At All Costs Read online

  "Nonetheless, Isabel," he turned back to Bardasano, "we do need to keep the thought in mind. This is your particular specialty, and I want a detailed operational plan on my desk and ready for implementation before you and Aldona head out to meet with Verrochio. We'll call it... Operation Rat Poison."

  An ugly ripple of amusement ran around the room, and he nodded in satisfaction.

  "I've done the best preliminary groundwork I could for you and Aldona in Talbott," he continued to Bardasano. "Technodyne doesn't know everything we're up to, but they've agreed to at least listen to our proposition. I expect you'll probably be hearing from a Mr. Levakonic shortly, and everything I've been able to discover about him suggests he should be amenable. On the minus side, you're also going to have to deal with Kalokainos. The old man is bad enough, but Volkhart is an idiot. Unfortunately, Verrochio and Hongbo are firmly in Kalokainos' pocket, so we're going to have to at least go through the motions of 'consulting' with him. You may actually have to involve him in the initial strategy discussions, although I trust you'll be able to cut him out of the circuit fairly early. I've had our official representative in the area briefed to help you accomplish that-not fully, but in sufficient detail for him to understand what he has to do. He's supposed to be pretty good at this sort of thing."

  "Who is it, Albrecht?" Anisimovna asked.

  "His name is Ottweiler, Valery Ottweiler," Detweiler replied.

  "I know him," she said, frowning thoughtfully. "And he really is good at this kind of thing. In fact, if it weren't for his genome, I'd say he should be brought fully inside."

  "Are you suggesting probationer status for him?" Sandusky asked a bit sharply.

  "I didn't say that, Jerome," Anisimovna returned coolly. She and Sandusky had crossed swords entirely too often in the past, and she wasn't certain whether he really opposed the notion or secretly hoped she would suggest it and be supported over his opposition. It was always risky to nominate a normal for probationer status, and he might be hoping this one would blow up, as others had, with the egg landing on her face this time.

  "If this operation succeeds, and if he's as integral to its success as I expect him to be," she continued after a brief pause, "then it might be time for the Council to consider whether or not he should be offered that status. I don't personally know the man well enough to predict how he would react. But he does have a reputation for effectiveness, and he could be even more effective for us as a probationer brought more fully into the real picture."

  "We'll cross that bridge when-and if-we come to it," Detweiler decreed. "In the meantime, you and Isabel undoubtedly have a lot of details to take care of before you depart. I'll be meeting with both of you-and with some of the rest of you-privately over the next few days. For now, though, I believe we're done, and dinner is waiting."

  He started to push back from the desk, but Bardasano raised one hand in a respectful attention-requesting gesture. She was, by almost any conventional standard, the most junior individual in the room, but her professional competence-and ruthlessness-made her lack of conventional seniority meaningless, and Detweiler settled back.

  "Yes, Isabel? You had a question?"

  "Not about the Cluster," she said. "I do have one question concerning Rat Poison, however, and I thought I'd raise it while we were all here, since it may affect Jerome's planning, as well."

  "And that question is?"

  "As you know, most of our current scenarios for Rat Poison are built around the use of the new nanotech. We've run several test operations to be sure it works-the most prominent was the Hofschulte business on New Potsdam. As you also know," she didn't so much as glance at Sandusky, who had been responsible for that particular "test operation," "I had my doubts about the advisability of using the new technology in an assassination attempt which was bound to attract as much attention and comment as that one did. In this instance, it appears my concerns were misplaced, however, since there's no evidence anyone as much as suspects what really happened.

  "The question in my mind, however, is whether or not we want to consider making additional use of the same technique in the interim. I can foresee several possible sets of circumstances where it could be very useful. In particular, according to Jerome's reports, our primary contact in the Havenite Department of State is almost certainly going to require a completely untraceable weapon sometime in the next few weeks or months."

  "Well, this is an interesting change of mind," Sandusky remarked astringently.

  "It isn't really a change of mind at all, Jerome," Bardasano said calmly. "My concern at the time was that someone would figure out how it was done, but the Andies have run every test they could think of on Hofschulte-or, rather, his cadaver-without, apparently, turning up a thing. If they haven't found anything after looking this long and this hard, then the R&D types may actually have known what they were talking about this time. Which," she added dryly, "always comes as a pleasant and unanticipated surprise for us unfortunate field grunts."

  Several people, including Renzo Kyprianou, whose bio weapon research teams had developed the technology in question, laughed.

  "If this technique works as well as it did in our tests, and really is this close to impossible to detect," she continued more seriously, "then it might be time for us to begin making judicious use of it in special cases." She shrugged. "Even if they figure out someone is deliberately triggering the attacks, there's not much they can do about it. Not, at least, without security arrangements which would effectively hamstring their own operations. And I can think of several prominent individuals in both Manticore and Haven whose sudden and possibly spectacular demises could be quite beneficial to us. Especially if we can convince both sides that the other one, not some third party, is responsible."

