At All Costs

by David Weber

  "I think that would be a good idea," Truman agreed.

  "In that case, people, let's be about it."

  * * *

  "Hello, Honor," Allison Harrington said, and smiled from Honor's display. "We got the news about your return this morning-Hamish screened from Admiralty House to tell us you and Nimitz are back safe and sound. Obviously, we're all delighted to hear that... some even more than others."

  She smiled again, wickedly, but then her expression grew more serious.

  "I'm sure you have all sorts of Navy things you need to attend to, but I think it would be a very good idea if you could come home for a day or two. Soon."

  Honor felt herself tightening internally. Nothing about her mother's expression suggested anything terrible, but she was a little surprised to realize how much it bothered her to be unable to taste Allison's emotions from the recorded message. Had she become that reliant upon her odd empathic capabilities?

  "There are several reasons I feel that way, dear," Allison continued. "Among them, the fact that Reverend Sullivan's extended his visit to the Star Kingdom. They were going to put him up at the Royal Arms, but I put a stop to that, and he's been comfortably ensconced here at the Bay House. I'm sure that one reason he's stayed over longer than he originally planned was to see you before he returns to Grayson. So take care of anything you really need to deal with, and then hop one of the shuttle flights home as soon as you can. We're all really eager to see you. I love you. Bye!"

  The display blanked, and Honor frowned. A lifetime's instincts told here there was more to her mother's request than a simple desire for her to have dinner with Sullivan before the Reverend went home. Not that that wouldn't have been a perfectly valid consideration. It just wasn't the only thing on her mother's mind, and she wondered exactly what sort of devious scheme was revolving inside that agile brain.

  Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out, and she punched a button on her com.

  "Admiral's Quarters, MacGuiness speaking," a voice said.

  "Mac, please check my calendar with Mercedes. You and she both know what I'm doing better than I do, anyway. I need to clear a couple of days, the sooner the better, for a quick hop back to Manticore."

  "I thought you might, Ma'am." Even across the voice-only circuit, Honor could almost feel his satisfaction. "I've already checked. I believe that if you shift a few of your meetings-and possibly combine the meetings you'd scheduled with the division and squadron commanders into a single session-you could be on the evening shuttle flight tomorrow. Would that be satisfactory?"

  "And have you already discussed your proposed agenda with my chief of staff, O Puppetmaster?"

  "Not in any specific detail, Ma'am." MacGuiness's dignified response was somewhat flawed by the chuckle lurking in its depths.

  "Well, do so."

  "Of course, Your Grace."

  * * *

  "There's the limo, My Lady."

  Honor turned her head, looking in the indicated direction, and saw Jeremiah Tennard, the senior of Faith's personal armsmen, standing beside the door of one of the VIP lounge's private air car stages.

  "So I see, Andrew," she said, and chuckled. "I wonder how Mother pried him loose from fending off assassination attempts on Faith to send him after us?"

  "Actually," Andrew LaFollet said seriously, "we have a very good team in place at the house. Especially since Captain Zilwicki upgraded our electronic systems for us. He's not really running any risks leaving her uncovered, My Lady. You know I wouldn't tolerate that, don't you?"

  "Andrew, it was a joke," she said, turning back to him. "I didn't-"

  She stopped speaking as she tasted her personal armsman's emotions. No one, looking at his expression, could doubt for a moment the earnest seriousness of his response to her question. She, however, had certain additional advantages, and her eyes narrowed.

  "All right," she told him. "You got me. For a minute, there, I actually thought you were serious."

  "My Lady," he said in shocked tones, "I'm always serious!"

  "You, Andrew LaFollet," she said severely, "have been hanging around with Nimitz entirely too long. His questionable excuse for a sense of humor seems to have infected you."

  Nimitz bleeked a laugh on her shoulder, and his hands flashed.

  The first two fingers of his right true-hand closed onto his thumb. Then the hand rolled over, palm downward, and folded into the sign for the letter "N" and jerked slightly downward. Next, it rose to his temple, curled into the closed fist sign for the letter "E," and moved forward. Both true-hands folded their fingers over in the palm-up sign for the letter "A," then swung inward and down twice, ending palm-down. The right hand extended all three long, wiry fingers, while the left hand extended only two, signing the number five in one of the compromises forced upon the treecats by the fact that they had fewer digits than humans did. Next, both true-hands rose, slightly bent, fingertips just touching his chest, and the right hand flicked back slightly before turning to form a palm-out "A" that moved slightly to his right. Then the two opened fingers of the letter "P" circled his face before the right true-hand touched its fingers to his chin, then dropped into the palm of his left true-hand. The bent second finger of his right true-hand tapped behind his ear, then fell to meet his left true-hand as he linked the thumb and first fingers of both hands before raising both hands to the corners of his mouth in the "H" sign.

  "So there was no need for you to infect him, since he already had a good sense of humor?" Honor said.

