& Co., had ample jobs, all right—for people with no regard for what they were doing. He ground his teeth at the appalling irony going on before his eyes. In six years of bloody, pitiless warfare, the enormous battlefleets of Nergol Triannic had been unable to achieve what the Imperial Admiralty was doing to itself of its own volition. With a bit of assistance, of course, from Nergol Triannic's Treaty of Garak, as well as patriotic organizations like the Congress for Intragalactic Accord.
Brim shook his head sadly as the unkempt ferry ground alongside the terminal wharf. The Treaty of Garak: CIGAs stalwartly claimed it had ended a war—but had it actually? Were Nergol Triannic's minions really sending ships to the breakers as they claimed? He'd called Leaguers a lot of vile names in his day, but "quitter" wasn't one of them so far as he could remember.
He carefully counted out his fare to the hunchback, then climbed to the grimy surface of the wharf and made his way to the train platform. A lot of other people claimed that the treaty was only a ruse. And if they were correct, then the only benefit would accrue to the League, buying them time to recover from the unsuccessful attack on Atalanta at Hador-Haelic. And while powerful CIGA peacemongers—many within the Admiralty itself—busily demonstrated their willingness to banish war by calling for more cuts in the size of the Imperial Fleet, the League of Dark Stars was probably rebuilding theirs in secret, biding time until they were handed their goal of galactic domination on a silver platter.
After a chilly wait, Brim watched his train snake out of its tunnel like a long segmented needle, then sigh into the station, radiating heat as it slowed to a hover over its single glowing track. A door hissed open and Brim, alone on the dingy platform, stepped inside, taking a cramped seat at the rear of the windowless third-class compartment. He looked at his timepiece and nodded to himself. With a little luck at the Avalon end, he'd be back in his flat just in time for the message Margot promised to send when she returned.
That thought produced visions of loose golden curls framing a glamorous oval face, languid blue eyes, generous lips, and a brow that frowned in the most lovely way possible every time she smiled. Her Serene Majesty, Princess Margot of the Effer'wyck Dominions and Baroness of the Torond was not only Brim's one true love—as well as extravagant lover—she was also intelligent, courageous, and deliciously heretical. At the time she and Brim met aboard I.F.S. Defiant, she specialized in perilous covert missions to League planets that produced some of the war's most valuable intelligence information. However, once Emperor Greyffin IV, her uncle, caught wind of these dangerous activities, he forbade them to continue.
A politically dictated marriage (to Baron Rogan LaKarn, first in succession for the throne of the Torond) was simply too valuable an asset to risk. Temporarily stymied in her efforts at direct action, she continued her military career by directing an important intelligence organization in Avalon, and even found time to secretly participate in the defense of Atalanta, during which she was severely wounded.
Wryly, Brim considered her coming visit. He'd seen so very little of her since his return to Avalon. Not that he could blame her for it. She was, after all, obligated to accompany her husband wherever he went.
And LaKarn was a devoted traveler. Until he was someday crowned Grand Duke—upon the eventual death of his mother—he ostensibly served as Ambassador to the Empire, with residence in Avalon. But the "residence" part was little more than a joke, as was his post at the embassy. Like many other superwealthy young men of the postwar civilization, LaKarn was on a pleasure spree, traveling regularly among the great cities of the galaxy, visiting celebrated spas and casinos, and hobnobbing with other members of a new, fast-moving, freewheeling leisure class.
During the rare times Brim and Margot had been able to steal a moment together, she often decried the meaningless life she was forced to live. But during her long absences, Brim found himself struggling bitterly against resentment for the vast difference between his own deepening poverty and the lavish lifestyle she followed.
Little more than a metacycle later, he was back in Avalon, hurrying through the wintry streets on foot.
With the job market as unpromising as it was, he needed to save every credit, especially if he expected to eat with any regularity. As he crossed over a busy thoroughfare, speeding limousines below reminded him of the days past when he traveled these same boulevards in similar transportation—once in one of the Emperor's own. And even though he'd been poor most of his existence, the taste of the good life he'd received in the Fleet was not easily forgotten, nor relinquished.
A large and colorful holoboard farther along the street touted someone's news service. Brim stopped to look. What caught his eye was a sleek starship in the background of the ad. Lean and powerful-looking, it was one of the three modified attack ships the Imperial Starflight Society planned to enter in the Mitchell Trophy Race, scheduled to take place in less than a year as he remembered. By the Universe, he thought to himself, there was a ship he'd like to fly! He grinned and thought of Pam Hale's words about being "rich and famous." Well, he might be broke and obscure, but he'd once rubbed elbows with a few of the swells that belonged to that exclusive club, although he suspected they'd be ashamed to admit they knew him these days.
He sighed as he made his way up a narrow staircase to his apartment. Cooking odors from neighboring flats reminded him that the last morsel he'd eaten was a cold box lunch provided by the tugboat captain almost a day ago. Tonight, he would skip supper as well. He wanted to toast Margot's visit with good Logish Meem, and that meant he must economize.
He keyed the lock on a peeling, age-stained door, then entered his chilly one-room flat, nearly devoid of furniture, or much of anything else for that matter. As his funds had dwindled, he had sold off most of his meager possessions—even his prized wartime medals and a rare old Sodeskayan blaster—always optimistic that new employment was around the corner. But it never was. So many jobless Helmsmen were idle on the streets of Avalon, and so few ships were still in commission, that only the well connected found jobs; skills were secondary attributes in that cutthroat market. Unfortunately for Brim, "connecting"
with the influence he unquestionably possessed meant accepting help. And that was something quite beyond his experience.
Seating himself on a carton before a battered public correspondence socket, he called up his mail.
Immediately, messages appeared from Nikolai Yanuarievich Ursis and Anastas Alexyi Borodov, wealthy Sodeskayan Bears and comrades from a thousand days of desperate warfare. They were again solicitously offering employment on freighters of G.F.S.S. (Great Federation of Sodeskayan States) registry.
Concluding one more time that the Bears' proposals were made more from compassion than from actual need, he turned them down by return mail, writing of fictitious opportunities that would keep him lucratively busy for a year or more. When he finished, his face burned with embarrassment; he had an almost morbid fear of receiving charity. Carescrians might collectively be the poorest people in the Empire, but they were also proud, and fiercely independent.
Another message was from Lieutenant Commander Regula Collingswood, now married to Erat Plutron, one of the surviving old-line Admirals in the Imperial Fleet. She was also an officer of the Imperial Starflight Society, if he remembered correctly. Her note was one more invitation to Bemus Hall, their ancient manor house near the boreal shore of Lake Mersin. Brim shook his head sadly; Collingswood too was concerned for his situation. With deep appreciation and considerable regret, he sent a polite message of refusal. Facing that magnificent person from his present poverty was simply unthinkable, as was accepting help from flighted A'zurnian embassy officials who, in still another message, were making their regular check of his situation on behalf of a nation whose everlasting gratitude he had earned in a bygone land campaign. He politely refused this as well. If a person couldn't make his own way in the galaxy, then he didn't deserve to live, and that was that.