House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion

by David Weber

  “Dad, he doesn’t—”

  “Oh, yes he does, honey.” Roger’s chuckle carried only the thinnest trace of sourness, and he reached out to touch the tip of his daughter’s nose the way he had when she’d been far younger. “But he’ll get over it. And there are times when parents can’t be their children’s friends. It comes with the responsibility of raising them, and one of these days Mikey’s going to realize no one was really deliberately trying to make his life miserable. Best of all, your mom and I both have prolong, which means we may actually live long enough to see it!”

  Elizabeth smiled, but she also shook her head. In a way, she was most frustrated with Michael because the very thing he was rebelling against was something she’d very much wanted. She’d wanted to go into the Navy, but she’d had to choose between that and learning her responsibilities and duties as Heir in the face of a situation radically different from the one her father had faced when he’d been her age. As Heir, she wasn’t going to be allowed a combat assignment if war came, and she’d known it, which had also factored into the choice she had to make. Did she commit to a naval career under those restrictions, knowing she could never really be more than a glorified staff officer, or did she accept that she’d have to leave physically defending her people to someone else and concentrate on preparing herself to help her father as effectively as possible outside the Navy? It had been her own decision in the end, but she’d chosen Landing University of Manticore over Saganami Island because LUM had the best—and toughest—political science curriculum in the Star Kingdom.

  And I’m glad I did . . . for a lot of reasons, she admitted, her smile softening. I wouldn’t have met Justin if I hadn’t!

  Justin Zyrr was four years older than she was. That wasn’t very much in a prolong society, but it meant he was old enough to have completed his graduate degree in chemistry before she enrolled at LUM. Given who she was and the security considerations involved, LUM had been more than willing to provide freshwoman Elizabeth Winton with a private orientation tour, rather than sending her along with the rest of the thundering herd. And—also given who she was, she thought with an inner chuckle—she’d strayed from the assigned path and somehow ended up in Trantham Hall, the main chemistry building, and wandered into one of the research labs associated with the school. Where she had interrupted a very intense young man fully focused on his current research project. She had, in fact, distracted him at a most inopportune moment, which had resulted in the loss of over three hours of painstaking work, and he’d responded by ripping her head off and handing it to her. He’d just been revving up for the second round when the bodyguard she’d eluded had caught up with her, hurried into the lab, and addressed her as “Your Highness.”

  Elizabeth Winton had her father’s—and her mother’s—temper. She’d been trying very hard to put up with the incredibly rude young man’s tirade with good grace, acknowledging her trespass, but that temper had been about to slip its steadily fraying leash when Sergeant Bradley turned up. Fortunately, the expression on Justin’s face when he heard her title, realized who he’d just been ripping up on side and down the other was, had been priceless. He’d looked so stricken—not afraid of the consequences, but horrified by his own disrespect—that she’d burst out laughing. And then, after a moment, he’d started laughing, as well.

  Probably as a result of how they’d met, Justin had become one of the few people remotely her own age who’d managed to conceal any awe he might feel in her royal presence. She’d liked that. Besides, he’d been so cute. Even better looking than her preadolescent memories of Sergeant Proctor! And there had been that constitutional requirement that she marry a commoner.

  Not that Justin had entertained any such notion the first time they met. That was one thing Elizabeth had been able to be absolutely certain of, thanks to Ariel, she thought, stroking her treecat companion affectionately.

  She’d been adopted by Ariel when she was only fifteen, which was on the young side, even for the House of Winton. No one pretended to understand even now how the treecats who bonded with humans made their selections, but the fact that all but two Manticoran monarchs since Queen Adrienne had been adopted before they ever took the throne certainly suggested the process wasn’t quite as random as it might otherwise appear. Indeed, that pattern had caused some alarm over the centuries, and at least some people believed it wasn’t really the treecats’ decision at all.

  Wintons knew better than that, although they didn’t go out of their way to make the point. By this time, the situation was so well-established that no one was likely to raise any concerns, but more than one of the security personnel responsible for the dynasty’s safety had worried about it in earlier days. Anyone who’d ever been adopted knew that people who argued treecats were no more than clever animals were completely and totally wrong, and the notion that an intelligent, empathic, and at least potentially telepathic alien species was deliberately attaching itself to the human monarchs of the Star Kingdom in what could only be described as a bond of emotional dependency was enough to make any good conspiracy theorist paranoid. No one in the House of Winton was concerned about that—which the aforementioned conspiracy theorist would simply have pointed out meant the conspiracy was working, she guessed—and the ’cats had saved the lives of members of her family at least three times, starting with then-Crown Princess Adrienne. Under the circumstances, if anyone wanted to believe the ’cats were somehow being influenced by humans using the well-worn paths of wealth, patronage, and political power to push the Sphinx Forestry Service into “encouraging” the bonds with the royal house, the Wintons were entirely in favor. And so was Palace Security, given the anti-assassin early warning system the ’cats provided. Not that Security went out of its way to mention the instances when that had happened. Having potential assassins regard treecats as little more than cute, adorable, exotic pets no self-respecting killer had to worry his head over was all to the good, as far as the royal family’s bodyguards were concerned.

