Crown of Slaves

House of Winton. And that the House of Winton, unlike all too many royal dynasties throughout history, still took its responsibilities as seriously as it did its privileges.

'I do have a responsibility to those Manticorans,' she went on now, 'just as I did to Lieutenant Griggs, and Laura and Christina. A direct, personal responsibility. And if I were meeting that responsibility, I'd be doing everything I possibly could to stop whatever Cachat is trying to accomplish, not getting behind it and helping the bastard who let my security detachment-my detachment, Professor, the people I did have a personal responsibility to-be slaughtered when he could have prevented it. And don't you dare tell me that he couldn't have, or suggest that I should put his high and noble anti- slavery principles above the debt I owe my own dead!'

Du Havel opened his mouth, then paused and cocked his head. He considered her thoughtfully for a moment, and a part of his mind noted her anger and decided it was probably a much healthier reaction than her despair had been. But that wasn't why he paused. No, he paused because she was right, he realized.

'Why didn't you oppose him from the beginning, then?' he asked after a moment, instead of what he'd been about to say, and Ruth sighed.

'Because I couldn't,' she said, in a tone which mingled bitterness with something else. She gazed down at her hands, examining them as if they were a stranger's. 'Because like I told Oversteegen, between him and the damage that idiot High Ridge has already done to our relationship with Haven, the best I can do is try to minimize the consequences of whatever it is he's up to. I certainly can't stop him, and if I try, I'll only make the fresh damage worse. So the only pragmatic response available to me is to dig in to help him, instead. To salvage what I can in terms of credit for having recognized my Star Kingdom's-or, at least, my family's-moral responsibility to do whatever we can to end the problem of Congo.'

'Solely because of Realpolitik and pragmatism, Your Highness?' Du Havel asked softly, and she looked back up quickly. It was odd, really, how such a pudgy man could have such an eagle's gaze.

'Is that all it was for you?' he pressed. 'Political calculation? Oh, you're right, of course. My own analysis matches yours almost exactly, although I'm sure you're more intimately familiar with the local political, diplomatic, and military parameters of the entire situation. But is that the only reason you supported him so quickly?'

She looked back at him steadily for several seconds, then shook her head.

'No,' she said softly. 'I almost wish I could say it were, but it isn't.' She inhaled deeply. 'As you say, whatever else he may be up to, he is willing to do something about Congo. And if he manages that, the consequences for Manpower and the entire institution of genetic slavery…'

She shook her head again.

'My people are already dead,' she said even more softly. 'I can't bring them back. But if Cachat can pull this off, then maybe I can at least make their deaths mean something.'

'Precisely,' Du Havel said. 'And that's my point. A point you obviously already understand perfectly-intellectually, at least. I'll even concede all those other points, all those other responsibilities. But the bottom line is that right here and now, you can't do anything about those. You can do something about your other responsibilities, though. The ones that everyone has-like the one to do whatever you can to fight something like slavery.'

He snorted harshly, and his expression hardened.

'That's the perspective of an ex-slave, Your Highness. Obligation and responsibility weave complicated nets, and your net is as complicated as they come. But, like all Gordian knots, there comes a time when the only alternative is to cut through all the twists and turns and constrictions. And in this instance, the sword doing the cutting is brutally simple. All that remains is for you to look inside and see if you have the guts-and the integrity-to pick it up and swing it.

'So what's it going to be, Princess?Are you going to keep flogging yourself over your so-called 'betrayal' of your 'morality,' or are you going to be one of those rare upper crust types who isn't afraid of getting her own hands dirty? Personally, I hope you keep trusting your own instincts.'

Ruth looked down at her hands once more, now folded in her lap.

'You two would make really lousy psychotherapists,' she pronounced. 'Aren't you supposed to be… you know. At least a little sympathetic?'

Berry thought Web's response was exceedingly uncouth. 'Why?' he demanded. She herself was already giving Ruth another warm hug.

'Don't be a bastard, Web,' she growled, squeezing Ruth more tightly for just an instant.

'Why not? I am a bastard.' He stuck out his tongue, showing the genetic markers, pointing to them with a stubby forefinger. 'Thee? Nod a wegaw pawent in thide.'

He withdrew the tongue. 'Nope. Neither mother nor father recorded, to give me a proper upbringing. Just 'J- 16b-79-2/3.' That's me. A bastard born and bred.'

Ruth managed a chuckle, of sorts. 'You don't have to be quite so smug about it.'

'You certainly don't,' chimed in Berry firmly. She tightened her arms around Ruth's shoulders. Berry understood Web's attitude, well enough-Cachat's too, for that matter. She even shared it herself, to a degree. But she also thought both of them had a tendency to err in the other direction; a tendency which, pushed too far, could become every bit as ugly as the callous indifference of the high and mighty.

'It's kind of a screwed-up universe,' she whispered into Ruth's ear. 'We just do the best we can, that's all.'

Ruth was back to sobbing again; or, at least, trying to stifle the sobs. But Berry could feel her head nodding. Quite firmly, in fact.

She found that very reassuring. Especially combined with the sobs.

'I really like you a lot,' she whispered. 'And I know Laura and Christina did too. They told me, once.'

There was no stifling the sobs now. Nor should they have been stifled. Berry just maintained the embrace, while giving Web a meaningful glance.

He didn't mistake the meaning of that glance. Okay, bastard. You've done your job. She'll be fine in a few hours. Now get the hell out of here.

He was on his feet and heading for the door at once. No professor, not even Du Havel, was that absentminded.

Chapter 32

Commander Watson greeted Oversteegen as he stepped onto Gauntlet's bridge.

'Sorry to disturb you, Sir,' the XO said, 'but I thought you'd better take a look at this.' She gestured at the display screen.

'What is it?' Oversteegen came over.

The XO pressed a button, bringing up a display. 'It's a recording of a broadcast made less than an hour ago by Countess Fraser. The first official statement on the kidnaping by our ambassador.'

Oversteegen tightened his jaws. From the look on Watson's face, he wasn't going to like what he was about to see.

* * *

By the end, in fact, he was downright furious. The first two-thirds of Fraser's statement he could have accepted, more or less, as meaningless diplomatic prattle. But the Manticoran ambassador hadn't been satisfied with just leaving it at that. Instead, at the end, she'd placed the blame squarely on Erewhon:

'… outrageous that the Princess' guards were slaughtered, in the middle of Erewhonese security…'