"Skipper, we've got an unscheduled hyper footprint at six million kilometers!"
Captain Jane Timmons, CO, HMS Andromeda, spun her command chair towards her tactical officer. Six million kilometers was inside single-drive missile range!
She opened her mouth to demand more information, but the tac officer was already providing it.
"It's a single footprint, Ma'am. Very small. Probably a dispatch boat."
"Anything from it?" Timmons asked.
"Not FTL, Ma'am. And we wouldn't have anything light-speed for another—" he glanced at the time chop on the initial detection "—another couple of seconds. In fact—"
"Captain," the com officer said in a very careful voice, "I have a communications request I think you'd better take."
The communicator buzzed in the darkened cabin. Honor sat up quickly, with the instant wakefulness which had become the norm over the years. Except, perhaps, she thought with a fleeting smile, even as she reached for the com, when she was "home" in bed. Then her finger found the dimly illuminated voice-only acceptance button, and she pressed it.
"Yes?"
"Your Grace, I'm sorry to wake you." Honor's eyes narrowed. It wasn't MacGuiness, who almost always screened her after-hours calls; it was Mercedes Brigham.
"I don't suppose you did it without reasonably good cause," Honor said, when Brigham paused.
"Yes, Your Grace." Honor heard the chief of staff clear her throat. "One of the perimeter patrol battlecruisers just relayed a transmission to us. It's from an unscheduled courier boat." She paused again. "A Peep courier boat."
"A Havenite courier?" Honor repeated carefully. "Here?"
"That's correct, Your Grace." There was a very strange note in Brigham's voice, Honor noticed. But before she could probe, the chief of staff continued, "I think you should probably view the transmission we received from it, Your Grace. May I patch it through?"
"Of course," Honor said, feeling just a bit mystified, and pressed the button to accept a visual feed, as well. The display blinked alive with Imperator's communications system's wallpaper, and then Honor twitched as a most familiar face appeared.
"I suppose this is all a bit irregular," Rear Admiral Michelle Henke said, "but I have a message for Her Majesty from the President of the Republic of Haven."
Honor was waiting behind the side party as Andromeda's pinnace settled into the boat bay docking arms. She managed to look completely calm, although the slow, steady twitching of Nimitz's tail as he sat on her shoulder gave away her inner mood to those who knew the 'cat well.
The personnel tube ran out, the green light blinked, and then Michelle Henke swung gingerly through the interface from the tube's microgravity into Imperator's internal grav field. She obviously favored her left leg as she landed, and Honor could taste her physical discomfort as she came to attention and saluted through the twitter of bosun's pipes.
"Battlecruiser Squadron Eighty-One, arriving!"
"Permission to come aboard, Sir?" she requested from the officer of the deck.
"Permission granted, Admiral Henke!"
Both hands fell from the salute, and Henke stepped past the BBOD with a noticeable limp.
"Mike," Honor said, very quietly, taking her friend's offered hand in a firm clasp. "It's good to see you again."
"And you, Your Grace," Henke said, her always husky contralto just a tad more husky than usual.
"Well," Honor released her hand at last, stepping back a bit from their mutual joy at the reunion, "I believe you said something about a message?"
"Yes, I did."
"Should I get Admiral Kuzak out here?"
"I don't believe that will be necessary, Ma'am," Henke said formally, aware of all of the watching eyes and listening ears.
"Then why don't you accompany me to my quarters?"
"Of course, Your Grace."
Honor led the way to the lift shaft, with an improbably wide awake-looking Andrew LaFollet coming along behind. She pressed the button, then smiled faintly and waved Henke through the opening door before her. She and LaFollet followed, the door slid shut behind her, and she reached out and gripped Henke's upper arms.
"My God," she said softly, "it is good to see you, Mike!"
Honor Alexander-Harrington had never been one for easy embraces, but she suddenly swept Mike Henke into a bear hug.
"Easy! Easy!" Henke gasped, returning the embrace. "The leg's bad enough, woman! Don't add crushed ribs to the list!"
"Sorry."
For a moment, Honor's soprano was almost as husky as Henke's contralto, but then she stood back and cleared her throat while Nimitz buzzed a happy, welcoming purr from her shoulder.
"Sorry," she repeated in a more normal voice. "It's just that I thought you were dead. And then, when we found out you weren't, I still expected months, or years, to pass before I saw you again."
"Then I guess we're even over that little Cerberus trip you took," Henke said with a crooked smile.