  "I'll have to think about that," Detweiler said, after a moment. "I felt your original arguments for restraint had considerable merit. But what you've just suggested also has merit. Keeping something like this in reserve, as a total surprise, is always tempting. But if you keep it in reserve too long, then you never use it at all."

  He pursed his lips for several seconds, then shrugged.

  "Jerome, you and I will have to discuss this. Give some thought to the pros and cons and sit down with Isabel before she leaves. Work out a list of potential targets-not a big one, I don't want to flash this capability around any more obviously then we have to, however unlikely it is that someone will figure out how it works. At the very least, though, we can put the groundwork in place and have Renzo's people begin looking for the best... vehicles."

  "Of course, Albrecht."

  "Good!" Detweiler smacked both palms on his desktop and stood. "And on that note, let's get out of here. Evelina's brought in a brand new chef, and I think all of you are going to be amazed at what he can do with Old Earth rock lobster!"

  Chapter Three

  The interior of Protector's Cathedral was like some huge, living jewel box.

  Honor sat in the Stranger's Aisle to the left of the nave, immediately adjacent to the sanctuary. She, her parents and siblings, James MacGuiness, Nimitz, and Willard Neufsteiler, all of them in Harrington green, shared the Aisle's first pew with the Manticoran and Andermani ambassadors and consuls from each of the other members of the Manticoran Alliance. The two rows of pews behind them were solidly packed with officers in the uniform of the Protector's Own: Aldredo Yu, Warner Caslet, Cynthia Gonsalves, Harriet Benson-Dessouix and her husband Henri, Susan Phillips, and dozens of others who had escaped from the prison planet Hades with Honor. Their uniforms and the diplomats' off-world formal attire, in the styles of more than half a dozen different worlds, stood out sharply, but each of them also wore the dark, violet-black armbands or veils of Grayson-style mourning, as well.

  That touch of darkness ran through the cathedral like a thread of sorrow, all the more obvious beside the rich, jewel-toned colors of formal Grayson attire, and Honor tasted its echo in the emotions surging about her. The emotional overtones of the Church
of Humanity Unchained were always like some deep, satisfying well of renewal and faith, one she could physically experience thanks to her empathic link to Nimitz. But today there was that strand of sadness, flowing from every corner of the vast cathedral.

  Brilliant pools of dense, colored sunlight poured down through the huge stained-glass windows of the eastern wall, and more spilled down like some chromatic waterfall through the enormous stained-glass skylight above the sanctuary. She tasted the grief reaching out from those deep, still pools of light and from the drifting, light-struck tendrils of incense on quiet feet of organ music. It came in different shapes and gradations, from people who had been personally touched by Howard Clinkscales to people who had known him only as a distant figure, yet it was also touched with a sense of celebration. A swelling faith that the man whose death they had come to mourn, and whose life they had come to celebrate, had met the Test of his life in triumph.

  She gazed at the coffin, draped in both the planetary flag of Grayson and the steading flag of Harrington. The silver staff of Clinkscales' office as Harrington's regent and the sheathed sword he had carried as the commanding general of Planetary Security before the Mayhew Restoration lay crossed atop the flags, gleaming in the spill of light. So many years of service, she thought. So much capacity for growth and change. So much ability to give and so much kindness, hidden behind that crusty, curmudgeonly exterior he'd cultivated so assiduously. So much to miss.

  The organ music swelled, then stopped, and a quiet stir ran through the cathedral as old-fashioned mechanical latches clacked loudly and its ancient, bas-relief doors swung ponderously open. For a moment there was complete and total silence, and then the organ reawoke in a surge of majestic power and the massed voices of the Protector's Cathedral Choir burst into soaring song.

  The Cathedral Choir was universally regarded as the finest choir of the entire planet. That was saying quite a lot for a world which took its sacred music so seriously, but as its glorious voices rose in a hymn not of sorrow but of triumph, it demonstrated how amply it deserved its reputation. The torrent of music and trained voices poured over Honor in a magnificent tide which seemed to simultaneously focus and amplify the upwelling cyclone of the emotions all about her as the procession advanced down the cathedral's nave behind the crucifers and thurifers. The clergy and acolytes glittered in rich fabrics and embroidery, and Reverend Jeremiah Sullivan, resplendent in the embroidery and jewel-encrusted vestments of his high office, moved at the center of the procession, with the violet-black mourning stole around his neck like a slash of darkness.

  They advanced steadily, majestically, through the storm of music and sunlight and the great, glowing dome of faith which Honor wished all of them could perceive as clearly as she herself did. It was at moments like this-vastly different though they were from the quieter, more introspective services of the faith in which she had been raised-that she felt closest to the heart and soul of Grayson. The people of her adopted planet were far from perfect, yet the bedrock strength of their thousand years of faith gave them a depth, a center, which very few other worlds could equal.

  The procession reached the sanctuary, and its members dispersed with the solemn precision of an elite drill team. Reverend Sullivan stood motionless before the high altar, gazing at the mourning-draped cross, while the acolytes and assisting clergy flowed around him towards their places. He stood there until the hymn ended and the organ music faded once again to silence, then turned to face the filled Cathedral, lifted both hands in a gesture of benediction, and raised his voice.

