"Anything else, boy?" Brim asked the clerk.
"Not from me, Commander," the man simpered. "But your time is definitely coming. Count on it." He turned on his heel and strutted back into the office without another word.
"Somehow," Moulding said ruefully, "I think we've lost control of our Fleet."
"Whatever gave you an idea like that?" Brim asked sarcastically. With that, they started along the hall toward the Great Foyer.
Brim cooled his heels nearly two full metacycles in the ornate CIGA sitting room. Much of that time, he suspected Amherst was alone in his office—if indeed the zukeed hadn't stepped outside for a long stroll.
While he waited, he attempted to occupy his mind by scanning CIGA publications on expensive-looking displays the organization had placed throughout the large room, but found he had little stomach for literature that advocated further destruction of the Imperial Fleet. The ones that really raised his temperature, though, were travel presentations for the League. Smiling Controllers in the midst of singing children were just a little too much for his stomach.
At length, a squat, brutish woman with a noticeable moustache swaggered into view. She was clad in a flowered dress that added at least a hundredweight to her already massive frame. "Commander Brim?" she demanded, as if it were an accusation.
"That's probably me," Brim said evenly. Except for the woman herself, he was alone in the waiting room.
"This way," she said, jerking her thumb as if she were directing a prisoner. She looked for all the world like a Controller he'd once seen.
Brim waited until she had opened the office door, then strode directly into Amherst's lavishly decorated room before she could formally announce him.
Dressed in a magnificently tailored Imperial Fleet uniform, the Commodore was seated behind a huge, ornate desk. Matching guest chairs were conspicuously lined up along the wall beside the desk, although carpeting directly in front still bore the imprint of their feet. "You Carescrians never did have any sense of manners," he whined, dismissing the woman with a curt motion of his hand.
Retrieving one of the chairs, Brim thumped it down facing away from the desk, straddled its ornate back, and settled into the seat backward. "All right, Amherst," he said, "make it quick."
" Commodore Amherst, you mean."
"Listen, zukeed," Brim growled, "so far as I'm concerned, you don't even deserve the title of citizen. In public, maybe I'll call you Commodore because the Service Manual calls for it, but in private, you get nothing but traitor from me. Understand?"
Amherst turned white with anger. "If our feebleminded Emperor didn't protect your every move, I should have your head for that, Brim. But I will yet remove you from the Fleet. Wait and see."
"Perhaps you will," Brim allowed. "I hear you've managed to pull the ISS's racing funds for next year."
"I certainly have done that, thank the Universe," Amherst declared proudly, "—as well as send you back to Gimmas-Haefdon." He laughed boastfully. "I warned you what would happen if you won the Mitchell again. Now is not the time to anger our friends from the League. Why, it's only recently that we have managed to reduce our Fleet sufficiently that they are beginning to trust us. And then you idiots come along with your racers and beat them." He shook his head angrily. "Brim, I know your kind. You're a war lover, that's what you are."
Brim shook his head. "No, Amherst," he said. "You've got me mixed up with your friends in the League. I personally hate war, probably even more than you do. Nobody—except maybe Triannic's ludicrous Controllers— really wants me to go off and fight to the death. We both hope for a peaceful galaxy.
Where we differ is how we should go about achieving it. You seem to be willing to sell out and achieve peace by submission; I believe that peace can only be achieved by winning it."
"That is precisely why the Fleet must be purged of your kind," Amherst growled. "Otherwise, the senseless killing will go on forever."
"Luckily, you can't send everybody to Gimmas-Haefdon," Brim said with a little grin. "A lot of us won't give in to your kind, Amherst—ever. I've seen you in action, personally. Remember? And I know your secret. Submission—surrender—is acceptable because you can't face the price of an honorable peace."
"I choose not to pay that price for mere honor," Amherst snapped with a red-mottled face, "—nor will I ask the helpless women and children of this Empire to pay it either. Certainly not to satisfy bloodthirsty animals like you, Carescrian!"
Brim laughed sardonically. "You talk about price, fool?" he said. "Do you have any idea what the Leaguers will exact from those women and children as the price of your submission? Their freedom, that's what! And the likes of you will pay with your very lives."
Amherst's florid countenance grew even redder. "My life?" he demanded angrily. "How dare you impugn the League in such a manner? The Controllers will reward me, because I am a proven ally—a CIGA officer."
"They'll reward you, all right," Brim snarled, "—with a blaster to the head. You'll see soon enough how they operate when your 'peaceful' Nergol Triannic goes after Fluvanna or Beta Jagow. Leaguers want total control of anything they take over—I've seen how they behave, firsthand. Contemptible traitors like you are the first ones they shoot."
"No!" Amherst ranted angrily, "I will not permit such fabrication in this office! Shut up. Shut up!"
"You can't silence the truth," Brim continued grimly. "Leaguers are absolutely pragmatic in everything they do. Remember when they pulled the wings off those A'zurnian prisoners years ago? They didn't act out of cruelty when they managed that little atrocity. Not at all. Flighted people are simply easier to control if they have no wings. What makes you think they'll treat you any better?"
"I won't listen to any more of this!" Amherst screamed. "No more. Do you hear? The League trusts me. They would never harm me. I am their friend!"
"Friend?" Brim chortled remorselessly. "Controllers have no friends—at least none who are not themselves Controllers. And fools like yourself won't be predictable enough for them, so they'll simply get rid of you. Mark my words, Amherst, you're a dead man if you get your wish."
"No!" Amnerst gasped. "No! Nergol Triannic wants only peace! He will not attack Fluvanna. You have no sense, Brim. Y-you are the fool!"
Brim shook his head and smiled sadly. "Perhaps you're right, Amherst," he acknowledged.
"Under the laws of the Empire, every man has the right to make a fool of himself as he sees fit."
Watching the CIGA leader's face turn even redder, he knew that he'd exposed the truth. Puvis Amherst dreaded combat so utterly that it obscured even the peril of death. And if that sort of mechanism impelled Puvis Amherst, then similar fears moved his followers.
Brim smiled and shook his head. It was that sort of weakness—the fear of battle itself—that gave him any hope for the future of the Empire, or himself. He relaxed. It was what he'd come for.
"Well, Amherst," he said presently, "I haven't got all day. If you've anything else you want to talk about, get busy." He looked at his timepiece. "I've better things to do than sit around and prattle with cheap Leaguer stooges like you."