Honor nodded in sudden understanding. Grayson's heavy metal concentrations made simple atmospheric dust an all too real danger. Provision for internal over-pressure and filtration systems were as routine in Grayson building codes as roofs were on other planets, and public structures—like Protector's Palace, or her own steadholder's mansion—were built under climate-controlled domes as a matter of course.
She rubbed her nose again, then glanced at Clinkscales. The regent was watching Gerrick with a slight smile, one that mingled approval with a hint of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and she turned back to the engineer.
"I imagine you're right, Mr. Gerrick. And, under the circumstances, I suppose Harrington Steading would be a good place to start doing it. We could incorporate city domes from the ground up, as it were, couldn't we?"
"Yes, My Lady. But that's not all we could do. We could build entire farms under crystoplast!"
"Farms?" Honor asked in some surprise, and Gerrick nodded firmly.
"Yes, My Lady. Farms. I've got the cost projections here-" he started digging into his briefcase, his face alight with eagerness "—and once we take long-term operational expenses into consideration, production costs would be much lower than in the orbital habitats. We could cut transportation costs, too, and—"
"Just a moment, Adam," Clinkscales interrupted with surprising gentleness. Gerrick looked quickly at the regent, and Clinkscales gave a slight headshake as he turned to Honor.
"I've seen Adam's—Mr. Gerrick's—figures, My Lady, and he's quite right. His domes would provide a marked decrease over the orbital farms in cost-per-yield. Unfortunately, our farmers are a bit... traditional, shall we say?" His eyes twinkled at his own choice of words, and Honor hid a smile. "So far, Adam hasn't been able to interest anyone with the capital for it in funding his project."
"Ah." Honor leaned further back in understanding, and Gerrick watched her anxiously. "Just what sort of costs are we looking at here?"
"I've designed and costed a six-thousand-hectare demonstration project, My Lady." Gerrick swallowed, as if expecting her to protest the size, and went on quickly. "Anything much smaller than that would be too little to prove the concept to the agri-corporations, and—"
"I understand," Honor said gently. "Just give me the figure."
"Ten million austins, My Lady," the engineer said in a small voice.
Honor nodded. Given the current exchange rate, Gerrick was talking about a seven-and-a-half-million-Manticoran-dollar price tag. That was a bit steeper than she'd thought, but—
"I realize that's high, My Lady," Gerrick said, "but part of it's the original soil decontamination cost, and we'd have to work out a lot of hardware for the pilot project, too. Not just the air cleaners, but water distillation, irrigation systems, contamination monitors.... That drives costs up, but once we get all of it down the first time and start mass production, the amortization over follow-on projects would—"
He reined himself in, gripping his briefcase painfully tight, as Honor raised a gentle hand and glanced at Clinkscales.
"Howard? Can we afford it?"
"No, My Lady." There was genuine regret in the regents voice, and he smiled compassionately at Gerrick as the engineer sagged. "I wish we could. I believe other steadings would buy into the idea if we demonstrated its practicality, and The Tester knows we could use an export industry. If we made the initial investment to produce the crystoplast and support machinery—not just for farms, but for the city domes Adam's suggested—we'd be in a position to dominate the field, at least initially. That would mean jobs and the revenues to go with them, not to mention a head start on domes of our own. Unfortunately, we're too deeply committed to other projects. It's going to be at least another year—probably two—before we could fund Adams."
Gerrick sagged further. He made a valiant effort to hide his disappointment, and Honor shook her head.
"If we wait that long, one of the other steadings is likely to get in first, traditional opposition or not," she pointed out. "If that happens, we'll be in the position of buying the technology from someone else."
"Agreed, My Lady. That's why I wish we could afford to do it now, but I simply don't see a way we can."
"What about the Privy Purse?" Honor asked. Gerrick brightened at the sign of her interest, but Clinkscales shook his head again.
"We're already heavily committed there, My Lady, and even if you withdraw no personal income from it, it would only increase our funding resources by two or three million a year."
"Could we underwrite loans for it?'
"We're close to our credit limits already, My Lady. A private commercial investment would work, but until we pay down some of our start-up costs, our public borrowing capacity is limited. Much as I would like to see Adam's project tried, I can't advocate further public sector borrowing. We have to maintain some reserve against emergencies."
"I see." Honor drew invisible circles on her blotter with her forefinger, feeling Gerrick's eyes on her while she frowned in thought. Clinkscales was right about their fiscal position. Grayson was a poor planet, and the costs of establishing a new steading were enormous. If she'd known about Gerrick's idea, she would cheerfully have waived the construction of Harrington House, despite Clinkscales' argument that it had been an unavoidable necessity, if only as the steading's administrative center. As it was, Harrington Steading was in the black, barely, for the first time in the two local years since its founding, and that wasn't going to last.
She looked back up, then shook her head.
"Forget about the Privy Purse, then," she said. "And while I'm thinking about it, Howard, make a note that I want all of my income reinvested. I don't need the money, and the steading does."
"Yes, My Lady." Clinkscales sounded both surprised and gratified, and Honor cocked her head at Gerrick.
"As for you, Mr. Gerrick, how would you like a partnership with an off-worlder?"
"An off-worlder, My Lady?" Gerrick looked puzzled. "What off-worlder?"
"Me," Honor said simply, and laughed at his dumbfounded expression.
"It happens, Mr. Gerrick, that I'm a modestly wealthy woman back in the Star Kingdom. If you want to build your demonstration project, I'll bankroll it."
"You will?!" Gerrick stared at her in disbelief, and she nodded.
"I certainly will. Howard," she looked back at Clinkscales once more, "Mr. Gerrick is about to submit a letter of resignation to the steading. At the same time you accept it—with regrets, of course—I want you to draw up a permit for a privately held corporation called, um, Grayson Sky Domes, Ltd. Mr. Gerrick will go on salary as chief engineer and development officer, with a suitable salary and a thirty percent interest. I'll be chairman of the board, and you'll be our CEO, with another twenty percent interest. My agent on Manticore will be our chief financial officer, and I'll have him cut a check immediately for a few million austins for start-up costs."
"Are—are you serious, My Lady?" Gerrick blurted.
"I am, indeed." She rose again, extending her hand once more. "Welcome to the private sector, Mr. Gerrick. Now go out there and make it work."
Yeltsin's Star had long since set, but Honor and Clinkscales had hardly noticed as they worked through their demanding schedule. Nimitz was on the corner of Honor's blotter now, amusing himself by dismantling an old-style stapler, when she finally pushed back her chair with a sigh.
"I know we're not done yet, Howard, but I've got to take a break. Will you and your wives join Nimitz and me for supper?"
"Is it that—?" Clinkscales checked his desk chrono and shook himself. "I see it is that late, My Lady. And, yes, we'd be honored to join you. Assuming," he regarded her suspiciously, "that your steward promises not to serve fried squash again." He shuddered in memory, for Manticoran squash was subtly different from the vegetable of the same name on Grayson, and he'd suffered a violent allergic reaction when MacGuiness introduced him to it.
"No squash," Honor promised with a smile. "I don't know what's on the menu, but Mac and I took that off it for the rest of our stay here. In fact, he's been taking lessons in local cuisine, and—"
A buzz from her com console interrupted her, and she grimaced.
"I may have invited you too soon," she muttered, and pressed the acceptance key.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Ma'am," a Manticoran voice said.
"I was about to com you, Mac. What is it?"
"We've just received word from Air Traffic, Ma'am. There's an inbound pinnace, ETA twelve minutes." Honor's eyebrows rose. The arrival of a pinnace, especially this late in the evening, was unusual to say the least. And why was MacGuiness informing her of its arrival instead of her Grayson security chief?
"A pinnace? Not an aircar?"
"No, Ma'am. A pinnace... from HMS Agni. I understand Captain Henke is aboard in person," MacGuiness added.
Honor stiffened. Agni here? The Manticoran element might explain why Mac was making the call instead of Colonel Hill, but why hadn't Mike written to warn her she was headed for Yeltsin's Star? For that matter, why come down in a pinnace instead of screening her from orbit? If Agni was in small craft range of Grayson, she could have sent a message on ahead hours ago.
"Did Captain Henke say anything about why she's here?"
"No, Ma'am. All I have is an official request for immediate access to you. Your security force passed it to me for clearance."
"Clear it at once," Honor said. "I'll be in my office."
"Yes, Ma'am." MacGuiness cut the circuit, and Honor sat back in her chair with a pensive frown.
Someone rapped once, lightly, on the office door, then opened it without awaiting permission. It was Michelle Henke, with James MacGuinness at her heels instead of the regular Grayson armsman.
"Mike!" Honor cried in delight, and started around her desk, both hands extended. She expected Henke to grin at the absurd sight of Honor Harrington in a Grayson gown, but she didn't. She only stared at her, her face that of a woman who'd just taken a pulser dart, and Honor came to a stop, hands falling to her sides, and braced her shoulders in sudden, formless dread.
