by David Weber
Her mouth twitched sourly with the memory of another accident no one in the galaxy would ever believe had been genuine. The complications left by that particular mishap had a lot to do with why it was so vital to handle this visit with such exquisite care.
And maybe—just maybe—actually bring an end to all this butchery, after all, she thought almost prayerfully.
The shuttle touched down in a smooth whine of power, and Pritchart suppressed an urge to scurry forward as the boarding ladder extended itself to the airlock hatch. Instead, she made herself stand very still, hands clasped behind her.
"You're not the only one feeling nervous, you know," a voice said very quietly in her right ear, and she glanced sideways at Thomas Theisman. The admiral's brown eyes gleamed with the reflected glitter of the shuttle's running lights, and his lips quirked in a brief smile.
"And what makes you think I'm feeling nervous?" she asked tartly, her voice equally quiet, almost lost in the cool, gusty darkness.
"The fact that I am, for one thing. And the fact that you've got your hands folded together behind you, for another." He snorted softly. "You only do that when you can't figure out what else to do with them, and that only happens when you're nervous as hell about something."
"Oh, thank you, Tom," she said witheringly. "Now you've found a fresh way to make me feel awkward and bumptious! Just what I needed at a moment like this!"
"Well, if being pissed off at me helps divert you from worrying, then I've fulfilled one of your uniformed minions' proper functions, haven't I?"
His teeth gleamed in another brief smile, and Pritchart suppressed a burning desire to kick him in the right kneecap. Instead, she contented herself with a mental note to take care of that later, then gave him a topaz glare that promised retribution had merely been deferred and turned back to the shuttle.
Theisman's diversion, she discovered, had come at precisely the right moment. Which, a corner of her mind reflected, had most certainly not been a simple coincidence. Maybe she'd rescind that broken kneecap after all. Their little side conversation had kept her distracted while the hatch opened and a very tall, broad shouldered woman in the uniform of a Manticoran admiral stepped through it. At a hundred and seventy-five centimeters, Pritchart was accustomed to being taller than the majority of the women she met, but Alexander-Harrington had to be a good seven or eight centimeters taller even then Sheila Thiessen, and Thiessen was five centimeters taller than the president she guarded.
The admiral paused for a moment, head raised as if she were scenting the breezy coolness of the early autumn night, and her right hand reached up to stroke the treecat riding her shoulder. Pritchart was no expert on treecats—as far as she knew, there were no Havenite experts on the telempathic arboreals—but she'd read everything she could get her hands on about them. Even if she hadn't, she thought, she would have recognized the protectiveness in the way the 'cat's tail wrapped around the front of his person's throat.
And if she'd happened to miss Nimitz's attitude, no one could ever have missed the wary watchfulness of the trio of green-uniformed men following at Alexander-Harrington's heels. Pritchart had read about them, too, and she could feel Sheila Thiessen's disapproving tension at her back as her own bodyguard glared at their holstered pulsers.
Thiessen had pitched three kinds of fits when she found out President Pritchart proposed to allow armed retainers of an admiral in the service of a star nation with which the Republic of Haven happened to be at war into her presence. In fact, she'd flatly refused to allow it—refused so adamantly Pritchart had more than half-feared she and the rest of her detachment would place their own head of state under protective arrest to prevent it. In the end, it had taken a direct order from the Attorney General and Kevin Usher, the Director of the Federal Investigation Agency, to overcome her resistance.
Pritchart understood Thiessen's reluctance. On the other hand, Alexander-Harrington had to be just as aware of how disastrous it would be for something to happen to Pritchart as Pritchart was of how disastrous it would be to allow something to happen to her.
What was it Thomas told me they used to call that back on Old Earth? 'Mutually assured destruction,' wasn't it? Well, however stupid it may've sounded—hell, however stupid it may actually have been!—at least it worked well enough for us to last until we managed to get off the planet. Besides, Harrington's got a pulser built into her left hand, for God's sake! Is Sheila planning to make her check her prosthesis at the door? Leave it in the umbrella stand?
