He chuckled and checked his watch. The First Space Lord was running latenot unusual for a man with his scheduleand Alexander took a leisurely turn about the familiar office, studying the models of starships and old-fashioned oil and acrylic portraits, reacquainting himself with old friends and noting the newer additions.
He was admiring the detail of a meter-long replica of HMS Manticore, the pride of the Fleet, when the door opened behind him. He turned, and his rugged face lit with a smile as Fleet Admiral Sir James Bowie Webster walked through it. The First Space Lord had the Webster chin, and he grinned and clasped Alexander's hand in both of his to shake it firmly.
"Hamish! You're looking good, I see. Sorry to roust you out so close to Emily's birthday, but I needed a word."
"So I gathered," Alexander said dryly as Webster released his hand and sprawled untidily into his chair. Alexander ignored his offer of another chair and parked himself on one corner of the desk that looked big enough for a shuttle pad.
"How is Emily? And your father?" Webster asked, his smile fading a bit, and Alexander shrugged.
"As well as can be expected, both of them. Dr. Gagarian has a new therapy he wants Emily to try, and Father isn't taking the winter very well, but"
He shrugged again, like a man testing an old wound and finding its familiar pain unchanged, and Webster nodded silently. Alexander's father, the Twelfth Earl of White Haven, was almost sixty-four years oldover a hundred and ten T-yearsand his had been the last pre-prolong generation. He could not have many winters left, and Lady Emily Alexander was one of Manticore's greatest tragedies, one Websterlike everyone who knew her personally and thousands who had never met her at allfelt as his own. Once acknowledged as the Kingdom's premiere holo-drama performer, she remained one of its most beloved and respected writers and producers, but she had been forced from the HD stage by the aircar collision that had left her a total invalid. Her damaged nerves had persistently refused both grafts and regeneration, and not even modern medical science could rebuild destroyed motor control centers.
Webster suppressed an expression of useless sympathy he knew would only make Alexander uncomfortable and shook himself, looking more closely at the officer before him. Hamish Alexander was forty-sevenjust over eighty standard years oldhimself, though he looked less than a third his father's age, but there were fresh worry lines around his eyes and a few new strands of white at his temples.
"And your brother?"
"The Honorable Willie?" Hamish brightened instantly, eyes gleaming with sudden laughter. "Our noble Lord of the Exchequer is in fine form! Had quite a few words to say to merude ones, tooabout the last Naval Estimates, I might add."
"He thinks they're too high?"
"No, he just thinks he's going to have the devil of a time getting them approved by Parliament. Still, I imagine he's getting used to that by now."
"I hope so, because next year's are probably going to be worse," Webster sighed.
"I imagine. But somehow I don't think you wanted to see me to hear what Willie has to say about the budget, Jim. What's up?"
"Actually, in a way, I did want to sound Willie outthrough youabout something that's come up. Or, no, not Willie, so much, as the Government in general."
"Now that," Alexander said, "sounds ominous."
"Maybe not ominous, but certainly difficult." Webster ran a hand through his hair in an atypically harassed gesture. "It's Basilisk Station, Hamish."
"Oho," Alexander murmured. He swung one leg, staring down at the toe of his mirror-polished boot. Basilisk had always been a political hot potato, and given the current First Lord's views on the system, it was hardly surprising that Webster should make a discreetand unofficialattempt to sound out the Government without involving his civilian superior.
"Oho," Webster agreed sourly. "You know what's going on there?"
"I've heard there was a little excitement." Alexander shrugged. "Nothing specific, aside from a few wild rumors."
"In this case, they may not have been all that wild." Alexander raised his eyebrows at Webster's tone, and the First Space Lord grimaced. He reached into his desk and extracted a sizable heap of message chips.
"What I have here, Hamish," he said, "is fourteen official protests from the Havenite ambassador, six from the Havenite consul in Basilisk, sixteen from various Manticoran and out-kingdom merchant cartels, and sworn statements from nine Havenite merchant captains alleging harassment and illegal searches of their vessels. There are also," he added almost dispassionately, "five similar statements from non-Havenite skippers and three complaints that `unjustified threats of deadly force' have been made by Navy personnel."
Alexander's eyebrows had climbed almost into his hairline as the catalog rolled out. Now he blinked. "It seems things have gotten exciting," he murmured.
"Oh, yes, indeed they have."
"Well, what are all these protests and statements about?"
"They concern one Commander Honor Harrington."
"What?" Alexander chuckled. "You mean the one who potted Sebastian with a single broadside?"
"That's the one," Webster agreed with an unwilling grin of his own. Then he sobered. "At the moment, Commander Harrington is Acting Senior Officer on Basilisk Station."
"She's what? What in God's name is an officer who can pull off something like that doing on Basilisk Station?!"
"It wasn't my idea," Webster protested. "It came down from on high, one might say, after Sonja's brainchild proved something of a brat in the later Fleet problems."
"Oh, so she decided to sweep her mistake under the carpet, whatever it cost the officer who actually made it work once for her?" Alexander's disdain was clear, and Webster shrugged.
"I know you don't like Sonja, Hamish. For that matter, I'm not too crazy about her myself, but I really don't think it was her idea this time. I think it was Janacek. You know how that reactionary old" Webster caught himself. "I mean, you know he watches after the family interests."
"Um." Alexander nodded, and Webster shrugged again.
"Anyway, he made his desires known, and I was too busy horse-trading with him on the new engineering wing for Saganami Island to say no."
"All right, but what's a commander doing as SO? That ought to be at least a captain."
"Agreed." Webster tipped his chair back. "What do you know about Pavel Young?"
"Who?" Alexander blinked at the apparent non sequitur. "You mean North Hollow's son?"
"That's the one."
"Not muchand the little I do know, I don't like. Why?"
"Because Captain Lord Pavel Young is supposed to be the senior officer in Basilisk. Unfortunately, his ship required `urgent refit,' and he felt the repairs involved were too complicated to leave in the hands of his executive officer. So he brought her home himselfleaving Harrington and a single light cruiser on the station."
Alexander stared at him in disbelief, and Webster flushed under his astonished gaze.
"Jim, I've known you for a lot of years," Alexander said at length. "So suppose you tell me why you haven't relieved him?"
"Because of politics," Webster sighed. "You should know that. That's one reason I want your impressions of how the Government is likely to react to all this. Christ, Hamish! I've got the damned Havenites screaming for blood, half a dozen cartelsheaded by Hauptman'sare madder than hell, Countess Marisa is getting ready to fight the Naval Estimates tooth and nail, the goddamned `New Men' are sitting right in her hip pocket, and you know what a big gun, politically speaking, North Hollow is! It's been all I can do to keep Young shuffled off onto the sidelines. Do you really think the Duke is going to thank me if I piss off the Conservative Association at a time like this by relieving the spoiled-darling son of High Ridge's second-in-command?"