"Honor." Her name came out in a tight, painful parody of Henke's normal tone, and Honor reached for her link to Nimitz. Reached for it and gasped at the anguish writhing behind Henke's tormented face. Her emotions were too intense, too painful, for Honor to sort out, but they hit Nimitz like a club. The dismantled stapler thudded to the floor as he rose up, ears flattened against his skull, and hissed in sibilant challenge, and Honor reached out again in quick compassion, stunned by the ferocity of her friends pain.
"What is it, Mike?" She forced her voice to remain level and gentle. "Why didn't you screen me?"
"Because—" Henke drew a deep breath. "Because I had to tell you in person." Each word seemed to cost her physical agony, and she ignored Honor's hands to grip her shoulders.
"Tell me what?" Honor wasn't frightened yet. There hadn't been time, and she was too concerned for her friend.
"Honor, it's—" Henke drew another breath, then pulled her close, hugging her fiercely. "Paul was challenged to a duel," she whispered into Honor's shoulder. "He—Oh, God, Honor! He's dead!"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
She rubbed her nose again, then glanced at Clinkscales. The regent was watching Gerrick with a slight smile, one that mingled approval with a hint of waiting for the other shoe to drop, and she turned back to the engineer.
"I imagine you're right, Mr. Gerrick. And, under the circumstances, I suppose Harrington Steading would be a good place to start doing it. We could incorporate city domes from the ground up, as it were, couldn't we?"
"Yes, My Lady. But that's not all we could do. We could build entire farms under crystoplast!"
"Farms?" Honor asked in some surprise, and Gerrick nodded firmly.
"Yes, My Lady. Farms. I've got the cost projections here-" he started digging into his briefcase, his face alight with eagerness "—and once we take long-term operational expenses into consideration, production costs would be much lower than in the orbital habitats. We could cut transportation costs, too, and—"
"Just a moment, Adam," Clinkscales interrupted with surprising gentleness. Gerrick looked quickly at the regent, and Clinkscales gave a slight headshake as he turned to Honor.
"I've seen Adam's—Mr. Gerrick's—figures, My Lady, and he's quite right. His domes would provide a marked decrease over the orbital farms in cost-per-yield. Unfortunately, our farmers are a bit... traditional, shall we say?" His eyes twinkled at his own choice of words, and Honor hid a smile. "So far, Adam hasn't been able to interest anyone with the capital for it in funding his project."
"Ah." Honor leaned further back in understanding, and Gerrick watched her anxiously. "Just what sort of costs are we looking at here?"
"I've designed and costed a six-thousand-hectare demonstration project, My Lady." Gerrick swallowed, as if expecting her to protest the size, and went on quickly. "Anything much smaller than that would be too little to prove the concept to the agri-corporations, and—"
"I understand," Honor said gently. "Just give me the figure."
"Ten million austins, My Lady," the engineer said in a small voice.
Honor nodded. Given the current exchange rate, Gerrick was talking about a seven-and-a-half-million-Manticoran-dollar price tag. That was a bit steeper than she'd thought, but—
"I realize that's high, My Lady," Gerrick said, "but part of it's the original soil decontamination cost, and we'd have to work out a lot of hardware for the pilot project, too. Not just the air cleaners, but water distillation, irrigation systems, contamination monitors.... That drives costs up, but once we get all of it down the first time and start mass production, the amortization over follow-on projects would—"
He reined himself in, gripping his briefcase painfully tight, as Honor raised a gentle hand and glanced at Clinkscales.
"Howard? Can we afford it?"
"No, My Lady." There was genuine regret in the regents voice, and he smiled compassionately at Gerrick as the engineer sagged. "I wish we could. I believe other steadings would buy into the idea if we demonstrated its practicality, and The Tester knows we could use an export industry. If we made the initial investment to produce the crystoplast and support machinery—not just for farms, but for the city domes Adam's suggested—we'd be in a position to dominate the field, at least initially. That would mean jobs and the revenues to go with them, not to mention a head start on domes of our own. Unfortunately, we're too deeply committed to other projects. It's going to be at least another year—probably two—before we could fund Adams."
Gerrick sagged further. He made a valiant effort to hide his disappointment, and Honor shook her head.
"If we wait that long, one of the other steadings is likely to get in first, traditional opposition or not," she pointed out. "If that happens, we'll be in the position of buying the technology from someone else."
"Agreed, My Lady. That's why I wish we could afford to do it now, but I simply don't see a way we can."
"What about the Privy Purse?" Honor asked. Gerrick brightened at the sign of her interest, but Clinkscales shook his head again.
"We're already heavily committed there, My Lady, and even if you withdraw no personal income from it, it would only increase our funding resources by two or three million a year."
"Could we underwrite loans for it?'
"We're close to our credit limits already, My Lady. A private commercial investment would work, but until we pay down some of our start-up costs, our public borrowing capacity is limited. Much as I would like to see Adam's project tried, I can't advocate further public sector borrowing. We have to maintain some reserve against emergencies."
"I see." Honor drew invisible circles on her blotter with her forefinger, feeling Gerrick's eyes on her while she frowned in thought. Clinkscales was right about their fiscal position. Grayson was a poor planet, and the costs of establishing a new steading were enormous. If she'd known about Gerrick's idea, she would cheerfully have waived the construction of Harrington House, despite Clinkscales' argument that it had been an unavoidable necessity, if only as the steading's administrative center. As it was, Harrington Steading was in the black, barely, for the first time in the two local years since its founding, and that wasn't going to last.
She looked back up, then shook her head.
"Forget about the Privy Purse, then," she said. "And while I'm thinking about it, Howard, make a note that I want all of my income reinvested. I don't need the money, and the steading does."
"Yes, My Lady." Clinkscales sounded both surprised and gratified, and Honor cocked her head at Gerrick.
"As for you, Mr. Gerrick, how would you like a partnership with an off-worlder?"
"An off-worlder, My Lady?" Gerrick looked puzzled. "What off-worlder?"
"Me," Honor said simply, and laughed at his dumbfounded expression.
"It happens, Mr. Gerrick, that I'm a modestly wealthy woman back in the Star Kingdom. If you want to build your demonstration project, I'll bankroll it."
"You will?!" Gerrick stared at her in disbelief, and she nodded.
"I certainly will. Howard," she looked back at Clinkscales once more, "Mr. Gerrick is about to submit a letter of resignation to the steading. At the same time you accept it—with regrets, of course—I want you to draw up a permit for a privately held corporation called, um, Grayson Sky Domes, Ltd. Mr. Gerrick will go on salary as chief engineer and development officer, with a suitable salary and a thirty percent interest. I'll be chairman of the board, and you'll be our CEO, with another twenty percent interest. My agent on Manticore will be our chief financial officer, and I'll have him cut a check immediately for a few million austins for start-up costs."
"Are—are you serious, My Lady?" Gerrick blurted.
"I am, indeed." She rose again, extending her hand once more. "Welcome to the private sector, Mr. Gerrick. Now go out there and make it work."
Yeltsin's Star had long since set, but Honor and Clinkscales had hardly noticed as they worked through their demanding schedule. Nimitz was on the corner of Honor's blotter now, amusing himself by dismantling an old-style stapler, when she finally pushed back her chair with a sigh.
"I know we're not done yet, Howard, but I've got to take a break. Will you and your wives join Nimitz and me for supper?"
"Is it that—?" Clinkscales checked his desk chrono and shook himself. "I see it is that late, My Lady. And, yes, we'd be honored to join you. Assuming," he regarded her suspiciously, "that your steward promises not to serve fried squash again." He shuddered in memory, for Manticoran squash was subtly different from the vegetable of the same name on Grayson, and he'd suffered a violent allergic reaction when MacGuiness introduced him to it.
"No squash," Honor promised with a smile. "I don't know what's on the menu, but Mac and I took that off it for the rest of our stay here. In fact, he's been taking lessons in local cuisine, and—"
A buzz from her com console interrupted her, and she grimaced.
"I may have invited you too soon," she muttered, and pressed the acceptance key.
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry to disturb you, Ma'am," a Manticoran voice said.
"I was about to com you, Mac. What is it?"
"We've just received word from Air Traffic, Ma'am. There's an inbound pinnace, ETA twelve minutes." Honor's eyebrows rose. The arrival of a pinnace, especially this late in the evening, was unusual to say the least. And why was MacGuiness informing her of its arrival instead of her Grayson security chief?
"A pinnace? Not an aircar?"
"No, Ma'am. A pinnace... from HMS Agni. I understand Captain Henke is aboard in person," MacGuiness added.
Honor stiffened. Agni here? The Manticoran element might explain why Mac was making the call instead of Colonel Hill, but why hadn't Mike written to warn her she was headed for Yeltsin's Star? For that matter, why come down in a pinnace instead of screening her from orbit? If Agni was in small craft range of Grayson, she could have sent a message on ahead hours ago.
"Did Captain Henke say anything about why she's here?"
"No, Ma'am. All I have is an official request for immediate access to you. Your security force passed it to me for clearance."
"Clear it at once," Honor said. "I'll be in my office."
"Yes, Ma'am." MacGuiness cut the circuit, and Honor sat back in her chair with a pensive frown.
Someone rapped once, lightly, on the office door, then opened it without awaiting permission. It was Michelle Henke, with James MacGuinness at her heels instead of the regular Grayson armsman.
