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And they damned well should be, Helen told herself. The commodore and the Kitty cleaned those Peep "pirates" out of Nuncio when nothing Karlberg had could even have found them, much less fought them! And it's obvious Sackett isn't going to forget the way the commodore and Mr. Van Dort convinced Westman to hang up his guns in Montana, either. Still, I wonder why nobody mentioned they were going to be here?
She was still wondering when a polite usher separated her from her astronomically superior officers and showed her to a much humbler table to one side. Helen was delighted to go with him and get her junior rank (and absurd youth) out of the spotlight of attention focusing on Terekhov and the others. The table to which he led her was close enough that she could keep an eye on him, in case he needed her, and the unobtrusive earbug in her left ear meant he could summon her anytime he wished to.
She was pleased to see Helga Boltitz seated at the same table, although Helga didn't seem quite as delighted by their location as Helen was. On the other hand, that might well owe something to her table companion. Well, Helen's, too, she supposed, since he was seated between the two of them. She didn't know who the dark-haired, brown-eyed man with the pencil mustache and the Rembrandt accent might be, but she recognized his bored, superior expression from too many of the political di
She was still reflecting on that point—and trying to decide if it would be cowardly of her to abandon Helga to the Rembrandter rather than trying to draw fire from the other woman—when a sharp, musical tone sang through the background rumble of side conversations. All heads turned toward it, and she saw Baroness Medusa standing in her place at the head of the master table still holding the table knife with which she had just struck a crystal pitcher.
The rumble of voices died almost instantly, and Medusa smiled.
"First," she said, "allow me to thank you all for coming. Some of you"—she glanced in Terekhov's direction—"were quite possibly under the impression that tonight's di
The stillness of the ballroom disappeared in a roar of applause. Vice Admiral Khumalo was probably the first person to come to his feet, applauding sharply, but if he was, it could only have been by half a heartbeat or so. Helen found herself standing, as well, clapping wildly, and it was all she could do to restrain a jubilant whistle as pandemonium erupted.
She hadn't realized until that moment how much she'd resented—on Terekhov's behalf, not her own—the way the rush to redeploy him had deprived him of the public recognition back home that he had so amply earned. Yet now that the moment was here, she realized how much more fitting it was for him to receive that recognition here, in the Cluster and from the people his moral courage had served so well.
The applause lasted quite some time, and Helen could see the heightened color in the commodore's face as the sound of all those clapping hands battered his ears. She didn't doubt that it embarrassed him, but she didn't really much care about that. He deserved it—deserved every decibel of it—and her smile felt as if it were going to break her face as she recognized how cu
But the clapping died at last, people sat back down, and the Governor General waited for silence to fall once more. Then she cleared her throat.
"By now," she said, "I'm sure it's occurred to most of you that we got Commodore Terekhov here under what might be called false pretenses. Frankly, we were a little concerned that he might have bolted if he'd realized what we had in mind."
Laughter muttered across the room, and she smiled.
"I'm afraid, however," she continued then, "that we're not quite finished with the Commodore tonight."
She glanced at Terekhov, who looked back at her with an expression which could only have been described as wary.
"There is a phrase with which Queen's officers become altogether too familiar, ladies and gentlemen," she went on, her tone much more serious. "That phrase is 'the exigencies of the Service,' and what it means is that those men and women who have chosen to wear the Queen's uniform and to guard and protect all of us—you and me—frequently find their own lives being stepped upon by the demands of the service they have chosen to give. They do not simply risk life and limb for us, ladies and gentlemen. They also sacrifice the rest of their lives—sacrifice time as fathers and mothers, as wives and husbands. Commodore Terekhov was spared less than one T-week in Manticore before he was sent back to us. Less than one T-week, ladies and gentlemen, after all of the tremendous risks and dangers he and the men and women of HMS Hexapuma and the other ships of his squadron in Monica endured for all of us."
The huge ballroom was completely still, now. Completely hushed. Baroness Medusa's voice sounded clear and quiet against that backdrop of silence.
"There can be no true, adequate compensation for the sacrifices men and women in uniform make for the people they serve and protect. How does one set a price on the willingness to serve? How does one set a proper wage for the willingness to die to protect others? And how does one honor those who have honored their oaths, given the last true measure of devotion, in the service of their star nation and the belief in human dignity and human freedom?"
She paused in the silence, then shook her head.
"The truth is, that we ca
"Those were the men and women of HMS Hexapuma. Of HMS Warlock, HMS Vigilant, HMS Gallant, HMS Audacious, HMS Aegis, HMS Javelin, HMS Janissary, HMS Rondeau, HMS Aria, and HMS Volcano.
"We ca
Aivars Terekhov looked straight before him, and it wasn't simple modesty. He was looking at something only he could see—the men and women of those ships. The faces no one would ever see again.