THE HELMSMAN: Director's Cut Edition (46 page)

Each medal accompanied a short, personal conversation with the Prince that invariably sent the recipients back to their positions on the plaza with outright smiles breaking through their carefully nurtured military
sangfroid.
Brim was so thoroughly mesmerized by the proceedings that when the next name called was “Ursis,” he found himself almost unprepared to follow!

He watched with a heightened sense of concentration while Onrad spent an even longer time in conversation with the younger Sodeskayan, until the Bear's words suddenly broke everyone within earshot into gales of very genuine-looking laughter. Wiping his eyes, the Prince clapped Ursis' shoulder and said something with a great smile beaming on his face. Then he turned to Penda, took the proffered decoration, and pinned it to Ursis' collar. They saluted. A smiling Nikolai Yanuarievich Ursis returned to his position on the other side of .Borodov, and the name “Wilf Ansor Brim” boomed hollowly from the loudspeakers .

Ears roaring suddenly in a nonsensical attack of pure stage fright, Brim felt himself moving across the pavement. Mentally, he jerked himself around as he walked. There was nothing different between this and his first meeting with the Prince back on Avalon. He snorted quietly as his mind came back under control, and he stopped the prescribed three paces from the line of nobles, saluting energetically.

“Well, Lieutenant Brim,” Onrad remarked with a distinctly pleased countenance. “You seem to be turning up in my life with some regularity these days.” His eyes strayed past Brim's shoulder to wink at someone in the formation of Blue Capes. He laughed. “That pile of blond curls atop my cousin yonder seems to turn up often in the same places.” He shook his head. “Coincidence, of course,” he said.

“Of course, Your Highness,” Brim assured him.

Onrad stood in silence for long moments, considering. Finally, he shook his head. “You know, Wilf,” he said in an underbreath, “aside from my own considerable masculine jealousy, I think she's made a damned fine choice.” He chuckled quietly. “As if what
I
think means anything to the independent likes of her!” Then he became serious. “Unless I miss my guess — which I don't all that often — you have just accepted a hard road with her.” He took Brim's elbow. “It's a damned
important
road, and it requires one
very
strong man to follow it.” He pursed his lips. “Of course, it's none of my business; I simply have a habit of butting in where I shouldn't. Take good care of her, Wilf. Someday, she'll probably be the most powerful woman in the galaxy, and then she'll need love —
real
love — from someone who doesn't have an ax to grind.” He winked. “But then, I
couldn't
know
anything
about you two.” He smiled. “Coincidence she's come all this way, of course.”

Brim bowed. “Coincidence, of course, Your Majesty,” Brim said with a straight face.

“Good for you, Wilf,” the Prince said with a smile. “You will do
well.”
Then, once again, he became serious. “And I
did
come here to present you with a reasonably significant decoration. Although it is probably only the first (and the
least)
of a whole series of medals I shall pin to your cape over the next period of years — if we survive, of course.” he turned to Penda. “The Imperial Comet, please, Admiral,” he ordered.

Brim felt his heart skip a beat; he actually questioned his ears.
That
medal was only given…

Onrad laughed. “I caught the look in your eye just then, Wilf,” he said. “And though it was Regula Collingswood who put you in for it, I was damned proud to sign my name beside hers. You deserve the medal.” He grimaced. “You should have been decorated for the part you played in the A'zurnian mission, too,” he continued. “Old Hagbut killed that one, though. I found that out through my Army sources, but I couldn't do anything about it. I've got to back up my senior officers, even when they're wrong.”

Speechless, Brim could only shake his head for a few moments. “I am
terribly
honored, Your Majesty,” he finally stammered.

“Actually, I think I am, too,” Onrad said with a grin. “I shall look forward to our next encounter, my Carescrian friend. They always seem the result of some interesting excitement.”

The Prince's words were a clear sign of dismissal. Brim stood at rigid attention while Onrad fastened the device to his collar just below his badge of rank. This finished, he stepped back to salute. “I shall indeed look forward to our next meeting, Your Highness,” he said. Then, turning about-face immediately, he marched back to his place in the line.

From this opposite vantage point, he had no trouble locating Margot in the assembled sea of Blue Capes. She had been standing in the front row, directly behind him throughout the whole ceremony. And her wink, this time, was all for him.

