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CHAPTER THREE

White table linens glowed, silver and china gleamed, and conversation hummed as the stewards removed the dessert dishes. MacGuiness moved quietly around the table, personally pouring the wine, and Honor watched the lights glitter deep in the ruby heart of her glass.

Fearless was young, one of the Royal Manticoran Navy's newest and most powerful heavy cruisers. The Star Knight class often served as squadron or flotilla flagships, and BuShips had borne that in mind when they designed their accommodations. Admiral Courvosier's flag cabin was even more splendid than Honor's, and the captain's dining cabin was downright huge by Navy standards. If it wasn't big enough to seat all of Honor's officers—a heavy cruiser was a warship, and no warship had mass to waste—it was more than large enough to accommodate her senior officers and Courvosier's delegation.

MacGuiness finished pouring, and Honor glanced around the long table. The Admiral—who, true to his newly acquired status, had exchanged his uniform for formal civilian dress—sat at her right hand. Andreas Venizelos faced him at her left; from there, her guests ran down the sides of the table in descending order of seniority, military and civilian, to Ensign Carolyn Wolcott at its foot. This was Wolcott's first cruise after graduation, and she looked almost like a schoolgirl dressed up in her mother's uniform. Tonight was also the first time she'd joined her new captain for dinner, and her anxiety had been obvious in her over-controlled table manners. But the RMN believed the proper place for an officer to learn her duties, social as well as professional, was in space, and Honor caught the ensign's eye and touched the side of her glass.

Wolcott blushed, reminded of her responsibility as junior officer present, and rose. The rest of the guests fell silent, and her spine straightened as all eyes turned to her.

"Ladies and Gentlemen," she raised her wine, her voice deeper and more melodious—and confident—than Honor had expected, "the Queen!"

"The Queen!" The response rumbled back to her, glasses rose, and Wolcott slipped back into her chair with obvious relief as the formality was completed. She glanced up the table at her captain, and her face relaxed as she saw Honor's approving expression.

"You know," Courvosier murmured in Honor's ear, "I still remember the first time it was my turn to do that. Odd how terrifying it can be, isn't it?"

"All things are relative, Sir," Honor replied with a smile, "and I suppose it does us good. Weren't you the one who was telling me a Queen's officer has to understand diplomacy as well as tactics?"

"Now that, Captain, is a very true statement," another voice said, and Honor suppressed a grimace. "In fact, I only wish more Navy officers could realize that diplomacy is even more important than tactics and strategy," the Honorable Reginald Houseman continued in his deep, cultured baritone.

"I don't believe I can quite agree with that, Sir," Honor said quietly, hoping her irritation at his intrusion into a private conversation didn't show. "At least, not from the Navy's viewpoint. Important, yes, but it's our job to step in after diplomacy breaks down."

"Indeed?" Houseman smiled the superior smile Honor loathed. "I realize military people often lack the time for the study of history, but an ancient Old Earth soldier got it exactly right when he said war was simply the continuation of diplomacy by non-diplomatic means."

"That's something of a paraphrase, and that `simply' understates the case a bit, but I'll grant that it sums up the sense of General Clausewitz's remark." Houseman's eyes narrowed as Honor supplied Clausewitz's name and rank, and other conversations flagged as eyes turned toward them. "Of course, Clausewitz came out of the Napoleonic Era on Old Earth, heading into the Final Age of Western Imperialism, and On War isn't really about politics or diplomacy, except inasmuch as they and warfare are all instruments of state policy. Actually, Sun Tzu made the same point over two thousand T-years earlier." A hint of red tinged Houseman's jowls, and Honor smiled pleasantly. "Still, neither of them had a monopoly on the concept, did they? Tanakov said much the same thing in his Tenets of War just after the Warshawski sail made interstellar warfare possible, and Gustav Anderman certainly demonstrated the way in which diplomatic and military means can be used to reinforce one another when he took over New Berlin and built it into the Anderman Empire in the sixteenth century. Have you read his Sternenkrieg, Mr. Houseman? It's an interesting distillation of most of the earlier theorists with a few genuine twists of his own, probably from his personal background as a mercenary. I think Admiral White Haven's translation is probably the best available."

"Ah, no, I'm afraid I haven't," Houseman said, and Courvosier blotted his lips with his napkin to hide a grin. "My point, however," the diplomat continued doggedly, "is that properly conducted diplomacy renders military strategy irrelevant by precluding the need for war." He sniffed and swirled his wine gently, and his superior smile reasserted itself.

