Like all public buildings on Grayson, Protector's Palace
lay under a controlled-environment dome, but a corner of
the grounds held another, smaller dome, as well. It was a
greenhouse, and High Admiral Wesley Matthews braced
himself as an armsman in the House of Mayhew's maroon and
gold opened its door for him. An almost visible wave of
humid heat swirled out, and he sighed and unhooked his
tunic collar, but that was as far as he intended to go.
This time he was going to stay in proper uniform if it
killed him.
"Hello, Wesley." Benjamin Mayhew IX, Protector of Grayson,
greeted his senior military officer without looking up
from whatever he was doing.
"Good morning, Your Grace." Matthews' respectful reply
sounded curiously stifled, for the climate in here was
even worse than he'd expected. The Protector was in
shirtsleeves, his forehead beaded with perspiration, and
the high admiral mopped at his own suddenly streaming
face, looked at the enviro display, and winced. Resolution
was no defense against a temperature of forty degrees
centigrade and a ninety-six percent humidity, and he
grimaced and stripped off his uniform tunic to emulate his
ruler.
The rustle of fabric wasn't loud, but it was very quiet in
the greenhouse. The soft sound carried well, and Benjamin
looked up with a grin.
"Did you turn the thermostat up just for me, Your Grace?"
Matthews inquired, and Benjamin looked innocent.
"Of course not, Wesley. Why would I do such a thing?"
Matthews arched a polite eyebrow, and the Protector
chuckled. Wesley Matthews was extraordinarily young for
his rank, even for a world like Grayson, where the prolong
anti-aging treatments were only just becoming available.
He'd jumped from commodore to commander-in-chief of the
Grayson Space Navy less than four T-years ago, and like
Bernard Yanakov, the man he'd succeeded, he was baffled by
his Protector's taste in hobbies. Floriculture and flower
arrangement were high art forms on Grayson, but they were
traditionally female ones. Matthews willingly admitted
that his ruler produced breathtaking arrangements, yet it
still seemed an ... odd avocation for a head of state.
Bernard Yanakov, however, had been Benjamin Mayhew's older
cousin, as well as his senior admiral, which had given him
certain advantages Matthews lacked. He'd known the
Protector literally since birth and twitted him about his
hobby for years; Matthews couldn't do that-which hadn't
kept Benjamin from guessing how he felt.
Matthews had been vastly relieved when the Protector chose
to be amused rather than offended, yet sometimes he
wondered if things had worked out so well after all.
Benjamin took a positive glee in summoning him for
meetings during which he puttered about with vases and cut
flowers or which just happened to take place in spots like
this greenhouse furnace. It had become a sort of shared
joke, and Tester knew they both needed any relaxation they
could find these days, but this time the heat and humidity
were almost overwhelming.
"Actually," Benjamin said after a moment, "I hadn't
intended to inflict anything quite this, ah, energetic
upon you, Wesley, but I didn't have much choice." His
voice was genuinely contrite, yet he also returned his
attention to the blossom before him, and Matthews stepped
closer, fascinated despite himself, as the Protector
manipulated a collecting probe with surgical precision and
continued his apology, if such it was.
"This is a specimen of Hibson's Orchid from Indus, in the
Mithra System. Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is, Your Grace," Matthews murmured. The bell-
shaped flower was an incredibly subtle blend of blues and
dark purples with a deep-throated, golden core shot with
scarlet, and the admiral felt an odd, drifting sensation,
as if he were falling into its perfumed depths. The
feeling was so strong he had to shake himself, and
Benjamin laughed softly.
"Indeed it is, but it's extremely difficult to propagate
off-planet, and the male flower only blossoms for a single
day once every three T-years. I've been fascinated by it
since I first saw it in a conservatory on Old Earth, and I
think I'm on the brink of developing a hybrid that will
bloom about twice as frequently. Unfortunately, timing is
everything in a project like this, and reproducing its
natural environment is critical. I'm afraid I didn't
expect it to flower today, and I hadn't actually expected
to drag you out here when you asked to drop by, but if I
don't jump on it right now-"
He shrugged, and Matthews nodded, forgetting for once to
assume his proper attitude of martyred tolerance as the
orchid's beauty worked upon him. He stood in respectful
silence while Benjamin finished collecting the pollen and
examined his treasure under a magnifier with intense
satisfaction.