* * * *

Borodov closed the ceremony by receiving
two
medals: one Imperial and one Sodeskayan, before his reassignment to the Admiralty in Avalon. Afterward, the nobles followed Onrad back to the headquarters building in (approximate) step to additional marches from Glamnos Grathen, at which time the formation of Blue Capes disintegrated into a sea of happy cheers. Brim dodged to Margot's side in a matter of clicks. She shook her head happily amid the noisy throng and smiled as she took his hand.

He thrilled at the soft warmth before she abruptly released him. “The first of those look-but-don't-touch encounters, I suppose?” he said ruefully over the hubbub.

“Neither of us can complain about the touching we got to do
this
trip,” Margot laughed quietly, looking at him from the corner of her eyes. She touched her back and laughed ruefully. “I shall be stiff for weeks — and a bit sensitive you know where.” Then, capriciously, she took his hand again. “Parting is one of the more painful ways we shall perpetually pay for the pleasure of being together,” she sighed. “And
Queen Elidean
departs for Avalon in less than two metacycles. I shall have to be aboard almost immediately. Will you walk with me to the brow, Wilf? It may be a long time before we talk alone again.”

* * * *

The vast battleship looked much like a great humpbacked island as it hovered beside the quay. Rumbling at idle with the muted thunder of sixteen antigravity generators,
Queen Elidean
was indeed ready for immediate departure; a chill layer of air hung over the whole pierhead, and the water round about her massive footprint rippled and stirred in swirling patterns of alabaster froth. High overhead on the topmost bridge, Helmsmen performed last-moment systems checkouts, jabbing here and there at unseen controls.

Brim and Margot arrived at the 'midships brow after successfully avoiding every shortcut from headquarters either of them could think of. “Onrad's not here,” he observed hopefully. “His royal pennant isn't flying from the
Queen's
KA'PPA yet. You've probably got the best part of a metacycle before they even single up her mooring beams.”

Margot laughed quietly. “There's no putting it off any longer, Wilf,” she said firmly. “I
must
board now. Otherwise, I won't be able to make myself go at all. I don't want to leave you any more than you want to leave me, you know.” She bit her lip. “Our early morning kisses must suffice us for a while. Too many people are watching.” She held out her hand.

Brim took it in his. “I wish I had any idea when I shall see you again,” he said. “Whenever that turns out to be, it will seem as if I have waited a lifetime.”

“But at least not forever, Wilf,” she said. “And I shall write this time, enough to make up for the months of silence I put you through. We have years of 'skulking' ahead of us. I know that sounds pretty awful, but for me at least, it's a whole lot better than giving up completely. And who knows, some day…”

“I shall gladly skulk until my dying moment, Margot,” Brim said, barely holding back emotions that threatened to make a fool of him on the crowded quay. He swallowed hard, then raised her hand to his lips.
“'Alas, how soon the cycles are over,/Counted us out to play the lover,’”
he quoted, the words rushing to his mind from nowhere.

“Oh, Universe, Wilf,” she choked, her eyes brimming, “I can't say good-bye.” She fumbled an ornate signet ring from her finger and passed it into his hand. Then without another word, she abruptly thrust herself into the throng filing into the brow.

Brim stood for a long time staring dumbly after her until he realized a number of the Imperial Marine guards were regarding him with ill-concealed suspicion. He shook his head as he turned to leave the boarding area. Onrad had been
very
right. His choice would be a hard road, indeed.

* * * *

Toward the end of the afternoon, Haefdon was rapidly settling back to its normal mien. Raw, wintry wind gusted remorselessly from the polar regions, blustering along the drab beach and bringing with it sure promise of snow — joined by occasional whiffs of overheated logics from the Theo-21 repair yard across the bay. Outbound along a narrow finger of tumbled rocks that jutted into the tossing gray water, Brim pulled his Fleet Cloak tighter around his neck, turned up the heat, and continued toward a dark, abandoned beacon clinging in rusty desperation to the last vestiges of stained, weather-smoothed rock. Its base was nearly lost in the lashing surf. It could be a wet perch to watch from, he knew, his face breaking into a smile. But he
also
knew it would be well worth any discomfort.