"I guess we are," Honor agreed with a sudden chuckle. "Although you at least weren't dead long enough for them to throw an entire state funeral for you!"
"Pity. I would've loved to watch the HD of it."
"Yes, you probably would have. You always have been just a bit peculiar, Mike Henke!"
"You only say that because of my taste in friends."
"No doubt," Honor said dryly, as the lift doors opened and deposited them in the passageway outside her quarters. Spencer Hawke was standing guard outside them, and she paused and looked over her shoulder at LaFollet.
"Andrew, you and Spencer can't keep this up forever. We've got to get at least one other armsman up here to give the two of you some relief."
"My Lady, I've been thinking about that, but I haven't had the time to select someone. I'd have to go back to Grayson, really, and—"
"No, Andrew, you wouldn't." She paused to give him a moderately stern look. "Two points," she said quietly but firmly. "First, my son will be born in another month. Second," she continued, pretending she hadn't noticed the flicker of pain in his gray eyes, "Brigadier Hill is quite capable of selecting a suitable pool of candidates back on Grayson and sending them to us for you and me to consider together. I know you have a lot on your mind, and I know there are aspects of the situation you don't really like. But this needs to be attended to."
He looked back at her for perhaps two seconds, then sighed.
"Yes, My Lady. I'll send the dispatch to Brigadier Hill on the morning shuttle."
"Thank you," she said gently, touching him lightly on the arm, then turned back to Henke.
"I believe someone else is waiting to welcome you back," she said, and the hatch slid open to show a beaming James MacGuiness.
"So, Mike," Honor said fifteen minutes later, "just what induced the Havenites to send you home?"
She and Henke sat in facing chairs, Henke with a steaming cup of coffee, and Honor with a mug of cocoa. MacGuiness had seen to it that there was also a plate of sandwiches, and Honor nibbled idly on a ham and cheese, taking advantage of the opportunity to stoke her metabolism. Henke, on the other hand, was content with just her coffee.
"That's an interesting question," Henke said now, cradling her cup in both hands and gazing at Honor across it through a wisp of steam. "I think mostly they picked me because I'm Beth's cousin. They figured she'd have to listen to a message from me. And, I imagine, they hoped the fact that they'd given me back to her would at least tempt her to listen seriously to what they had to say."
"Which is? Or is it privileged information you can't share with me?"
"Oh, it's privileged all right—for now, at least. But I was specifically told I could share it with you, since it also concerns you."
"Mike," Honor said, with just a trace of exasperation as she tasted the teasing amusement behind Henke's admirably solemn expression, "if you don't come clean with me and quit tossing out tidbits, I'm going to choke it out of you. You do realize that, don't you?"
"Home less than an hour, and already threatened with physical violence," Henke observed in tones of profound sadness, shaking her head, then cowered dramatically as Honor started to stand.
"All right, all right! I'll talk!"
"Good. And," Honor added pointedly as she settled back, "I'm still waiting."
"Yes, well," Henke's amusement faded into seriousness, "it's not really a laughing matter, I suppose. But put most simply, Pritchart is using me as her messenger to suggest to Beth that the two of them meet in a face-to-face summit to discuss a negotiated settlement."
Honor sat abruptly further back in her chair. Despite the dramatic nature of Henke's return, the unanticipated radicalness of Pritchart's proposal was almost stunning. Sudden glittering vistas of an end to the killing spread out before her, and her heart leapt. But then she made herself step back and draw a deep breath of reality.
"That's a very interesting offer. Do you think she really means it?"
"Oh, I think she definitely wants to meet with Beth. Just what she intends to offer is another matter. On that front, I wish you'd been the one talking to her."
Henke glanced significantly at Nimitz, who raised his head from his comfortable sprawl on the back of Honor's chair.
"What sort of agenda did she propose?"
"That's one of the odd parts about the offer," Henke said. "Basically, she left it wide open. Obviously, she wants a peace treaty, but she didn't list any specific set of terms. Apparently, she's willing to throw everything into the melting pot if Beth will agree to negotiate with her one-on-one."
"That's a significant change from their previous stance, at least as I understood it," Honor observed.
"I hate to say it, but you're probably in a better position to know that than I am," Henke admitted. She shrugged, with a slightly sheepish grin. "I've been trying to pay more attention to politics since you tore a strip off me, but it's still not really a primary interest of mine."
Honor gave her an exasperated look and shook her head. Henke looked back, essentially unrepentant. Then she shrugged again.
"Actually, it's probably a good thing you are more interested in politics and diplomacy than I am," she said.
