by David Weber
Now whose name, I wonder, did she'd just substitute Jeremy's for? Elizabeth thought. She considered pressing the point, but not very hard.
"Under the circumstances, they decided someone needed to take a good, hard look at Manpower from inside the belly of the beast, as it were. They didn't have a specific action plan, beyond getting inside Mesa's reach. They wanted to be close enough to be hands-on, able to follow up leads directly instead of being weeks or even months of communications time from the investigation. I think they were probably thinking in terms of setting up a permanent surveillance op, if they could figure out a way to pull it off, but, mostly, they were looking for proof of Manpower's involvement in Webster's assassination and the attack on Berry."
She paused, with the look of a woman deciding against mentioning something else, and despite her focused intensity, Elizabeth smiled ever so slightly.
Unwontedly tactful of you, Cathy. Don't want to come right out and say 'And they wanted that proof to be good enough it could convince even you to think logically about other candidates, Elizabeth,' now do you?
"At any rate," Montaigne went on more briskly, "the one thing they weren't going to do was link up with any 'official' Ballroom cells on Mesa. We have reason to believe, especially in light of a few recent discoveries, that any Ballroom cell on the planet is likely to be compromised. So there's zero possibility Anton or . . . any of his people were involved in any Ballroom operation against Green Pines. They were there expressly to keep a low profile; the information they were after—especially if it confirmed their suspicions—was far more important than any attack could have been; and they were avoiding contact with any known Ballroom operative."
Elizabeth's eyes had narrowed again. Now she leaned back and cocked her head to one side.
"Would it make this any simpler for you, Cathy," she asked almost whimsically, "if you just went ahead and said 'Anton and Agent Cachat' instead of being so diplomatic?"
It was Montaigne's eyes' turn to narrow, and the queen chuckled, albeit a bit sourly.
"I assure you, I've read the reports on just exactly how Torch came into being with a certain closeness. And I've had direct reports from Ruth, too, you know. She's done her best to be . . . tactful, let's say, but it's been obvious Agent Cachat's still something of a fixture on Torch. And, for that matter, that he and Captain Zilwicki have formed some sort of at least semi-permanent partnership."
"It would make it simpler, as a matter of fact," Montaigne said slowly. "And since this seems to be cards-on-the-table time, I suppose I should go ahead and admit that the reason I hadn't already brought Victor up is that I wasn't certain it wouldn't prejudice you against anything I had to say."
"I'm a good and expert hater, Cathy," Elizabeth said dryly. "Reports to the contrary notwithstanding, however, I'm not really clinically insane. I won't pretend I'm happy to hear about shared skulduggery, hobnobbing, and mutual admiration societies between someone who used to be one of my own spies and someone who's still currently spying for a star nation I happen to be at war with. But if politics makes strange bedfellows, I suppose it's only reasonable wars should do the same. In fact, one of my closer associates made that point to me—a bit forcefully—not so long ago."
"Really?" Montaigne's eyebrows arched, and Elizabeth could almost see the wheels and the gears going around in her brain. But then the ex-countess gave herself a visible shake.
"Anyway," she said, "Victor was the reason we knew Haven hadn't ordered Torch attack. Or, at least, that no official Havenite intelligence organ was behind it, since he would have been the one tasked to carry it out if Pritchart had sanctioned it. And you're right about the kind of partnership he and Anton have evolved. As a matter of fact, the way their abilities complement one another makes both of them even more effective. Victor has an absolute gift for improvisation, whereas Anton has a matching gift for methodical analysis and forethought. If anyone was going to be able to pry the truth out of that fucking cesspool, it was going to be them."
Her nostrils flared. Then she paused again, lips tightening.
"But you haven't heard from them in almost five months," Elizabeth said gently.
"No," Montaigne admitted softly. "We haven't heard from them, we haven't heard from the people responsible for transporting them in and out, and we haven't heard from the Biological Survey Corps, either."
