Echoes Of Honor hh-8 Page 8

  Silence hovered once more, and then Benjamin cleared his throat.

  "Would you consider staying on as Regent, at least?"

  "I would—so long as I was sure you weren't trying to ease me into something else," Clinkscales said, and Benjamin looked at Prestwick.

  "Henry? Would that work?"

  "In the short term, Your Grace?" The Chancellor pursed his lips once more. "Probably, yes. But in the long term?" He shook his head and held out both hands, palms uppermost, as he turned to Clinkscales. "If you don't formally accept the Key, then all we've done is defer the crisis, Howard. That by itself would probably be worthwhile, of course. If we could hold it off for another ten years or so, perhaps some of the tension would ease. We might not even have Haven and the war to worry about any longer. But until we have a legal, known, and accepted successor to the Harrington Key, this entire uncertainty will simply be hovering over our heads, waiting. And, forgive me, Howard, but you're not a young man, and ten years—"

  He shrugged, and Clinkscales frowned unhappily.

  "I know," he said. "I'm in decent shape for my age, but even with Manty medical support here on the planet now, I—"

  He stopped, eyes abruptly wide, and Benjamin and Prestwick looked at one another. Prestwick started to speak again, but the Protector raised a hand, stopping him from interrupting whatever thought had suddenly struck Clinkscales, and then settled back in his own chair with an expression of intense curiosity. More than two full minutes passed, and then Clinkscales began to smile. He shook himself and made a small, apologetic gesture towards Benjamin.

  "Forgive me, Your Grace," he said, "but I've just had an idea."

  "So we noticed," Benjamin said so dryly the old man chuckled. "And just what idea would that have been?"

  "Well, Your Grace, we do have another solution to our problem. One that would accord perfectly with out own law—and, I believe, with Manticore's—and keep the Key out of my hands, praise God fasting!"

  "Indeed?" Protector and Chancellor exchanged glances, and then Benjamin quirked a polite eyebrow at Clinkscales. "And just what is this marvelous solution which has so far evaded myself, Henry, the High Court, and Reverend Sullivan?"

  "Lady Harrington's mother is here on Grayson," Clinkscales replied.

  "I'm aware of that, Howard," Benjamin said patiently, frowning at the apparent non sequitur. "I spoke to her day before yesterday about Lady Harrington's clinic and her genome project."

  "Did you, Your Grace?" Clinkscales smiled. "She didn't mention it to me. But she did mention that she and Lady Harrington's father have decided to remain here on Grayson for at least the next several years. She said—" the old man's smile faded a bit around the edges "—that they'd decided that the best memorial they could give the Steadholder would be to bring Harrington Steading's medical standards up to the Star Kingdom's, so they'd like to move their practices here. And, of course, she herself is deeply committed to the genome project."

  "I wasn't aware of their plans," Benjamin said after a moment, "but I don't really see that it changes anything, Howard. Surely you're not suggesting that we offer the Key to one of Lady Harrington's parents? They're not Grayson citizens, either, and the law is quite clear on the fact that parents can 'inherit' titles only when they revert to the parent through whom they passed in the first place, and that clearly isn't the case here. If you're about to insist that the Key pass through inheritance, then it has to go 'downstream' from the generation of its creation—which means a child, a sibling, or a cousin—and that brings us right back to Devon Harrington and our original mess!"

  "Not necessarily, Your Grace." Clinkscales sounded almost smug, and Benjamin blinked.

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You've given a great deal of thought to your reforms, Benjamin, but I think you've overlooked a glaringly obvious consequence of all the changes the Alliance has produced," Clinkscales told him. "Not surprisingly, probably. I'd certainly overlooked it—I suppose because I grew up on a planet without prolong and I'd finally gotten it through my head that the Steadholder was in her fifties. Which, of course, means that her parents have to be somewhere around my age."

  "Prolong?" Benjamin suddenly sat up straight behind his desk, and Clinkscales nodded.

  "Exactly. Her Key could pass to a sibling if she had one, but she doesn't. At the moment."

