"Plead your explanations only when I ask," he sneered. "Lieutenant Theada came to see me straight off—as befits a proper Imperial officer." He swiveled his chair and smoothed his blue-braided breeches where they became close fitting just below the knees. Elegant knee-high boots exuded the soft luxury of expensive ophet leather (which Brim had seen only in pictures). "Colonials always have so much to learn about proper deportment," he sighed, then peered along his nose at Brim. "You Carescrians will probably prove the worst of all."
Brim held his temper—and his tongue. After the Helmsman's Academy, Amherst's manner was all too familiar.
"Well?" the other demanded suddenly. "What have you to say for yourself?"
"I was with the Captain," Brim repeated, "at her request."
"You'll soon learn to be smart with me, Carescrian," Amherst snapped, eyes flashing with quick anger.
"I meant no insult, sir," Brim stated evenly, still under relatively firm control.
Amherst glared coldly. "I shall be the judge of your pitiful insults, Sublieutenant." He joined long fingers at the tips, contemplated the roofed structure they formed while Brim stewed in uncomfortable silence. "I believe I shall do the whole crew a favor," he said presently, looking Brim in the eye for the first time.
'The sooner your kind display your true abilities, the sooner we can replace you with your betters."
Abruptly, he turned to his display. "Imagine," he muttered to no one in particular, "a Carescrian with a cabin of his own!" He shook his head and moved long, pink fingers over the control panel. "We are scheduled out of here the morning after next," he chortled. "And you are now posted as co-Helmsmann for the takeoff. Old Gallsworthy ought to be in a spectacular mood after another two nights' gaming.
He'll make short work of your no-account talent."
Trembling with frustration, Brim remained in the doorway, waiting for whatever might come next. "You may go," Amherst said, turning his back. "You have the remainder of today and tomorrow to enjoy the ship. After that, good riddance, Carescrian. You have no place with a gentleman's organization—in spite of what Lord Beorn's perverted Reform Act might allege."
Brim turned on his heel, and with the last vestiges of his patience eroding like sand on a beach, he stormed off to his cabin.
Long metacycles later—he lost track of time—Brim sat, head in hands, on his bunk, halfway between murderous anger and deep, deep despair. It was cadet school all over again. The few Carescrians who even made it to the Academy had to be better than anyone else just to be accepted as living beings. And the very weapon Imperials always used was a person's own temper. He shook his head, painfully rehearsing his meeting with Amherst for the thousandth time when a mighty pounding rattled the door to his cabin. "Wilf Ansor, my new friend, come! Now is the time for libations in the wardroom, eh?" In all his twenty-eight years, Brim could not remember a more welcome sound.
Now late in the last watch of the day, the wardroom was dim with hogge'poa and crowded by people who had clearly collected from all over the base. Brim picked out uniforms of spaceframe structure masters, logic boffins, and a whole cadre of Imperial officers—many with impressive ranks. Most of the latter were insignia from other ships. And beautiful women! They were all over the room. Some young, some not so young. His eyes had just fallen willing prisoner to an artfully tousled head of golden curls and soft expressive eyes when Ursis returned with two largish goblets of meem—and another Bear in tow.
"Come, Anastas Alexyi," Ursis called to the smaller edition of himself. "Let me present our new Helmsman just reported in. Wilf Ansor, you must meet this glorious engineering officer—and my personal boss, Lieutenant A.A. Borodov!"
Borodov grasped Brim's hand in a firm hirsute paw. "Brim?" he exclaimed. "But I have heard of you—greatest pilot of all Helmsmen in the latest Academy class, is it not so?"
Brim felt his face flush. "I am pleased to meet you, sir," he stammered.
"Ah-ha!" the Bear exclaimed, turning to Ursis triumphantly. "His blush gives him away, would you believe?"
Ursis chortled heartily. "All's dark when snow flies blue, eh?" They both laughed.
"Well, Wilf Ansor," Borodov rumbled on. "Many of us have looked forward to flying with you at the helm. Tonight we shall drink toasts to your Carescrian ore barges." He placed a paw on the chest of Brim's uniform. "I myself started Drive work on those same star beasts, eh? Many years before you were a little cub." He chuckled. "Destroyers ought to prove easy work in comparison, believe me."
He turned suddenly and caught the arm of a dainty lieutenant. "Ah, Anastasia," he said. "You must meet our new Helmsman, Wilf Brim!"
"Beautiful woman here is Anastasia Fourier—weapons officer, Wilf," Ursis added with a wink. "So small for such a large job...."
"Big enough to bruise your shins, you chauvinist Bear," Anastasia said as she bussed his furry cheek.
Her face was almost perfectly moon shaped with wide-set eyes and heavy, pouting lips. She had a high-pitched voice and talked at such a rate that Brim marveled she could make herself understood at all.
Her Fleet Cape revealed just enough in the way of curves to assure Brim that great intrinsic worth lay beneath. Her wink made him believe that much of it might, under proper circumstances, be readily available. "If this is the kind of company you keep, Lieutenant," she squeaked, "I shall have to keep a close eye on you—and the sooner the better." Then, suddenly ma she appeared, she was swept away giggling on the arm of a smiling commander. He wore the insignia—if Brim's eyes didn't lie—of a battlecruiser.
Ursis touched his arm. 'When you stop drooling, friend Brim," he said, "I want you to meet our Dr. Flynn—he keeps us alive and moderately healthy despite all efforts to the contrary." The Medical Officer was short, fair, and balding, with a reddish face and quick smile. His uniform was also—noticeably—standard issue.
"Xerxes 0. Flynn at your service," he said with a wide-eyed leer. "You look terrible."
Brim flinched. "Pardon?"
Flynn shrugged. "I need the practice, Brim," he said with mock seriousness. "These Bears keep the crew so filled with Sodeskayan wood alcohol nothing has a chance to get started." He cocked one eye and stared in the direction of Brim's ear. "You certain you haven't brought some sort of epidemic with you? I mean, Number One is spreading the word you're unsanitary or something!"
When all three howled at this bit of rare humor, Brim's temper threatened to erupt anew. Then suddenly he perceived an important difference. These people were laughing with him. Before he knew it, he was laughing, too—for the first time in years, it seemed—perhaps longer than that.
"And you'd better meet this lovely lass," Flynn panted, grabbing the arm of a plain young woman with her back to Brim. "Sophia, my dear," he said. "I want you to meet Wilf Brim, your new partner in crime."
Ursis grinned. "A lady Helmsman, would you believe?"
Relaxed for the first time since boarding Truculent, Brim turned and extended his hand. "I didn't catch your last name," he said, smiling. Then his heart literally skipped a beat. Sophia was talking to the girl with the tousled hair. He said something inane, took Sophia's proffered hand, and tried not to stare at her friend. When a voice from somewhere pronounced, "Margot Effer'wyck," the rest of the wardroom ceased to exist.
If this tall, ample young woman was not the most beautiful in the Universe, she nonetheless appealed to Brim in a most profoundly fundamental manner. Her eyes flashed nimble intelligence. Her oval face was framed by the loose golden curls which drew his gaze originally, and her skin was almost painfully fair, brushed lightly with pink high in her cheeks. When she smiled, her brow formed the most engaging frown he could imagine. Whatever it was she had, it was sufficient for him.