"Whoa!" Elizabeth straightened suddenly in her chair. "Beowulf was involved in this, too?" She half-glared at Montaigne. "Tell me, was there anybody in the entire galaxy who wasn't sneaking around behind my back to keep me from getting my dander up?"
"Well," Montaigne admitted, smiling crookedly despite her own obvious deep concern, "actually, beyond a certain amount of Erewhonese assistance, that's just about everybody. I think."
"Oh, you think, do you?"
"I can't be absolutely certain, of course. I mean, what with Torch and all the others, it was something of a . . . multinational effort."
"I see." Elizabeth sat back once more, then shook her head. "You don't think having so many cooks stirring the soup could have anything to do with whatever obviously went wrong, do you?"
"I think it's possible," Montaigne acknowledged. "On the other hand, the way Anton and Victor normally operate, it's unlikely anybody but them really knew enough to seriously compromise the operation. Still," she drooped visibly again, "you're right—something did obviously go wrong. I can't believe Mesa just decided to include Anton in their version of what happened, and that means something blew, somewhere. What we don't know is exactly what blew and how serious the consequences were. But—"
"But this long without any word suggests the consequences could have been pretty damned serious," Elizabeth finished softly for her.
"Exactly." Montaigne drew a deep breath. "On the other hand, Mesa hasn't produced his body, or mentioned Victor or Haven, or taken the opportunity to take a swipe at Beowulf for its involvement. That suggests it didn't blow completely. I know"—despite her best efforts, her voice wavered—"there can be advantages to simply 'disappearing' someone and letting her side sweat the potential consequences in ignorance. And given how we seem to have been underestimating, or at least misreading, Mesa's role in this, and its possible sophistication, it's possible they recognized that accusing Haven and Beowulf of involvement, as well, would be too much of a good thing. Too much for even Solly public opinion to swallow. But I keep coming back to the fact that if they could actually prove Anton was on Mesa, it would have been the absolute clincher for this fairy tale about his being involved in the attack. So if they didn't offer that proof—"
"It seems unlikely they had it in the first place," Elizabeth said.
"Exactly," Montaigne said again, then chuckled.
"What?"
"I was just thinking," the ex-countess said. "You always did have that habit of finishing thoughts for me when we were kids."
"Mostly because someone as scatterbrained as you needed someone to tidy up around the edges," Elizabeth retorted.
"Maybe." Montaigne's humor faded. "Anyway, that's where we are. Anton was on Mesa about the time the nukes went off. I can't prove he wasn't involved, but if Mesa could prove he was, the bastards would have done it by now. So either he's on his way home, and his transportation arrangements have hit a bump, or else . . . ."
Her voice trailed off, and this time Elizabeth felt no temptation at all to complete her thought for her.
"I understand," the queen said, instead.
She tipped her chair back, rocking it slightly while she thought hard for the better part of a minute. Then she let it come back upright.
"I understand," she repeated. "Unfortunately, nothing you've just told me really helps, does it? As you say, we can't prove Captain Zilwicki—and, by implication, Torch and the Star Empire—weren't involved. In fact, going public with the fact that he was on Mesa at all would be the worst thing we could possibly do at this point. But I'm afraid that's going to make things rough on you, Cathy."
/> "I know." Montaigne grimaced. "You're going to have to take the position that the Star Empire wasn't involved, and along the way, you're going to have to point out that even assuming Anton was involved, he's no longer an ONI agent. Ever since he took up with that notorious incendiary and public shill for terrorism Montaigne, he's been establishing his own links to the abolitionist movement and, yes, probably to those Ballroom terrorists. Under those circumstances, clearly neither you, personally, nor the Star Empire is in any position to comment one way or the other on what he may have been responsible for since going rogue that way."
"I'm afraid that's exactly what we're going to have to do," Elizabeth acknowledged. "And when some frigging newsy pounces on his personal relationship with you, the very best I'm going to be able to do is 'no comment' and a recommendation they discuss that with you, not me."