"Reasonable people negotiating in good faith can always reach reasonable compromises, Captain. Take our situation here, for example. Neither Yeltsin's Star nor the Endicott System have any real resources to attract interstellar commerce, but they each have an inhabited world, with almost nine billion people between them, and they lie less than two days apart for a hyper freighter. That gives them ample opportunity to create local prosperity, yet both economies are at best borderline . . . which is why it's so absurd that they've been at one another's throats for so long over some silly religious difference! They should be trading with one another, building a mutually supported, secure economic future, not wasting resources on an arms race." He shook his head sorrowfully. "Once they discover the advantages of peaceful trade—once they each realize their prosperity depends on the other's—the situation will defuse itself without all this saber rattling."

Honor managed not to stare at him in disbelief, but if she hadn't known the Admiral so well, she would have assumed someone had failed to brief Houseman. It would certainly be nice to make peace between Masada and Grayson, but her own reading of the download accompanying her orders had confirmed everything the Admiral had said about their long-term hostility. And nice as it would be to put that enmity to rest, Manticore's fundamental purpose was to secure an ally against Haven, not engage in a peacemaking effort that was almost certainly doomed to failure.

"I'm sure that would be a desirable outcome, Mr. Houseman," she said after a moment, "but I don't know how realistic it is."

"Indeed?" Houseman bristled.

"They've been enemies for more than six hundred T-years," she pointed out as gently as she could, "and religious hatreds are among the most virulent known to man."

"That's why they need a fresh viewpoint, a third party from outside the basic equation who can bring them together."

"Excuse me, Sir, but I was under the impression our primary goals are to secure an ally and Fleet base rights and to prevent Haven from penetrating the region instead of us."

"Well, of course they are, Captain." Houseman's tone was just short of impatient. "But the best way to do that is to settle the locals' differences. The potential for instability and Havenite interference will remain as long as their hostility does, whatever else we may accomplish. Once we bring them together, however, we'll have two friends in the region, and there won't be any temptation for either of them to invite Haven in for military advantage. The best diplomatic glue is common interest, not simply a common enemy. Indeed," Houseman sipped his wine, "our entire involvement in this region stems from our own failure to find a common interest with the People's Republic, and it is a failure. There's always some way to avoid confrontation if one only looks deep enough and remembers that, in the long run, violence never solves anything. That's why we have diplomats, Captain Harrington—and why a resort to brute force is an indication of failed diplomacy, nothing more and nothing less."

Major Tomas Ramirez, commander of Fearless's Marine detachment, stared at Houseman in disbelief from further down the table. The heavyset, almost squat Marine had been twelve years old when Haven conquered his native Trevor's Star. He, his mother, and his sisters had escaped to Manticore in the last refugee convoy through the Manticore Wormhole Junction; his father had stayed behind, on one of the warships that died to cover the retreat. Now his jaw tightened ominously as Houseman smiled at Honor, but Lieutenant Commander Higgins, Fearless's chief engineer, touched his forearm and jerked a tiny headshake. The little scene wasn't lost on Honor, and she sipped her own wine deliberately, then lowered her glass.

"I see," she said, and wondered how the Admiral tolerated such a nincompoop as his second in command. Houseman had a reputation as a brilliant economist and, given Grayson's backward economy, sending him made sense, but he was also an ivory-tower intellectual who'd been plucked from a tenured position in Mannheim University's College of Economics for government service. Mannheim wasn't called "Socialist U" for nothing, and Houseman's prominent family was a vocal supporter of the Liberal Party. Neither of those facts were calculated to endear him to Captain Honor Harrington, and his simplistic notion of how to approach the Grayson-Masada hostility was downright frightening.

"I'm afraid I can't quite agree with you, Sir," she said at last, setting her glass down precisely and keeping her voice as pleasant as humanly possible. "Your argument assumes all negotiators are reasonable, first, and second, that they can always agree on what represents a `reasonable compromise,' but if history demonstrates one thing quite clearly, it's that they aren't and they can't. If you can see the advantage of peaceful trade between these people, then surely it ought to be evident to them, but the record indicates no one on either side has ever even discussed the possibility. That suggests a degree of hostility that makes economic self-interest immaterial, which, in turn, suggests that what we consider rationalism may not play a particularly prominent part in their thinking. Even if it did, mistakes happen, Mr. Houseman, and that's where the people in uniform come in."

" `Mistakes,' as you put it," Houseman said more coolly, "often happen because `the people in uniform' act hastily or ill advisedly."

"Of course they do," Honor agreed, and he blinked at her in surprise. "In fact, the final mistake is almost always made by someone in uniform—either because she gave the wrong advice to her own superiors when they were the aggressors or because she squeezed the trigger too quickly when an enemy made an unexpected move. Sometimes we even make the mistake of projecting threats and responses in too much detail and lock ourselves into war plans we can't break free of, just as Clausewitz's own disciples did. But, Mr. Houseman," her dark eyes met his suddenly across the snowy tablecloth, "the situations which make military mistakes critical, even possible, grow out of political and diplomatic maneuvers which preceded them."