  They also provided other, less readily apparent advantages, however. Like everyone who’d ever been adopted, Elizabeth was convinced Ariel helped her balance her own anxieties and worries, and she was virtually certain the ’cat had saved her on more than one occasion from what her cousin Michelle irreverently referred to as her “temper from hell.” And ’cats were infallible barometers of the emotions of people around their human companions. It took a while for those companions to learn to read the ’cats’ responses, but even if Ariel was physically incapable of human speech, he understood Elizabeth just fine. He was fully capable of responding to “yes/no” queries by nodding or shaking his head, too, and she’d become almost as adroit as a good customer service AI when it came to asking questions to refine whatever he was trying to tell her.

  And what he’d told her about Justin Zyrr was that she’d have to be very cautious about how she approached him if she didn’t want him to immediately back off and run lest someone think he was attempting to “take advantage” of her. That would’ve been enough all by itself to convince her to look at him very, very closely, given how many theoretically eligible males she’d run into who’d done everything in their power to convince her they were the perfect answer to any nubile maiden’s prayers. So she’d specifically requested him as her chemistry mentor for the required basic course. It had been, she cheerfully admitted, at least a tiny case of abuse of power, since she’d known perfectly well that the university would never dream of not giving her the mentor she’d requested. She hadn’t much cared about that, either, because it had given her the opportunity for that closer look, and what she’d found when she took it had been even better than she’d expected . . . even if he had been skittish as an Old Earth rabbit downwind of a treecat when he realized she was taking it.

  He’s coming along quite nicely at the moment, though, she reflected. And Mom and Dad both approve of him immensely. She quirked a smile. I always knew they had excellent judgment.

  But the smi
le faded as the armored limo drifted towards touchdown and her thoughts returned to her younger brother.

  I don’t want Mikey to be unhappy, and I know it bothers Dad more than he’s willing to admit. Mom, too, but this one’s between him and Dad a lot more than between him and her.

  “I really do wish he didn’t get so wound up about it,” she said, watching the sting ships through the side window. “He hates it afterward, too, you know. I think he knows he’s being unfair when he gets so mad, and he doesn’t like being mad at you, Dad.”

  “I know that, honey. And I don’t like being mad at him, either.” He touched her hair lightly and smiled when she looked back at him. “But, fortunately, Mikey’s a really good kid, whatever rough patch we’re going through right now. And part of it, you know, is the difference between the way boys’ and girls’ heads work.”

  “Oh?”

  Elizabeth looked at him just a bit suspiciously, and his smile broadened.

  “Boys don’t do ‘subtle’ very well, Beth. Especially when those hormones kick in, but it starts earlier than that, really. They know what they know, they’re stubborn as the day is long, and they don’t handle limits very well. They’re geared to solve problems—like disputes with parental authority—by doing things their way, with all the finesse of an Old Earth rhino, and they come at you head on. That’s the reason Mikey and I lock horns so much more often than he and your mom do. As Doctor Sugiyama says, Mikey’s a lot more like me than he is like your mom, and that makes these little . . . lively moments between us inevitable, I’m afraid.”

  And, he chose not to add out loud, the way I’m stressing over the situation in Trevor’s Star isn’t helping just at the moment. I try not to let it affect the way I react when he and I don’t see eye-to-eye, but I know it’s leaking over sometimes. In fact, I think it was probably a major contributory factor in our last blow up.

  “So, if boys don’t do ‘subtle’ very well, is that another way of saying girls do?” Elizabeth demanded, pulling him away from that unhappy thought before his smile could fade.

  “Well, of course!” He shook his head at her. “Girls tackle problems more consensually than boys do, they’d rather spend their energy doing things they don’t know from the outset is going to get them lectured by their elders, and they figure out early that the males in their lives are only there to get in the way and mess things up, so they start out by practicing on their parents. They smile, they promise to do exactly what their parents tell them to do, and then they go out to do precisely what they were going to do anyway, on the theory that if they’re lucky—and good—their parents will never find out about it. And, the way they see it, they’re actually doing their parents a favor, aren’t they? By keeping them from worrying about the consequences of all those things they promised they wouldn’t do, I mean.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes widened, and Ariel bleeked with laughter as he tasted her chagrin.

  “I didn’t—I mean,” she said, “I—”

  “Didn’t realize I’d figured that out?” her father suggested helpfully, and chuckled at her expression. Then his smile faded slightly.

  “Beth, I never worried about the venal sins your mom and I knew you were committing, because—like Mikey, but maybe even more so—you were always a good kid. You’re turning into a remarkable young woman, as well, and I knew the whole time you were manipulating and evading your way around me in those venal things you were up to, that you’d never lie to me about anything important.” He rested his hand on her shoulder as the limo settled onto its skids. “I wasn’t worried then, I’m not worried now, and I doubt there’s another father anywhere in the entire Star Kingdom who’s more satisfied—more delighted—than I am with the way his daughter’s turned out. I’m sure Mikey’ll turn out just as well—in his own stubborn, male, mule headed, obstinate, determined way—as you did. And as for the rest of it, I console myself with an ancient Old Earth proverb.”

