Brim got to his feet and shrugged good-naturedly. "Guess I can't help what I am, Commander," he said.
Gallsworthy almost smiled. "I guess you're doing all right, Brim;" he allowed. "But I lie a lot, too. So you'll never be sure."
"I see, sir," Brim mumbled as he fought his own smile to a standstill. Coming from Gallsworthy, those words were high praise indeed.
The man shrugged. "I didn't come here to pass compliments, smart alec," he growled. "Seems I'm doomed to be Collingswood's messenger boy until I actually board the xaxtdamned ship for Avalon." He laughed a little and looked Brim in the eye. "Somehow, for the Captain, I never seem to mind." He frowned. "Don't exactly know why."
Brim kept what he hoped was an impassive face. He could make a good guess why.
"At any rate, Regula's all tied up today with important business—which, by the way, involves you, punk—so she sent me to find you and tell you what she's done before you get the news as an official surprise." He actually did grin at this juncture. "I doubt if you'll have many objections."
By this time, Brim's curiosity was just about to go nonlinear. He nodded and steeled himself. One couldn't hurry Gallsworthy. The man simply had a hard time with words.
"Tomorrow," he continued at length, "after the ceremonies, you'll receive orders for your next ship.
She's I.F.S. Defiant, a brand-new light cruiser fitting out right now at Eleandor Bestienne." He stopped for a moment and frowned. "It's where old Truculent was launched,"' he said in an almost choked voice.
"Xaxtdamned rustbucket anyway. Always needed trim on the starboard helm."
Brim laughed to himself. Perhaps he wasn't the only one who ever loved a starship.
"Defiant's first in a new subclass of very light, high-speed cruisers," Gallsworthy continued after a moment. "Something else indeed. More'n half again the length of old Truculent here, nearly triple the crew—with the same top speed. Serious xaxtdamned warships. Built on the same principle as battlecruisers, only a lot smaller—they'll use 'em for leading convoy defenses. Typical combat group has three of 'em with four or five destroyers. Damned near maneuverable as those Leaguer NF-110s you went up against, but armed with nine big 152s and a whole raft of smaller stuff. And they've got propulsion that'll knock Ursis' eyes out."
"Nik, sir?" Brim interrupted in spite of himself. "He's assigned, too?"
"Yeah," Gallsworthy said. "Collingswood's asked for him, too. Old Borodov's heading for the Admiralty like me."
"Captain Collingswood? She's commanding Defiant?"
"Of course, Collingswood's commanding. Who else would bid for the likes of you two on her crew?
Especially in senior positions.
Brim shook his head. "In what positions, Commander?" he asked dizzily.
"Senior," Gallsworthy reiterated. "I don't know why, either. She must see something in you two young pups I've never seen. Xaxt, she's busy right now pulling the right strings to set that up. It's why she's not here telling you this herself."
"Universe..."
"Yeah. My words exactly."
"Who else is coming over to the new ship from Truculent?" Brim asked.
"Not many," Gallsworthy answered. "Course, there aren't a lot of you alive after that last action, either.
Aside from ol' Grimsby, Flynn and Barbousse are the only others I know of." He frowned. "Actually, I think Regula said she was bringing Barbousse along to keep you and that damned fancy Bear friend of yours out of trouble." He chuckled. "Barbousse. Now there's a real Blue Cape, by Voot."
"Yes, sir," Brim said. He had no arguments about that....
Only cycles following Gallsworthy's departure, Brim met the salvage crew on Truculent's starboard deck just inboard of the brow (as required by some ancient and obscure Fleet protocol), then placed his mark with a logic scriber in the prescribed half dozen places on a tabulator board. "For the Captain."
Then he was through. After that, he picked his way quickly over the brow and around the gravity pool to the shed with the metal roof.
Waiting for the TRANSpool skimmer to arrive, Brim found he could not bring himself to look back at the ship. It was as if he had just deserted a longtime friend in the middle of adversity—something Carescrians simply did not do. Mutual assistance was fundamental to survival itself in the grinding poverty of that far-off mining district, and Brim's sense of guilt in breaking this basic life tenet was almost overwhelming. He stood with his back to the littered gravity pool and stared out into the darkness, trying to concentrate on the future—not the past. Somehow, he wasn't very successful at all.
He traveled all the way back to the officers' quarters in near silence, then made his way directly to the Great Central Wardroom in the main building. He determined he would need am awful lot of meem to wipe the last few metacycles from his memory. An early start was not only advisable, it appeared to be a necessity.
He quickly found his need for drowning memories was not in the slightest unique. Ursis and Borodov had preceded him to the darkened, music-filled Great Wardroom by at least a metacycle. They were already well into a workable cure, each puffing his inevitable Zempa pipe and helping fill the room with the rich odor of bogge'poa.
"Aha, friend Wilf Ansorevich," Borodov slurred in a melancholy voice, raising his empty glass upside down. "At least you have finished with thankless task." As always, two young and (Brim assumed) attractive females fawned at either side of the elderly Bear. Somewhat less than soberly, they also raised their empty glasses to the Carescrian.
"Come, tonight we will drink manyeh, manyeh toasts to old Truculent, eh?" Ursis said, stumbling to his feet, "Devil take damned Valentin! Voof!" He handed Brim a large, ornate goblet and indicated an enormous collection of Logish and Sodeskayan meem bottles on an adjacent table—most of which were still relatively full.
As evening progressed into night, these vessels were duly emptied—and just as duly replaced by the quiet, efficient staff of the Great Wardroom. Brim's melancholy eventually gave way to fuzziness during endless Sodeskayan aphorisms and declamations on the memory of DD T.83. Each was punctuated by a toast in the Sodeskayan manner by first draining a freshly filled goblet, then reverently reciting the age-old Sodeskayan litany, "To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!"
"Bears can always dance with little storm maidens, but who can escape the wolf's golden fangs?"
Borodov growled. "Voot take it!"
"To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!"
"Is no great triumph watchink mountain winds freeze lakes," one of the females said as she rose unsteadily to her feet and smoothed her skirt. "Except those havink much to do wyith zest of life." The Bears nodded their heads wisely as she sat.
"Yes. Is fact!"
"She speaks truth in that."
"Yes....To the zest of life, and to Truculent! Mayeh her atoms continue aboard other heroic ships—in tradyition set byeh original crew!"
"To Truculent. Mayeb this salvage brink disaster to Nergol Triannic!"
"To Truculent. Long mayeh her atoms sail the stars!"
"To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!"
"Conflict loves the great warmink breasts of the Mother Planets," Ursis slurred emotionally.
"True," Brim said absently from his chair as he mopped spilled meem from the leg of his trousers.
"Yes...yes...conflict," the Bears shouted.
"To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!"
"To the atoms of old Truculent! Mayeh theyeh sail the stars forever!"