"Indeed?" Houseman regarded her with grudging respect and marked distaste. "Then wars are primarily the fault of the civilians, Captain, and not the pure-hearted military protectors of the realm?"

"I wouldn't go quite that far," Honor said, and a grin lit her face briefly. "I've known quite a few `military protectors,' and I'm sorry to say all too few of them were `pure-hearted'!" Her grin vanished. "On the other hand, I'd have to point out that in any society in which the military is controlled by duly constituted civilian authorities—like ours—the ultimate responsibility has to lie with the civilians who make policy between the wars. I don't mean to suggest that those civilians are stupid or incompetent—" after all, she thought, one must be polite "—or that the military gives them unfailingly good advice, but mutually contradictory national goals can present insoluble dilemmas, however much good faith there may be on both sides. And when one side doesn't negotiate in good faith—" She shrugged.

"It was also Clausewitz who said `Politics is the womb in which war is developed,' Mr. Houseman. My own view is a bit simpler than that. War may represent the failure of diplomacy, but even the best diplomats operate on credit. Sooner or later someone who's less reasonable than you are is going to call you, and if your military can't cover your I.O.U.s, you lose."

"Well," Houseman twitched his own shoulders, "the object of this mission is to avoid being called, isn't it?" He smiled thinly. "I trust you won't object to our avoiding a war if we can?"

Honor started to retort sharply, then made herself shake her head with a smile. She really shouldn't let Houseman get under her skin this way, she scolded herself. It wasn't his fault he'd been reared in a nice, safe, civilized society that protected him from the harsh reality of an older and grimmer set of imperatives. And foolish as she might think he was outside his own undoubted area of expertise, it wasn't as if he were in charge of the mission. That was Admiral Courvosier's responsibility, and she felt no qualms about his judgment.

Venizelos stepped into the brief lull, tactfully engaging Houseman in a discussion of the government's new taxation policies, and she turned her own head to speak to Lieutenant Commander DuMorne.

A rustle of movement swept the briefing room as Admiral Courvosier followed Honor into the compartment and her officers rose. The two of them walked to their chairs at the head of the table, then sat, followed a moment later by the others, and Honor let her eyes sweep the assembled faces.

Andreas Venizelos and Stephen DuMorne, her own exec and second lieutenant, represented Fearless. Honor's second in command, Commander Alice Truman of the light cruiser Apollo, sat beside Lieutenant Commander Lady Ellen Prevost, Apollo's exec, both of them as golden-haired as Honor was dark, and Commander Jason Alvarez of the destroyer Madrigal sat facing them, accompanied by his exec, Lieutenant Commander Mercedes Brigham. After Admiral Courvosier, Brigham was the oldest person in the compartment, and just as dark and weathered—and competent—looking as Honor remembered her. The escort force's most junior CO sat facing her from the end of the table: Commander Alistair McKeon of the destroyer Troubadour and his exec, Lieutenant Mason Haskins.

None of the Admiral's civil service associates were present.

"All right, people," she said. "Thank you all for coming. I'll try not to use up any more of your time than I have to, but, as you all know, we'll be translating back into n-space for Yeltsin's Star tomorrow, and I wanted one last chance to meet with all of you and the Admiral before we do."

Heads nodded, though one or two of Honor's officers had been a bit taken aback initially by her taste for face-to-face meetings. Most senior officers preferred the convenience of electronic conferences, but Honor believed in personal contact. Even the best com conference, in her view, distanced the participants from one another. People sitting around the same table were more likely to feel part of the same unit, to be aware of one another, and spark the sorts of ideas and responses that made a command team more than the sum of its parts.

Or, she thought dryly, it seemed that way to her, anyway.

"In light of the fact that your mission is the primary one, Admiral," she went on, turning to Courvosier, "perhaps you'd care to begin?"

"Thank you, Captain." Courvosier looked around the table and smiled. "I'm sure by this time you're almost depressingly familiar with my mission brief, but I'd like to hit the high points one more time.

"First, of course, is the absolute importance of securing our relationship with Grayson. The government hopes we'll come home with a formal alliance, but they'll settle for anything that brings the Yeltsin System more fully into our sphere of influence and decreases Haven's access here.

"Second, remember that anything we say to the Grayson government will be filtered through their perception of the Masadan threat. Their navy and population are both smaller than Masada's, and whatever certain members of my own delegation may think—" a soft chuckle ran around the table "—they have no doubt that Masadan rhetoric about returning to their planet as conquerors is completely serious. It hasn't been that long since their last shooting war, and the current situation is very, very tense.

"Third, and in conjunction with the military balance of power in the region, remember your single small squadron masses seventy percent as much as the entire Grayson Navy. Given the relative backwardness of their technology, Fearless, alone, could annihilate everything they have in a stand-up battle. They're going to realize that, whether they want to admit it or not, but it's essential that we not rub their noses in their `inferiority.' Make them aware of how useful we could be as allies, by all means, but don't let yourself or any of your people condescend to them."

