Echoes Of Honor hh-8

by David Weber

  Yet for all its age, the Great Hall was also strangely modern, with state-of-the-art lighting, central heat (and air conditioning), and air filtration systems which would have done any space habitat proud. And the people sitting at the tables presented an equally odd mixture of the ancient and the modern. The women looked right at home in the Great Hall—like something out of a historical documentary in their elaborately embroidered, tabard-like vests, floor-length gowns, and elaborately coiffured hair—and the men in formal Grayson attire looked almost equally archaic. Alexander had no idea why any society would preserve the "neckties" the men wore (he understood they had gone out of fashion several times over the planet’s history; what he didn’t understand was why in Heaven’s name they’d ever come back into fashion again), but it certainly made the Manticorans and other off-worlders scattered through the crowd stand out. Yet here and there among the Graysons were islands which appeared less anachronistic to his Manticoran eyes. Many of the women, including both of the Protector’s wives, wore far simpler gowns which Alexander’s well-trained fashion sense realized were modeled on those Honor Harrington had introduced. And some of the men had abandoned Grayson attire for more modern garb, as well.

  But what really caught the eye was the sheer number of men who wore military uniform of one sort or another... and how much smaller the percentage of women in uniform was. Environmental factors had frozen Grayson’s population for centuries, but it had been increasing steadily for the last fifty or sixty T-years, and the curve of population growth had shot up sharply in the last decade. By now, the planet’s total population was somewhere in the very near vicinity of three billion, which came close to matching that of all three of the Star Kingdom’s planets. But given the peculiarities of Grayson birthrates, only about seven hundred and fifty million of those people were male. Which, coupled with the social mores which had banned women from military service ever since the planet’s initial colonization, gave Grayson a military manpower pool barely a quarter as big as the Star Kingdom’s. Actually, given the impact of prolong on Manticoran society and the higher resulting percentage of its total population which were adults, the differential was almost certainly even higher than that. But it still meant that a far, far higher percentage of Grayson’s men were members of the ever-expanding Grayson military.

  And at the moment, every one of them seemed to be sitting in the Great Hall for dinner.

  It gave Grayson rather a different perspective on the Havenite Wars, Alexander reflected. High Admiral Matthews had touched on it several times during his guided tour of Blackbird, yet it was something else Alexander hadn’t adequately considered before this trip. He should have, for Hamish had certainly alluded to it frequently enough, but it was another of those things someone had to see and feel for himself before his mind made the leap to understanding.

  The Star Kingdom had spent a half century prior to the outbreak of hostilities building up its navy and alliances against the day of reckoning which had to come. Manticore had approached the battle against the PRH with a long-term wariness, a sense of the inevitable (though some Manticorans—and Alexander could name a few from certain prominent political circles—had done their level best to hide from the truth), which was actually almost a disadvantage, in an odd sort of way, once the shooting started. It was as if certain chunks of the Manticoran public felt that all the time and effort and money they had invested in getting ready for the war should somehow have gone into a metaphysical savings account as a sort of down payment which would somehow excuse them from making still more investment in actually fighting the war now that it had begun. They weren’t tired, precisely. Not "war weary"—not really, and not yet—but they seemed... disappointed. They’d spent all that time getting ready to resist the sort of lightning campaign Haven had used to smash all of its previous opponents, and they’d expected the same sort of quick decision, one way or the other, as in all those earlier campaigns.

  But it hadn’t worked that way. Alexander and Allen Summervale had known it wouldn’t be a short, quick war—not if they were lucky enough to survive at all—as had their monarch and the military, and they’d done their best to prepare the public for the reality of an extended struggle. Yet they’d failed. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that they hadn’t succeeded completely. There were people out there who understood, after all, and Alexander suspected the numbers were growing. But that sense that the war should have been over by now, especially with the Royal Navy and its allies smashing Peep fleet after Peep fleet, worried him. It was an unformed groundswell at this point, but William Alexander had been in politics for sixty T-years, and he had developed the discerning eye of a skilled navigator. There was a potential storm out there on the horizon, and he wondered just how well the ship he’d spent six decades helping to build would weather it if—or when—it broke.