  Nimitz nodded and raised his right true-hand, palm-in, to press his forefinger to his forehead, then twisted it into a palm out position before it closed into the upright, thumb-extended fist of the letter "A." Then he held up two fingers and patted the thigh of his right leg with his right true-hand formed into the extended forefinger and thumb of an "L."

  "Oh, for a 'two-legs' is it?" she demanded, and he nodded again, even more complacently, while she shook her head. "You're riding for a fall there, Stinker. Besides, I know your sense of humor, and I don't think the sign for 'good' means quite what you think it does."

  The 'cat only looked away, flirting his tail airily, and LaFollet chuckled.

  "Don't take that as a compliment," Honor told him darkly. "Not until you've discussed some of his ideas of what constitutes a joke with the Harrington House staff, at any rate."

  "Oh, I have, My Lady!" LaFollet assured her. "My favorite was the one with the stuffed treecat and the cultivator."

  "Stuffed treecat?" Honor's eyebrows arched, and he chuckled again.

  "They were using the robotic cultivators to trench for the new irrigation system," the armsman explained. "So Nimitz and Farragut kidnapped one of the lifesized stuffed treecats from Faith's bedroom."

  "They didn't-" Honor began, dark eyes starting to laugh, and LaFollet nodded.

  "Oh, but they did, My Lady. They used those sharp little claws of theirs to... disconnect the front and back ends, then burrowed down on either side of the trench and left the tail sticking up on one side and one poor, pathetic true-hand poking up on the other. The assistant gardener almost died on the spot when he found it."

  "Stinker," Honor said, as severely as a sudden attack of giggles would permit, "when they finally come for you with pitchforks, I'm not going to protect you from the mob. I hope you realize that right now."

  Nimitz sniffed, elevating his muzzle. Timothy Mears had hopped the same shuttle flight back to Manticore with his Admiral, and he laughed out loud. Honor gave him a glare and shook her head at him.

  "A proper flag lieutenant does not encourage his Admiral's 'cat in the ways of evil, Lieutenant Mears!"

  "Of course not, Ma'am!" Mears agreed, eyes twinkling. "I'm shocked that you should think I would even consider doing such a thing!"

  "Sure you are," Honor growled. Then she smiled at him as Tennard started across the lounge towards them. "As Andrew says, our ride is here, Tim. Can we drop you anywhere?"

  "No, thanks, Ma'am. I'll
catch a cab. I need to do a little shopping before I head home to surprise Mom and Dad."

  "All right, then you'd best be about it," she said, and he smiled back at her, saluted, and trotted off just as Tennard reached them.

  "My Lady, Colonel." The armsman bowed to Honor in greeting.

  "Jeremiah." Honor nodded back. "It's good to see you."

  "And you, My Lady. We've missed you-all of us. Especially Faith, I think."

  "How is she?" Honor asked.

  "Excited about her new nephew," Tennard replied, with a smile.

  "Is she really?"

  "Really, My Lady," Tennard said, reassuringly. "Don't forget, she's seen what Bernard Raoul has to put up with, and she's a smart child. She's already figured out that she's been getting off light where her own security detachment is concerned, compared to most steadholders' heirs, and I don't think she really wants to have to put up with any more of us armsmen than she has to. At this particular point in her life, avoiding that is a lot more important than being Steadholder Harrington could ever be."

  "Good," Honor sighed. Then she smiled. "And I suppose you're here to ferry me off to meet the Reverend at the house?"

  "To meet the Reverend, yes, My Lady. But not at the Bay House. You and your parents are having dinner at White Haven this evening, and he's joining you there."

  "He's what?" Honor blinked, but Tennard only shrugged.

  "That's the itinerary I was given, My Lady. If you want to argue with your Lady Mother about it, you go right ahead. I have better sense."

  "Mother's been a terrible influence on all of you armsmen," Honor said. "I don't remember you being this uppity before she got hold of you!"

  "It's all purely self-defense, My Lady, I promise," Tennard said earnestly, and she laughed.

  "That I can believe. All right. If it's White Haven, it's White Haven. Let's get this cavalcade in the air."

  * * *

  "What the-?!" Timothy Mears jerked back as he opened the air cab door and got hit in the face with an eye-stinging spray of moisture.

  "Oh, shit!" a voice said, and he blinked his burning eyes, then found himself glaring somewhat blearily at the cabby on the other side of the opened partition between the cockpit and the passenger compartment. She was an attractive, if not spectacular, blonde, and she held a bottle of commercial air freshener in one hand, still pointed almost directly at Mears. She also wore an expression of almost comical dismay.

  "I'm so sorry, Lieutenant!" she said quickly. "I didn't see you coming, and my last fare was a smoker." She shook her head in angry disgust. "Big sign, right there," she jabbed her head at the "No Smoking In This Vehicle" notice on the partition, "and the jerk sits right down and lights up. A cigar, of all damned things. And not a very expensive one, from the stink!"

  The air freshener's scent was almost overpowering, but as it began to dissipate, Mears could smell the tobacco reek to which she'd referred. And, he admitted, it really was pretty bad.