He held them with level blue eyes, every centimeter the admiral despite his temporary civilian status, and his cherub face was deadly serious until heads nodded around the table.

"Good. And remember this—these people aren't from the same societal matrix as we are. They don't even come close. I know you've all studied your downloads, but be certain your crews are as aware of the differences as you are. In particular, our female personnel are going to have to be extremely careful in any contacts with the Graysons." Commander Truman grimaced, and Courvosier nodded. "I know, and if it seems foolish to us, imagine how much more foolish it's going to seem to some of your junior officers and ratings. But foolish or not, it's the way things are here, and we're the visitors. We must conduct ourselves as guests, and while I don't want anyone acting a millimeter less than fully professional at all times, regardless of gender, the mere fact that we have women in uniform—far less officers' uniforms—is going to be hard for them to accept."

Heads nodded once more, and he sat back in his chair.

"That just about covers it, Captain," he told Honor, "at least until I meet their representatives and have more of a feel for the situation."

"Thank you, Sir." Honor leaned forward and folded her hands on the table. "Aside from endorsing everything Admiral Courvosier just said, I have only one thing to say about Grayson. We're going to have to play things by ear, but our responsibility is to contribute to the Admiral's success, not to make waves. If there are problems with any representative of the Grayson government, or even a private Grayson citizen, I want to hear about it immediately—and not from the locals. There's no room here for prejudice from our side, however merited it may seem, and I'd better not hear about any. Is that clear?"

A quiet murmur of agreement answered, and she nodded.

"Good." She rubbed her left forefinger lightly across the back of her right hand and nodded. "All right, then, let's turn to our own schedule.

"We've got four Mandrake-class freighters to drop off at Yeltsin's Star, but we're not supposed to actually turn their cargoes over to Grayson until Admiral Courvosier's people have begun negotiations and released them. I don't anticipate any problem in that regard, but that means they'll remain our responsibility until we do hand them over, and that means we're going to have to leave at least some of the escort to keep an eye on them. In addition, of course, we're supposed to be a show of force, a sort of pointed reminder to the Grayson government of just how valuable the Navy can be to their security vis-a-vis Masada—or, for that matter, the Peeps.

"On the other hand, we've got five more ships going on to Casca. We'll have to send along a reasonable escort, given the reports of increased `pirate' activity in the area, so my present thought is to keep Fearless here, as our most impressive unit, and send you and Apollo on to Casca in company with Troubadour, Alice." Commander Truman nodded. "With Alistair to scout for you, you should be able to handle anything you run into, and that will give me Jason and Madrigal to support Fearless. It'll take you a bit over a T-week to get there, but I want you back here ASAP. You won't have any freighters to slow you down on the return voyage, so I'll expect you back in eleven days.

"In the meantime, Jason," she moved her eyes to Alvarez, "you and I will operate on the theory that the Graysons know what they're talking about where Masada is concerned. It wouldn't be very bright of them to try anything against us, but unlike certain members of the Admiral's delegation, we're not going to take their rationality for granted." Another ripple of amusement flowed around the table. "I want our impellers hot at all times, and assuming we can arrange local leave, I don't want more than ten percent of our people dirt-side at any one time."

"Understood, Ma'am."

"All right, then. Does anyone else have anything to add?"

"I do, Skipper," McKeon said, and Honor cocked her head with a smile. "It just occurred to me to wonder, Ma'am—did anyone ever expressly tell the Graysons that, well, that our senior officer is a woman?"

"I don't know," Honor said, and the admission surprised her, for she hadn't even considered it. She turned to Courvosier. "Admiral?"

"No, we haven't," Courvosier replied with a frown. "Ambassador Langtry's been on Grayson for over three local years, and his advice was that making a point of explaining that we have female military personnel might be counterproductive. They're a proud, touchy lot—not least, I suspect, because, scared as they are of Masada, they know the real balance of power between them and the Kingdom as well as we do and resent their weakness. They don't want to be our supplicants, and they go out of their way to refuse to admit they may be. At any rate, Sir Anthony felt they might see it as some sort of slur, as if we were pointedly telling them how uncivilized we consider them. On the other hand, we transmitted a list of our ships and their COs to them, and their colonists came predominately from Old Earth's Western Hemisphere, just as our original settlers did. They certainly ought to recognize feminine names when they see them."

"I see." McKeon frowned, and Honor watched his face carefully. She knew Alistair well enough to see that something about the situation bothered him, but he chose to say nothing more, and she looked around the table again.

"Anything else?" she asked, and heads shook. "Very well, then, ladies and gentlemen, let's be about it."

She and Courvosier stood and led the way to the boat bay to see their visitors to their pinnaces and back to their own ships.

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Framed