  But Graysons saw things differently. They’d come to the Havenite wars late... yet they’d spent the last six centuries preparing for—and fighting—another war. Looking back, one might call the crushing defeat Honor Harrington and Alexander’s older brother had handed the Masadan descendants of the Faithful the true first shot of the current war. But for Grayson, it had been only a transition, a turn from confronting one enemy to confronting another. They knew all about long wars, and they were no more concerned by the potential length of this one than they had been over the interminable duration of the last. It would take however long it took... and Grayson was grimly determined to be there until the very end.

  And that determination was producing some changes in Grayson society which would have been flatly denounced even as little as five years earlier. There were still no Grayson women in uniform, but the military women "on loan" to the GSN from the RMN and serving in other navies were steadily grinding away that particular prohibition. And Grayson women were beginning to enter the civilian labor force in unprecedented numbers. Alexander and Admiral Caparelli had been astonished to discover that over fifteen percent of Blackbird’s clerical and junior management staff were women, only a handful of them from out-system. Even more startling, there had been a few women—just a tiny percentage so far, but growing—on the engineering staff, as well. Some of them were actually on the construction gangs! Alexander had no idea who the "Rosie the Riveter" his historian older brother had referred to might have been, but he’d been stunned to see Grayson women being allowed into such all-male roles.

  Yet the fact was that Grayson had no choice. If it was going to man its military—and "man" was precisely the right term, William thought with a wry, hidden grin—then it had to free up the required manpower somehow. And the only way to do that was to begin making rational use of the enormous potential its women represented. Before the Alliance, that would have been unthinkable; now it was only very difficult, and mere difficulty had never stopped a Grayson yet.

  The manpower shortage also explained why Grayson had leapt joyfully at the potential for increased automation aboard warships which the RMN’s own Bureau of Ships had found it so monumentally difficult to force through its own ranks. (I suppose we’re just as "traditional" as the Graysons, Alexander reflected. Our traditions are simply... different. They’re certainly not any less bullheaded—or stupid. ) The Royal Navy was still building experimental prototypes to test the new concept, but the GSN had already incorporated it into all their new construction... including the new ten-ship superdreadnought class under construction at Blackbird. High Admiral Matthews had been so busy rhapsodizing about how that would reduce the strain where his manning requirements were concerned that he’d completely missed the glance Alexander and Caparelli had exchanged.

  Not enough that they’re going to have our new ship of the wall concept in commission at least a full T-year before we do, they had to go ahead and build the new automation into them, too! God, that’s embarrassing. Still, he felt his lips quirk, maybe if Sir Thomas and I go home and emphasize how "primitive, backward" Grayson is racing ahead of us, we’ll be able to get some
of our sticks-in-the-mud to get up off their collective asses and authorize us to build a few of them, too.

  Unless, of course, they decide that it only makes sense to let the Graysons test the concept in action before we ante up the cash for such "radical, untried, and ill-considered" innovations!

  He snorted and reminded himself that he was only the Star Kingdom’s accountant, not a lord of admiralty. He was a civilian, and as such, he should be concentrating on other matters and leaving military concerns up to Hamish and Sir Thomas.

  He took another sip of tea and let his eyes travel around the Great Hall again. As a male visitor unaccompanied by any wife, he had been seated at an exclusively male-occupied table just below the Protector’s raised dais. The elderly general (actually, he was probably younger than Alexander was, but without the benefits of prolong) seated beside him was more interested in his dinner than in making conversation with foreigners, and Alexander was just as happy. They’d exchanged the proper small talk before the meal began, and then the two of them had ignored one another—in a companionable sort of way—while they addressed the truly delicious dinner. Alexander made a mental note to see if he couldn’t extort the Protector’s chef’s recipe book out of Benjamin at their last formal meeting tomorrow. He was used to the way his older brother twitted him on his "epicureanism," and he couldn’t really complain. Hamish was right, after all... but just because he was an uncultured barbarian who considered anything more complex than a rare steak and a baked potato decadent was no reason for William to reject the finer things in life.

