Judith had been very young when the raiders took the ship, young, but not too young to remember. There had been explosions, the shrill scream of tearing metal, the insidious tugging of air leaking from a ruptured compartment before someone slapped on a patch.
The battle had been muffled, somehow less than real, made distant by the swaddling vac suit two sizes too big, but the best they'd had intact. It had been muffled, less than real, but that didn't save the child.
Reality came through later, came through with a vengeance.
Despite everything he'd been through, all the time and energy he'd put into his training, into getting marks that wouldn't shame his family, when it came time for his middy cruise, someone had gotten cold feet. Michael Winton first heard the rumor that they were going to put him on a system defense ship near Gryphon from his roommate, Todd Liatt.
Todd was one of those people who always heard things before anyone else. Michael had teased Todd, that he, not Michael, was the one who should be specializing in communications.
"You wouldn't even need a com set, Toad-breath. Information seeps directly into your nervous system. Think of the savings in time and resources that would be."
Todd had laughed, even played along with the joke, but there'd really never been a question where he would concentrate. Tactics was the best specialization for those who hoped for a ship of their own someday, and Todd wanted command.
"Hey," Todd said, mock serious, "I've got four older sisters and three older brothers. I've taken other people's orders all my life. It's time I get a turn, right?"
But they'd both known Todd's desire was motivated by an overwhelming sense of responsibility, a desire to make things right. Michael was certain that the white beret would fit Todd as naturally as his skin.
And himself? Michael didn't want command. He hadn't even wanted a career in the Navy, not at first, but now he was as devoted to the service as Todd was. He just knew he didn't want to command a vessel. Michael would never say so to Todd, but he knew too much about the cost of command to long for it.
Communications appealed to Michael: the rapid flow of information, the need to weigh and measure, to sort and balance, were all as familiar to him as breathing. He'd been playing some version of that game all his life.
He was good at it too. His memory was excellent. Pressure didn't fluster him. It seemed to focus him, to make things clearer, contrast more acute. He felt sure that no one who'd gone through a training sim with him had any doubt that he'd earned his standing on graduation.
Michael was proud of that class standing. It's very hard to be judged on your own merits when you're so highly born that people are automatically going to figure you were being carried. That's what made Todd's news almost more than he could take.
"You heard what?" Michael said to Todd, his voice taut with anger.
"I heard," Todd replied stiffly, unintimidated, "that you are going to be assigned to the Saint Elmo for her Gryphon deployment. Apparently, your singular ability to process information came to the attention of BuWeapons. They're working on some top secret sensor technology and they want the best people they can get for the trial runs."
Michael's response was long, eloquent, and suggested that he'd hung around with Marines at some time in his life. That was true. His sister was married to a former Marine, but Justin Zyrr had never used language like that in Michael's hearing.
Todd listened, his expression mingling shock and grudging admiration.
"Two years," he said. "Two years I share a room with you, and never do I learn that you can swear like that."
Michael didn't answer. He was too busy grabbing various items of clothing, obviously preparatory to storming out of the room.
"Hey, Michael, where're you going?"
"To talk to someone about my posting."
"You can't! It isn't official yet."
"If I wait until it's official," Michael said, his voice tight, "then it's going to be too late. Insubordination at least. Now I might be able to do something."
Todd was too smart to fight a losing engagement.
"Who're you going to talk to? Commander Shrake?"
"No. I'm going to screen Beth. If this is her idea, I need to know why. If it isn't her idea, I need to know so someone can't try to convince me that it is. When I know that, then I'll try Shrake."
"Forewarned is forearmed," Todd agreed.
Michael nodded. One thing his com training had taught him. Find a secure line if you want to discuss a sensitive matter.
He guessed it was pretty sensitive when you were going to place a person to person call to the Queen.
The ship that had captured theirs had been from Masada. Judith had been too young to understand the difference between pirates and privateers. When she was old enough to know, she was also old enough to know that when it came to Masadans preying on Graysons the distinctions were so much fertilizer.
Her father had been killed helping to defend the ship. Her mother had died trying to defend her child. Judith only wished she could have died with them.
At twelve standards Judith was married to a man over four times her age. Ephraim Templeton had captained the Masadan privateer that had taken the Grayson vessel, and he claimed the girl child as part of his prize. If this was somewhat irregular, there was no one left alive to protest when Judith was not repatriated to her own people.
Even disregarding the difference in their ages—Ephraim had seen five and half decades by standard reckoning—Judith and Ephraim were not at all alike. Where Ephraim was heavily built, Judith possessed a light, gazelle's build. Her hair was dark brown, sun-kissed with reddish gold highlights. His was fair, silver mixed in increasing proportion to the blond. The eyes Judith learned to carry downcast lest Ephraim beat her for impudence were hazel, brown ringing vibrant green. Ephraim's eyes were pale blue and as cold as ice.
At thirteen Judith had her first miscarriage. When she had her second miscarriage six months later, the doctor suggested that her husband stop trying to impregnate her for a few years lest her reproductive equipment suffer permanent damage. Ephraim did as the doctor suggested, though that didn't mean he stopped exercising his conjugal privileges.
At sixteen Judith was pregnant again. When tests showed that the unborn child was a girl, her husband ordered an abortion, saying he didn't want to waste the useless bitch he'd been feeding all these years to no purpose, and what was more purposeless than breeding a girl child?
If before Judith had hated and feared Ephraim, now that emotion transformed into loathing so deep she thought it a wonder that her gaze did not sear Ephraim to ash where he stood. Her sweat should have been acid on his skin, her breath poison. That was how deeply she hated him.
Some women would have committed suicide. Some might have resorted to murder—which in Masadan society was the same as suicide, though a bit more satisfactory in that the murderer achieved something in return for her death. But Judith did neither.
She had a secret, a secret she held onto even as she bit her lip to keep from crying out when her husband used her again and yet again. She held onto it even when she saw the grudging pity in the eyes of her co-wives. She held onto it as she had from the moment she watched her mother bleed her life out onto the deck plates, remembering that brave woman's final warning.
"Never let them know that you can read."
It hadn't been Elizabeth's idea to have him posted to a lumbering superdreadnought that would never even leave the Star Kingdom's home binary system. Michael's relief when he learned this was boundless. Even before their father's death, Beth had encouraged Michael to find his own place, to push his limits. Distracted as she had been by the heavy responsibilities she assumed after their father's tragic death, Beth still had made time for Michael, listening to the problems he couldn't seem to discuss with their mother, the dowager Queen Angelique.
To have found that Beth had suddenly changed would have been a new orphaning, worse in many ways, for on some level Michael expected it—indeed, knew he should strive for it, since it was his place to support his Queen, not hers to support him.
Now that he knew that he would not be undermining his Queen's policy, Michael made an appointment to see the Fourth Form dean. That he could almost certainly have demanded an appointment with the commandant of the Academy and been granted it occurred to him, but the option was as quickly rejected. The Navy could be—and was—officially unyielding where matters of birth and privilege were concerned. That didn't mean strings weren't quietly pulled in the background, but anyone who too blatantly abused his position could expect to pay a price throughout the entire course of his career. Besides, it would have been self-defeating. The appointment would have been granted to the Crown Prince, not to Midshipman Michael Winton, and being seen as Crown Prince Michael rather than Midshipman Winton was precisely what Michael was trying to avoid.
However, if his appointment with the dean came rather more promptly than even a fourth form midshipman who stood in the top quarter of his class could usually hope for, Michael wasn't fool enough to refuse it. He arrived promptly, sharp in his undress uniform, every button, and bit of trim in as perfect order as he and Todd could make them.
Michael saluted crisply when admitted to his superior officer's presence. Indeed, though there had been those who had expected the Crown Prince to indicate in fashions subtle or less so that in the past these same officers had bent knee before him, Michael had never given them reason. He knew, as those who were not close to the Crown never could, how human monarchs were, how an accident could make an eighteen-year-old queen . . . could make a thirteen-year-old crown prince.
Michael wondered how many of those officers who expected him to slight them realized how greatly in awe of them he stood. They had earned their ranks, earned their awards and honors. The long list of titles Michael heard recited on formal occasions had nothing to do with him, everything to do with his father.
He thought that Commander Brenda Shrake, Lady Weatherfell, might actually realize how he felt, for there was a warmth in her pale green eyes that spoke of understanding that in no way could be confused with indulgence or laxity. The dean's title identified her to Michael as the holder of a prosperous grant on Sphinx, but long ago Lady Weatherfell had decided that her calling was in the Navy.
Even the battle that had left traces of scaring on rather stark features, that had bent and twisted two fingers of her right hand, had not made her renounce her decision. Instead Commander Shrake had moved with all the wisdom of her long years shipboard to the academy, where, in addition to her administrative duties, she taught some of the toughest courses in fusion engineering.
Commander Shrake was a leader within an academy responsible for turning out competent naval officers on what anyone with any sense must realize was the eve of war. There was no room for indulgence in her job, but there was room for compassion.
"You wished to see me, Mr. Winton?"
Michael nodded stiffly.
"Yes, Ma'am. It's about a rumor."
"A rumor?"
Suddenly Michael felt the speeches he had been rehearsing since Todd's revelation the day before dry up and flake away. After a panicked moment, he forced himself to begin afresh and was pleased to find words came smoothly.
"Yes, Ma'am. A rumor about Fourth Form postings."
Commander Shrake smiled. "Yes, those rumors would be starting about now. They always do, no matter how carefully we keep the information to ourselves."
She didn't ask how Michael had heard and for that Michael was grateful. Getting Todd into trouble was not on his agenda, but neither was lying to the Fourth Form dean.
"And whose posting is it you wish to speak about?" Commander Shrake continued.
"My own, Ma'am."
"Yes?"
"Commander Shrake, I have heard that I am to be posted to the SD Saint Elmo."
The dean didn't even make a show of consulting her computer. Michael respected her for it. Doubtless the matter had been discussed, maybe even debated. Someone at Mount Royal Palace might even have leaked back news of Michael's call to Beth last night.
"That matches my own information," Commander Shrake replied. "Is that what you wished to know?"
"Yes, Ma'am, and no, Ma'am. I did wish to have the rumor confirmed, Ma'am, but I," Michael took a deep breath and let the rest of his words hurry out on its eddy, "also wished to request another posting, Ma'am. One that isn't so close to home."