"Mike!" Honor cried in delight, and started around her desk, both hands extended. She expected Henke to grin at the absurd sight of Honor Harrington in a Grayson gown, but she didn't. She only stared at her, her face that of a woman who'd just taken a pulser dart, and Honor came to a stop, hands falling to her sides, and braced her shoulders in sudden, formless dread.
"Honor." Her name came out in a tight, painful parody of Henke's normal tone, and Honor reached for her link to Nimitz. Reached for it and gasped at the anguish writhing behind Henke's tormented face. Her emotions were too intense, too painful, for Honor to sort out, but they hit Nimitz like a club. The dismantled stapler thudded to the floor as he rose up, ears flattened against his skull, and hissed in sibilant challenge, and Honor reached out again in quick compassion, stunned by the ferocity of her friends pain.
"What is it, Mike?" She forced her voice to remain level and gentle. "Why didn't you screen me?"
"Because—" Henke drew a deep breath. "Because I had to tell you in person." Each word seemed to cost her physical agony, and she ignored Honor's hands to grip her shoulders.
"Tell me what?" Honor wasn't frightened yet. There hadn't been time, and she was too concerned for her friend.
"Honor, it's—" Henke drew another breath, then pulled her close, hugging her fiercely. "Paul was challenged to a duel," she whispered into Honor's shoulder. "He—Oh, God, Honor! He's dead!"
CHAPTER NINETEEN
There ought to be a better way to do this, but Georgia Sakristos couldn't think of one, and at least she was cautiously pleased with the contact she'd finally decided upon. She had to contact someone, and her choice should get it to the right people without letting anyone who knew about her own part in the operation guess she was the leak; if she hadn't been sure of that she wouldn't be doing this at all.
Unfortunately, that didn't mean no one on the other side could ever connect her to it. That would be almost as bad as having her employer discover she'd talked, and making personal contact added measurably to her risk, yet time was short, and she had to convince the other person her information was reliable. The absence of any documentary evidence would make that hard enough without fumbling around through time-wasting intermediaries.
It was a risk, but her com was plugged through enough layers of cutouts to make it effectively untraceable. The filtration devices should make her voice unrecognizable, and she intended to screen her contact's private and unlisted civilian number. Her ability to find that number should encourage its owner to take her seriously; more importantly, civilian exchanges incorporated antirecording security circuits which could be overridden only with a court order. All of which should make her risk minimal, but Georgia Sakristos, ne'e Elaine Komandorski, hadn't stayed out of prison by relying on "should."
On the other hand, she thought, her lovely face (the best biosculpt money could buy) grim, some things were worth risking prison to escape, and she'd kept her own name, face, and voice out of the transaction. She'd handled the entire thing through blind drops... and deliberately chosen a specialist who would insist on knowing exactly who his client was.
She ran over her plan in her mind once more. The newest Earl North Hollow had an almost childish faith in his office's security systems, and they really were good. Sakristos knew; she was the one who'd installed them for his father. The only way through them from the outside would be by brute force, and that would destroy all those other lovely records and the power they represented. No, what she wanted was to remove one, specific file—hers—without damaging the others. It was a tall order, but there was one thing Pavel Young didn't know about his own security. When she'd set it up, the computers had listed him as his father's executor, authorized to enter the system in the event of the old earl's death. Pavel knew that; what he didn't know was that Georgia Sakristos had been listed as the backup, with command code authority if he were unavailable, incapacitated... or dead.
It had taken only one night, and the bruises that went with it, to convince her that even prison would be better than an unending sentence as Pavel Young's "lover," and she was still his chief security officer. In anyone else, that combination would have been too stupid to believe; in his case, Sakristos understood exactly how it worked, and her lips worked with the desire to spit. No one else was quite real to Pavel Young. That was especially true for women, but it applied to everyone else around him, as well. He lived in a universe of cardboard cutouts, of human-shaped things provided solely for his use. He had no sense of them as people who might resent him—or, indeed, who had any right to resent him—and he was too busy doing things to them to even consider what they might do to him if they got the chance.
It was a blind spot he couldn't even recognize, much less cure, despite the outcome of his vendetta against Honor Harrington, and that same sublime arrogance blinded him to the danger in forcing his own security chief to play sick sex games. Georgia Sakristos called up the security files on her terminal once more, and her smile was ugly as the verifying code blinked. The idiot hadn't even accessed the files to see who had command authority in the event of his death. Of course, he was a young man by Manticoran standards. No doubt he thought he had plenty of time to put his affairs in order.
She reached out and punched a com code into her terminal with rock-steady fingers.
Alistair McKeon stared down into his drink without seeing it. The ice had long since melted, floating the whiskey on a crystal clear belt of water. It didn't matter. Nothing much seemed to matter just now.
Andreas Venizelos and Tomas Ramirez sat with him, equally silent, eyes fixed on nothing with equal intensity, and the small, private compartment in Hephaestus's officer's club was silent about them.
Coming here had been a bad idea, McKeon thought emptily. The suggestion had been his, but it hadn't been a good one. His quarters aboard Prince Adrian were like a tomb, crushing in on him, and he'd known it had to be at least as bad for the others. Especially for Ramirez. It wasn't their fault, yet all of them shared the same sense of guilt. They hadn't been smart enough or quick enough to stop it. Perhaps it hadn't really been their job to stop it, but they hadn't, and in failing, they'd failed not just Paul Tankersley but Honor Harrington, as well. McKeon dreaded meeting her again, but Ramirez had acted as Paul's second. Unlike McKeon or Venizelos, he'd been right there on the field with Paul when Summervale killed him... and they all knew he was going to have to tell Honor how it had happened.
McKeon had hoped they could lend one another some comfort. Instead, they'd only reinforced their collective misery, and he knew he ought to break this up. But he couldn't. Grinding though this shared grief might be, it was still better than facing his demons alone.
The admittance chime sounded, and a spark of anger glittered inside him. He'd left orders not to disturb them, and whatever steward had violated them was going to regret it.
He hit the button, turning his chair as the hatch slid open. He could feel that first spark of anger growing into a blaze of rage, and he didn't even try to resist. He could regret the savage tongue-lashing it was about to spawn later; just now his pain needed that relief, however unfair it might be.
"What the hell do you—?!"
The furious question died an abrupt death as the hatch slid fully open. Two people waited just outside it: a tall yet delicate-looking, black-haired junior-grade captain he'd never laid eyes on and an admiral in a counter-grav chair whom he recognized instantly from the 'faxes.
"Admiral Sarnow?"
McKeon shot to his feet, followed an instant later by his companions, and confusion filled him. Mark Sarnow was a patient in Bassingford Medical Center, the huge Fleet hospital on Manticore, recovering from his wounds. It would be weeks before he was well enough to leave it; everyone knew that.
"Sit down, gentlemen. Please."
McKeon sank back into his chair. Sarnow's normally melodious tenor was husky and frail, and a hospital pallor overlaid his dark complexion, but there was no weakness in his green eyes. A light blanket was tucked over the stumps of his legs, and as the captain maneuvered his chair into the compartment, McKeon saw a complex med panel rigged on its back. He'd seen panels like that before. Sarnow's conveyance might not be a full life-support chair, but it was mighty close to one.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," Sarnow went on as the captain parked him beside the table and folded her hands behind her, "but Captain Corell here—" he gestured over his shoulder at the black-haired woman "—has something to tell you. She's doing so under my authority. As such, I should be here to assume responsibility for it."
McKeon closed his mouth on the questions quivering in his throat. What could be important enough to get Sarnow out of the hospital? For that matter, how had he even known where to find them? And—
He inhaled deeply. Sarnow was an admiral; if he wanted to find someone, he could damn well find them. What really mattered was why he'd found them, and McKeon glanced at Ramirez and Venizelos. Surprise had drawn all three of them out of their fog of misery, but the others looked as confused as he felt. Sarnow smiled at their expressions. It wasn't much of a smile, and it looked out of place on his grim, strained face, but there was a ghost of true amusement in it, and he waved a hand at Captain Corell.
"Captain McKeon, Colonel Ramirez, Commander Venizelos." The fine-boned woman nodded to each of them in turn, her brown eyes dark. "I'm Admiral Sarnow's chief of staff. As such, I became very close to Lady Harrington in Hancock, and I was shocked when I heard of Captain Tankersley's death. I was even more shocked when I learned who his opponent had been, but there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it, so I tried to put it out of my mind. This afternoon, however, I received a com call. There was no video, and the audio was heavily filtered for anonymity, but I'm virtually positive it was a woman's voice. It also came in on my private, unlisted com. Not on an official channel; on my civilian circuit. My civvy combination's known only to my closest friends, and it's flagged for extra precautions, both with the Service and the civilian exchanges, because of my security clearances, but whoever called me still had the reach to find out what it was."
She paused, and McKeon nodded understanding, though his mystified expression hadn't changed.
"The caller," Corell continued carefully, "informed me that she would neither answer questions nor repeat herself. That, as I'm sure she intended, assured my full attention. There wasn't time to get a recorder on it, and I can't repeat her exact words, but there wasn't much room for confusion in them.