  He chuckled to himself and glanced at his brother. White Haven was seated with High Admiral Matthews at the Protector’s own table—a mark of the high esteem in which the conqueror of Masada was held here in Grayson. At the moment, his head was turned as he addressed a remark to the exquisitely beautiful woman seated with her towering husband between himself and Katherine Mayhew. Alexander had been introduced to both Doctors Harrington the day before, and he’d been astonished to realize that someone Lady Harrington’s size could have had so tiny a mother. And, he admitted, as he chatted with her and discovered the razor-sharp wit of the woman behind that beautiful face, he’d found himself extremely envious of Dr. Alfred Harrington’s good fortune.

  The general beside him said something, drawing his attention back to his tablemate. But before he could ask the Grayson to repeat his question, the crystal clear sound of a fork or a spoon striking a wineglass cut through the background hum of voices. Alexander’s head turned, along with everyone else’s, and all other conversation faded as the diners realized Benjamin Mayhew had risen to his feet. He smiled at them, waiting until he was certain he had their full intention, and then cleared his throat.

  "My Lords and Ladies, Ladies and Gentlemen," he said then, in the easy tones of a trained speaker, "you were all promised that this would be a ‘nonworking state dinner’—meaning that you’d all be spared the tedium of speeches—" that earned him a rumble of laughter, and his smile grew broader "—and I promise not to inflict anything of the sort upon you. I do, however, have two announcements which I believe should be made at this time."

  He paused, and his smile faded into a sober, serious expression.

  "First," he said, "High Admiral Matthews has informed me that the Office of Shipbuilding has elected to name the newest superdreadnought of the Grayson Navy the GNS Honor Harrington, and that Lady Harrington’s mother," he bowed slightly in Allison Harrington’s direction, "has agreed to christen her in our service."

  He paused, as a spatter of applause interrupted. It grew louder, and Alexander turned his head to see several men in GSN uniform come to their feet. Other male Graysons joined them, and then women began to stand, as well, and the spatter of applause became a torrent that echoed and resounded from the Great Hall’s cavernous spaces. The thunder beat in on William Alexander, and he felt himself coming to his own feet, joining the ovation. Yet even as he clapped, he felt something else under the approval. A hungry something, with bare fangs, that sent a chill through him as he realized how accurately Hamish had read these people’s reaction to Honor Harrington’s murder.

  Benjamin waited until the applause slowly faded and the audience had resumed their seats, and then he smiled again. Despite the harsh wave of emotion which had just swept the hall, there was something almost impish about that smile, and he shook his head.

  "You should have waited," he told his audience. "Now you’re going to have to do it all over again, because my second announcement is that yesterday morning, Lady Allison Harrington informed my senior wife that she and her husband are expecting." That simple sentence spawned a sudden silence in which a falling pin would have sounded like an anvil, and he nodded much more seriously. "Tomorrow, I will formally inform the Conclave of Steadholders that an heir of Lady Harrington’s blood will inherit her Key and the care of the people of her steading," he said quietly.

  The previous applause, Alexander discovered, had only seemed thunderous. The ovation which arose this time truly was. It battered him like fists, surging like an exultant sea, and he saw Allison Harrington flush, whether with excitement or embarrassment he couldn’t tell, as she stood at the Protector’s urging.

  It took a seeming eternity for the applause to fade, and as it did, Alexander saw someone else stand at the Protector’s table. The wiry, auburn-haired man looked remarkably young to be wearing the uniform of a GSN admiral, and his gray eyes flashed as he faced his ruler.

  "Your Grace!" he cried, and Benjamin turned to look at him.