"You have a desire to see more of the universe, Mr. Winton?" asked the dean with a dangerous twinkle in her eyes.
"Yes, Ma'am," Michael replied, "but that isn't my reason for requesting a change of posting."
"And that reason is?"
"I want . . ."
Michael hesitated. He'd been over this so many times he'd lost count, and he still couldn't find a way to state his case without sounding pompous.
"Ma'am, I want to be a naval officer, and I can't do that if people start protecting me."
Twin silver arches of raised eyebrows made Michael flush.
"It is not the Navy's habit to protect her officers, Mr. Winton," Commander Shrake said coolly, and the scarred hand she rested on the desk in front of her was mute testimony to her words. "Rather it is those officers' job to protect the rest of the kingdom."
"Yes, Ma'am," Michael said, pressing on through he felt he'd doomed his case. "That's why keeping me back here isn't right. The Queen's brother . . ."
The damned words fell from his lips like bricks.
"The Queen's brother might have right to protection, but when I entered the academy I gave that up. It shouldn't start again now that I'm about to leave."
Commander Shrake steepled her fingers thoughtfully.
"And that's what you think this posting is, Mr. Winton?"
"Yes, Ma'am."
"And if I told you that Admiral Hemphill herself had heard of your qualifications and requested you?"
"I would be pleased, Ma'am, but that wouldn't stop others from thinking that I was being protected."
"And it matters to you what others think?"
"I'd like to say that it didn't, Ma'am," Michael said earnestly, "but I'd be lying. I could live with it if it was only me. I've done that before, but I don't like what it might make others think about the Navy."
"Oh?"
"Yes, Ma'am. If the Queen's brother is given a posting where he's not subjected to as great a risk of combat, then how long will it be before some other nobles start thinking that's their right, too?"
Michael paused, not knowing if he'd overstepped himself, but the dean nodded for him to continue.
"The Navy needs recruits, Ma'am," Michael continued, "from all elements of our society. I don't like to think what will happen if the word gets around that certain people are too valuable for dangerous postings—and that by implication other people are considered more disposable."
"Mr. Winton, surely you realize that this has always been the case. Frankly, certain people are more valuable."
"Yes, Ma'am, but they are valuable because of what they know, because of what they have learned, because of what they can contribute to the conduct of naval operations. They are not," Michael concluded, unable to keep a trace of bitterness from his voice, "considered more valuable due to an accident of birth."
"I see," Commander Shrake said after an uncomfortably long pause. "I see, and I believe I understand. What, then, are you requesting, Mr. Winton?"
"A more usual midshipman's posting, Ma'am," Michael said. "If the Navy truly believes I can be of greatest service in an SD orbiting Gryphon then I will give that posting everything I have."
"But you would prefer, say, a battlecruiser heading out to deal with Silesian pirates."
"I believe that is more usual, Ma'am," Michael said.
"I see," the dean repeated. "Very well. You have made your case. I will consider it and perhaps present the matter to the Commandant. Is there anything else, Mr. Winton?"
"No, Ma'am. Thank you for hearing me out, Commander."
"Listening is part of being a good commander," Shrake said, sounding rather like she had returned to the lecture hall. "Then if you are finished, you are dismissed."
Grayson and Masada shared certain attitudes towards women, a factor that was not at all surprising since the Masadans had originally been part of the Grayson colony. Both societies refused women the vote and the right to own property. Both considered women inferior to men, seeing as their main role supporting and upholding their homes and husbands. Both societies, to be blunt, considered women property.
But property can be valued and valuable. The Graysons came to see their women as treasures. Grayson men might refuse their women numerous rights and privileges, but in return they were enjoined to love and protect them. The protection might be smothering and binding, but usually it was not damaging.
The Masadans, after their separation from Grayson, grew to see women in a different light. Since the Masadan attempt to gain control of Grayson society had been thwarted by a woman—even as God's plan for Man had been thwarted by Eve—so women were perceived as the visible, living embodiments of sin and suffering. Few actions were considered out of line when inflicted on such creatures. Indeed, a woman might work her way toward redemption by accepting whatever was done to her.
On Grayson a man did not mistreat a woman because she was precious. On Masada, theoretically, a man might treat any woman as harshly as he wished. Most were wise enough not to exercise this right because to do so would be to invite similar treatment of their own property. Individual owners might abuse their women as much as they deemed right to preserve the sanctity and order of their households. Most did.
One did not bother to educate property on Masada. On Grayson, higher education and formal degrees might be denied to women, but basic literacy and math were routinely taught. They had to be, if only because the daily maintenance of household technology in such a hostile environment required it.
Masada's less lethal planetary environment obviated that need, and no good Masadan patriarch was about to waste education on a mere female. Judith's parents, scions of a merchant family with ties outside the Grayson system, had begun her education earlier than most. They'd decided to have her educated beyond even the normal Grayson standards for a variety of reasons. One of these was that they did not wish to seem backward in the eyes of those with whom they sought to do business. Another was that they were good, God-fearing people who did not see how the ability to contemplate God's wonders and mysteries intellectually, as well as with the blind obedience of faith, could hurt anyone. Especially not in a faith which enshrined the doctrine of the Test.
Finally, there was an element of practicality. Even though propriety meant that a girl would not be exposed to the prying eyes of strangers, that didn't mean she had to be useless. A girl who could read, write, and work sums could help with the business. When her parents discovered that Judith had an almost preternatural quickness with mathematics and logic patterns, they delighted in giving her puzzles and games meant to enhance this ability.
But Judith's mother understood, as her father might not have done, the danger that knowledge placed the girl in when the Masadan raiders took their ship. Despite her tender years, Judith understood her mother's warning. Even within Grayson society she had been encouraged to conceal just how much she knew. Indeed, as she grew older she had concealed from her parents just how much she had learned, fearing they might view her education as complete.
That habit of secrecy and the knowledge it concealed was why Judith didn't kill herself, why she didn't kill the man who called himself her husband, lord, and master. She had something else in mind. Something that would hurt Ephraim Templeton a great deal more.
Judith began training for her revenge during the first years of her captivity, continued after her marriage, focused more intensely once Ephraim began to try to father children upon her. She hoped to put her plan into action before he could tie her to Masada through their children. What she had never realized was that she would care about those little lives, even those never born.
On the day she learned that the child she carried was a girl—a girl Ephraim did not plan to let live—Judith knew she had no choice but to put her plan into action.
Even so, she knew it was unlikely that she could save this baby. Her hope was that she could save the next.
"I simply don't see how we can pretend to forget that his sister is the Queen," said Lieutenant Carlotta Dunsinane, assistant tactical officer of Her Majesty's light cruiser, Intransigent.
"Carlie, a slew of instructors and classmates at Saganami Island have been pretending it for the last three and a half years," replied Abelard Boniece, Intransigent's captain. "Now it's our turn."
"But still . . ."
Lieutenant Dunsinane let her voice trail off. In her inflection was a wealth of unspoken knowledge, the awareness that the young man whose dossier glowed on the screen between them was next in line for the crown of the Star Kingdom of Manticore. True, Michael's sister, Queen Elizabeth the Third, was married and her firstborn child would undoubtedly replace him as Heir in due time. But Michael Winton had been the Crown Prince for the last nine years. His social and political rank were not easy things to disregard.
Then there was the uncomfortable resemblance between Midshipman Michael Winton and his father, the much-loved King Roger III. The latter had died long before his time, victim of a freak jet-ski accident that had left the Star Kingdom grieving, and thrust Elizabeth and her brother into the public eye.
For Elizabeth, just a few years short of her majority, this scrutiny was something for which she had some training. For thirteen year-old Michael, still at an age when traditional forbearance shielded him from the greedy eye of the newsies, there had been little preparation.
The resemblance between father and son came across despite Prince Michael's apparent youth, extending beyond the Winton's clean-cut features and strikingly dark skin. It had something to do with the set of the youth's jaw, the manner in which he carried his head straight and square on his shoulders, even in the way he seemed unaware of the myriad gazes that flickered in his direction and then politely away again—an unawareness that was never rude or rejecting, simply unaware.
To be fair to Prince Michael—Midshipman Winton—Carlie reminded herself with the fierce determination of one who is certain it is only a matter of time before she screws up, part of Carlie's own uncertainty had nothing to do with Michael Winton himself. The midshipman's dossier had given no indication that Michael Winton expected privileges or had been given them, but Lieutenant Carlotta Dunsinane couldn't quite believe this was so, and deep inside she was steeled for trouble.
To make matters worse, as part of the RMN's on-going naval expansion, Intransigent's middy berth was filled to bursting—and suddenly, cynically, Carlie realized the reason why there had been a couple of changes in those assigned to her care. Doubtless there were those in a position to learn of Mr. Winton's new assignment in advance, those who saw an advantage to having their son or daughter serve on the Crown Prince's middy cruise, an advantage that nothing as trivial as a sudden change in posting could make impossible.
As supervisor of Intransigent's middy berth, Lieutenant Dunsinane was under conflicting pressures. She had to simultaneously guard and direct her young charges, yet try to break them if there was anything in them that needed breaking. This was never an easy task, but it was going to be made more difficult with a middy berth overloaded with scions of rank and privilege.
Then there was the ATO's acute awareness that the RMN desperately needed good officers—with the emphasis on "good"—but there were those who thought that any officer was a good officer with the fleet spread so thin. So Carlie knew that there would be those in the command structure who would fault her for breaking any of those who had survived the gruelling three and a half T-years they'd spent at the Academy—not to mention fault her for wasting the money invested in that training.
And fault her even more if one of those whose training didn't pan out was the carefully watched, highly observed Prince Michael Winton. Yet she'd also be faulted if Midshipman Winton passed his cruise without proving himself.
Carlie swallowed an impulse to offer her resignation here and now.
"Mr. Winton will be reporting to you in just a few days, so you have time to prepare yourself," Captain Boniece continued. "May I offer you a word of advice?"
"I would accept your advice gladly, Sir."
"Give the young man a chance to prove himself before you condemn him."
"I'll do my best, Sir."
Carlie Dunsinane meant every word. She also knew how difficult keeping those words was going to be.
As she was leaving, she saw Tab Tilson, the head communications' officer, coming in with the latest dispatches. Before the door slid closed, she heard him say:
"More changes, Sir, I'm afraid."
The door slid shut before Carlie could hear what those changes were, but she sincerely hoped they had nothing to do with her already overcomplicated middy berth.
