The Turning Tide
OUT OF THE PAST
GANTACLAIR HARBOR, IMPERIAL PROVINCE OF CARESCRIA, NAVRON/LINFARNE, 32 OCTAD, 52016
"Hands to stations for landfall!"
buzzed the cabin loud speaker. "Hands to stations for landfall!
All passengers to seats immediately."
The packet ship was bumping down through remains of a storm that
had rendered Linfarne's surface white with snow. Through Wilf
Brim's First-Class stateroom Hyperscreen, the wintry landscape
looked just as forbidding as he remembered it from nearly thirty
Standard Years in the past-nasty. Clusters of lights were winking
off here and there below while Navron brightened the spinward
horizon with a haze of pink and lavender.
Off to Starboard, he spotted the foreshortened outline of frozen
Lake Kelton where wind-swept billows of steam signaled a runway
melting for the packet's landfall. The gray sprawl of Gantaclair
Wharves cluttered the near shore. Before the Farthington-291
asteroid mines petered out some years ago, those Wharves had
been a site of considerable importance to the Empire. From the
lack of lights there, Brim gathered that little of its former
activity remained. But if his speculations about the upcoming
conference were anything in the neighborhood of accurate, war
was about to change all that. Radically.
They flew a quick circuit of the lake, then turned and descended
rapidly toward the surface, the packet's Helmsman making constant-and
to Brim, unnecessary-corrections for what must have been a blustery
wind. Back in '89 when Instructor-Helmsman Jim Payne taught
Brim to fly ore barges, he judged skill by the corrections people
didn't make on final approach. Brim still made those same judgments.
The packet flashed low over a familiar rocky shore, flared, then
touched down on her gravity foot in cascades of spray: Nicely
enough; Brim allowed the Helmsman that, at least. As they slowed
and the spray subsided below the Hyperscreen, he could see a
side channel had now melted ahead, curving off to a jetty where
six optical bollards flashed on either side of a rusty brow.
Time to get going, he told himself, snapping his fingers to attract
the single portmanteau he'd packed. So far as he could tell,
his was the only ticket to this destination-and little wonder.
Gantaclair was ugly.
By the time they came abreast of the brow, Brim was at the boarding-lobby
Hyperscreens, watching tractor beams flash from the bollards
to the packet's anchor ports, drawing her smoothly to the quay.
Brim smiled to himself: perhaps he'd judged the Helmsman too
harshly.
When the gravity engines ground to a halt somewhere beneath Brim's
feet, the silence was half startling. "All hands and passengers
prepare for local gravity. Repeat, prepare for local gravity."
Brim steadied myself; he'd never been good at gravity switchovers.
Somehow they ugh he could taste his gorge.
"You all right, Sir?" a Steward inquired solicitously.
"Yes, I'm fine," Brim choked, recovering as the local
gravity took effect. It had always been that way with him; sometimes
better, sometimes worse. He could never get used to the change-almost
washed out of the Helmsman's Academy because of it.
"You sure you're okay, Sir?
"Just open the hatch, please."
"Aye, Sir." Deftly, the Steward popped the hatch inward
and carefully shoved it to one side. A blast of frigid air swept
into the lobby along with the strong redolence of ozone. Brim
heard a rasping screech outside as someone extended a poorly
lubricated brow to the hatch. It connected with a CLANG; the
Steward peered out to inspect with a professional aspect.
"Okay?" Brim asked, feeling impatient for some reason.
"Seems, safe, Sir," the Steward assured him, stepping
aside.
Snapping his fingers for the portmanteau, Brim stepped out onto
the small upper platform and stopped for a moment, not quite
ready for either the eerie silence or the half-familiar panorama
of rusting gantry cranes, derelict holding bins, and abandoned
C-97 ore barges beached in neat rows along the snow-covered waterfront.
His last view of Gantaclair had been a riot of clamorous, violent
activity. Now, except for a small squadron of executive transports
hovering on spanking-new gravity pads a thousand irals to Spinward,
nothing except the packet on which he'd arrived seemed related
to starflight at all. This wasn't the Gantaclair he'd known;
this was the ghost of Gantaclair.
He'd carefully picked his way down half the steep, ice-speckled
flight of stilled escalator treads-probably hadn't moved by themselves
for decades. Below, a couple of military dock hands were talking
with a cabby whose vehicle idled quietly a few irals from the
brow. Strangely: all three appeared to be staring up at him.
As he reached the bottom and stepped through the gate, a Chief
Petty Officer in the Imperial Carescrian Navy crunched forward
through the crusted snow. He was heavy-set man with huge, grizzled
hands and looked strangely familiar. "Admiral Brim,"
he said. "Welcome to Gantaclair, such as it is." With
that, he clicked his heels and gave a military salute.
Instinctively, Brim returned the salute before he could check
himself. "Thanks, Chief," he muttered as his cheeks
burned. "Except I'm just Wilf Brim, these days. And I didn't
catch"
"Wouldn't expect you to recognize me, Admiral," the
Petty officer said. "We served together in FleetPort 19
durin' the Battle of Avalon. M' name's Blake, Chief Warrant Officer
Harry Blake. I was a gunner aboard old Starfury 6595 the day
that Gorn-Hoff got on our tail."
