"I'm afraid I still don't quite understand, Sir."

"Of course you don't," Courvosier sighed. "But, you see, women on Grayson have no legal rights, Honor—none at all."

"What?!" Honor jerked upright in her chair. Nimitz chittered in alarm as her lap shifted under him, and she winced as one centimeter-long claw dug a bit deeper than he'd intended, but her conscious mind hardly noticed.

"Precisely. They can't vote, can't own property, can't sit on juries, and—especially!—can't serve in the military."

"But that's ... that's barbaric!"

"Oh, I don't know," Courvosier said with a lurking grin. "Might be a bit restful, now and then."

Honor glared at him, and his grin faded.

"That wasn't quite as funny as I thought it would be. But the situation's even less funny. You see, Masada, the habitable planet of the Endicott System, was settled from Grayson, and not exactly voluntarily. What started as a schism over the retention of technology turned down other paths once it became clear they couldn't survive without it. The original pro-Tech faction became `Moderates,' and the anti-Techies became `the Faithful.' Once the Faithful were forced to accept that they couldn't get rid of the machines, they turned to creating the perfect godly society, and if you think the present government of Grayson is a bit backward, you should see what they came up with! Dietary laws, ritual cleansing for every imaginable sin—law codes that made any deviation from the True Way punishable by stoning, for God's sake!

"In the end, it came to open fighting, and it took the Moderates more than five years to beat the Faithful. Unfortunately, the Faithful had built themselves a doomsday weapon; if they couldn't have a godly society, then they'd blow up the whole planet—in, of course, exact accordance with the obvious Will of God."

The Admiral snorted in pure disgust and shook his head, then sighed.

"Anyway, the Grayson government—the Moderates—cut a deal with them and exiled them lock, stock, and whipping post to Masada, where they set about creating the society God Had Intended. It saved Grayson, but the Faithful have grown more intolerant, not less. There are a lot of points about their so-called religion that I can't get definitive information on, but I do know they've chopped the entire New Testament out of their Bibles because if Christ had really been the Messiah, technology never would have arisen on Old Earth, they wouldn't have been kicked off Grayson, and Woman would have been put in her proper place throughout the human community."

Honor looked at him, too bemused to disbelieve any longer, and he shook his head once more.

"Unfortunately, they also seem to believe God expects them to fix all the things that are wrong with the universe, and they're still set on making Grayson toe their doctrinal line. Neither system has, you should pardon the expression, a pot to piss in, economically speaking, but they're too close together, and they've fought several wars over the centuries, complete with the occasional nuclear strike. Which, of course creates the opening both we and Haven are trying to exploit. It's also why the Foreign Minister convinced me that we need a fairly well known military type—like your humble servant—to head our delegation. The Graysons are only too well aware of the threat Masada presents to them, and they're going to want to know the person they're negotiating with is aware of it, too."

He shook his head and pursed his lips.

"It's a hell of a mess, Honor, and I'm afraid our own motives aren't as pure as the driven snow. We need a forward base in that area. Even more importantly, we need to keep Haven from securing one that close to us. Those factors are going to be as obvious to the locals as they are to us, so we're bound to get involved in the local conflict, in a peacekeeping role at the very least. If I were the Grayson government, that would certainly be the point I'd insist on, because the basic credo of Masadan theology is that someday they will return to Grayson in triumph and cast down the heirs of the ungodly who exiled their forefathers from their rightful home. Which means Grayson can really use a powerful outside ally—and that as soon as we started courting them, the Peeps started sucking up to Masada. Mind you, they'd probably prefer Grayson to Masada, too, but the Graysons seem a bit more aware of just how fatal it can be to become a `friend' of the People's Republic.

"And that, Honor, is why you need to know exactly what's going on, diplomatically speaking, on this little jaunt. You're going to be very, very visible, and the fact that the Kingdom is sending a woman to command the military side of the mission, well—"

He broke off with a shrug, and Honor nodded slowly, still trying to grapple with the idea of a modern-day Dark Age culture.

"I see, Sir," she said softly. "I see, indeed."

Honor released the hanging rings and whipped through a flashing, somersault dismount. She was far from a professional-quality gymnast, but she landed almost perfectly and bowed with extravagant grace to her audience—who regarded her with a tolerant eye from his comfortable perch on the parallel bars. She inhaled deeply, using her hands to strip sweat from her dripping, two-centimeter hair, then scrubbed her face vigorously with her towel before she draped it around her neck and gave him a severe look.

"A little workout wouldn't hurt you, either," she panted.

Nimitz responded with an airy flirt of his fluffy, prehensile tail, then sighed in relief as she padded across to the wall-mounted grav controls. She reset the gym to the regulation one-gee maintained aboard all RMN ships, and the 'cat swarmed down from the bars. He'd never been able to understand why she insisted on cranking the gym's gravity clear up to the 1.35-gees she'd been born to. It wasn't that Nimitz was lazy, but in his uncomplicated view exertion was something to be endured, not chased after. He regarded the lower standard shipboard gravity as the greatest invention since celery, and if she had to exercise, she might as well do something he enjoyed, as well.

He scampered into the dressing room, and Honor heard her locker door rattle. Then he reappeared with a happy "Bleek!" and her hand shot up just in time to snatch a hurtling plastic disk out of the air in front of her face.

"Why, you little creep!" she laughed, and he chittered in delight, dancing from side to side on his mid and rearmost limbs while he spread his true-hands wide.

She laughed again and tossed the ancient frisbee back. There was too little space for the kinds of intricate flight paths she could manage on a planet, but Nimitz buzzed with gusto. He'd been a frisbee freak ever since the day he'd seen a much younger Honor's father playing the same game with his golden retriever, and, unlike a dog, he had hands.

Honor caught a sizzling return and grinned, then feinted a high, looping curve and sent the actual toss streaking out at knee-level ... which brought it right to chin height on Nimitz. He snagged it adroitly and skittered around in a circle, using both true-feet and his hand-paws to build momentum like a discus-thrower before he released it.

Honor's palms stung with the force of the catch, and she shook her head as she tossed it back. After all these years, she'd still never managed to fool him. No one knew precisely how treecats' empathic senses worked, but the little devil always knew when she was trying to put something over on him.

Which was more than she could say about him. His next throw carried wicked terminal English and came curving in like a boomerang. She missed her catch, ducking barely in time as it hissed past her head and bounced across the decksole, and Nimitz dashed over to it. He leapt into the air and landed directly on top of the frisbee, bleeking his triumph as he executed an impromptu victory dance.