Ephraim Templeton ruled his household with an iron rod—or more literally a very flexible whip and a willingness to use it. However, much of how he regulated his household was based on certain assumptions.
None of Ephraim's wives could read. Therefore, no effort was made to secure the library against them. None of his wives could use the computer beyond activating the simple pictorial icons used for routine household chores. Certainly, none of them could manage anything as complicated as programming.
Judith, however, could read. She was familiar with the more complicated computers used by the Graysons, and her parents had taught her elementary programming. This last, combined with ready access to Ephraim's household databanks, made it possible for Judith to continue her education.
Her mother's dying warning had also provided a hint as to along which path lay Judith's freedom. If the Masadans did not want her to know anything, then she would seek to know everything—and to keep her acquisition of that knowledge from them.
Judith's programmed safeguards would not have stopped a careful security check, but where there can be no mice, no one sets mousetraps. She had another advantage as well. She was not her husband's favorite wife. Indeed, in many ways she was his least favorite, but Ephraim did not dispose of her because she was a prize.
To his fellows, who hated the Graysons with singleminded fanaticism, Judith was presented as a soul redeemed from sin, a vessel who would carry within her womb those who would prove the undoing of their own forbearers. For this reason, Ephraim often took Judith with him when his duties took him away from home. She was a trophy: living, breathing proof that the Masadan struggle to conquer Grayson would not be in vain.
Initially, Judith, then only twelve, had hated these voyages. They forced her into increased intimacy with her husband, for Ephraim didn't bring any other of his wives. However, once Judith realized that during her voyages on Aaron's Rod she was free from observation—for jealous Ephraim kept her locked in the captain's quarters lest she incite unholy lust among his crew—she took advantage of her isolation.
Hacking into the ship's computer was Judith's first challenge, but one for which her education on Grayson's more sophisticated systems had given her the tools. Once she had access to Aaron's Rod's computer, and safeguard programs in place, Judith immersed herself in the joys of forbidden knowledge.
While she was supposed to be praying or memorizing scripture, Judith familiarized herself with the ship's systems, starting with the basics of life support, engineering, and communications, moving from these into the more arcane specializations of weaponry and astrogation. Later, when she was fourteen, she began studying elementary tactics.
Had Ephraim but known, his youngest wife at fifteen was as well-educated—at least in theory—as any member of his crew. Instead he thought her something of an idiot, for her inability to memorize the scripture passages he set for her—even with the incentive of a beating for her failure—was nearly beyond belief.
But Ephraim didn't have energy to waste worrying about the deficiencies of a woman who, after all, hardly needed a mind to serve her purpose. As he had been when Aaron's Rod took the merchant vessel that had carried Judith and her parents, Ephraim continued to serve as a Masadan privateer.
Ephraim was very careful which ships he hunted. Most of the time he was content to masquerade as an armed merchantman, even to the extent of carrying regular cargos. The missile tubes and laser batteries that were part of his vessel could be turned to other purposes than self-defense, however, and when the situation was deemed propitious, unarmed ships fell before Aaron's Rod's might.
Judith, of course, did not take part in these battles. When Aaron's Rod went into battle, she remained locked in the captain's quarters. Ephraim valued her sufficiently to provide a vac suit lest she die from a breach in the hull, but that suit was an uncertain refuge. Ephraim had no wish to have Judith become some other man's prize, so tied into her vac suit was a version of the dead man's switch, rigged so that if Ephraim died, or even if he viewed their situation as hopeless, Judith would also die.
What Ephraim didn't realize was that Judith knew all about the switch, and had disabled it while leaving the circuit sufficiently intact to hide her tampering from routine equipment checks. She re-checked the suit every time she put it on, reassured in the knowledge that the suit was only issued to her when the situation was critical, and her captors too distracted to do more than scan the telltales.
Thus Judith came to revel in her shipboard time.
As her confidence grew, Judith didn't restrict her education in ship systems to when she was aboard Aaron's Rod. Ephraim had purchased training simulation software for the use of his sons. Both the software and the VR rigs used for the most realistic training were expensive beyond Ephraim's usual prudent parsimony. However, he dreamed of one day commanding a privateer fleet with his sons as captains. The actions of this fleet would make the name Templeton famous throughout Masada, earning the clan a posting at the forefront of the action when the day came to make a decisive strike against the heretics on Grayson.
Fourteen year-old Judith discovered the best times to extract a VR rig from the lockers. Unlike her stepsons, who gloried in battle scenarios, she concentrated on the boring programs: Piloting a ship. Preparing for a hyper translation and adjusting to post-translation nausea. Checking and understanding astrogation coordinates. Scanning for communications.
In careful secrecy, Judith forced herself to learn how to get the most out of each of the preprogrammed routines that ran the essential ship stations, knowing that when her time came she would likely have to do without much in the way of a crew.
Judith was working her way through a particularly complicated scenario dealing with the aftereffects of a power surge following a return to N-space, when the VR rig was jerked off her face.
"What do you think you are doing?" Ephraim's senior wife hissed.
Like every other member of his graduating class, Michael Winton was given an opportunity to visit his family before reporting to his new assignment. It was good to be home, though Michael's suite at Mount Royal Palace seemed unnecessarily large and rather empty without Todd's explosively effusive companionship.
Empty, that was, unless Beth's son, Roger, came exploding into the room. Roger was three T-years old, with all the energy and curiosity that could be wished for in that delightful age when a baby is becoming distinctly a little boy.
When Roger reached his sixth Manticoran birthday—which would make him just over ten, by standard reckoning—he would be subjected to a comprehensive battery of physical and mental tests meant to guarantee that he was suited to be the next king. Until then, Michael would continue to hold the title Crown Prince and be next in the succession. Remembering his own encounter with a similar battery of tests, Michael had no doubt that Roger would pass with well over the minimum requirements.
Seven more years to go, Michael thought without the least trace of wistfulness. Then I can be just plain Prince Michael again—and if Beth has another kid or two, I'll drop so far down the succession I'll be like Aunt Caitrin, just another superfluous noble.
He grinned at the thought, swinging a delightedly shrieking Roger around and around in circles. He thought there was probably no one less superfluous than Duchess Winton-Henke, his late father's younger sister, but he knew she'd enjoy the joke as much as he did.
All in all, Michael didn't mind having someone else make his bed, having the luxury to sleep late, the opportunity to wear something other than his uniform. The business of the Star Kingdom did not precisely stop because the Crown Prince was home from school, but Beth found excuses to avoid several formal engagements in favor of quiet evenings with her brother.
Even when Beth couldn't get free, Queen Mother Angelique might be available, and Roger always wanted a chance to play. For a few days, Michael could almost forget that his was a family any different from any other.
One evening after Justin had gone to put Roger to bed, brother and sister sat playing chess. Their only audience was Beth's treecat, Ariel, who sprawled drowsily across his human's lap. To Michael's complete surprise, Beth extended one long finger and tipped over her king, conceding the game to him.
"I haven't checkmated you yet!" Michael protested.
"You would have in two moves," Beth said, "and I have something I need to discuss with you."
Michael heard an odd twang in his sister's voice, a barely suppressed tension that warned him that the Queen was going to confide in him information that at least some of her advisors would rather she didn't—and that she was worried that their judgement, rather than her own, might be right.
Michael kept his observation of Beth's mood to himself, reaching instead for the chess pieces and beginning to methodically fit them into their velvet-lined niches in the polished hardwood box.
After a few moments, Beth continued, "I know where Intransigent is being sent."
Michael cocked an eyebrow at her. He'd been told that his new posting, the light cruiser Intransigent, was being sent to Silesia. He didn't know which sector, but he expected they'd be taking over one of the standard anti-pirate patrols. If that was the case, though, why did Beth look so thoughtful?
"Don't be a pig," Michael prompted when her silence stretched on. "Give."
Beth smiled at the bantering note in his voice.
"Intransigent isn't going to Silesia," she said, "at least not right away. She's being diverted to deliver new orders and relief personnel to a diplomatic contingent we have negotiating with the government of the Endicott System."
"Endicott?" Michael asked, not certain he had heard right.
Beth nodded. Stealing a few chess pieces from their velvet niches, she worked up a makeshift map on the board that still rested between them.
"This queen," she said, setting the carved ebony figure at one extreme, "is the Star Kingdom. This," she said, setting the white king at the other extreme, "is the People's Republic of Haven."
"They wouldn't appreciate your using a king," Michael teased. "They're a republic, not a decadent, top-heavy monarchy like us."
Beth grinned, but she didn't exchange the piece. Instead she drew imaginary, curving lines marking the sphere of influence ruled by each piece. The area ruled by the black queen was markedly smaller than the one ruled by the white king.
"Between our two less than harmonious governments," Beth went on, "is a certain amount of stellar real estate not claimed by either us or the Peeps. Unlike the People's Republic, the Star Kingdom of Manticore does not advocate a policy of forced annexation."
The Queen spoke lightly, but there was steel beneath her words, steel that had been forged and tempered through numerous battles in the political arena against those of Beth's subjects who felt that Elizabeth the Third, like her father before her, was a bit too fond of acquiring new extra-system responsibilities for the Star Kingdom. The conflict had come to a head with the acquisition of the Basilisk System in the very year Elizabeth had been born. Despite the passage of twenty-some years and the increasingly obvious predation of the PRH, the arguments against keeping the Basilisk System had not quieted in the least.
For Michael, his term at the Academy had only made him more certain, not less, that the policy followed by the Crown was the only sensible one. The words "Star Kingdom" might sound sweepingly grand, but when it came down to facts, before the acquisition of the Basilisk System, the Star Kingdom had only been one tidy little binary solar system.
True, the Manticore System had been blessed with three habitable planets. True, it commanded a wormhole terminus that was the envy of its neighbors and the heart of a profitable trade empire. But the fact remained that one home system, now supplemented by a second much poorer system, was a very small empire in the face of all the habitable worlds within the vast region commanded by the People's Republic of Haven.
Beth now placed two bishops—one white, one black, Michael noticed in amusement—on the board so that they occupied a space between the two spheres of influence.
"Between us and the Peeps," she continued, "are a variety of neutral entities. Right now Manticoran diplomatic focus is on two of them—the only inhabited worlds in a volume twenty light years across and rather conveniently placed between us and the Peeps. One of these," she touched the black bishop, "occupies the Yeltsin's Star System. The other occupies the Endicott System."
