'It wasn't very difficult to guess, Your Grace,' Telmachi replied. 'Especially not in light of Dame Honor's stature on Grayson and the rather poisonous commentary of one of our less than scintillating examples of journalistic professionalism. Of course, the fact that she's neither Catholic nor a member of the Church of Humanity Unchained does leave both of us in rather a gray area where she's concerned.'
'She may not be a daughter of Father Church,' Sullivan said quietly, his eyes level, 'but of my own experience, I can tell you she is most certainly a daughter of God. I'll be honest with you and admit that nothing would give me greater joy than to have her embrace Father Church, but this is one woman for whose soul I feel no concern at all.'
'That accords well with my own impression of her,' Telmachi said seriously. 'I believe she's a Third Stellar?'
'She is. Which presents me with something of a problem, since the Third Stellars appear to have no organized hierarchy in the sense your Church or mine does.'
'The Third Stellars are actually rather like I suppose the Church of Humanity might have turned out without a firmly established hierarchy,' Telmachi said. 'When the representatives of all their congregations meet for their General Convocation every three T-years, they elect a leadership for the Convocation, and also the membership of a Coordinating Committee to function between Convocations, but each congregation-and each individual member of each congregation-is personally responsible for his or her relationship with God. I'm on quite good terms with several of their clergy, and one of them compared their General Convocation to an exercise in herding treecats.'
Sullivan chuckled at the image, and Telmachi nodded.
'They agree about a great many core doctrines and issues, but beyond those central areas of agreement, there's room for an enormous diversity.'
'I'd gathered that impression from my own conversations with Lady Harrington and her parents,' Sullivan agreed. 'And I believe you're probably correct-the... individualism the Third Stellars encourage does have many resonances with our own doctrine. Indeed, I've often thought that was one of the reasons Lady Harrington's been so comfortable with Father Church, despite our inevitable differences.
'However, the problem to which I referred was my inability to identify some one individual member of the Third Stellar clergy with whom to discuss my concerns. My impression of their doctrine is that it is extremely... inclusive, but I must confess I'm less familiar with it then I could wish.'
'If your concerns are what I suspect they are, Your Grace,' Telmachi said, 'I think you don't need to worry. However, I'd be very happy to suggest two or three of their theologians with whom you might discuss your thoughts.'
'I would deeply appreciate that,' Sullivan said, bending his head in an abbreviated bow of thanks. 'But that, of course, brings me to the reason I specifically needed to meet with you.'
'Reverend,' Telmachi said with another chuckle, 'Mother Church has learned a few lessons of her own over the millennia. I don't believe there will be any problems.'
'So, here you are,' Dr. Allison Harrington said severely. 'And just what made you think you were going to be allowed to stay at a hotel, if I may ask?'
'The Royal Arms Hilton is scarcely a mere 'hotel,' My Lady,' Jeremiah Sullivan replied mildly as he stepped past a solemn Harrington armsman into the foyer of Honor's Jason Bay mansion. He smiled, then bent over her hand and kissed it in approved Grayson style.
'Piffle!' she shot back. 'I'll bet it was really just that you planned on stealing the towels. Or one of those cute little bathrobes of theirs.'
The armsman seemed to cringe slightly, obviously awaiting the thunderbolt, but Sullivan only smiled more broadly as her eyes twinkled at him.
'It was the soap, actually, My Lady,' he said solemnly.
'I knew it!'
She gurgled a laugh and tucked her arm through his as she escorted him into the house.
'It's good to see you,' she said more seriously. 'And while I'm sure you really would have been perfectly comfortable at the Royal Arms, Honor and Benjamin would both have wanted my scalp if I'd let you stay there. Besides, I wouldn't have been that happy about it myself.'
'Thank you,' he said.
'Nonsense.' She squeezed his arm tighter, and the laughter in her eyes was momentarily quenched. 'I still remember how comforting you were when we all thought Honor was dead.'
'As I remember the day you explained to me why our birthrate has always been so skewed,' he replied. 'And the day you and your team showed our own fertility experts how to identify sperm with the lethal combination.'
'Yes. Well, now that we've both congratulated one another on what splendid people we are,' Allison said, 'what really brings you to Manticore?'
'Why, what makes you think I might have any sort of ulterior motivation?' Sullivan fenced, accepting the change of subject with a smile.
'The fact that I have a functional brain,' she replied tartly. He looked at her, and she snorted. 'In a thousand years, not one Reverend has ever left the planet. Not one. Now, three weeks after that poisonous toad Hayes' articles must have reached Grayson, here you are. Allowing a week or so for travel time, you must have set some sort of galactic record for arranging this 'state visit' of yours!'
'I do hope,' Sullivan said a bit plaintively, 'that my Machiavellian schemes aren't going to be this transparent to every Manticoran I meet.'
'Most Manticorans don't know you as well as I've come to,' Allison assured him comfortably. 'And most other Manticorans wouldn't begin to understand how damaging something like this could be to a political figure like Honor on Grayson. Or,' she smiled warmly at him again, 'how deeply you care about my daughter.'
He inclined his head slightly, and she nodded.
'I thought so. You've come to straighten out the children's problems, haven't you?'
He burst out laughing, and she paused, turning to smile up at him until he shook his head.
'My Lady, all of the 'children' involved, including your daughter, are quite a few T-years older than I am!'
'Chronologically, perhaps. In other ways?' She shrugged. 'And whatever your comparative ages may be, they definitely need straightening out. Which is why you're here, isn't it?'
'Yes, Allison,' he admitted, surrendering at last. 'I do intend to accomplish a few other things while I'm here, but, yes. Mostly, I came to straighten out the children's problems.'
Chapter Twenty-Nine
'Tell me you've got some good news for a change, Armand,' Thomas Theisman said moodily as the naval Chief of Staff stepped into his office with a memo board clasped under his left arm.
'The only 'good' news I've got is a follow up report that Bellefeuille survived after all,' Admiral Marquette replied.
'She did?' Theisman perked up just a bit, and Marquette nodded.
'She and her entire staff got off Cyrus before the scuttling charges blew. We lost a lot of good people, but not her, thank God.'
'Absolutely,' Theisman agreed fervently.
Of the four star systems Harrington had hit this time around, only Chantilly had mounted any effective resistance. Not for want of trying, he reminded himself grimly. Rear Admiral Bressand had done his best in Augusta, but he'd been totally outclassed and outgunned... and not as cunning as Jennifer Bellefeuille. Harrington's pod- layers had reduced his hyper-capable combatants to scrap metal in return for minor, if any, damage. And when his LACs had closed with suicidal gallantry, they had discovered that the Manties' counter-missile tubes, at least aboard their newer construction, were perfectly capable of launching the 'dogfighting' missiles they'd developed for their damned Katanas.
It had been a massacre, and not one for which he could blame Bressand. A part of him would have liked to, and he could actually make a case for it, if he really tried. After all, Bressand could have exercised his discretion and declined to engage such a massively superior force. But the reason that force had been so superior to his was that
