CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

"Captain? Can you hear me, Ma'am?"

The voice trickled through her head, and she opened her eyes. Or, rather, an eye. She forced it to focus and blinked dizzily at the face above her.

A familiar, triangular jaw pressed into her right shoulder, and she turned her head to look into Nimitz's anxious green eyes. The 'cat lay beside her, not curled up on her in his preferred position, and he was purring so hard the bed vibrated. Her hand felt unnaturally heavy, but she raised it to his ears, and the anxious power of his purr eased slightly. She stroked him again, then looked back up at a soft sound. Andreas Venizelos stood beside Surgeon Commander Montoya, and her dapper exec looked almost as worried as Nimitz had.

"How am I?" she tried to ask, but the words came out slurred and indistinct, for only the right side of her lips had moved.

"You could be a lot better, Ma'am." Montoya's eyes sparked with anger. "Those bastards damned near killed you, Skipper."

"How bad is it?" She took her time, laboring to shape each individual sound, but it didn't seem to help a great deal.

"Not as bad as it might have been. You were lucky, Ma'am. You only caught the fringe of his shot, but if he'd been a few centimeters to the right, or a little higher-" The doctor paused and cleared his throat. "Your left cheek took the brunt of it, Skipper. The muscle damage isn't as bad as I was afraid, but the soft tissue damage is severe. It also broke the zygomatic arch—the cheekbone just below your eye—and you broke your nose when you went down. More seriously, there's near total nerve mortality from your eye to your chin and reaching around to a point about a centimeter in front of your ear. It missed your ear structure and aural nerves, luckily, and you should still have at least partial control of your jaw muscles on that side."

Montoya's was a doctor's face; it told his patients precisely what he told it to, but Venizelos' was easier to read, and his definition of "lucky" clearly didn't match Montoya's. Honor swallowed, and her left hand rose. She felt her skin against her fingers, but it was like touching someone else, for her face felt nothing at all, not even numbness or a sense of pressure.

"In the long-run, I think you'll be okay, Ma'am," Montoya said quickly. "It's going to take some extensive nerve grafting, but the damage is localized enough the repairs themselves should be fairly routine. It's going to take time, and I wouldn't care to try it, but someone like your father could handle it no sweat. In the meantime, I can take care of the broken bones and tissue damage with quick heal."

"An' m' eye?"

"Not good, Skipper," the surgeon said unflinchingly. "There are an awful lot of blood vessels in the eye. Most of them ruptured, and with muscle control gone, your eye couldn't close when you hit the carpet. Your cornea is badly lacerated, and you put some debris—broken glass and china—through it and into the eyeball itself." She stared at him through her good eye, and he looked back levelly.

"I don't think it can be repaired, Ma'am. Not enough to let you do much more than distinguish between light and dark, anyway. It's going to take a transplant, regeneration, or a prosthesis."

"I don' regen'." She clenched her fists, hating the slurred sound of her voice. "M' mom check' m' profile years 'go."

"Well, there's still transplants, Skipper," Montoya said, and she made herself nod. Most of the human race could take advantage of the relatively new regeneration techniques; Honor was one of the thirty percent who could not.

"How's th' rest 'f m' face look?" she asked.

"Awful," Montoya told her frankly. "The right side's fine, but the left one's a mess, and you're still getting some blood loss. I've drained the major edemas, and the coagulants should stop that in a little while, but frankly, Skipper, you're lucky you can't feel anything."

She nodded again, knowing he was right, then shoved herself into a sitting position. Montoya and Venizelos glanced at one another, and the surgeon looked as if he might protest for a moment. Then he shrugged and stood back to let her look into the mirror on the bulkhead behind him.

What she saw shocked her, despite his warning. Her pale complexion and the startlingly white dressing over her wounded eye made the livid blue, black, and scarlet damage even more appalling. She looked as if she'd been beaten with a club—which, in a sense, was exactly what had happened—but what filled her with dismay was the utter, dead immobility of the entire left side of her face. Her broken nose ached with a dull, low-key throb, and her right cheek felt tight with a sympathetic reaction; to the left, the pain just stopped. It didn't taper off—it just stopped, and the corner of her mouth hung slightly open. She tried to close it, tried to clench her cheek muscles, and nothing happened at all.

