Brim eased her head back to the pillow. "The Universe knows I love you, Margot," he whispered ardently, "—better than life itself. And tomorrow I shall love you even more—for every tomorrow I live to see." It was no meaningless platitude: he meant every word. Then, he brushed her damp eyelashes with his lips and began to gently kiss her on the the mouth.
After some time, she began to clamp his shoulders more tightly and her breathing became labored.
Suddenly, her mouth opened and her tongue darted between his lips while she rolled onto her side and rhythmically crushed her groin into his hip. "Wilf," she moaned in a tow voice, "I need you again...."
At that moment, panic struck Wilf Brim with the force of a runaway starship. He wasn't ready. He ground his teeth and concentrated.
"Wilf," she urged breathlessly, throwing her leg over his waist, "hurry! I have to leave in less than a metacycle." She was ready, no doubt about that.
Totally incredulous, he squeezed his hand between them to make certain. It was true. "I-I'm not ready," he confessed with a groan. "I can't."
"You what?"
"I can't," he croaked, rolling over on his back.
"Oh, Wilf, my poor darling," she whispered in dismay. Suddenly she covered him with her body, placed her hands on his cheeks, and smothered his face in gentle kisses. "It's all right," she whispered in a voice filled with compassion. "You don't have to prove anything to me—ever. I love you. That's all that counts."
In spite of her tender words, Brim couldn't relax. "Oh great Universe," he moaned between clenched teeth, "now I've failed you in this too." He rolled from under her and swung his legs onto the floor, sitting with the sheet gripped in both hands as if it were his only anchor to sanity.
Margot quickly knelt beside him with her arms around his neck. "Wilf, Wilf," she sobbed. "What have I done to you?"
"Nothing," he answered, his voice cracking with emotion. "It's just that... well, I can't seem to win for losing, these days." He put his face in his hands, feeling the emotions welling within him.
Suddenly, he felt her hand at his groin. "Dearest Wilf," she whispered, urging him onto the bed again.
She never got to finish. Discreet rapping at the door preceded the unmistakable voice of Ambridge, her chauffeur. "Madam, we must make haste. The household plans to awaken much earlier than usual today."
Brim felt her whole body go rigid beside him. "I hear you, Ambridge," she called presently. "I shall be there in a moment." She hesitated for no more than a click longer, then placed her hands on his cheeks and kissed him full on the mouth. "Wilf," she said as she sprang from the bed and began to pull on her clothes, "you must not let this affect you in any way." She frowned as she struggled with the buttons on her ornate blouse, then turned to look at him full in the face. "You are no less a man this morning," she said, her hands on her hips, "than you were last night when you caused me to wake everyone in this building with my happy moaning."
Still in a state of shock, Brim could only sit numbly while she stepped into her shoes. After a long moment, he got to his feet and held her cloak. "I don't know what to say, Margot," was all he could mumble.
"Wilf," she said with a look of deepening concern on her face. "Wilf, look at me. You certainly aren't the only man this has happened to. I mean—"
Quiet but insistent rapping commenced at the door again. "Madame," Ambridge whispered.
"I'm on my way," she answered over her shoulder. "Wilf, are you going to be all right?"
Brim gathered the remaining shreds of his ego and pulled himself erect, feeling more than a little foolish standing naked in front of this very thoroughly dressed woman. "I'm all right now," he lied, nervously fingering her ring as it dangled from the chain around his neck. Somehow the metal felt unnaturally cold.
"Don't worry about me."
"You're sure, Wilf?"
"You can count on it." He took her in his arms and kissed her on the mouth while Ambridge continued to knock at short intervals. "You'd better go now," he said after a moment.
She nodded. "Don't ever forget that I love you, dearest," she said. "'For thee, my own sweet lover, in thy heart, I know, myself secure, as thou in mine: We were and are—I am, even as thou art—Beings who ne'er each other can resign; It is the same, together or apart....'" The she opened the door and was gone in the blink of an eye.
During all those dreary years that followed Admiral Kabul Aaak 's first great attack on Carescria—the raid wiped out every member of his family—Wilf Brim had become convinced that he could never again find the necessary tears to cry.
He was wrong.
CHAPTER 2
Claudia
In that last half-metacycle before dawn, Brim managed to throw on his clothes and stumble blindly out into the cold, sleety streets. Anything was better than the solitude of his dingy room, and the raw memories of his latest and most painful failure. It was too awful to contemplate.
Considerably later, after losing all track of time, he found himself shivering on the waterfront of Lake Mersin beneath the landward end of the causeway leading to Avalon's Grand Terminal Island. He was tired and hungry, but no force in the Universe could make him return to the place of his shame. He was also cold—the heating elements in his clothes hadn't worked for months now, nor was his lightweight jacket much good at stopping the raw wind that swept in off the lake. Had City of Jamestown held together for one last trip, he had planned to buy his heated suit back from the used-garments dealer. He shrugged. The way things were going in his life, he would soon be lucky to have any clothes at all.
He looked around at the mean streets leading to the dilapidated waterfront. He'd not been in this part of town since his cadet days when he'd come to the section looking for... entertainment. He shook his head determinedly—after last night, those thoughts were strictly off-limits. Ahead, he noticed a queue of ragged-looking people waiting patiently in the driving sleet, hands in their pockets, arms tight against their bodies to conserve heat. Those at the head of the line were singly entering one of the grime-blackened storefronts in a shabby row facing the wharfs. From time to time, others exited from another door, some to stand in a small crowd at the end of a short jetty, others to disappear with a dejected shuffle along the littered waterfront streets.
Something about those figures moving out onto the jetty set them apart. Brim frowned—what was it?
Suddenly, he knew: they walked with the rolling gate of space sailors, professionals who understood how to carry themselves in any kind of gravity gradient.
He stopped behind the last person in line, a thin and angular woman with a sharply hooked nose, prominent chin, and pockmarked cheeks. Her eyes, however, were a dead giveaway for a starsailor—they had the permanent narrowing people got after spending a lifetime staring out into the void. She wore a stocking cap over her stringy gray hair, a faded Imperial battle jacket from which the insignia had been removed, and heavy woolen slacks with worn Fleet-issue boots. "What're they giving away up there?" he asked, nodding toward the storefront.
The woman laughed scornfully. "These days, nobody's givin' out any thin' to anybody," she said, "especially ex-Blue Capes. Where have you been since the Treaty of Garak, mister? Ain't you heard about the CIGAs?"
Brim looked her in the eye. "Same place you've been, I'd guess," he answered emotionlessly. "And I've heard the CIGAs, all right. Too much."