On Basilisk Station

unpleasantly. 'I am asking only for the courtesy and respect due any law-abiding private citizen. If you choose to use your position as an officer of the Crown to pursue some sort of personal vendetta against me, I will have no option but to use my resources to respond in kind.'

'As I've already stated, I have not and do not intend to level any accusation against you personally until and unless clear and incontrovertible evidence that you knowingly permitted your employees to engage in illegal activities is presented. In the meantime, however, threats against me as an individual will have no more effect than threats to pressure me through my superiors.' Honor's mind was cold and clear with the ice-hot flicker of her own anger, and her eyes were dark brown steel. 'If you wish your shipments to pass with minimal delays for inspection, all you must do is see to it they contain no contraband. That,' she added with cool deliberateness, 'should not be an insurmountable task for a law-abiding private citizen of your means and authority, Sir.'

'Very well, Commander,' he grated. 'You've chosen to insult me, whatever legalism you care to cloak that in. I'll give you one more opportunity to back off. If you don't, then I'll by God push you back.'

'No, Sir, you will not,' Honor said softly, and Hauptman gave a crack of scornful laughter. His body language radiated fury and contempt as he gave his renowned temper full rein, but his voice was hard and cold when he spoke once more.

'Oh, but I will, Commander. I will. I believe your parents are senior partners in the Duvalier Medical Association?'

Despite herself, Honor twitched in surprise at the complete non sequitur. Then her eyes narrowed, and her head tilted dangerously.

'Well, Commander?' Hauptman almost purred. 'Am I correct?'

'You are,' she said flatly.

'Then if you insist on making this a personal confrontation, you should consider the repercussions it may have on your own family, Madam, because the Hauptman Cartel controls a seventy percent interest in that organization's public stock. Do I make myself clear, Commander?'

Honor stiffened in her chair, her face paper-white, and the steel in her eyes was no longer chilled. It blazed, and the corner of her mouth twitched violently. Hauptman's own eyes gleamed as he misinterpreted that involuntary muscle spasm, and he leaned back, smiling and triumphant.

'The decision is yours, Commander. I am merely an honest merchant endeavoring to protect my legitimate interests and those of my shareholders in this system. If you insist on interfering with those legitimate interests, you leave me no choice but to defend myself in any way I can, however distasteful I may personally find the measures to which you compel me ... or however unfortunate their consequences for your parents.'

Honor's muscles quivered with hate, her fingers taloned in her lap, and she felt her lips draw back to spit her defiance in his face, but someone else's flat, cold voice spoke first.

'I suggest you reconsider that threat, Mr. Hauptman,' Alistair McKeon said.

The sudden interruption was so utterly unexpected that Honor turned to him in amazement. Her executive officer's face was no longer masklike. It was tight with anger, the gray eyes snapping, and Hauptman regarded him as if he were an item of furniture whose presence the magnate had forgotten.

'I'm not accustomed to accepting the advice of uniformed flunkies,' he sneered.

'Then I suggest you become accustomed,' McKeon replied in that same, hammered-iron voice. 'Ever since your arrival in this briefing room, you have persistently attempted to construe Commander Harrington's actions as a personal attack upon yourself. In the process, you have insulted her, the Royal Navy, and the discharge of our duties to the Crown. You have, in fact, made it abundantly clear that neither the law nor your responsibilities under it are as important to you as your own precious reputation. Despite your calculated insolence, the Captain has maintained an air of courtesy and respect, yet when she refuses to ignore her duty as an officer of the Queen or modify it to suit your demands, you have seen fit to threaten not just her personally, but the livelihood of her parents.' Contempt blazed in the lieutenant commander's eyes. 'I therefore warn you, Sir, that I will be prepared to so testify in any court of law.'

'Court of law?' Hauptman reared back in surprise, and Honor felt almost as surprised even through her fury. What was McKeon—?

'Yes, Sir, a court of law, where your persistent attempts to compel the Queen's Navy to abandon its responsibilities will, no doubt, be seen as proof of collusion in treason and murder.'

Absolute shock filled the briefing room with silence in the wake of McKeon's cold, hard voice. Hauptman paled in disbelief, but then his face darkened once more.

'You're insane! You're out of your mind! There's no—'

'Mr. Hauptman,' McKeon interrupted the sputtering magnate harshly, 'forty-seven hours ago, sixty-one Native Protection Agency police were killed or wounded in the pursuit of their duty. They were murdered, by off- world individuals trading with the Medusan natives in prohibited drugs. The laboratory manufacturing those drugs was powered by way of an unauthorized shunt installed in the backup orbital power collector of Her Majesty's Government's enclave on Medusa. That shunt, Mr. Hauptman, which Navy personnel discovered and positively identified not eight hours ago, was not installed after the collector was placed in Medusa orbit; it was installed when the collector was manufactured ... by the Hauptman Cartel!'

Hauptman stared at him, too shocked to speak, and he continued in the same, grating voice.

'Since that shunt constitutes unimpeachable physical evidence linking your cartel or individuals employed by it with the drug operation, and hence with the murder of those officers, your blatant efforts to divert official attention from your operations here can only be construed as an effort to conceal guilt—either yours, or your employees. In either case, Sir, that would constitute collusion and thus make you, personally, an accomplice after the fact to murder at the very least. And I remind you that the use of Her Majesty's property in a capital crime— particularly one which results in the death of Crown officers—constitutes treason under the law of this kingdom. I respectfully submit—' he didn't sound at all respectful, Honor thought in shock '—that it is in your best interest and the interest of your cartel's future business reputation to cooperate fully with Commander Harrington's efforts to discover the true guilty parties rather than place yourself in a position of grave suspicion by obstructing an official investigation of Her Majesty's officers in this system.'

'You're insane,' Hauptman repeated, this time in a whisper. 'Treason? Murder? You know Hauptman's hasn't — that I haven't—'

'Sir, I know only the facts I've just stated. Under the circumstances, and assuming you continue in your vendetta against the Captain — your vendetta, Sir, and not hers — I believe it would be my duty as an officer of the Queen to lay those facts before a court.'

Alistair McKeon met Klaus Hauptman's disbelieving eyes with a cold, gray glare, and the magnate blanched. Honor made herself sit very still, grinding her heel down on the rage that still roared within her. Not for a moment did she believe Hauptman had been personally involved with the power tap or the drug lab. For that matter, she was almost certain he hadn't been personally involved in any of the illegal activities of his cartel in Basilisk. But his overweening pride and arrogance had been able to see the consequences of her actions only as a personal attack, and he had descended to the lowest and most contemptible of tactics simply to divert embarrassment from himself and punish her for daring to do her duty. That casual abuse of his own power and position filled her with as much revulsion as rage, and she had no intention of tempering McKeon's totally unexpected counterattack in any way. Hauptman had set the tone himself; now he could live with it.

'You wouldn't dare,' the magnate said softly.

'Sir, I would.' McKeon's voice was chipped flint, and Hauptman sat back in his chair, glaring back and forth between him and Honor.

'All right,' he grated at last. 'I see you've covered yourself after all, Commander Harrington. So go ahead, play tin-god out here. I wash my hands of the entire situation. Examine anything you damned well want, but don't you ever—ever — think this is over!'

McKeon gathered himself afresh, but Honor touched his arm and shook her head. She stood in silence, and when the exec made to rise with her, she waved him gently back into his chair. She inclined her head coldly at Hauptman, then gestured at the briefing room hatch, and the seething magnate stalked through it as it opened.

The bridge was still as death when they emerged onto it, but Honor scarcely noticed. She accompanied Hauptman into the lift, and the two of them rode to the boat bay in a silence deeper than the stars. But when they