She looked into the mirror, making herself accept it, telling herself Montoya was right—that it could be fixed, whatever it looked like—but all of her selfassurances were a frail shield against her revulsion at what she saw.

" 'V look' be'er," she said, and watched in numb horror as the untouched right side of her mouth and face moved normally. She drew a deep breath and tried again, very slowly. "I've looked better," she got out, and if it still sounded strange and hesitant, at least it sounded more like her.

"Yes, Ma'am, you have," Montoya agreed.

"Well." She wrenched her eye from the mirror and looked up at Venizelos. "Might as well get up, I guess."

The words came out almost clearly. Perhaps if she remembered the need to concentrate on speaking slowly and deliberately it wouldn't be too bad.

"I'm not sure that's a good i-" Montoya began.

"Skipper, I can handle things un-" Venizelos started simultaneously, but they both broke off as she swung her legs over the side of the bed. She put her feet on the deck, and Montoya reached out as if to stop her.

"Captain, you may not be able to feel it, but you've taken one hell of a beating! Commander Venizelos has things under control here, and Commander Truman's doing just fine with the squadron. They can manage a while longer."

"The doc's right, Ma'am," Venizelos weighed in. "We've got everything covered." His voice sharpened as Honor ignored them both and heaved herself to her feet. "Oh, for God's sake, Skipper! Go back to bed!"

"No." She gripped the bed for balance as the deck curtsied under her. "As you say, Doctor, I can't feel it," she said carefully. "I might as well take advantage of that. Where's my uniform?"

"You don't need one, because you're getting right back into bed!"

"I had one when I came in." Her eye lit on a locker. She started towards it, and if her course wavered just a bit, she ignored that.

"It's not in there," Montoya said quickly. She paused. "Your steward took it away. He said he'd try to get the blood out of it," he added pointedly.

"Then get me another one."

"Captain-" he began in even stronger tones, and she swung to face him. The right corner of her mouth quirked in an ironic smile that only made the hideous deadness of the left side of her face more grotesque, but there was something almost like a twinkle in her remaining eye.

"Fritz, you can get me a uniform or watch me walk out of here in this ridiculous gown," she told him. "Now which is it going to be?"

Andreas Venizelos rose as Commander Truman stepped through the hatch. Honor didn't. She'd carried Nimitz here in her arms instead of on her shoulder because she still felt too unsteady to offer him his usual perch, and she had no intention of displaying her knees' irritating weakness any more than she could help.

She looked up at her second in command and braced herself for Truman's reaction. She'd already seen MacGuiness' shocked anger when he brought her the demanded uniform and saw her face, and Venizelos wasn't making any effort to hide his opinion that she was pushing herself too hard, so she wasn't too surprised when Truman rocked back on her heels.

"My God, Honor! What are you doing out of sickbay?!" Truman's green eyes clung to her wounded face for just a moment, then moved deliberately away, focusing on her single uncovered eye. "I've got most of the fires under control, and I'd have been perfectly happy coming down there to see you."

"I know." Honor waved to a chair and watched her subordinate sit. "But I'm not dead yet," she went on, hating the slowness of her own speech, "and I'm not going to lie around."

Truman glared at Venizelos, and the Exec shrugged.

"Fritz and I tried, Commander. It didn't seem to do much good."

"No, it didn't." Honor agreed. "So don't try anymore. Just tell me what's going on."

"Are you sure you're up to this? You— I'm sorry, Honor, but you have to know you look like hell, and you don't sound too good, either."

"I know. Mostly it's just my lips, though," she half-lied. She touched the left side of her mouth and wished she could feel it. "You talk. I'll listen. Start with the Protector. Is he alive?"

"Well, if you're sure." Truman sounded doubtful, but Honor nodded firmly and the commander shrugged. "All right—and, yes, he and his family are all unhurt. It's been-" she checked her chrono "—about twenty minutes since my last update, and only about five hours since the assassination attempt, so I can't give you any hard and firm details. As far as I can make out, though, you wound up square in the middle of a coup attempt."

"Clinkscales?" she asked, but Truman shook her head.

"No, that was my first thought, too, when we thought it was Security people, but they weren't real Security men, after all. They were members of something called 'The Brotherhood of Maccabeus,' some kind of fundamentalist underground no one even suspected existed." Truman paused and frowned. "I'm not too sure I'm entirely ready to accept that they didn't know anything about it."

