At All Costs

by David Weber

  "But eventually you're going to have to tell them what happened, and when," Emily pointed out.

  "I'm willing to stand on my legal and moral right to privacy," Honor replied. "I'm not saying my Graysons will be happy about it when the truth comes out, however we handle it, but they'll accept that I had the right to not tell them something at all much better than they will my having lied about it."

  "Don't you have an obligation as Steadholder Harrington to inform the Conclave of the birth of any heir to the Steading?" Hamish asked, frowning intently.

  "Not precisely."

  Honor reached out and handed Nimitz a stick of celery. The 'cat broke it neatly in half and passed one piece on to his mate, and she watched the two of them chew blissfully-and messily-for a second. Then she looked back up at Hamish and Emily.

  "My obligation, legally, is to inform the Sword and the Church," she said. "Technically, it could be argued that I'm not under any obligation to inform anyone at all until such time as a child is actually born. Trust me," she smiled a bit bleakly, "I've done some research this afternoon. But, while the law specifies that the birth of an heir has to be reported to, and acknowledged by, the Protector and the Church, the practice has always been that they're to be informed when the pregnancy is confirmed. So, the two people on Grayson I have to tell about this, legally speaking, are Benjamin and Reverend Sullivan. I'm sure Benjamin would respect my confidence, and the Reverend's vows would require him to treat it as privileged information, like something revealed under the seal of the confessional, at least until the child is actually born."

  "At which point?" Emily asked.

  "At which point your guess is as good as mine as to exactly what happens," Honor admitted. "I can't see any way it would be possible to conceal the child's birth even if I wanted to. And, to be honest, I don't want to, for a lot of reasons. I think the best we can do, really, is to buy nine months for the political climate to change before I go public."

  "We could always consider placing the embryo in cryo until the 'political climate' has changed," Hamish said slowly.

  "No, we couldn't," his wife said flatly. He looked at her, and she shook her head firmly. "Honor is going into combat very soon now, Hamish. It's possible, however much we'd all like to pretend it isn't, that this time she could be killed." Her voice wavered slightly, and she looked across the table at Honor. "If God is actually listening to me, that's not going to happen, but sometimes I think He's lost my com combination. And, if that happens, we are not going to have deprived her of a single moment she might have had holding her child in her arms first."

  Honor's eyes burned, and Emily smiled at her. But then the older woman shook her head again.

  "Even if that weren't a consideration," she continued, "it would still be the wrong thing to do. If something does happen to Honor, the exact circumstances of the child's paternity will be in question. I realize genetic testing would confirm that the child is Honor's and yours, Hamish, but if Honor were killed-if she weren't around to confirm the circumstances under which conception occurred-there would always be someone who'd accuse us of some sort of Machiavellian plot to 'steal' Harrington."

  "There are procedures for a posthumous declaration of paternity," Honor pointed out.

  "We're not talking about what's legal or illegal," Emily replied. "We're talking about public perceptions, and on a planet which, if you'll forgive me, is still coming to grips with the implications of modern technology. Specifically, of modern medical technology."

  "That's true enough," Honor acknowledged. "My parents and I are working on that, but sometimes it seems to me that at least half the people on Grayson still consider what we can do black magic. They don't really understand it, and some of them are probably at least as frightened by it as grateful that it's become available."

  "Precisely. And it's that portion of the population least comfortable with modern medicine which would be played upon by anyone who wanted to make trouble."

  "Why should anyone want to make trouble?" Hamish asked almost plaintively, and Honor and Emily turned almost identical pitying looks upon him. Then they looked at each other, and Emily snorted.

  "Frightening, isn't it?" she asked Honor. "And hard to believe he's a senior member of the Queen's Cabinet."

  "Oh, I don't know," Honor replied with a crooked smile. "He's probably not any more totally incompetent where politics are concerned than I was when they first sent me to Yeltsin."

  "But with so much less excuse," Emily said, eyes twinkling.

  "Not really," Honor, chuckling wickedly as Hamish leaned back, raising one eyebrow, and folded his arms in resignation. "After all, he suffers from at least one physical handicap."

  "Which one?" Emily asked, then shook her head quickly. "Oh, I know! You mean that 'Y' chromosome of his?"

  "That's the one," Honor agreed, and both of them laughed.

  "Very funny," Hamish said. "And now, if the two of you are done cackling, how about answering my question?"

  "It's not so much why we can think of anyone wanting to make trouble," Honor said much more seriously, "as our responsibility to recognize that someone could want to. Human nature being human nature, some idiot who disapproves of all the changes on Grayson-and don't fool yourself; there are still a lot of them, even if they are a distinct minority-is likely to fasten on it out of simple delusional paranoia. And don't forget Mueller and Burdette, or the current Grayson Opposition. They'd probably see forcing Benjamin to expend political capital defending you as worthwhile in its own right." She shrugged. "It might be unlikely to create serious problems, but Emily's right. The potential's always there, and on the level of a Steadholdership, any problem can become a serious one."