"According to my caller, Denver Summervale was, indeed, hired to kill Captain Tankersley." Air hissed between teeth around the table. None of them were surprised, but the confirmation still struck like a fist. "In addition," Corell went on very levelly, "he's been retained to kill Dame Honor, as well."
Alistair McKeon's chair fell to the deck as he rose with a murderous snarl, but Corell didn't even flinch. She only nodded, and he made himself bend down to set the chair upright once more, then forced himself to sit back down on it.
"As you all know, Captain Tankersley wounded Summervale," Corell said. "It wasn't a very serious wound, unfortunately, and he used his need for medical attention as an excuse to leave the field, then disappeared on the way to the hospital. For your unofficial information, Marine Intelligence is working on the assumption that he was paid for the job, though neither they nor the Landing Police have been able as yet to turn up any evidence to that effect. In light of that, I had assumed, as the authorities also did, that he intended to remain out of sight, avoiding official scrutiny until the public furor died down, or even that he'd left the system. According to my caller, however, he's simply lying low until Dame Honor returns. He and whoever hired him assume she'll challenge him on sight, at which time he's to kill her, too."
"But... why?" McKeon looked appealingly at the admiral, then back at Corell. "Are you saying Summervale killed Paul just to get Honor on the field? Killing him was only bait to draw her out where he could kill her?"
"I don't think so. Or, at least, I don't think that's the only reason," Corell said after a moment, her voice low. "The fact that it will get her to go after Summervale is a classic defense for a professional duelist, of course. He won't have challenged her; she'll have challenged him, leaving him no choice but to defend himself. I think they also figure she'll be mad for vengeance, which may make her careless, and God knows she doesn't have any experience in something like this to begin with. All of that's true, and no doubt that would be enough from their viewpoint, but they want her to hurt, Captain McKeon. They want to know that before they kill her they've done the cruelest thing they possibly can to her."
"They have," Tomas Ramirez whispered. His face was as wrung with pain as his voice, and his hands were clenched in a double fist on the table before him.
"I know they have," Mark Sarnow's voice was flint, "and I won't allow anyone to get away with doing something like this to her if I can help it." He looked at Corell. "Tell them the rest, Ernie."
"Yes, Sir." Corell looked McKeon in the eyes. "According to my caller, Summervale has already recovered from his injury. It was only a flesh wound, and it's responded well to quick heal. He's waiting out Dame Honors return in seclusion, until the proper time for him to 'accidentally' encounter her."
She reached into a tunic pocket and withdrew a folded sheet of old-fashioned notepaper. She laid it on the table, pressing it down with her fingers, and let her eyes sweep over all three of the seated men.
"At this moment, according to my caller, he's in hiding in a hunting chalet on Gryphon. I've checked. There is a chalet where she said it was, and the entire facility's been chartered by someone who's provided his own staff for his stay. Its coordinates are listed here, along with the number of fellow 'guests' and 'staff' acting as his bodyguards. Most of them, I suspect, are Organization professionals."
She stepped back from the table, and Sarnow spoke once more.
"Gentlemen, I can't tell you what to do. At the moment, I doubt the authorities could do anything, legally, with this information, and there isn't anything at all I can do—" a small gesture indicated the covered stumps of his legs "—except place it in your hands. I have my own suspicions about who's behind it, but I could be wrong. Dame Honor has certainly made enough enemies in the last few years, and too many of them have the resources to arrange this, either alone or collectively. That makes guessing about their identity—or even who Ernie's caller was, or why she commed—worse than useless at this point. But given how far they've already gone, just keeping Dame Honor away from Summervale, even assuming that were a possible task, isn't going to stop them. Even if he were to be eliminated, they'd just drop back and try another tack. Which is why I remind you all of your Tac classes at Saganami Island and ATC: in order to plan your defense effectively, you must first identify the enemy, his probable intentions, and his resources."
He held Alistair McKeon's eyes for one long, hard second, then glanced at Ramirez and Venizelos. They looked back in silence, and he nodded.
"I believe that's all I can tell you, gentlemen." He looked up at Corell. "You'd better get me back to Bassingford before Doctor Metier comes looking for me, Ernie."
"Aye, aye, Sir." Corell stepped back behind the chair and turned it toward the hatch. The door hissed open as they approached it, but Sarnow raised one hand. Corell stopped instantly, and the admiral looked back over his shoulder.
"Dame Honor is my friend, too, gentlemen," he said softly. "Good luck... and good hunting."
Unfortunately, that didn't mean no one on the other side could ever connect her to it. That would be almost as bad as having her employer discover she'd talked, and making personal contact added measurably to her risk, yet time was short, and she had to convince the other person her information was reliable. The absence of any documentary evidence would make that hard enough without fumbling around through time-wasting intermediaries.
It was a risk, but her com was plugged through enough layers of cutouts to make it effectively untraceable. The filtration devices should make her voice unrecognizable, and she intended to screen her contact's private and unlisted civilian number. Her ability to find that number should encourage its owner to take her seriously; more importantly, civilian exchanges incorporated antirecording security circuits which could be overridden only with a court order. All of which should make her risk minimal, but Georgia Sakristos, ne'e Elaine Komandorski, hadn't stayed out of prison by relying on "should."
On the other hand, she thought, her lovely face (the best biosculpt money could buy) grim, some things were worth risking prison to escape, and she'd kept her own name, face, and voice out of the transaction. She'd handled the entire thing through blind drops... and deliberately chosen a specialist who would insist on knowing exactly who his client was.
She ran over her plan in her mind once more. The newest Earl North Hollow had an almost childish faith in his office's security systems, and they really were good. Sakristos knew; she was the one who'd installed them for his father. The only way through them from the outside would be by brute force, and that would destroy all those other lovely records and the power they represented. No, what she wanted was to remove one, specific file—hers—without damaging the others. It was a tall order, but there was one thing Pavel Young didn't know about his own security. When she'd set it up, the computers had listed him as his father's executor, authorized to enter the system in the event of the old earl's death. Pavel knew that; what he didn't know was that Georgia Sakristos had been listed as the backup, with command code authority if he were unavailable, incapacitated... or dead.
It had taken only one night, and the bruises that went with it, to convince her that even prison would be better than an unending sentence as Pavel Young's "lover," and she was still his chief security officer. In anyone else, that combination would have been too stupid to believe; in his case, Sakristos understood exactly how it worked, and her lips worked with the desire to spit. No one else was quite real to Pavel Young. That was especially true for women, but it applied to everyone else around him, as well. He lived in a universe of cardboard cutouts, of human-shaped things provided solely for his use. He had no sense of them as people who might resent him—or, indeed, who had any right to resent him—and he was too busy doing things to them to even consider what they might do to him if they got the chance.
It was a blind spot he couldn't even recognize, much less cure, despite the outcome of his vendetta against Honor Harrington, and that same sublime arrogance blinded him to the danger in forcing his own security chief to play sick sex games. Georgia Sakristos called up the security files on her terminal once more, and her smile was ugly as the verifying code blinked. The idiot hadn't even accessed the files to see who had command authority in the event of his death. Of course, he was a young man by Manticoran standards. No doubt he thought he had plenty of time to put his affairs in order.
She reached out and punched a com code into her terminal with rock-steady fingers.
Alistair McKeon stared down into his drink without seeing it. The ice had long since melted, floating the whiskey on a crystal clear belt of water. It didn't matter. Nothing much seemed to matter just now.
Andreas Venizelos and Tomas Ramirez sat with him, equally silent, eyes fixed on nothing with equal intensity, and the small, private compartment in Hephaestus's officer's club was silent about them.
Coming here had been a bad idea, McKeon thought emptily. The suggestion had been his, but it hadn't been a good one. His quarters aboard Prince Adrian were like a tomb, crushing in on him, and he'd known it had to be at least as bad for the others. Especially for Ramirez. It wasn't their fault, yet all of them shared the same sense of guilt. They hadn't been smart enough or quick enough to stop it. Perhaps it hadn't really been their job to stop it, but they hadn't, and in failing, they'd failed not just Paul Tankersley but Honor Harrington, as well. McKeon dreaded meeting her again, but Ramirez had acted as Paul's second. Unlike McKeon or Venizelos, he'd been right there on the field with Paul when Summervale killed him... and they all knew he was going to have to tell Honor how it had happened.
McKeon had hoped they could lend one another some comfort. Instead, they'd only reinforced their collective misery, and he knew he ought to break this up. But he couldn't. Grinding though this shared grief might be, it was still better than facing his demons alone.
The admittance chime sounded, and a spark of anger glittered inside him. He'd left orders not to disturb them, and whatever steward had violated them was going to regret it.
He hit the button, turning his chair as the hatch slid open. He could feel that first spark of anger growing into a blaze of rage, and he didn't even try to resist. He could regret the savage tongue-lashing it was about to spawn later; just now his pain needed that relief, however unfair it might be.
"What the hell do you—?!"
The furious question died an abrupt death as the hatch slid fully open. Two people waited just outside it: a tall yet delicate-looking, black-haired junior-grade captain he'd never laid eyes on and an admiral in a counter-grav chair whom he recognized instantly from the 'faxes.
"Admiral Sarnow?"
