In fact, however, Drummond did show up with a black cutaway coat, trousers, and a ruffled shirt, along with two harried tailors. Their task of fitting Brim into clothes cut for someone considerably larger would surely have been easier had they started with a week in which to make their alterations. As it was, the bustling women effected excellent modifications to both the coat and the trousers in miraculously little time. Brim and Moulding arrived at the reception in an embassy limousine only a few cycles after the appointed time.
At night, the grim Chancellery was even more forbidding than in the daylight—an effect heightened by great searchlights that illuminated its vast flanks of black glass. As Drummond carefully threaded his embassy car into the wide driveway, the streets were packed with thousands of curious onlookers who pressed noisily against glowing guide ropes patrolled by legions of gray-uniformed guards carrying blast pikes.
Outside the cavernous portico, a great arc of flags on lofty flagpoles flowed and snapped in the night breeze creating a spectacle of color against the unrelieved blackness of the naked glass walls. Elsewhere, bunting decorated—or did it hide?—every surface from which it could be hung, and the broad Chancellery lawn fairly bristled with formations of battlesuited Legionnaires, their stiff-jointed commanders fiercely holding Leaguer standards: long poles, each topped by a gilded krieges'bat gripping two wreathed daggers in its claws.
"I don't know why they call it the League," Moulding commented quietly, returning the formal salute of at least a hundred Controllers as he alighted from the car. "With all the armed Legionnaires around here, most of those poor chaps on the street must feel like prisoners."
Inside, the Chancellery's cavernous entrance hall had its calculated effect: Brim was duly impressed. Only it reminded him of an overdone trade hall he'd once entered on some cheap little planet determined to impress its neighboring domains at any cost. The Leaguer architects had used polished white granite everywhere, on the walls and the ceiling—even the floor, where most of it was covered by thick, ebony carpeting. Fantastic chandeliers glowed and sparkled form hidden light sources like miniature galaxies.
And above the hubbub, sinuous music from a large orchestra in a free-floating crystal globe interposed itself through an atmosphere that was already tinged with the sick-sweet odor of Time Weed.
Brim and Moulding gave their names to a tall, blond, and blue-eyed protocol officer in a light blue uniform, then joined the long reception line. Out on the main floor, hundreds of uniformed supernumeraries darted among the elegant revelers, carrying trays of drinks and edibles and smiling so zealously that they seemed—at least to Brim—as if they might be candidates for the Gradgroat-Norchelite priesthood. A whole legion of others along the wall, however, stood rock still, their menacing eyes constantly in motion and their hands close to the huge holstered blasters that so cleverly blended into their uniforms.
"I say," Moulding whispered facetiously under his breath, "you don't suppose those bloody blasters are loaded, do you?"
Brim raised his eyebrows. "How could you even suggest such a thing?" he asked. "I thought everybody knew they carry meem in those holsters."
"Probably explodes when you drink it," Moulding grumped.
After nearly a metacycle, they neared the head of the line and Brim got his first good view of Grand Admiral Kabul Anak—the man who had assumed the reins of government in his Emperor's absence.
Much smaller than Brim expected, he had usually been pictured in Imperial propaganda during the war as a huge, menacing giant. In real life, he appeared to be much less frightening—almost mundane. Brim was certain he would have walked past the little man on the street without particularly noticing him. He had long, gray hair to match a short beard and dense sidewhiskers that completely covered his ears. His exquisite Admiral's uniform—with all its decorations, campaign ribbons, and badges of rank—failed to conceal a late-middle-age paunch, and a certain drooping of the shoulders that was clearly the result of grievous war wounds sustained at the decisive Battle of Atalanta. It was said that nearly two-thirds of the man's body had been replaced in a healing machine after his super battleship Rengas had been reduced to tangled wreckage in a ship-to-ship contest with Erat Plutron's dauntless old Queen Elidian.
Nevertheless, although clearly fatigued, he was quite gallantly clasping his guests' hands, exchanging a few words, then smiling as he passed them along, nodding to an aide for the next introduction. It almost seemed as if the man truly wanted to be liked, although Brim had grown far too cyncial about politicians in general to credit that with much thought.
Anak was also amazingly adept at all the handshakes that had developed throughout the domains of the galaxy. He gripped hands, elbows, and forearms; kissed fingers; bowed; and even bussed cheeks. And sometimes when attractive women were involved, he held on to these salutes for an extended time, especially if the salute involved a hug or a facial kiss. Brim smiled as he watched. The old space fox might well have boring moments in his job, but he clearly made the most of good ones when they came along!
He chatted briefly with the handsome A'zurnian couple ahead of the two Imperial Helmsmen, made his little gestures, then nodded to an aide in a snow white uniform trimmed by gold cord.
"Helmsman to the Imperial Starflight Society, Commander Tobias Moulding," echoed straightaway through the hall.
The Admiral's tired face slipped into boredom as he gripped Moulding's hand, and his eyes wandered momentarily onto the reception floor. The two exchanged a few perfunctory words that Brim couldn't hear, then Anak nodded once more to the aide.
"Principal Helmsman to the Imperial Starflight Society, Private Citizen Wilf Ansor Brim!"
Brim stepped before the Leaguer Admiral and extended his hand. For some reason, he felt no nervousness in the presence of this infamous personage and arch enemy of almost everything he held decent. "Your Excellency," he said, as directed by the protocol book he had studied in the afternoon—only he said it in perfect Vertrucht, the native language of the League.
"Ah, you do speak our language, don't you, Brim?" Anak said, smiling slightly and looking intensely into Brim's eyes. "I had almost forgotten." His handshake was cold and dry, but firm. Up close, his countenance regained all the legendary greatness that, over the years, Brim had bestowed on him in his imagination. Kabul Anak seemed every iral an Admiral.
"I learned your language in my youth," Brim answered, "aboard Carescrian ore barges."
"Yes, I know," Anak answered, looking Brim in the face. For a moment, he stood in silence, his blue eyes burning into the Carescrian's very soul. Abruptly, he shook his head. "How you must hate me," he said with an expression of genuine pain.
Brim could hardly credit his ears. "A-admiral?" he stammered in astonishment.
"I am aware," Anak continued quietly, "that during my first raid on Carescria, your young sister was killed. She died in your arms, if I am not mistaken."
Brim stood for a moment in silence, terribly aware that he was delaying a line of influential and important dignitaries, yet unwilling to break the awful conversation. "That is correct, Admiral," he heard himself say.
"Perhaps, then," Anak answered, "you will feel that the score is somewhat evened between us when I tell you that my only son died while attacking an Imperial convoy just prior to the battle for Atalanta." He took a deep breath, as if fighting some deep emotion. "His Gorn-Hoff 380A-8 was destroyed during a stem attack by the light cruiser I.F.S. Defiant," he continued quietly.