"Now we just have to wait for these to open," he said more
briskly, waving to the tight-furled buds on another vine.
"And how long will that take, Your Grace?" Matthews asked
politely, and Benjamin chuckled again.
"At least another forty hours, so I don't expect you to
stand around and wait." The Protector slid his pollen into
a storage unit, wiped sweat from his forehead, and
gestured to the door, and Matthews sighed in relief.
He followed his ruler from the greenhouse, and Benjamin's
armsman fell in at their heels while they crossed to a
comfortable nook beside a splashing fountain. The
Protector took a seat and waved Matthews into a facing
chair, then leaned back as a servant appeared with towels
and iced drinks. The admiral scrubbed his soaking hair
briskly, then mopped his face and sipped gratefully, and
Benjamin crossed his legs.
"Now, Wesley. What was it you wanted to see me about?"
"Lady Harrington, Your Grace," Matthews replied promptly.
Benjamin sighed, and the admiral leaned forward
persuasively. "I know you still think it's too soon, Your
Grace, but we need her. We need her very badly, indeed."
"I understand that," Benjamin said patiently, "but I'm not
going to push her. She's still recovering, Wesley. She
needs time."
"It's been over nine months, Your Grace." Matthews' tone
was respectful but stubborn.
"I realize that, and I also realize how valuable she could
be to you, but her life's hardly been what you could call
easy, now has it?" Benjamin held the admiral's eyes, and
Matthews shook his head. "She deserves however long she
needs to heal," the Protector went on, "and I intend to
see she has it. Wait till she's ready, Wesley."
"But how will we know when she is ready if you won't even
let me ask her about it?"
Benjamin frowned, then nodded as if against his will.
"A point," he admitted. "Definitely a point, but-" He
broke off with an angry little shrug and sipped his own
drink before he continued. "The problem is that I don't
think she's gotten herself put back together again. I
can't be certain-she's not the sort to cry on people's
shoulders-but Katherine's gotten more out of her than I
think she realizes, and it was bad, Wesley. Really bad. I
was afraid we were going to lose her completely for a few
months, and the way certain elements have reacted to her
hasn't helped."
Matthews grunted in understanding, and a look of something
very like guilt crossed Benjamin's face.
"I knew some of the reactionaries would come into the open
once they got over the initial shock, but I didn't expect
them to be quite this blatant, and I should have." The
Protector's free hand fisted and pounded his knee while he
grimaced in distaste. "I still think it was the right
move," he went on, as if to himself. "We need her as a
steadholder, but if I'd realized what it was going to cost
her, I never would have done it. And when you add the
protesters to Captain Tankersley's death-"
"Your Grace," Matthews said firmly, "this isn't something
for you to blame yourself over. We didn't have anything to
do with Captain Tankersley's murder, and Lady Harrington
knows it. Even if she didn't, you were right; we do need
her as a steadholder if the reforms are going to stand,
and whatever the lunatic fringe thinks, most of our people
respect her deeply. I'm quite sure she knows that, too,
and she's a very strong person. We both know that, because
we've both seen her in action. She'll get through this."
"I hope so, Wesley. I hope to God she will," Benjamin
murmured.
"She will. But that brings me back to my point. We need
her naval experience just as badly as we need her as a
steadholder, and with all due respect, Your Grace, I think
we're doing her a disservice by not telling her so."
It was the admiral's strongest statement of disagreement
with his own view Benjamin had heard yet, and he frowned.
Not angrily, but in consideration. Matthews recognized his
expression and sat waiting while Grayson's ruler ran back
through the arguments and counter arguments.
"I don't know," he said finally. "You may be right, but I
still want to give her as much time as we can."
"Again with all due respect, Your Grace, I think that's a
mistake. You're the one who insists we have to learn to
treat women with full equality. I believe you're right
about that, and I think most of our people are coming
around to the same view, whether they like it or not. But
I also think you haven't quite learned to do it yourself
yet." Benjamin stiffened, and Matthews went on in a calm,
measured tone. "I mean no disrespect, but you're trying to
protect her. That's a very fine thing, exactly what I
would expect from any decent Grayson . . . but would you
try quite so hard if she were a man?"
