He held them with level blue eyes, every centimeter the admiral despite his temporary civilian status, and his cherub face was deadly serious until heads nodded around the table.

"Good. And remember this—these people aren't from the same societal matrix as we are. They don't even come close. I know you've all studied your downloads, but be certain your crews are as aware of the differences as you are. In particular, our female personnel are going to have to be extremely careful in any contacts with the Graysons." Commander Truman grimaced, and Courvosier nodded. "I know, and if it seems foolish to us, imagine how much more foolish it's going to seem to some of your junior officers and ratings. But foolish or not, it's the way things are here, and we're the visitors. We must conduct ourselves as guests, and while I don't want anyone acting a millimeter less than fully professional at all times, regardless of gender, the mere fact that we have women in uniform—far less officers' uniforms—is going to be hard for them to accept."

Heads nodded once more, and he sat back in his chair.

"That just about covers it, Captain," he told Honor, "at least until I meet their representatives and have more of a feel for the situation."

"Thank you, Sir." Honor leaned forward and folded her hands on the table. "Aside from endorsing everything Admiral Courvosier just said, I have only one thing to say about Grayson. We're going to have to play things by ear, but our responsibility is to contribute to the Admiral's success, not to make waves. If there are problems with any representative of the Grayson government, or even a private Grayson citizen, I want to hear about it immediately—and not from the locals. There's no room here for prejudice from our side, however merited it may seem, and I'd better not hear about any. Is that clear?"

A quiet murmur of agreement answered, and she nodded.

"Good." She rubbed her left forefinger lightly across the back of her right hand and nodded. "All right, then, let's turn to our own schedule.

"We've got four Mandrake—class freighters to drop off at Yeltsin's Star, but we're not supposed to actually turn their cargoes over to Grayson until Admiral Courvosier's people have begun negotiations and released them. I don't anticipate any problem in that regard, but that means they'll remain our responsibility until we do hand them over, and that means we're going to have to leave at least some of the escort to keep an eye on them. In addition, of course, we're supposed to be a show of force, a sort of pointed reminder to the Grayson government of just how valuable the Navy can be to their security vis-a-vis Masada—or, for that matter, the Peeps.

"On the other hand, we've got five more ships going on to Casca. We'll have to send along a reasonable escort, given the reports of increased `pirate' activity in the area, so my present thought is to keep Fearless here, as our most impressive unit, and send you and Apollo on to Casca in company with Troubadour, Alice." Commander Truman nodded. "With Alistair to scout for you, you should be able to handle anything you run into, and that will give me Jason and Madrigal to support Fearless. It'll take you a bit over a T-week to get there, but I want you back here ASAP. You won't have any freighters to slow you down on the return voyage, so I'll expect you back in eleven days.

"In the meantime, Jason," she moved her eyes to Alvarez, "you and I will operate on the theory that the Graysons know what they're talking about where Masada is concerned. It wouldn't be very bright of them to try anything against us, but unlike certain members of the Admiral's delegation, we're not going to take their rationality for granted." Another ripple of amusement flowed around the table. "I want our impellers hot at all times, and assuming we can arrange local leave, I don't want more than ten percent of our people dirt-side at any one time."

"Understood, Ma'am."

"All right, then. Does anyone else have anything to add?"

"I do, Skipper," McKeon said, and Honor cocked her head with a smile. "It just occurred to me to wonder, Ma'am—did anyone ever expressly tell the Graysons that, well, that our senior officer is a woman?"

"I don't know," Honor said, and the admission surprised her, for she hadn't even considered it. She turned to Courvosier. "Admiral?"

"No, we haven't," Courvosier replied with a frown. "Ambassador Langtry's been on Grayson for over three local years, and his advice was that making a point of explaining that we have female military personnel might be counterproductive. They're a proud, touchy lot—not least, I suspect, because, scared as they are of Masada, they know the real balance of power between them and the Kingdom as well as we do and resent their weakness. They don't want to be our supplicants, and they go out of their way to refuse to admit they may be. At any rate, Sir Anthony felt they might see it as some sort of slur, as if we were pointedly telling them how uncivilized we consider them. On the other hand, we transmitted a list of our ships and their COs to them, and their colonists came predominately from Old Earth's Western Hemisphere, just as our original settlers did. They certainly ought to recognize feminine names when they see them."

"I see." McKeon frowned, and Honor watched his face carefully. She knew Alistair well enough to see that something about the situation bothered him, but he chose to say nothing more, and she looked around the table again.

"Anything else?" she asked, and heads shook. "Very well, then, ladies and gentlemen, let's be about it."

She and Courvosier stood and led the way to the boat bay to see their visitors to their pinnaces and back to their own ships.

Sword Of The Faithful Matthew Simonds stumped angrily down the passage aboard his new flagship and reminded himself not to speak to Captain Yu like the heathen he was. He had no doubt Yu was going to be displeased by what he was about to hear, and though the captain was always exquisitely polite, he couldn't quite hide his feeling of superiority. That was particularly maddening in a man from such an ungodly culture, but the Church needed Yu, for a time, at least. Yet that wouldn't always be true, Simonds promised himself. The time would come when God delivered their true enemies into their hands at last. On that day infidel outsiders would no longer be necessary ... and if these godless foreigners could create the conditions for Maccabeus to succeed, that day might come far sooner than they suspected.

The bridge hatch opened before him, and he summoned up a smile and made his irritated pace slow as he stepped through it.

Captain Alfredo Yu rose from the chair at the center of the magnificent command deck. He was a tall, slender man, overtopping Simonds by at least fifteen centimeters, comfortable and elegant in the scarlet and gold of the Navy of Masada, yet there was something subtly wrong with the way he came to attention. Not disrespectful or insolent, but simply different, as if he'd learned his military courtesy somewhere else.

Which, of course, was exactly what he had done.

"Good morning, Sir. This is an unexpected honor. How may I serve you?"

"Come into my briefing room, please," Simonds replied, somewhat mollified, despite himself, by Yu's unfailing courtesy.

"Of course, Sir. Commander Manning, you have the watch."

"Aye, Sir," the commander—not, Simonds noted with fresh grumpiness, a Masadan—acknowledged crisply, and Yu followed Simonds into the briefing room and turned an attentive countenance to him as the hatch closed behind them.

Simonds studied that bland, waiting expression and wondered, not for the first time, what the mind behind those dark eyes thought. Yu had to know how critical he and his ship were to Masada's plans—or, at least, to the plans he knew about—and a third of Thunder of God's crew were still heathens filling the specialist roles no Masadan could. They looked to Yu for their orders, not Simonds, and not simply because he was the captain of their ship. Simonds had survived thirty years of internecine political and doctrinal warfare within Masada's theocracy, and he knew perfectly well Yu had his own superiors and his own agenda. So far, that agenda had marched side-by-side with the Faith's, yet what would happen on the day that was no longer true? It wasn't something Simonds liked to contemplate, but it was also something he had no choice but to ponder—and the reason it was so critical to handle Yu perfectly. When the time came for their ways to part, it must be on the Faithful's terms, not theirs.