She snorted softly, amused by her own thoughts, and Alexander-Harrington's head turned in her direction, almost as if the Manticoran had sensed that amusement from clear across the landing pad. For the first time, their eyes met directly in the floodlit night, and Pritchart inhaled deeply. She wondered if she would have had the courage to come all alone to the capital planet of a star nation whose fleet she'd shattered in combat barely six T-months in the past. Especially when she had very good reason to feel confident the star nation in question had done its level best to assassinate her a T-year before she'd added that particular log to the fire of its reasons to . . . dislike her. Pritchart liked to think she would have found the nerve, under the right circumstances, yet she knew she could never really know the answer to that question.
But whether she would have had the courage or not, Alexander-Harrington obviously did, and at a time when the Star Kingdom's military advantage over the Republic was so devastating there was absolutely no need for her to do anything of the sort. Pritchart's amusement faded into something very different, and she stepped forward, extending her hand, as Alexander-Harrington led her trio of bodyguards down the boarding stairs.
"This is an unexpected meeting, Admiral Alexander-Harrington."
"I'm sure it is, Madam President." Alexander-Harrington's accent was crisp, her soprano surprisingly sweet for a woman of her size and formidable reputation, and Pritchart had the distinct impression that the hand gripping hers was being very careful about the way it did so.
Of course it is, she thought. It wouldn't do for her to absentmindedly crush a few bones at a moment like this!
"I understand you have a message for me," the president continued out loud. "Given the dramatic fashion in which you've come to deliver it, I'm prepared to assume it's an important one."
"Dramatic, Madam President?"
Despite herself, Pritchart's eyebrows rose as she heard Alexander-Harrington's unmistakable amusement. It wasn't the most diplomatic possible reaction to the admiral's innocent tone, but under the circumstances, Pritchart couldn't reprimand herself for it too seriously. After all, the Manticorans were just as capable of calculating the local time of day here in Nouveau Paris as her own staffers would have been of calculating the local time in the City of Landing.
"Let's just say, then, Admiral, that your timing's gotten my attention," she said dryly after a moment. "As, I feel certain, it was supposed to."
"To be honest, I suppose it was, Madam President." There might actually have been a hint of apology in Alexander-Harrington's voice, although Pritchart wasn't prepared to bet anything particularly valuable on that possibility. "And you're right, of course. It is important."
"Well, in that case, Admiral, why don't you—and your armsmen, of course—accompany me to my office so you can tell me just what it is."
Chapter Seven
"So, would you prefer we address you as 'Admiral Alexander-Harrington,' 'Admiral Harrington,' 'Duchess Harrington,' or 'Steadholder Harrington'?" Pritchart asked with a slight smile as she, Honor, Nimitz, and a passel of bodyguards—most of whom seemed to be watching each other with unbounded distrust—rode the lift car from the landing pad down towards the president's official office. There'd been too little room, even in a car that size, for any of the other Havenite officials to accompany them, since neither Honor's armsmen nor Sheila Thiessen's Presidential Security agents had been remotely willing to give up their places to mere cabinet secretaries.
"It does
get a bit complicated at times to be so many different people at once," Honor acknowledged Pritchart's question with an answering smile which was a bit more crooked than the president's. And not just because of the artificial nerves at the corner of her mouth. "Which would you be most comfortable with, Madam President?"
"Well, I have to admit we in the Republic have developed a certain aversion to aristocracies, whether they're acknowledged, like the one in your own Star Kingdom, or simply de facto, like the Legislaturalists here at home. So there'd be at least some . . . mixed emotions, let's say, in using one of your titles of nobility. At the same time, however, we're well aware of your record, for a lot of reasons."
For a moment, Pritchart's topaz-colored eyes—which, Honor had discovered, were much more spectacular and expressive in person than they'd appeared in any of the imagery she'd seen—darkened and her mouth tightened. Honor tasted the bleak stab of grief and regret behind that darkness, and her own mouth tightened ever so slightly. When she'd discussed the Republic's leadership with Lester Tourville, he'd confirmed that Eighth Fleet had killed Javier Giscard, Pritchart's longtime lover, at the Battle of Lovat.