  "And his lord said unto him," he said into that silence, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy lord."

  He stood for a long moment, hands still lifted, then lowered them and gazed out over the Cathedral's packed pews.

  "Brothers and Sisters in God," he said then, quietly, and yet in a voice which carried clearly in the cathedral's magnificent acoustics, "we are gathered today in the sight of the Tester, the Intercessor, and the Comforter to celebrate the life of Howard Samson Jonathan Clinkscales, beloved husband of Bethany, Rebecca, and Constance, father of Howard, Jessica, Marjorie, John, Angela, Barbara, and Marian, servant of the Sword, Regent of Harrington Steading, and always and in all ways the faithful servant of the Lord our God. I ask you now to join me in prayer, not to mourn his death, but to commemorate his triumphant completion of the Great Test of life as today he enters indeed into the joy of his Lord."

  * * *

  For all its rich pageantry and centuries of tradition, the liturgy of the Church of Humanity Unchained was remarkably simple. The funeral mass flowed smoothly, naturally, until, after the lesson and the gospel, it was time for the Memory. Every Grayson funeral had the Memory-the time set aside for every mourner to recall the life of the person they had lost and for any who so chose to share that memory with all the others. No one was ever forced to share a memory, but anyone who wished to was welcome to do so.

  Reverend Sullivan seated himself on his throne, and silence fell once more over the cathedral until Benjamin Mayhew stood in the Protector's Box.

  "I remember," he said quietly. "I remember the day-I was six, I think-when I fell out of the tallest tree in the Palace orchard. I broke my left arm in three places, and my left leg, as well. Howard was in command of Palace Security then, and he was the first to reach me. I was trying so hard not to cry, because big boys don't, and because a future Protector should never show weakness. And Howard radioed for a medical team and ordered me not to move until it got there, then sat down beside me in the mud, holding my good hand, and said 'Tears aren't weakness, My Lord. Sometimes they're just the Tester's way of washing out the hurt.'" Benjamin paused, then smiled. "I'll miss him," he said.

  He sat once more, and Honor rose in the Stranger's Aisle.

  "I remember," she said, her quiet soprano carrying clearly. "I remember the day I first met Howard, the day of the Maccabeus assassination attempt. He was-" she smiled in fond, bittersweet memory"- about as opposed to the notion of women in uniform and any alliance with the Star Kingdom as it was possible for someone to be, and there I was, the very personification of everything he'd opposed, with half my face covered up by a bandage. And he looked at me, and he was the very first person on Grayson who saw not a woman, but a Queen's officer. Someone he expected to do her duty the same way he would have expected himself to do his. Someone he grew and changed enough to accept not simply as his Steadholder, but also his friend, and in many ways, as his daughter. I'll miss him."

  She sat once more, and Carson Clinkscales stood, towering over his aunts.

  "I remember," he said. "I remember the day my father was killed in a training accident and Uncle Howard came to tell me. I was playing in the park with a dozen of my friends, and he found me and took me aside. I was only eight, and when he told me Father was dead, I thought the world had ended. But Uncle Howard held me while I cried. He let me cry myself completely out, until there were no tears left. And then he picked me up, put my head on his shoulder, and carried me in his arms all the way from the park home. It was over three kilometers, and Uncle Howard was already almost eighty years old, and I was always big for my age. But he walked the entire way, carried me up to my bedroom, and sat on my bed and held me until I drifted off to sleep." He shook his head, resting his right hand on the shoulder of his Aunt Bethany. "I never knew before that day how strong and patient, how loving, two arms could truly be, but I never forgot... and I never will. I'll miss him."

  He sat, and an elderly man in the dress uniform of a Planetary Security brigadier rose.

  "I remember," he said. "I remember the first day I reported for duty with Palace Security and they told me I was assigned to Captain Clinkscales detachment." He shook his head with a grin. "Scared the tripes right out of me, I'll tell you! Howard was a marked man, even then, and he never did suffer fools gladly. But-"

  At mo
st Grayson funerals the Memory took perhaps twenty minutes. At Howard Clinkscales' funeral, it took three hours.

  * * *

  "It's always hard not to feel sorry for myself at a funeral," Allison Harrington said as she stood between the towering forms of her husband and her elder daughter. "God, I'm going to miss that old dinosaur!"

  She sniffed and wiped her eye surreptitiously.

  "We all are, Mother," Honor said, slipping an arm around her diminutive parent.

  "Agreed," Alfred Harrington said, looking across at his daughter. "And his death is going to leave a real hole in the Steading."

  "I know." Honor sighed. "Still, we all saw it coming, whether we wanted to talk about it or not, and Howard saw it more clearly than any of us. That's why he worked so hard getting Austen brought up to speed for the last three or four years."

  She looked across the quiet, beautifully landscaped garden at a middle-aged-by pre-prolong standards-man with silvering, dark-brown hair and the craggy chin which seemed to mark most Clinkscales males. Like Howard himself, Austen Clinkscales was tall by Grayson standards, although far short of a giant like his younger cousin Carson.