"The Graysons," Michael said, showing off just a little, "and the Masadans."
Elizabeth cocked an eyebrow at him, clearly impressed.
"Pretty good. I guess you did learn something at the Academy."
"Luck," Michael said modestly. "I just happened to do a paper on that region for a history class. Did you know that both those systems were settled long before Manticore?"
Elizabeth nodded, a sly grin spreading across her face.
" 'Just happened to do a paper,' " she mused aloud. "Gee, anyone with a sneaky turn of mind would think you were anticipating what the Star Kingdom might need to do if the Peeps kept pressing our borders. Dad would be impressed."
Michael was pleased despite himself—as well as glad, not for the first time, that his dark skin hid his blush. Lest Beth realize his embarrassment, he kept talking.
"I even know," he said, "why you chose bishops to mark these systems on your tac board. Both Masada and Grayson are ruled by theocracies, one almost as crazy as the other."
"Almost?"
Michael shrugged.
"The Faithful of Masada are a splinter group off the original Grayson colony. If I had to pick between them, I'd pick the original Graysons. They're remarkably backward in some of their social customs, but they're marginally more tolerant than the Masadans. They have a higher tech base than the Masadans, too."
Elizabeth nodded.
"I agree with you. However, not all of my advisors are so certain that an alliance with Grayson is preferable to one with Masada. They point out that Masada is a far more habitable planet than Grayson. They also see the Masadans' technological weaknesses as our potential strengths. Not only wouldn't we need to worry about our ally getting uppity, but the Masadans should jump through hoops to have a shot at the technological jump-start we can offer."
Michael shook his head.
"I wish I believed that," he said, "but from what I recall from my research, the Masadans were willing to destroy the Graysons when they couldn't conquer them. Even after the Masadans were exiled from the Yeltsin System, they kept coming back and trying to take Grayson. Those don't sound like people who would be willing to jump through anyone's hoop."
Beth nodded.
"Again, I agree with you. However, not all my advisors are so reasonable and, despite what many of my subjects think, my whim is not what governs the Star Kingdom. To complicate matters, we're probably years away from having to pick one group over the other. Hell, not everyone is even convinced that war against the People's Republic is inevitable. So for now, we're collecting information, learning everything we can about the Masadans and Graysons while they in turn learn about us—and while they learn about the Peeps."
"And if part of that learning experience," Michael said, understanding, "is a Manticoran light cruiser sweeping through as diplomatic limousine service, then all the better."
"You've got it," Beth said. "Before you start wondering, it's not pure coincidence that Intransigent has been chosen for escort duty. Apparently, the Masadans and Graysons are both misogynists. One of the sticking points in our negotiations with both societies has been that not only do we permit women to serve in our armed forces, but also that our 'kingdom' is actually a 'queendom.' "
If Michael hadn't already encountered some information on this social peculiarity he would have thought Beth was joking, but he already knew how blinkered both the Masadans and the Graysons were by elements of their religious heritage.
"The Graysons are showing some signs of thawing on that point," Beth went on, "but the Masadans are not. Some of my advisors thought that the Masadans might be distracted by, well, by . . ."
She stopped and Michael, uncertain when was the last time he had seen his sister so at a loss for words, waited in mild astonishment.
"They thought if you went out there," Beth continued in a rush, "that the Masadans might draw the conclusion that I was just a figurehead—a broody hen laying eggs to hatch the next generation of Winton monarchs. Certainly, Roger's existence would confirm their willingness to think that way. When a culture deliberately isolates itself as the Masadans have, it tends to interpret data solely through its own distorted viewpoint."
"And," Michael said, taking up the thread to spare Beth further irritation, "the Faithful of Masada might even be honored, if they think that someone holding real power came all that way to see them."
He considered the plan, then shook his head decisively.
"It's stupid, Beth. There's lots of information available that would counter any attempt to make you look like a 'broody hen' possessed of the right pedigree. Anyhow, I'll just be a midshipman. That's hardly a rank guaranteed to impress."
"Actually," Beth said, ignoring Michael's first point to concentrate on the second. "The Masadans may well be impressed. They're a hard society, one that seems to believe equally that God preordains their success and that success is proof that God favors someone. They're also warlike, and their leaders often lead in battle as well as in the political arena."
"So a prince who's 'warrior' enough to come up through the Academy and serve in a midshipman's berth would impress them?" Michael said dubiously.
"Let's just say it couldn't hurt," Beth assured him.
Michael decided to leave this for further consideration and turned to what seemed to be what he really needed to know. He suspected that Elizabeth's advisors had wanted this part of his briefing to come from the diplomatic corps, not from the Queen—just in case her sense of priorities was different than their own.
"How much do you want me to do when I'm there? As far as that goes, is the Navy being told that I'm wearing an extra hat?"
Beth's answer was equally direct.
"I want you to cooperate with the diplomatic service as much as seems reasonable. I do not want you to make any promises to anyone in my name or your own."
Michael's dark brown eyes widened in shock.
"As if I would!"
"I know you wouldn't," Beth said softly, "but you'd be astonished how many people don't believe that."
Michael snapped a few pawns into their velvet niches to cover his reaction. He'd supported Beth and her policies since the day she was crowned. It deeply angered him that anyone would believe he would usurp her authority.
"As for the Navy," Beth continued, pretending not to notice how upset he was, "Intransigent's captain will be requested to release you for certain social and diplomatic receptions once the ship is within the Endicott System. Captain Boniece will be assured, however, that your 'second hat' is not to be allowed to distract you from your duties as a Queen's officer. Any briefings the diplomatic representatives feel you need in preparation for arrival at Masada are to be fit into your spare time."
After three and a half T-years at the Academy, Michael had a fair idea of how little spare time a midshipman had. He suppressed a groan.
"I live to serve my Queen," he said, keeping his tone light.
Beth reached over and patted his hand.
"Thanks, Michael. In a few years, the Star Kingdom is going to need all the friends we can get. Who knows? Maybe with your help we can find a way to win over both Endicott and Yeltsin."
"Right," Michael said, looking at the black queen standing all alone on her side of the board. "Maybe we can."
Dinah, Ephraim's senior wife, was a few years younger than her husband. They had married when she was fifteen and he seventeen. Their first son, Gideon, had already fathered an extensive brood of his own, and some of his sons were reaching an age where they could help crew their father's ship, even as Gideon had Ephraim's.
Now the senior wife stared at her rebellious junior, her anger evident.
"What do you think you are doing?" Dinah repeated.
Judith returned Dinah's gaze as levelly as she could, but meeting those steel gray eyes wasn't easy. Judith had been ten when Ephraim had first brought her into his home. For the two years before he had taken Judith as his youngest bride, Dinah had been a surrogate mother to the orphaned girl. The senior wife had been strict, but not cruel, coaching Judith on matters of etiquette, listening to her recitations, and standing between her and the resentment of Ephraim's other wives—all of whom knew perfectly well that he hadn't brought the Grayson girl home out of high-mindedness.
When a few years later, Judith had suffered her miscarriages, Dinah had sided with the doctor who had advised giving the girl a few more years to physically mature. She had held her ground even in the face of cutting remarks from Ephraim, who accused Dinah of envying the younger woman's youth and potential fecundity.
Now, hair as gray as those piercing eyes, her figure spread from the children, living and dead, she had carried in the thirty-eight years of her marriage, Dinah stood as accusing judge of her co-wife. What Judith didn't understand was why Dinah didn't immediately com for Ephraim or one of her sons.
"I wanted to see what it was like," Judith answered lamely. "I saw Zachariah using it and it looked like fun."
As Dinah set the headset in its rack, Judith could swear that the older woman looked at the program list and understood what was written there. But that was impossible, wasn't it?
For the first time in the four years she had lived beneath Ephraim's roof, Judith doubted that she understood how things worked.
"Come away, Judith," Dinah ordered, her fingers tapping the tabs for the shut-down sequence.
These were standard, the same as for every appliance in the house, so Judith shouldn't have been surprised, but something stirred within her, an inkling of an emotion so alien that she had all but forgotten what it felt like.
Hope.
Afraid to feed that strange emotion, Judith bent her head and dutifully trailed Dinah to the private chamber that, as senior wife, Dinah claimed as her right. The other wives slept in dormitories, an arrangement meant to prevent something vaguely referred to as Vice.
Judith had an idea that Vice might involve sex, but nothing in her experiences with Ephraim gave her any idea why this might be something to pursue. She'd filed this away as a piece of useless information, devoting her energy instead into devising ruses for leaving the dormitory unquestioned. During the two years she had resided with the other wives, she had come up with a large number of these and was careful never to use any one too often.
Dinah motioned Judith to a chair, then closed the door.
"Power surge following transit into N-space," Dinah said. "How useful is that?"
Judith actually started to answer, so matter-of-factly was the question put to her. Then she realized what this meant.
"You can read!"
"My father was very elderly when I was born," Dinah said levelly, "and his eyesight was failing. He never cared for the restrictions of recordings, and had me taught to read so that I could read scripture to him. Later, when my meekness and piety caught Ephraim's eye, my father commanded me to forget what I had learned, for it was well-known that the Templetons saw no use for women's education. I, of course, obeyed, never disabusing my lord and master of his assumptions regarding me."
Judith knew that Dinah's family had been poor and not well-placed within the Masadan hierarchy. An alliance with the ambitious Templetons, especially one that also disposed of a useless daughter would have been worth a little lie.
"Did you know that I . . ." Judith asked, feeling every bit the child, all the confidence of her fourteen years fleeing.
"Could read?" Dinah set an audio recording of chanted scripture playing on her room's system. "I guessed. You were very careful, even when there were no men present. I commend you for that. Even so, there were times your gaze would rest over-long on some printed label or other bit of text. I was certain the day you saved little Uriel from harming himself.
Judith remembered the day quite clearly. Uriel had been a toddler when first she came to Ephraim's house. His mother, Raphaela, was great with child once more and chasing after the boy had been one of the many tasks bestowed on the Grayson captive.
Not able to transfer her hatred of Ephraim to any of his children, Judith's secret and her honor had warred against each other on the day that Uriel had reached for a brightly colored plug that superficially looked like any number of toys scattered about the nursery.
What it was, however, was a partially installed electrical system that a careless technician had not finished sealing.