"And they're going to come after the firebrand rabble-rouser with everything they've got," Montaigne sighed. "Well, it won't be the first time. And, with just a little luck, they'll give me the opportunity to get in a few solid counterpunches of my own. The idiots usually do."
"But it's going to make problems for your Liberals, too," Elizabeth pointed out. "If—when—this turns as ugly as I think it's going to do, Willie and I are both going to find ourselves forced to hold you at arms length . . . at best. And that doesn't even consider the fact that at least someone inside the party's going to see this as an opportunity to boot you out of the leader's position."
"If that happens, it happens." Montaigne's tone was philosophical; the flinty light in her eyes suggested that anyone who wanted a fight was going to get one. In fact, Elizabeth thought, the other woman was probably looking forward to it as a distraction from her personal fears.
"I'm sorry," the queen said quietly. Their eyes met once more, and this time Elizabeth's sad smile was that of an old friend, not a monarch.
"I've always been ambivalent about the Ballroom," she continued. "For personal reasons, in part. I understand all about 'asymmetrical warfare,' but assassinations and terrorist attacks cut just a little too close to home for me. I'm not hypocritical enough to condemn the Ballroom for fighting back in the only way it's ever been able to, but I'm afraid that's not the same thing as saying I approve of it. But whether I approve or not, I've always admired the sheer guts it takes to get down into the blood and the mud with something like Manpower. And despite our own political differences, Cathy, I've always actually admired you for being willing to openly acknowledge your support for the people willing to fight back the only way they can, whatever the rest of the galaxy may think about it."
"That . . . means quite a bit to me, Beth." Montaigne's voice was as quiet as Elizabeth's had been. "Mind you, I know it's not going to change anything about our political stances, but it does mean a lot."
"Good." Elizabeth's smile grew broader. "And now, if I could ask you for a personal favor in my persona as Queen of Manticore?"
"What sort of favor?"
Montaigne's tone and expression were both wary, and Elizabeth chuckled.
"Don't worry! I wasn't setting you up for a sucker punch by telling you what a wonderful, fearless person you are, Cathy." She shook her head. "No. What I was thinking about is that this news is going to hit the Haven System in about a week and a half, and I shudder to think about the impact it's going to have on Duchess Harrington's negotiations with the Pritchart Administration. I'm sure it's going to have repercussions with all of our allies, of course, and thank God we at least consulted with them—unlike a certain ex-prime minister—before we opened negotiations this time around, but I'm more concerned about Haven's reaction. So what I would deeply appreciate your doing would be writing up what you've just told me, or as much of it as you feel you could share with Duchess Harrington, at least, for me to send her as deep background."
"You want me to tell the Duchess Anton was actually on Mesa?"
There was something a bit odd about Montaigne's tone, Elizabeth thought, but the queen simply shrugged and nodded.
"Among other things. It would help a lot if she had that kind of information in the back of her brain. And I believe the two of you know one another, don't you?"
"Fairly well, actually," Montaigne acknowledged. "Since I came home to Manticore, that is."
"Well, in that case, I probably don't have to tell you she has an ironclad sense of honor," Elizabeth said. "In fact, sometimes I think her parents must have had precognition or something when they picked her first name! At any rate, I assure you she'd never even consider divulging anything you may tell her without your specific permission."
"If you're confident of her discretion," Montaigne said in that same peculiar tone, "that's good enough for me." She smiled. "I'll go ahead and write it up for you, and I'm sure she won't say a word about it to anyone."
Chapter Fifteen
"Alpha translation in two hours, Sir."
"Thank you, Simon."
Lieutenant Commander Lewis Denton had been perfectly aware of that fact, but procedure mandated the astrogator's report just in case he'd somehow failed to notice. He smiled at the familiar thought, but the smile was brief, and it vanished quickly as he glanced at the civilian in the assistant tactical officer's chair.
