From the nearby Fleet base, he guessed. He'd gotten used to audiences; construction seemed to naturally draw people's attention.
"Corner seems perfect, as usual," the Lead Surveyor announced presently, looking up from his instrument. "You can start the next one anytime you want."
Brim nodded and hoisted the beam axe to his shoulder. "Thanks," he acknowledged with a wink. "See you back here in about a metacycle," he said. He had just started to guide the beatron's gravity sled to his next marked corner, across the excavation site, when he thought he heard someone calling his name.
"Wilf! Wilf Brim!"
Startled, he turned and peered up into the crowd. Hardly anyone knew him in Atalanta, except for Claudia Valemont.
He bit his lip. There she was—in a short, yellow pelisse that accentuated her upthrust breasts, tiny waist, and elegant legs. She was waving to him from behind a dusty crystal viewers' railing, a small figure with long brown hair that flowed almost to her waist. For a split click, it was almost as if she were there beside him. A rush of emotions gripped his chest like a great fist.
"Wilf? Is that you?" she called, breaking into a smile. Suddenly angry with himself, he stiffened. He'd been careless. Working this close to the huge Fleet base, he was bound to run into her. Ears burning with shame, he quickly turned away, as if he'd encountered a stranger. Then he hoisted the axe so it hid his face and slinked off across the excavation, tugging the beatron by its cable. That magnificent woman, a prominent civilian manager at the Fleet base, had loved him when he was Principal Helmsman of a light cruiser in the Imperial Fleet. What would she think of him now?
As soon as he reached the site of his next corner, he cranked up the beatron until its shrieking howl insured that he'd hear no more of Claudia's voice. Then he lost himself in the strenuous act of carving rock. He operated the heavy machine without a break, working until he was exhausted. But when he released the trigger, she had gone.
He nearly killed himself to complete the remainder of the foundation by day's end, vowing that he would accept no more assignments this near to the base. So far as he was concerned, Wilf Brim was dead—temporarily, perhaps, but dead all the same. He was determined to avoid everyone from his former life until he'd restored at least some of his lost prestige.
With the final corner inspected and approved, Brim powered off the beatron, coiled its transmission cable, then secured the axe to brackets on the gravity sled and pushed everything to the lorry exit for transportation to his next contract.
He nodded to himself. Contracting for jobs—that was by far the best part of his new existence. He'd never before worked as an independent, without an immediate boss. Now, people sought him out, and he made job arrangements according to his own best advantage, not his employer's. It was a good existence, and with bonuses he actually earned a bit more than he had as a Helmsman.
After a last check of the rented axe and beatron, he pulled on his work shirt, then strode across the dusty excavation toward a personnel gate and the ancient gravcycle he'd purchased earlier that month, it was the first vehicle he'd personally owned in his thirty-eight years, and he found he was quite proud of it—especially the oversized, twin-beam generator that one of its many former owners had installed. He took a deep breath of sea air, anxious to be home. He was bone-tired this afternoon. A shower would feel wonderful.
As he walked, he couldn't drive Claudia's face from his thoughts. Over the years, he'd forgotten how beautiful she really was—a wartime mistake he made nearly every time they were separated a week or more. It seemed that he simply wasn't willing to believe his own memory. He laughed. Someday, he promised himself, once he'd managed to recoup some of his fortune, he was going to get in touch with her again.
He was hardly out of the gate when Claudia appeared from between two equipment buildings, threw her arms around his neck, and planted a long, hard kiss directly on his mouth. "A lot of people have been looking for you, Wilf Brim," she said breathlessly when they both came up for air.
Caught completely by surprise, Brim could only stammer. "I-I d-didn't know anybody would—"
"Gorksroar," she said with a cross look in her brown eyes, then immediately smothered his lips again.
This time, Brim folded her in his arms and kissed back until they were both a little breathless.
When they were finished, she gently pulled away and looked at him for a long time in silence. "Wilf," she whispered at last, a worried look on her face, "why didn't you?..." Then she stopped in midsentence and shook her head. "I already know," she sighed in resignation, "because you're Wilf Brim, that's why."
Presently, she placed her hands on his cheeks, drew him to her lips, and they kissed again for a long time.
"Wilf Brim," she said after a time as she gently extracted herself from his embrace, "I am beginning to have some very familiar stirrings, where I shouldn't."
For a moment, Brim thought he might be having some too. And he'd managed to purge any vestige of those thoughts from his mind since his last night with Margot. Panic beset him for a moment when he began speculating what Claudia would do if she discovered that he couldn't. He shuddered. He'd rather die than have that happen again. He began to recklessly conjure some justification for not going home with her when her words started to penetrate his panic.
"... I'm married now, and I don't think I ought to..."
"You're what?" he interrupted.
"Wilf, listen to me. I really would invite you home so we could talk, but I'm married now. And those few kisses are all I need to know that, well, things clearly haven't changed with the way I feel about you, and..." She shrugged, and raised her hands palms up. "It just wouldn't be fair to him—or you." Then she frowned and looked down at her tiny feet. "—or me," she added in a low voice.
Brim's face burned with embarrassment. He was both relieved and hurt by the news, although he had to admit it to himself that he was a lot more hurt than anything else. Not that he'd ever had her all to himself, or anything even approaching that. She'd maintained her considerable male following throughout their brief relationship, but at least he'd always considered himself one of the special ones. He took a deep breath. "Well, ah, congratulations, Claudia," he said, hoping against hope the only emotion on his face was one of delight. "Do I know him?"
"You met him one night," she said softly. "Remember Nesterio's Racotzian Cabaret?" she asked. "We went there the first evening we spent together—and talked almost the whole night."
Brim nodded. "Of course I remember," he said, harking back to the war years. "It was after a wardroom party aboard a heavy cruiser...." He closed his eyes. "I.F.S. Intransigent," he said, snapping his fingers.
"And it was one of the most unforgettable evenings I have ever spent." It was no exaggeration.
She lowered her eyes and made a peculiar, almost sad, little smile. "Me too," she whispered.
"Your husband," Brim reminded her, "—he was there?"
"Who?" Claudia asked, pulling herself back from somewhere a long distance away.
"The guy you married," Brim prompted gently, taking her hand in spite of himself. "You said I'd met him at Nesterio's."
Claudia gave him a little laugh. "Oh, yes," she answered, allowing her hand to remain for a moment before she withdrew it, "you did. I married Nesterio."
Brim nodded, somehow not surprised. "Quite a guy," he said equivocally. "He saved your life, or something, didn't he? After a raid, I think."
"That's right," Claudia replied, dropping her eyes. "He saved my life...."
And then, suddenly, there was nothing more that seemed safe to talk about.
Following a long, embarrassed interval, Claudia looked into Brim's face again. "I must be going, Wilf,"