XV. The Proposal
Three hours later, Brian Mayhew sat in the officers’ mess of the Republican Navy base on Jemgum, nursing his second glass of whiskey.
The Fearless Explorer was still in dock, refuelling and restocking supplies that had been depleted during its brief time as a refugee ship. Natalya was overseeing the restocking at her own request, because — so she insisted — keeping busy kept her from despair. And so Mayhew was free to self-medicate in his own way.
There was a bottle of whiskey, the good stuff from MacLane even, in his office aboard the Fearless Explorer. But after everything that had happened, Mayhew found that he did not want to be alone in his quarters, so he headed for the officers’ mess instead.
The mess was noisy and packed with people, officers of the various fle