  "So what you're saying is that we really have no more than nine months before we have to go public," he said.

  "I think that's exactly what I'm saying," she acknowledged. "I can stand on my right to refuse to declare the child's paternity even after her birth, which would probably work out fairly well on Manticore. It won't play on Grayson, though. Or, at least, not very well. But I'm going to have to acknowledge the birth itself as soon as it occurs."

  "That's true," Emily agreed. "But every month we can buy before you have to go public would be very much worthwhile. It would give the political situation time to stabilize, and put some more time between the Opposition smear campaign and the moment of truth. Not that it's not still going to be messy, you understand."

  "Oh, believe me, even a political incompetent like me understands that, Emily," Hamish said wryly.

  "So what I think we're really saying here," Emily said after a moment, looking back and forth between Honor and Hamish once more, "is that our only real option is to have the child tubed under conditions of medical confidentiality and hope that by the time she-or he-is born, the political and military situation will have changed enough for the fact of her birth to generate somewhat less of a firestorm."

  "I'm afraid so," Honor replied.

  "Well, in that case," Emily said with a whimsical smile of her own, "I think Hamish and I had better spend the next few months learning how to be salamanders, too."

  Chapter Thirteen

  "Very well, Your Grace," the efficient young staffer at the other end of the com link said, scanning the e-form on her own display. "We can schedule the procedure for Wednesday afternoon, if that's convenient."

  "Wednesday would be fine," Honor replied. "In fact, given my schedule, I really need to take care of it as soon as possible."

  "I understand." The other woman paused with a slight frown. "I notice you've listed your mother as our alternate contact." Her voice ended on a slightly rising note, and Honor very carefully didn't grimace.

  "That's correct," she said, her own voice completely level. Yet something about her tone made the staffer look up. If she'd felt any temptation to fish for additional information, it evaporated quickly as she met Honor's gaze.

  "In that case, Your Grace, I'll put you down for... fourteen-th
irty."

  "Thank you. I'll be there."

  * * *

  "I don't think I've ever seen the Steadholder quite like this," Spencer Hawke said quietly.

  He and Simon Mattingly stood against one wall of the palatial gymnasium under Honor's Jason Bay mansion, watching her work out.

  Her normal routine had been somewhat altered. As usual, she'd spent an hour working out with the Harrington Sword. Grand Master Thomas Dunlevy had come out of retirement last year to help program her training remote, and the ringing clash of the remote's blunt-edged training blade against the razor-sharp Harrington Sword had sent its harsh music through the gym. But the Steadholder had donned much heavier practice armor than usual, and she'd had Mattingly step down the remote's reaction speed. It was also a Monday, and usually on Mondays she put on her coup de vitesse training gi and pads and worked out full-contact against the training remote or Colonel LaFollet. But today, instead, she'd contented herself with the stretching exercises and training katas. And as if that weren't enough, she'd sent LaFollet himself away without her. Neither she nor the colonel had discussed exactly what it was he was doing today, but Mattingly and Hawke both knew it had something to do with the rather peculiar travel agenda Lady Harrington had laid out for LaFollet the evening before.

  All of that was odd enough, yet it wasn't what had prompted Hawke's remark. There was a... distracted edge to her. She lacked that complete and total focus on whatever the task in hand happened to be which was usually so much a part of her. And she seemed both excited and apprehensive, which was very much not like her.

  Mattingly glanced at the younger armsman. Hawke had not yet been briefed on the details of the aforementioned peculiar travel agenda. For that matter, Mattingly hadn't been fully briefed on it, himself, but he believed in being prepared. So he'd done a little research of his own on this "Briarwood Center" the Steadholder was intent upon visiting so privately.

  "I've seen her in moods like this one," he said after a moment. "Not often, but once or twice. Thank God it's not as bad as the one she was in before they sent us to Marsh!"

  "Amen," Hawke said with soft fervency, and remembered anger flickered in the backs of his usually mild eyes. Mattingly wasn't surprised to see it, but he was glad. He'd chosen that particular example deliberately, given what Hawke was going to inevitably figure out for himself tomorrow.

  "She's got a lot on her mind," he continued quietly, watching the Steadholder flow gracefully through her katas. She was almost ten T-years older than he was, but she looked half his age. He'd become as accustomed to that as anyone could, who'd grown to adulthood on a planet without prolong, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to match her flexibility and speed.

  No, he corrected himself. Not 'match them;' I never did manage that. But it's getting harder just to stay in shouting distance.

  "I know she does," Hawke replied to his last remark, and cocked his head. "But this isn't just about her navy job."

  "No, it isn't," Mattingly agreed. "There are some... personal issues involved, as well."

