The Honor of the Qween

"And the rest of the Grayson population, Mr. Houseman?" Honor asked softly. "Am I to evacuate all of them as well?"

"Of course not!" Houseman's jowls reddened. "And I won't remind you again about your impertinence, Captain Harrington! The Grayson population isn't your responsibility—our subjects are!"

"So my instructions are to abandon them." Honor's voice was flat, without any inflection at all.

"I'm very sorry for the situation they face." Houseman's eyes fell from her hard gaze, but he plowed on stubbornly. "I'm very sorry," he repeated, "but this situation is not of our making. Under the circumstances, our first concern must be the safety and protection of our own people."

"Including yourself."

Houseman's head jerked back up at the bottomless, icy contempt in that soft soprano voice. He recoiled for just a second, then slammed a fist on the conference table and yanked himself erect.

"I've warned you for the last time, Captain! You watch your tongue when you speak to me, or I'll have you broken! My concern is solely for my responsibilities—responsibilities I recognize, even if you don't—as custodian of Her Majesty's interests in Yeltsin!"

"I was under the impression we had an ambassador to look after Her Majesty's interests," Honor shot back, and Langtry stepped closer to her.

"So we do, Captain." His voice was cold, and he looked much less like an ambassador and much more like a colonel as he glared at Houseman. "Mr. Houseman may represent Her Majesty's Government for purposes of Admiral Courvosier's mission here, but I represent Her Majesty's continuing interests."

"Do you feel I should use my squadron to evacuate Manticoran subjects from the line of fire, Sir?" Honor asked, never taking her eyes from Houseman's, and the economist's face contorted with rage as Langtry answered.

"I do not, Captain. Obviously it would be wise to evacuate as many dependents and noncombatants as possible aboard the freighters still available, but in my opinion your squadron will be best employed protecting Grayson. If you wish, I'll put that in writing."

"Damn you!" Houseman shouted. "Don't you split legal hairs with me, Langtry! If I have to, I'll have you removed from Foreign Office service at the same time I have her court-martialed!"

"You're welcome to try." Langtry snorted contemptuously.

Houseman swelled with fury, and the corner of Honor's mouth twitched as her own rage raced to meet his. After all his cultured contempt for the military, all his smug assumption of his own superior place in the scheme of things, all he could think of now was to order that same despised military to save his precious skin! The polished, sophisticated surface had cracked, and behind it was an ugly, personal cowardice Honor was supremely ill-equipped to understand, much less sympathize with.

He gathered himself to lash back at Langtry, and she felt the Grayson officer standing mutely to one side. It shamed her to know what he was seeing and hearing, and under all her shame and anger was the raw, bleeding loss of the Admiral's death and her own responsibility for it. This man—this worm —was not going to throw away everything the Admiral had worked and, yes, died for!

She leaned across the table towards him, meeting his eyes from less than a meter away, and her voice cut across the begi

"Shut your cowardly mouth, Mr. Houseman." The cold words were precisely, almost calmly, enunciated, and he recoiled from them. His face went scarlet, then white and contorted with outrage, but she continued with that same, icy precision that made each word a flaying knife. "You disgust me. Sir Anthony is entirely correct, and you know it—you just won't admit it because you don't have the guts to face it."

"I'll have your commission!" Houseman gobbled. "I have friends in high places, and I'll—"

Honor slapped him.

She shouldn't have. She knew even as she swung that she'd stepped beyond the line, but she put all the strength of her Sphinx-bred muscles into that backhand blow, and Nimitz's snarl was dark with shared fury. The explosive crack! was like a breaking tree limb, and Houseman catapulted back from the table as blood burst from his nostrils and pulped lips.

A red haze clouded Honor's vision, and she heard Langtry saying something urgent, but she didn't care. She grabbed the end of the heavy conference table and hurled it out of her way as she advanced on Houseman, and the bloody-mouthed diplomat's hands scrabbled frantically at the floor as he propelled himself away from her on the seat of his trousers.

She didn't know what she would have done next if he'd shown a scrap of physical courage. She never would know, for as she loomed above him she heard him actually sobbing in his terror, and the sound stopped her dead.

Her raw fury slunk back into the caves of her mind, still flexing its claws and snarling, but no longer in control, and her voice was cold and distant ... and cruel.

"Your entire purpose here was to conclude an alliance with Yeltsin's Star," she heard herself say. "To show these people an alliance with Manticore could help them. That was a commitment from our Kingdom, and Admiral Courvosier understood that. He knew the Queen's honor is at stake here, Mr. Houseman. The honor of the entire Kingdom of Manticore. If we cut and run, if we abandon Grayson when we know Haven is helping the Masadans and that it was our quarrel with Haven that brought us both here, it will be a blot on Her Majesty's honor nothing can ever erase. If you can't see it any other way, consider the impact on every other alliance we ever try to conclude! If you think you can get your `friends in high places' to cashier me for doing my duty, you go right ahead and try. In the meantime, those of us who aren't cowards will just have to muddle through as best we can without you!"

She trembled, but her rage had turned cold. She stared down at the weeping diplomat, and he shrank from her eyes. They were hard with purpose, but all he saw was the killer behind them, and terror choked him.

She glared at him a moment longer, then turned to Langtry. The ambassador was a bit pale, but there was approval in his expression and his shoulders straightened.

"Now, then, Sir Anthony," she said more calmly, "Commander Truman is already working on plans to evacuate your staff's dependents. In addition, we'll need the names and locations of all other Manticoran subjects on Grayson. I believe we can fit everyone into the freighters, but they were never designed as transports. Facilities are going to be cramped and primitive, and Commander Truman needs the total number of evacuees as soon as possible."

"My staff already has those lists, Captain," Langtry said, not even glancing at the sobbing man on the floor behind her. "I'll get them to Commander Truman as soon as we're finished here."

"Thank you." Honor drew a deep breath and turned to Brentworth.

"I apologize for what just happened here, Commander," she said quietly. "Please believe Ambassador Langtry represents my Queen's true policy towards Grayson."

"Of course, Captain." The commander's eyes gleamed as he looked back at her, and she realized he was no longer seeing a woman. He was seeing a Queen's officer, perhaps the first Grayson ever to look beyond her sex to the uniform she wore.

"All right." Honor glanced at the upended table and shrugged, then turned one of the chairs to face the two men. She sat and crossed her legs, feeling the residual tremors of her anger in her limbs and the quiver of Nimitz's body against her neck.

"In that case, Commander, I think it's time we turned our minds to how best to secure the cooperation we need from your military."