Behind him, in the waning light,
Queen Elidean
had been singled up for some time now. Her escort of ten powerful R-class destroyers was already aloft and thundering through the leaden skies as each took up position for the battleship's lift-off. Only cycles earlier, he'd watched them rumble out toward the horizon, turn, and hold for a moment while glittering clouds of ice particles rose like summer storm clouds a thousand irals beyond their stems. Then, moments later, the reverberating blast of antigravity generators reached his ears as the sleek escorts raced in pairs over the surface of the water and soared effortlessly into a darkening sky.

The Carescrian lowered his head as he picked his way over man-sized boulders that formed the last few irals of the ruined pier, eyes squinting from the blowing saltwater that now ran in rivulets from his cloak. His arrival at the beacon coincided with the first snow squall, which passed quickly enough and actually seemed to clear the air as he ascended corroded rungs toward the long-dark beacon. In a few cycles, he was well above the spray and settled onto a wide, rusting girder with a surprisingly dry view of both the quay and the ocean.

He was not a moment too soon. In a matter of clicks, great optical hawsers flashed to the battleship from four waiting deep-space tugs, a final network of mooring beams extinguished, and the great starship began to shrug aside the long gray rollers as she slid majestically toward open ocean — and space. She passed Brim's vantage point only cycles later, her port tugs rumbling by a few hundred irals out on the sound.

With a smile, Brim observed the orderly confusion on their bridges, then looked up at the great battleship ghosting through the wintry air like some monstrous sea creature unaffected by wind or wave. Even at idle, the beat of her incredible generators shook the old pylon where he sat in a shower of rust flakes. He squinted up at her great casemates — individual disruptors in the main battery were longer and far heavier than the attack ship he'd ridden deep into League territory. Many of the deckhouses were nearly as large as old
Truculent
herself. Sweeping beacons flashed everywhere; a thousand lighted scuttles gleamed in sweeping parallel rows along her graceful hull. Countless analog machines scurried everywhere along her decks, stowing landside gear before it was forever lost in the takeoff. And somewhere aboard was Margot. He squeezed her ring in his pocket and lifted his head toward the bridge as it moved grandly past. It was too far away to make out more than moving silhouettes, but he could swear one of them waved. He'd shown her where he would be.

Snow began again before the big ship was out into the takeoff zone, but Brim could still see her when she turned parallel to the shore and the hawsers winked out from the space tugs.

Like her escorts, she paused while great clouds of backwash became a whole miniature storm system (complete with flashes of lightning!). Then, unbelievable thunder filled the air — became part of the very Universe — while the great ship gathered herself and began to move over the water once more, her footprint throwing great curving waves to either side until, just abreast Brim's beacon, she lifted. Simultaneously, four of her escorts swooped through the cloud cover to take up station on each side, and the five powerful warships climbed like a single existence to vanish slowly into the rolling storm. Mighty sounds from the squadron's passing echoed for a long time before they eventually faded into the booming of the ocean's everlasting surf.

* * * *

Before Gimmas' feeble radiance departed completely, Lieutenant Wilf Ansor Brim, I.F., climbed from his perch and began picking his way back among the rocks toward the shore. Around him, little remained in view except the empty wharf, the pounding water — and the snow, which by now had grown into a hissing blizzard. He shrugged as he walked; none of the dirty weather mattered. He was nicely warmed from within. He had part of Margot now. And somewhere halfway across the galaxy, Collingswood's new ship was becoming reality, with a whole different kind of “pick and shovel” warfare for him to master. He touched the comet on his collar; he'd come a long way to get
that.
Not much more an ex-miner could ask for, now, was there?

As he neared the shore, he spied two figures making their way toward him through the snow: A large man and an even larger Bear waving what could only be a colossal bottle of …meem! The three met in the last moments of daylight, passing the bottle among themselves and clapping one another on the back in great apparent hilarity. Then arm in arm, they started landward and disappeared into the driving snowstorm singing, “To ice, to snow, to Sodeskaya we go!” over and over again until their voices merged with the howling wind and pounding surf. Not long afterward, the quiet flakes covered their tracks in a soft, uniform mantle of white...