. "I guess we both took a few things with us when we left home, didn't we?"
"Mair than you luik to admit, Wilf," she said. "An' you just called it 'home'—as you should."
"But I'm an Imperial," he protested.
"Ane way or anither, we're all of us Imperials," she said. "There's a lot good aboot the old Empire, much as we complain. But ask yourself this, Wilf, are you as much an Imperial as your good friend Toby Moulding, for example?"
He had to think about that for a few moments, but at last he nodded. "I think I am," he replied, frowning—the woman might be beautiful, but could ask the damndest questions.
"In truth, you are," she said. Then, opening her legs slightly, she took his hand and placed it on the tangled dampness of her crotch. "But would you say the Emperor thinks so?" she asked.
Somewhat nettled by her implications, Brim withdrew his hand. "I think so," he said. "I'm damned certain Toby Moulding doesn't have two Imperial Comets."
"Hoot, mon," she said, gently touching her fingertips on his forearm, "I'm not talking onythin' like medals an' awards. I'm not even talkin' friendship. Pshaw, Wilf, the whole fleet gossips aboot the friendship that exists between you and the Emperor. It's real."
"Then?..."
"Does the Emperor think o' you as his Imperial friend or his Carescrian friend," she said.
He thought about that, trying to remember how Onrad usually addressed him. "I suppose he still thinks of me as a Carescrian," he admitted, "in spite of everything I do to discourage it."
"What do you mean by 'in spite of'?" she asked.
"Like losing my accent—which was damned hard—and, well, you know, I'm an Imperial. Not a Carescrian. What the xaxt's wrong with me?"
"In my eyes, 'tis that very negation of Carescria you ha' wrong wi' you, Wilf," she said. "Look what havin' somethin' in common did for both o' us when we war' doin' somethin' basic like makin' love.
You're missin' that throughout your life. You're denyin' your home."
"My home's anywhere I happen to be," he said. "Right here, for example."
She looked around the room with mock appreciation. "Nice place you've got, Brim," she said with an outrageous look.
"Thanks," he said, rolling his eyes toward the ceiling.
"It was just a way to make you see that somethin' like what you're tryin' doesn't really work."
"Tell me about 'doesn't work,' " he growled, finally losing his temper completely. "It's all right for you to love Carescria and keep your damned sexy accent and even brag about the place. Xaxt, Baxter Calhoun heads up all of Defense Command, and Starfuries from the new Carescrian plants are what's saving Avalon from the Leaguers. People love Carescrians these days! Why, we're almost as popular as Sodeskayan Bears who have been saving the Empire's bacon for centuries. But when I started out nearly twenty years ago, it was a xaxtdamn different story, let me tell you. You don't have any idea what I went through just to be the first Carescrian graduate from the Helmsman's Academy, I had to put up with Gorksroar from people who still can't fly a starship as well as I did my first day as a cadet."
"An' who do you blame for all this, Wilf Brim?" she asked earnestly. "Tell me?"
"I blame the Xaxtdamn..." He stopped in midsentence, staring her in the face. "Sweet Mother of the Universe," he whispered, as if he couldn't believe his own words, "I blame Carescria." He shook his head again and again and again. "That's what you've been trying to tell me, isn't it?" he said dazedly.
" 'Tis helped make you a lonely man, Wilf Brim," she said, sitting up to take his hands gently in hers. "But, 'tis also like you, for I've ne'er once heard you blame the people who actually made you suffer. You haen't, you know."
Brim shrugged. "No sense blaming them," he said. "They couldn't help how they felt. In those days, that was simply 'the way.' "
" 'Twas probably tha' very attitude tha' gave you power to change as much of the auld system as you did all by yourself," she said. "But now—perhaps 'tis time to change Wilf Brim a bit. Do you suppose you might? I think you'd be much happier."
Brim blinked and looked at the beautiful—wise—woman sitting naked before him on the bed.
"With some help from you, Eve," he said seriously. "I actually think I could."
"Wilf Brim, you'll find me very available," she said. "E'en if I didna' find you a most excellent lover and friend, wi'out the sacrifices you made then, I'd ne'er ha' gotten where I am today."
"That's not true," Brim said, feeling his face begin to flush. "Even without me, the last war killed so many of the aristocrats that they had to recruit from the 'lower classes,' as they used to call us."
"Many still do call us tha'," she laughed. "But 'tis endin', Wilf. I can tell—an' you broke the ice for us all."
"Surely you give friend Calhoun a bit of credit for your rapid commissioning," he said.
"O' course I do," she said. "But I've often heard the Governor tell aboot how you 'took the heat,' e'en for him."
Brim opened his mouth to speak, but she placed a finger on his lips. Lying back on the bed, she drew up her knees and placed his hand between her legs again. "Sh-h-h," she whispered. "Eneugh talk for this time. We've just time for a quick go before we maun catch our shuttles. Can you do it once mair, my most Imperial lover?''
Brim gently bathed his fingers in her warm moistness and almost immediately experienced a familiar sensation in his loins.