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House of Lords

and

The Prime Minister’s Residence

City of Landing

Planet of Manticore

Manticore Binary System

December 11, 1905 PD


the man who had been Lord Pavel Young and was now the Eleventh Earl of North Hollow studied his mirrored appearance.

He didn’t truly recognize the man in that antechamber mirror. Not yet.

He’d attended sessions of the House of Lords with his father, when he was much younger. And he’d attended as his father’s proxy on a handful of occasions as an adult. But although he’d been the cadet holder of the North Hollow title as his father’s heir, he’d never been seated in the House in his own right.

That was about to change, and the formal regalia of a new peer making his inaugural appearance was too ornate, too anachronistic, for his taste. Worse, the elaborate robes, embroidered with the North Hollow arms, were their own sort of uniform, and that reminded him entirely too painfully of the uniform which had been stripped from him in disgrace.

Anger rose like magma as he remembered the admiral reading the court-martial’s sentence aloud, the assembled ranks of black and gold uniforms. As he remembered the junior-grade lieutenant who’d stripped away the badges of rank, the braid from his cuffs, the medal ribbons, the shoulder boards, the gold and scarlet Navy shoulder flash while the pitiless HD cameras recorded every instant of his shame, broadcast it throughout the entire Star Kingdom.

Oh, yes. He remembered. And the day would come, he promised himself yet again. The day when those who’d engineered that degradation paid dearly.

He made the fists which had clenched at his sides open, and his nostrils flared as he inhaled deeply. In too many ways, today was yet another opportunity for humiliation. His enemies, both political and naval, had to be waiting to pounce, waiting to dissect anything he said with merciless, partisan viciousness. He did have political allies, of course. Some because they, too, were members of the Conservative Association and shared his hatred of and contempt for the Cromarty Government and all its works. Others because they knew he’d come into possession of his father’s secret files, with all the potentially embarrassing (or far, far worse) secrets the tenth earl had amassed in a lifetime spent playing the political game. But politics were a kabuki dance, in a lot of ways. Any reasonably competent analyst could unerringly predict how the partisans on each side would present and comment upon something like the speech he was about to make.

The speech he had no choice but to make, really. Any newly elevated peer was expected to make his maiden address before formally taking his seat. That expectation had the effective force of law under the unwritten portion of Star Kingdom’s Constitution, although more than one new-minted peer’s “speech” had been no more than a paragraph in length. But after the circumstances of his court-martial, his dishonorable discharge, and his father’s death, he knew he couldn’t get away with that sort of brevity. And he knew his enemies—his many and manifold enemies—must be salivating as they waited to pounce. No doubt most of them were gloating as they visualized what he must feel at this moment, waited for the inevitable grist for the mill of their unending persecution which his speech must provide them. After all, there was nothing he could say from the depth of his disgrace that couldn’t be turned to that purpose, was there?

He understood that. And his lips curved unpleasantly as he contemplated what they were actually about to hear. The words might be bitter on his own tongue, but as far as they were concerned—

“Your pardon, Milord,” a voice said behind him.

He turned to face the senior page who’d just entered the antechamber.

“Yes?”

“The House awaits you, Milord. May I escort you?”

“Of course.”

The page turned to lead the way, and North Hollow drew another deep, focusing breath before he followed.

The House’s chamber was unusually crowded for so late on a Friday afternoon. Many of the Star Kingdom’s peers had pressing weekend engagements. They always had pressing weekend engagements, and the established practice of Parliament’s upper house was to avoid scheduling anything important for a Friday. The minor inconvenience of Manticore’s undeclared war with the People’s Republic of Haven could scarcely be allowed to infringe upon that sacrosanct custom.

That was, in fact, one of the reasons North Hollow had requested a Friday time slot for his own maiden address. Not, as some might have expected, to turn it into a “stealth event” while so many of his enemies were away, but because it would give what he had to say an even greater surprise impact. And, of course, because it had permitted a greater degree of stage management.

Michael Janvier, the Baron of High Ridge and acknowledged leader of the Conservative Association, waited at the chamber’s entrance to greet North Hollow and his guide. North Hollow’s father had been one of High Ridge’s closest allies, and their relations had been cordial . . . outwardly, at least. In fact, while they truly had shared political views and policies, High Ridge had never been allowed to forget the evidence the tenth earl had squirreled away in his secret files. The evidence that could have sent even a peer of the realm to prison for a long, long time, had it been whispered into the proper ear.