  Hawke's eyes turned instantly opaque, and his expression blanked. It was a professional armsman's reaction which Mattingly found a bit amusing, under the circumstances. He couldn't really fault the younger man for probing for information-armsmen all too often found that their primaries had neglected to mention some vitally important bit of information because it hadn't seemed important to them. Or because they didn't want to share it. Or even sometimes, as happened much too frequently for Mattingly's peace of mind in the Steadholder's case, because they'd simply decided to subordinate security requirements to... other considerations.

  But it was a mark of Hawke's relative youthfulness that he should go into immediate "the-Steadholder's-private-life-is-none-of-my-business" mode the instant he began to suspect where his probing might lead him.

  "She's not going to tell you about them, you know," Mattingly said conversationally, his tone almost teasing, as the Steadholder finished her katas.

  He watched her alertly, even here, wondering if she was going to head straight for the showers, but instead, she crossed to the indoor shooting range at the far end of the gymnasium. He'd already checked the range before the Steadholder ever entered the gym, and there were no other entrances to it, so he didn't try to intercept her at the range door. Instead, he jerked his head at Hawke, and the two of them walked over to flank the door, watching through the soundproof armorplast with one eye while they kept most of their attention focused on the only access routes.

  "There's no reason she ought to tell me about them," Hawke said, just a bit stiffly. "She's my Steadholder. If she wants me to know something, she'll tell me."

  "Oh, nonsense!" Mattingly snorted. He felt a small flicker of surprise when the Steadholder didn't put on her ear protectors, but his incipient twinge of concern vanished when he realized she didn't have her.45 at the shooting line. Unlike that thunderous, anachronistic, propellant-spewing monster, pulsers were relatively quiet.

  Satisfied that his charge wasn't going to hammer her unprotected eardrums with gunfire, he looked back at Hawke. Who was regarding him with a moderately outraged expression.

  "Spencer," he said, "Colonel LaFollet didn't handpick you for the Steadholder's personal detail because you're an idiot. You know-or you damned well ought to know, by now-that no primary ever tells his armsmen everything they need to know. And, frankly, the Steadholder's worse than most in that regard. She's better than she was, but, Tester-the things she used to do without even mentioning them to us ahead of time!"

  He shook his head.

  "The thing you have to understand, Spencer, is that there's the Job, and then there's everything else. The Job is to see to it that that lady in there stays alive, period. No ifs, no ands, and no buts. We do whatever it takes-whatever it takes-to see to it that she does. And it's our privilege to do that, because there are steadholders, and there are steadholders, and I tell you frankly that one like her comes along maybe once or twice in a generation. If we're lucky. And, yes, although I'm not going to tell her, I'd do the Job anyway, because I love her.

  "But every so often, and more often in her case than in most, the Job and who the person we're protecting is run into one another head on. The Steadholder takes risks. Some of them are manageable, or at least reasonably so, like her hang-gliding and her sailboats. But she's also a naval officer, and a steadholder in the old sense-the kind who used to lead his personal troops from the front rank-so there are always going to be risks we can't protect her from, however hard we try. And as you may recall, those same risks have killed quite a few of her armsmen along the way.

  "And there's another factor involved, where she's concerned. She wasn't born a steadholder. In a lot of ways, I think that's the secret of her strength as a steadholder; she doesn't think like someone who knew from the time he learned to walk that he was going to be one. That's probably a very good thing, over all, but it also means she didn't grow up with the mindset. It simply doesn't occur to her-or, sometimes it does occur to her and she simply chooses to ignore the fact-that she has to keep us informed if we're going to do the Job. And since she doesn't, every one of us-like every armsman who ever was-spends an awful lot of time trying to figure out what it is she isn't telling us about this time."

  He grimaced wryly.

  "And, of course, we spend most of the rest of our time keeping our big mouths shut about the things we have figured out. Especially the ones she didn't tell us about. You know, the things she knows that we know that she knows that we know but none of us ever discuss with her."

  "Oh." Hawke frowned. "So you're saying I'm supposed to pry into her personal life?"

  "We are her personal life," Mattingly said flatly. "We're as much her family as her mother and father, as Faith and James. Except that we're the expendable part of her family... and everyone knows and accepts that. Except her."

  His own frown mingled affection, respect, and exasperation as he looked through the armorpla
st at his Steadholder. Hawke looked as well, and Mattingly felt the younger man twitch in something very like shock as the Steadholder calmly removed the very tip of her left index finger.

  "Haven't seen this one before?" Mattingly asked.

  "I've seen it before," Hawke replied. "Just not very often. And it... bothers me. You know, I keep forgetting her arm's artificial."

  "Yeah, and her father's a seriously paranoid individual, Tester bless him!" Mattingly said. "Although," they watched with half their attention as the Steadholder flexed her left hand and the truncated index finger locked into a rigidly extended position, "that particular hideout weapon of hers is something of a case in point for what I was saying earlier. She didn't even tell me or the Colonel about it until after we were sent to Marsh."

  "I know." Hawke chuckled. "I was there when we all found out, remember?"