CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

A fresh shout of laughter echoed from the lawn. Honor turned her head, eyes seeking the source, and grinned broadly as she watched Rachel Mayhew leap into the air for a spectacular catch. She came back down with the Frisbee firmly clutched in both hands, and Nimitz and Hipper both jumped up and down on their rear limbs, true-hands spread as they bleeked at her. She cocked her head at them, then stuck out her tongue — at Hipper, Honor thought, though it was hard to be certain — and flipped a graceful backhand throw to Samantha. Nimitz's mate pounced on the hurtling disk with both true-hands and hand-feet. She came down with the Frisbee and looked up as Artemis and Farragut charged at her, trailed by Jason and Achilles. Her sons bleeked joyfully as they hurtled forward — keep-away was a contact sport among treecats — but Samantha avoided Artemis, leapt clear over Farragut's head, and flipped the Frisbee to Rachel's sister Jeanette just before Jason and Achilles swarmed over her.

The Frisbee sailed straight for Jeanette, but in the instant before her fingers closed on it a cream-and-gray blur shot across in front of her. Togo snatched the Frisbee out of her hands and dashed off, bleeking in triumph, with six children (two human and four treecat) and three adult treecats in hot pursuit. Shrieks of human delight mingled with ringing bleeks of 'cat laughter, and Honor heard a chuckle from one of her guests.

She turned back from the lawn to see Benjamin Mayhew shaking his head at her.

"This is all your fault, you know," he said, twitching a nod at the pandemonium rolling over the Harrington House lawn and generally wreaking havoc on the flower beds.

"Why? For bringing the 'cats home with me?"

"That, certainly. But that damned Frisbee is almost as bad," Mayhew growled. "Not just with the girls, either. The things are taking over the entire planet. It's more than a man's life is worth to wander through Austin Central Park after school these days!"

"Blame that on Nimitz, not me! He's the Frisbee freak."

"Oh? Then who was it I saw romping around teaching Rachel, Jeanette, Theresa, and Honor how to throw the thing? Just before you returned to Manticore, I believe it was. A one-armed woman... rather tall, as I recall. And this year she got back just in time for Christmas and gave each of them a Frisbee of their very own!"

"I have no idea who you could possibly be referring to," Honor said with dignity. "You're probably mistaken anyway, now that I think about it. To the best of my knowledge, there aren't any tall Grayson women."

"I can think of at least one, and she's been a troublemaker from Day One. This—" the Protector nodded at the lawn again, as his two older daughters finally cornered Togo, only to see him flip the Frisbee neatly to Farragut the instant before they reached him "—would give any number of conservatives apoplexy. Why, if Lord Mueller were here, sheer outrage would undoubtedly carry him off to an early grave," he added, and several of Honor's other guests chuckled.

"All very well for you shameless infidels," Benjamin told them. "I, on the other hand, as Lord Mueller's Protector and liege lord, am constrained by duty and tradition to regret his possibly impending demise. Unfortunately."

His voice lost much of its humor on the last word, and Honor saw one or two faces grimace. Not that she blamed them, she thought, looking back out across the lawn. Katherine and Elaine Mayhew sat at a shaded table, Katherine nursing the first Mayhew son, Bernard Raoul (who had finally supplanted Benjamin's brother Michael — much to Michael's relief — as heir to the Protectorship), while Elaine read aloud to Honor and Alexandra Mayhew. At twenty-one months, Alexandra was perfectly happy to lie in her traveling cradle and listen to her mothers' voices, but Honor's goddaughter had recently celebrated her seventh birthday, and she obviously would have preferred being out with the Frisbee gang. Unfortunately, she was following in her oldest sister's tracks, and the sling on her right arm had her firmly sidelined. It was a clean break, and youthful resilience and quick heal would have the cast off in another week or so, but Grayson's conservatives had been appalled to learn that the Protector's youngest daughter had broken her arm climbing the tallest tree on the grounds of Protector's Palace.

Yet another dreadful lapse to write off to my "evil influence," she thought dryly, recalling how hard and skillfully Mueller had worked at making that point without ever coming out and saying it in so many words. She frowned slightly at the reflection, and bent a thoughtful eye on Benjamin. She could taste something going on in his mind whenever Mueller's name came up. Something more serious and considerably darker than his normal way of speaking about the conservative steadholder might suggest. But whatever it was, he was determined not to discuss it. Or, to be more precise, he was determined not to discuss it with her, and she couldn't help wondering why that was.

"We may be shameless infidels, Sir, but we've seen enough of Grayson to know Mueller doesn't speak for most of your people," Rear Admiral Harriet Benson-Dessouix, Grayson Space Navy, said, and heads nodded around the table on the terrace.

"Not for most of us, no," Benjamin agreed. "But for an unfortunately significant number of us, judging from the polls."

