Crown of Slaves

positive that Lieutenant Gohr is available at the moment.'

'I see.' Draskovic considered him through narrow eyes. He was pushing her, she thought. Definitely pushing her… damn him.

'You are aware, I trust,' she said after a moment, 'that returning an ONI officer to active duty as an analyst without Admiral Jurgensen's approval after she's been placed on half-pay status in the wake of a controversy like this would be far more than 'a mite irregular.' '

'It certainly would be under most circumstances, Ma'am,' Oversteegen acknowledged, tacitly accepting Draskovic's implication that Jurgensen would never approve Gohr's return to duty. 'However, Lieutenant Gohr isn't really an ONI officer. She's a tactical officer, with a secondary specialization in combat psychology, who was assigned t' London Point t' work with the Marines on specific means t' resist strenuous interrogation techniques… like torture. She was seconded t' ONI after Admiral Givens reviewed several of her articles on that subject.'

'Which doesn't change the fact that she was assigned to ONI when the fallout of her last article hit the fan,' Draskovic pointed out.

'That wasn't exactly my point, Ma'am,' Oversteegen said. 'What I was suggestin' was that she be assigned- officially, at least-t' Gauntlet as a tactical officer, not an intelligence specialist. As I say, I'm completely satisfied with Commander Blumenthal, but my assistant tactical officer is due for promotion. What I'd like t' request is that he be relieved from duty aboard Gauntlet and assigned t' a slot elsewhere, better suited t' his seniority, and that Lieutenant Gohr be assigned t' Gauntlet in his place.'

'I see.' Draskovic considered him in silence for several more seconds while she considered the patently transparent fig leaf he was proposing. It was remotely possible that he actually believed she was stupid enough not to recognize the quagmire into which he was inviting her to step. It wasn't very likely, though, since no officer could have accomplished what he'd pulled off in Tiberian without a functioning brain of his own.

She began to open her mouth to refuse his suggestion point-blank, then paused. If Jurgensen found out about this, he would be livid. It was unlikely that he would confront her about it openly, of course. He was too old and experienced a hand at bureaucratic infighting for something that crass and crude. Oh no. He'd find his own, far more subtle way to get his own back. But Josette Draskovic had never been particularly fond of Francis Jurgensen at the best of times. And there was the fact that Oversteegen was currently the entire Navy's golden boy. Not to mention a close family connection of the Prime Minister, himself.

Besides, she thought, given the fact that Gauntlet is headed for Erewhon, it's entirely possible the idiot won't find out about it. Or, at least, not until it's too late for him to convince even Janacek that Oversteegen wasn't entirely justified asking for her in the first place… .

'All right, Captain,' she said at last. 'I'll look into it and see what can be arranged.'

'Thank you, Admiral,' Michael Oversteegen murmured, and he smiled.

Chapter 4

'I feel ridiculous wearing this get-up,' grumbled W.E.B. Du Havel, as Cathy Montaigne led him down a wide corridor of her townhouse toward the even wider staircase which swept down to the main floor.

'Don't get pigheaded on me, Web.' Cathy gave his portly figure a look that was just barely this side of sarcastic. 'You'd look really ridiculous trying to pull off the Mahatma Gandhi routine.'

Du Havel chuckled. ' 'Minus fours,' didn't he call it? When he showed up in London wearing nothing much more than a glorified loincloth?'

He glanced down at his ample belly, encased in a costume whose expensive fabric seemed wasted, as brightly colored as it was. Red, basically, but with ample splashes of orange and black-all of it set off by a royal blue cummerbund, parallel white and gold diagonal sashes running from left shoulder to right hip, and a slightly narrower set of the same colors serving as pinstripes for his trousers. The trousers were also blue; but, for no discernable reason Du Havel could make out, were at least two shades darker than the cummerbund.

The shoes, needless to say, were gold. And, just to make the ensemble as ludicrous as possible, ended in slightly upturned, pointed tips festooned with royal blue tassels.

'I feel like the court jester,' he muttered. 'Or a beach ball.'

He gave Cathy a skeptical glance. 'You're not playing some sort of practical joke on me?'

'How fucking paranoid can you get, anyway?'

'Well, at least your language hasn't changed since Terra. That's something, I suppose.'

They were almost at the top of the stairs, entering an area where the left wall of the corridor gave way to an open vista over a balustrade, looking down upon a huge foyer which seemed packed with people. Du Havel's steps began to lag.

Cathy reached back, grabbed his elbow, and hauled him forward. 'Relax, will you? Neo-Comedia is all the rage this year. I had that outfit made up special for you, just for this occasion, by the second best tailor in Landing City.'

No help for it, then. Du Havel decided to make the best of a bad situation. They began walking slowly down the stairs, Cathy at his side acting as if she were escorting visiting royalty.

Du Havel, his curious mind active as ever, whispered: 'Why the second best?'

He was amused to see the smile on Cathy's face. Her be a nice girl at formal occasions smile, that was. Not one she often wore, for sure, but she was as good at it as Cathy was at most anything she put her mind to. She even managed to hiss back a reply without once breaking the smile.

'I'm trying to get along with Elizabeth, these days. She'd be pissed if she thought I was trying to swipe her favorite tailor.'

He chewed on that, for the few seconds it took them to parade down the long and sweeping staircase. By the time they neared the bottom, it seemed as if all eyes in the foyer were on him-as well as those of many people spilling into the multitude of adjacent rooms. For all that he'd now been resident for two weeks in the Montaigne townhouse-'pocket Versailles' would be a better word for it-Du Havel was still bewildered by the architecture of the place. For some odd reason, his prodigious intellect had never been more than middling-stupid when it came to spatial reckoning.

'Surely the Queen of Manticore can't be that petty?'

On the next to last riser, Cathy came to a halt; with a subtle hand on his elbow, bringing Du Havel to a halt also. He realized that she was doing it deliberately, to give the entire crowd a moment to admire the evening's special guest.

Still, her formal smile never wavered. 'Don't be silly. Elizabeth's not petty at all. It's not the principle of the thing, it's the sport of it. She and I used to swipe things from each other all the time, when we were kids. It was something of a contest.'

'Who won?' he whispered.

'I was way ahead on points, when the Queen Mother-she was still the Queen, back then-banned me from the Palace altogether. Elizabeth's still holding a bit of a grudge, I think. So I saw no reason to rub her nose in it again, all these many years later.'

The majordomo stepped forward. In a bellowing voice:

'Catherine Montaigne, former Countess of the Tor! And her guest, the Right Honorable W.E.B. Du Havel, Ph.D.!'

A voice piped up from the back of the room. A youthful feminine voice which Du Havel recognized. His eyes immediately spotted the tall figure of Anton Zilwicki's daughter Helen.

'You're slacking, Herbert! How many Ph.D.s?'

A quick laugh rippled through the crowd. The majordomo let the laughter subside before booming onward.

'Too many to count, Midshipwoman Zilwicki! My feeble mind is not up to the effort! I can recall only-'

He began reeling off the list of Du Havel's academic degrees and awards-not missing many, Du Havel noted-