Theada grasped Brim's hand. "We made it!" he gasped joyfully. "We actually made it!"
"Yeah," Brim said—himself overcome with a strange sort of relief. He was going to live for at least a few weeks more. It was a strange feeling. He hadn't encountered that kind of confidence since their departure.
Truculent was home.
With little to occupy him at the moment, Brim forsook the noisy throng exiting from the bridge. A traditional homecoming celebration was scheduled shortly for the wardroom, but according to wartime rules crew members joined only after completing a session with someone from a debriefing team—and with his lack of seniority, Brim appeared next to last on the schedule of officers. He looked out through the Hyperscreens at the gray landscape—another of Gimmas Haefdon's long, drab evenings was beginning in a driving snowstorm as the Harbor Master's peculiar vehicle scuttled off down the snow-hazed road. A large group of utility skimmers in various sizes was already parked near the breakwater, and below the bridge he watched a line of figures leaning into the wind-driven blizzard as they trudged across the brow toward the ship. One particularly heavy gust momentarily freed a shock of golden hair from beneath a parka before its owner hurried out of his sight. It made him laugh at himself.
Nearly anything was sufficient to remind him of Margot Effer'wyck these days! He shook his head.
Beyond all reason, and he knew it.
Nearly three metacycles passed before he was finally summoned for his debriefing—in Amherst's cabin, of all places. Somewhere in the Universe there was irony in that, he chuckled as he knocked on the door.
"Come in," a familiar voice called out from the other side.
Brim frowned as he pushed the door open. Where had be heard that? His heart skipped a beat.
"Wilf Brim," Margot exclaimed, brushing a soft blond curl aside. "I have surely saved the best for last."
He stopped short in the doorway when he felt his face flush. His breath had suddenly gone short, his ears burned, and be felt like a foolish schoolboy with his first serious crush. She was even more beautiful than he remembered. The image in her message didn't begin to do her justice at all! "M-Margot," he stammered, then his eyes went to the full lieutenant's insignia on the left shoulder of her cape. "I mean, 'Lieutenant."'
She smiled warmly. "'Margot' is fine, Wilf," she said. "And we shall never get to the wardroom if you don't come in and let me start your debriefing."
Somehow, those words brought him around. "Sorry," he said, regaining at least some of his composure and breaking into his own smile of honest pleasure. He shook his head. "I guess I never expected to see you here," he said.
"Some ships get special treatment, Wilf," she said. "Ones that carry special people."
Brim looked at her hands, smooth and shapely and perfectly manicured, as she set up the keyboard of Amherst's Communicator. He listened to the sounds of the cooling hull, the raucous celebration in the wardroom. "Thank you" was all he could think to say. She was disconcertingly beautiful. Then he lost all track of time while she probed his mind with professionalism and skill that nearly took his breath away.
He was first surprised and then fascinated by her deep understanding of the technology of warfare, and especially starflight mechanics. She posed questions that led to others and to others still—forced him to recall details that he had forgotten as unimportant but which were decidedly the opposite, from her viewpoint.
"The triggering gear you saw in the corvette's central globe, Wilf, was it in the upper firing room only—or was it in both?"
"Both, I think," he answered.
"Then, were they the same?" she asked, blue eyes searching his very soul. "Could both disruptors be operated from the same firing room if the other was shot out?"
He thought for a moment. "Yes," he answered finally, "because the power cables went to both firing rooms."
Every word he uttered seemed to have some value. He had never met anyone like this before—never a woman both so beautiful and so talented all at once. When she finished, he found himself dazed with mental fatigue. They had worked without interruption for nearly three metacycles.
"You have quite a memory, Wilf Brim," she said, fatigue slowing her own voice, "which has provided me a great deal of material for study." She smiled comfortably. "Now I shall claim the further pleasure of sharing some meem from your wardroom. How does that sound?"
"Wonderful," Brim said, looking at her softness. "Just wonderful." Then other words suddenly crept into his mind. He grinned. "' Oh weary lady Geraldine,/I pray you drink this crystal wine,'" he recited, gesturing dramatically.
Margot closed her eyes for a moment and frowned. Then she laughed, a look of pleasure spreading from her lips. She pointed a finger at him. "' It is a wine of virtuous powers;/My mother made it of wild flowers. ' There! Something out of Leoline's 'Silver Lamp,' isn't it? You've yet to stump me, Wilf Brim. Even when you choose some of the very worst poetry in the whole Universe!"
They both laughed at that, then she deactivated Amherst's Communicator and they made their way to the wardroom.
They were late to the party—much of which was by now moved off to other ships and wardrooms across the sprawling base. Truculent's badly depleted meem supplies would be better stocked for the next round of celebrations. The wardroom was still well populated, but the early frenetic energy was now worn into a comfortable hum of conversation, and the musical clink of goblets. Most of the lights were dimmed, and here and there couples shared the privacy of shadowed tables. A gathering of Bears talked quietly at one end of the room; Ursis signaled "hello" from a seat close to a slim female whose eyes never strayed from his face. The air was heavy with the scent of perfume and hogge'poa. Two other female Bears talked animatedly with Borodov while a number of other furry couples toasted in the Sodeskayan manner—goblets raised empty and upside down while they chanted the age-old drinking litany, "To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!"
Margot nodded toward Borodov. "He's everybody's darling," she said with her husky laugh. 'The sly old Bear."
Brim smiled and nodded. "I didn't realize so many of their females had joined the Fleet," he commented.
"More of them arrive from Lo'Sodeskaya all the time," Margot continued as he helped her into a chair at a dark table. "Bears can't get along without them any more than men Can," she laughed softly.
"Professionally, that is."
"The Logish meem you ordered, Lieutenant," Steward Grimsby said, materializing cadaverously from the smoky darkness.
Startled, Brim looked up as the ancient steward placed two goblets before them. "I didn't order..." His eyes met Margot's—they were laughing and sleepy all at the same time.
"It's a fine choice, Wilf," she said as Grimsby half filled her goblet.
"Thank you, Lieutenant, ma'am," Grimsby said to Margot. He poured Brim's with total aplomb. "My compliments, Lieutenant Brim," he said. "I can only agree with Princess Effer'wyck. It is a fine choice.
Saved for a special occasion. Then, quickly as he appeared, he was gone again.
Margot shrugged and raised her goblet. "To you, Wilf," she said, "and to old Truculent here—and to Nergol Triannic's slipping on a ca'omba peel."