The Honor of the Qween

good, for she'd taken Babcock three falls out of four.

'As a matter of fact, I do, Sir.' She leaned back against the lockers, playing with the ends of her towel, and Nimitz hopped up on the bench beside her and rubbed his head against her thigh, purring more loudly than he had in days. The empathic treecat was always sensitive to her moods, and she grinned as she freed one hand from the towel to stroke his spine.

'I'm glad.' Courvosier wore a faded sweatsuit and handball gloves, and he sank onto a facing bench with a wry grimace. 'But I wonder if the Sergeant Major realizes how many frustrations you were working out on her.'

Honor looked at him more closely, then sighed.

'I never could fool you, could I, Sir?'

'I wouldn't go quite that far. Let's just say I know you well enough to know what you're thinking about our hosts.'

Honor wrinkled her nose in acknowledgment and sat beside Nimitz while she dabbed absently at the small, fresh blood spots on her gi.

The situation hadn't gotten better, especially since the Havenite embassy had hit its stride. There was no way to eliminate the courtesy calls between her ships' companies and their hosts, and she knew the Graysons' special discomfort with her was spilling over onto her other female personnel.

Nimitz stopped purring and gave her a disgusted look as he picked up the direction of her emotions. Honor spent entirely too much time worrying over things, in his opinion, and he leaned up to nip her admonishingly on the earlobe. But Honor knew him as well as he knew her, and her hand intercepted him and scooped him into her lap to protect her ear.

'I'm sorry, Sir. I know how important it is that we all hang onto our tempers—Lord knows I've laid it all out for everyone else often enough!—but I hadn't counted on how infuriated I'd be. They're so—so—'

'Pigheaded?' Courvosier suggested. 'Bigoted?'

'Both,' Honor sighed. 'Sir, all I have to do is walk into a room, and they clam up like they've been freeze- dried!'

'Would you say that's quite fair where Admiral Yanakov is concerned?' her old mentor asked gently, and Honor shrugged irritably.

'No, probably not,' she admitted, 'but he's almost worse than the others. They look at me like some unsavory microbe, but he tries so hard to act naturally that it only makes his discomfort even more evident. And the fact that not even the example of their commander in chief can get through to the others makes me so mad I could strangle them all!'

Her shoulders slumped, and she sighed again, more heavily.

'I think maybe you had a point about the Admiralty's choice of senior officers for this operation, Sir. The fact that I'm a woman seems to get right up their noses and choke them.'

'Maybe.' Courvosier leaned back and folded his arms. 'But whether it does or not, you're a Queen's officer. They're going to have to face senior female officers sometime; it's part of our mission description to teach them that, and they might as well get used to it now and spare us all grief later. That was the FO's opinion, and though I might have gone about things a bit differently, overall I have to agree with their assessment.'

'I don't think I do,' Honor said slowly. She played with Nimitz's ears and frowned down at her hands. 'It might have been better to spare them the shock until after the treaty was a fait accompli, Sir.'

'Bushwah!' Courvosier snorted. 'You mean it might have been better if Ambassador Langtry had let us go ahead and warn them you were a woman!'

'Would it?' Honor shook her head. 'I'm not so sure, Sir. I think maybe it was a no-win situation—and the fact is that the Admiralty was wrong to pick me. To hear Haven tell it, I'm the most bloodthirsty maniac since Vlad the Impaler. I can't imagine anyone we could have sent who would've been more vulnerable to that kind of attack after Basilisk.'

She stared down at her hands, caressing Nimitz's fluffy fur, and Courvosier gazed at the crown of her head in silence. Then he shrugged.

'Actually, Basilisk is precisely why the Admiralty chose you, Honor.' She looked up in surprise, and he nodded. 'You know I had my own reservations, but Their Lordships believed—and the FO agreed—that Grayson would see what happened there as a warning of what could happen here. And just as they tapped me because I've got a reputation for strategy, they picked you because you've got one for tactics and guts ... and because you're a woman. You were meant to be a living, breathing symbol of just how ruthless Haven can be, on the one hand, and how good our female officers can be, on the other.'

'Well,' Honor squirmed at the thought that she might have a 'reputation' outside her own service, 'I think they made the wrong call, Sir. Or, rather, Haven's turned it around on them. I'm a liability to you. These people can't get past who I am to think logically about what I am.'

'I believe that will change,' Courvosier said quietly. 'It may take time, but no one gave me a time limit when we shipped out.'

'I know they didn't.' Honor rolled Nimitz onto his back to stroke his belly fur, then sat straight, planted both feet on the floor, and met the admiral's eyes levelly. 'Nonetheless, I think I should remove myself from the equation, Sir. At least until you get the ball rolling in the right direction.'

'You do?' Courvosier arched his eyebrows, and she nodded.

'I do. In fact, I sort of thought that might be wiser from the moment Yanakov and his people came on board Fearless to greet you. That's why I didn't go ahead and send Alice and Alistair straight on to Casca as I'd originally planned.'

'I thought that might be the case.' The admiral considered her soberly. 'You're thinking about taking the other merchies to Casca yourself?' She nodded. 'I'm not sure that's a good idea, Honor. The Graysons may see it as running out, as proof a `mere woman' can't take the heat.'

'Maybe. But I don't see how it could create any more negative reactions than my presence seems to be generating. If I take Apollo to Casca with me, it'll leave Jason Alvarez as SO. He doesn't seem to be having any problems with his opposite numbers— except for the ones who think he must be some kind of sissy for taking orders from a woman. Maybe by the time I come back, you'll have made enough progress with these people that my mere presence won't queer the deal for you.'

'I don't know... .' Courvosier plucked at his lower lip. 'If you take Fearless and Apollo out of here, our `show of force' will get a lot weaker. Have you considered that?'

'Yes, Sir, but they've already seen both ships, and they'll know we're coming back. That should be sufficient, I'd think. And I'm not the only woman stuck in their craws right now. Alice is my second in command— two women, both senior to any of our male officers.' She shook her head. 'Better to get both of us out of the way for a while, Sir.'

Courvosier was unconvinced, but she met his gaze almost pleadingly, and he saw the desperate unhappiness behind her brown eyes. He knew how deeply the Graysons' treatment hurt, not least because it was so utterly unjust. He'd watched her swallowing her anger, sitting on her temper, forcing herself to be pleasant to people who regarded her—at best—as some sort of freak. And, he knew, she was truly convinced her mere presence was undermining his own position. She might even be right, but what mattered most was that she believed it, and the thought of being responsible, however innocently, for the loss of a treaty her kingdom needed so badly, was tearing her up inside. She was angry, resentful, and even closer to despair than he'd realized, and he closed his eyes, weighing her proposal as carefully as he could.

He still thought it was the wrong move. He was a naval officer, not a trained diplomat, yet he knew how preconceptions shaped perceptions, and what she saw as a reasonable tactical withdrawal might be seen as something entirely different by the Graysons. There were too many implications, too many possibilities for misinterpretation, for him to know who was right.

But then he looked at her again, and he suddenly realized rightness or wrongness didn't matter to him just