"If you'll pardon an `infidel's' input, Your Grace, I think it would be a mistake to place much emphasis on those polls," Vice Admiral Alfredo Yu said. The ex-Peep who'd been Honor's first flag captain was now the second-in-command of the Protector's Own. Since Honor was its official CO, that made him the Protector's Own's de facto commander, and it was shaping up to be an even more important post than she'd originally anticipated. In addition to the ships of the Elysian Space Navy, Benjamin and Wesley Matthews had earmarked an entire squadron of the new SD(P)s for Yu's command. The first three had already run acceptance trials and were working up at this very moment, with two more due to be released by the yard for trials within the next week or so, and the "appropriate screening elements" Mayhew and Matthews had discussed were beginning to assemble. Not only that, but the first two CLACs were also on order from the Star Kingdom's home yards.

"I don't know, Alfredo," Commodore Cynthia Gonsalves put in. "It looks like the Opposition's going to improve its representation in the Steaders by — what? I think I saw twelve seats being discussed in the 'faxes last week."

"Fourteen, by the latest estimate," Captain Warner Caslet corrected. "I think that's probably high, though. It came from Wednesday's Cantor poll, and Cantor's in Mueller's pocket, whether they want to admit it or not. They've been pretty damned optimistic — if that's the right word — about the Opposition's chances all along."

"A lot more optimistic than the numbers will support, if you ask me," Captain Susan Phillips snorted. "Personally, I think they've got orders from someone to keep the numbers favorable, too. I just haven't figured out whether they're trying to encourage their supporters or dis courage their opponents into staying home on voting day."

"You people seem to be paying awful close attention to local politics," Benjamin commented, regarding the assembled officers thoughtfully, and Yu shrugged.

"Most of us either watched our home worlds' governments go down in flames or grew up watching Dolist managers and Legislaturalists deliver completely predictable `honest votes,' Your Grace. Either of those experiences gives you a lively interest in the political process. Those of us whose native countries no longer exist are determined not to see it happen all over again, and those of us who grew up in the PRH are possibly even more fiercely attached to genuine free speech and free elections than they are."

"Then it's unfortunate most of you aren't eligible to vote yet," Mayhew said, "because that's exactly the sort of attitude which preserves freedom in the first place." His sincerity was obvious, and he smiled. "Which makes me look forward to the day all of you, and not just Admiral Yu, do have the franchise here on Grayson."

"Hey! I've got the vote here," Honor protested.

"True," Mayhew agreed. "But everyone knows that `that Foreign Woman' is so firmly in my pocket — or that I'm in hers, depending on their prejudices — that you have absolutely no interest in genuine debate on the merits of my reforms. So the people who agree with you already listen to what you say, and the ones who support Mueller simply tune you out. Or, worse, listen selectively and edit anything you say to suit their bigotry."

He said it lightly, but there was a bitter aftertaste to his emotions, and Honor quirked an eyebrow. The bitterness was sharpened and intensified by whatever he was determined not to discuss with her, but she was unaccustomed to feeling such tension from him.

"Are you really anticipating serious losses in the Steaders?" she asked quietly, and he shrugged.

"I don't know. Some losses, certainly. And possibly more than just `some' if the present trends continue."

"I don't believe they will, Sir," Yu said, and snorted a laugh when Benjamin looked at him inquiringly. "What you're seeing in the polls right now isn't a genuine, fundamental shift in public attitudes, Your Grace. It's the result of the Opposition's media blitz, and they can't go on spending money hand-over-fist that way forever."

Honor's eyes narrowed at the sudden, savage spike of rage which blazed through Mayhew at Yu's last sentence. The rage wasn't aimed at the vice admiral, and Benjamin suppressed it almost instantly, but she felt it resonating with whatever it was he wasn't going to mention. And the more she tasted it, the more she realized it was something he was specifically avoiding mentioning to her, not to the other members of his inner circle. Now that she thought about it, she'd tasted an echo of something very similar from her mother whenever someone mentioned Mueller.

She felt Andrew LaFollet behind her, standing at the edge of the terrace with Major Rice, and made a mental note. If anyone could figure out the reason both her mother and the Protector of Grayson had decided not to tell her something, Andrew could, and it was time she sicced him on the problem. Particularly since she was picking up a strong flavor of "for her own good" from Benjamin. It was almost as if the Protector were afraid she might do something... hasty if he shared whatever it was with her.

"I hope you're right about that, Admiral. I suppose even the Opposition's pockets have to have bottoms somewhere," Mayhew said a trifle sourly to Yu.