For a moment that seemed far longer than it had been, Judith had stared at the chubby hand and the plug. Only the writing on the wiring revealed it for the danger it was. If she stopped Uriel, she might give away her secret.
The little hand had barely moved toward the apparent toy when Judith scooped Uriel away. Once she had soothed the screaming child, distracting him with an even more fascinating toy, Judith had returned to put the wires out of reach. Now that she thought back, Dinah had been present, but as the senior wife had made no comment, Judith had thought her too distracted by her own duties.
"That long," Judith said, and her inflection was a question.
"You were very careful," Dinah replied, "and Ephraim never noticed anything odd about you—except, perhaps, for wondering whether your apparent stupidity was a form of rebellion. I assured him that I thought not."
"You protected me," Judith said, almost accusingly. "Then and today. Why?"
"Then, today, and a dozen times since," Dinah answered. "Why? Because you were careful, because you were kind to those you had reason to hate, and because I pitied you. And for one reason more."
Dinah paused for so long that Judith thought she might not finish her thought.
"Yes?" the younger woman prompted.
"And," said Dinah, a strange light shining in her grey eyes, "because I thought you might somehow be the One prophesied, the Moses sent to lead us from this place and into a better life."
That Midshipman Winton was polite and dutiful to a fault, no matter how much work or how many practice sessions the ATO scheduled for him, didn't moderate Carlie's sense of unease regarding her royal charge.
Unless actually on duty, the young man was rarely without a cadre of hangers-on. Two of these—Astrid Heywood and Osgood Russo—had been transferred to Intransigent immediately after Michael's own assignment. The other three had already been assigned to the ship, but that didn't stop them from taking advantage of their proximity to the Crown Prince.
The presence of this cadre had split the middy berth into two groups, for the remaining six members seemed to go out of their way to avoid Midshipman Winton. To make matters worse, even ten days after the last member of the middy berth had reported for duty, Carlie was uncertain whether Michael did or did not encourage his followers. What she was certain of was that he did nothing to discourage them, and in her eyes that was just as bad.
Then there was the problem of Michael Winton's extra duties, duties that required him to spend a great deal of time consulting with the diplomatic contingent that was Intransigent's reason for heading to the Endicott System. Carlie didn't doubt that once the diplomats had Prince Michael behind closed doors they bowed and scraped to him in the most abject manner. Certainly, Michael seemed even more distant and self-contained whenever he returned from one of these meetings.
That Michael couldn't take his toadies with him to these diplomatic sessions was one of the few good things about them, Carlie thought, but they served even more than his little cadre to emphasize that Michael Winton was someone apart from the rest of the middy berth. Hell, from the rest of Intransigent's crew.
How different Michael Winton was had been reinforced at Captain Boniece's latest dinner. As was the practice of some of the Navy's better captains, Boniece periodically invited various of his officers to dine with him. On this particular night, both Carlie and Michael had been included, and Carlie kept a sharp—though she hoped not too obvious—eye on her charge.
The evening went smoothly, Midshipman Winton not speaking unless spoken to, but offering intelligent answers to those questions put to him. Carlie had even begun to think that maybe Michael wasn't as stuck-up as she had believed.
Then came the conclusion of the meal, and wine was poured for the traditional toast to the Queen. As the junior officer present, the duty fell on Midshipman Winton.
He needed no prompting. Nor did Carlie expect him to need such. Carlie had shared stories with many officers of her acquaintance, and all agreed that this stepping forth into the limelight in the presence of those who were for the first time your peers rather than those august others known as Officers was a landmark occasion in a career.
Raising his glass to just the right level, Michael Winton said in a clear, carrying voice: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Queen!"
"The Queen!" came the affirmation.
Carlie had sipped from her glass, using the action to cover a glance at her charge. Michael Winton had settled back into his seat, but he wasn't drinking the captain's excellent wine. Instead he was—Carlie was certain of it—he was smirking.
Lieutenant Carlotta Dunsinane, loyal officer of the Navy and therefore to the Queen it served, was shocked to the core. Her shock must have shown in her expression because the Intransigent's communications officer, Tab Tilson, leaned toward her.
"Are you feeling all right, Carlie?"
"Fine," she managed. "Just got a little wine down the wrong pipe."
Tab nodded, reassured, and turned to answer a question put to him by Captain Boniece. When Carlie again turned her gaze to Mr. Winton, the prince was politely talking to his near neighbor, his expression as correct as it had been all evening.
But Carlie knew what she had seen, and again doubted to the depths of her heart whether this prince could ever humble himself from his position of power and privilege to embrace the life of service that was at the heart and soul of what it meant to be a true naval officer.
Michael didn't know if he was going to survive this middy cruise. It wasn't just the workload, though he had done a quiet survey of his own as compared to his fellows and knew that it wasn't just his imagination that Lieutenant Dunsinane heaped more on him than on any of the other eleven middies.
It wasn't that about half of his ostensible free time was taken up by the diplomatic corps briefings, briefings that—to him—seemed unnecessary, since his job was to be seen but, as Lawler stated over and over again, definitely not heard.
It was the isolation that was killing him.
Michael had lived for fifteen days now crowded into a berth furnished with six double bunks, each bunk furnished with its tenant, and he had yet to have a decent conversation with anyone—not even with several people who, on Saganami Island, he would have called friends.
Michael wasn't a fool. He'd even expected something like this. It took time for people to get used to the idea that they were rooming with someone who, if he talked about his sister, was talking about the Queen. Michael and his first roommate at Saganami Island had been stiff and formal strangers for a few weeks, but eventually Sam had become comfortable enough with the idea of rooming with royalty that Michael hadn't felt like he was letting the Crown down by walking around in his underwear.
He and Sam had never become buddies, but they had become solid acquaintances. Maybe helped by a bit of distance, Michael had made his best friends among those who didn't have to share living quarters with him. Foremost among these had been Todd Liatt, who had bridged that final gap to become Michael's roommate later on.
What wouldn't Michael give to have Toad-breath here now! That psychic radar of Todd's would pin down why it was that Lieutenant Dunsinane never looked at Michael without her expression turning stiff as an armorplast bulkhead. But Todd wasn't here and Michael didn't want to think what Lieutenant Dunsinane would think of him if she caught him looking at her public record. It was pretty clear she didn't think much of him already.
Michael could have kicked himself up one side of the hull and around the other when he saw the ATO's expression there at Captain Boniece's dinner party. He'd been feeling so good about getting through that toast that he'd slipped, remembering how Beth had teased him regarding that very earth-shattering event while he was on his last leave.
"And don't forget you'll have to toast the Queen," she had said primly one morning over a very informal breakfast. "You're my officer now, you know."
Michael had seen an irresistible opportunity.
"Let me practice, Your Majesty," he'd said, and rising to his feet he'd picked up the entire plate of freshly toasted bread slices and up-ended them over her head.
Beth had shrieked like they were both kids again, and started throwing toast at him, her treecat Ariel joining the game with pinpoint enthusiasm. The sound had pulled Justin out of his drowsy perusal of the morning newsfax, and brought Queen Mother Angelique into the room at an undignified run.
The memory of Beth's reaction had brought a smile to Michael's lips, a smile he had instantly tried to suppress lest he be seen as irreverent at this most solemn occasion. Unhappily, he'd caught his own expression in a polished serving dish and knew the squelched smile looked worse than any open grin would have done.
He'd longed to talk to Lieutenant Dunsinane, to explain what had happened, but he couldn't seem to find an opening. Talking to the ATO was much harder than talking to the dean. Commander Shrake at least seemed to think Michael was a person. Lieutenant Dunsinane couldn't seem to see past the prince and everything Michael did only made her more formal and severe.
Michael knew he couldn't ask someone else to talk to her, though he was tempted to ask Lieutenant Tilson, the communications' chief. Whenever they met, the com officer seemed quite businesslike, as if he believed Michael was more interested in learning his duties than in reminding people he was the Queen's little brother.
But though Michael's nascent specialization in communications placed him frequently in Lieutenant Tilson's sphere, Michael couldn't talk to Tilson about his problems with Lieutenant Dunsinane. It wouldn't be right. Michael possessed a Winton's fierce loyalty and he wouldn't undermine the officer responsible for supervising the middy berth, even if Lieutenant Dunsinane had misjudged him.
Lieutenant Dunsinane wasn't the worst of Michael's problems. He hoped that if he worked hard enough, he might win her over. What really troubled him were the five middies who, despite everything Michael did to gently dissuade them, hung around him like a self-appointed honor guard.
Soon after the middy berth was fully assembled, Michael learned that the leaders of this corps were also newly reassigned to Intransigent. It didn't take Michael's lifelong immersion in politics to realize that the pair had gotten posted to Intransigent precisely for the proximity that would give them to the Crown Prince.
Astrid Heywood was a scion of one of Manticore's more powerful noble houses, the Honorable Astrid in civilian life. She was a pretty young woman, honey-blond, with enormous long-lashed blue eyes. Her slightly too regular features suggested that her attractiveness had been helped along with various cosmetic enhancements, but Michael doubted that most men his age would look beyond the melting glances Astrid kept casting in his direction to notice.
Astrid's mother, Baroness White Springs, sat in Lords where she was an increasingly vocal speaker for the Independents. Unlike the Crown Loyalists, each Independent supported Crown policy more flexibly. Michael didn't know how Baroness White Springs would react if her daughter was openly rebuked by the Queen's brother, but he didn't think it would be good. The Heywood family had to have put out a good amount in favors or bribes to get Astrid moved onto Intransigent at such short notice, and Michael suspected the baroness expected a solid return on her investment.
That calculating use by mother of daughter might have made Michael pity Astrid, except for something that had become all too apparent during the days Astrid had been trailing him. Despite her intelligence and willingness to work hard—traits proven by her completing Saganami Island—Astrid was one of those impossible members of the Manticoran nobility who really did believe that an accident of birth made her better than anyone else. Astrid didn't see Michael's attempts to avoid her as anything other than a fellow dodging the awkward attentions of a pretty girl, simply because it didn't occur to her that anyone would want to avoid her. Moreover, despite the logical twisting involved in such thinking, Astrid's already good opinion of herself was enhanced by the fact that she now shared a berth with the Crown Prince.
