War Of Honor

And they were also lovers. Among other things.

"Don't tell me that you're surprised by their tactics, Cathy," he rumbled in a voice so deep it appeared to come from somewhere just south of his toenails. It was a remarkably mild voice, given the speaker's obvious distaste for what it was saying. "Against someone like Harrington?" He laughed with absolutely no humor at all. "She's probably the one person they hate more than they hate you right now!"

"But this is so despicable, even for them, Anton," Lady Cathy shot back. "No, I'm not surprised—I'm just pissed off. No, not pissed off. I'm ready to go out and start removing body parts from the assholes. Preferably ones they're particularly fond of. Painfully. With a very dull knife."

"And if you can figure out a way to do it, I'll be delighted to help," he replied. "In the meantime, Harrington and White Haven are just going to have to fight their own battles. And it's not exactly as if they don't have anyone they can call on for support while they do."

"You're right," she admitted unhappily. "Besides, our track record isn't all that good, is it?" She grimaced. "I know damned well that Jeremy expected us to do better than we did, given what you managed to hack out of those idiots' files. I hate disappointing him—disappointing all of them. And I don't much like failing at anything, myself."

"You want me to believe that you expected them to just roll over?" he asked, and there was a hint of a twinkle in the dark eyes.

"No," she half-snarled at him. "But I did hope that we'd get more of the bastards nailed!"

"I understand what you're saying. But we did get convictions for over seventy percent of the names on my list. Given the timing, that's actually better than we had any right to expect."

"And if I'd come straight home by way of the Junction the way you'd wanted to, the timing wouldn't have mattered," she grated.

"Woman, we've been over this," Anton Zilwicki said in a voice as patient as his beloved mountains. "Neither one of us could have foreseen the Cromarty Assassination. If it hadn't been for that, we'd have been fine, and you were perfectly right about the need to get Jeremy off Old Earth." He shrugged. "I admit that I haven't spent as many years as deeply committed to the Anti-Slavery League as you have, but it's grossly unfair of you to blame yourself for spending three extra weeks getting home."

"I know." She stopped her pacing and stood gazing out the window for several taut moments, then drew a deep breath, straightened her shoulders, and turned to face him.

"I know," she repeated more briskly. "And you're right. Given the fact that that asshole High Ridge was in charge of the Government by the time we got home, we did do very well to get as many convictions as we did. Even Isaac admits that."

She grimaced again, and Zilwicki nodded. Isaac Douglas, somewhat to Zilwicki's surprise, appeared to have attached himself permanently to the countess. Zilwicki had more than half-expected Isaac to accompany Jeremy X, but he remained in Lady Cathy's service as combination butler and bodyguard. And, Zilwicki knew, as the countess' clandestine pipeline to the thoroughly proscribed organization known as "the Ballroom" and its escaped slave "terrorists."

He was also the favorite uncle, preceptor, and assistant protector of Berry and Lars, the two children Zilwicki had formally adopted after Helen rescued them on Old Earth. And a very reassuring presence for them Isaac was, too. And for Zilwicki, come to that.

"Of course," the countess continued, "he hasn't exactly told me so in so many words, but he would have told me if he'd thought otherwise. So I suppose he's probably about as satisfied as we could reasonably expect. Not that I think for a minute that he and the Ballroom—or Jeremy—are prepared to call it quits. Especially not since they know who was on the list and wasn't convicted."

She looked acutely unhappy as she finished her last sentence, and Zilwicki shrugged.

"You don't like killing." His rumbling bass was gentle yet implacable. "Neither do I. But I'm not going to lose any sleep over the sick bastards involved in the genetic slave trade—and neither should you."

"And neither do I," she said with a wan smile. "Not in the intellectual sense. Not in the philosophical sense, either. But much as I hate slavery and anyone who participates in it, there's still something deep down inside me that hates the administration of 'justice' without benefit of due process." Her smile turned even more wry. "You'd think that after all these years hanging around with bloodthirsty terrorists I'd've gotten over my squeamishness."

"Not squeamishness," Zilwicki corrected. "An excess of principle, perhaps, but principles are good things to have, by and large."

"Maybe. But let's be honest. Jeremy and I—and the Ballroom and I—have been allies for too many years for me to pretend I don't know exactly what he and his fellow 'terrorists' do. Or that I haven't tacitly condoned it by working with them. So I can't quite escape the suspicion that at least part of my present . . . unhappiness stems from the fact that this time I'm afraid it's going to be happening on my own doorstep. Which seems more than a little hypocritical to me."

"That's not hypocrisy," he disagreed. "It's human nature. And Jeremy knows you feel that way."

"So what?" she asked when he paused.

"So I doubt he's going to do anything quite as drastic here in the Star Kingdom as you're afraid he might. Jeremy X isn't the sort to let anything stand between him and genetic slave peddlers or their customers. But he's also your friend, and even though we didn't get everyone on the list, the Star Kingdom is still a paragon of virtue where genetic slavery is concerned compared to places like the Silesian Confederacy and the Solarian League. I feel quite confident that he'll be able to keep himself busy for years with the Sillies and the Sollies who were also on the list without extending his hunt to Manticore. Especially if you and I manage to keep the pressure turned up on our domestic piglets without him turning all of them into ground sausage."

"You may have a point," she said after a thoughtful moment. "Mind you, you wouldn't have one if he didn't have a shopping list for those other places. And I'm not sure how successful we're going to be at keeping the pressure on now that High Ridge and that unmitigated asshole MacIntosh have managed to 'damage control' everything right under the carpet."

"Let's not forget New Kiev," Zilwicki replied, and this time the shifting plate tectonics of anger rumbled in his deep voice. The countess looked a question at him, and he growled bitterly. "Whatever anyone else might think, High Ridge and MacIntosh couldn't have pulled it off if she hadn't let them." Lady Cathy started to open her mouth, but his waving hand stopped whatever she'd meant to say. "I'm not saying they were stupid enough to actively involve her in any coverups or damage control strategy sessions. All I'm saying is that like every other fucking aristocrat supporting High Ridge, she's not about to do one single goddamned thing that might risk rocking the boat and letting Alexander form a government. Not if all she has to do is close her eyes to something as unimportant as genetic slavery!"

"You're right," the countess admitted after a moment, her expression manifestly unhappy. Then she began to stalk around the apartment once again.

"I know people think I suffer from tu