At All Costs

Hayes blinked.

"Briarwood?" he repeated after a moment.

"Precisely. Now, I suppose it's possible she was there to consult with the doctors because of some fertility problem. That seems a bit unlikely, given her profession and current duties, however. And even if it didn't, according to a little bird who sang into my ear, she was there for a routine outpatient procedure. The tubing of a fetus, I believe."

Hayes looked at her, his eyes narrower than ever, and she smiled back sweetly.

"How good a source is your 'little bird'?" he asked.

"Quite good, actually."

"And he-or she-says this is Harrington's child?"

"I can't imagine any other reason for her to have outpatient surgery, can you?"

"Not at Briarwood," Hayes conceded. "Not unless, for some bizarre reason, she was trying to get pregnant at this moment." He thought some more. "Do you happen to know who the father is?"

"No."

For just a moment, something ugly flashed in the countess' eyes. Disappointment, Hayes realized. He knew who she wanted the father to be, but she knew equally well that after the way Emily Alexander had rabbit-punched the attempt to link her husband and "the Salamander," he wasn't about to leap to any conclusions that couldn't be firmly substantiated. Not in this case, at least, no matter how sharp a personal ax he had to grind. Or perhaps because of how very personal this particular ax was.

"Pity," he said, picking up his own wine and sipping thoughtfully.

"I do have three other bits of information," Fairburn said. "Straws in the wind, one might say."

"Which are?"

"First, Harrington's declined to declare paternity. She didn't simply ask Briarwood to maintain confidentiality; she didn't tell them. Secondly, and not surprisingly, I suppose, she's designated her mother, Dr. Harrington, to act in loco parentis for her child while she's away or if anything... unfortunate should happen to her. And third-third, dear Derek, Dr. Harrington is also the physician of record for one Emily Alexander, who has mysteriously decided, after sixty or seventy years in a life-support chair, that the time has come for her and her husband to become parents, as well."

Hayes blinked again. He was sure he could have come up with half a dozen explanations for the coincidences Fairburn had just listed without even trying. But that didn't matter. His instincts told him that, motivated by vengefulness or not, the countess had zeroed in on what was actually going on. Especially in light of Harrington's refusal to declare paternity even to Briarwood's medical staff.

"Those are interesting straws, Elfrieda," he conceded after several seconds. "And I do have my own ways of confirming your information-not that I believe for a moment that it isn't accurate." This time, he didn't add, although he was certain she heard it anyway. "I imagine you'd like me to maintain confidentiality about your own part in bringing this to my attention?"

"I'm afraid so," she sighed with what he realized was genuine regret. "A part of me would dearly love to let that lowborn upstart bitch know precisely who blew the whistle on her. Given the current... unfortunate political climate and the disgusting way the proles are fawning all over her, however, it probably wouldn't be very wise to make myself a target for retaliation. Bertram wouldn't thank me for it, either."

"I thought as much," Hayes said, projecting as much sympathy as he could. "So I'll be very careful to document any hard facts I use without mentioning your name."

"Such a dear, cautious man!" Countess Fairburn cooed.

"I try, Elfrieda. I try."

"Honor!"

Sir Thomas Caparelli came to his feet, stepping out from behind his desk and smiling broadly as he reached out to grip Honor's hand firmly.

"It's good to see you," he said, and Honor smiled as she tasted the personal warmth behind his greeting. "And you, of course, Nimitz," Caparelli continued, nodding to the treecat on Honor's shoulder. "And you, Commodore," he added with a smile as he released Honor's hand to shake Mercedes Brigham's.

"I see you have your priorities in proper order, Sir Thomas," Brigham murmured, responding to the twinkle in the First Space Lord's eye.

"Well, Her Grace and Nimitz do rather come as a unit, Commodore."

"That they do, Sir."

"Sit down. Sit down, both of you-well, all three of you!" he invited, waving at the comfortable chairs in the conversational nook around his splendid office's coffee-table. Two carafes-one of coffee, and one of hot chocolate-steamed on the coffee-table in question, which also offered cups and saucers, a plate of fresh croissants, and a fresh head of celery.

Honor and Brigham obeyed, and Nimitz slithered down into Honor's lap, eyeing the celery with cheerful greediness. Honor chuckled and gave him a gentle smack, and he rolled over onto his back, grabbing her wrist with true-hands and hand-feet and wrestling with it cheerfully.

"And this," Caparelli observed with a chuckle, "represents Sphinx's native sentient species?"

"Some 'cats tend to revert to kittenhood more readily than others, Sir Thomas," Honor told him, swatting at Nimitz with her free hand while he purred happily.

"I'm glad he likes you," Caparelli said. "I've seen pictures of what those claws of his can do." He shook his head. "Personally, I've always wondered how something that short can do so much damage."

"That's probably because, like most people, you think of treecat claws the way you do of terrestrial cats' claws. In fact, they aren't at all the same. Stinker?"

Nimitz released her wrist and forearm and sat up in her lap. He extended one true-hand-long, wiry fingers slightly crooked-and unsheathed his needle-pointed claws. Caparelli leaned closer, his expression fascinated, and Nimitz held them up where he could see them clearly.

"If you'll notice," Honor said, "his claws are much broader at the base than those of a terrestrial cat. When people call them 'scimitar-shaped,' it's literally descriptive, except that the wrong side is edged. And they retract into some fairly specialized, cartilage-lined receptacles, because they're actually more like a terrestrial shark's tooth than anything someone from Old Earth would call a 'claw.' The actual composition of the claw itself is more like stone than it is like horn, cartilage, or bone, and this curved i

She shrugged, and Caparelli shuddered slightly at the image her words had evoked.

"I never realized just how formidable those weapons were," he confessed.

"Well, Sir Thomas," Honor said cheerfully, "if you want something to give you real nightmares, you might consider that hexapumas-which, you know, are just a little bigger-have exactly the same sort of claws. Of course, their claws tend to be eight or nine centimeters long. Which is why we Sphinxians never go into the bush unarmed."

"Your Grace," Caparelli said, "if I were a Sphinxian and knew about hexapuma claws, I wouldn't go into the bush at all!"

"We do lose the occasional tourist," she said, straight-faced.

"No doubt," he said dryly, leaning forward and personally pouring coffee for Brigham and chocolate for Honor. He waved at the croissants and celery, and settled back in his own chair with a cup and saucer while they helped themselves.

"I've got a formal meeting set up for tomorrow afternoon," he told them more seriously. "I'll have several people there-including Hamish, Honor-and I hope you and Commodore Brigham will be prepared to give us a comprehensive brief and answer any questions about Cutworm."