War Of Honor

'You've been to Silesia more than most of our officers,' White Haven said. 'Do you really think the average Silly wouldn't actively prefer to be a Manticoran subject?'

Honor started to reply quickly, then stopped. He had a point. All the average Silesian really wanted was safety, order, and a government that actually considered her wishes and well-being rather than seeing her as one more potential source of graft and corruption.

'Whatever the average Silly wants, the Confed government may not see things quite the same way,' she pointed out.

'The Confed government consists of a bunch of corrupt, self-seeking, moneygrubbing grifters, thieves, and conmen whose concerns begin and end with their own bank accounts,' White Haven said flatly. 'For God's sake, Honor! You know perfectly well that the government of the Silesian Confederacy is probably the only bunch of crooks who could actually make High Ridge and Descroix look good by comparison.'

Despite her grave reservations, Honor's lips quivered in appreciation of White Haven's comparison.

'Willie and Sir Anthony are already in the process of coming up with what's going to amount to a massive bribe,' he went on with an expression of distaste. 'Together with Gustav, they're going to buy the existing government off. Most of its members will do very well out of the deal. But the hook they don't know about is that we're going to be serious about requiring them to obey the law afterward. We may pay them off now and effectively amnesty them for past crimes, but we'll come down on them like the Hammer of God the first time they try to go back to business as usual under new management.' He shrugged. 'I'm not too sure how I feel about the methodology, but the final outcome is going to be that we get an ally we desperately need, a problem which has been a source of tension between us and the Empire for the last sixty or seventy T-years gets resolved once and for all, and—maybe most important of all—we finally bring an end to a situation which has been costing literally hundreds of thousands of lives every single year in Silesia.'

'And along the way, we become the Star Empire of Manticore,' Honor replied with a troubled expression.

'I don't see that we have any choice,' White Haven said. 'And what with Trevor's Star and the Talbott Cluster, we're already moving in that direction.'

'I suppose so,' Honor said pensively. 'I guess maybe what worries me the most about it is that it could be seen as validating the Republic's charges that we were already expansionist. That that's the reason High Ridge never had any intention of negotiating with them in good faith for the return of the occupied systems.'

'That's my greatest concern, too,' Emily put in, then moved her right hand in the gesture she used for a shrug as Honor and White Haven both looked at her. 'Interstellar relations are so often a matter of perceptions rather than realities,' she said. 'If the Republic is trying to convince someone else—like the Sollies—that we're the villains of the piece, then this could play straight into their hands. They'll treat it as proof that we were expansionist all along, exactly as Honor has just suggested they will, and that in effect they had no choice but to attack us in self-defense.'

'You may be right,' her husband said after a few moments' thought. 'Unfortunately, I don't think it changes the imperatives Willie and Elizabeth have to deal with. The bottom line, again, is that we have to have the Andie fleet if we're going to survive. There's not much point in worrying about anything else if we don't do that, after all. If we do,' he shrugged, 'then we can worry about other PR problems then.'

Honor sat back in her chair, gazing at him intently, and then, finally, nodded. Her reservations hadn't disappeared, but as Hamish said, the imperatives of survival trumped them.

'Well,' Emily said into the brief silence which followed, 'I think that's quite enough politics for tonight.'

'More than enough, as far as I'm concerned,' White Haven agreed with a sour chuckle. 'Your autocratic, aristocratic, stiff-necked, politics-hating husband is going to be up to his neck in them for the foreseeable future. I'm sure we'll be spending all too many nights discussing the entire depressing topic over dinner.'

'That's as may be,' she replied serenely, then smiled ever so slightly. 'Actually, it should be rather interesting. You may not like politics, but that doesn't mean I don't, my dear!'

'I know,' he said glumly. 'In fact, that's about the only consolation I see.'

'Oh, come now!' she scolded. 'There's always Samantha, you know. I'm sure she'll be happy to bring her perspective to bear on your political problems.'

'That's all we'd need!' Honor laughed. 'I've spent decades trying to explain two-leg-style politics to Stinker here.' She reached out and tugged on one of Nimitz's ears, and he swatted her wrist with a true-hand. 'I can hardly wait to see what Her Nibs would have to say about them!'

'You might be pleasantly surprised, my dear,' Emily told her. 'In fact, Samantha and I have been having long and fascinating conversations about the differences between the People and us two-legs.'

'You have?' Honor looked at her with interest.

'Oh, yes.' Emily laughed quietly. 'Fortunately, I only had to learn how to read her signs. She understood me just fine when I spoke to her, which was a good thing, since it would be just a little difficult to sign with only one hand. But poor Hamish has been so busy, what with one thing and another, that Samantha and I have had an opportunity for some uninterrupted 'girl talk' behind his back. It's amazing what . . . acute observations she had to make about him.'

' 'Observations,' is it?' Hamish regarded her suspiciously.

'No one's telling tales out of school, dear,' Emily reassured him. 'On the other hand, Samantha did have several interesting pithy observations on the thickheadedness of humans in general.'

'What sort of observations?' Honor asked.

'Largely on the inevitable differences between a race of empathic telepaths and a race which is 'mind- blind,' ' Emily replied in a voice which was suddenly considerably more serious. 'In fact,' she went on quietly, 'one of her most telling comments, I thought, was that by treecat standards, it's insane for two people not to admit what they feel for one another.'

Honor froze in her chair, stunned by the totally unanticipated direction Emily had abruptly taken the conversation. She wanted to dart a glance at Hamish, but she couldn't. All she could do was stare at Emily.

'The societies are quite different, of course,' Emily continued, 'so it's inevitable that there shouldn't be a direct point-to-point correspondence between them. But the more she and I spoke about it, the more I came to see why a race of empaths would feel that way. They're right, you know. It's worse than just senseless for two people who love each other deeply, and who have no desire or intention to hurt anyone else, to condemn themselves to so much suffering and such bitter unhappiness just because two-leg society is mind-blind. That's not just foolish, it's insane. And the fact that the two people involved are doing it to themselves because they're such splendid and responsible human beings that they would rather suffer themselves than risk the possibility of hurting someone else doesn't make it any less insane. It may make them both people to be deeply admired . . . and trusted. But if they really thought about it, perhaps they would realize that the person whose pain they're trying to spare knows how much pain they're causing themselves. And perhaps, you know, she wouldn't want them to be hurt any more than they want her to be. And so, if they were treecats instead of humans, all three of them would know what each of them felt. And that no one was betraying anyone by being a loving, caring individual . . . and expressing that love.'

She sat there in her life support chair, looking at Honor and Hamish with a small, gentle smile, and then she waved her right hand in that same shrug-equivalent gesture.

'I've given it quite a lot of thought, you know,' she said, 'and I've come to the conclusion, my dears, that treecats are really most remarkably sane individuals. I suspect that if you spent some time talking with them, or possibly even with each other, you might come to the same conclusion.'

She smiled at them again, and then her life support chair moved silently back from the table.

'You might want to think about that,' she told them as her chair floated towards the door. 'But for now, I'm going to bed.'

GLOSSARY