  "So I was just turning around to spritz some of this stuff-" she waved the air freshener "-and you opened the door, and, well...."

  Her voice trailed off, and her expression was such a mixture of dismay and apology that Mears had to laugh.

  "Hey, I've had worse happen, okay?" he said, wiping the last film of air freshener off his face. "And you're right. It is pretty ripe back here. So I'll just stand back and let you spray away to your heart's content."

  "Oh, gee, thanks!" she said, and applied the air freshener industriously for several seconds. Then she sniffed critically.

  "That's about as good as it's going to get, I'm afraid," she said. "You still want a ride? Or do you want to wait for something that smells a little fresher?"

  "This smells just fine to me," Mears said, and climbed into the cab.

  "Where to?" she asked.

  "I need to do some shopping, so let's hit Yardman's first."

  "You got it," she agreed, and the cab whined away towards the capital's best known shopping tower.

  Behind it, a nondescript man watched it with carefully incurious eyes, then turned and walked away.

  * * *

  "Hello, Nico," Honor said as Nico Havenhurst opened the front door for her. "You seem to have quite a mob out here this evening."

  "Oh, it's been more crowded than this upon occasion, Your Grace," Havenhurst said, stepping back with a welcoming smile. "Not in the last few decades, you understand, but-"

  He shrugged, and Honor chuckled. Then she stepped past him into the entrance hall, and paused in mid-stride. Emily, Hamish, and her parents were there. So was Reverend Sullivan, but Honor had expected that. What she hadn't expected was the distinguished, dark-haired man in the episcopal purple cassock and glittering pectoral cross. She recognized him almost instantly, although they'd never met, and she wondered what Archbishop Telmachi was doing at White Haven.

  Surprise kept her focused on him for at least a few heartbeats. Long enough for her feet to get reorganized and resume carrying her forward. She'd just noticed the younger man standing at Telmachi's elbow and recognized him as Father O'Donnell, Emily and Hamish's parish priest, when the mingled flow of the welcoming committee's emotions swept over her.

  There were too many individual sources for her to analyze their feelings clearly, but Hamish and Emily's strands stood out more clearly than those of anyone else, including her parents. She felt herself reaching out for them, as automatically as breathing, and then both eyebrows rose as she tasted the mingled love, determination, apprehension, and almost giddy anticipation rising off of them like smoke.

  Obviously, she'd been right to suspect her mother was up to something. But what?

  "Hello, Honor," Emily said calmly, reaching out her hand. "It's good to see you home."

  * * *

  The meal, as always, was delicious, although Honor decided Mistress Thorne could have taught Tabitha DuPuy a thing or two about poaching salmon. The company had also been convivial, and Honor was pleased by the genuine friendship and mutual admiration she tasted between Sullivan and Telmachi. The Star Kingdom was legally nondenominational, with a specific constitutional bar against any state religion. Despite that, the Archbishop of Manticore was recognized as the "dean" of the Manticoran religious community, and she was glad he and Sullivan had hit it off so well.

  But despite that, and despite her happiness at being home, she found it increasingly difficult not to select someone at random to strangle as supper went on and on and the strange combination of the Alexanders' emotions-and her parents', and even Sullivan's, now that she thought about it-continued to swirl about her. She still didn't have a clue what they were all so... energized about, which was maddening enough. But what made it even more maddening was her absolute confidence that it all focused on her, somehow.

  At last, finally, the dessert dishes were cleared away, the servants withdrew, and the Alexanders and their guests were left alone around the huge table. It was the first time Honor had ever eaten in White Haven's formal dining salon, and despite its low ceiling and ancient wood paneling, she found it just a bit overpowering. Possibly because it was half the size of a basketball court, or seemed that way, at least, after the more intimate quarters in which she, Hamish, and Emily normally dined.

  "Well," her mother said brightly as the door to the serving pantry closed, "here we all are at last!"

  "Yes," Honor said, handing a last celery stalk to Nimitz, "here we are, indeed, Mother. The question in my mind-and it does appear to be in my mind, alone, since everyone else at this table obviously already knows the answer-is why we're all here."

  "Goodness!" Allison said placidly, and shook her head. "Such youthful impetuosity! And in front of such distinguished guests, too."

  "I might point out that the guests in question are Hamish and Emily's, not yours, Mother," Honor replied. "Except, of course, that whenever someone is pulling the strings and you're present, I never have to look very far for the puppetmaster."

  "Honor Stephanie Harrington!" A
llison shook her head mournfully. "Such an undutiful child, too. How could you possibly think of me in that way?"

  "Sixty years of experience," the undutiful child in question responded. "And now, if someone could possibly answer my question?"

  "Actually, Honor," Hamish said, and his voice-and emotions-were far more serious than her mother's droll tone, "the person 'pulling the strings,' inasmuch as anyone is, isn't your mother. It's Reverend Sullivan."

  "Reverend Sullivan?" Honor looked at the Grayson primate in surprise, and he nodded back gravely, although there was a twinkle in his dark eyes and she clearly tasted the affectionate amusement behind it.