"I believe it, Ma'am." Venizelos turned to Honor. "I've been monitoring the planetary news nets a bit more closely than Commander Truman's had time for, Skipper. Aside from some pretty graphic video," he looked at her a bit oddly, "it's all conjecture with a hefty dose of hysteria, but one thing seems pretty clear. Nobody down there ever heard of the 'Maccabeans,' and no one's sure what they were trying to accomplish, either."

Honor nodded. She wasn't surprised the Graysons were in an uproar. Indeed, it would have amazed her if they hadn't been. But if Protector Benjamin was unhurt there was still a government, and at the moment, that was all she really had time to concern herself with.

"The evacuation?" she asked Truman.

"Underway," the commander assured her. "The freighters pulled out an hour ago, and I sent Troubadour along as far as the hyper limit to be on the safe side. Her sensors should give them plenty of warning to evade any bogeys they meet before translating."

"Good." Honor rubbed the right side of her face. The muscles on that side ached from having to do almost the whole job of moving her jaw by themselves, and the thought of trying to chew appalled her.

"Any movement out of the Masadans?" she asked after a moment.

"None. We know they know we're here, and I'd have expected them to try something by now, but there's not a sign of them."

"Command Central?"

"Not a peep out of them, Ma'am," Venizelos said. "Your Commander Brentworth is still aboard, but even he can't get much out of them right now."

"I wouldn't be too surprised by that, Honor," Truman cautioned. "If these crazies really did blind-side Grayson Security, they have to be worrying about moles in the military, at least until they get some kind of fix on how extensive the plot really was. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if some idiot's already come up with the theory that what happened to their navy was part of some Machiavellian 'betrayal by the high command' to set up the assassination."

"So we're all there is for now," Honor said even more slowly than her damaged mouth required. "What's the status on Troubadour's alpha node?"

"The Grayson yard people confirm Alistair's original estimate," Truman replied. "It's completely gone, and they can't repair it. Their Warshawski technology's even cruder than I thought, and their components simply won't mate with ours, but their standard impellers are a lot closer to our levels, and Lieutenant Anthony got with their chief shipwright before I sent Troubadour off with the freighters. By the time she gets back, the Graysons should have run up jury-rigged beta nodes to replace the damaged beta and alpha nodes. She still won't have Warshawski capability, but she'll be back up to five-twenty gees for max acceleration."

"Time to change over?"

"Anthony estimates twenty hours; the Graysons say fifteen. In this case, the Graysons are probably closer to right. I think Anthony's less than impressed by their technical support and underestimates its capabilities."

Honor nodded, then snatched her hand away before it could begin massaging her face again.

"All right. If we can stand her down long enough, then-"

Her terminal beeped, and she pressed the answer key. "Yes?"

"Captain, I've got a personal signal for you from Grayson," Lieutenant Metzinger's voice said. "From Protector Benjamin."

Honor looked at her subordinates, then straightened in her chair.

"Switch him through," she said.

Her terminal screen blinked instantly to life, and a drawn and weary Benjamin Mayhew looked out of it. His eyes widened, then darkened with distress as he saw her face and covered eye.

"Captain Harrington, I-" His voice was husky, and he had to stop and cough, then blinked hard and cleared his throat noisily.

"Thank you," he said finally. "You saved my family's lives, and my own. I am eternally in your debt."

The live side of Honor's face heated, and she shook her head.

"Sir, you saved my life in the end. And I was only protecting myself, as well."

"Of course." Mayhew managed a tired smile. "That's why you and your treecat-" His eyes cut suddenly to her unoccupied shoulder. "He is all right, isn't he? I understood-"

"He's fine, Sir." She kicked herself for speaking too quickly in her haste to reassure him, for the words had come out so slurred they were almost incomprehensible. Rather than embarrass herself by repeating them, she scooped Nimitz up and exhibited him to the com pickup, and Mayhew relaxed bit.

"Thank God for that! Elaine was almost as worried over him as we've all been over you, Captain."

"We're tough, Sir," she said slowly and distinctly. "We'll be all right."

