He shook his head sadly. "Probably," he said, watching the little starship merge with the evening stars, "it doesn't matter anymore."
Less than a metacycle later, Groener's Gantheisser disintegrated in a terrific explosion. Brim learned of it on his way to the gravity pool. At first, he couldn't believe it. But as his van pulled to a stop, he knew that the League's greed was to blame for the loss of such a good pilot. Above him, the floodlit M-6 loomed gracefully in the bluish green glow of stationary generators. "They'll pay for this, Inge...." Then he pulled himself together. He had a race to win.
CHAPTER 9
Dityasburg
Settling himself in the single Helmsman's seat, Brim opened his helmet and slid the port Hyperscreen aside. A lamp winked from the side of the instrument panel while traces of fresh night breeze swirled into the flight bridge, mixing with odors of hot metal, ozone, and fresh sealant that seemed to permeate every racing machine he'd ever known.
Outside, the last glow of twilight had gone from the nightward horizon, but Karlsson lamps maintained the glare of high noon on the apron. Only essential technicians and a few special guests like Bosporus Gallsworthy and His Majesty Prince Onrad (wearing white coveralls!) remained in the area. It would soon become a very noisy place indeed, as well as dangerous. Brim slid a gloved hand to the COMM panel, bringing its little Universe of winking lights to life with a touch of a finger, then he scanned through crackling channels of electronic blather, setting up links to the tower, the flight controller, the race coordinators, and—by KA'PPA COMM—to a half dozen Imperial starships patrolling the racecourse.
The latter had been quietly placed along the racecourse at Onrad's insistence after Brim's encounter with the media yacht.
In quick succession, he touched the console in three locations. Position lamps glowed at the tips of the two gravity pontoons—green to starboard, red to port, following some ancient tradition long vanished into the mists of history. Then a strobe exploded from below as the ventral clearance light came to life.
Finally, whirling beams from an overhead beacon turned the Hyperscreen frames alternating shades of amber, then blue, in time to the gentle whine of a gravitronic phase shifter mounted in his right-hand console.
Glancing momentarily toward Ursis seated below at a console on the rim of the gravity pad, he touched an amber glow on the damper quadrant at his left hand. Six indicators changed from yellow to green and static crackled briefly in his helmet while a flow of plasma enabled the six critical logic circuits of the power system. He scanned the center console again. Colors flowed in orderly codes across the readouts.
"Gravs to the power mains, Nik," he announced.
"Connected," Ursis replied. Once again, he was magnificently outfitted in the uniform of a Home Guard Colonel.
Nodding to himself, Brim simultaneously touched glimmering blue circles at either side of the console. A heartbeat later, twin thumps beneath the deck seconded a cascade of information on the power panel.
"Looks good," he reported. "Three nine five T-units."
"Three nine five," Ursis announced with a chuckle. "That ought to keep you out of trouble for a while."
"Check," Brim laughed, setting the gravity brakes. He glanced out the Hyperscreens and waved to Moulding who had seated himself atop Ursis's console, drumming his heels idly against the back cover.
"Brakes set. Everybody off the pontoons?"
"Pontoons are clear," Ursis said after a pause. "Both Toby and I have checked them with our own eyes."
"Energizing starboard," Brim said, selecting starboard and reaching for the bright sapphire circle marked start. At his touch, the circle changed to red, then strobed in tempo with the interrupter on the starboard outrigger as its gravity generator spun up with a metallic whine. Guided by instinct born of a thousand-odd practice sessions, Brim moved the plasma boost to on and the feed selector to both.
Straightaway, fifty-four hundred standard thrust units thundered into boisterous reality, while ice blue tongues of free ions shot back fifty irals from the open wastegates. The atmosphere glowed with eerie luminescence before the big generator settled to a smooth rumble and green lights on the grav panel indicated steady-state operation. Less than three cycles afterward, the port generator added its deep-throated voice to the rolling thunder while tremendous magnitudes of energy surged through the complex power network, totally under control and perfectly suited to the system's requirements.
Brim was now in the mood to fly. He'd always loved the sound of big spaceborne gravs, even when he was too young to know what they were. With a silly grin on his face, he checked his readouts, reveling in the mighty duet of power on either side of the bridge. "I've got a good start, Nik," he reported.
"So you do," Ursis growled as he peered into his consoles. He was now wearing a huge pair of sound dampers over his furry ears, and Moulding had shut his helmet. Everyone remaining in the area seemed to have retreated to a safe distance except for Onrad and Gallsworthy; they had also donned ear protection and were grinning up at Brim like excited children.
In the corner of his eye, Brim saw three Imperial flags shoot to the tops of the flagpoles—it was time to go racing. He checked for Romanoff's gold earrings (that she'd given him for good luck) and touched the landing light switches. Instantly, three brilliant beams of light materialized from beneath the fuselage—clearly visible, even in the glare of the Karlsson lamps. "I'll be back in about a metacycle," he called to Ursis. "I'm going out to fetch us a trophy."
"Seems like a sensible thing to do," Ursis answered, peering up from his console. "We won't start the victory party without you."
Brim queasily switched to internal gravity, choked back his gorge, then flashed a thumbs-up through the Hyperscreens while he turned the COMM unit to ground control. "Alcott Ground," he announced,
"Imperial M-six Alpha requests taxi to drive area."
"Imperial M-six Alpha, Alcott Ground clears for taxi to arming zone one."
"M-six Alpha," Brim acknowledged, waving at the ground crew to cast off his mooring beams. When all six optical cleats were safely retracted into the hull, he delicately maneuvered the M-6 off its gravity pool and firmly applied the brakes. They worked. Next, he taxied across to the Drive-arming area where he eased his ship onto the nearest of three lenslike N-ray emitters and drew the thrust damper back to idle.
Immediately, he was surrounded by a squad of Bears in bright green Krasni-Peych radiation-proof battle suits with huge protective mittens and metallic palm insets.
Brim placed his hands against the Hyperscreens where they could be seen. This signaled the crew that they could now work without fear of "cockpit error" while they accomplished their hazardous task.
Immediately, the Sodeskayans set to work, nipping in and out of the glaring landing lights as they swarmed around the ship's belly. Carefully avoiding the deadly gravitron exhaust plumes, they had all five access panels open within moments, and soon the Drive panel begin to glimmer into life, with new color patterns bursting into cascades of information as each new module was energized in its turn. While they worked, he studied the distant grandstands, thinking of the delicate woman there who was just as surely seeking a glimpse of him at the same time. He watched Imperial flags dancing on the HyperDrome flagpoles. When he and Moulding had finished their night's work, the Imperial banner would still wave from the tallest of the three—and very probably the next-tallest as well. Valerian's M-6s were clearly in a class by themselves. Everyone who saw them, even the Leaguers, agreed that they were easily the most graceful starships ever constructed. Now, he was about to demonstrate to the galaxy that they were every bit as functional as they were beautiful, and perhaps a little more.