Osgood "Ozzie" Russo was a more subtle character, though one would never guess it on initially meeting this bright-eyed, laughing imp. His family was connected to the incredibly rich Hauptman cartel, and Michael was certain that Ozzie's transfer had been bought outright. Whether the purchase price had been in bribes or in concessions for supplies needed by the rapidly expanding Navy, Michael had no idea, nor did he really care—except to hope that the Navy proper rather than some corrupt individual over in BuPersonnel had benefitted.
Not surprisingly, given his family interests, Ozzie was specializing in Supply. Logistically, he was brilliant, able to glance at a complicated schematic and reduce it to its component parts before Michael had finished reading the headers. Although Supply was outside the line of command, and thus often discounted by ambitious sorts, Michael was enough of a history buff to realize that many battles had been won or lost even before they were joined due to logistical considerations.
The problem with Ozzie was that he apparently saw Michael as another resource to be cultivated for the future benefit of himself and his family—and he figured Michael should see him in the same light. Michael didn't like this one bit, but although Ozzie was not ostensibly connected to anyone in politics, money could be used as easily as aristocratic connections to obstruct the Queen and her policies, so Michael made certain not to alienate Ozzie, while quietly fuming beneath the other's fawning attention.
What united Astrid and Ozzie was a sense of superiority over their fellows, though ironically Michael was fairly certain that each privately thought little of the other. Like a lodestone attracting iron filings, these two had drawn the more amorally ambitious middies toward them. In doing so they had pushed away what Michael, at least, saw as the better elements of the middy berth, those who wanted to earn their rank on their own merit, not because of whom they knew.
Not wishing to be seen in the same light as Astrid and Ozzie—neither by Michael nor by the rest of the ship's officers—six of the middies hardly spoke to Michael. That two of these, Sally Pike and Kareem Jones, had been among Michael's circle of friendly acquaintances at Saganami Island, made this ostracization confusing as well as painful.
But there was nothing Michael could say to them that wouldn't make the situation worse, so he hauled his way through his day, wondering if what he was feeling was anything like what he'd heard about the isolation of command.
At fourteen, after several very intensive sessions with Dinah—sessions that were represented to a pleased Ephraim as preparing Judith to resume her childbearing duties—Judith had been initiated into the very small, highly secret, and slightly mystical Sisterhood of Barbara.
The Sisterhood took its inspiration from Barbara Bancroft, the woman who had foiled the Masadan plot to destroy all life on Grayson following the failure of their attempt to seize control of it. Even before she was captured by Ephraim, Judith had heard of Barbara, for on Grayson she was revered as the planet's savior. The Barbara of whom Judith heard from the Faithful was a completely different person: evil, conniving, traitorous, faithless, and blasphemous.
Indeed, the Faithful's version of Barbara Bancroft was so horrendous that initially Judith wondered that the Sisterhood had taken "this Harlot of Satan" as their patron. After a few secret meetings with Dinah and her cell, Judith understood that it was precisely because Barbara was so vilified that these brave Masadan women named themselves for her. However else Barbara Bancroft was represented by the Masadans, the one thing the Faithful could not say of her was that she was cowardly. Moreover, Barbara had won in her battle against Masadan tyranny. She had paid a terrifying price for that victory, but she had won.
The Sisterhood had two goals. The first was to educate and, when possible, to protect other women. That protection was granted to any woman, but the educational benefits were only extended to those women who had been tried and found perfectly trustworthy. Maintaining secrecy was made easier in that any woman who so much as learned to read a few simple lines or do more complex mathematics than could be worked out by counting on fingers was considered suspect by the Elders of the Faithful.
Tales of the punishments doled out to those who had transgressed were told in the nursery, repeated in sermons, and reinforced in a hundred little ways. There was even a sub-set of the Faithful who viewed these simple arts as the first step down the slippery slope to technological corruption. These, known as the Pure in Faith, refused to have even their men learn to read or write. As a result, the Pure lived in isolated enclaves and had little to do with the rest of the Faithful—other than providing some of the most ferocious and unquestioning soldiers.
Such indoctrination made it highly unlikely that any Masadan woman who took the daring step of joining the Sisterhood would betray her Sisters later. Indeed, that irrevocable loss of intellectual virginity drew the women closer to each other, bound by their awareness of the penalties all would share—even one who might later regret her learning and report the rest.
Judith rapidly discovered that the Sisterhood did more than teach forbidden arts and knowledge. The Sisters were also trained in dissembling so that the accidental revelation of their knowledge—even by something as casual as being seen to read a printed label—could not betray them.
But these were all elements of the first of the Sisterhood's missions. The second of the Sisterhood's goals was far more daring, perhaps impossible, for the Sisterhood hoped to someday lead an Exodus that would set the Sisters free from domination by their masters.
No matter how hard the Faithful tried to keep knowledge of the outer universe from their women, the truth had filtered in—often hinted at in the very restrictions and rulings the men enforced upon their women. The Sisters knew that somewhere beyond the reach of Masada's sun were worlds where women were not regarded as property. There were worlds where women were permitted to read, write, and think; worlds where, so the most daring among them whispered, women were even permitted to live without male protectors.
From the day Ephraim had dragged the shocked and traumatized Grayson ten-year-old into the nursery, Dinah had dreamed that Judith might be the promised Moses who would lead the Sisterhood to freedom. Nor had the girl disappointed the older woman's hopes. From the start Judith had demonstrated both education and self-control—and the intelligence to hide both. Her innocent anecdotes about the life she had left, mostly told before she realized how dangerous they were, had confirmed the Sisterhood's most sacred hopes and dreams.
Thus Judith, while believing herself alone, had been cocooned within the watchful web of the senior Sisters. They had not dared draw her into their secret, not until they saw if Judith would, like so many women, perversely fasten onto her tormentor, envisioning him as a hero who had the right to treat her as a mere thing. Four years of brutal testing, two of those after Judith was married to a man who had set his seal on ostensibly stronger souls, were allowed to pass before Dinah confronted Judith and drew her into the Sisterhood.
Now, two years after Judith's initiation, faced with Ephraim's plans to abort her unborn daughter, confronting a future marked by similar abuse, Judith accepted the mantle the Sisterhood had set upon her shoulders. She would be their Moses, and, though hearing no divine voice to guide her actions, she decreed that the time for the Sisterhood's Exodus had come.
Although he understood the reasons, Michael still found the wholly male diplomatic corps bound for Endicott rather odd. Every political meeting he had attended since his father's death had been dominated by Beth. Even when Beth had been a minor, her regent had been their aunt Caitrin, the Grand Duchess Winton-Henke. This all male group was positively weird.
Then again, maybe the fact that gender and availability, rather than pure ability, had been key elements in selecting this group was why it was so peculiar. There was also the fact that much of the Manticoran diplomatic corps felt that its first task was preserving peace rather than preparing for war. Many of the best and the brightest among them were employing their energies trying to figure out how to work with the Peeps. Doubtless the Masadan mission was not an assignment those would seek.
Perhaps, too, the reality that Masada was not the Queen's first choice for an ally in this region of space had something to do with those who had volunteered. Those diplomats, like Sir Anthony Langtry, more of Her Majesty's way of thinking and ready to embrace the possibility that war could not be prevented would be striving to win over the Graysons.
The men who had volunteered for the Masadan mission were eager for any chance to prove themselves—as they most surely would if they could win the misogynistic and egocentric Faithful over to an alliance.
Forbes Lawler, a first generation prolong recipient and former member of the House of Commons, was the head of the group. Handsome, with iron grey hair, and a lean, athletic build, Lawler spoke in a straight-at-them, square-jawed fashion that reminded Michael of his first gym teacher. Although Lawler never said so directly, he clearly hoped that in addition to bringing new instructions he would soon be replacing the current ambassador.
Quentin Cayen served as Lawler's personal assistant. Young enough to be a second-generation prolong recipient, Cayen tinted his hair silver at the temples and affected reading glasses in an attempt to bring gravity to his otherwise boyishly plump features. Michael thought Cayen looked rather silly, but since Cayen was otherwise competent, and eager to please without being offensive, the midshipman tried to overlook the other man's cosmetic enhancements.
The last member of the delegation, John Hill, was ostensibly a computer specialist. He was very knowledgeable about the Masadans, including being familiar with the Faithful's religious rituals and dietary restrictions. Hill was pretty clearly a spy, but Michael thought he might well be the most competent member of the trio.
On the day Intransigent entered the Endicott System, Michael was working in the almost empty middy berth when a memo requesting his attendance at a final planning session came from Lawler. Since Michael had a mess of homework—it might be called other things, but it still felt like homework—he wasn't terribly pleased. However, he knew his duty and reluctantly put aside the fusion repair sim he'd been assigned by the chief engineer herself.
"Where are you going, Michael?" Astrid asked, setting her own reader aside, apparently prepared to accompany him.
"Mr. Lawler wants me," Michael replied.
"Oh," Astrid said, disappointed, and turned back to her work.
Michael, who had the vague feeling that Astrid had been trying to get him alone for several days now, saw Sally Pike smirking, and thought he might be right. Relieved, he grabbed a few things, waved a vague farewell, and got out of there before Ozzie or one of the other hangers-on could decide to walk him to the diplomats' suite.
When Michael arrived, Lawler was pacing back and forth, barely containing his excitement.
"A notice just came from the bridge," he said, thrusting hard copy into Michael's hand. "There is at least one Peep ship in system."
"Doesn't the People's Republic have an embassy here, just like we do?" Michael asked.
"They do," Lawler agreed. "However, an embassy is no reason for the Peeps to station a heavy cruiser here, is it?"
Michael felt his eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. Intransigent was a light cruiser, and Beth had considered sending her on a diplomatic mission a rather heavy-handed move. Apparently, the Peeps were less subtle.
"It's the Moscow, Prince Michael," John Hill added. "Not one of their newest models, but not one of the oldest either."
"Has she been here long?" Michael asked, feeling odd, as he always did after existing within the Navy's rigid command structure, to be back among those who subtly deferred to him.
"Not long enough to state that Moscow is stationed here," Hill replied, with the vaguely exasperated note in his voice that Michael had learned was reserved for correcting Lawler's more extreme statements. "Nor would I say that Moscow was sent in anticipation of our own arrival, though that isn't impossible. Mr. Lawler's coming with new instructions has not precisely been kept a secret."
There was no real reason Lawler's arrival should have been, Michael knew, but he had a feeling that Hill was the type of man who kept secrets by reflex. Hill probably thought it would be a breach of basic security if he knew the color of his own socks.
