At All Costs

"Perpetrator," Honor repeated, and to her own ears her voice was oddly flattened.

"Yes, Your Grace." Mandel radiated puzzlement at her comment, and she smiled thinly.

"Lieutenant Mears," she said quietly, "was a member of my staff for almost a full T-year. He was a diligent, responsible, conscientious young man. Had he lived, he would, I feel no doubt, have attained senior rank and discharged it well. He won't do that now, because I killed him. I would greatly appreciate it, Captain, if you could find some word other than 'perpetrator' with which to describe him."

Mandel looked at her, and something clicked into place behind his eyes. She could feel it, taste his sense of "Oh, that's what it was!" as he recognized-or thought he did-what he was dealing with.

"Your Grace," he said compassionately, "it's not unusual, especially this soon after something like this, for it to be difficult to accept that someone we knew and liked, trusted, wasn't exactly what we thought he was. I'm sure you feel responsible for the death of the 'conscientious young man' you killed. But you killed him in self-defense, and the fact that you had to demonstrates that he wasn't who or what you thought he was."

Honor's eyes narrowed, and she heard Nimitz's soft, sibilant hiss.

"Captain Mandel," she said even more quietly, "did you or did you not read my own report about what happened here?"

"Of course, Your Grace. I have a copy of it here." He tapped the microcomputer cased at his belt.

"In that case, you ought to be aware that Lieutenant Mears was not responsible for his actions," she said flatly. "He wasn't the 'perpetrator' of this crime, Captain; he was its first victim."

"Your Grace," Mandel said in patient tones, "I did, indeed, read your report. It was well written, concise, and to the point. However, you're a combat officer. You command ships and lead fleets in battle, and the entire Star Kingdom knows how well you do it. But you aren't a criminal investigator. I am, and while I don't doubt a single factual observation from your report, I'm afraid your conclusion that Lieutenant Mears was under some form of compulsion simply doesn't make sense. It's just not supported by the evidence."

"I beg your pardon?" Honor asked, almost conversationally, and a slight tic began at the right corner of her mouth.

"Your Grace," Mandel probably wasn't even aware of his own sense of patient, confident superiority in his area of expertise, but Honor certainly was, "you stated in your report that Lieutenant Mears was attempting to resist some sort of compulsion the entire time he was killing people, including your own armsman. But I'm afraid that statement is in error-a conclusion I base on two main points of observation and logic.

"First, I've reviewed the flag bridge visual records of the incident, and there's absolutely no sign of hesitation on his part. Secondly, for him to have been operating under compulsion would have required major personality adjustment, were he, in fact, the person you believed him to be.

"It's not at all unusual, when something as violent and totally unexpected as this incident occurs, for someone involved in it to be mistaken in his observations. And that, I'm afraid, is even more common when the observer doesn't want-for perfectly understandable, very human reasons-to believe what's happening or why. The visual records, however, are immune to that sort of subjectivity, and they reveal nothing but purposeful, intentional, controlled, unhesitating action on Lieutenant Mears' part.

"And as far as personality adjustment is concerned, it's simply not possible. Lieutenant Mears, like all Queen's officers, had received the standard anti-drug and anti-conditioning protocols. It wouldn't have been flatly impossible for those safeguards to be broken or evaded, but it would have been difficult. And even without them, adjustment takes time, Your Grace. Quite a lot of it. And we can account for almost every instant of Lieutenant Mears' time over the past T-year. Certainly, there's no unaccounted for period long enough for him to have been involuntarily adjusted to carry out an action like this one."

The intelligence captain shook his head, his expression sad.

"No, Your Grace. I know you want to believe the best of an officer to whom you were so attached. But the only explanation for what happened here is that he was, and had for some time, been an agent for Peep intelligence."

"That's preposterous," Honor said flatly. Mandel's face stiffened, his feeling of professional superiority segueing into begi

"In addition, Captain, I didn't state in my report that I believed him to have been under compulsion; I stated that he was under compulsion. That was not interpretation. It was an observed fact."

"With all due respect, Your Grace," Mandel said stiffly, "my own analysis of the visual records doesn't support that conclusion."

"My observation," Honor stressed the noun deliberately, "didn't rely upon visual analysis."

"Feelings and instinct are a poor basis for a criminal investigation, Your Grace," Mandel said even more stiffly. "I've been doing this for almost fifty T-years. And, as I explained on the basis of that experience, it's normal for emotions to cloud one's interpretation of events like this one."

"Captain," the muscle tic at the corner of Honor's mouth was more pronounced, "you're aware of the fact that I've been adopted by a treecat?"

"Of course, Your Grace." Mandel was obviously trying to sit on his temper, but his voice came out just a bit too clipped. "Everyone is aware of that."

"And you're aware that treecats are empaths and telepaths?"

"I've read some articles to that effect," Mandel said, and Honor felt her own temper click a notch higher at the dismissiveness in his emotions. Clearly, the captain was one of those people who continued, despite the evidence, to reject the notion that 'cats were fully sentient beings.

"They are, in fact, telepathic and empathic, and also highly intelligent," she told him. "And because they are, Nimitz was able to sense what Lieutenant Mears was feeling in the last few moments of his life."

She considered-briefly-telling Mandel she'd sensed those emotions herself, personally and directly, but rejected the temptation immediately. If he was sufficiently closed-minded to reject all the recent scientific evidence of treecat intelligence and capabilities, he would undoubtedly consider any human who claimed the same empathic ability was obviously insane.

"Nimitz knows, Captain Mandel. He doesn't suspect, and he doesn't think, he knows Timothy was trying desperately not to do what he was doing. That he was horrified by his own actions but couldn't stop them. And that, I submit to you, is the exact definition of someone acting under compulsion."

Mandel looked at her, and she tasted his incredulity that anyone could possibly expect him to allow the supposed observations of an animal, be it ever so clever, to influence the direction of his investigation.

"Your Grace," he said finally, "I'm attempting to make full allowance for your obvious close emotional attachment to Lieutenant Mears, but I must disagree with your conclusions. As far as his value as an intelligence asset is concerned, I will, of course, defer to the judgment of Commander Simon's people in counter-intelligence. From my own perspective, however, and given how successful Eighth Fleet's operations have been, it seems obvious you'd make a perfect target for an assassination. We know the Peeps are fond of assassination as a technique, and your death would have been a major blow to the Star Kingdom's morale. In my own judgment, it seems likely Peep intelligence felt that killing you would be even more valuable than whatever sensitive data Lieutenant Mears might have been in position to give them.