Brim held his tongue. There was nothing more he could say.
After a few moments in thought, Hagbut shrugged to himself and looked Brim directly in the eye.
"YOUR XAXTDAMNED FLEET STINKS, Brim," he said with his upper lip raised. "You can't help it—and neither can I. BUT IT DOES. Luckily, your uselessness probably won't mean a thing to me this time anyway. Since the A'zurnian underground staged their big show in Klaa'Shee a couple of days ago, those rotten Leaguers hardly have anybody left in the area at all—much less tanks to fight the cannon you're here to drive. All you've got to do is follow along and keep your head down when there's fighting to be done." He drummed his fingers on the altar. "For you, the mission ought to be easy as falling off a cliff. You follow us to the research center in your cannon, wait out of the way while we free the hostages they've got penned up beside the main laboratory, then you call in your destroyers to blow the whole thing up once we're on our way back." He shook his head in disgust. "Do you think you can handle that much?"
"I shall certainly try," Brim answered.
"Well," Hagbut said bleakly, "at least you seem willing. It's I better than nothing, I suppose. BUT NOT MUCH." He gazed balefully across the altar, lost for a time in some inner thought. "Probably," he continued presently, "the worst part of the trip will come when we get to the hostages themselves."
"I understand they've been pretty roughly treated."
"An understatement," Hagbut said with a grimace. 'Those Controllers they use as guards aren't very nice people at all even dislike coming up against them in combat," he said. "Hard to go about the job professionally—without emotion, you know."
Brim felt his eyebrow raise. "Sir?"
"We Army officers usually go out to fight our opposite numbers in the League," Hagbut answered,
"like the guards they'll have at the outer gates to the whole compound. No emotion there. It's simply professional against professional; somebody wins and somebody loses. But what kind of person do you think they have guarding the inner gates to the hostage compound? Army types? Not on your life. They'll have Controllers. Bloody black-suited Controllers. And when I come up against them, then the fighting gets bitter. Because those scum of the Universe deserve anything we do to them." Suddenly he stopped, looked at his shaking hand, and thrust his jaw in the air. "I don't know why I feel constrained to tell all this to you, Brim," he said. "This interview is at an end." He raised a pontifical finger. "As for your cannon, I shall direct you PERSONALLY as to where and when I want them fired. It will save you from overtaxing what little of your gray matter remains operable in your head after a tour in the Fleet Academy." He looked down his nose. "Do you have any questions, Lieutenant?"
Brim stifled an urge to laugh in the man's face and nodded instead. "I do have one question, Colonel," he said.
"Well? Be quick about it."
"Who else do you have scheduled to crew those eight fieldpieces, Colonel?" he asked. "They sent only two of us down from Prosperous."
Hagbut laughed triumphantly. "I have ALREADY seen to that, Lieutenant," he boomed. "More than one metacycle ago, I deposited EIGHT of your ordnance ratings with the disruptors to help do that." He spat again. "And since I KNEW they'd be worthless as any other Fleet type on land, I gave you fourteen equally worthless extras to assist." He frowned. "Those last are a BATTLE COMM group—all women, but they're at least warm bodies, I think." He guffawed without humor. "NOW GET MOVING. You've less than five metacycles to get that blasted machinery into some sort of useful operation." He turned back to the desk in a clear gesture of dismissal.
Brim saluted uselessly, then trudged back down the staircase to where Barbousse waited, a black look on his brow.
"Cod'dlinger," the big rating glowered in a low voice. "If you please, sir."
"I xaxtdamn well please," Brim grumped. "Come on. Let's see if we can find someone who knows where those mobile disruptors are. Maybe we can use one to run the bastard over once he's in the field accidentally, of course."
"Of course, sir," Barbousse chuckled darkly. "Accidentally, by all means."
Barbousse worked his magic rapidly in the old temple and within a few cycles, he both discovered the location of the mobile disruptors and lined up another ride. Presently, the two Truculents found themselves deposited in a large urban park bordering dense groves of tall, gnarled trees. Nearby, the mobile disruptors sat disconsolately on their warty rounded bottoms, leaning drunkenly at odd angles like toys discarded by some titanic child. A row of twenty-two Blue Capes dangled their legs from one of the hulls, kicking their heels against the giant cooling fins beneath, and talking excitedly.
Brim glanced at a flight of starships traveling so high he couldn't even make out what kind they were—but he could hear them. He suddenly felt homesick for Truculent. Truth to tell, he felt more than a little out of place here on the land—inadequate was more to the point. Then he laughed to himself. Fat lot he could do to change things anyway! He braced his shoulders and strode across the field. Might as well look confident, he thought, even though he didn't feel that way.
As he approached the fieldpieces, two of the ratings jumped I from their perches and ran to meet him, saluting smartly.
"Leading Starman Fragonard here, Lieutenant," one announced importantly. "In charge of your ordnance men." He was short and rawboned, his hair was gray, and he seemed to be in motion standing still. His constantly darting green eyes were those of a master thief or a master gunner. Right from the beginning, Brim suspected he was both. On his uniform, a number of gold and crimson ribbons presaged excellence in his specialty of Ordnance. Too bad nobody gave awards for mischief, Brim thought with a stifled smile. At least none were approved for wearing on a Fleet Cape!
Brim returned their salutes, then nodded toward the second with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeoman of Signals Fronze reporting, Lieutenant," the other said; she was a squat, heavyset woman with broad shoulders and neutral hair. Her flat, amorphous countenance served merely to highlight a coarse, open-pored complexion. Only flashing eyes and a winning smile saved her from total, unmitigated plainness. She was neither young nor old, but her large hands suggested long periods of manual toil long ago in another life. Both she and Fragonard would have been nearly invisible on a crowded metropolitan street in Avalon, but where Fragonard might well have made a diligent effort to achieve such an effect, for Fronze it would have been automatic. She indicated thirteen women of various sizes wit jumped to the ground and saluted raggedly. "Two mobile KA'PPA beacons and the best BATTLE COMM in the Fleet," she added with a toothy grin.
Brim smiled back as his heart sank. BATFLE COMM people to drive League tank destroyers.
Wonderful! He supposed somewhere nearby a squad of qualified drivers were probably attempting to fathom the arcane operation of a KA'PPA beacon. "Ordnance and Communications," he said lamely.
"Well, I'm, ah, certainly glad to have you, ah, aboard. I don't suppose anyone knows anything about starting one of these mechanical marvels, does he or she?"
"Us?" Fragonard asked incredulously, holding a slender (and reasonably clean) hand to his chest.
"Lieutenant," he said, "we only fire the disruptors, we don't do nothin like drivin'." He stopped suddenly as the rumble of heavy artillery intruded from a distance.
Barbousse stepped quietly to the side of the rawboned little man and plucked him from his feet by the scruff of the collar, smiling pleasantly all the while. "You," he said gently over the far-off booming, "are, of course, volunteering yourself and all of your men for whatever duties the Lieutenant suggests. Is that correct, Starman Fragonard?"