Brim shook his head. He'd been such a close acquaintance of death
in the last few years, all the terrors of war seemed to blur
together. He faked it. "Chief Blake, of course," he
lied, extending his hand. "How could I forget?"
"With all you've gone through in the last couple years,
Admiral," Blake said with a look of sympathy Brim didn't
especially need, " I wouldn't be surprised if you couldn't
remember your own name sometimes."
"Once in a while I can't," Brim quipped with a wry
grin. Then he remembered the man's feelings. "But I deeply
appreciate that you did."
"My pleasure," the Dock Master said, suddenly beaming.
"I recognized you, too, Admiral," the Cabby broke in.
"Just tellin' the Spaceman First here about you."
Thinking rapidly, Brim blurted out, "Then I thank you, also,"
managing what he hoped was a grin. "And, er, where did we
meet?"
"We didn't actually, Admiral" the man said. "But
you were on the media a lot back, seven, eight Standard Months
ago when, ah" His face turned crimson.
Brim felt his own cheeks burn again. "It's all right,"
he said. "That, er, trouble doesn't much bother me much
any more."
"Then you're a bigger man than I, Admiral," the Chief
interrupted. "That was a put-up job if there ever was one-pure
Gorksroar, if you'll pardon the expression. Everyone pretty well
figured what was really going on."
"Well, ...thanks," Brim mumbled. "But please,
no more 'Admiral.' I'm simply Wilf Brim."
"Gotcha', Admiral," the Chief said, opening the cab
door. "Whatever you're doin' here, we're wishin' you the
best of luck." Suddenly, all three stepped back and saluted.
Brim managed another smile-funny how uncomfortable it felt after
all the grief of his court martial. He returned the salute in
spite of himself. "Thank you, friends," he said with
real humility.
"I'll take you to Headquarters, now, Admiral," the
Cabby said, directing Brim's portmanteau into the luggage compartment
with a brief whistle.
Brim carefully stomped snow from his boots before he entered
the cab. Then, before door closed, he had to ask, "Who sent
you? I wasn't expecting anyone to meet me at the brow like this."
"Big guy, Admiral," the cabby replied. "A Master
Chief in the Imperial Fleet-had a raft of campaign ribbons. He
was with one of them Bears from Sodeskaya, an old fella."
Somehow, Brim wasn't particularly surprised. "A big Chief
and an old Bear, eh?" he repeated before he could stop himself.
"You wouldn't remember the Chief's name, would you?"
"Ouch," the Cabby said, reddening, "Don't think
I was supposed to mention him. Me and my big mouth."
Well, now it's out, do you recall his name?" Brim asked,
but he already knew. It couldn't be anyone else.
"Funny name," the Cabby said. "Something like
," he frowned with concentration.
"Something like Barbousse?"
"Yeah, that's it. Kinda' thought you might have heard of
him before."
Brim had heard of him before, all right. "And just why weren't
you supposed to mention his name?" he asked.
"Well, Admiral," the Cabby said with a frown, "I
think he had the impression maybe you didn't want to see him."
"I understand," Brim mumbled with the deep sense of
isolation that had plagued him since that final day at the military
tribunal. How could he ever explain to ? "I'll keep it to
myself that you mentioned anything," he mumbled.
"Thanks, Admiral. I don't like to rile Chiefs with that
many hash marks."
Brim nodded. He understood that all too well: Master Chief Barbousse
was not a man to cross. "You wouldn't remember the name
of that Sodeskayan Bear, would you?"
"Um, Borodon or somethin' like that," the Cabby replied,
sliding into the driver's compartment "I think that's it-or
somethin' close."
"How about Borodov?" Brim asked.
"Yeah, Admiral, that's it," the Cabbie said. "Borodov.
Had a real gray muzzle and whiskers."
"Pretty well dressed?" Brim asked.
The Cabby hesitated. Well, um every one of 'em looks kind of
strange with them big, woolly hats and the boots and ..."
"I understand," Brim said, leaning back in the seat
as the Apprentice eased the passenger door closed. In a way,
the Cabby had answered his question. He smiled. "Let's go
find those reticent gentlemen," he said. "I've kept
both of them waiting a long time"
- - - - - - - -
A few hundred irals distant, a skeletal man dressed in a dark
cloak concealed himself behind an ore barge, watching through
binoculars as Brim's cab started off. Before it was out of sight,
he thumbed a HoloPhone and waited.
"Yes?"
"As you suspected, he arrived aboard the morning packet,"
the man said, noting the phone's display was blank as always.
"You are certain is was him?"
"It was him."
"Return to the ship immediately and notify the Confisse,
then stand by for further orders."
"Aye Sir" the man muttered into an already disconnected
microphone, then trudged off toward the executive transport area,
clutching the cloak around his scrawny neck. How he hated the
cold!