"Ambassador Faldo is most impatient for our arrival," Lawler interjected happily, "but Captain Boniece tells me we cannot be shuttled planetside until tomorrow morning. That leaves us ample time to review."
For the next several hours, Michael tried not to think wistfully of the engineering sim he hadn't completed, nor about the trauma team drill Surgeon Commander Rink had promised to run for the middies. When the twittering of the com broke into Lawler's nearly uninterrupted lecture, Michael realized he'd been all but dozing.
"Ambassador Faldo wishes to speak with you and your shore party," the duty communications officer announced. "If you are free."
Lawler smothered a look of mild annoyance, then nodded.
"Please patch the Ambassador through."
"Just a moment, Mr. Lawler."
Cayen had leapt to his feet the moment the com chimed and, by the time the call came through, he had modified the desk unit so that the ambassador's face was projected on one of the cabin's bulkheads, sparing them the need to crowd around a terminal.
Ambassador Faldo, like Mr. Lawler, was a first-generation prolong recipient. Unlike Lawler, who managed to project incredible vigor, Faldo looked tired. His hair had apparently once been blond, but had now faded to a muddy gray with just enough of the original color left to make him appear molting. His eyes, sunk beneath puffy lids, were a washed-out brown, but their gaze remained direct and penetrating.
"The reaction," the ambassador began after minimal polite greetings had been exchanged, "to the presence of Prince Michael aboard Intransigent has been—to speak mildly—beyond my greatest expectations. Not only has the Chief Elder expressed a desire to meet Mr. Winton, but the Senior Elders are to be included in the reception. In fact, as far as I can tell, everyone who is anyone as well as everyone who wants to be thought anyone is attending some enormous conclave of Elders that the Faithful have 'coincidentally' announced will be happening at this time."
"That's wonderful, Sir," Lawler said.
"I suppose so," Faldo agreed. "However, it means I want to move up the time for our meeting tomorrow. We're to join the Chief Elder at precisely noon, and I want time to prepare for such an important event. The Chief Elder has honored us by putting at our disposal a meeting room at the Hall of the Just."
Doesn't want us talking where he can't try to overhear us, Michael wondered with inbred cynicism. Probably. He knows that'll mean Faldo won't be able to give me too detailed a list of do's and don'ts. Maybe figures he'll be able to trip me up somehow.
Michael listened attentively as plans for the next day's meeting were made, but nothing more significant was said, doubtless because of fear that either the Peeps or the Masadans would hear something they shouldn't. Tight-beam communications were good, but as a communications officer Michael knew all too many ways their security measures could be circumvented.
After the connection had been cut, Lawler resumed pacing, rubbing his hands together with vigorous enthusiasm.
"Well, that's very interesting, very interesting . . ." he was beginning, but Hill interrupted.
"It is indeed," he said. "There have been some rumblings of discontent regarding how Chief Elder Simonds has been making policy. I wonder if this is his way of demonstrating to his own people how integral he is, and of convincing them that they do not want another leader."
"Mountain coming to Mohammed, and like that," Lawler said. "Yes. Well, we can let him play his games."
"In all deference, Sir," Hill replied, not sounding deferential at all, "I wouldn't use that particular analogy. The Faithful have rejected even the New Testament of the Christian bible. They view the Islamic faith—if they recall it at all—as a heresy."
Lawler looked momentarily nonplussed. Then he resumed his hand-rubbing.
"Right! That's why these briefings are so important. We don't want to make any mistakes."
Michael raised one hand, feeling more than ever that he was in school.
"Mr. Lawler, I really should report this change in schedule to Lieutenant Dunsinane."
Lawler waved his hand in a wide, breezy gesture.
"Do so, Mr. Winton. I shall write her myself requesting that you be freed from your more routine shipboard duties during this crucial moment in Manticoran diplomacy."
As Michael moved to com the ATO, he found himself wondering precisely what tomorrow would bring and hoping against hope that it would not include a very pissed-off Lieutenant Dunsinane.
Carlie looked at the memo from Mr. Lawler first with disbelief, then with anger. She continued staring at it for so long that at last the two emotions blended into a generalized confusion.
" . . . requests that Mister Midshipman Winton be relieved from a portion of his shipboard duties in order to be better able to serve the needs of Her Royal Majesty at this crucial diplomatic juncture."
There was more of the same, all soothing, all vaguely pompous, and all boiling down to what had already been clearly said in that first line. Midshipman Winton was being given a holiday from his responsibilities as a member of Intransigent's crew so that he could go play prince.
She'd known that Michael would be going down to the planet with Mr. Lawler's contingent, but she hadn't considered that Mr. Lawler would be so bold as to think that a midshipman's shipboard responsibilities could be superseded by anything else. She'd figured that Midshipman Winton would fit his trips planetside into his free time. He'd managed his numerous meetings with Lawler and company then, hadn't he?
Her first reaction was to refuse. Then she thought again about that phrase "crucial diplomatic juncture." It was no secret that there had been a Peep presence in system. The Havenites weren't being either coy or subtle. The fact that the Peeps—like the Manticorans—were demonstrating an armed presence indicated their own awareness of how touchy the situation was.
Could the presence of Crown Prince Michael make a difference in how the Masadans felt about the Manticorans? Would she be doing something foolish if she stuck to regulations? Reluctantly, for she very much wanted to go by The Book, Carlie commed Captain Boniece and was granted his first available appointment.
Tab Tilson gave her a lazy wave as he exited the captain's briefing room, and Carlie had a moment to wonder if the communications officer was also present on Michael Winton's business. Then she was summoned into the captain's presence.
"Yes, Lieutenant?" Abelard Boniece looked amused as he motioned her to a seat. "Your call said you needed to consult me regarding Mr. Winton. I have read the memo you copied to me. You may proceed from that point."
Carlie could have far more easily handled the captain's looking stern or even angry than she could the twinkle in his eye, but she straightened herself in her chair and tried to report as if in the middle of a battle.
"Yes, Sir. Frankly, I don't know what to do. This is Mr. Winton's midshipman's cruise. I feel that the distraction of playing diplomat has not been good for him."
Captain Boniece merely raised an eyebrow and Carlie hastened to explain.
"I knew from the start, Sir, that Mr. Winton was going to have these distractions. However, to this point they have been secondary to his shipboard responsibilities. Mr. Lawler is, effectively, requesting that we give them precedence."
"That is exactly what he's doing," Captain Boniece agreed. "Moreover, his request is not precisely out of line with what we were told to expect from the moment Intransigent was diverted to Masada."
"I suppose not, Sir," Carlie admitted grudgingly.
Captain Boniece met her gaze squarely, any hint of amusement gone from his expression.
"Have you been dissatisfied with how Mr. Winton is conducting himself, Lieutenant?"
"Not really, Skipper. He does his duties, but he doesn't seem much like the other middies."
"Perhaps," Boniece replied, "because Mr. Winton is not like any other snotty—not on Intransigent, nor on any other ship in Her Majesty's navy."
Carlie's eyes widened. The term was openly, sometimes even affectionately, applied to middies, but as far as she could recall, it was the first time she had heard it applied to Intransigent's berth.
Captain Boniece seemed to think he had made a point of some sort, for his smile momentarily returned before he continued his train of thought.
"Even as you have been observing Mr. Winton," he said, "I have been observing you, Lieutenant. It seems to me that you're trying to make Michael Winton into just one of everyone else. What you must understand is that even if he serves in the Navy for a hundred years, Michael Winton will never be just like anyone else. Even if Queen Elizabeth has twenty children, Michael will always be her only brother. I want you to accept this and work with it. That's an order."
"Yes, Captain."
The snap in his tone was such that Carlie started to rise and salute, believing herself dismissed, but Captain Boniece motioned for her to remain.
"I want you to think about something else, Carlie," he said. "Not only is Mr. Winton unlike everyone else with whom he serves—so is every member of this crew different from every other."
Carlie blinked at him, too startled to manage even a routine "Yes, Sir."
"Have you ever wondered, Lieutenant Dunsinane," Boniece continued, "why the assistant tactical officer is put in charge of the middy berth? After all, what do a dozen or so snotties have to do with planning an attack or defense, deciding whether to roll the ship or fire from all ports?"
"Yes, Skipper," Carlie said, too confused now to be indirect. "Honestly, I have."
"Tactics," Boniece went on, "is the most direct track to command, and a commander needs to learn to work with the most important asset the ship possesses—the crew. Unlike energy batteries or missile tubes, crews don't come with neat specs listing limitations and advantages. Crews are unpredictable, annoying, surprising, and astonishing."
Carlie, beginning to understand now, was feeling like a complete idiot. Boniece, however, wasn't done with drumming his lesson home.
"If you win your white beret, you're going to need to deal with every variation of human temperament. You're going to need to learn the way to get the best out of each one. Sometimes that's going to mean preferring someone who seems too junior to merit preferment. Sometimes that's going to mean passing up someone who, by The Book, has every advantage going for him. Once the ship leaves base, there's no supply room with spare crew members. You need to train your crew for diversity and flexibility—and contrariwise, you need to train them for perfect expertise in their departments."
Carlie nodded.
"I think that I haven't been treating my snotties," she grinned as she said the formerly tabooed word, "as they deserve. I'll remember that, Sir. And now that you mention it, Mr. Winton has been drawing rather more than the usual workload. I believe he can miss a few hours here and there. I would, however, like him to report back to the ship to sleep."
Captain Boniece cocked an eyebrow at her.
"I don't think Mr. Winton will forget where his duty lies," Carlie explained. "However, I suspect that Mr. Lawler might. I'd like to make certain that Mr. Winton has at least a good night's sleep."
"I support you on that, Lieutenant," the Captain said. "Now, tell Mr. Winton to get ready to go planetside, and remind him that we expect him to do the Navy proud."
Judith had reasons other than her own crisis to set the Sisterhood's Exodus in motion.
From tapping into Ephraim's private communications channels, she had learned that envoys from other star nations regularly visited Masada. She had also learned that some of those envoys—specifically those from an enchantingly named place called the People's Republic of Haven—sought to win Ephraim's support in the Counsel of Elders with more than mere words.
