by David Weber
Once, Winterfall would have taken that as a compliment, an indication that Breakwater was grooming him to one day take his place at the head of his group of like-minded Lords. Now, he was more concerned that such confidence was merely because he was one of the few people Breakwater still felt he could trust.
Which made no sense. Others of the group were just as loyal to the Chancellor and his political point of view as Winterfall, at least as far as he knew.
But then, most of the Lords didn’t think the Queen was out to get them.
Did Breakwater think everyone except Winterfall was against him, too?
An entry caught his eye. “Here it is, My Lord,” he said. “Casey is slated to leave in just under a month for an extended voyage of—” He blinked. “Of the Silesian Confederacy.”
“Silesia?” Breakwater strode over and stopped behind him. “What in the world do they want in Silesia.”
“I don’t know,” Winterfall said grimly, “but it looks like you may be right about the late King’s idea.” He pointed a finger at the display. “Look who’s scheduled aboard as a passenger.”
“Hauptman,” Breakwater murmured. “Acton’s errand boy. The perfect person to pitch Manticore’s future shipbuilding capabilities.”
“Is that such a bad thing, My Lord?” Winterfall asked, looking up at Breakwater out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t want to be perceived as arguing the point. “Being able to build our own ships without having to buy those components from elsewhere would make us more secure.”
“You’re not seeing the full picture, Gavin,” Breakwater said, resting a hand heavily on Winterfall’s shoulder. “Let’s assume Hauptman gets ten orders for Manticoran-made ships. Hell—let’s say he gets a hundred. How much of our resources will be immediately dedicated to the new impeller and reactor industries?”
“I don’t know. A fair amount, I assume.”
“A fair amount?” Breakwater echoed irritably. “I daresay an extreme amount. Resources that would necessarily be taken away from the construction of new MPARS ships and the maintenance of all the old ones.” He snorted. “That goes for the Navy’s ships, too. Of all times to be tying one hand behind our backs, a period in which the Star Kingdom may be invaded again without warning is the absolute worst.”
“I understand,” Winterfall said, keeping his voice calm and soothing. On the other hand, wouldn’t having a ship-building facility of their own make it easier to build more MPARS ships? And, moreover, to build them in whatever configuration they wanted? Surely Breakwater could see that. Was he so focused on the near-term detriments that he couldn’t even see the long-term advantages?
“Good,” Breakwater said. “Because there’s more. Suppose you were the League and you heard we were starting our own impeller facility. Would you be inclined to sell us any more impellers? Or would you figure that this market was closed and move on to greener pastures?”
“I assume I’d keep selling until the market went completely dry.”
“If they’re good, upstanding business people,” Breakwater said. “But what if they’re vindictive types who would prefer to watch us swing in the wind while we bring our facilities up to speed? Remember, it’ll be years before the first impeller ring comes off the line, and years more before we see any kind of profit.”
“Seems a bit counter to their best interests,” Winterfall said.
“Is it?” Breakwater countered. “A clever League manufacturer might conclude that we would fail, and when we came crawling back in a few years he could charge double price for his product.”
“If he was the only manufacturer. There are several.”
“Most of whom are controlled by a handful of Transstellar corporations,” Breakwater said. “Technodyne, Shadwell, Axelrod, Timmerman, maybe one or two others. If one of them cuts us off, the others might take the cue and either follow suit or else immediately raise their prices.” He snorted. “And no impellers also means no expansion of MPARS. Or the Navy.”
“Yes,” Winterfall murmured, his stomach knotting. Certainly a passionate argument.
Only as far as he could tell, it was also a ridiculous one. The Transtellars did too much other business with Manticore and the other systems in this region to bother blacklisting the Star Kingdom. Besides, even if they lost all their impeller ring sales out here—which was never going to happen—they were raking in plenty of profit from their other divisions.
“So the bottom line is that we have to stop this,” Breakwater concluded. “Suggestions?”