"I think Admiral Yu is probably right, Sir," Brigadier Henri Benson-Dessouix put in. "And I know Harry is." As always, he sat beside his wife, and his arm went around her as he spoke. "The people who tend to be the most conservative are the ones with the most to lose if the system changes, and if they're well enough off to worry about what you may lose, they're also well enough off to contribute to political campaigns. But there are limits to how much they're willing to cough up. I don't believe Mueller can maintain this level of spending indefinitely, and even if he can, the surge he's generating in the poll numbers is probably deceptive. As the elections get closer, I expect a lot of the Opposition's present apparent strength to fade in the stretch."

Honor nodded, but she was hard put to hide a smile. The speech impediment from which Harriet and Henri had suffered on Hell had completely disappeared as the result of the medical treatment Fritz Montoya had started and the Harrington Neurological Clinic had completed. Both of them had been delighted to regain clarity of speech, but it had taken longer for Henri. He'd made up for it since by turning downright loquacious, which was a bit difficult for Honor's mental image of him to adjust to. He'd seldom spoken at all back on Hell, and she'd been away from Grayson while that was changing.

Which didn't invalidate a thing he'd just said.

"I think Henri is right, Benjamin," she said now, "and especially with the way the war is turning around. I don't think Mueller can be a very happy man right now. Just when the poll numbers show he's making ground in the Steaders, Operation Buttercup starts undercutting one of the Opposition's cental themes. He's going to find it awful hard to keep carrying on about `tying our incomparable Navy to the leading strings of incompetent foreign admiralties' now that Eighth Fleet's blown Barnett to dust bunnies."

"What in the world makes you think that, Honor?" Benjamin demanded, only half humorously. "As you just more or less said yourself, the man's already been able to refer to `our incomparable Navy' with an absolutely straight face, as if we'd built the tech base or trained enough officers to support that `incomparable' fleet solely out of our own resources. Which," he added with a wry glance around the table, "present company would seem to indicate wasn't quite the case."

Since he was the only native-born Grayson, aside from LaFollet and Rice, on the terrace at that particular moment, Honor had to concede his point.

"But that kind of ignore-the-facts approach works best when you're talking to people who already agree with you and choose to wear the same sort of blinkers," Rear Admiral Mercedes Brigham pointed out.

"Absolutely," Caslet agreed. "The people he actually needs to convince are going to be a lot more skeptical than his true-believers, Your Grace."

"Please, Captain Caslet!" Benjamin said with another chuckle. "Here on Grayson, we reserve that particular term for those idiots on Masada! Our own intolerant, bigoted, unthinking, doctrinaire reactionaries are properly referred to as `conservative thinkers.' "

"Sorry, Your Grace." Caslet smiled. "I suppose that's one of those fine cultural distinctions we outsiders have trouble picking up on."

"Don't feel bad, Captain. It's one most of us who aren't intolerant reactionaries would love to get rid of."

"Seriously, Sir, you may just have a chance for that," Henri put in. "It's clear from what happened at Barnett that Buttercup took the Peeps completely by surprise. And the new systems were more effective than I think anyone could have predicted. I certainly didn't expect them to prove that decisive, but then, the information most of us had on the systems was pretty limited before the offensive kicked off."

"Speak for yourself, baudet," Harriet told him. "You Marine types had no need to know about Ghost Rider. For that matter, it's hard to think of a Marine having any real need to know about anything more complicated than a club, conservative dirt-pounders that you are. We naval officers, on the other hand, were thoroughly briefed on Ghost Rider, and we had a pretty fair background on the new LACs, as well."

" `More complicated than a club,' is it?" Henri murmured, cocking his head at his tall, blond wife. "Perhaps when we get home, my uncomplicated club and I will have something to say about your disrespectful attitude."

"You think so, do you?" Harriet smiled sweetly. "In that case, I think it would be wise of you to tell the Protector where you'd like to be buried before we leave, dear."

"Leaving aside threats of domestic violence," Yu said, "I think Henri is right, Your Grace. I don't want to sound too optimistic — the last thing any of us need is to fall prey to overconfidence — but I genuinely believe the new LACs and missiles are going to win this war outright. And probably a lot sooner than anyone on either side would have believed possible. And if that happens, Mueller's going to look pretty damned stupid if he goes on insisting that joining the Alliance was a serious mistake for Grayson."

"Perhaps," Mayhew agreed. "On the other hand, it's part of my job to worry about what happens after the war, assuming you're right and we win the thing. It's clear that the need to face a common foe and build up our own military capabilities in concert with the rest of the Alliance has been a factor in the willingness of at least some Graysons to go along with the reform programs. They may not have liked the domestic changes, but they weren't prepared to rock the boat in the middle of a war. So if the pressure of fighting the war comes off, what happens to their support?"