  "Sweet Tester!" Prestwick murmured in something very like awe. "I never even considered that!"

  "Nor I," Benjamin admitted, eyes narrow as he pondered furiously.

  Howard's right, he thought. That possibility never even crossed my mind, and it should have. So what if Doctor Harrington— both Doctors Harrington—are in their eighties? Physically, Honor's mother is only in her early thirties. And even if they were too old to have children "naturally," we've got all of the Star Kingdom's medical science to draw on! We could have a child tubed, assuming the Harringtons were willing. And if the child were born here on Grayson, then he'd have Grayson citizenship whatever his parents' nationality may have been.

  "It really would tie things up rather neatly, wouldn't it?" he said finally, his voice thoughtful.

  "For that matter, there's another possibility entirely," Prestwick pointed out. Both of the others looked at him, and he shrugged. "I'm quite certain Lady Harrington's mother has samples of the Steadholder's genetic material, which means it would almost certainly be possible to produce a child of Lady Harrington's even at this date. Or even a direct clone, for that matter!"

  "I think we'd better not start getting into those orbits," Benjamin cautioned. "Certainly not without consulting Reverend Sullivan and the Sacristy first, at any rate!" He shuddered at the mere thought of how the more conservative of his subjects might react to the Chancellor's musings. "Besides, a clone would probably only make matters worse. If I remember correctly—and I'm not certain I do, without looking it up—the Star Kingdom's legal code adheres to the Beowulf Life Sciences Code, just as the Solarian League's does."

  "Which means?" Clinkscales asked, clearly intrigued by the notion.

  "Which means, first of all, that it's completely illegal to use a dead individual's genetic material unless that individual's will or other legal declaration specifically authorized the use. And secondly, it means that a clone is a child of its donor parent or parents, with all the legal protections of any other sentient being, but it is not the same person, and posthumous cloning cannot be used to circumvent the normal laws of inheritance."

  "You mean that if Lady Harrington had had herself cloned before her death, then her clone would legally have been her child and could have inherited her title, but that if we have her cloned now, the child couldn't inherit?" Prestwick said, and Benjamin nodded.

  "That's exactly what I mean, although it's also possible—and legal—for someone to stipulate in his will that he be cloned following his death and that his posthumous clone inherit. But no one can make that decision for him, which would be essentially what we would be doing if we decided to clone Lady Harrington at this point to solve our difficulties. And if you think about it, there's some sound reasoning behind the prohibition. For example, suppose some unscrupulous relative managed to arrange the death of someone like Klaus Hauptman or Lady Harrington without getting caught. And then that same relative had his victim cloned and himself appointed as the clone child's guardian, thus controlling the Hauptman Cartel—or Harrington Steading—until the clone attained his majority and inherited? And that doesn't even consider the sticky question of when a will would properly be probated! I mean, if a second party could legally produce a posthumous duplicate of the person who wrote the will, would that duplicate's existence supersede the will? Would the clone be entitled to sue those to whom 'his' estate had already legally been distributed—in exact accordance with his 'own' legally written and witnessed directions—for recovery of assets? The ramifications could go on and on forever."

  "I see." Prestwick rubbed the end of his nose, then nodded. "All right, I do see that. And i
t probably wouldn't be a bad idea for us to quietly insert that Beowulf code into our own law, Your Grace, since we now have access to medical science which would make something like that possible. But how would that effect a child born to the Steadholder's parents after her death?"

  "It wouldn't," Clinkscales said positively. "The precedents are clear on that point, Henry, and they go back almost to the Founding. It's unusual, of course, and I suppose that to be absolutely legal, the Key should pass to Devon Harrington until such time as Lady Harrington's parents produce a child, but then the Steading would revert to her sibling. In fact, I think there was actually an example of that from your own family history, Your Grace. Remember Thomas the Second?"

  "Tester!" Benjamin smacked himself on the forehead. "How did I forget that one?"

