1. PRINCE ONRAD HIMSELF DIRECTS ME TO SEND THIS WARNING.
2. PUVIS AMHERST AND HIS CIGAS HAVE TODAY (MY TIME) FAILED IN ATTEMPT TO
REVOKE YOUR COMMISSIONS ALONG WITH OTHER OFFICERS (INCLUDING
GENERAL HARRY DRUMMOND) ASSOCIATED WITH THE ISS; GREYFFIN IV
PERSONALLY RESCINDED THESE ORDERS.
3. APPARENT CIGA MOTIVE: TERMINATE DEVELOPMENT OF SHERRINGTON M-6
FOLLOW ON. ALL FLEET FUNDS EARMARKED FOR ISS USE DISCONTINUED AS OF
YESTERDAY. SODESKAYAN INTELLIGENCE CONFIRMS CIGA IS UNDER DIRECT
CONTROL OF LEAGUE (METHOD: BLACKMAIL—MANY IMPERIAL FORTUNES MADE
DURING WAR BY PASSING SECRETS TO THE LEAGUE.)
4. YOU BOTH SHOULD EXPECT REASSIGNMENT ORDERS TOMORROW (YOUR TIME).
CIGA WANTS ISS TEAM BROKEN UP PERMANENTLY. YOUR FIRST DESTINATION: AVALON; AFTERWARD, UNIVERSE KNOWS WHERE.
5. DO NOT, REPEAT, DO NOT DISPUTE THESE NEW ORDERS. ONRAD WILL INTERCEDE
BEFORE YOU MUST DEPART AVALON.
6. MAY STARS LIGHT ALL THY PATHS.
REGULA COLLINGSWOOD
[END TOP-SECRET EYES-ONLY PERSONAL COMCOMM]
ADMIRALTYCOMCOMM SENDS
UN2378523ZXCN
He read the note twice more, then touched his thumb to the top right-hand corner of the form and the message evaporated into thin air as if it had never existed. Precisely two clicks later, so did the envelope—at almost the same instant Toby Moulding appeared in the doorway.
"I say," he started, "those chaps play a rough game, don't they?" Always the aristocrat, he wore high, black riding boots, ivory trousers, and a soft, blue coat with a white scarf tied loosely at his throat.
Brim nodded grimly. "The only rougher game is played by Leaguers."
Moulding shrugged. "From what Regula sent, I gather there isn't much difference."
"In a lot of ways, I'd rather deal with the Leaguers," Brim growled. "They're predictable. You can't tell what traitors are going to do from one moment to the next."
"Right ho," Moulding agreed, pacing back and forth in the tiny space in front of the Carescrian's workstation.
Brim shook his head angrily. "What really gets to me, though, isn't so much people like Amherst turning traitors—every civilization has a component of people like that. It's the rest of the Empire that wipes me out. How in the name of Voot can they fall for pro-League stuff so soon after they nearly lost a war to the same people? Why is it that all of a sudden they trust the Leaguers more than the Blue Capes who were only yesterday saving their silly asses from destruction? Can they forget so quickly?"
Moulding put a hand on Brim's arm. "I think you've got that answer in your own experience," he said.
"I assume you mean what happened to me after the war," Brim said with a frown.
"Not a very pleasant subject," Moulding conceded, "but it does fit, doesn't it? I don't think that people forgot so much as they changed the way they remembered. The war was so terrible to them that anything that could stop it—give them a respite, no matter how short-term—seemed beneficial. Even though common logic said that eventually they would have to pay for it with more of the same."
"But, Toby," Brim protested, "neither of us supports the bastards, and we were in the thick of things. In fact, from what I've seen, the CIGAs main support comes pretty much from people who weren't involved at all—except when the cities themselves were attacked. What in Voot's name do they know about war, anyway? Most of them haven't even seen a Leaguer."
