David Weber - Worlds of Honor

"Very well," Chou said. "Let us look at this from a slightly different angle. When would you say would be the earliest time that conditions would have gained our hypothetical conspirators what they wanted?"

Justin thought for a moment, weighing the various elements.

"Perhaps when Elizabeth was sixteen. Before that she would have been too easily dismissed as a child."

"Did anything happen to the royal family when Elizabeth was around sixteen?"

"I'm not sure," Justin mused. "I didn't meet her until that very year. I'd never been much interested in the royal family, to be honest. That's why we hit it off so well. Beth was on a tour of the research lab where I work and wandered into a restricted area. I was giving her hell when her bodyguard hurried in. When he addressed her as `Your Highness' I suddenly realized why this pretty girl seemed so familiar."

Justin felt his face grow hot at the memory and he chuckled.

"She wrote me the prettiest apology letter. It crossed in the mails with my apology. Beth thought that the coincidence was so funny that she screened me."

"I imagine you were surprised." Chou laughed.

"Was I ever!" Justin agreed. "We talked for over an hour, just like old friends. Her father was ill and she really needed a friend."

"Think about what you just said," Chou prompted.

"She needed a friend?" Justin answered, puzzled.

"Right before that."

"Her father was ill." The implications hit Justin all at once. "King Roger was ill—very ill! Not many people knew that, but Beth told me. I guess she knew I wouldn't let the news out to the media."

"And you didn't."

"But the King recovered!"

"From a viral infection." Chou was no longer laughing. "The Star Kingdom of Manticore takes its good health for granted. Most infectious diseases were conquered centuries ago. We were never as isolated as many colonies. Mutated diseases like those that ravaged Artemis and Raiden never were a problem for us—especially since we did not let up on the strict quarantine and decontamination procedures from our expedition days."

"We had our own Plague," Justin reminded him, fearing that the old man had made such an art of paranoia that he saw conspiracy where there was none.

"Check your history books," Chou said. "The Manticoran Plague most likely evolved from a small family of viruses the original survey team missed—or that evolved during the six centuries between the initial survey and the arrival of the colonists. Whatever the case, Manticore is not prone to sudden, unexplained viral infections—and I find one that strikes the King alone particularly suspect."

"Maybe so," Justin said. "I suppose you have copies of the medical records on his illness."

"I do, and you're welcome to review them."

"I will, but before I trouble Elizabeth with these theories of murder and conspiracy, I want to take a look at that grav ski."

"Are you saying that the Queen does not share the suspicions that brought you to the Indigo Salt Flats?"

Justin hesitated. "She suspects her father was killed. I don't know what else she suspects. Beth . . . has a temper. I don't want to tell her something that might affect her judgement."

"Yet, if we do find proof of murder, she will need to be told."

"I know. Let's just wait until then. Tonight the wake begins. In two days she must officiate at her father's funeral. That's enough."

"As long as I know that you won't try to keep me from doing my job, I'm willing to wait." Chou grinned, impish once more. "I would have anyhow."

Justin shook his head in disbelief. One moment coolly paranoid, spinning theories that encompassed not only murder but grand treason, the next like a creature from a child's pretend, Daniel Chou was not an easy man to understand. Fortunately, he was an easy man to trust.

After departing the council, Elizabeth made her way through the convolutions of Mount Royal Palace until she came to her father's private office. Motioning to her guard to remain outside, she pressed the call button, thereby warning the occupant that she was there.

If one member of the family had been more deeply hurt by her father's death than even the Queen, it was her father's treecat, Monroe. The 'cat had been in the chalet at the moment of Roger's death and his eerie keening had forewarned the security staff that the accident had been fatal.

Monroe had returned to Mount Royal with King Roger's body but, unlike a human in a similar circumstance, he had shown no desire to sit with the body. Perhaps his carnivore's direct view of the universe accepted more immediately that a body without a spirit was just so much dead meat. Perhaps he could not bear to see his best friend's form still, cold, and bereft of his animating spirit.

Since his return to Mount Royal, Monroe had hunched, keening and ragged, on his perch in the King's office. Not even Ariel had been able to coax him to eat, but Elizabeth visited whenever she could. Treecat experts, mostly members of the Sphinx Forestry Service, had warned her that Monroe could do any number of things at this point.

Most 'cats who lost their humans (a frequent occurrence pre-prolong, as a 'cat's natural life-span was around two hundred years) suicided. That had always been the great tragedy of the human-treecat bond, yet the 'cats had always made it clear that they accepted the price they paid to adopt their human companions. Now, of course, prolong promised to reverse the age differential, and no one was certain how that would affect relations between the two species.

Normally, in a case where the 'cat did not suicide, it simply returned to Sphinx and rejoined its clan, although in very rare cases, a "widowed" 'cat would adopt another human. So far, Monroe had not indicated any desire to return to Sphinx, and his palpable grief made Elizabeth fear that she would return to her father's office to find the 'cat dead.

She slid open the office door to find Monroe sitting alone. Several members of her father's staff had offered to keep watch with Monroe, but the 'cat had become agitated, as if proximity to another's grief heightened his own.

Ariel bleeked a welcome and leapt from Elizabeth's arms to sit by Monroe. Sitting back on his true-feet, Ariel used his true-hands to groom the other 'cat. Monroe didn't move, but Elizabeth imagined hopefully that his green-gold eyes brightened in response.

"Want something to eat, Monroe?" she asked, extending a piece of celery, fresh from the crisper.

Monroe didn't even as much as curl his whiskers. Ariel grabbed the dainty from Elizabeth's hand and began chomping on it himself, bleeking and chirping what could only be encouragement.

Deciding that her interference could not help, Elizabeth sat in her father's chair and studied the clutter on his desk. Its very disorder vividly reminded her that he had only planned to be away for a day or two.

"Dad . . ." she whispered. "I wish . . ."

Her soliloquy was interrupted by the beep of her pocket com. She took it out and glanced at it, and the caller ID told her that Michael was looking for her.

"Yes, Michael?"

"Our cousins are here—Mike and Calvin. Can we come up?"

"You know where I am?"

"I asked Dover. You're in Dad's office again."

"That's right. Sure, bring them up. Did Uncle Anson come, too?"

"He's with Aunt Caitrin and Mom."

"Then come up. We have some time before the viewing."

Switching off the intercom, Elizabeth swiveled her father's chair so that she could look out the window. Below she could just see the edges of the Blue Hall where preparations were being made for her father's final public duty.