The Protector's eyes narrowed, his expression arrested,
and then he shook his head in chagrin. Unlike most
Graysons, he'd been educated off-world, on Old Terra
herself. The traditional Grayson view held that asking
women to bear the same responsibilities as men was a
perversion of nature, but he'd been exposed to a society
in which the notion that men and women might possibly be
considered unequal would have been regarded as equally
grotesque, and he'd accepted that view. Yet at the bottom
of all his genuine commitment to it, he was a Grayson, and
one who owed his entire family's lives to Honor
Harrington. How much had his auto-reflex instinct to
protect her affected his judgment?
"You may be right," he said at last. "I don't think I want
you to be, but that's beside the point." He rubbed his
chin for another long moment, then met Matthews' eyes once
more. "I'm not saying I agree or disagree with you, but
what makes it so urgent to press the point right this
minute?"
"The Manticorans will have to pull their last capital
units out of Yeltsin within two months, Your Grace," the
admiral said quietly.
"They will?" Benjamin sat up, and Matthews nodded. "No
one's said anything about it to me or Chancellor Prestwick-
not yet, at least."
"I didn't say the decision had been made, Your Grace. Nor
did I say they wanted to. I said they'd have to do it.
They won't have any choice."
"Why not?"
"Because the momentum is shifting." Matthews laid his
tunic across his lap, extracted an old-fashioned hardcopy
note pad from one pocket, and opened it to double-check
the figures he'd jotted in it.
"In the war's first six months," he said, "Manticore
captured nineteen Havenite star systems, including two
major fleet bases. Their total capital ship losses during
that time were two superdreadnoughts and five
dreadnoughts, against which they destroyed forty Havenite
ships of the wall. They also added thirty-one capital
ships to their own order of battle-twenty-six captured
units, exclusive of the eleven Admiral White Haven gave us
after Third Yeltsin, and five more from new construction.
That put them within roughly ninety percent of the Peeps'
remaining ships of the wall, and they had the advantage of
the initiative, not to mention the edge the People's
Navy's confusion and shattered morale gave them.
"In the last three months, however, the RMN's captured
only two systems and lost nineteen capital ships doing it-
including the ten they lost at Nightingale, where they
didn't take the system. The Peeps are still taking heavier
losses, but remember that they have all those battleships.
They may be too small for proper ships of the wall, but
they provide a rear area coverage the Manties can't match
without diverting dreadnoughts or superdreadnoughts, which
frees a higher percentage of the Peeps' ships of the wall
for front-line use. Put simply, the Peeps still have more
ships to lose than Manticore does, and the war is slowing
down, Your Grace. Peep resistance is stiffening, and the
Manties are transferring more and more of their own
strength to the front in an effort to hang onto their
momentum."
"How bad is it?" Benjamin asked intently.
"As I say, their losses are climbing. They've already
reduced their Home Fleet to barely a third of its prewar
strength, and it's not enough. I think they know it, too,
but they also know the Peeps are going to bring them more
or less to a halt in another few months. They're trying to
push as hard as they can before that happens-to get as
deep into the People's Republic as possible before the
Peeps can start thinking about counterattacks. That means
they're going to start calling in every ship they can
spare-maybe even a few more than they can withdraw with
complete safety. Given that the last of our own SDs
recommissions in January, Yeltsin's Star is certainly one
place they can trust to look after itself. In light of
that, I'm astonished they haven't already pulled out the
last of their capital units. Certainly no strategist worth
his salt will leave them here much longer, Your Grace.
They can't."
Benjamin rubbed his chin again. "I knew things were
slowing down, but I hadn't realized how drastically.
What's changed, Wesley?"
"That's hard to say, Your Grace, but I've been in
correspondence with Admiral Caparelli, and Admiral Givens
at the Manties' ONI confirms that this Committee of Public
Safety that's running the PRH has consolidated all
previous security organs under one new, monster umbrella.
You'd have to look back to Old Earth's Totalitarian Age
for a parallel to how ruthlessly they've purged their
officer corps, and there are rumors they're sending out
`political officers' to watchdog their fleet commanders.
Their purges cost them virtually all their senior-and
experienced-flag officers, and the officers they haven't
killed off are competing out of their class against the
RMN, but the ones who survive are learning ... and they
know what'll happen if they fail the new regime. Add in
some sort of political commissars to remind them of that,
and you get a navy with a powerful will to fight.