Shortly after the change of the last watch, the Great Wardroom began to empty, but Truculent's wake continued unabated. Brim was by now feeling little residual mental pain, but something still bothered him—and it had everything to do with the ship. He tried to concentrate more on the toasts.
"To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!"
"Frozen logs, like Holyeh Grayeb Rocks of Nodd, are truelyeh not stuff of scyience!" This latter nearly brought the Bears from their seats as they doubled up laughing.
"To Truculent! Never forget!"
"To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!"
Brim's mind had begun to drift by now on a pleasant, muzzy lake of meem. Were the Bearish aphorisms actually beginning to make sense? Was that Captain Collingswood entering the Great Wardroom on the arm of a rather ordinary-looking Blue Cape?
Collingswood!
Brim struggled to put himself together as the couple approached. The Captain was now in the lead as they threaded their way among the tables. Her escort wore a triple insignia on his collar. Brim counted its parts carefully. One thick and two thin rhomboids. He counted them again as the two reached their table.
A vice admiral. Somehow, he was not surprised.
"Ah, Captain Collingswood!" Borodov remarked jovially, his speech suddenly without accent. "Our evening will be complete only if you and Sir Pluton will join us for an early morning libation." He bowed.
"May I present two of our most beautiful Sodeskayan intelligence officers, just arrived from the Mother Planets: Spa'rzha Cherdak and Ptitsa Pro'tif."
The two young Bears giggled and curtsied. "You won't have to remember our names if you'll stay," they laughed.
"Please," Ursis said as he rose, his voice also without accent. "We shall consider ourselves doubly honored."
Brim smiled. "Yes, please," he echoed from atop two wobbly legs. He knew he was in no shape to utter anything more complex.
Collingswood turned to the Vice Admiral, who now stood by her side. "I should love to join these people, Erat," she said, looking into his eyes.
"And so should I," the Admiral said. "Spa'rzha, Ptitsa, I am most honored to make your acquaintance."
He chuckled. "We Imperials can use all the intelligence we can locate." He was short and thin with bushy brows, gray hair, and a fleshy nose. He was also clearly involved with Collingswood in a relationship that had little to do with the Root. His deep-set eyes fairly shouted how he felt about her.
"My friends," Borodov said, "we are, this morning, in the company of Vice Admiral Sir Erat Pluton, Commander of the Fourth Battle Squadron." He began to introduce the other members of the party.
"I'm going over here for a moment," Collingswood called to the Admiral. "I should like a few words with Lieutenant Brim while I have the opportunity."
Pluton smiled. "I don't think I shall be jealous," he said to Brim with a wink.
Brim nodded and held up his hands. "N-No contest, Admiral," he said, then moved a chair from a nearby table beside his, holding it for Collingswood while she sat. "Good m-morning, Captain," he said, returning clumsily to his own chair. He was very much aware his words weren't coming out as well as they should. Bears, he concluded with no little envy, had an unbelievable tolerance for meem.
Collingswood smiled. "Relax, Wilf," she said quietly—the others had suddenly been drawn into vigorous conversation with Admiral Pluton. "I have been far more intoxicated than you on occasion—for the very same reasons."
Brim felt his brow knit, but he kept his silence.
"I shan't preach long," she said, pouring herself an admirable dollop of the best Logish meem (a woman with clearly patrician tastes). "I have other matters to occupy mind tonight besides Truculent.
But then, old DD T.83 was not my first ship, as she was yours." She fastened her eyes on his. "It may not help much at the present, but you should know that you did a superb job in that last battle. Remember that. You may have had your first ship blown out from under you, but you accomplished your objective admirably—against astronomical odds." She smiled and raised her eyebrows. "The three-to-one ship ratio you faced was an impossibility in the first place. Add to this the fact that you were also up against one of the League's most promising, most highly decorated, and probably most clever young Fleet commanders. The whole episode says much for your ability—as well as your accomplishments. You did win, you know."
"Except," Brim interrupted; "I th-think Valentin got away in one of the xaxtdamned launches, beggin' the Captain's pardon."
Collingswood laughed. "I thought you'd notice that," she laughed. "I did, too. Truculent's Chairman was broadcasting the whole thing to me real time in Tandor-Ra. The Admiralty would love to believe they're rid of the likes of that hab'thall. But I think not. I talked to Erat about it—he feels the bloody criminal got away, too. Evidently, the League trains its officers to desert if a ship appears doomed. They do it a lot, you know. And I don't think it would have been a good bargain risking all those lives in Flynn's sick bay against the capture of a few worthless Leaguers. Do you?"
Brim bit his lip. "Thanks, Captain," he said. "But a lot of them died anyway. As you well know."
Collingswood reached and took his hand. "Lots of people die in wars," she said quietly. "It seems that's mostly what they're all about." She smiled. "You almost died yourself—on your first mission. A matter of pure chance, I think. You did the best you could—that's all any of us can ask. Living or dead."
Brim could only stare into her brown eyes as she spoke.
"And so far as Truculent herself is concerned... certainly 1 loved her. I've loved all my ships." She looked him in the eye. "But never forget, Wilf Brim, she was only a ship. Hullmetal, rivets, crystals, and a couple of oversized antigravs. No life there. No personality. Only what we lent to her while we were aboard. And we took it with us over the brow when we left—never forget that?" She narrowed her eyes.
"Yes," she ruminated in an uncharacteristically hard tone of voice, "we all feel bad old Truculent's gone to the breakers. But we'll take her personality along with us to Defiant—you, me, Ursis, Flynn, Barbousse, even crazy old Grimsby. And Truculent will never die. Just as they'll salvage her parts, we'll salvage her soul."
Brim shook his head. The talk had finally uncovered his sore spot. "Except I was the one making decisions when they all died, Captain," he said with renewed gloom. He could hear the others at the table discussing comparative Drive systems with great animation. Admiral Pluton was also a person of far-flung knowledge.
"Finally," Collingswood said triumphantly. "I believe we're finally at the heart of the matter."
Brim raised an eyebrow. "The heart, Captain?"
Collingswood smiled. "The heart, Wilf," she repeated. "If you accept command responsibility, you also accept costs. It goes with the territory. In the most crass terms, it has to do with resources and the fact that nothing is free—simple thermodynamics. As a commander, your resources are ships and lives—including your own. You put what you are willing to gamble on the line, then play toward some goal as best you can. At the end, you have either won that goal or lost—always at some cost of your resources. It's as simple as that. If you win, you measure relative success by comparing your actual cost against the value gained."
Brim's mind was beginning to function again a little. "I guess my goal was..."
"Your goal—which you instinctively knew without any orders from me—was to prevent further attack on Tandor-Ra. At least until Penda and the battlecruiscrs arrived." She looked him in the eye. "Did you do that, Wilf Brim?' she asked.