"Why?"
"Because one specific element of Pritchart's proposal is a request that you also attend the conference she wants to set up."
"Me?" Honor blinked in astonishment, and Henke nodded.
"You. I got the impression the original suggestion to include you may have come from Thomas Theisman, but I'm not sure about that. Pritchart did assure me, however, that neither she nor anyone in her administration had anything to do with your attempted assassination. And you can believe however much of that you want to."
"She'd almost have to say that, I suppose," Honor said thoughtfully, her mind racing as she considered Pritchart's proposal. Then she cocked her head. "Did she say anything about Ariel or Nimitz?"
"No, she didn't . . . and I thought that was probably significant," Henke said. "They know both you and Beth have been adopted, of course, and it was obvious that they have extensive dossiers on both of you. I'm sure they've been following the articles and other presentations on the 'cats capabilities since they decided to come out of the closet."
"Which means, in effect, that she's inviting us to bring a pair of furry lie detectors to this summit of hers."
"That's what I think." Henke nodded. "I guess it's always possible they haven't made that connection after all, but I think it's unlikely."
"So do I." Honor gazed off into the distance, thinking hard. Then she looked back at Henke.
"The timing on this is interesting. We've got several factors working here."
"I know. And so does Pritchart," Henke said. Honor looked a question at her, and the other woman snorted. "She made very certain I knew they know about this business in Talbott. She made the specific point that her offer of a summit is being made at a time when she and her advisers are fully aware of how tightly stretched we are. The unstated implication was that instead of an invitation to talk, they might have sent a battle fleet."
"Yes, they certainly could have."
"Have we heard any more from the Cluster?" Henke asked anxiously.
"No. And we won't hear anything back from Monica for at least another ten or eleven days. And that's one reason I said the timing on this was interesting. On the chance that the news we get may be good, I've been ordered to update our plans for Operation Sanskrit—that's the successor to the Cutworm raids," Honor explained when Henke raised an eyebrow "—with a tentative execution date twelve days from tomorrow. Well," she brought up the date/time display in her artificial eye, "from today, actually, now."
"You're thinking about the way Saint-Just derailed Buttercup by suggesting a cease-fire to High Ridge."
"Actually, I'm thinking about the fact that Elizabeth is going to remember it," Honor replied, shaking her head. "Unless they've got a lot more penetration of our security than I believe they do, they can't know what our operational schedule is. Oh, they've probably surmised that Eighth Fleet was just about ready to resume offensive operations, assuming we were going to do that at all, when Khumalo's dispatch arrived. And if they've done the math, they probably know we're about due to hear back from him. But they must have packed you off home almost the same day word of our diversions from Home Fleet could have reached them. To me, that sounds like they moved as quickly as possible to take advantage of an opportunity to negotiate seriously. I'm just afraid it's going to resonate with Buttercup in Elizabeth's thoughts."
"She's not entirely rational where Peeps are concerned," Henke admitted.
"With justification, I'm afraid," Honor said. Henke looked surprised to hear her say that, and Honor shook her head, wondering if Mike knew everything about her own family's experiences with various Havenite régimes.
"Well, I hope she doesn't get her dander up this time," Henke said after a moment. "God knows I love her, and she's one of the strongest monarchs we've ever had, but that temper of hers—!" It was Henke's turn to shake her head.
"I know everyone thinks she's a warhead with a hair trigger," Honor said a bit impatiently, "and I'll even acknowledge that she's one of the best grudge-holders I know. But she isn't really blind to her responsibilities as a head of state, you know!"
"You don't have to defend her to me, Honor! I'm just trying to be realistic. The fact is that she has got a temper from the dark side of Hell, when it's roused, and you know as well as I do how she hates yielding to pressure, even from people she knows are giving her their best advice. And speaking of pressure, Pritchart was careful to make sure I knew she knew the goings on in the Cluster have given the Republic the whip hand, diplomatically speaking. Not only that," Henke added with a combination of frustration and grudging admiration, "she told me to inform Beth that she's releasing an official statement tomorrow in Nouveau Paris informing the Republic and the galaxy at large that she's issued her invitation."
"Oh, lovely." Honor leaned back, resting the back of her head lightly against Nimitz's warm, furry weight. "That was a smart move. And you're right, Elizabeth is going to resent it. But she's played the interstellar diplomacy game herself—quite well, in fact. I don't think she'll be surprised by it. And I doubt very much that any resentment she feels over it would have a decisive impact on her decision."
