"I'm tired, Ginny, that's all. It's been... real hard on me here. I don't have any friends, and—God, I've missed you a lot—and... I just want to leave."
Yuri Radamacher had survived for ten years under the suspicious scrutiny of the Committee of Public Safety. It had been quite an odyssey, but it was over. He'd weathered all storms; escaped all reefs; even finally managed to make it safely to shore.
The experience, of course, had shaped his belief that there was precious little in the universe in the way of justice. But what happened next, confirmed his belief for all time.
Not even Oscar Saint-Just could have advanced such a completely, utterly, insanely unfair accusation.
"So that's it!" Ginny Usher's voice was shrill with fury, her hot eyes sweeping over the La Martine delegation.
"Victor Cachat is the sweetest kid in the world! And you—" She was practically spitting like a cat. "You dirty rotten bastards! You were mean to him."
THE SERVICE OF THE SWORD
by David Weber
"Miss Owens is here, High Admiral."
High Admiral Wesley Matthews looked up at his yeoman's announcement, then rose behind his desk as the slender, shapely, brunette midshipwoman in the sky-blue tunic and dark-blue trousers of the Grayson Space Navy stepped past the yeoman into his office. She was tall for a Grayson—over a hundred and sixty-seven centimeters—and she carried herself with an innate grace.
She also, he noticed, had excellent control of her expression. If he hadn't been looking for it carefully, he would never have noticed the flash of irritation in her gray-blue eyes at the way Chief Lewiston had announced her. There was another flicker of emotion as he stood up, and he wondered if she was irritated about that, as well. If she was, he conceded, she might have a point. The uniformed commander in chief of the GSN was not really in the habit of standing to greet a lowly midshipwoman when she reported to his office.
Then again, he'd never greeted any Grayson midshipwoman in his office under any circumstances before today.
"Midshipwoman Abigail Hearns, reporting as ordered, Sir!" she said crisply, bracing sharply to attention with her visored cap clasped under her left elbow.
"Stand easy, Miss—er, Ms. Hearns," he said, and suppressed an urge to grimace as he started to make exactly the same mistake the yeoman had.
There might have been an ever so slight trace of amusement underneath her eyes' irritation this time as she obeyed his order. It was impossible to be certain, but Matthews wouldn't have been at all surprised. Abigail Hearns looked absurdly young to Grayson eyes, for she was a member of the very first Grayson generation to have received the prolong therapies. For that matter, at just over twenty-two T-years, she really was a mere babe in arms to someone the high admiral's age. But despite her youth, she possessed an air of maturity and assurance he was more accustomed to seeing in people twice her age. Which made sense, he supposed, given who and what she was.
He pointed at one of the chairs facing his desk.
"Sit," he said, and she obeyed with economic grace, setting her cap precisely in her lap and sitting with her feet close together and a spine so straight it never touched the chair back at all.
Matthews resumed his own seat and considered her thoughtfully across his desk. Intellectually, he was delighted to see her in the Navy's uniform; emotionally, he had his doubts about the entire business.
"I'm sorry to have taken you away from your leave," he said after a moment. "I know you haven't seen much of your parents over the last three years, and I know you're only home for a few days before reporting back. But there are a few points I feel we ought to discuss before you board ship for your midshipman's cruise."
She said nothing, only gazing at him with alert respect, and he tipped his chair back slightly.
"I realize that you're in a somewhat awkward position as Grayson's very first midshipwoman," he told her. "I'm sure you realized going in that you would be, just as you realized you were going to be under a microscope the entire time you were at Saganami Island. I'm pleased to say that your performance there was all anyone could have asked of you. Fourteenth in your class overall, and sixth in the tactical curriculum." He nodded approvingly. "I expected you to do well, Ms. Hearns. I'm gratified that you exceeded those expectations."
"Thank you, Sir," she said in a soft contralto when he paused.
"It's no more than the truth," he assured her. "On the other hand, that intense scrutiny isn't going to stop now just because your classroom studies are behind you." He regarded her levelly. "However much you may want to be just one more midshipwoman or one more junior officer, Ms. Hearns, it's not going to be that way. You do realize that, don't you?"
"I suppose, to a certain extent, that's inevitable, Sir," she replied. "But I assure you that I neither expect nor desire preferential treatment."
"I'm perfectly—one might almost say painfully—well aware of that," he said. "Unfortunately, I expect some people are going to insist on trying to show you preferential treatment, whatever you want. You are a steadholder's daughter, after all, and I'm afraid patronage and steadholder privilege are still very much a part of Grayson life. Some people are going to find your birth impossible to forget. And, frankly, other people aren't even going to try. Some of them, in fact, will be too busy trying to curry favor with your father to ever so much as consider whether or not he—or you—want them to."
Those gray-blue eyes flashed once more, but he continued in that same calm voice.
"Personally, I intend to do everything possible to disabuse them of the notion that you might. You've certainly demonstrated to my satisfaction that you genuinely don't want any special treatment, and I respect that."
And, he added silently, even if you hadn't demonstrated it, your father made it crystal clear to me when he requested the appointment to Saganami Island for you. I don't think he had a clue why you wanted to go, but however bewildered he may have been, he made his support for your decision abundantly clear.
"It's going to happen, anyway, of course." He shrugged. "It's an imperfect universe, and people will insist on being people, warts and all, no matter what we do. However, it wasn't the possibility of preferential treatment that I was getting at.
"You're going to be the very first Grayson-born female officer in history. For a thousand years, no Grayson woman has ever served in the military. I happen to agree that it's time that we put that particular tradition behind us, but there's an enormous amount riding on how well you perform. And, to be honest, your birth only makes that even more the case. As a steadholder's daughter, you will be held, rightly or wrongly, to a higher standard than those of humbler birth might be, and our... uncertainty over the entire notion of women in uniform will only underline that expectation for those who hold it. At the same time some of our people will continue to doubt that any Grayson-born woman can perform up to standard, however well you actually do. That's not fair, either. And given the fact that we've had female Manticoran officers serving as 'loaners' with us for the better part of fifteen years, now, it's downright silly, too. We've had ample evidence of how well women can perform as both officers and enlisted personnel, regardless of their birth. I suppose it's just our ingrained stubbornness that keeps us from making the conceptual leap from Manticoran women to Grayson women.
"Whatever the cause, though, you're going to find yourself serving with people whose expectations are so high not even a superwoman could meet them. And, conversely, with people who would love to see you fail miserably in order to validate their own prejudices and bigotry. And," he admitted with a wry grin, "all of us are probably going to be a bit awkward about adjusting to the reality you represent."