McKeon shot to his feet, followed an instant later by his companions, and confusion filled him. Mark Sarnow was a patient in Bassingford Medical Center, the huge Fleet hospital on Manticore, recovering from his wounds. It would be weeks before he was well enough to leave it; everyone knew that.
"Sit down, gentlemen. Please."
McKeon sank back into his chair. Sarnow's normally melodious tenor was husky and frail, and a hospital pallor overlaid his dark complexion, but there was no weakness in his green eyes. A light blanket was tucked over the stumps of his legs, and as the captain maneuvered his chair into the compartment, McKeon saw a complex med panel rigged on its back. He'd seen panels like that before. Sarnow's conveyance might not be a full life-support chair, but it was mighty close to one.
"I'm sorry to disturb you," Sarnow went on as the captain parked him beside the table and folded her hands behind her, "but Captain Corell here—" he gestured over his shoulder at the black-haired woman "—has something to tell you. She's doing so under my authority. As such, I should be here to assume responsibility for it."
McKeon closed his mouth on the questions quivering in his throat. What could be important enough to get Sarnow out of the hospital? For that matter, how had he even known where to find them? And—
He inhaled deeply. Sarnow was an admiral; if he wanted to find someone, he could damn well find them. What really mattered was why he'd found them, and McKeon glanced at Ramirez and Venizelos. Surprise had drawn all three of them out of their fog of misery, but the others looked as confused as he felt. Sarnow smiled at their expressions. It wasn't much of a smile, and it looked out of place on his grim, strained face, but there was a ghost of true amusement in it, and he waved a hand at Captain Corell.
"Captain McKeon, Colonel Ramirez, Commander Venizelos." The fine-boned woman nodded to each of them in turn, her brown eyes dark. "I'm Admiral Sarnow's chief of staff. As such, I became very close to Lady Harrington in Hancock, and I was shocked when I heard of Captain Tankersley's death. I was even more shocked when I learned who his opponent had been, but there didn't seem to be anything I could do about it, so I tried to put it out of my mind. This afternoon, however, I received a com call. There was no video, and the audio was heavily filtered for anonymity, but I'm virtually positive it was a woman's voice. It also came in on my private, unlisted com. Not on an official channel; on my civilian circuit. My civvy combination's known only to my closest friends, and it's flagged for extra precautions, both with the Service and the civilian exchanges, because of my security clearances, but whoever called me still had the reach to find out what it was."
She paused, and McKeon nodded understanding, though his mystified expression hadn't changed.
"The caller," Corell continued carefully, "informed me that she would neither answer questions nor repeat herself. That, as I'm sure she intended, assured my full attention. There wasn't time to get a recorder on it, and I can't repeat her exact words, but there wasn't much room for confusion in them.
"According to my caller, Denver Summervale was, indeed, hired to kill Captain Tankersley." Air hissed between teeth around the table. None of them were surprised, but the confirmation still struck like a fist. "In addition," Corell went on very levelly, "he's been retained to kill Dame Honor, as well."
Alistair McKeon's chair fell to the deck as he rose with a murderous snarl, but Corell didn't even flinch. She only nodded, and he made himself bend down to set the chair upright once more, then forced himself to sit back down on it.
"As you all know, Captain Tankersley wounded Summervale," Corell said. "It wasn't a very serious wound, unfortunately, and he used his need for medical attention as an excuse to leave the field, then disappeared on the way to the hospital. For your unofficial information, Marine Intelligence is working on the assumption that he was paid for the job, though neither they nor the Landing Police have been able as yet to turn up any evidence to that effect. In light of that, I had assumed, as the authorities also did, that he intended to remain out of sight, avoiding official scrutiny until the public furor died down, or even that he'd left the system. According to my caller, however, he's simply lying low until Dame Honor returns. He and whoever hired him assume she'll challenge him on sight, at which time he's to kill her, too."
"But... why?" McKeon looked appealingly at the admiral, then back at Corell. "Are you saying Summervale killed Paul just to get Honor on the field? Killing him was only bait to draw her out where he could kill her?"
"I don't think so. Or, at least, I don't think that's the only reason," Corell said after a moment, her voice low. "The fact that it will get her to go after Summervale is a classic defense for a professional duelist, of course. He won't have challenged her; she'll have challenged him, leaving him no choice but to defend himself. I think they also figure she'll be mad for vengeance, which may make her careless, and God knows she doesn't have any experience in something like this to begin with. All of that's true, and no doubt that would be enough from their viewpoint, but they want her to hurt, Captain McKeon. They want to know that before they kill her they've done the cruelest thing they possibly can to her."
"They have," Tomas Ramirez whispered. His face was as wrung with pain as his voice, and his hands were clenched in a double fist on the table before him.
"I know they have," Mark Sarnow's voice was flint, "and I won't allow anyone to get away with doing something like this to her if I can help it." He looked at Corell. "Tell them the rest, Ernie."
"Yes, Sir." Corell looked McKeon in the eyes. "According to my caller, Summervale has already recovered from his injury. It was only a flesh wound, and it's responded well to quick heal. He's waiting out Dame Honors return in seclusion, until the proper time for him to 'accidentally' encounter her."
She reached into a tunic pocket and withdrew a folded sheet of old-fashioned notepaper. She laid it on the table, pressing it down with her fingers, and let her eyes sweep over all three of the seated men.
"At this moment, according to my caller, he's in hiding in a hunting chalet on Gryphon. I've checked. There is a chalet where she said it was, and the entire facility's been chartered by someone who's provided his own staff for his stay. Its coordinates are listed here, along with the number of fellow 'guests' and 'staff' acting as his bodyguards. Most of them, I suspect, are Organization professionals."
She stepped back from the table, and Sarnow spoke once more.
"Gentlemen, I can't tell you what to do. At the moment, I doubt the authorities could do anything, legally, with this information, and there isn't anything at all I can do—" a small gesture indicated the covered stumps of his legs "—except place it in your hands. I have my own suspicions about who's behind it, but I could be wrong. Dame Honor has certainly made enough enemies in the last few years, and too many of them have the resources to arrange this, either alone or collectively. That makes guessing about their identity—or even who Ernie's caller was, or why she commed—worse than useless at this point. But given how far they've already gone, just keeping Dame Honor away from Summervale, even assuming that were a possible task, isn't going to stop them. Even if he were to be eliminated, they'd just drop back and try another tack. Which is why I remind you all of your Tac classes at Saganami Island and ATC: in order to plan your defense effectively, you must first identify the enemy, his probable intentions, and his resources."
He held Alistair McKeon's eyes for one long, hard second, then glanced at Ramirez and Venizelos. They looked back in silence, and he nodded.
"I believe that's all I can tell you, gentlemen." He looked up at Corell. "You'd better get me back to Bassingford before Doctor Metier comes looking for me, Ernie."
"Aye, aye, Sir." Corell stepped back behind the chair and turned it toward the hatch. The door hissed open as they approached it, but Sarnow raised one hand. Corell stopped instantly, and the admiral looked back over his shoulder.
"Dame Honor is my friend, too, gentlemen," he said softly. "Good luck... and good hunting."
CHAPTER TWENTY
Michelle Henke stepped out of the lift and straightened her shoulders as she started down the passage. The hatch at its end was flanked by two guards, one a Royal Manticoran Marine corporal, the other a Grayson armsman in the green livery of the Steading of Harrington. Armed foreign nationals weren't normally allowed aboard a Manticoran warship, but the white-faced, mechanical parody of a human beyond that hatch was a visiting noblewoman as well as an RMN captain. Henke doubted Honor would have requested or even authorized her armsman's presence under normal circumstances; as it was, she probably didn't even know the Grayson contingent was on board.
She reached the guards, who saluted in perfect unison.
"At ease," she said, and her mouth tried to smile, despite her depression, as the Marine dropped into parade rest and the armsman, not to be outdone, assumed the Grayson equivalent. But the fragile smile vanished even more quickly than it had come, and she looked at the Marine.
"I'd like to see Lady Harrington. Please tell her I'm here."
The corporal started to reach for the button, then drew his hand back when the armsman turned his head to give him a level look. Henke pretended not to notice but sighed mentally. No doubt if she'd said she wanted to see Captain Harrington the armsman would have let the Marine have his way, but her choice of title let him assume she wasn't here on RMN business. The fierce protectiveness of Honor's Grayson attendants had startled her—until she discovered they not only knew about Paul's death but the verdict in the Young court-martial, as well. None of them ever discussed either incident, but their very silence only underscored their distrust in Manticore's ability to protect her... and Henke couldn't disagree with them.
She gave herself a mental shake, cursing the way her own mind savaged her with memories of her cousin, as the armsman pressed the button.
"Yes?" It was James MacGuiness' voice, not Honors, and the armsman cleared his throat.
"Captain Henke to see the Steadholder, Mr. MacGuiness."
"Thank you, Jamie."
A soft tone sounded and the hatch began to open. The armsman moved aside, and Henke stepped past him. A worn-looking MacGuiness met her just inside the hatch, his swollen, bloodshot eyes weary. The sleeping cabin across the main compartment was sealed, and there was no sign of Nimitz.