Winterfall pursed his lips, gazing at the data. Assuming that Breakwater’s paranoiac scenarios were genuinely on the line, if Casey headed off on schedule, there was a chance that one of them would come to pass.
What if she didn’t leave?
Or if she did leave, what if she didn’t look nearly as good as she did now to prospective buyers?
They couldn’t do any damage to the ship herself, of course. That would be utterly irresponsible, not to mention flat-out treasonous.
But maybe a little tweaking of the personnel…
“Casey’s under the command of Commodore Heissman,” he said. “A certified war hero.”
“Especially since that censure motion went nowhere,” Breakwater growled. “Yet another setback we can lay at Harwich’s feet.”
“Yes,” Winterfall continued hurriedly. The last thing he wanted to listen to was another tirade. “That status makes him the kind of person foreign officials love to throw state dinners for. In fact, they’d probably arm-wrestle each other for the privilege of hosting him.”
“I see where you’re going,” Breakwater said. “Whereas if the Navy put a nobody in his place…?”
“Hauptman can still preach the wonders of Manticoran shipbuilding,” Winterfall said. “But he won’t have nearly so prominent a pulpit.”
“Excellent, Gavin,” Breakwater said warmly. “Most excellent.” He gestured to the computer. “Proceed.”
Winterfall blinked up at him.
“Excuse me, My Lord?”
“Proceed,” Breakwater repeated. “Make it happen.” He glanced at his chrono. “I need to meet with Castle Rock and Chillon. Go ahead and use my office. By the time I get back, I expect the plan to be in motion.”
Winterfall sighed. At least the Chancellor wasn’t expecting to read about Heissman’s firing on the news tonight.
“Yes, My Lord.”
A minute later he was alone, staring at the display, wondering how on Earth he was going to pull this off. He hadn’t been exaggerating about Heissman’s heroic stature. Getting him fired would be next to impossible.
So he wouldn’t. He would get him promoted.
Winterfall paused, a momentary doubt flickering through him. But the hesitation passed. He wasn’t doing this for himself, he reminded himself firmly, or even for Breakwater. He was doing it for his star nation.
Obviously, he couldn’t go through any of Breakwater’s usual associates. The Chancellor had stayed in the background during the whole censure debate, but no one had been particularly fooled. Likewise, he couldn’t go to any of Breakwater’s opponents, or even neutrals—every one of them would smell a rat.
But Breakwater also had some associates outside of the Lords. Winterfall had only met a couple of them, and they’d struck him at the time as being a bit on the shady side. But a couple of those had contacts within the Navy and even among certain of the Lords. The right word dropped in the right ear from someone who had no connection whatsoever with the Chancellor should do the trick.
Flexing his fingers, he got to work.
* * *
When Travis was ten T-years old, his uncle had once taken him to a stage magic show. Part of the magician’s routine had involved yanking a tablecloth out from under a quartet of dinner settings, complete with filled wine glasses, without disturbing any of it.
Right now, he felt exactly like one of those wine glasses.
“With all due respect, My Lady,” he said lookin
g up from his tablet, “this is a bad idea.”
“I agree,” Calvingdell said sourly. “But it’s out of my hands. Cazenestro and Locatelli think it’s a terrific idea, and signed off on it before I even knew it was in the works.”
“Can’t you go to them now, My Lady?” Travis persisted. “Not only was Commodore Heissman the ideal man to lead the mission, but shuffling the top command tier of a ship this close to sailing is never a good idea.”
“Believe it or not, Lieutenant, there are a few people outside the Navy who get that,” she said. “I like to think the Queen and I are among them.”
“And the Prime Minister?”
Calvingdell’s nose wrinkled. “If not, he’ll learn,” she said. “Baron Harwich is a decent enough man, if a little tunnel-visioned. Unlike some others I could name, I think he was an inspired choice for PM.” She waved a hand impatiently. “The point is that it’s too late for him or Dapplelake to intervene now. A sudden rescinding of Heissman’s promotion and cancelling the formation of Swiftsure’s task force would raise eyebrows, questions, and suspicions, none of which we can afford right now.”