Gregor O'Shaughnessy was doing a less than perfect job of concealing his tension, but Denton didn't blame him for that. Besides, it wasn't as if his own surface appearance of calm was fooling anyone, even if the rules of the game required everyone—including him—to pretend it was.
He glanced at the date/time display. Seventy-four T-days had passed, by the clocks of the universe at large, since HMS Reprise had departed from Spindle for the Meyers System, the headquarters of the Office of Frontier Security in the Madras Sector. Of course, it hadn't been that long for Reprise's crew, given that they'd spent virtually all of it hurtling through hyper-space at seventy percent of light-speed. But they'd still been gone for just over fifty-three T-days even by their own clocks, and the return leg of their lengthy voyage had seemed far, far longer than the outbound leg.
* * *
"More coffee, Ma'am?"
Michelle Henke looked up at the murmured question and nodded agreement. Master Steward Billingsley filled her cup, checked quickly around the table, topped off Michael Oversteegen's cup, and withdrew. Michelle watched him go with a smile, then returned her attention to the officers around the conference table in HMS Artemis' flag briefing room.
"You were saying, Michael?"
"I was sayin', Milady, that findin' myself up against Apollo seemed like just a tiny bit of overkill."
He smiled at her, and although it would have taken someone who knew him very well, Michelle recognized the twinkle deep in his eyes. Not every subordinate flag officer who'd been so thoroughly (one might almost, she admitted, say shamelessly) blindsided by a weapons system the other side shouldn't have possessed would have found the experience amusing. Fortunately, Oversteegen at least had a sense of humor.
"To be honest, it seemed that way to me, too." She quirked a smile of her own at him. "I didn't do it just to be nasty, though. I mean, I did do it to be nasty, but that wasn't the only reason I did it."
This time there was a general mutter of laughter, and Oversteegan raised one hand in the gesture of a fencing master acknowledging a touch.
"The other reason I did it, though," she continued more seriously, "was that I wanted an opportunity to see someone—a live, flesh-and-blood someone, not an AI-administered simulation—respond to Apollo. I couldn't find anyone here in Tenth Fleet who wouldn't realize what was happening as soon as she saw it, but I could at least set up a situation in which she—or, in this case, he—didn't know it was coming ahead of time."
"And is your lab rat permitted t' ask how he performed?" he inquired genially.
"Not bad at all for someone who lost eighty-five percent of his total command," she reassured him, and another chuckle ran around the squadron and division commanders seated at the table with them.
"Actually, Sir," Sir Aivars Terekhov said, "I thought it was even more impressive that you managed to take out three of the op force's superdreadnoughts in return."
More than one head nodded in agreement, and Oversteegen shrugged.
"I remembered readin' your report from Monica," he said. "You might say I had a proprietary interest in your actin' tac officer's performance. I was impressed by th' way you used your Ghost Rider platforms t' reduce th' telemetry lag for your Mark 16s. Didn't seem t' me there was any reason I couldn't do th' same thing with Mark 23s." He shrugged. "It's not as good as Apollo, but it's a lot better than nothin'."
"You're right about that," Michelle agreed. "And, by the way, the dispatch boat which arrived this morning had several interesting items aboard. The latest newsfaxes from home—and from Old Terra—among other things." She made a face, and Oversteegen snorted harshly. "In addition to that inspiring reading and viewing material, however, there were two additional items which I think you'll all find interesting."
One or two people sat up straighter, and she saw several sets of eyes narrow in speculation.
"The first is that we should be receiving an entire battle squadron of Apollo-capable Invictuses in about three weeks." The reaction of almost explosive relief which swept around the table was all she could have asked for. "There was a bit of a glitch in the deployment order, and their ammunition ships will be here a week or so before they are."
There were quite a few smiles, now, and she smiled back.
"Actually, the missile ships were originally scheduled to arrive two weeks after the wallers," she continued, "but the squadrons we were supposed to get under that deployment plan wound up going somewhere else, so we had to wait until their replacements finished working up."