"Let's hope this goes well," Eleanora sighed. "Please God it goes well."
"For your side or for her?" Catrone asked bitterly.
"We're on the same side, Sergeant Major!" Eleanora snapped. "Remember that."
"I know. I try, but—" Catrone shrugged, pain darkening his eyes. "But sometimes it's hard."
"You love her," Eleanora said gently. "Too much, I think."
"That I do," Catrone whispered. His face clenched for a moment, and then he shook himself. "Where's the Prince?" he asked in a determinedly lighter tone.
"Late," Eleanora said, her lips pursed in irritation.
They entered the conference room and took their seats. Their late entry did not pass unremarked, and they drew a stern look from the Empress at the head of the long, polished table. The room was lined with windows, looking out over one of the south gardens, and bright sunlight filled it with a warm glow. The Prime Minister had one end of the conference table and the Empress had the other. The new Navy Minister was also present; as was Admiral Helmut, who was temporarily holding down the position of CNO; the Finance Minister; Julian, who was still in some undefined billet; and Despreaux, who was in another. And, of course, there was one empty chair.
"And where is Roger?" Alexandra asked coldly.
The door opened, and Roger limped in. He wore a custom-tailored suit of bright yellow, a forest-green ascot, and a straw hat. The regeneration of his leg was still in its very early stages, and he leaned on a color-coordinated cane as he bowed.
"Sorry I'm late," he said, tugging on a leash. "Dogzard insisted on a walk, so I took her to visit Patty. And she didn't want to come back again... naturally. Come on, you stupid beast," he continued as he practically dragged the creature into the room. She hissed at most of the people sitting around the table, then saw the Empress and produced a happy little whine of pleasure.
Eleanora was watching Alexandra's face and sighed mentally as she saw the quick flicker of the Empress' eyes. In some ways, Eleanora wished Roger had retained his Augustus Chung body-mod. That had been impossible, of course, if only because of the public-relations considerations. But every time the Empress saw him, it was as if she had to remind herself physically that he was not his father even before she could deal with the ambiguity of her feelings where he was concerned.
"Sorry," Roger repeated as he finally managed to wrestle Dogzard across to the chair set aside for him. "Just because I let her eat one person... Sit," he commanded. "Sit! Quit looking at the Prime Minister that way, it's not respectful. Sit. Lie down. Good Dogzard."
The prince settled into his own chair, hung his cane over its back, looked around the table, and set his hat in front of him.
"Where were we?"
"I think we were about to discuss Navy repairs and consolidations," Alexandra said, raising one eyebrow. "Now that you're here..."
The meeting had been going on for an hour, which was longer than Catrone had feared, and far shorter than he'd hoped.
"Between making sure the Saints don't snap up systems and holding back Adoula, there just aren't enough ships to go around," Andrew Shue, Baron Talesian and the new Navy Minister, said, and threw up his hands.
"Then we make faces," Roger said, leaning sideways to pet Dogzard. "We bluff. We only have to keep them off our backs for... what? Eighteen months? Long enough for the shipyards to start pushing out the new carriers."
"Which will be ruinously expensive," Jasper O'Higgins, the Finance Minister said.
"We're at war," Roger replied coldly. "War is waste. Most of those expensive ships of yours are going to be scrap floating among the stars in two years, anyway. Mr. O'Higgins. The point is to have them, and then to use them as judiciously as humanly possible. But we have to have them, first, and to do that, we have to keep our enemies off our backs long enough for them to be built."
"They'll be used judiciously," Helmut said. "I know Gajelis. He's a bigger-hammer commander. 'Quantity has a quality of its own.' I'd be surprised if we couldn't give him at least two-to-one in damage levels. Admittedly, even those numbers are terrible enough. A lot of our boys and girls are going to die. But..."
The diminutive admiral shrugged, and the Empress grimaced.
"And Adoula has shipyards of his own," she said angrily. "I wish I could strangle my father for letting any of them get built outside the central worlds, especially in Adoula's backyard!"
"We could always... send an emissary to Adoula," the Prime Minister suggested, only to pause as Dogzard's hiss cut him off.
"Down!" Roger said to the dog-lizard, then looked at Yang. "Methinks my pet dislikes your suggestion, Mr. Prime Minister. And so do I."
"You yourself just pointed out that we have to buy time, Your Highness," the Prime Minister said coldly. "Negotiations—even, or especially, negotiations we don't intend to go anywhere—might be one way to buy that time. And if it should turn out that there actually was some sort of feasible arrangement, a modus vivendi, why—"
"Now I know I don't like it," Roger said, his voice several degrees colder than the Prime Minister's.
"Nor do I," Alexandra said. Her voice was less chill than her son's, but undeniably frosty. "Adoula is in a state of rebellion. If he succeeds in breaking off permanently—or even merely seems to have temporarily succeeded—others will try to do the same. Before long, the Empire will end up as a scattered group of feuding worlds, and all we may hold will be a few systems. And the expense at that point will be enormous. No, Roger has a point," she conceded, looking at him balefully nonetheless. "We can make faces. Bluff. But we will not take any step which even suggests we might ever treat with Adoula as if he were a legitimate head of state. Instead, we'll send—"
"—and I'm very much looking forward to the Imperial Festival, my love."
Her voice changed abruptly, crisp decisiveness melting into cloying sweetness, and she gazed at Roger with soulful eyes.
"As am I," Roger said. His expression had frozen into an iron mask as the Empress' had changed to one of adoration. "It is about that time, isn't it?"
"Oh, yes, my dear," the Empress crooned. "What will you be wearing? I want to make sure we're simply the loveliest couple—"
"I'm not sure, yet," Roger interrupted calmly, gently. "But I think, Alexandra, that this meeting's gone on long enough, don't you?" He waved to one of the guards by the door. "Let me call your ladies in waiting. That way you can make yourself fresh and beautiful again," he added, glancing sideways at Catrone, who gave a brief nod of approval.
When the docile Empress had been led from the room, Roger stood and swept the people still seated around the conference table with eyes of emerald ice.
"Not a word," he said. "Not one pocking damned word. Meeting adjourned."
"Well?" Roger said, looking up from yet another of the endless reports floating in the holographic display above his desk. Decisions had to be made, and by default, he was making them, despite the fact that his mother had yet to define precisely what authority, if any, was his. Nobody was raising the issue, however.
Not more than once.
"It's a bad one," Catrone said.
His face was drawn, his eyes worried, as he sat down in one of the office's float chairs at Roger's wave.
"Really bad," he continued. "She's... changing. She's not asking for Adoula as much, not since we got the worst of the drugs scrubbed out of her system and told her he's gone off to his sector for a while. She still asking for New Madrid, but..." Catrone swallowed, and his face worked. "But not as often."