Travis looked back down at his tablet, silently seething. After all the time at MPARS, and then this Delphi training regimen he’d been put through, he’d been eagerly looking forward to serving under Heissman again.
Only now Heissman was out. Promoted to Admiral, which he certainly deserved, and being prepped for command of a new Navy task force, which he also deserved.
But the timing of the whole thing stunk. Delphi was running very much under the radar, at Calvingdell’s insistence and the Queen’s consent, but the First Lord and System Commander were of course in on the secret. If one of them had thought to run this by Calvingdell before they made their decision, this whole thing might have been caught in time.
But they hadn’t, and it was too late now.
“I don’t think I know this Captain Clegg,” he said, looking up from the tablet. “What’s she like?”
“Solid,” Calvingdell said. “Competent, smart, dedicated, and ready for action. Not a particularly good people person, though. A bit thorny, I’m told.”
“Terrific,” Travis said under his breath. “Exactly what we want for Casey.”
“Oh, the feeling is mutual,” Calvingdell assured him. “I also gather she considers Casey a step down from her previous post aboard Vanguard, which isn’t helping her mood any.”
“What if Admiral Eigen asked to keep her?” Travis suggested. “Maybe then we could get someone else.”
“You’ve got it backwards,” Calvingdell said. “Eigen’s the one who recommended her for the post in the first place.”
“You sure he’s not trying to get rid of her?”
Calvingdell shook her head. “He’s on record as saying she’s the best captain he’s ever worked with. In fact, it’s right there in his recommendation that he hates to lose her, but that Casey deserves the best, and he wants us to have it.”
“Ah,” Travis said. “Well…hopefully, she’ll warm up to us.”
“She will,” Calvingdell assured him. “I’ll do what I can to put all this in a better light when we have our little talk later this week.” She waved a hand. “Oh, don’t look so glum. Commander Belokas is unfortunately still at the MPARS academy, but at least you’ll still have Woodburn on the bridge and Norris in Engineering. Between the three of you, there should be enough command continuity to carry the rest of the ship.”
“I hope so,” Travis said, frowning. The note about Clegg’s appointment as Captain hadn’t included the rest of the ship’s roster. Odd. “You said Commander Woodburn would be remaining as Tactical Officer?”
“Actually, he’s been promoted to full Commander and will be taking over the Executive Officer position from Commander Belokas,” Calvingdell said, a small smile playing at the corners of her lips. “The Tactical Officer slot is to be filled by—let me see—oh, that’s right: a Lieutenant Commander Travis Long. Did I forget to mention you’ve also been promoted?”
Travis felt his mouth drop open. According to the usual advancement timetable, he wasn’t due for a promotion for at least a couple more T-years. “My Lady?” he managed.
“You heard right, Commander,” Calvingdell said, smiling openly now. “Congratulations. You deserve it.”
“I—thank you, My Lady.”
“And with that, the good news of the day is over,” Calvingdell said. “You’ve got less than a month before you sail, so get back to work.”
Travis was halfway back to the main Delphi room when a thought occurred to him. Namely, that his new promotion would make it easier to pull rank aboard Casey if the mission required it.
Was that the only reason he’d been promoted so far ahead of schedule?
For a moment the warm glow faded a little. But only a little, and only for a moment. Whatever Calvingdell’s ulterior motives might have been, the fact remained that he was now a lieutenant commander.
And as someone had once told him, the best of all good fortunes were the ones that benefited everyone. He would do his best to make sure that Casey, and everyone aboard her, benefited from his promotion to Tactical Officer.
He only hoped that Captain Clegg would eventually feel the same way about her new position.