He looked doubtfully at her crippled face and tried to hide his dismay. He knew Manticoran medical science was better than anything available on Grayson, but he'd seen the bloody wreckage of her eye as the RMN medics—and grim-faced Royal Manticoran Marines in full battle dress—whisked her away. The rest of the damage looked even worse now, and her slurred speech and paralyzed muscles were only too evident . . . and hideous. The swollen, frozen deadness of a face which had been so mobile and expressive was a desecration, and despite any off-world sophistication, he was a Grayson. Nothing could completely eradicate the belief that women were supposed to be protected, and the fact that she'd suffered her injuries protecting him only made it worse.

"Really, Sir. We'll be fine," she said, and he decided he had no choice but to take her at her word.

"I'm glad to hear it. In the meantime, however," his voice turned suddenly harsher, "I thought you might like to hear who was behind the coup."

"You know?" Honor leaned forward and felt Venizelos and Truman stiffen with matching interest.

"Yes." Mayhew looked almost physically ill. "We've got his confession on tape. It was my cousin Jared."

"Your cousin?" Honor gasped before she could stop herself, and he nodded miserably.

"Apparently all his anti-Masadan rhetoric's been nothing more than a cover, Captain. He's been working for them for over eight years. In fact, Councilman Clinkscales now thinks he was the second 'Maccabeus,' not the first. He thinks my Uncle Oliver passed the position on to him when he died."

"My God," Honor whispered.

"We're just starting to put it all together," Mayhew went on in that same wretched tone, "but Security got several assassins alive, mainly thanks to your treecat. Aside from the first one he attacked, he seems to have settled for blinding his opponents. I'm afraid only one of the ones you hit survived."

Honor said nothing. She merely sat watching his expression and feeling his pain. She was an only child, but the Harrington clan was an extensive one. She didn't need anyone to tell her how terribly it must hurt to know his own cousin had plotted his family's murder.

"At any rate," the Protector continued after a moment, "Howard and his people took them into custody, patched them up, and interrogated them. Howard won't tell me exactly how. I think he's afraid I wouldn't approve of his methods, but whatever he did to them, some of them talked fairly quickly, and he's been able to put together at least a rough chronology.

"Apparently Masada's been building a fifth column out of our own reactionaries ever since the last war. We never even guessed—something else Howard blames himself for—but that was because, religious fanatics or not, these 'Maccabeans' apparently realized their ideals were too divorced from the mainstream for them to achieve anything by open resistance or guerrilla warfare. So instead of coming into the open and alienating the population as a whole—not to mention warning Security of their existence—they've been waiting until they thought they had a chance to decapitate the state in one blow."

"And replace you with your cousin," Honor said flatly.

"Precisely." Mayhew's voice was equally flat. "None of the assassins had ever actually met him, but the support they'd been given—genuine uniforms and IDs, the exact guard schedule, detailed maps, Palace Security's challenges and countersigns—all pointed to someone inside the palace itself. And they could tell Howard's people how to locate the 'Maccabean' communications net, which led him to a couple of plotters who did know who 'Maccabeus' was."

Mayhew looked away for a moment.

"Howard was devastated. He and Jared have been close Council allies for years, and he felt personally betrayed. But instead of arresting him immediately, Howard confronted him in person, and Jared was stupid enough—or desperate enough—to admit he was Maccabeus. Apparently he hoped Howard shared enough of his beliefs to join him. I imagine he thought the two of them together could still kill me and put Jared in my place. Instead, Howard recorded the entire conversation, then called in his people to arrest him."

"Protector Benjamin," Honor said softly, "you have my sincere sympathy. To know your cousin-"

"If Jared could betray my planet to Masada, if he could plot to kill my family and succeed in killing men who protected me from birth," Mayhew said harshly, "he is no cousin of mine! The law of Grayson sets only one penalty for what he's done, Captain Harrington. When the time comes, he'll pay it."

Honor bent her head silently, and the Protector's nostrils flared. Then he shook himself.

"At any rate, he's clammed up since his arrest. Whatever else he may be, he seems to hold his beliefs honestly. But he made the mistake of keeping records. They've told Howard a lot, and he believes he can break the entire organization with them.

"It seems Jared's position as Minister of Industry was the key to the entire plot. His father, my uncle, held the same position before him, and they'd placed entire crews of Maccabeans on some of the mining and construction ships. The Masadans have been slipping in and out of Yeltsin for some time—Mike tells me it probably wasn't difficult if they translated into n-space beyond detection range, then came in under minimal power—and Jared's Maccabean crews have been rendezvousing with them as his couriers to Masada.