That, in effect, Honor Alexander-Harrington had killed him.
Her eyes met the president's, and she didn't need her empathic sense to realize both of them saw the knowledge in the other's gaze. Yet there were other things wrapped up in that knowledge, as well. Yes, she'd killed Javier Giscard, and she regretted that, but he'd been only one of thousands of Havenites who'd died in combat against Honor or ships under her command over the past two decades, and there'd been nothing personal in his death. That was a distinction both she and Pritchart understood, because both of them—unlike the vast majority of Honor's fellow naval officers—had taken lives with their own hands. Had killed enemies at close range, when they'd been able to see those enemies eyes and when it most definitely was personal. Both of them understood that difference, and the silence hovering between them carried that mutual awareness with it, as well as the undertow of pain and loss no understanding could ever dispel.
Then Pritchart cleared her throat.
"As I say, we're aware of your record. Given the fact that you come from good yeoman stock and earned all of those decadent titles the hard way, we're prepared to use them as a gesture of respect."
"I see."
Honor gazed at the platinum-haired woman. Pritchart was an even more impressive presence face-to-face than she'd anticipated, even after Michelle Henke's reports of her own conversations with the president. The woman carried herself with the assurance of someone who knew exactly who she was, and her emotions—what the treecats called her "mind glow"—were those of someone who'd learned that lesson the hard way, paid an enormous price for what her beliefs demanded. Yet despite the humor in her voice, it was clear she truly did cherish some apprehension about her question, and Honor wondered why.
She used Mike's title as Countess Gold Peak . . . but only after she'd decided to send Mike home as her envoy. Did she do that as a courtesy, or to specifically emphasize Mike's proximity to the throne? An emphasis she wanted enough to use a title she personally despised?
Or is the problem someone else in her Cabinet whose reaction she's concerned about? Or could it be she's already looking forward to the press releases? To how they're going to address me for public consumption?
"Under the circumstances," Honor said after a moment, "if you'd be more comfortable with plain old 'Admiral Alexander-Harrington,' I'm sure I could put up with that."
"Thank you." Pritchart gave her another smile, this one somewhat broader. "To be perfectly honest, I suspect some of my more aggressively egalitarian Cabinet members might be genuinely uncomfortable using one of your other titles."
She's fishing with that one, Honor decided. Most people wouldn't have suspected anything of the sort, given Pritchart's obvious assurance, but Honor had certain unfair advantages. She wants an indication of whether I want to speak to her in private or whether whatever Beth sent me to say is intended for her entire Cabinet.
"If it would make them feel uncomfortable, then of course we can dispense with it," she assured the president, and suppressed an urge to chuckle as she tasted Pritchart's carefully concealed spike of frustration when her probe was effortlessly—and apparently unknowingly—deflected.
"That's very gracious—and understanding—of you," the Havenite head of state said out loud as the lift slid to a halt and the doors opened. She waved one hand in graceful invitation, and she and Honor started down a tastefully furnished hallway, trailed by two satellite-like clumps of bodyguards. Honor could feel the president turning something over in her mind as they walked. Pritchart didn't seem the sort to dither over decisions, and before they'd gone more than a few meters, she glanced at the tall, black-haired woman who was obviously the senior member of her own security team.
"Sheila, please inform the Secretary of State and the other members of the Cabinet that I believe it will be best if Admiral Alexander-Harrington and I take the opportunity for a little private conversation before we invite anyone else in." Her nostrils flared, and Honor tasted the amusement threaded through her undeniable anxiety and the fragile undertone of hope. "Given the Admiral's dramatic midnight arrival, I'm sure whatever she has to say will be important enough for all of us to discuss eventually, but tell them I want to get my own toes wet first."
"Of course, Madam President," the bodyguard said, and began speaking very quietly into her personal com.
"I trust that arrangement will be satisfactory to you, Admiral?" Pritchart continued, glancing up at Honor.
