David Weber - At All Costs

"I'm here, Mac," she said, reaching up with her free hand and stripping off the swimming cap she'd been wearing over her braided hair. "Go ahead and put Ms. Montaigne through."

"Of course, Your Grace."

Honor swirled her feet slowly in the pool to keep muscles from stiffening and gazed out across the sparkling blue vitality of Jason Bay at the towers of Landing. Her house's terrace ran to the very edge of the upper tier of the cliffs above the bay; if she looked up, she could see the outer balustrade clinging to its lip. The upper cliff fell away from the terrace in a sheer precipice for ten or fifteen meters to a flattened saddle, almost like a giant stair step halfway between the beach below and the house above. That was where she'd chosen to put the pool, with a vanishing "infinite edge" on the outer side. From where she sat, the illusion that the pool's water was spilling over in a cascade to the ocean below was almost perfect. Of all the many features of her Manticoran mansion, she often thought the pool was her favorite.

The com beeped softly, recalling her from her thoughts, as the golden-haired, blue-eyed Honorable Member of Parliament for High Threadmore appeared upon it.

"Good morning, Your Grace," Catherine Montaigne said.

"And good morning to you, Cathy," Honor replied. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"I hope I didn't screen at an inconvenient moment," Montaigne said as Honor's water-beaded face registered.

"Actually, you just rescued me from the last nine laps," Honor reassured her with a smile.

"That's right. You actually swim for exercise." Montaigne shuddered dramatically.

"You don't like swimming?"

"I don't like exercise," Montaigne said cheerfully. "I burn off sufficient energy just charging around in six or seven directions at once. I'm sure you've heard that about me."

"I believe your ability to... multitask enthusiastically has come up a time or two," Honor acknowledged, her smile becoming a grin.

"I thought it probably had." Montaigne looked pleased, and Honor chuckled. She knew how much pleasure Catherine Montaigne took from her public persona's reputation for shatter-brained confusion.

"Actually, though," the ex-Countess of the Tor said, her own smile fading, "I had a serious reason for screening you this morning. I have a message for you from Anton."

"Do you?" Honor arched her eyebrows, and Montaigne nodded.

"He asked me to tell you that he and his associate believe they may be on the trail of evidence which will confirm the hypothesis they discussed with you last month."

"Really?" Honor sat up a bit straighter. "You say he's 'on the trail' of the evidence. I take it that that means he doesn't actually have it in hand?"

"I'm afraid not. It's going to take them some time to confirm what they suspect, but they feel confident at this time that they will be able to."

"Do we have any idea how long we're talking about?"

"I'm afraid not. Not exactly, at any rate. There's quite a bit of travel involved."

"I see." Honor's eyes narrowed intently. "May I ask where they're traveling to?"

"Since I can't be certain our connection is completely secure, I'd prefer not to answer that one, Your Grace," Montaigne said. "However, I will say that they'll have to travel incognito this time."

"I see," Honor repeated, and she did. The planet of Mesa, which she was almost certain had to be Zilwicki's and Cachat's destination, would not be a very healthy place for either of them. Manpower had a long and nasty memory at the best of times, and the slavers weren't likely to forget what the team of Zilwicki & Cachat had produced for them on Old Earth.

She tried not to feel disappointed although, in some ways, it was even worse to know Zilwicki and Cachat believed they would be able to confirm their suspicions. Whatever they might be able to do in the future, she still didn't have any proof of it now, and without that proof, there was no way to derail the events proceeding inexorably towards Sanskrit II.

And after we trash Jouett, the Havenites are going to be a lot less inclined to be reasonable, whatever Zilwicki turns up, she thought grimly.

"If you should happen to be sending any messages to Captain Zilwicki," she said aloud, "please tell him I very much hope his search prospers. I spoke to the individuals I assured him I'd contact. Unfortunately, they feel that without conclusive-or at least very persuasive-evidence actually in their hands, there isn't a great deal they can do about the problem."

"I was afraid of that," Montaigne said, blue eyes sad. "We'll just have to do our best to turn up the evidence they need. I hope we can find it in time."

"So do I," Honor said soberly. "I'm afraid, though, that events are taking on a momentum all their own. One we may not be able to deflect, regardless of what they discover, if their discovery's delayed too long."

"We'd already deduced that." Montaigne inhaled deeply. "Well, at least we still have one friend at court. We'll try hard not to disappoint you."

"Welcome back, Your Grace," Rafe Cardones said as the twitter of bosun's pipes died in Imperator's boat bay gallery.

"I'd like to say I'm glad to be back," Honor replied with a small smile. "Unfortunately, that would be a lie. Not that I'm not glad to see you, of course. It's just that I had to leave a very charming young gentleman and lady behind."

"But you brought lots of pictures, I hope," he replied, and she chuckled.

"Only a couple of dozen megs worth. And I've changed out my personal wallpaper, of course."

"Oh, of course!" Cardones laughed, and she clapped him on the upper arm and looked at Mercedes Brigham.

"We've got a lot to discuss, Mercedes," she said, and Brigham nodded.

"I'm sure we do, Your Grace. Just as soon as you're done showing those pictures to all of us. We do have a certain sense of proper priorities around here, you know."

"So I see," Honor said, and Nimitz bleeked an echoing laugh from her shoulder. "All right. The two of you have twisted my arm nearly to the point of dislocation. Solely because of your harshly insistent demands, I'll sacrifice my own desire to plunge immediately back into the official business of this command and force myself to sit through all those awful pictures all over again."

"That's an... impressive itinerary, Your Grace," Dame Alice Truman said.

Honor's staff and senior flag officers sat around the outsized table in her dining cabin. The familiar cups of coffee, tea, and cocoa had made their appearance on schedule, following the dessert dishes, and Judah Yanakov extracted a worn briar pipe from his tunic pocket. He held it up and raised an eyebrow at his hostess.

"That's a truly disgusting habit, Judah," she told him with a smile of affection, and he nodded.

"I know it is, My Lady. And we'd almost stamped it out on Grayson, until you Manties came along with all your modern medicine. Now I can indulge myself and know your decadent, worldly medical science will preserve me from the consequences of my own excesses."

"Does Reverend Sullivan know about this hedonistic streak of yours?" she asked severely.

"Alas," he replied sadly. "I'm afraid my family's always been known for its lapses. My first Grayson ancestor, for example. There he was, the captain of the colony ship, supposed to be in charge of completely decommissioning and scrapping her as an example of the evil technology we'd fled Old Earth to escape. And what did he do? Kept her intact for almost sixty years. Transferred her computers and her auxiliary power plant down to Grayson, too. With that sort of a beginning, surely you know the Reverend is going to expect the worst out of me."

"Stop boasting," Brigham told him with a smile of her own. "I read that biography of your great-great-great-whatever' your grand-aunt wrote. We all know the Yanakov family was instrumental in preserving human life on Grayson. Did I get that quotation right?"