"You'll probably lose some of your majority in the Steaders, and I imagine Chancellor Prestwick will suffer the defection of at least a few of the Keys, as well," Honor acknowledged. "But I doubt very much that you'll lose enough to turn the clock back, or even to slow the rate of change very much. And I think there's more domestic support for the `special relationship' between Grayson and the Star Kingdom than Mueller realizes. Look how enthusiastically most Graysons seem to be responding to the announcement of the Queen's state visit!"

"Yes, that was encouraging, wasn't it?" Mayhew brightened. "I think it was a wonderful idea on Elizabeth's part, and Henry is eager for the opportunity to sit down at the same table as Duke Cromarty. We got a tremendous amount accomplished when Lord Alexander was here three years ago, and Henry's staff is licking its chops at the prospect of a visit from the Prime Minister himself."

"I'm glad," Honor said. "That's exactly what she had in mind, and the timing looks even better in light of Buttercup's initial successes. In fact, I think—"

"I think that's entirely enough shop talk," another voice interrupted, and Honor turned with a smile as Allison Harrington stepped onto the terrace, followed by Miranda and Jennifer LaFollet. "This is supposed to be a social occasion," Allison went on severely. "I had my doubts when you explained you intended to invite this lot," she flipped a hand at the senior officers of the Protector's Own, "but I thought, no, she's a responsible adult. She knows better than to sit out on the terrace all afternoon talking shop with her cronies while her other guests languish unnoticed and unappreciated."

"You really shouldn't refer to the Protector as my `crony,' Mother. Just think what would happen if some spy from the Opposition overheard you."

"Ha! Opposition spies would have to get past a whole horde of treecats, not to mention a battalion of security types. Not that it isn't just like you to come up with specious arguments in an effort to avoid my righteous wrath!"

"I'm not avoiding anything," Honor said with dignity. "I'm simply raising a completely valid point."

"That's your story, and you're sticking to it, I suppose," her mother said, then folded her arms. "In the meantime, however, Mac sent us out to tell you Mistress Thorn is going to start wreaking havoc if her lunch is allowed to get cold. Worse, she says she won't make you any more fudge — or cookies — this week if you let it happen."

"Well, goodness, Mother! Why didn't you say that to start with?" Honor rose and turned to her guests with a twinkle. "On your feet, people! That's one ultimatum I have no intention of rejecting!"

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

"Mr. Baird."

Lord Mueller's voice was a bit cooler than usual as Buckeridge showed Baird and Kennedy into the office. It had been his own idea to establish closer communications with Baird and, for the most part, it had worked out quite well. But this time Baird had insisted Mueller see him, and the steadholder hadn't cared for that. Helpful as Baird and his organization had been, Samuel Mueller was still a steadholder, and no common steader had any business issuing demands to him, however politely phrased.

"My Lord. Thank you for agreeing to see us on such short notice. I realize it must have been inconvenient, but I'm afraid it's quite important," Baird said.

Mueller nodded curtly, but he felt a flicker of wariness. The man's words were polite enough, but something about his tone bothered the steadholder. It held an... assertiveness that rang faint warning bells in the back of Mueller's brain, and he suddenly found himself missing Sergeant Hughes even more than usual.

Hughes' murder had shaken the entire Mueller Guard. His fellow armsmen had taken a grim pride in the fact that he'd managed to kill three of his assailants, even though it was obvious he'd been completely surprised by the attack. But no one had the least idea what had prompted his murder. Officially, it had been written off as a botched robbery attempt, although no one really believed that for a moment. There was little random street crime on Grayson, and no street thug in his right mind would choose to rob an armed, trained armsman when there had to be less dangerous prey available.

Unfortunately, no one had been able to come up with any other explanation. Mueller's own suspicion was that Hughes had inadvertently discovered something and been killed before he could act on it or warn Mueller and his superiors. The steadholder knew he was probably overly suspicious. That, after all, was an occupational hazard of conspirators the galaxy over. But still...

"What can I do for you, Mr. Baird?" he asked after a moment, his tone a bit less brusque and a little more wary, and glanced at Corporal Higgins. He'd chosen Higgins to replace Hughes at these meetings because of the corporal's doglike loyalty, but he suddenly found himself wishing he'd selected someone a bit brighter. Not that he really expected any sort of physical threat to suddenly emerge, but because...

He didn't really know why, he admitted after a moment. It was pure instinct, and he tried, without success, to command his instincts to leave him the hell alone.

"My organization has become increasingly concerned by our inability to secure the proof we need of the Protector's plans to request annexation by the Manticorans," Baird said, apparently unaware of any uneasiness on Mueller's part.

"Perhaps that's because there isn't any proof," the steadholder pointed out. "My people have been looking just as hard as yours, and we haven't found a thing. While I certainly wouldn't put such a plan past Prestwick and Benjamin, it may be that in this case our suspicions are misplaced."