Brim relaxed in his seat as the tractor pulled him toward the Imperial gravity pool. Through the open port Hyperscreen, he caught a look at a Majestat-Baron drawing up beside the civilian Gorn-Hoff. It looked like the same limousine the Leaguer media people had been riding. He drew a small pair of night glasses from his emergency case and focused them on the limousine. He'd been right! Here came the big orange and yellow cameras: weird-looking devices without question. He peered in fascination while a pair of white-suited civilian technicians opened the hatch on a sizable pod mounted just abaft the Gorn-Hoff's forward cooling radiators, and—as he watched—lowered one of the orange cameras inside. Brim smacked his fist on the instrument panel. He'd been wrong—the zukeeds had actually brought a special inspection ship, and the crew had simply been killing time with its recording system! When the hatch was again closed, he could see that it was shaped with a custom blister to accommodate their awkward lens system. They'd planned the xaxtdamned inspection all the time! He shook his head in anger as the second camera was carried out of sight around the nose. What could the Leaguers possibly hope to gain by this?
Just then, his tractor stopped at the gravity pad, and he had no more time for Leaguers or their psychological games. Putting his night glasses away, he watched carefully as tractor beams from the gravity pool flashed to the ship's mooring points and gently drew his M-6B from the pad onto the pool—a ticklish operation at best. It took fifteen cycles of tension, shouts, occasional profanity (in a surprising number of tongues), and more than a little muscle (mostly Sodeskayan) before the graceful little ship was hovering in a proper position, gently testing her new moorings in light wind sprung up from the lake. Brim had just finished verifying her attitude when he caught the big Gorn-Hoff thundering along the lake on her takeoff run. "What do we know about that ship?" he asked into his microphone.
"Big Leaguer cheeses," Ursis replied from the pool console after a rapid-fire consultation with a number of technicians standing nearby on the wall. "It carries officials who will conduct the 'inspection,'" he grumbled. "When we see that Gorn-Hoff return, it will be time for you to fly."
In fact, it took the Leaguer "officials" nearly a metacycle to complete their probe—and even then the race didn't resume. CIGA representatives had rubbed the collective ISS nose in their shutdown by halting the race completely until the Leaguer ship had made landfall and was parked. Brim watched the Gorn-Hoff touch down and taxi to the strand, grinding his teeth with impatience. As it moved up a ramp and under the Karlsson lamps, he frowned. Somehow, the ship didn't look the same; something subtle had changed, but he couldn't tell precisely what. Even the two strange "camera" pods were still in place on its flanks. He pulled out his night glasses and studied the Leaguer ship as it turned to face him and came to rest on a gravity pool. The pods... That was it!
Their hatches no longer had the characteristic "camera" blisters in place; they were completely smooth from tip to tail.
"Five cycles," Ursis warned suddenly. "The Leaguers have at last declared the course acceptable."
"Thraggling decent of them," Brim growled, starting the prerun-up checkout. With that, he put the Leaguers from his mind. Finally, he had a race to run! After he switched to internal gravity, he devoted his whole concentration to preparing the little ship for her most important—and unequivocally final—flight. There was always the chance that the Drive would blow before she even completed the heat—if, of course, she didn't fall apart at HypoSpeed first. But barring disastrous circumstances of this sort, she would most probably end her days either in Avalon's Science Museum (if she won) or piled ignominiously on a scrap heap (if she didn't).
During the next cycles, Brim set up the COMM panels, activated position lamps and beacons, then connected both generators to the power main—at a full 510 T-units on the panel. After this, he set his gravity brakes and started the gravs; each fired almost immediately without so much as a stutter. "I'm ready to race, Nik," he reported. "How does she seem from where you sit?"
Below, wearing huge ear protectors, Ursis rubbed his chin and rose from his console to peer carefully at the ship. "Doesn't appear to be anything large falling off," he declared.
"Oh, wun-der-ful," Brim laughed. "Nik, I simply can't tell you the confidence that gives me."
"Think nothing of it, Wilfuska," the Bear said with a huge grin. "The fact is that I see nothing small falling off, either." He consulted his consoles. "She looks fine, my friend. May Lady Fortune speed you on your way."
"See you after I nail down the old hat rack," Brim said. With that, he called Ground Control and taxied out to the Drive-arming area. In a matter of cycles, Vaskrozni Kubinka's team had prepared the Wizard/3, and he was once more in touch with the tower.
"Alcott Ground," he said, "Imperial M-six B Alpha request taxi to gate."
"Imperial M-six B Alpha Alcott Ground clears taxi to gate area one five left, wind two one zero at one six." Somehow the litany never changed.
"Imperial M-six B Alpha," Brim acknowledged again. He checked for Romanoff's earrings—which would never go to a museum as long as Wilf Brim was alive—then powered the M-6B around to a launch ramp and headed to the takeoff vector, savoring the last delicious whiffs of fresh lake air he might ever take.
"Imperial M-six B Alpha to Alcott Tower at pylon area," he announced. "Request gate clearance."
"Alcott Tower to Imperial M-six Alpha. You are cleared to enter gate three one right. Takeoff vector zero seven five on green light, wind zero one nine at one nine."
"Imperial M-six B Alpha entering gate one five left, wind two one zero at one six, takeoff on green."
"Alcott Tower."
Brim taxied into position between the start pylons, staring at the two bobbing rows of yellow vector buoys that stretched into the distance—and his future. Taking a final breath of fresh air, he deliberately snapped shut his helmet, closed and locked the side Hyperscreens, and made a last systems check: Sight controls, lift modifiers, flight readouts, lights, cabin gravity, shoulder restraints. Setting his jaw, he locked the steering engine and activated the gravity brakes, then opened his thrust dampers. Again, the thundering gravity generators built up a surging cloud of spray and ice particles behind the ship. Presently, the pylons changed from red to amber while Brim battled the controls and kept the ship's nose pointed between the rows of vector buoys. After what seemed to be half a lifetime, the lights changed to green and he released the brakes, with the pylons themselves disappearing aft in a great rush of spray. Moments later, the vector buoys passed below and astern as he cranked the M-6B into a nearly vertical climb on his way out of the atmosphere.