"How is she, Mac?" There was no way Honor could hear her in the sleeping cabin, but Henke kept her voice low, almost a whisper.
"No change, Ma'am." MacGuiness met her look with one that dropped its own barriers to reveal the depth of his anxious grief. "No change at all. She just lies there, Ma'am."
The steward wrung his hands in uncharacteristic helplessness, and, despite the vast difference in their ranks, Henke put an arm around the older man and squeezed tightly. He closed his eyes for just a moment, then she felt him draw a deep breath and released him.
"Nimitz?" she asked in that same quiet voice.
"The same." MacGuiness shook himself and stepped back, gesturing her toward a chair as if just remembering his manners. "He won't eat," the steward said as Henke sat. "Not even celery." His mouth quivered in a fleeting, sad smile. "He just lies on her chest and purrs to her, Ma'am... and I don't think she even hears him at all."
Henke leaned back and rubbed her face with both hands in a futile effort to scrub away her own fear. She'd never seen Honor like this—never imagined she could be like this. She hadn't shed a single tear when Henke told her. She'd only swayed, white-faced, her brown eyes those of a maimed animal that didn't understand its own pain. Not even the heartbreaking keen of Nimitz's lament had seemed to touch her.
Then she'd turned to Clinkscales, still without a tear, expressionless as a statue, no longer human but a thing of ice, and her voice hadn't even quivered as she gave her orders. Nor had she seemed to hear him when he tried to speak to her, tried to express his sympathy. She'd simply gone right on in that terrible, undead voice, and he'd darted one agonized glance at Henke and bent his head in acceptance. Fifteen minutes later, Honor had been in Henke's pinnace, headed for Agni.
She hadn't spoken to Henke—hadn't even turned her head when Henke spoke to her. She might as well have been on another planet, not in the seat just across the pinnace aisle. She'd simply sat there, dry-eyed, clutching Nimitz to her chest while she stared straight ahead.
That had been two days ago. Agni had been delayed breaking orbit by the need to take on reactor mass, and Lord Clinkscales and Protector Benjamin had insisted on holding her another six hours while they transferred up an entourage for Honor. The Protector hadn't said so in so many words, but his tone conveyed a message Henke would never have dared ignore: Honor Harrington would return to the Star Kingdom only in a way that made Grayson's support for one of its own unmistakable.
Honor hadn't even noticed. She'd retired to her sleeping cabin, a silent, white-faced ghost with eyes of agony, and Henke was terrified for her. If not even Nimitz could reach her, perhaps there was nothing left to reach. Mike Henke was probably the one human in the universe who knew how desperately lonely Honor had been, how much courage it had taken to let Paul into her heart at all, and how much she'd loved him once she had. Now Paul was gone, and—
Henke's worries broke off in mid-thought, and her head snapped up as the sleeping cabin hatch opened.
Honor wore her captains uniform, not the Grayson gown in which she'd come aboard, and Nimitz rode her shoulder. She was perfectly, immaculately groomed, but not even the 'cat's fluffy coat could hide his gauntness, and Honor was even worse. She was drawn and ashen, her lips bloodless in a hollowed face. She wore no makeup, and the strong bones of her facial structure, graceful no more, poked at her skin like eroded mountain crags.
"Honor?" Henke stood slowly, as if afraid of frightening some wounded wild thing, and her soft voice ached with pain of her own.
"Mike." No expression crossed Honors face, and her eyes were worse than dead. They were brown flint, frozen and cold, like steel quenched in agony, but at least there was recognition in them once more. Recognition and something more—a frightening something. They moved to MacGuiness. "Mac."
Henke felt her own eyes sting. That flat, emotionless soprano could have been a computer's. There was no life in it, no feeling but a pain deeper than the stars.
Honor said nothing more. She simply started for the main hatch. She went through it with a slow, measured tread, and both sentries snapped to attention. She didn't even see them as she walked past.
MacGuiness looked at Henke, his eyes raw with appeal, and she nodded, then hurried after Honor. She didn't say anything more. She was afraid to. She only walked beside her friend, and Nimitz was hunched and silent on Honor's shoulder, his tail hanging down her back like a forlorn and lifeless banner.
Honor punched a destination into the lift control panel, and Henke's eyes widened, then narrowed, as she recognized it. She started to speak, but she didn't. She simply folded her hands behind her and waited.
The journey seemed to take forever, yet the lift door slid open at last, and Honor stepped out into the light cruiser's armory. The senior chief master sergeant who served as Agni's Marine armorer looked up from a service manuals display, then snapped to attention behind the long, high counter.
"Is the range clear, Sergeant?" Honor asked in that same, dead voice.
"Uh, yes, Milady. It is." The armorer didn't sound happy to confirm that, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Then issue me an automatic," she said. "Ten millimeter."
The sergeant looked over Honor's shoulder at his captain. He was a man who'd spent a lifetime with weapons, and the thought of putting one into the hands of a woman who spoke like that frightened him. It frightened Henke, too, but she bit her lip and nodded.
The sergeant swallowed, then reached under the counter and produced a memo board.
"Please fill out the requisition while I get it, Milady," he said.
Honor began tapping keys. The sergeant watched her a moment, then turned away toward the weapons storage, only to stop as Honor spoke again.
"I need filled ten-round magazines. Ten of them. And four boxes of shells."
"I—" The sergeant cut himself off and nodded. "Yes, Milady. Ten charged magazines and two hundred rounds in the box."
He vanished into the weapons storage, and Henke stepped up to Honor's side. She watched the long fingers tapping memo keys with slow, painful precision, and her own face was troubled. The Star Kingdom's military hadn't used chemical-powered firearms in over three T-centuries, for no firearm ever made could match the single-hit lethality of the hyper-velocity darts of a pulser or pulse rifle. A man hit in the hand by a pulser dart might—if he was very, very lucky—survive with the mere loss of his arm, and that made auto-loading pistols antiques, yet every Manticoran warship carried a few of them, precisely because their wounds were survivable. They were always available, and always in the traditional ten-millimeter caliber, yet never issued for duty use; they had only one function, and as long as duels were legal they were carried for those who wished to practice with them.
But they could be used for other purposes.
Honor finished filling out the requisition form and thumbprinted the scan pad, then slid the memo board back across the counter. She stood there, hands at her sides, waiting, until the sergeant returned.
"Here you are, Milady." He laid the heavy, bolstered pistol and a set of ear-protectors on the counter, his reluctance obvious. He followed them with a second pair, their connector strip adjusted to something approximating the size of a treecat's head, though Honor hadn't requested them, then placed an ammunition carrier beside them with even greater reluctance.
"Thank you." Honor scooped up the pistol and attached its magnetic pad to her belt, then reached for the protectors with one hand and the ammunition with the other, but Henke's hand snapped out. It came down on the ammunition carrier, pinning it to the counter, and Honor looked at her.
"Honor, I—" Henke began, but her voice died. How could she ask her best friend the question she had to ask? Yet if she didn't, how could she live with the consequences if—
"Don't worry, Mike." There was no life, no expression, in Honor's voice, but her mouth moved in a cold, dead travesty of a smile. "Nimitz won't let me do that. Besides," the first trace of feeling touched her face—an ugly, hungry twist of her lips, more sensed than seen and somehow more frightening than anything she'd done or said yet, "I have something more important to do."
Henke stared into her eyes for a moment, then sighed and lifted her hand. Honor slid the ammunition carrier off the counter, looping the strap over her left shoulder and settling the heavy pouch at her side. She nodded once to Henke, then looked at the armorer.
"Program the range, Sergeant. Standard Manticoran gravity on the plates. Set the range gate for forty meters. Human targets."
She turned without another word, and stepped through the firing range hatch.
She reached the guards, who saluted in perfect unison.
"At ease," she said, and her mouth tried to smile, despite her depression, as the Marine dropped into parade rest and the armsman, not to be outdone, assumed the Grayson equivalent. But the fragile smile vanished even more quickly than it had come, and she looked at the Marine.
"I'd like to see Lady Harrington. Please tell her I'm here."
The corporal started to reach for the button, then drew his hand back when the armsman turned his head to give him a level look. Henke pretended not to notice but sighed mentally. No doubt if she'd said she wanted to see Captain Harrington the armsman would have let the Marine have his way, but her choice of title let him assume she wasn't here on RMN business. The fierce protectiveness of Honor's Grayson attendants had startled her—until she discovered they not only knew about Paul's death but the verdict in the Young court-martial, as well. None of them ever discussed either incident, but their very silence only underscored their distrust in Manticore's ability to protect her... and Henke couldn't disagree with them.
She gave herself a mental shake, cursing the way her own mind savaged her with memories of her cousin, as the armsman pressed the button.
"Yes?" It was James MacGuiness' voice, not Honors, and the armsman cleared his throat.
"Captain Henke to see the Steadholder, Mr. MacGuiness."
"Thank you, Jamie."
A soft tone sounded and the hatch began to open. The armsman moved aside, and Henke stepped past him. A worn-looking MacGuiness met her just inside the hatch, his swollen, bloodshot eyes weary. The sleeping cabin across the main compartment was sealed, and there was no sign of Nimitz.
