Chapter Thirty

"Excuse me, Your Grace."

Honor paused in her conversation with Mercedes Brigham, Alice Truman, Alistair McKeon, and Samuel Mikl¢s, and one eyebrow rose in surprise. It was very unlike James MacGuiness to obtrude into a serious meeting like this. He was a past master at unobtrusively refilling coffee and cocoa cups, sliding food in front of people when they started looking peaked, and otherwise keeping them provided with whatever they needed. But the key word was "unobtrusively." Most of the time, people never even realized he'd been there until he was already gone.

That was her first thought. Her second was more concerned as she tasted his emotions.

"What is it, Mac?" she asked as Nimitz sat upright on the back of her chair and pricked his ears at the man who still insisted on functioning as Honor's steward.

"You have a personal message, Your Grace. From your mother." Honor stiffened, eyes darkening with concern. "I have no idea what it's about," he continued quickly, "but it came up in the standard mailbag from Jason Bay. If it were really bad news, I'm sure it would have been delivered by special courier. For that matter, Miranda would have dropped me a line about it, as well."

"You're right, of course, Mac," she said, smiling in thanks for his reassurance.

"On the other hand, Your Grace," he said, "it does carry a priority code. I really think you ought to view it as soon as possible."

"I see."

MacGuiness bobbed his head and withdrew, and Honor frowned thoughtfully for a moment. Then she shook herself and returned her attention to her guests.

"I think we're just about at a decent stopping point, anyway, aren't we?" she said.

"I think so," Truman agreed. "We need to spend a little more time kicking around what happened at Chantilly, but we can do that later. I'd never heard of this Admiral Bellefeuille until she screened me after the shooting was over to thank us for arranging the full evacuation of the civilian platforms before we blew them. She was floating around in a pinnace-or maybe even a life pod-for most of that time, I understand. But I think we need to bring her name to ONI's attention. This woman is sneaky, Honor. She reminds me a lot of what you've said about Shannon Foraker, and if she'd had better information on our defensive capabilities, we'd have gotten hurt a lot worse."

"It was bad enough, anyway," McKeon growled, shaking his head. "Hector's going to be out of action for at least three months."

"I know, I know," Truman sighed. "But at least Hanover's personnel casualties were light. To be perfectly honest, I'm more distressed by what happened to my Katanas. We managed a four- or five-to-one exchange rate even after Bellefeuille tricked us into firing off so many of their missiles, but that's pretty cold comfort. And," she looked at Honor, "Scotty blames himself."

"That's ridiculous," McKeon said sharply.

"I agree entirely," Truman replied. "The deployment decision was mine-not his, not Mike Henke's, but mine. Given what I knew at the time, I'd do the same thing again, too. But Scotty seems to think he should have argued with me, although exactly what form of clairvoyance was supposed to tell him this was coming eludes me."

"And how is Mike taking it?" Honor asked quietly.

"Better than I was afraid she might, actually," Truman said. "She's not happy about it, and especially not about the fact that she was the one who suggested using Hector and Nike as her point. But the truth is that she was right. Hector may have gotten hammered, but her core hull was never penetrated, and she and Nike stood up to missile attack even better than BuShips predicted they might. And if Dillinger hadn't used up so many of his Vipers defending Oversteegen's division, he'd have made out much better against the Peep LACs. I think she's drawn the right conclusions."

Honor nodded. She knew both Truman and McKeon well enough to be confident they understood why she was concerned without getting any more specific.

"I hope you and she both have," she said aloud, smiling wryly at Truman. "The two of you are developing a nasty habit of always finding the feistiest system defense forces! I'd appreciate it if you'd cut that out."

"Hey, you're the one assigning the targets," Truman shot back. "Well, you and Mercedes here."

"Don't blame me!" Brigham protested. "My idea of how to assign the task forces was to pull system names out of a hat. For some reason, neither Andrea nor Her Grace thought that was a wonderful idea."

"Nonsense," Honor said as the other admirals laughed. "What I said was that it didn't seem very professional and it wouldn't do very much for the public's confidence in the Navy if we did it that way and word got out."

"As long as it works as well as it seems to be working so far, I don't think they'd have any problems," McKeon said, and Truman and Mikl¢s nodded in agreement.

"Then let's keep it that way, shall we?" Honor replied. "And on that note, I think we should probably adjourn and let me find out what's on Mother's mind. Alice, could you have dinner with me this evening? And invite Mike and Oversteegen along? For that matter, bring Scotty and Harkness, too; I haven't seen either of them in a while, and their perspective on something like this is almost always worth getting. Let's go over it with all of them in person. As you say, we need to get a better feel for what Bellefeuille did to us, and I'd like to give Mike and Oversteegan, especially, a chance to talk out their own reactions to it."

"I think that would be a good idea," Truman agreed.

"In that case, people, let's be about it."

"Hello, Honor," Allison Harrington said, and smiled from Honor's display. "We got the news about your return this morning-Hamish screened from Admiralty House to tell us you and Nimitz are back safe and sound. Obviously, we're all delighted to hear that... some even more than others."

She smiled again, wickedly, but then her expression grew more serious.

"I'm sure you have all sorts of Navy things you need to attend to, but I think it would be a very good idea if you could come home for a day or two. Soon."

Honor felt herself tightening internally. Nothing about her mother's expression suggested anything terrible, but she was a little surprised to realize how much it bothered her to be unable to taste Allison's emotions from the recorded message. Had she become that reliant upon her odd empathic capabilities?

"There are several reasons I feel that way, dear," Allison continued. "Among them, the fact that Reverend Sullivan's extended his visit to the Star Kingdom. They were going to put him up at the Royal Arms, but I put a stop to that, and he's been comfortably ensconced here at the Bay House. I'm sure that one reason he's stayed over longer than he originally planned was to see you before he returns to Grayson. So take care of anything you really need to deal with, and then hop one of the shuttle flights home as soon as you can. We're all really eager to see you. I love you. Bye!"

The display blanked, and Honor frowned. A lifetime's instincts told here there was more to her mother's request than a simple desire for her to have dinner with Sullivan before the Reverend went home. Not that that wouldn't have been a perfectly valid consideration. It just wasn't the only thing on her mother's mind, and she wondered exactly what sort of devious scheme was revolving inside that agile brain.

Unfortunately, there was only one way to find out, and she punched a button on her com.

"Admiral's Quarters, MacGuiness speaking," a voice said.

"Mac, please check my calendar with Mercedes. You and she both know what I'm doing better than I do, anyway. I need to clear a couple of days, the sooner the better, for a quick hop back to Manticore."