Now, High Ridge smiled warmly at the eleventh earl and turned to walk beside him to the Speaker’s lectern. They climbed the low dais’s steps side-by-side, and the Speaker beamed upon them—his smile even less sincere than High Ridge’s had been—as they ascended the steps. Sergios Kappopoulos, the Baron of Eastlake, was a longtime member of the Duke of Cromarty’s faction, and there was zero love lost between any of the Government’s supporters and the Conservative Association at the best of times, far less today. But the false narrative of collegial affability had to be maintained, didn’t it? North Hollow smiled back at Eastlake as he and High Ridge reached the top and he felt a twinge of pleasure at the way Eastlake’s jaw tightened. But then the Speaker drew a breath and looked out across the chamber.

“My Lords and Ladies, the Chair recognizes the Baron of High Ridge,” he said, and stepped aside to permit High Ridge to assume his place at the lectern.

“My Lords and Ladies,” the baron said, “it is my great honor, and gives me considerable pleasure, to sponsor the maiden address of Her Majesty’s newest peer. The son of a dear friend and colleague, a man who has already given decades of his life to the Star Kingdom’s service, and a man who, I am certain, will as faithfully uphold his duties as a member of this House and a servant and steward of this Star Kingdom as even his father before him.”

He paused, looking out across the chamber, then extended one hand toward North Hollow.

“My Lords and Ladies, the Eleventh Earl of North Hollow.”

There was a spatter of applause. A spatter that grew suddenly louder, as several of the men and women in that chamber came to their feet. Quite a few of those men and women were among those who would normally have been elsewhere on a Friday afternoon, but High Ridge and the Conservative Association’s whips had very quietly seen to it that they wouldn’t be elsewhere on this Friday. Not when the HD cameras would have an opportunity to capture the sound of their applause—even their cheers, in a handful of cases—as a way to refute any claim that North Hollow had been snubbed by the bulk of the Star Kingdom’s aristocracy.

North Hollow took High Ridge’s place at the lectern, smiling out at those applauding peers, and the fact that he knew how many of them were there for the same reason High Ridge would never have dreamed of declining to sponsor today’s speech only whetted that smile’s keenness.

He waited until the “spontaneous greeting” had died away, then turned to the Speaker and High Ridge.

“I thank you for this opportunity to address the House, My Lord,” he said gravely, bowing ever so slightly to the Speaker. “And you, for your gracious introduction, My Lord High Ridge,” he added, bowing to the baron. Then he turned back to the waiting peers.

“My Lords and Ladies, I will not keep you long,” he told them. “I’ve been told that brevity is the very soul of a maiden address, and until I’ve been among you long enough to earn the right to a greater . . . loquacity, I will strive to bear that in mind.”

A few chuckles ran around the chamber. One or two of them might even have been genuine.

“Nonetheless, there is one point upon which I have very strong views, and I believe for several reasons that this would be an appropriate time for me to share those views with this House.”

Several of the peers who were not members of the Conservative Association grimaced, obviously anticipating what was coming next. Or what they thought was coming next, at any rate.

Oh, yes, My Lords and Ladies, he thought sardonically, watching those grimaces. The day will come when I’ll be free to say exactly what you think I’m going to say today. But that day isn’t today.

“My Lords and Ladies,” he said somberly, “every man and woman in this Chamber is aware of events in the People’s Republic of Haven, of the conflict even now raging across the frontiers of the Manticoran Alliance, and of the courageous men and women of our Navy and our Marines who are fighting and—too often—dying even as I stand here before you.”

A stir rippled through his audience, and many of those who’d grimaced leaned forward in their seats, eyes suddenly narrowed.

“Just as all of us are aware of those events, we are aware of how my own naval service ended, and under what circumstances,” he continued, and his tone was flatter than he’d intended. “I won’t pretend I’m not bitter over that, nor will I pretend that I feel the verdict of my court-martial was either just or impartial. Having said that, I recognize, that I would feel that way, no matter how just my trial’s outcome might have been, just as I recognize that none of you would expect me to formally ‘acknowledge’ a guilt I do not feel.

“But bitterness, anger, even a keen sense of injustice do not—cannot—excuse a peer of the realm’s failure to discharge his responsibilities to the Realm. We are called to look past our own self-interest, our own grievances, when the fate of the Star Kingdom itself lies in the balance. And, My Lords and Ladies, this is such a time.

