He thrilled at the soft warmth before she abruptly released him. "The first of those look-but-don't-touch encounters, I suppose?" he said ruefully over the hubbub.
"Neither of us can complain about the touching we got to do this trip," Margot laughed quietly, looking at him from the corner of her eyes. She touched her back and laughed ruefully. "I shall be stiff for weeks."
Then, capriciously, she took his hand again. "Parting is one of the more painful ways we shall perpetually pay for the pleasure of being together," she sighed. "And Queen Elidean departs for Avalon in less than two metacycles. I shall have to be aboard almost immediately. Will you walk with me to the brow, Wilf? It may be a long time before we talk alone again."
The vast battleship looked much like a great humpbacked island as it hovered beside the quay.
Rumbling at idle with the muted thunder of sixteen antigravity generators, Queen Elidean was indeed ready for immediate departure—a chill layer of air hung over the whole pierhead, and the water round about her massive footprint rippled and stirred in swirling patterns of alabaster froth. High overhead on the topmost bridge, Helmsmen could be seen performing last-moment systems checkouts, jabbing here and there at. unseen controls.
Brim and Margot arrived at the 'midships brow after successfully avoiding every shortcut from headquarters either of them could think of. "Onrad's not here," he observed hopefully. "His royal pennant isn't flying from the Queen's KA'PPA yet. You've probably got the best part of a metacycle before they even single up her mooring beams."
Margot laughed quietly. "There's no putting it off any longer, Wilf," she said firmly. "I must board now.
Otherwise, I won't be able to make myself go at all. I don't want to leave you any more than you want to leave me, you know." She bit her lip. "Our early morning kisses must suffice us for a while. Too many people are watching." She held out her hand.
Brim took it in his. "I wish I had any idea when I shall see you again," he said. "Whenever that turns out to be, it will seem as if I have waited a lifetime."
"But at least not forever, Wilf," she said. "And I shall write this time—enough to make up for the months of silence I put you through. We have years of 'skulking' ahead of us. I know that sounds pretty awful, but for me at least, it's a whole lot better than giving up completely. And who knows, someday..."
"I shall gladly skulk until my dying moment, Margot," Brim said, barely holding back emotions that threatened to make a fool of him on the crowded quay. He swallowed hard, then raised her hand to his lips. "'Alas, how soon the cycles are over,/Counted us out to play the lover,"' he quoted, the words rushing to his mind from nowhere.
"Oh, Universe, Wilf," she choked, her eyes brimming, "I can't say good-bye." She fumbled an ornate signet ring from her finger and passed it into his hand. Then without another word, she abruptly thrust herself into the throng filing into the brow.
Brim stood for a long time staring dumbly after her until he realized a number of the Imperial Marine guards were regarding him with ill-concealed suspicion. He shook his head as he turned to leave the boarding area. Onrad had been very right. His choice would be a hard road, indeed.
Toward the end of the afternoon, Gimmas Haefdon was rapidly settling back to its normal mien. Raw, wintery wind gusted remorselessly from the polar regions, blustering along the drab beach and bringing with it sure promise of snow—joined by occasional whiffs of overheated logics from the Theo-21 repair yard across the bay. Outbound along a narrow finger of tumbled rocks that jutted into the tossing gray water, Brim pulled his Fleet Cloak tighter around his neck, turned up the heat, and continued toward a dark, abandoned beacon clinging in rusty desperation to the last vestiges of stained, weather-smoothed rock. Its base was nearly lost in the lashing surf. It could be a wet perch to watch from, he knew, his face breaking into a smile. But be also knew it would be well worth any discomfort.
Behind him, in the waning light, Queen Elidean had been singled up for some time now. Her escort of ten powerful R-class destroyers was already aloft and thundering through the leaden skies as each took up position for the battleship's lift-off. Only cycles earlier, he'd watched them rumble out toward the horizon, turn, and hold for a moment while glittering clouds of ice particles rose like summer storm clouds a thousand irals beyond their sterns. Then, moments later, the reverberating blast of antigravity generators reached his ears as the sleek escorts raced in pairs over the surface of the water and soared effortlessly into a darkening sky.
The Carescrian lowered his head as he picked his way over age-smoothed boulders that formed the last few irals of the ruined pier, eyes squinting from the blowing saltwater that now ran in rivulets from his cloak. His arrival at the beacon coincided with the first snow squall, which passed quickly enough and actually seemed to clear the air as he ascended corroded rungs toward the long-dark beacon. In a few cycles, he was well above the spray and settled onto a wide, rusting girder with a surprisingly dry view of both the quay and the ocean.
He was not a moment too soon. In a matter of ticks, great optical hawsers flashed to the battleship from four waiting deep-space tugs, a final network of mooring beams extinguished, and the great starship began to shrug aside the long gray rollers as she slid majestically toward open ocean—and space. She passed Brim's vantage point only cycles later—her port tugs rumbling by a few hundred irals out on the sound. With a smile, Brim observed the orderly confusion on their bridges, then looked up at the great battleship ghosting through the wintery air like some monstrous sea creature totally unaffected by wind or wave. Even at idle, the beat of her incredible generators shook the old pylon where he sat in a shower of rust flakes. He squinted up at her great casemates—individual disruptors in the main battery were longer and far heavier than the spacegoing scout he'd ridden deep into League territory. Many of the deckhouses were nearly as large as old Truculent herself. Sweeping beacons flashed everywhere; a thousand lighted scuttles gleamed in sweeping parallel rows along her graceful hull. Countless analog machines scurried everywhere along her decks, stowing landside gear before it was forever lost in the takeoff. And somewhere aboard was Margot. He squeezed her ring in his pocket and lifted his head toward the bridge as it moved grandly past. It was too far away to make out more than moving silhouettes—but he could swear one of them waved. He'd shown her where he would be.
Snow began again before the big ship was out into the takeoff zone, but Brim could still see her when she turned parallel to the shore and the mooring hawsers winked out from the space tugs.
Like her escorts, she paused while great clouds of backwash became a whole miniature storm system (complete with flashes of lightning!). Then, unbelievable thunder filled the air—became part of the very Universe—while the great ship gathered herself and began to move over the water once more, her footprint throwing great curving waves to either side until—just abreast of Brim's beacon—she lifted.
Simultaneously, four of her escorts swooped through the cloud cover to take up station on each side and the five powerful warships climbed like a single existence to vanish slowly into the rolling storm. Mighty sounds from the squadron's passing echoed for a long time before they eventually faded into the booming of the ocean's everlasting surf.