War Of Honor

"How am I supposed to do that?" she demanded.

"You've already demonstrated that you're a very inventive and capable woman, Elaine," Montaigne told her. "And it's common knowledge that the files are stored in a high-security vault under the Youngs' townhouse here in Landing. I'm sure that you could arrange for that vault—and the house, for that matter—to suffer some spectacular mischief. Without, I hasten to add, any loss of life."

"You expect me to arrange all of that and get off the planet within three standard days?" She shook her head. "Even if I wanted to, I couldn't pull something like that off that quickly. Not, at least, and leave myself enough time to run to make any difference in the end."

"Your three days would begin the day after the files are destroyed," Zilwicki told her. "Unless, of course, you tried to leave the planet before they were destroyed."

"And if I refuse, you'd really hand me over to the Ballroom? Even knowing what they'd do to me?"

"Yes, I would," Zilwicki said flatly.

"I don't think I believe you," she said softly, then looked at Montaigne. "And despite everything I've heard about you and your relationship with the Ballroom, I don't think you'd let him. I don't think you'd care to live with what they'd do."

"Maybe I wouldn't," Montaigne replied. "No. I'll go further than that. I wouldn't like to live with it. But don't you think for one fucking minute that I wouldn't do it anyway. Unlike Anton, I've spent decades working with the Ballroom and with escaped slaves. Like him, I can't really put myself in their places. The living Hell any slave experiences—even you—is something I can only attempt to imagine. But I've seen what slaves have done to gain their freedom. And I've heard them tell about the other slaves—the ones who helped someone else gain her freedom, and what it cost them. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I require any slave to be that heroic, that self-sacrificing. But I have by God known slaves who were that heroic, and I know the tales of the ones who were that self-sacrificing. And I know that you were directly responsible for sending almost five hundred escaped slaves back into that Hell to save yourself . . . and for a tidy little profit, as well. So, yes, 'Elaine.' If Jeremy catches up with you, I'll live with whatever he does."

Georgia felt something shrivel deep within her as she gazed into those implacable green eyes.

"And think about this," Zilwicki told her. Her eyes snapped helplessly back to him, and the smile he gave her would have suited any shark. "Even if I didn't have the stomach in the end to turn you in to the Ballroom, I don't have to. I found the middleman you used to contact Denver Summervale. I have his deposition, too. I doubt very much that it would stand up in a court of law, but it wouldn't have to. I'd simply send it to Duchess Harrington."

What had already begun to shrivel crumpled completely at the icy promise in Anton Zilwicki's eyes. Georgia Young, Lady North Hollow, looked back and forth between those two very different yet equally unyielding faces, and knew both of them had meant every word they'd said.

"So, 'Elaine,' " Montaigne asked softly, "what's it going to be?"

Chapter Fifty One

"I wish we had some damned idea where they've gone," Alistair McKeon growled. He reclined in a deplorably unmilitary sprawl in his chair, tipped back with one heel resting on the beaten copper coffee table in Honor's day cabin. His uniform tunic hung untidily across the back of his chair, which constituted a substantial concession on James MacGuiness's part. He didn't allow just anyone to clutter up his admiral's quarters.

Alice Truman, on the other hand, was her neat, tidy self as she sat in the chair facing McKeon across the coffee table. Where McKeon nursed a stein of Honor's beer, Truman contented herself with a steaming cup of coffee and a small plate of flaky croissants.

Alfredo Yu, for his part, had seated himself at the writing desk and was idly doodling on a sheet of paper with an old-fashioned stylus, while Honor sat sideways on her comfortable couch. Her long legs were stretched out before her, lengthwise across its cushions, with Nimitz curled comfortably across her thighs, while she leaned her back against the armrest. A plate on the coffee table, within easy reach for a treecat, still held two uneaten stalks of celery, and Honor stroked the half-asleep treecat gently with her right hand while her left managed her cocoa mug.

It was all a very comfortable, domestic scene, she thought, regarding her three senior subordinates. Unfortunately, there was a decided air of the lull before the storm about it, and Alistair's question underscored that sense of tense anticipation altogether too well.

"We all wish we knew where they were, Alistair," Truman told him. "But we don't."

"We may not know where they are," Yu put in, "but I'm afraid we know where they're going to be once they get their orders."

The ex-Peep obviously didn't care a great deal for his own conclusion, but that didn't invalidate it, Honor thought moodily.

"Do you think the Andies know Haven is sticking a thumb into the Silesian pie?" McKeon asked.

"I don't see how they could," Honor replied after a moment. "We only know about them because Captain Bachfisch told us. Unless they've been a lot sloppier somewhere else, I can't quite imagine their letting the Andies get a peek at them."

"I don't know," McKeon half-argued. "Pirates' Bane spotted their destroyers in Zoraster, and we know Andie naval intelligence is pretty damned good. I'd think there was at least a chance that they'd notice a pair of brand-new Peep destroyers hanging around here in Silesia."

"If they can pick them out of the clutter of all of the older Havenite designs that've gone rogue out here," Yu responded sourly. "Remember, Admiral Bachfisch only noticed them because he realized they were new-build ships."

"Even if they noticed them," Truman observed, "they probably wouldn't guess the reason they were there. I mean, on the face of it, the whole idea is pretty absurd. I doubt that something so preposterous would occur to any rational analyst."

"Not 'preposterous,' " Honor corrected. " 'Audacious' would be closer to it."

" 'Lunacy' would be even better!" Yu shot back. "Or maybe it would be even more accurate to call it 'delusions of grandeur.' " He shook his head. "I hate thinking that Tom Theisman could become as guilty of strategic overreach as this looks like."

"It's only overreach if they don't actually have the combat power to pull it off," Truman pointed out.

"Alice is right, Alfredo," Honor said. "In fact, that's what worries me the most about it. I don't know Theisman as well as you do, of course, but what I do know of him suggests that he's not very likely to succumb to the temptations of overreaching. That's what I keep coming back to. He wouldn't have sent this force all the way out here if he hadn't thought he was retaining sufficient strength closer to home when he did."

"I know," Yu agreed. "Maybe I'm just trying to give myself some sort of false courage by convincing myself that Tom has screwed up by the numbers this time. But I guess what really bothers me the most about it is that Tom Theisman is the last person in the galaxy I would have expected to want to go back to war with the Star Kingdom. My God! Look at what the man's accomplished. Why in Heaven's name would he risk throwing that away when the diplomats are still talking?"

"It may not have been his idea," Honor said almost soothingly. "There are other decision-makers involved, you know. And, I hate to say it, but the situation may very well look different from his side of the line. As you say, the diplomats are still talking, but how long has it been since they actually said anything to one another? Or, at least," she corrected herself bitterly, "since High Ridge and Descroix have shown any sign of really wanting a treaty?"