"I think they already have." Brim chuckled, pulling her into his lap. "Drummond had the right idea last night, you know. They came for the Trophy and left empty-handed."
Romanoff nodded. "I understand, Wilf," she conceded. "But they did try to blow you away, you know—and it just makes me furious to see them get off so easily."
"I can't think of much else we could do for punishment," Brim answered with a shrug. "They really did want that old hat rack of ours." He gently unfastened the ties of her negligee.
"Probably there wouldn't be a great deal of use in having them disqualified, either—especially since we've won what we wanted. Unless," he added with a wide-eyed frown, "we fancied having the whole race voided."
Romanoff smiled and laid her head back on his shoulder. "I hate politics," she said, wriggling completely out of the sheer lingerie. "If this were a business situation, I'd simply ruin the bastards—put 'em out of business for good."
"In my line of work," Brim said, "We call that war."
"Yeah," Romanoff agreed grimly, "and it looks like they've already declared war on you, lover."
"They did that a long time ago, Anna," he said with a dour laugh. "I'm actually getting used to it."
The businesswoman shook her head and sighed. "Wilf." she said abruptly, her breathing suddenly labored. "I'm not at all getting used to what you're doing down there, and..."
"You don't like it?"
"I didn't say that," she declared urgently. "It's just that, well, S.S. Dowd Enterprise leaves in the middle of the afternoon, and if you have the same thing on your mind that I have on mine, then we ought to get busy right away. I won't see you for most of a month."
Early that evening under a lowering sky, Brim stood alone on the nearly deserted apron of the HyperDrome, watching two last pallets of Fleet-owned test equipment disappear into a white government van. Behind him—where only last night thousands cheered while he received his victor's laurel—wind rattled through deserted sheds and grandstands, whistling sharply at the three colossal flagpoles and sending their empty halyards clanging against the bare metal columns. A rogue gust tossed a gaggle of empty cvceese' cups hollowly across the pavement while on Lake Mersin, lumbering gray rollers advanced in whitecapped succession like endless ranks of soldiers in dismal uniforms. He turned up the heat in his Fleet cape—spring could turn cold quickly on Avalon.
Out some distance from the far shore, a brooding Gorn-Hoff cruiser was arrogantly churning downwind toward the takeoff vector, its roiling footprint shouldering aside the big rollers in lofty, windblown clouds of spume. The Torond's new black and red banner streamed forward from its KA'PPA tower. Brim followed the cruiser's progress with a dour frown and decidedly mixed emotions. Margot Effer'wyck-LaKarn rode aboard that sleek warship, trapped as much by addiction to the loathsome drug TimeWeed as by the ship's powerful disrupters themselves. He rubbed his chin as the Gorn-Hoff put her helm down and momentarily fell off broadside to the weather before coming all the way around with her rakish bows hard into the mounting gale. His passion for the magnificent blond may well have perished, but he had far from purged himself of the potent emotional bonds that remained.
For a moment, the big cruiser seemed to hesitate, as if gathering itself for the prodigious journey across half a galaxy, then settled slightly by the stern as a mighty plume of vapor suddenly shot aft and skyward. Presently, the deep thunder from her powerful gravity generators blasted the air and rumbled in echo from the great bluffs surrounding the HyperDrome.
Brim ground his teeth in a rush of pure, uncontrollable emotion: yes, he did love Anna Romanoff—with a warmth and devotion that still surprised him. She was the sole reality amid the cynicism and conflict of a most unpleasant Universe. Nevertheless, he also understood that within the very depths of his soul a second bond held strong—his feelings for Margot Effer'wyck. The apparent dichotomy was not something that tormented him; both realities simply existed, and he found he could live with them. He had to...."
As the Gorn-Hoff began to move forward and gather speed, he took a deep breath and steadied himself against an irresistible assault of pure melancholy. War clouds were gathering all over the galaxy, and this time, Margot was on the other side. He might well never see her face again. Then he shook his head. In comparison to the forces that were presently building in the Universe, his own feelings were of small consequence indeed. With the Torond in Triannic's hands, half the Empire's supply of Drive crystal seeds was gone—while the other half in Fluvanna was anything but secure.
Faster and faster the cruiser accelerated, throwing lofty cascades of spray to either side and shaking the air with the rumbling tumult of her laboring generators. At considerable distance down the lake, the cascades abruptly ceased and Brim could see light appear beneath her hull as she smartly rotated skyward and began to climb. For the next few moments, she appeared to hang motionless in the air, ascending almost imperceptibly until at an altitude of about a thousand irals she banked sharply to port and soared into the clouds. The rolling thunder of her passage echoed from the bluff for nearly a cycle before it lost itself in the cold, lonely wind....
Epilogue
Brim found the KA'PPA message on his desk one afternoon just after he brought a heavy cruiser safely to landfall with only half her gravs functional—all on the same side. The blue and gold envelope marked PERSONAL-EYES ONLY attracted him, so he tore it open even before he called up his normal messages. ...
PERSONNEL ACTION MEMORANDUM
IMPERIAL FLEET
IFPC42746T-12C GROUP 198BA 189/55008
2398XCV-99-D0349CDC/573248 PERSONAL COPY
UNCLASSIFIED
FROM:
BU FLEET PERSONNEL;
ADMIRALTY, AVALON
TO:
W. A. BRIM, LT. CMDR, I.F.
ATALANTA, HADOR-HAELIC
SUBJECT: DUTY ASSIGNMENT
(1) YOU ARE DETACHED PRESENT DUTY AS OF 189/55008.
(2) PROCEED MOST EXPEDITIOUS TRANSPORT SHERRINGTON YARDS, BROMWICH, RHODOR, REPORT I.F.S. STARFURY (K 5054) AS COMMANDING OFFICER.
(3) SUBMIT TRAVEL EXPENSE VOUCHERS DIRECT ADMIRALTY C/O H. DRUMMOND, REAR ADMIRAL, I.F.