"Howard isn't positive, but he now believes this war was launched not as a genuine bid to conquer us militarily but to create panic. According to one of Jared's people, the plan was for him to have Michael and myself killed at what he judged was the proper psychological moment. That would have made him Protector, and if there'd been enough fear and confusion, he could have made himself dictator, as well, on the pretext of dealing with the crisis—at which point he would have 'negotiated an end to the hostilities.' Ending the war without Masada's actually attacking the planet itself was supposed to cement his hold on power, after which he'd have appointed like-minded cronies to positions of power in order to 'reform' us into voluntarily accepting the Masadan line and, eventually, amalgamating with Endicott."

"I can't believe he'd have succeeded," Honor murmured.

"I don't think so either, but he did, and he'd managed to convince Masada. And if it could have been pulled off, it would have been perfect from the Faithful's viewpoint. They'd have gotten their hands on us and our industry without all the damage a fight to the finish would inflict, and Jared would have terminated our negotiations with you as his very first step. With your Kingdom out of the way, Masada—which, Howard tells me, is definitely working with Haven—would've had the only outside ally. If his 'reform' approach failed, they still could have used that edge to pick us off any time."

"But do the Peeps know what's going on, Sir?" Commander Truman leaned diffidently into the com pickup's field, and the Protector raised his eyebrows at her. "Commander Alice Truman, Sir," she identified herself, and he gestured for her to continue.

"It just seems unlikely to me that Haven would willingly attack a Queen's ship and risk war with Manticore as part of any such long-term, iffy operation, Sir. Even assuming we didn't wind up at war with them—and I'm not at all sure they would assume that—there'd be too many opportunities for something to go wrong on Grayson that might get us invited back in."

"I'm afraid we don't know the answer to that yet, Commander," Mayhew said after a moment's thought. "I'll ask Howard to look into it. On the face of it, however, I can't see that it matters much. The Faithful are committed now, and they've lost their 'Maccabeus.' I don't see that they've got any choice but to follow through on the military option."

"Agreed." Honor realized she was rubbing the left side of her face again and lowered her hand. "Of course, if they did know the truth, and if they expected Maccabeus to make his try, that may explain why they've held off this long. They're waiting to see if he succeeded."

"If they knew his timetable, then they also know he's failed," Mayhew said, and Honor's eyebrows rose. At least both of them still worked, she thought, but her mordant humor vanished as Mayhew went on. "If his plan had succeeded, Captain, your next in command—Commander Truman, is it?" Honor nodded, and he shrugged. "Well, then, Commander Truman would already have pulled your vessels out of here."

Alice Truman bristled at his assumption that anything could have induced her to abandon Grayson to Masada.

"And why might that have been, Sir?" she asked stiffly.

"Because the entire idea was to place responsibility for my death on Captain Harrington," he said quietly, and all three Manticorans stared at him in disbelief.

"That was why they were armed with disrupters, Captain. Those aren't Grayson—or, for that matter, Masadan—weapons. The plan was to claim your demand for a meeting was only a pretext to get close to me, at which point you were supposed to have produced your off-world weapon, murdered my guards and family as part of a Manticoran plot to seize Grayson, and then been shot down by other Security people when you tried to escape."

"He 'as ou' 'f his mind!" The right side of Honor's face tightened as the clarity of her speech vanished, but Mayhew seemed not to notice, and she went on doggedly. "No one would have believed that!" she said more distinctly.

"I don't know about that, Captain," Mayhew admitted with manifest reluctance. "I admit it would have sounded insane, but remember what a pressure cooker Grayson is right now. With me dead and your body as 'evidence,' he probably could have produced enough panic and confusion to at least get himself into office and summarily break off the negotiations. If he managed that and informed Commander Truman your ships were no longer welcome in Yeltsin space, what could she do but leave? Especially when he could construe any decision to remain as further 'proof' of a Manticoran plot to seize Yeltsin's Star?"

"He's got a point, Honor," Truman muttered, tugging at a lock of golden hair. "Damn. I hate to admit it, but he does have a point."

"So if they knew his timetable, and if they're monitoring the inner system for outbound impeller signatures, they know he failed," Honor said.