“The war against which we’ve been warned for so long is upon us.” He swept the chamber with steady, bleak eyes. “For decades, since the accession of King Roger to the throne, we’ve prepared against this very day. We’ve built a Navy second to none in quality and fighting power. We’ve forged alliances fit to withstand the tempest of combat.

“We have drawn our line, declared that we will neither retreat nor falter.”

He paused, let silence linger for a handful of breaths, then squared his shoulders with a solemn expression.

“There are many in this Chamber, and elsewhere in the Star Kingdom, who believe the tides of revolution and civil war sweeping the People’s Republic mean it may be possible for us to avoid a head-on conflict we have dreaded and for which we have prepared for so long. And the truth is, that even I find that argument most tempting. Our quarrel, after all, was with the Legislaturalists, and they are gone, swept away—or being swept away—into the dustbin of history. One would hope the new regime would recognize the costs of the expansionist foreign policy the Legislaturalists pursued for so long. That the People’s Republic’s new leaders would renounce that expansionism, seek to compose the differences between us and live in peace with their interstellar neighbors.

“One would hope that, but it would be a grave, even fatal, error to assume it.”

He paused once more, and he could almost taste the disbelief, the astonishment, flowing through the peers who hadn’t been forewarned about his address.

“My Lords and Ladies, I understand how ugly, how brutal, how destructive war with the People’s Republic would be,” he resumed quietly. “I’ve seen that evidence firsthand. But the making of the war between us was not our doing, and much though I would prefer to allow a genuine renaissance, a genuine revolutionary zeal, to transform the People’s Republic without further conflict, we cannot depend upon that outcome. Indeed, according to my own sources within the Navy, it is far more likely that ‘Chairman Pierre’ will seek to solidify domestic support by pointing at a foreign enemy: us.

“It’s always possible I’m wrong about that. And it’s always possible that those who call upon us to not throw away the opportunity, to hold our hand and ‘give peace a chance,’ are correct and my fears are wrong. But the truth is that we dare not wager the survival of the Star Kingdom, the freedom of Her Majesty’s subjects, on the possibility that my fears are mistaken.

“I acknowledge that this is a grave decision, and one upon which any honorable man or woman must vote his or her own conscience. But I know how I intend to vote mine, and I call upon the members of this House to do the same. We’ve already lost months—over half an entire T-year—in which we might have taken the battle to the enemy, driven deep into the People’s Republic, secured positions of strategic advantage ample to offset our inferiority in tonnage. We cannot get those months back, but it is essential that we squander no more of them. Every day we delay will cost the lives of more of our military personnel, cost more millions of dollars in damaged and destroyed starships, and deepen the danger in which our Star Kingdom stands.

“My Lords and Ladies of Manticore, I call upon you to join me in voting out a formal declaration of war against the People’s Republic of Haven in order to permit our magnificent Navy to do what it was created to do and defend the people of this Realm against their enemies!”

* * *

“God, I hate this,” Lord William Alexander growled.

He sat in a private study which belonged to Allen Summervale, the Duke of Cromarty, and his comment had nothing to do with the twenty-six-year scotch in his glass. He wasn’t even looking at that glass. Instead, his eyes were on the smart wall as the recorded HD played.

“How can you say that?” The Star Kingdom’s Prime Minister sat behind his desk, watching the same smart wall, and his whiskey-smooth baritone was sardonic. “That’s exactly what you’ve been saying for months now, Willie! You and Hamish both. Why aren’t you delighted to hear somebody on the other side finally say the same thing?”

“I have a delicate stomach, Allen,” Alexander replied. “If you don’t want your carpet to need cleaning, you might want to reconsider that question.”

Cromarty chuckled and sipped his own whiskey. Then he shook his head with a moderately apologetic expression.

“Sorry, Willie. I know exactly what you mean. But much as I know it galls you—hell, as much as it galls me!—this is exactly what we’ve needed from somebody—anybody—on the Conservative side of the aisle for months. It sticks in my craw to hear someone like North Hollow ape the role of ‘statesman,’ but none of High Ridge’s other carrion-eaters were going to do it.”

“Sooner or later one of them would’ve had to,” Alexander countered, then raised his free hand with a grimace of acknowledgment. “But I take your point. Hell, I made the same point to Hamish earlier today.” He rolled the blue eyes he shared with his older brother. “Trust me, you don’t even want to hear his opinion of this particular ‘statesman.’”