* * *
Joshua Miller was fifty-two T-years old, with a face that was pleasantly craggy and a body that had once been lean and well-muscled but had started running a bit to fat over the past few years as more of his time shifted from running his farm to sitting in the House of Commons. His clothing was neat but not expensive, as befit a man of the soil who had steadfastly refused to let his work in the city permeate his views, values, habits, or temperament.
He was also about as ill at ease as anyone could possibly be, though he was trying very hard not to show it.
Neither of which was really surprising. It was not every day, after all, when a lowly Member of Parliament was invited to the Palace for lunch with the Queen.
“I hope you enjoy what the chef has prepared,” Elizabeth said as she picked up her napkin and set it in her lap, pretending as she did so that she was paying more attention to it than she was to Miller.
A forlorn hope, probably. Like the two men she’d had to lunch in the weeks before him, Miller was paying acute attention to everything she was doing. Wondering, no doubt, exactly what he was doing here.
Which, unfortunately, put him in good company, because Elizabeth herself really didn’t know. All she knew was that his was the third of seven names on the list Burgundy had left her.
His name, and only his name. There had been no detailing of qualifications, family, genetic profile, or anything else that might have put him on Burgundy’s radar as a suitable consort, as the late Prime Minister had so delicately put it.
The other names had been similarly plain and unadorned. Presumably Burgundy had planned to add in those details later, either on the document itself or in a face-to-face with his Queen.
Unfortunately, he’d done neither. And now all Elizabeth had was a set of enigmas.
She’d done her own homework, of course. She’d looked into each of the seven men, reading through their public profiles and digging as deeply into the more private data lists as she could without feeling like a voyeur. She had stacks of facts and figures, but no real feel for the men behind them.
Hence, these one-on-one lunches.
“I’m sure it will be wonderful, Your Majesty,” Miller assured her, carefully laying his own napkin across his lap. His motions, Elizabeth noted, were an exact mirror image of her own. Observant, and not taking any chances with unfamiliar protocol.
“According to my spies, you like Chicken Kiev,” Elizabeth continued. “The Palace chef has a slightly different variant than what you’re probably used to.”
“I’m sure it will be wonderful, Your Majesty,” Miller repeated. He hesitated, then dared a small smile. “Though all your spies had to do was ask for the recipe. I’m sure my cook w
ould have been delighted to share it.”
“Next time,” Elizabeth promised. And he had a sense of humor, too. “I hope this version will be satisfactory.”
“I’m sure it will,” Miller said. “It won’t be the first variant on familiar cuisine that I’ve tried during my years in Parliament.”
“I’m sure it won’t,” Elizabeth said, a little ruefully as memories came back. “I remember the first time I tried San Giorgio cuisine. It was quite a shock to my taste buds.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” Miller said dryly. “My first stab at Gou stew. I was convinced the cap had fallen off the spice jar while the chef was sprinkling it into the pot. I can’t even smell it without my mouth starting to tingle.” His face went suddenly rigid again. “Your Majesty,” he added hurriedly.
Elizabeth sighed inwardly. Once again, the all-but-impenetrable barrier that existed between Sovereign and subject. She’d never liked it much when she was merely Princess Elizabeth; now that she was Queen Elizabeth, there were times when she absolutely despised it. A picture flashed to mind: her newly chosen royal consort on their wedding night, calling out her name in passion and then adding Your Majesty.
Angrily, she shook the completely improper image away. This wasn’t courtship. It was just the very beginning of a possible dating period. They were here to share a meal and learn a little about each other, and that was all.
Her stomach tightened. No. This wasn’t even dating. It was, fundamentally, the vetting of a farmland stud animal.
“My experience wasn’t quite that bad,” she said. “But there are definitely some dishes and spices I’ve learned to graciously decline. Fortunately, that shouldn’t be a problem today.”
“I’m sure it won’t, Your Majesty.” Miller hesitated. “If I may ask, and please forgive the bluntness…but why exactly am I here?”