  "Because it happened five centuries ago, I imagine," Clinkscales told him dryly.

  "And because Thomas isn't exactly someone we Mayhews like to remember," Benjamin agreed.

  "Every family has its black sheep, Your Grace," Prestwick said.

  "I suppose so," Benjamin said. "But not every family has someone who probably had his own brother assassinated to inherit the Protectorship!"

  "That was never proven, Your Grace," Clinkscales pointed out.

  "Right. Sure!" Benjamin snorted.

  "It wasn't," Clinkscales said more firmly. "But the point is that Thomas was actually named Protector... until his nephew was born."

  "Yeah," Benjamin said. "And if he'd known one of his brother's wives was pregnant and Dietmar Yanakov hadn't smuggled her out of the Palace, his nephew never would have been born, either!"

  "That's as may be, Your Grace," Prestwick said austerely. "But what matters is that it created a firm precedent in our own law for what Howard is suggesting."

  "I should certainly hope that a six-year dynastic war could at least establish a 'firm' precedent!" Benjamin observed.

  "Your Grace, it may amuse you to dwell on the misdeeds of one of your ancestors, but it really doesn't amuse us," Prestwick told him.

  "All right. All right, I'll be good," Benjamin promised, then sat for a moment, drumming on his desk while he thought. "Of course," he went on after a moment, "Thomas' sister-in-law was already pregnant when her husband died, but didn't the same thing happen with the original Garth Steading?"

  "Not precisely, although that was the original precedent I was thinking of," Clinkscales agreed. "My history's a little rusty, and I can't remember the first Steadholder Garth's given name—John, wasn't it, Henry?" Prestwick flipped a hand to indicate his ignorance, and Clinkscales shrugged. "At any rate, the steading had just been created and he'd been confirmed as its first steadholder when he died. He was an only son, with no sons of his own, and the Garth Key couldn't 'revert' to his parents, so no one had any idea what to do, and they spent the better part of two years wrangling about it. But then the Church and the Conclave discovered that his father's youngest wife was pregnant and agreed that the Key could pass to her child if it was male. Which it was." He shrugged again, holding out both hands palm up.

  "Um." Benjamin rubbed his chin. "I remember the details now, and I can see some problems with it now that I look back at it. That predated the Constitution by over two hundred years, and it was pretty obviously an act of political expediency to avoid a war of succession. Still, I imagine we could make the precedent stand up if we asserted it with a straight face. And if we get Reverend Sullivan to sign off on it. But this all assumes Lady Harrington's parents would be willing to cooperate with our plans. Would they?"

  "I believe so," Clinkscales said with an edge of caution. "There's no physical reason why they couldn't, and Dr. Harrington—the Steadholder's mother, I mean—has discussed the possibility with my wives in a theoretical sense, at least. And if it would be inconvenient for them to do it, ah, the natural way, they could always tube a child. That wouldn't be a clone of Lady Harrington, so I don't see where it would be a problem."

  "We'd still be on slippery ground if either of them were dead," Benjamin said thoughtfully, "but let's not go there. They're both alive, both physically able to conceive and bear children, and both on Grayson." He thought a moment longer, then nodded decisively. "I think this could be an excellent idea, Howard. If they agree, the child would be a Grayson citizen from birth because he was born here. Would you stay on as Regent in that case?"

  "You mean as a caretaker until the child's birth if they agree?"

  "Well, yes. And also as Regent for the child after he was born, as well."

  "Assuming I last that long, yes, I suppose," Clinkscales said after a few seconds of consideration. "I doubt I'd make it to the child's majority even with Manty medical support, though."

  He said it calmly, with the serenity of a man who'd lived a life fuller than the vast majority of other people's. Benjamin looked at him and wondered if he would feel as calm as Clinkscales when it was his turn. Or would the fact that people no more than five or six years younger than he could expect to live two or three centuries longer make him bitter and envious? He hoped it wouldn't, but—

  He shook the thought off and nodded.

  "All right, gentlemen, I think we have a plan here. There's just one little point about it which still bothers me."