“Not only don’t want to, don’t need to.” Cromarty snorted. “But I’ll guarantee you he recognized how pivotal North Hollow’s speech will probably be, didn’t he?”

“Of course he did.” Alexander sipped more whiskey. “But you know the chicken-shit bastard didn’t give it because he gives a single good goddamn about the Navy or how many of our people are likely to get killed if this . . . this quasi-war stretches out much longer!”

“You think I was born yesterday?” Cromarty asked sourly. “He did it because he, or one of his father’s advisors, has decent political instincts.”

He took a deeper swallow of whiskey, as if to wash a bad taste out of his mouth, and Alexander grunted.

“Among other things, Burgundy’s effort to expel him from the Lords because of his ‘demonstrated lack of character’ just got knocked on its head,” he said.

“It was never really his lack of character the Duke objected to, Willie. It was the nature of his character. And simple fairness requires me to point out quite a few others among our fellow peers could legitimately face exclusion on that basis. Not in such extreme degree, perhaps, but still—”

He shrugged, and Alexander glared at him.

“Well, we can hardly support Burgundy’s motion now that he’s the only Opposition peer who’s actually spoken in favor of the declaration, now can we?” the Chancellor observed acidly. “That’s bad enough. I mean, let’s be honest. Much as we both agree with Burgundy, the chance of his ever mustering the votes in North Hollow’s case was . . . remote even before this. But in addition to that, this whole damned ‘more in sorrow than in anger’ bullshit is going to undercut the public’s perception of his cowardice. We were never getting him out of the House, Allen, but at least we could have hoped to marginalize him, keep him politically gelded. Up until this afternoon, he was so toxic even High Ridge would have been forced to hold him at arm’s length, deny him any official place at the Conservatives’ table. The ‘North Hollow Files’ would’ve guaranteed him a place behind the scenes, but that’s not remotely the same thing. Now they’ll be able to reach out and welcome him!”

“I wouldn’t go quite that far yet,” Cromarty said. Alexander looked at him in disbelief, and the duke waved a hand. “I did say I wouldn’t go that far yet,” he pointed out. “There’s still too much public disgust in the wake of his dishonorable discharge, but you’re right. This will start eroding that, and you’re also right that eventually—and sooner than either of us would like—they will be able to pull out a chair for him officially. And the bastard will sit down in it, and outwardly, he’ll go right on supporting the war. Of course, whatever he may be saying for the cameras, you and I both know that behind the scenes he’ll still be doing his damnedest to break our kneecaps, just because of how much he hates us. High Ridge is an arrogant pain in the ass and as politically corrupt as they come, but he’s not motivated by the personal hatred North Hollow feels. Probably even more for you than for me, given how . . . frankly Hamish has expressed his opinions. Or the minor fact that Hamish was president of the court that cashiered him. He’s never going to ‘forgive and forget,’ Willie, and coupled with his father’s files and how much he hates all of us, he’ll be far more dangerous in the long term than a simple corrupt political hack like High Ridge ever was.”

“Damned right he will,” Alexander growled. “And at least until we actually get the declaration, we have to keep our hands off him while he and his cronies and stooges work on repairing his public image.”

“Oh, it’s lots worse than that.” Cromarty’s expression was that of a man who’d just bitten into something rotten. “Tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning I have to stand up and make a statement publicly thanking him for his ‘thoughtful and patriotic’ speech. The Government will have to embrace him, use him as our opening wedge into the opposition to the declaration. And all of High Ridge’s cronies who have delayed it, who’ve finally started to realize just how bad a political corner they’ve painted themselves into, now that the tide of public opinion is turning against them, will do the same damned thing. ‘If someone who was so brutally mistreated by the Cromarty Government can rise above the injustice he’s suffered to so eloquently argue in favor of a formal declaration of war, then we have no choice but to do the same.’”

His eyes glittered angrily.

“I know I should be down on my knees thanking God he did it, praying that it will really make a difference, turn the corner on this thing. And I truly am grateful for it, Willie. But it’s not only the first step in rehabilitating him; it’s also the first step in letting High Ridge crawl back off the ledge and salvage his own political career. And I just can’t convince myself that providing a way for High Ridge to walk won’t turn out to be almost equally disastrous somewhere down the road.”


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