"How is she, Mac?" There was no way Honor could hear her in the sleeping cabin, but Henke kept her voice low, almost a whisper.
"No change, Ma'am." MacGuiness met her look with one that dropped its own barriers to reveal the depth of his anxious grief. "No change at all. She just lies there, Ma'am."
The steward wrung his hands in uncharacteristic helplessness, and, despite the vast difference in their ranks, Henke put an arm around the older man and squeezed tightly. He closed his eyes for just a moment, then she felt him draw a deep breath and released him.
"Nimitz?" she asked in that same quiet voice.
"The same." MacGuiness shook himself and stepped back, gesturing her toward a chair as if just remembering his manners. "He won't eat," the steward said as Henke sat. "Not even celery." His mouth quivered in a fleeting, sad smile. "He just lies on her chest and purrs to her, Ma'am... and I don't think she even hears him at all."
Henke leaned back and rubbed her face with both hands in a futile effort to scrub away her own fear. She'd never seen Honor like this—never imagined she could be like this. She hadn't shed a single tear when Henke told her. She'd only swayed, white-faced, her brown eyes those of a maimed animal that didn't understand its own pain. Not even the heartbreaking keen of Nimitz's lament had seemed to touch her.
Then she'd turned to Clinkscales, still without a tear, expressionless as a statue, no longer human but a thing of ice, and her voice hadn't even quivered as she gave her orders. Nor had she seemed to hear him when he tried to speak to her, tried to express his sympathy. She'd simply gone right on in that terrible, undead voice, and he'd darted one agonized glance at Henke and bent his head in acceptance. Fifteen minutes later, Honor had been in Henke's pinnace, headed for Agni.
She hadn't spoken to Henke—hadn't even turned her head when Henke spoke to her. She might as well have been on another planet, not in the seat just across the pinnace aisle. She'd simply sat there, dry-eyed, clutching Nimitz to her chest while she stared straight ahead.
That had been two days ago. Agni had been delayed breaking orbit by the need to take on reactor mass, and Lord Clinkscales and Protector Benjamin had insisted on holding her another six hours while they transferred up an entourage for Honor. The Protector hadn't said so in so many words, but his tone conveyed a message Henke would never have dared ignore: Honor Harrington would return to the Star Kingdom only in a way that made Grayson's support for one of its own unmistakable.
Honor hadn't even noticed. She'd retired to her sleeping cabin, a silent, white-faced ghost with eyes of agony, and Henke was terrified for her. If not even Nimitz could reach her, perhaps there was nothing left to reach. Mike Henke was probably the one human in the universe who knew how desperately lonely Honor had been, how much courage it had taken to let Paul into her heart at all, and how much she'd loved him once she had. Now Paul was gone, and—
Henke's worries broke off in mid-thought, and her head snapped up as the sleeping cabin hatch opened.
Honor wore her captains uniform, not the Grayson gown in which she'd come aboard, and Nimitz rode her shoulder. She was perfectly, immaculately groomed, but not even the 'cat's fluffy coat could hide his gauntness, and Honor was even worse. She was drawn and ashen, her lips bloodless in a hollowed face. She wore no makeup, and the strong bones of her facial structure, graceful no more, poked at her skin like eroded mountain crags.
"Honor?" Henke stood slowly, as if afraid of frightening some wounded wild thing, and her soft voice ached with pain of her own.
"Mike." No expression crossed Honors face, and her eyes were worse than dead. They were brown flint, frozen and cold, like steel quenched in agony, but at least there was recognition in them once more. Recognition and something more—a frightening something. They moved to MacGuiness. "Mac."
Henke felt her own eyes sting. That flat, emotionless soprano could have been a computer's. There was no life in it, no feeling but a pain deeper than the stars.
Honor said nothing more. She simply started for the main hatch. She went through it with a slow, measured tread, and both sentries snapped to attention. She didn't even see them as she walked past.
MacGuiness looked at Henke, his eyes raw with appeal, and she nodded, then hurried after Honor. She didn't say anything more. She was afraid to. She only walked beside her friend, and Nimitz was hunched and silent on Honor's shoulder, his tail hanging down her back like a forlorn and lifeless banner.
Honor punched a destination into the lift control panel, and Henke's eyes widened, then narrowed, as she recognized it. She started to speak, but she didn't. She simply folded her hands behind her and waited.
The journey seemed to take forever, yet the lift door slid open at last, and Honor stepped out into the light cruiser's armory. The senior chief master sergeant who served as Agni's Marine armorer looked up from a service manuals display, then snapped to attention behind the long, high counter.
"Is the range clear, Sergeant?" Honor asked in that same, dead voice.
"Uh, yes, Milady. It is." The armorer didn't sound happy to confirm that, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Then issue me an automatic," she said. "Ten millimeter."
The sergeant looked over Honor's shoulder at his captain. He was a man who'd spent a lifetime with weapons, and the thought of putting one into the hands of a woman who spoke like that frightened him. It frightened Henke, too, but she bit her lip and nodded.
The sergeant swallowed, then reached under the counter and produced a memo board.
"Please fill out the requisition while I get it, Milady," he said.
Honor began tapping keys. The sergeant watched her a moment, then turned away toward the weapons storage, only to stop as Honor spoke again.
"I need filled ten-round magazines. Ten of them. And four boxes of shells."
"I—" The sergeant cut himself off and nodded. "Yes, Milady. Ten charged magazines and two hundred rounds in the box."
He vanished into the weapons storage, and Henke stepped up to Honor's side. She watched the long fingers tapping memo keys with slow, painful precision, and her own face was troubled. The Star Kingdom's military hadn't used chemical-powered firearms in over three T-centuries, for no firearm ever made could match the single-hit lethality of the hyper-velocity darts of a pulser or pulse rifle. A man hit in the hand by a pulser dart might—if he was very, very lucky—survive with the mere loss of his arm, and that made auto-loading pistols antiques, yet every Manticoran warship carried a few of them, precisely because their wounds were survivable. They were always available, and always in the traditional ten-millimeter caliber, yet never issued for duty use; they had only one function, and as long as duels were legal they were carried for those who wished to practice with them.
But they could be used for other purposes.
Honor finished filling out the requisition form and thumbprinted the scan pad, then slid the memo board back across the counter. She stood there, hands at her sides, waiting, until the sergeant returned.
"Here you are, Milady." He laid the heavy, bolstered pistol and a set of ear-protectors on the counter, his reluctance obvious. He followed them with a second pair, their connector strip adjusted to something approximating the size of a treecat's head, though Honor hadn't requested them, then placed an ammunition carrier beside them with even greater reluctance.
"Thank you." Honor scooped up the pistol and attached its magnetic pad to her belt, then reached for the protectors with one hand and the ammunition with the other, but Henke's hand snapped out. It came down on the ammunition carrier, pinning it to the counter, and Honor looked at her.
"Honor, I—" Henke began, but her voice died. How could she ask her best friend the question she had to ask? Yet if she didn't, how could she live with the consequences if—
"Don't worry, Mike." There was no life, no expression, in Honor's voice, but her mouth moved in a cold, dead travesty of a smile. "Nimitz won't let me do that. Besides," the first trace of feeling touched her face—an ugly, hungry twist of her lips, more sensed than seen and somehow more frightening than anything she'd done or said yet, "I have something more important to do."
Henke stared into her eyes for a moment, then sighed and lifted her hand. Honor slid the ammunition carrier off the counter, looping the strap over her left shoulder and settling the heavy pouch at her side. She nodded once to Henke, then looked at the armorer.
"Program the range, Sergeant. Standard Manticoran gravity on the plates. Set the range gate for forty meters. Human targets."
She turned without another word, and stepped through the firing range hatch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
"Prince Adrian, this is Hephaestus Central. Stand by for final departure clearance."
Captain Alistair McKeon nodded to his helmsman to stand ready and pressed the com stud on the arm of his command chair.
"Prince Adrian copies standby for final departure clearance, Hephaestus. Holding."
"Understood, Prince Adrian." There was a moment of silence while the controller double-checked his board. Then—"You are cleared, Prince Adrian."
"Prince Adrian copies clearance. Undocking," McKeon responded, and looked back at the helmsman. "Disengage mooring tractors."
"Disengage mooring tractors, aye, Sir." The helmsman depressed half a dozen buttons. "Tractors disengaged, Sir."
"Check our zone, Beth."
"Checking zone, aye, Sir." The tactical officer made a quick sensor sweep, and McKeon waited patiently. He'd once seen what happened when a battlecruiser failed to do that and a shuttle pilot had strayed into the departure zone. "Zone clear, Sir. Five small yard craft at two-one-eight zero-niner-five, range two-five kilometers. Apollo bears zero-three-niner, same plane. Range seven-point-five klicks."
"Confirmed on maneuvering plot, Sir," the helmsman reported.
"Very good. Forward thrusters."
"Engaging forward thrusters, aye, Sir." The heavy cruiser trembled as she eased out of her berth, and McKeon watched the cavernous docking bay move back and away on the visual display.
"Hold her on her present heading," he said. The helmsman acknowledged, and McKeon switched his visual display to starboard just as Apollo slid stern first out of her own berth. Their courses diverged sharply, pushing them apart to clear the safety perimeters of their impeller wedges, and McKeon depressed an intraship com stud.