"I hope you're right." Henke sipped coffee, then lowered her cup. "I hope you're right," she repeated, "because hard as I tried to stay cynical, I think Pritchart really means it. She really wants to sit down with Beth and negotiate peace."
"Then let's hope she manages to pull it off," Honor said softly.
"And I think I don't trust them as far as I could throw a superdreadnought!" Elizabeth III said angrily.
The power of her emotions was like a black thundercloud to Honor's perceptions, looming over the pleasant council chamber in Mount Royal Palace. None of the other humans could sense it, but all of the treecats were only too obviously aware of it. She reached up to stroke Nimitz's spine, watching as Prince Justin did the same for Monroe. Ariel's half-flattened ears were an accurate barometer of the Queen's emotions, and Honor could sense Samantha buttressing herself against them from Hamish's chair back.
"Your Majesty—Elizabeth," William Alexander said, "nobody is asking you to trust them. Certainly not on no more basis than the fact that they've returned Michelle and that Pritchart is requesting a meeting with you. That's not really the point."
"Oh, yes, it is!" Elizabeth shot back.
"No, it isn't, Your Majesty," Sir Anthony Langtry disagreed firmly. The Queen glowered at him, and he shrugged. "Willie's right. The point is whether it's better for us to talk to them or shoot at them when we don't know what's happening in the Cluster."
"Which we'll know in another week or so!"
Honor very carefully did not sigh. Elizabeth had proven far more intransigent than she'd hoped over the four days since Michelle Henke's return to Manticore with Honor from Trevor's Star.
"Elizabeth," Honor said now, calmly, "four days from now is the soonest we could really hope to receive a dispatch boat, assuming Terekhov sent one off within twenty-four hours of his planned arrival at Monica. But the fact that we haven't already received one is a bad sign, and you know it."
Elizabeth looked at her, and Honor shrugged.
"We've known for two weeks, from the last dispatch boat he sent off, that Copenhagen confirmed his initial assumptions, at least in part, when she met him at his rendezvous point after scouting Monica."
"And?" Elizabeth said, when she paused.
"We also know, from the same dispatch, that he did continue to Monica, where he almost certainly violated Monican territorial space. Let's assume he managed to carry out his best-case plan without firing a shot, and the Monicans agreed to halt whatever preparations they were making until we could assure ourselves they had no designs against the Cluster. That's the best message we could be receiving in the next week."
"In which case the situation is under control," Elizabeth said.
"In which case we're effectively in control of Monican space," Honor corrected gently. "For now. It's also possible his dispatch is going to tell us he's fought a battle. In that case, he either won, or he lost. In either of those cases, we have a shooting incident with a sovereign star nation with a long-standing relationship with the Office of Frontier Security. In that case, it's going to be weeks, even months, before we know whether or not OFS is prepared to commit Solly naval units against us. In fact, even if no shots were exchanged, if Terekhov and Khumalo have occupied the Monica System under threat of force, we could still be looking at OFS intervention. And whatever Terekhov's dispatches might tell us a week from now, we're still going to be facing the same wait until we can be sure which way OFS is going to jump."
"Precisely what I'm trying to say." Baron Grantville looked gratefully at his sister-in-law and nodded vigorously. "I'm sure Pritchart didn't make it because of how much she loves us, but her point about the value of a cease-fire while we find out whether or not we're at war with the Solarian League is completely valid."
He turned back to the Queen.
"That's the same point Tony and I have been trying to make ever since Mike got home. Elizabeth," there was raw appeal in his eyes, "we're in serious trouble. The Peeps alone outnumber us two-to-one in ships of the wall. We all hope Terekhov and Khumalo have managed to nip whatever was happening in the Cluster in the bud, and that Admiral O'Malley's task force will be enough to keep a lid on things if they did. But we don't know that, and we won't know it until we know absolutely that OFS is going to back down. And don't forget the Mesan element in all this. We know they've got a cozy deal with a lot of Frontier Security commissioners, but we don't really know how much pressure they're going to be able to bring to bear to try to salvage whatever they were up to if Terekhov and Khumalo have spoked their wheel."
"And whether you trust them or not, and whether or not Pritchart really intends from the outset to negotiate in good faith, there's always the possibility a peace treaty would emerge, anyway," Hamish Alexander-Harrington pointed out in a neutral tone.
Elizabeth's eyes flashed at him, and he looked back steadily.