"Unless we get dead lucky and they're dumb enough to think the freighters are all of us," Truman agreed.

"Which they're very unlikely to do," Mayhew pointed out from the com screen. "They know precisely how many of your vessels are present. Jared saw to that . . . just as he told them exactly what classes of warship you have."

"Oh, shit!" Venizelos muttered audibly, and a bleak smile flitted across the Protector's lips.

"Then we can expect them to react militarily shortly." Honor realized she was rubbing her numb face again, but this time she let herself go on doing so. "Protector Benjamin, that makes it imperative that we waste no more time. I must be able to confer with your navy immediately."

"I agree, and you won't have any further problems in that regard."

"Then Admiral Garret's been relieved?" she asked hopefully.

"Not precisely." Her good eye narrowed, but Mayhew smiled almost naturally at her. "I've managed to save face a little for him, Captain—which is important, given the state of nerves down here right now. Instead of relieving him, I've appointed him to command Grayson's fixed orbital defenses. Commodore Matthews has been promoted to admiral, and he'll command our mobile units. I've made it very clear to him that that means he's to adapt his movements and resources to yours, and he has no problem with that."

"That might work," Honor said while her mind raced, "but Command Central's still our central com node, Sir. If Garret decides to sulk-"

"He won't, Captain. He won't dare to do anything that anyone down here might perceive as an insult to you." Honor's eyebrows rose once more at the total assurance in his voice, and it was his turn to look surprised.

"Haven't you been monitoring our news nets, Captain?"

"Sir, I just got out of sickbay forty minutes ago." Honor frowned, wondering what news nets had to do with anything, then remembered Venizelos' odd expression when he'd mentioned them. She gave him a sharp look, and he shrugged with something suspiciously like a grin.

"I see." Mayhew's voice drew her eye back to the com screen. "In that case, you wouldn't know. Just a second." He killed his audio for a moment while he turned his head to speak to someone else, then looked back at her.

"What you're about to see has been playing practically nonstop over the video nets ever since the assassination attempt, courtesy of the palace surveillance system, Captain. I'd estimate it's already been seen more often and by more eyes than any other news report in our history."

His face disappeared before she could ask what he was talking about. The screen was completely blank for a second—then something else appeared.

It left a lot to be desired from an artistic viewpoint, a corner of her brain thought, but the imagery was remarkably clear for something as crude as video tape. It was the dinner party, and she saw herself leaning towards the Protector and listening attentively to him just as Nimitz erupted from his stool and attacked the first assassin.

She stared at the screen, appalled by the carnage, as her own image lunged up from its chair and killed the second assassin. Captain Fox went down, and she watched herself take out his killer, then whirl towards the others charging towards her. The thrown platter dropped their leader, and then people fell in all directions as gunfire ripped back and forth across the room.

She felt a stab of terror there'd been no time to feel then as she watched men crumple and die and wondered how she and Nimitz could possibly have been missed in that crossfire, and then she saw her own desperate charge as the last of the Protector's guards died.

The tape went to slow motion after that, but it still didn't last long. Indeed, it had seemed much longer at the time. Bodies seemed to fly away from her, she saw flashes of a raging Nimitz taking others down, and that same corner of her mind wondered how her Academy instructors would have rated her form.

It seemed impossible that she'd survived, and as she watched Nimitz claw down a man who'd been about to shoot her in the back she knew she wouldn't have without her diminutive ally. She reached out to him, still staring at the screen, and he purred reassuringly as he pressed his head against her palm.

Dead and crippled assassins littered the floor around her as the Security response team broke through at last, and she felt her entire body tense as the man who'd shot her did it all over again. Her image went down on the screen, and sweat beaded her forehead as the disrupter swung towards her once more, and then he was down and dead and the screen went blank.

Mayhew's face reappeared, and he smiled soberly at her.

"That's what all of Grayson's been seeing for the last several hours, Captain Harrington—a tape of you saving the lives of my family," he said softly, and the living side of her face flamed.

"Sir, I-" she began hesitantly, but his raised hand silenced her.

"Don't say it, Captain. I won't embarrass you by saying it again, but I don't have to, either. That tape should rather conclusively discredit any claim that you were behind the assassination attempt, I think. And after seeing it, no one on this planet—including Admiral Garret—will ever dare to question your fitness as an officer again, now will they?"