"Colonel Ramirez," a deep voice answered.
"Departure on schedule, Colonel. Our ETA looks good."
"Thank you, Sir. We appreciate the assistance."
"Least we can do, Colonel," McKeon replied, and leaned back in his chair as he cut the circuit.
Colonel Tomas Ramirez and Major Susan Hibson had been shocked by their latest readiness tests. While no one could fault the willingness of HMS Nike's Marine detachment, the entire battalion was sadly out of training. The influx of replacements and corresponding transfer out of experienced personnel had only made bad worse, and Colonel Ramirez and his able exec had concluded that Something Had To Be Done, whether Nike was operational or not. After all, Royal Manticoran Marines shouldn't stand around and lose their edge just because the sissies who ran the Navy broke one of their ships!
A quick memo up the chain of command earned the endorsement of no less a personage than General Dame Erica Vonderhoff, Commanding Officer, Fleet Marine Force. Of course, COFMF couldn't issue orders to the Navy; the best she could do was authorize Ramirez to request troop lift support on an "as available" basis with her blessings.
The Navy had been sympathetic, but Colonel Ramirez's request to Training and Support Command had been greeted with regrets; the Fleet would need at least a week to free up the lift for a battalion-level training drop. Training and Support would be happy to schedule them ASAP, but in the meantime, why not carry out high orbit insertions from Hephaestus? After all, the space station orbited Manticore itself, and the Star Kingdoms capital planet offered suitable training areas in abundance. What about, say, Camp Justin in High Sligo? That was about hip-deep in snow just now, which ought to offer plenty of scope for toughening Nike's Marines back up. Or, if Colonel Ramirez would prefer desert, how about Camp Maastricht in the Duchy of West Wind?
But the colonel had his heart set on Gryphon. Troops as appallingly out of fighting trim as his were needed really challenging terrain, and few things in life were as challenging as Gryphon in winter. Not only did the planet's extreme axial tilt make for... interesting weather patterns, but half of it was still virgin wilderness.
Unfortunately, they couldn't get to Gryphon from Hephaestus. The components of the Manticore Binary System were just past periastron, but the GO and G2 companion stars were still almost eleven light-hours apart. Nike's pinnaces would have required two and a half Manticoran days to make the trip, which was twice their maximum life-support endurance with full troop loads.
It had seemed Colonel Ramirez would have to settle for Camp Justin after all, but Fate works in mysterious ways. He mentioned his problem to Captain McKeon over a round of drinks one evening, and the captain saw an opportunity to help improve interservice relations. He and Commander Venizelos of HMS Apollo were due to participate in a defensive exercise in Manticore-B, and, with a little crowding, their ships could lift Nike's full Marine detachment plus its pinnaces to Gryphon with just a short hop through hyper.
Colonel Ramirez had accepted the offer with the Corps' thanks, and so it happened that HMS Prince Adrian, HMS Apollo, and just under six hundred additional Marines departed HMSS Hephaestus for Gryphon right on schedule.
"Now why would you want to come along, Scotty?" Susan Hibson asked.
Lieutenant Scotty Tremaine, HMS Prince Adrian's assistant tactical officer, who doubled as the heavy cruiser's boat bay control officer, watched her unwrap a fresh stick of gum. Tremaine considered gum-chewing one of humanity's more disgusting vices, but he made allowances for the major. He'd known her quite a while and seen her do some very good things during the Blackbird Raid. Besides, it wasn't her fault she spent so much of her time inside a suit of battle armor. That was probably enough to warp anyone a little, and there weren't a lot of other things a person could do for relaxation with the equivalent of a pre-space main battle tank wrapped around her. There were, after all, only so many targets one could blow up, shoot into very tiny pieces, or tear apart by brute strength.
Now she slid the gum into her mouth and chewed rhythmically, and he shrugged under the weight of her eyes.
Captain Alistair McKeon nodded to his helmsman to stand ready and pressed the com stud on the arm of his command chair.
"Prince Adrian copies standby for final departure clearance, Hephaestus. Holding."
"Understood, Prince Adrian." There was a moment of silence while the controller double-checked his board. Then—"You are cleared, Prince Adrian."
"Prince Adrian copies clearance. Undocking," McKeon responded, and looked back at the helmsman. "Disengage mooring tractors."
"Disengage mooring tractors, aye, Sir." The helmsman depressed half a dozen buttons. "Tractors disengaged, Sir."
"Check our zone, Beth."
"Checking zone, aye, Sir." The tactical officer made a quick sensor sweep, and McKeon waited patiently. He'd once seen what happened when a battlecruiser failed to do that and a shuttle pilot had strayed into the departure zone. "Zone clear, Sir. Five small yard craft at two-one-eight zero-niner-five, range two-five kilometers. Apollo bears zero-three-niner, same plane. Range seven-point-five klicks."
"Confirmed on maneuvering plot, Sir," the helmsman reported.
"Very good. Forward thrusters."
"Engaging forward thrusters, aye, Sir." The heavy cruiser trembled as she eased out of her berth, and McKeon watched the cavernous docking bay move back and away on the visual display.
"Hold her on her present heading," he said. The helmsman acknowledged, and McKeon switched his visual display to starboard just as Apollo slid stern first out of her own berth. Their courses diverged sharply, pushing them apart to clear the safety perimeters of their impeller wedges, and McKeon depressed an intraship com stud.
"Colonel Ramirez," a deep voice answered.
"Departure on schedule, Colonel. Our ETA looks good."
"Thank you, Sir. We appreciate the assistance."
"Least we can do, Colonel," McKeon replied, and leaned back in his chair as he cut the circuit.
Colonel Tomas Ramirez and Major Susan Hibson had been shocked by their latest readiness tests. While no one could fault the willingness of HMS Nike's Marine detachment, the entire battalion was sadly out of training. The influx of replacements and corresponding transfer out of experienced personnel had only made bad worse, and Colonel Ramirez and his able exec had concluded that Something Had To Be Done, whether Nike was operational or not. After all, Royal Manticoran Marines shouldn't stand around and lose their edge just because the sissies who ran the Navy broke one of their ships!
A quick memo up the chain of command earned the endorsement of no less a personage than General Dame Erica Vonderhoff, Commanding Officer, Fleet Marine Force. Of course, COFMF couldn't issue orders to the Navy; the best she could do was authorize Ramirez to request troop lift support on an "as available" basis with her blessings.
The Navy had been sympathetic, but Colonel Ramirez's request to Training and Support Command had been greeted with regrets; the Fleet would need at least a week to free up the lift for a battalion-level training drop. Training and Support would be happy to schedule them ASAP, but in the meantime, why not carry out high orbit insertions from Hephaestus? After all, the space station orbited Manticore itself, and the Star Kingdoms capital planet offered suitable training areas in abundance. What about, say, Camp Justin in High Sligo? That was about hip-deep in snow just now, which ought to offer plenty of scope for toughening Nike's Marines back up. Or, if Colonel Ramirez would prefer desert, how about Camp Maastricht in the Duchy of West Wind?
But the colonel had his heart set on Gryphon. Troops as appallingly out of fighting trim as his were needed really challenging terrain, and few things in life were as challenging as Gryphon in winter. Not only did the planet's extreme axial tilt make for... interesting weather patterns, but half of it was still virgin wilderness.
Unfortunately, they couldn't get to Gryphon from Hephaestus. The components of the Manticore Binary System were just past periastron, but the GO and G2 companion stars were still almost eleven light-hours apart. Nike's pinnaces would have required two and a half Manticoran days to make the trip, which was twice their maximum life-support endurance with full troop loads.
It had seemed Colonel Ramirez would have to settle for Camp Justin after all, but Fate works in mysterious ways. He mentioned his problem to Captain McKeon over a round of drinks one evening, and the captain saw an opportunity to help improve interservice relations. He and Commander Venizelos of HMS Apollo were due to participate in a defensive exercise in Manticore-B, and, with a little crowding, their ships could lift Nike's full Marine detachment plus its pinnaces to Gryphon with just a short hop through hyper.
Colonel Ramirez had accepted the offer with the Corps' thanks, and so it happened that HMS Prince Adrian, HMS Apollo, and just under six hundred additional Marines departed HMSS Hephaestus for Gryphon right on schedule.
"Now why would you want to come along, Scotty?" Susan Hibson asked.
Lieutenant Scotty Tremaine, HMS Prince Adrian's assistant tactical officer, who doubled as the heavy cruiser's boat bay control officer, watched her unwrap a fresh stick of gum. Tremaine considered gum-chewing one of humanity's more disgusting vices, but he made allowances for the major. He'd known her quite a while and seen her do some very good things during the Blackbird Raid. Besides, it wasn't her fault she spent so much of her time inside a suit of battle armor. That was probably enough to warp anyone a little, and there weren't a lot of other things a person could do for relaxation with the equivalent of a pre-space main battle tank wrapped around her. There were, after all, only so many targets one could blow up, shoot into very tiny pieces, or tear apart by brute strength.
Now she slid the gum into her mouth and chewed rhythmically, and he shrugged under the weight of her eyes.