  "Yes, Admiral Yanakov?" the Protector seemed surprised at hearing the admiral address him.

  "With your permission, Your Grace, I would like to propose a toast," Admiral Yanakov said. Benjamin considered him for just a moment, and then nodded.

  "Of course, Admiral."

  "Thank you, Your Grace." Yanakov reached down and picked up his wineglass, holding it before him while the light pooled and glowed in its tawny heart.

  "Your Grace, My Lords and Ladies, Ladies and Gentlemen all," he announced in a ringing voice, "I give you Steadholder Harrington... and damnation to the Peeps! "

  The roar which answered should, by rights, have brought the Great Hall crashing down in ruins.

  Book Four

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "Do you think we’ll get the break this month?" Scotty Tremaine asked as he used a brightly colored bandana to mop irritably at the sweat trickling down his face. He tried to keep any trace of anxiety out of his voice, but his audience knew him too well to be fooled.

  "Now how would I know that, Sir?" Horace Harkness asked in reply, and his tone, while utterly respectful, managed to project so much patience that Tremaine grinned despite himself.

  "Sorry, Chief." He shoved the bandana into the hip pocket of his trousers—no longer StateSec issue, but produced, like the bandana, by Henri Dessouix, who functioned as Camp Inferno’s chief tailor—and shrugged. "It’s just that all the waiting around is getting to me. And when you add things like this to the waiting... Well, let’s just say my nerves aren’t what they used to be."

  "Mine either, Sir," the senior chief said absently, then grunted in triumph as the jammed access panel he’d been working on sprang open at last. "Light, Sir?" he requested, and Tremaine directed the beam of his hand lamp up into the shuttle’s number one communications bay.

  "Hmmm..." Like Tremaine, Harkness now wore locally produced clothing, and he obviously favored the same garish colors Dessouix did. In fairness, Dessouix was limited in his choice of dyes by what grew within a reasonable distance from Camp Inferno, but he did seem to enjoy mugging people’s optic nerves. So did Harkness, apparently, and he looked more like an HD writer’s concept of a pirate than a senior chief petty officer of Her Majesty’s Royal Manticoran Navy—especially with the pulser and bush knife he insisted on carrying everywhere with him—as he frowned up into the small, electronics-packed compartment.

  Peep installations tended to be bigger than Manticora
n ones, largely because they used more plug-in/pull-out components. Peep techs weren’t up to the sort of in-place maintenance Manticoran technicians routinely performed, so the practice, wherever possible, was to simply yank a malfunctioning component and send it to some central servicing depot where properly trained people could deal with it. Unhappily for the People’s Navy, that assumed one had a replacement unit handy to plug into its place when you pulled it, and that had been a major reason for the soaring Peep unserviceability rates of the first two or three years of the war. The PN had been structured around short, intensive campaigns with plenty of time to refit between gobbling up each successive bite of someone else’s real estate. Their logistics pipeline had been designed to meet those needs, and it simply hadn’t been up to hauling the requisite number of replacement components back and forth between the front-line systems and the rear area service and maintenance depots over an extended period of active operations.

  That, unfortunately, was one problem they seemed to be getting on top of, Tremaine reflected while he watched Harkness pull out a test kit and begin checking circuits. They were finally getting their logistics establishment up to something approaching Allied standards, and—

  "Uh-oh." Harkness’ mutter pulled Tremaine out of his thoughts and he peered up past the burly senior chief’s shoulders. "Looks like we’ve got us a little problem in the transponder itself, Sir."

  "How big a ‘little problem’?" Tremaine demanded tersely.

  "All I can tell you for certain right this minute is that it ain’t working, Sir," Harkness replied. "I won’t know more till we pull it, but between you and me, it don’t look real good. The problem’s in the encryption module." He tapped the component in question and shrugged. "This here’s an almost solid cube of molycircs, and I didn’t see no molecular electronics shop aboard either of these two birds."