  "There is, Your Grace?" Prestwick furrowed his brow. "I confess that I don't see one. It seems to me that Howard has solved most of our problems quite neatly."

  "Oh, he has!" Benjamin agreed. "But in the process, he's created a fresh one."

  "Indeed, Your Grace?"

  "Oh, yes indeed!" Both of Benjamin's advisors looked at him blankly, and he grinned wickedly. "Well, I'm not going to be the one to discuss the birds and the bees with Lady Harrington's mother, gentlemen!"

  Chapter Five

  "You want me to what? "

  Allison Harrington shoved herself back in her chair, astonished almondine eyes wide, and Howard Clinkscales blushed as he had not in years. It was the first time since the INS broadcast of the execution that something had driven the quiet, lingering edge of sorrow fully out of Dr. Harrington's eyes, but he would have felt much better about that if he'd been even a little bit less embarrassed. This wasn't the sort of thing a properly raised Grayson male discussed with someone else's wife, and he'd done his best to evade the responsibility. But Benjamin had insisted that he'd thought it up, so it was up to him to enlist the Harringtons' cooperation.

  "I realize it must sound impertinent of me to even bring the matter up, My Lady," he said now, his voice gruff, "but it seems the only way to avoid a probable political crisis. And it would be a way to keep the Key in her direct line."

  "But—" Allison stopped herself and drew a stylus from her pocket. She shoved it into her mouth, nibbling on it with small, white teeth in a bad habit that went clear back to her hospital residency days on Beowulf, and made herself consider the—request? offer? plea?—as calmly as possible.

  It was amazing, she decided, how complex her own reaction was. She and Alfred were finally managing to come to grips with their daughter's death—she better than he, she suspected, but still to come to grips with it. It hurt, and one of her own regrets had been that the two of them had deferred having a second child for so long. Perhaps that had been her fault, she mused. She was the one from cosmopolitan (read: crowded, stratified, smug, and obsessed with stability, she thought dryly) old Beowulf, where conspicuous contributions to population growth were more than simply frowned upon. Sphinx, on the other hand, was still a relatively new planet, with a total population of under two billion. Multichild families were the rule there, not the exception, and there was certainly no stigma attached to them.

  And I always meant to have more children of my own, now didn't I? Of course I did! That was one of the things that attracted me to Sphinx in the first place, when Alfred proposed. It was just... There were so many other things I needed to do, and it wasn't like there was any rush. My "biological clock" won't run down for another century or more yet!

  But if they'
d gone ahead, had those other children sooner, perhaps the savage blow of losing Honor wouldn't have—

  She cut that thought off... again. What might have happened couldn't change what had happened, and even if it could have, producing more children simply as some sort of emotional insurance policy—a way to protect themselves from emotional trauma if one of their brood should die—would have been contemptible. And wouldn't have worked anyway.

  Yet now that Clinkscales had brought the idea up—and explained his reasons for it—she felt... uncomfortable. Part of it was probably that bone-deep, instinctive reaction of hers which made her dig in her heels whenever anyone tried to tell her she "had" to do something. She'd made a habit of setting herself harder, more challenging goals than anyone else would have dreamed of demanding of her, but let someone—anyone—tell her that she "had" to do something, that something was "expected of her," or her "duty," and her back went up in instant defiance. She felt quite certain that most of it stemmed from her childhood sense that Beowulf's entire population had been out to pressure her into conforming to its expectations. Which was silly, of course. She'd realized that decades ago and worked on overcoming the spinal-reflex reaction ever since, yet it was still there, and she felt it stirring now.

  But stronger than that, there was the vague feeling that if she and Alfred decided to have another child now, specifically to inherit Honor's steading, it would somehow be a betrayal of the daughter they'd lost. It would be as if... as if she'd been nothing more than a glob of plastic, squeezed out by a robotic assembly line, which could be replaced by any other glob from the same line. It was a ridiculous and illogical way to feel, but that didn't make the emotion any less powerful.