At All Costs

"Beth," Prince Justin said quietly. His wife looked at him, and he reached out to rest one hand lightly on hers where it lay on the tabletop. "Beth, think about it. Every single one of your advisers disagrees with you. Even," he smiled, "your husband. I think you need to factor that into your decision, don't you?"

She gazed into his eyes for several seconds, then sighed.

"Yes." She obviously hated making that admission, but Honor tasted her unwilling sincerity. The Queen looked around the council chamber, then shrugged her shoulders. "Very well. I'm sure you've all made valid points. I can even appreciate most of them, intellectually, at least. That doesn't mean I like it, because I don't. I hate it. But that doesn't make you wrong, however much I'd like it to. So I'll meet with Pritchart."

"Thank you, Your Majesty," Grantville said with quiet, thankful formality.

"Which raises the question of where you should meet," Langtry said. "Pritchart did invite you to name the site."

"Yes, and she suggested a 'neutral' one," Grantville agreed. "Although just exactly where she thinks we can find one is a bit of a puzzle."

"Nonsense," Elizabeth said with a hard little laugh. "That's the easiest part of all! If she wants a neutral meeting site, where better than Torch?"

"I don't know," Grantville began. "The security aspects would worry me, and-"

"Security would probably be the least of our worries," Honor interrupted. Grantville looked at her, and she gri

"That," Langtry said, "is almost certainly true, Willie. They might not have the same technological capabilities we would, but they'd certainly have the motivation!"

"Yes, they would," Grantville agreed. "And I suppose there'd be ample time for us to make additional security arrangements."

"And," Elizabeth pointed out, "it would be an opportunity to draw Erewhon into the process. I know we've all been pissed off with the Erewhonese for the technology they transferred to the Peeps, but let's be honest. High Ridge did everything humanly possible to push them into doing it. If we ask them to dispatch units of their fleet to provide a neutral security umbrella in Congo for both sides, without either of us bringing in our own battle squadrons, it would be a demonstration that this Government-and the House of Winton-both trusts them and desires to patch up our differences."

Grantville looked at her with a slightly surprised expression, and she chuckled almost naturally.

"I may still have my reservations about this entire idea, Willie. But if we're going to do it anyway, we might as well accomplish as many objectives at once as we can."

Chapter Forty-Seven

Aldona Anisimovna tried to remind herself that she was one of the most successful organizers and executives Manpower Incorporated had ever produced. That she had a very nearly unrivaled record of successes. That she was a wealthy and powerful individual, who represented one of Mesa's star bloodlines.

None of it helped particularly.

She and Isabel Bardasano followed the "butler" down the splendidly furnished hallway, past light sculptures, bronzes, paintings and handloomed textile wall hangings. The designer had deliberately eschewed smart walls or other modern visual technology, aside from the light sculptures, but soothing, unheard sonic vibrations seemed to caress her skin.

It was all very gracious and welcoming, but she drew a deep breath, trying to settle her nerves unobtrusively and hoping the invisible surveillance systems weren't noting her heightened pulse rate, as their guide opened the old-fashioned door at the end of the corridor.

"Ms. Anisimovna and Ms. Bardasano, Sir," he said.

"Thank you, Heinrich," a familiar voice said, and the "butler" who was actually a rather deadly bodyguard, when he wasn't being an assassin, bowed and stepped aside.

Anisimovna walked past him without even acknowledging his presence, but she was grateful when he closed the door behind her and Bardasano from the other side. Not that she'd really expected his... services to be required, she told herself firmly.

"Well, ladies," Albrecht Detweiler said from behind the desk workstation, without inviting either of them to be seated, "things don't appear to have gone very well in Talbott, after all."

"No, they haven't," Anisimovna agreed, her voice as level as possible. Detweiler regarded her thoughtfully, as if waiting for her to add something more to that bare agreement, but she knew better than to offer any hint of an excuse. Especially not when he'd kept the two of them waiting, and stewing in their own juice, for almost three standard days since their return from the Republic of Monica.

"Why not?" he asked after a moment.

"Because of a chain of circumstances we were unable to predict," Isabel Bardasano said, her voice as level as Anisimovna's had been.

"I was under the impression that proper pla

"Good pla

"That sounds remarkably like an excuse, Isabel."

"I prefer to think of it as an explanation, Albrecht," Bardasano said, while Anisimovna tried to focus her attention on one of Detweiler's pre-space oil paintings. "Under certain circumstances, explanations are also excuses, of course. You asked us why things didn't work out as pla

Detweiler gazed at her, his lips very slightly pursed, his eyes narrowed, and she looked back squarely. One thing about her, Anisimovna thought; she didn't lack nerve. Whether her lack of fear was completely sane or not was another matter.

"Very well, Isabel," Detweiler said finally. "'Explain' what happened."

"We don't know yet, not fully," she admitted. "We won't know for some time. The only hard fact we have at this time is that somehow a Manty cruiser captain named Terekhov and Bernardus Van Dort figured out what was happening. Terekhov put together what I strongly suspect was a completely unauthorized attack on Monica. And as Aldona and I told you at our last meeting, the program to refit the battlecruisers we-or, rather, Technodyne-were providing had fallen behind schedule."

"You also informed me that there was ample cushion in your timetable," Detweiler interrupted in a deceptively pleasant voice.

If he'd intended to put Bardasano off her pace, he failed. She simply looked at him for a moment, then nodded.

"Yes, we did. And it was an accurate statement. In fact, Izrok Levakonic and the Monicans had managed to get three of the battlecruisers completely refitted and ma

"Apparently, they would have been wrong," Detweiler said. "And, I might point out to you, if I were inclined to pick nits, that one of the objectives of the operation was to obtain specimens of Manty hardware specifically because we knew it was better than Solly equipment."