  “And which proverb would that be?” Elizabeth asked as a lieutenant of the King’s Own began to open her limo door for her.

  “The one that says ‘This too shall pass,’” her father told her wryly. “‘This too shall pass.’ Even male adolescence, thank God!”

  Jonas Adcock and the other people gathered in the briefing room rose respectfully as King Roger and Crown Princess Elizabeth walked through the door.

  They were a striking pair, Adcock thought yet again, his brother-in-law and his niece. Elizabeth was above average height for a woman, but her father had his own father’s height. At a hundred and ninety-four centimeters, Roger was far taller than his daughter, whose slender, not quite delicate frame clearly favored her mother’s side of the family. Her complexion was just a shade lighter than her father’s, as well, but she had the Winton chin and her father’s steady brown eyes. And if her head didn’t top Roger’s shoulder, her spine was just as straight, her head regally raised, despite the weight of the treecat riding on her shoulder.

  She’ll make a wonderful queen someday, he thought, even if I’ll be long gone before that ever happens. No system of government’s proof against throwing up idiots, incompetents, thieves, or charlatans as head of state, and monarchy’s got more potential for it than some others I could think of. But Manticore’s been lucky as hell in that regard over the centuries. I imagine an awful lot of that’s due to the requirement that the Heir marry a commoner—avoids inbreeding, anyway!—but I think a lot more has to do with that whole Winton concentration on “servant of the people” when they start raising their kids. Wouldn’t be surprised if the ’cats have more than a little to do with it, too, now that I think about it, but the childhood training . . . that’s the big factor. And Roger and Angel are smart—smart—to get Beth involved in Roger’s plans as deeply as possible, as early as possible.

  He knew more than a few people, even among Roger’s closer advisers, wouldn’t have agreed with him. People who felt that a young woman—a girl—barely three T-months past her eighteenth birthday was not a suitable recipient for the sorts of heavily classified information which routinely came her way. And even many who’d learned not to worry that she was going to start posting classified documents on her personal blog continued to cherish reservations about an eighteen-year-old’s insight, judgment, and ability to truly understand the Star Kingdom’s steadily deteriorating relations with the People’s Republic of Haven.

  Jonas thought those people were fools. He was willing to admit he might be just a little prejudiced, as well, but still—!

  Hadn’t they been listening to her? She clearly remembered one of her mother’s favorite adages, learned from Jonas’ stepmother—“A wise man speaks because he has something to say; a fool speaks because he has to say something.” Elizabeth didn’t open her mouth all that often in the meetings she attended with her father, but whenever she did, what she had to say was worth listening to. There’d even been a time or two when she’d disagreed with Roger, at least in part, and it had been instructive to see how carefully Roger listened to her when she did.

  Yep, a wonderful queen, he told himself as her father pulled back her chair and seated her before taking his own place. I hope she doesn’t get to demonstrate that for decades and decades after I’m gone, but when the time comes, she’ll be ready.

  Roger noticed Jonas’ small smile, and he was glad to see it, although he hated how lined his brother-in-law’s face was getting, how thin his snowy hair had turned. It was even more striking at today’s meeting, since Roger’s other brother-in-law, Edward Henke, was also present, looking absurdly—painfully—young beside Jonas. The Earl of Gold Peak was an up-and-coming assistant undersecretary in the Foreign Office, although he was still more than a little junior for this sort of stratospheric session, despite his close relationship to the Crown. He was also, however, one of Foreign Secretary Nageswar’s specialists where San Martin was concerned, and that was rather the point of today’s meeting.

  In fact, it would probably be a good idea to get that part of
the meeting out of the way now so they could move on to the material Gold Peak and most of the other Foreign Office representatives had no need to know.

  “All right,” he said, “at least part of this is going to be brutally short, simple, and to the point. According to all our information,” he nodded in Big Sky’s direction, “the Peeps are going to move on Trevor’s Star within the next six T-months. Possibly even sooner.”

  Most of the civilians around the table stiffened as they abruptly realized why this meeting was taking place at Admiralty House instead of Mount Royal Palace, and Roger smiled thinly.

  “Yes, you’re absolutely right,” he told those civilians, sparing a slight, additional nod in Gold Peak’s direction. “As soon as we can shove all of you civilians—except you and Abner, Allen—” he smiled a bit more naturally at Prime Minister Cromarty and First Lord Castle Rock “—out the door, the uniformed types and I are going to be looking very closely at all of our military hole cards. But before we get to that, we have to decide what we’re going to tell President Ramirez and his government.”

  “At the moment, Your Majesty,” Baron Big Sky said, “I’m not sure there’s much we can tell the President.” His expression was unhappy. “I don’t doubt he and his intelligence people are picking up on the same straws in the wind we are—in fact, I know their navy’s intelligence officers are. President Ramirez’s assessment may be somewhat different from ours, but he has to realize what’s building. The problem is that they’re painted into a corner. Not only have they been looking down the barrel of the Peeps’ pulser for damned close to thirty T-years, but they’ve pursued that ‘nonaligned’ policy of theirs for so long that trying to reverse course would be bound to create all sorts of confusion within their own government. And that completely ignores the question of how the Peeps would react!”