"She's the one who's told the newsies about the proposed summit," he said. "That means the onus to make some sort of progress is at least largely on her if you do agree to meet with her. Unless the two of you are going to sit down somewhere, all alone, in a smoke-filled room and negotiate some sort of private deal, the whole thing's going to go forward in a positive glare of publicity. So if you make a reasonable offer, she may find herself hoist by her own petard and forced to entertain it seriously."
"You tell Emily not to try to manage me by remote control, Hamish!" Elizabeth snapped. "I've got enough official advisers trying to do that!"
Honor started to protest, then kept her mouth firmly closed. This being married business had its own complications, she'd discovered. The last thing she needed was to sound as if she were weighing in in concert with her spouses.
"Oh, be reasonable, Elizabeth!" the seventh human seated at the table said in a voice of considerable exasperation. The Queen turned her glare upon the speaker, only to be met by glittering eyes exactly the same color as her own.
"Stop pitching such a snit," Caitrin Winton-Henke told her niece sharply. "You don't like Peeps. You don't trust Peeps. Fine. Neither do I, and you know exactly why I don't. But you're the Queen of Manticore, not a schoolchild! Act like it."
Honor felt several people wincing in anticipation of a furious explosion from the Queen. But it didn't come. Instead, Elizabeth looked into her aunt's eyes and the tight shoulders and rigid spine of the woman the treecats had named Soul of Steel seemed to droop.
Honor felt her own eyes soften in sympathy, but she understood what Michelle Henke's mother had just done. The Dowager Countess of Gold Peak was Elizabeth's one-time regent. She was also the only person at the conference table who had lost even more deeply and personally to the Peeps than Elizabeth had . . . as she had just reminded her niece.
"And don't forget, Elizabeth," Honor said as she felt the Queen's adamantine resistance waver, "if you attend this summit, and if I attend it with you, there'll be at least two treecats present. Don't you think it would be worth getting Ariel and Nimitz close enough to taste Pritchart's mind-glow, whatever else happens?"
Elizabeth's eyes darted to Honor, and she frowned thoughtfully. She was obviously thinking about the fact that it would also get Honor close enough to do the same thing, and Honor was cautiously pleased by the evidence that the Queen was finally stepping back far enough to think.
"Beth," Prince Justin said quietly. His wife looked at him, and he reached out to rest one hand lightly on hers where it lay on the tabletop. "Beth, think about it. Every single one of your advisers disagrees with you. Even," he smiled, "your husband. I think you need to factor that into your decision, don't you?"
She gazed into his eyes for several seconds, then sighed.
"Yes." She obviously hated making that admission, but Honor tasted her unwilling sincerity. The Queen looked around the council chamber, then shrugged her shoulders. "Very well. I'm sure you've all made valid points. I can even appreciate most of them, intellectually, at least. That doesn't mean I like it, because I don't. I hate it. But that doesn't make you wrong, however much I'd like it to. So I'll meet with Pritchart."
"Thank you, Your Majesty," Grantville said with quiet, thankful formality.
"Which raises the question of where you should meet," Langtry said. "Pritchart did invite you to name the site."
"Yes, and she suggested a 'neutral' one," Grantville agreed. "Although just exactly where she thinks we can find one is a bit of a puzzle."
"Nonsense," Elizabeth said with a hard little laugh. "That's the easiest part of all! If she wants a neutral meeting site, where better than Torch?"
"I don't know," Grantville began. "The security aspects would worry me, and—"
"Security would probably be the least of our worries," Honor interrupted. Grantville looked at her, and she grinned. "A planetful of freed slaves, Willie, invited to play host to the heads of state of the two star nations with the best track record for enforcing the Cherwell Convention? You'd need a couple of divisions of battle armor to get through them!"
"That," Langtry said, "is almost certainly true, Willie. They might not have the same technological capabilities we would, but they'd certainly have the motivation!"
"Yes, they would," Grantville agreed. "And I suppose there'd be ample time for us to make additional security arrangements."
"And," Elizabeth pointed out, "it would be an opportunity to draw Erewhon into the process. I know we've all been pissed off with the Erewhonese for the technology they transferred to the Peeps, but let's be honest. High Ridge did everything humanly possible to push them into doing it. If we ask them to dispatch units of their fleet to provide a neutral security umbrella in Congo for both sides, without either of us bringing in our own battle squadrons, it would be a demonstration that this Government—and the House of Winton—both trusts them and desires to patch up our differences."
Grantville looked at her with a slightly surprised expression, and she chuckled almost naturally.
"I may still have my reservations about this entire idea, Willie. But if we're going to do it anyway, we might as well accomplish as many objectives at once as we can."