"Do you?" Honor arched her eyebrows, and Montaigne nodded.
"He asked me to tell you that he and his associate believe they may be on the trail of evidence which will confirm the hypothesis they discussed with you last month."
"Really?" Honor sat up a bit straighter. "You say he's 'on the trail' of the evidence. I take it that that means he doesn't actually have it in hand?"
"I'm afraid not. It's going to take them some time to confirm what they suspect, but they feel confident at this time that they will be able to."
"Do we have any idea how long we're talking about?"
"I'm afraid not. Not exactly, at any rate. There's quite a bit of travel involved."
"I see." Honor's eyes narrowed intently. "May I ask where they're traveling to?"
"Since I can't be certain our connection is completely secure, I'd prefer not to answer that one, Your Grace," Montaigne said. "However, I will say that they'll have to travel incognito this time."
"I see," Honor repeated, and she did. The planet of Mesa, which she was almost certain had to be Zilwicki's and Cachat's destination, would not be a very healthy place for either of them. Manpower had a long and nasty memory at the best of times, and the slavers weren't likely to forget what the team of Zilwicki & Cachat had produced for them on Old Earth.
She tried not to feel disappointed although, in some ways, it was even worse to know Zilwicki and Cachat believed they would be able to confirm their suspicions. Whatever they might be able to do in the future, she still didn't have any proof of it now, and without that proof, there was no way to derail the events proceeding inexorably towards Sanskrit II.
And after we trash Jouett, the Havenites are going to be a lot less inclined to be reasonable, whatever Zilwicki turns up, she thought grimly.
"If you should happen to be sending any messages to Captain Zilwicki," she said aloud, "please tell him I very much hope his search prospers. I spoke to the individuals I assured him I'd contact. Unfortunately, they feel that without conclusive-or at least very persuasive-evidence actually in their hands, there isn't a great deal they can do about the problem."
"I was afraid of that," Montaigne said, blue eyes sad. "We'll just have to do our best to turn up the evidence they need. I hope we can find it in time."
"So do I," Honor said soberly. "I'm afraid, though, that events are taking on a momentum all their own. One we may not be able to deflect, regardless of what they discover, if their discovery's delayed too long."
"We'd already deduced that." Montaigne inhaled deeply. "Well, at least we still have one friend at court. We'll try hard not to disappoint you."
"Welcome back, Your Grace," Rafe Cardones said as the twitter of bosun's pipes died in Imperator's boat bay gallery.
"I'd like to say I'm glad to be back," Honor replied with a small smile. "Unfortunately, that would be a lie. Not that I'm not glad to see you, of course. It's just that I had to leave a very charming young gentleman and lady behind."
"But you brought lots of pictures, I hope," he replied, and she chuckled.
"Only a couple of dozen megs worth. And I've changed out my personal wallpaper, of course."
"Oh, of course!" Cardones laughed, and she clapped him on the upper arm and looked at Mercedes Brigham.
"We've got a lot to discuss, Mercedes," she said, and Brigham nodded.
"I'm sure we do, Your Grace. Just as soon as you're done showing those pictures to all of us. We do have a certain sense of proper priorities around here, you know."
"So I see," Honor said, and Nimitz bleeked an echoing laugh from her shoulder. "All right. The two of you have twisted my arm nearly to the point of dislocation. Solely because of your harshly insistent demands, I'll sacrifice my own desire to plunge immediately back into the official business of this command and force myself to sit through all those awful pictures all over again."
"That's an... impressive itinerary, Your Grace," Dame Alice Truman said.
Honor's staff and senior flag officers sat around the outsized table in her dining cabin. The familiar cups of coffee, tea, and cocoa had made their appearance on schedule, following the dessert dishes, and Judah Yanakov extracted a worn briar pipe from his tunic pocket. He held it up and raised an eyebrow at his hostess.
"That's a truly disgusting habit, Judah," she told him with a smile of affection, and he nodded.
"I know it is, My Lady. And we'd almost stamped it out on Grayson, until you Manties came along with all your modern medicine. Now I can indulge myself and know your decadent, worldly medical science will preserve me from the consequences of my own excesses."
"Does Reverend Sullivan know about this hedonistic streak of yours?" she asked severely.
"Alas," he replied sadly. "I'm afraid my family's always been known for its lapses. My first Grayson ancestor, for example. There he was, the captain of the colony ship, supposed to be in charge of completely decommissioning and scrapping her as an example of the evil technology we'd fled Old Earth to escape. And what did he do? Kept her intact for almost sixty years. Transferred her computers and her auxiliary power plant down to Grayson, too. With that sort of a beginning, surely you know the Reverend is going to expect the worst out of me."
"Stop boasting," Brigham told him with a smile of her own. "I read that biography of your great-great-great-whatever' your grand-aunt wrote. We all know the Yanakov family was instrumental in preserving human life on Grayson. Did I get that quotation right?"
"Almost," he corrected solemnly. "The actual passage you're thinking of says that our family was 'instrumental, by the Tester's grace, in preserving human life on Grayson against overwhelming odds.'" He smiled admiringly. "Aunt Letitia always had a fine, well-rounded way with a phrase, didn't she?"
"Oh, forgive me! How could I have forgotten that bit?"
"Stop it, you two!" Honor said with a laugh. "And, yes, Judah. You can light the reeking thing as soon as Mac readjusts the air circulation to protect the rest of us."
"I'm reconfiguring now, Your Grace," MacGuiness' voice said from the open pantry hatch.
"Thank God," Alistair McKeon murmured, careful to be sure the comment was loud enough for Yanakov to hear.
"Infidel." Yanakov raised his nose with a sniff, and McKeon threw a balled up linen napkin at him across the table.
"Children. Children!" Honor scolded. "I should never have left the nanny back on Manticore!"
The laughter was general this time, and Honor was glad to hear it. She was especially glad since Yanakov's seniority in the Grayson Navy had made him her official second in command. Fortunately, he, Truman, and McKeon had known one another for years and worked smoothly together in the past. No one had gotten his or her nose out of joint following Yanakov's arrival.
Nor had Honor felt any qualms. Yanakov had matured considerably from the days when he'd been one of her brilliant but occasionally overenthusiastic divisional commanders in the Grayson Space Navy's second battle squadron. He'd lost none of the audacity, the ability to think quickly and see possibilities others might miss, but the enthusiasm had been tempered by experience and honed to an even keener, more dangerous edge. He still had a gambler's instincts, but now they were those of a coldly capable, calculating, and highly professional gambler.
"All right," she said as Yanakov got his pipe properly stoked, "I think we can all agree that what the Strategy Board has in mind is, as Alice says, an 'impressive itinerary.' It's also going to be the most powerful single attack the Alliance or any of its members has ever launched. I had a personal message from Herzog von Rabenstrange just before I returned to the fleet. His current estimate is that we should have at least thirty-five Andermani Apollo-capable SD(P)s and sixteen of their BC(P)s joining us here. The first ten or twelve wallers will actually be here within the next two weeks; the others will arrive as they complete their working up exercises with the new systems.