Brim grinned. "After tonight, it would be difficult for you claim anything like that," he said. "Blushing or otherwise."
She laughed. "We did take care of any lingering doubts, didn't we? But it still proves my point."
"Which is?"
"Well, just about the time you returned from your first mission, he hadn't been by for a couple of months. And..." She shrugged, clearly a little embarrassed by her own words. "You're cute, Wilf. Sexy.
And I was, well, you know...."
"I think I have the picture," Brim said, feeling himself blush, too, in spite of the present circumstances.
"Anyway," Margot went on quickly, "I didn't think I'd have much problem. Girls with legs like these never do. Except..."
"Except?"
"Except you quickly got to mean far too much. I've suspected I love you since we were in the Mermaid Tavern. I'd have gladly shared anywhere with you that night. A broom closet would have been fine. And that's awful."
"I don't understand."
"You're going to have to understand," she said, suddenly serious again. "Because I can't shirk my duty as a princess, Wilf. This thing with Rogan is a lot bigger than anything I am now or ever will be. It won't just go away by itself. In fact," she said seriously, "it may never go away."
"Universe," Brim said, gritting his teeth.
"And how you fit into the scheme of things is something I'm going to have to work out," she said presently. "By myself. I find I can't think very intelligently when you're around like this."
Brim grimaced, guessing what was coming next. "I hope you're not going to ask me to—"
"Yes, I am, Wilf," she interrupted firmly. "Until I come up with some acceptable answers, you've got to stay out of my life. Probably, it'll be harder on me than it is on you. But the politics of this little triangle in which I seem to find myself affects too many people—worlds."
"What if you find I don't fit?" Brim asked. "Do I have any rights? After all, this thing is pretty important to me, too."
Margot smiled sadly. "First, I've got to satisfy my obligations as a princess. Then we can start working out some sort of relationship between ourselves—if, indeed, one can really exist."
Brim closed his eyes and shook his head sadly. "All right, Margot," he said, running his fingers through her golden curls. "After today, I'll wait until you work things out—as long as wish, I suppose. I may not like it much, but I'll do it. 'I wish what you desire—/Our wishes reconciling./Your whims I suit admire,/And wish to keep you smiling."'
She kissed him softly on the lips—he felt the stirring in his loins.
"But today is only today," he reminded her, "and I know I'm going to need you again before I go."
Margot glanced momentarily into his lap—and grinned. "Wanton," she chided in mock reproach. Then she kissed his nose playfully and lay back on the rumpled satin bedclothes, smiling happily. "You've already had so much of me you couldn't finish the last time—but, oh how I want you to try at least once more."
Considerably later, with early morning sunlight filtering in at the sides of the heavy draperies, Brim quietly left the warmth of Margot's bed and dressed himself in his badly wrinkled formal uniform, most of which still littered the floor. He looked down at her as she slept, face framed in yellow ringlets, then gently pulled a sheet over her shoulder. Brushing her cheeks with his lips, he gathered the meem-colored gown from where it lay, placed it neatly over a chair, then silently exited the room, closing the door gently behind him. He stood for a moment in the early morning silence of the ornate hallway—reflecting that he might well have already spent the most beautiful, exciting night he would ever experience in his life. He wondered when—or indeed if—he would ever sample the same pleasures again, then shook his head.
One paid a high price, he observed, when trading the relative simplicity of Carescrian hopelessness for the complex life in which he now found himself embroiled. Those days, he would never have so much as dreamed of a first night with such a woman, much less worry about others that might follow! Then he shrugged. Were it possible to undo everything since his entrance to the Academy, he would change nothing. Margot was clearly worth any effort. But the emotional price of hope was high, indeed.
He was met at the bottom of the lift by the same liveried chauffeur who delivered them to the servants' entrance the night before—this time, the man was dressed in a light gray uniform instead of the distinctive green habit peculiar to the House of Effer. He was tall and powerful looking, with a huge, square chin and piercing gray eyes. "Good morrow, Lieutenant," he said in a rich bass voice.
"Good morrow, Freeman," Brim replied, returning the man's rural Effer'ian greeting in kind.
The chauffeur beamed. "What are your wishes this morning, Lieutenant?" he asked. "I am at your service."
"I'll gladly settle for a ride to the Lordglen House," Brim replied.
"No more than that, Lieutenant? Perhaps we could tidy up your uniform while you breakfast?"
"A ride will be more than sufficient," Brim said.
"You'll have it, then," the man replied with an approving nod. "I shall fetch the skimmer."
Within a metacycle, another limousine—this one unmarked—deposited Brim under the glowing portico of the Lordglen House, and before midday he found himself again at the Quentian Portal of Avalon's Grand Imperial Terminal. As luck would have it, he arrived too late for the Proteus shuttle—by no more than five cycles. The next was scheduled three metacycles hence. He spent more than two of them regaining some of his lost sleep, then started on his way through the terminal toward the shuttle's departure gate.
Shortly after he stepped onto blue Concourse 991, his eyes were drawn to a bright red dress and golden curls below as the walkway moved across orange 55 . Heart racing, he peered over the glowing azure balustrade. It was Margot—no mistaking her ever again. She was arm in arm with a highly decorated commander. No mistaking him, either. Rogan LaKarn. Brim felt his spirits plummet to despair. Gritting his teeth in jealous anger, he stepped back to the center of the moving concourse and continued on without looking back. He bit his lip as his mind's eye peevishly tortured him with imagined scenes in Margot's bedroom—the one he had left no more than a few metacycles before!
Then he snorted in the midst of his hopeless frustration. If nothing else, his recent efforts would certainly serve to dull the edge of LaKarn's bedtime pleasures. He laughed a little to himself about that. It helped some. But not enough.
"'Civilization Lixor,'" Theada read aloud in Truculent's nearly deserted bridge as he stared into a display. "'Number of Planets: twelve (one habitable); Total Population (Census of 51995): 8,206,800; Capitaclass="underline" Tandor-Ra; Monetary Unit: Arbera.'" He slouched in the right-hand Helmsman's station with his feet propped comfortably on the center console perusing The Galactic Almanac (And Handy Encyclopedia) for 51997. "Don't ya just love it?" he asked grumpily, waiting for a test routine to terminate.
"Yeah. I love it," Brim snorted while his own diagnostic routine splashed vibrant colors across the left-hand console before him. He idly brought the same information to a more convenient display and continued to read for himself:
Lixor is the only habitable planet among 12 satellites orbiting Hagath-37 (binary red and green star of eclipsing separation 3.0o) occupying a strategic location in the 91st Province astride three cross-galaxy trade routes (R-99183, C.48-E-7, and 948.RJT) that skirt massive and treacherous asteroid shoals extending for hundreds of c'lenyts in all directions. Twice the size of Proteus, this planet orbits with an Arias-19 type of synchronous rotation that perpetually directs the same hemisphere toward its star. Nearly 100% of the population inhabits this hemisphere, tropical at that portion nearest the light, temperate at the zone of transition ("Lands of Shadows").