David Weber - At All Costs

She rather regretted that. After running the gauntlet of newsies outside Briarwood-despite Solomon Hayes' fall from grace, the story was still grist for the mills of a certain particularly repulsive subspecies of newsy-she'd been positively looking forward to removing large, painful, bloody chunks of Franz Illescue's hide. Now she couldn't do that. Not when it was so obvious to her, at least, that he truly meant his apology.

"Dr. Illescue," she said after a moment, "I know you personally had nothing to do with the leakage of this information."

His eyes widened slightly, and she tasted his astonishment at her reasonable tone.

"In addition," she continued, "I've had quite a bit of experience with large, bureaucratic organizations. The Queen's Navy, for example. While I'm aware the captain is responsible for anything that happens aboard her ship, I'm also aware that things happen over which she has no actual control. I'm convinced this leak was an example of that sort of lapse.

"I won't pretend I'm not angry, or that I don't strongly resent what's happened. I feel confident, however, that you've done everything in your power to discover just how this information got into the hands of someone like Solomon Hayes. I see no point in punishing you or your facility for the criminal actions of some individual acting without your authority and against Briarwood's policies on patient confidentiality. I have no intention of seeking damages, punitive or otherwise, from you or Briarwood. I'll accept your offer to provide your future services without fee, and for my part, I'll consider the matter otherwise closed."

"Your Grace-" Illescue began, then stopped. He gazed at her for a moment, his clenched expression easing slightly, then drew a deep breath.

"That's extraordinarily generous and gracious of you, Your Grace," he said, with absolute sincerity. "I won't apologize further, because, frankly, no one could apologize adequately for this lapse. I would, however, be honored if you'd allow me to personally escort you to your son."

Honor stood in the small, pleasantly pastel room, Andrew LaFollet at her back, and gazed at the innocuous looking cabinet at the room's center. She could have pressed a button which would have retracted the "cabinet's" housing and revealed the artificial womb in which her child was steadily maturing, but she chose not to. She'd viewed all the medical reports, and the medical imagery, and a part of her wanted to see the fetus with her own eyes. But she'd already decided she wouldn't do that until Hamish and Emily could accompany her. This was her child, but he was also theirs, and she would not take that moment from them.

She smiled at her own possible silliness, then walked across the room, seated herself beside the unit, and lowered Nimitz from her shoulder to her lap. The powered chair was luxuriously comfortable, and she leaned back, closing her eyes and listening. The volume wasn't turned very high on the speakers, but she could hear what her unborn son was hearing. The steady sound of her own recorded heart beat. Snatches of music-especially the works of Salvatore Hammerwell, her favorite composer-and the sound of her own voice reading. Reading, in fact, she realized with another, quite different smile, from David and the Phoenix.

She sat there for several minutes, listening, absorbing, sharing. This was the child of her body, the child she'd been unable to carry, and this quiet, comfortable room existed exactly for what she was doing. For bringing herself, at least temporarily, into the presence of the mystic process from which circumstance, fate, and duty had excluded her. And in Honor's case, there was even more to it than for other mothers.

She reached out from behind her eyes, listening with more than just her ears, and there, in the quiet of her mind, she found him. She felt him. He was a bright, drowsy, drifting presence. As yet uninformed, yet moving steadily towards becoming. His mind-glow danced in the depths of her own mind and heart, glorious with the promise of what he would be and become, stirring to the sound of his parents' voices, yearning from his peaceful dreams towards the future which awaited him.

In that moment, she knew, at least partly, what a treecat mother felt, and a part of her quailed at the thought of ever leaving this room again. Of separating herself from that new, bright life glowing so softly and yet so powerfully in her perceptions. Her closed eyes prickled, and she remembered the verse Katherine Mayhew had found for her when she'd had Willard Neufsteiler arrange the funding for her first Grayson orphanage. It was an ancient poem, older than the Diaspora itself, carefully preserved on Grayson because of how perfectly it spoke to their society and beliefs.

Not flesh of my flesh, or bone of my bone,

But still miraculously my own.

Never forget for a single minute;

You didn't grow under my heart, but in it.

She supposed it didn't really apply to her in this case. And yet... it did. Because whatever else was true of this child, he was growing daily, stronger, more vibrant, more real within her heart. And she'd already asked Katherine to send her a presentation copy of it for Emily.

She blinked, then turned her head and looked at LaFollet. The colonel wasn't looking at her at that instant. His eyes, too, were on the unit at the center of the room, and his unguarded expression mirrored his emotions. This was his child, too, she realized. Unlike most Grayson males, LaFollet had never married. She knew why that was, too, and she felt a sudden fresh flicker of guilt. But perhaps in part because of that, the emotions flooding out of him as he gazed at the bland cabinet hiding his Steadholder's unborn son were more than simply fiercely protective. They were, in fact, very, very similar to the ones she tasted from Nimitz.

Honor savored her armsman's mind-glow, and as she did, something crystallized within her. She looked at LaFollet again, seeing the gray flecking his still thick auburn hair, the crows feet at the corners of his steady gray eyes, the lines etched in his face. He was eight T-years younger than she was, but physically he could have been her father.

And he was also the only surviving member of her original personal security team. Every one of the others, and all too many of their replacements, had been killed in the line of duty. Including Jamie Candless, who'd stayed behind aboard a ship he'd known was going to be blown up, to cover his Steadholder's escape.

There was no adequate recompense for that sort of loyalty, and she knew it would have insulted Andrew LaFollet if she'd suggested there ought to be one. But as she tasted his fierce devotion, his love for her unborn son-and for her-an equally fierce determination filled her.

"Andrew," she said quietly.

"Yes, My Lady?"

He looked at her, eyes slightly narrowed, and she tasted his surprise at her tone.

"Sit down, Andrew."

She pointed at the chair beside hers, and he glanced at it, then looked back at her.

"I'm on duty, My Lady," he reminded her.

"And Spencer is standing right outside that door. I want you to sit down, Andrew. Please."

He gazed at her for a moment longer, then slowly crossed the room and obeyed her. She tasted his growing concern, almost wariness, but he regarded her attentively.

"Thank you," she said, and reached out to lay one hand lightly on the artificial womb.

"A lot of things are going to change when this child is born, Andrew. I can't even begin to imagine what some of them are going to be, but others are pretty obvious to me. For one thing, Harrington Steading's going to have a new heir, with all the security details that involves. For another thing, there's going to be a brand new human being in this universe, one whose safety is far more important to me than my own could ever be. And because of that, I have a new duty for you."