"Ignorance is the word I suspect you are looking for," Moulding reminded him, "—and those largely ignorant people are a majority of the population, aren't they?"
"Yeah," Brim agreed. "I suppose there weren't that many of us out there actually fighting the Leaguers."
"Tells you something, doesn't it?" Moulding answered suggestively.
Their orders—arriving promptly in midafternoon, as predicted—gave them only two days to arrange their affairs for a permanent change of station. Brim had little in the way of belongings. After packing a few belongings and storing his gravcycle in a shed behind Nesterio's Racotzian Cabaret, he messaged Anna Romanoff about the new turn of events and was essentially ready for travel. Moulding, on the other hand, boarded the biweekly mail packet to Avalon with less than a metacycle to spare. Arranging for half a lifetime's possessions would have been difficult had he been given a month or more.
Brim and Moulding arrived in Avalon only a few metacycles after the first communiques announcing that Nergol Triannic had returned to Tarrott and resumed the reins of government, wearing a Controller's uniform. At a single blow, he had abrogated the Treaty of Garak and set up the Congress of Intragalactic Accord as his de facto persona among the other dominions of the galaxy, although embassies and consulates would continue to serve in their historic capacities as "official" League interfaces. Triannic's move was the talk of the city, where it was widely predicted—among people Puvis Amherst had referred to as "obsolete refuse"—that the domains of Fluvanna and Beta Jagow were now living on borrowed time.
The two Blue Capes had no sooner checked into Visiting Officers' Quarters near Avalon's Grand Imperial Terminal than they were ordered directly to the Admiralty, ostensibly for new documents from the Central Directorate for Personnel. At that office, however, they were then directed to the Assignments Office where—after a wait of nearly three metacycles—a senior clerk handed them "Permanent Change of Station" orders.
Outside in the hall, Brim winced as he read his set of flimsy plastic sheets. Instantly, he had become Assistant Stores Officer in a deactivated complex on cold Gimmas-Haefdon, a once-strategic Fleet base that had been largely forgotten in the wake of the Admiralty's present policy of decline. He looked over at Moulding and shook his head. "I'm certainly counting on Onrad to kill these orders," he said.
"What exotic location did you draw?" Moulding asked, looking up from his own set of plastics.
"Gimmas," Brim answered. "I understand it's gotten so cold on that planet now that even Sodeskayan Bears refuse to serve there anymore."
Moulding shook his head. "If it's any comfort, old chap," he said, handing Brim his orders, "at least you won't have to worry about poison fluggo darts in the back."
Brim ground his teeth as he read. "Chargé d'Affaires in Hobro!" he exclaimed. "What else did you do that I don't know about? Were you fooling around with the Empress or something?"
"Not that I know of," Moulding answered with a grim chuckle. "She is a bit on the chubby side for me, after all."
As he spoke, the clerk rushed out of the Assignments Office waving a sheath of plastic sheets.
"Commander Brim," he called peevishly. "Commander Brim!" He now wore a large CIGA badge on the lapel of his pastel jumpsuit—it had not been there a few moments previously.
Brim nodded. "Over here," he said.
"You didn't give me time to finish, Commander," the man said. He made the words an accusation. "I have a personal summons for you from Commodore Amherst."
"Amherst's a Commodore now?" Brim chuckled, glancing at Moulding. "All right," he agreed, "I'll see him. Where is he?"
"You mean you don't know he's moved to the new CIGA suite?" the clerk asked with raised eyebrows.
"Where have you been, man?"
"Out of town," Brim snapped. "Now tell me where he is—and be quick about it!"
"Well!" the clerk sniffed in a resentful tone of voice. He pursed his lips. "The CIGA Office is now just off the Great Foyer."
Brim turned to Moulding. "This may take a little time, Toby," he said. "How about if I meet you back at the VOQ? I'll ring you soon as I get back."
"Sounds like a plan, friend," Moulding said. "I wouldn't miss being the first to hear what's up in the CIGA."