"Certainly," Honor replied with imperturbable courtesy, but the twinkle of amusement in her own eyes obviously gave her away, and the president snorted again—more loudly—and shook her head.
Whatever she'd been about to say (assuming she'd intended to say anything) stayed unspoken, however, as they reached the end of the hall and a powered door slid open. Pritchart gave another of those graceful waves, and Honor stepped obediently through the door first.
The office was smaller than she'd anticipated. Despite its obviously expensive and luxurious furnishings, despite the old-fashioned paintings on the walls and the freestanding sculpture in one corner, it had an undeniably intimate air. And it was obviously a working office, not just someplace to receive and impress foreign envoys, as the well-used workstation at the antique wooden desk made evident.
Given its limited size, it would have been uncomfortably crowded if Pritchart had invited her entire cabinet in. In fact, Honor doubted she could have squeezed that many people into the available space, although the president's decision against inviting even her secretary of state had come as something of a surprise.
"Please, have a seat, Admiral," Pritchart invited, indicating the comfortable armchairs arranged around a largish coffee-table before a huge crystoplast window—one entire wall of the office, actually—that gave a magnificent view of downtown Nouveau Paris.
Honor accepted the invitation, choosing a chair which let her look out at that dramatic vista. She settled into it, lifting Nimitz down from her shoulder to her lap, and despite the tension of the moment and the millions of deaths which had brought her here, she felt an ungrudging admiration for what the people of this planet had accomplished. She knew all about the crumbling infrastructure and ramshackle lack of maintenance this city had suffered under the Legislaturalists. And she knew about the riots which had erupted in its canyon-like streets following the Pierre coup. She knew about the airstrikes Esther McQueen—"Admiral Cluster Bomb"—had called in to suppress the Levelers, and about the hidden nuclear warhead Oscar Saint-Just had detonated under the old Octagon to defeat McQueen's own coup attempt. This city had seen literally millions of its citizens die over the last two T-decades—suffered more civilian fatalities than the number of military personnel who'd died aboard all of the Havenite ships destroyed in the Battle of Manticore combined—yet it had survived. Not simply survived, but risen with restored, pho
enix-like beauty from the debris of neglect and the wreckage of combat.
Now, as she gazed out at the gleaming fireflies of air cars zipping busily past even at this hour—at those stupendous towers, at the lit windows, the fairy-dusting of air traffic warning lights—she saw the resurgence of the entire Republic of Haven. Recognized the stupendous changes that resurgence had made in virtually every aspect of the lives of the men, women, and children of the Republic. And much of that resurgence, that rebirth of hope and pride and purpose, was the work of the platinum-haired woman settling into a facing armchair while their bodyguards, in turn, settled into wary watchfulness around them.
Yes, a lot of it was her work, Honor reminded herself, one hand stroking Nimitz's fluffy pelt while the reassuring buzz of his almost subsonic purr vibrated into her. But she's also the one who declared war this time around. The one who launched Thunderbolt as a "sneak attack." And the one who sent Tourville and Chin off to attack the home system. Admire her all you want, Honor, but never forget this is a dangerous, dangerous woman. And don't let your own hopes lead you into any overly optimistic assumptions about her or what she truly wants, either.
"May I offer you refreshment, Admiral?"
"No, thank you, Madam President. I'm fine."
"If you're certain," Pritchart said with a slight twinkle. Honor arched one eyebrow, and the president chuckled. "We've amassed rather a complete dossier on you, Admiral. The Meyerdahl first wave, I believe?"
"Fair enough," Honor acknowledged the reference to her genetically enhanced musculature and the demands of the metabolism which supported it. "And I genuinely appreciate the offer, but my steward fed me before he let me off the ship."
"Ah! That would be the formidable Mr. MacGuiness?"
"I see Officer Cachat and Director Usher—oh, I'm sorry, that would be Director Trajan, wouldn't it?—really have compiled a thorough file on me, Madam President," Honor observed politely.
"Touché," Pritchart said, leaning back in her chair. But then her brief moment of amusement faded, and her face grew serious.