Two of the vessels in Ephraim's privateer fleet, Psalms and Proverbs, had been offered technological modifications. Much of what the Havenite engineers did to the two ships merely improved their eyes and ears, but at Ephraim's insistence, their teeth had been sharpened as well. Since the Havenites were eager to show how useful they could be as allies they had agreed with few hesitations.
The modifications to both Psalms and Proverbs were carefully installed, so that the alterations were not evident in a routine external scan. Ephraim said this was because neither the Council of Elders nor the Havenites wanted anyone to detect the work and think ill of the acceptance of advanced technology. However, such care had been taken to conceal the modifications that Judith fleetingly wondered if the Havenites might suspect the dual use to which Ephraim turned his vessels.
In time Aaron's Rod would also be modified. It said something about Ephraim's essentially conservative nature that he had chosen to have ships other than his little fleet's flag undergo the modifications first. As with many other captains and their ships, Aaron's Rod was an extension of Ephraim's self and ego, and he did not wish that other self to be tampered with until he saw the results on others.
Judith feared that such extensive changes to Aaron's Rod's systems could mean delaying the Sisterhood's escape until she could learn how to use these new devices and then train her Sisters. All of the women were without question brave, but—as could only be expected given their Masadan upbringing—all but a few tended to follow Judith's instructions by rote rather than with any intellectual comprehension of the tasks she set them.
There were exceptions. In the early years of their marriage, Ephraim had taken Dinah on his voyages, and she, like Judith, had striven to learn something about the various departments. Dinah's actual skills were woefully outdated, but at least she understood the concept of three-dimensional astrogation and tactics. Many of the Sisters persisted, no matter how carefully Judith explained, in visualizing their ship as sailing over a flat surface.
Dinah thus became gunnery officer and XO to Judith's captain. Dinah's eldest daughter, Mahalia, a widow who had been returned to her father's house after the death of her husband, was put in charge of Engineering. Ephraim's third wife, Rena, mother of many children, was head of Damage Control.
Naomi, the second wife of Gideon, was put in charge of the passengers—for Judith and Dinah were determined to take as many of the Sisters with them as they could manage. Indeed, removing the Sisters from Masada was the entire reason for this venture. The leaders were all too aware that there would be no second chance, and that those Sisters who were left behind would be intensively and painfully interrogated if their connection to the rebels was in the least suspected.
Judith knew nothing of the specific escape plans for the majority of the Sisters. That stage of the process was in Dinah's hands. Judith did know that there were multiple plans for each Sister, and that in most households only one or two women at most needed to slip away. Ephraim's household was extraordinary in its concentrated membership in the Sisterhood, but that was hardly surprising given that it was Dinah's household and Dinah was the Sisterhood's head.
Escape for Judith herself was comparatively close at hand. Along with Mahalia and Rena, she was to take the cargo shuttle, Flower. If they failed, the rest of the program would not even be put into motion, for without Flower they could not reach Aaron's Rod.
Judith was woefully aware how few trained people she had to crew Aaron's Rod—assuming the Sisters would even manage to get aboard the ship, subdue its caretaker crew, and get it out of orbit. However, the ship's computer contained numerous preprogrammed routines, and each of Judith's department heads had several assistants. Those assistants at least understood how to get the most out of what the computer could offer.
Judith was mulling over her options for alternate crew assignments—all her information memorized, for the first rule of the Sisterhood was to leave as few written records as possible—when Dinah signaled for her to join her among the noisy children in the nursery.
The older woman's eyes were shining with barely suppressed excitement.
"I believe God is parting the Red Sea for us," she said softly. Then she spoke in more usual tones. "I have just come from Ephraim. He summoned me to give orders for what is to be done during his forthcoming absence."
Despite Dinah's initial words, Judith's heart sank. Was Ephraim preparing to take Aaron's Rod out on another voyage?
"Absence?" she managed.
"Yes," Dinah said. "A delegation has arrived from one of the star nations—the one ruled by a queen."
Now Judith understood that light in the older woman's eyes. Judith had always favored the People's Republic of Haven as their potential sanctuary, both for its name and for the marvelous way it had declared itself the protector of the weak and the oppressed. Dinah, however, preferred the Star Kingdom of Manticore.
Dinah's preference wasn't only because the Star Kingdom was ruled by a queen—though that did make a difference to her. Dinah reasoned, rather cynically to Judith's way of thinking, that any nation that spent as much time talking about how it defended the oppressed as the People's Republic did probably had something to hide.
"Honestly, child," Dinah had said a trace impatiently one day. "Look at our own men and how they go on about loving God and doing his Will and battling the Apostate. We know that few of them love God as much as they love their own honor and position.
"Ephraim may say he wants to build and train his fleet so that he can be in the forefront when the battle against the Apostate comes, but he certainly doesn't mind the benefits he has garnered in the meantime. You wouldn't recall the day he was elected into the Council of Elders, but Satan in all His peacock majesty never was prouder. Was that honor enough? No, now Ephraim's trying to be promoted to Senior Elder—and him not even three score years."
Judith had agreed that Dinah had a point, but she found the monstrous creatures that adorned the Manticoran heraldry frightening and disturbing. She also didn't much like the idea of a ruling nobility. It sounded far too much like the hierarchy on Masada.
Dinah had another, more telling point, to offer.
"And why, if this People's Republic of Haven is so willing to respect other people's rights, why are they improving Ephraim's ships for him—even to their fighting capacities? I might believe they were motivated by simple altruism, but for how easily he swayed them to his way of thinking when it came to weapons."
Judith had to admit Dinah's argument had weight, but she also knew how persuasive Ephraim could be. In any case, it didn't matter whether she or Dinah were right. The Sisterhood had agreed to let God guide the path of their escape, and the arrival of the Manticoran vessel at the very time the Sisterhood was setting Exodus into motion did seem like an omen of His intent.
"Why would the coming of a Manticoran vessel mean Ephraim must leave home?" Judith asked.
"The Manticorans have sent someone very important to meet the Council," Dinah said, and though her voice was respectful, her eyes gleamed with mischief. "It seems that all these years we have been foolish in believing that such a powerful kingdom could be ruled by a weak woman. It seems that there is a prince who actually holds the reins, though he was but a child when his father died and so the Queen was crowned in his stead. Now a grown man, this prince has come here himself to meet with our Elders."
"And none of the Elders will miss such an important occasion," Judith said, her heart pounding with excitement.
"None," Dinah agreed. "Ephraim has ordered Gideon and his other sons to accompany him."
"Many other households will do the same," Judith said, "for is it not true that a man's strength is in his sons?"
"There's even more," Dinah said. "A well-informed source tells me that the Navy is pulling out for maneuvers."
"They aren't worried about a Manticoran attack?"
"Not in the least. Manticore wants allies, not another system to administer. The Navy, however, does not want the Manticorans to get too close a look at what we have."
Judith, thinking of the modifications that had been worked on Psalms and Proverbs wondered if some similar tinkering might have been done to a few of the fleet vessels—just enough to whet the Admiralty's taste for what the People's Republic could offer, perhaps. She could see why they wouldn't want to show their hand without reason.
"God truly is with us," Judith breathed. "Surely we can escape from a few patrol boats."
They smiled at each other. It did seem that God had parted the Red Sea for them, for in none of their plans had they dared anticipate such a removal of the Masadan men from their households.
Yet this would not make the success of Exodus certain. Many households would be secured more tightly in the absence of their masters. Many women would be forced to accompany their husbands, and so be prevented from escape. Then there was each step of the escape itself: the taking of the shuttle, the subduing of the caretaker crew, getting the ship from orbit and to hyper limit. Judith's head swam. However she had to admit that the omens were still too good to ignore.
The Sisters were committed to making the attempt, no matter the risks. Death was preferable to the life they would be leaving behind them. At last resort, Judith thought grimly, Aaron's Rod would make a spectacular funeral pyre. Perhaps some new Moses would be guided by the bright burning of that beacon and finally set her Sisters free.
Michael thought he was ready for anything. However, when Lieutenant Dunsinane told him that not only was he being relieved of some of his shipboard assignments so that he could accompany Mr. Lawler to the surface, but even smiled as she did so, he was so startled he nearly forgot to thank her.
"I've reviewed your work," Dunsinane went on when Michael finished stammering, a trace of her former severity returning, "and I see that you've kept up on your assignments. And don't thank me too fast. There's one limitation to your shore leave, Mr. Winton."
"Yes, Lieutenant?"
"Unless you are prevented by some serious impediment from doing so, you are required to return on-board each night in order to report."
"I will, Lieutenant," Michael promised. "According to Mr. Hill's briefings, the Faithful are very unlikely to schedule any meetings after the dinner hour. It violates one of their social customs. All I'd miss is Mr. Lawler's recap of events."
Dunsinane didn't quite grin, but Michael thought that the twitch at one side of her mouth might mean that she had detected the inadvertent note of relief that had entered his voice at the thought of avoiding a few of Mr. Lawler's exhaustive—and largely pointless—analysis sessions.
"I'm certain that Mr. Cayen would be happy to make a transcript for you," Lieutenant Dunsinane said so confidently that Michael had a sneaking suspicion that she had already arranged for this.
In fact, for the first time Michael had the feeling the ATO was working with him rather than against him, and he was determined not to be a disappointment.
One of Intransigent's pinnaces took them down to a major Masadan spaceport first thing in the morning. Intransigent was not being permitted a close parking orbit. Indeed, she was being kept so far from the planet proper that Michael wondered if the Masadans were nervous about the possibility of attack.
I guess, he thought, that a planet that's made a career out of attacking its closest neighbor would be nervous about getting similar treatment from its tougher neighbors. Maybe not, though. The Faithful really do seem to believe that God is on their side and nothing else makes much of a difference. Maybe they just figure they're keeping us out of sensor range.
He smiled a bit at this last thought. If that were indeed the case, then the Faithful must not realize how sophisticated Intransigent's sensors were. They were more than capable enough to insure that everything going on in the immediate area was available to her crew. Only a sufficiently large mass—like the planet itself—would keep something hidden.
The pinnace came down at what Michael knew was the largest and most modern facility of its type on Masada. Numerous elements in its design and construction showed the concentration the Faithful had dedicated toward building their fleet. He knew from his briefings that their navy swallowed a staggeringly large amount of their gross planetary product. Despite all of this, to Manticoran eyes, the facility was rather primitive.
Nothing he saw at the spaceport prepared him for the City of God itself. The number of people on foot was staggering. Men and