Now, two years after Judith's initiation, faced with Ephraim's plans to abort her unborn daughter, confronting a future marked by similar abuse, Judith accepted the mantle the Sisterhood had set upon her shoulders. She would be their Moses, and, though hearing no divine voice to guide her actions, she decreed that the time for the Sisterhood's Exodus had come.

Although he understood the reasons, Michael still found the wholly male diplomatic corps bound for Endicott rather odd. Every political meeting he had attended since his father's death had been dominated by Beth. Even when Beth had been a minor, her regent had been their aunt Caitrin, the Grand Duchess Winton-Henke. This all male group was positively weird.

Then again, maybe the fact that gender and availability, rather than pure ability, had been key elements in selecting this group was why it was so peculiar. There was also the fact that much of the Manticoran diplomatic corps felt that its first task was preserving peace rather than preparing for war. Many of the best and the brightest among them were employing their energies trying to figure out how to work with the Peeps. Doubtless the Masadan mission was not an assignment those would seek.

Perhaps, too, the reality that Masada was not the Queen's first choice for an ally in this region of space had something to do with those who had volunteered. Those diplomats, like Sir Anthony Langtry, more of Her Majesty's way of thinking and ready to embrace the possibility that war could not be prevented would be striving to win over the Graysons.

The men who had volunteered for the Masadan mission were eager for any chance to prove themselves—as they most surely would if they could win the misogynistic and egocentric Faithful over to an alliance.

Forbes Lawler, a first generation prolong recipient and former member of the House of Commons, was the head of the group. Handsome, with iron grey hair, and a lean, athletic build, Lawler spoke in a straight-at-them, square-jawed fashion that reminded Michael of his first gym teacher. Although Lawler never said so directly, he clearly hoped that in addition to bringing new instructions he would soon be replacing the current ambassador.

Quentin Cayen served as Lawler's personal assistant. Young enough to be a second-generation prolong recipient, Cayen tinted his hair silver at the temples and affected reading glasses in an attempt to bring gravity to his otherwise boyishly plump features. Michael thought Cayen looked rather silly, but since Cayen was otherwise competent, and eager to please without being offensive, the midshipman tried to overlook the other man's cosmetic enhancements.

The last member of the delegation, John Hill, was ostensibly a computer specialist. He was very knowledgeable about the Masadans, including being familiar with the Faithful's religious rituals and dietary restrictions. Hill was pretty clearly a spy, but Michael thought he might well be the most competent member of the trio.

On the day Intransigent entered the Endicott System, Michael was working in the almost empty middy berth when a memo requesting his attendance at a final planning session came from Lawler. Since Michael had a mess of homework—it might be called other things, but it still felt like homework—he wasn't terribly pleased. However, he knew his duty and reluctantly put aside the fusion repair sim he'd been assigned by the chief engineer herself.

"Where are you going, Michael?" Astrid asked, setting her own reader aside, apparently prepared to accompany him.

"Mr. Lawler wants me," Michael replied.

"Oh," Astrid said, disappointed, and turned back to her work.

Michael, who had the vague feeling that Astrid had been trying to get him alone for several days now, saw Sally Pike smirking, and thought he might be right. Relieved, he grabbed a few things, waved a vague farewell, and got out of there before Ozzie or one of the other hangers-on could decide to walk him to the diplomats' suite.

When Michael arrived, Lawler was pacing back and forth, barely containing his excitement.

"A notice just came from the bridge," he said, thrusting hard copy into Michael's hand. "There is at least one Peep ship in system."

"Doesn't the People's Republic have an embassy here, just like we do?" Michael asked.

"They do," Lawler agreed. "However, an embassy is no reason for the Peeps to station a heavy cruiser here, is it?"

Michael felt his eyebrows shoot toward his hairline. Intransigent was a light cruiser, and Beth had considered sending her on a diplomatic mission a rather heavy-handed move. Apparently, the Peeps were less subtle.

"It's the Moscow, Prince Michael," John Hill added. "Not one of their newest models, but not one of the oldest either."

"Has she been here long?" Michael asked, feeling odd, as he always did after existing within the Navy's rigid command structure, to be back among those who subtly deferred to him.

"Not long enough to state that Moscow is stationed here," Hill replied, with the vaguely exasperated note in his voice that Michael had learned was reserved for correcting Lawler's more extreme statements. "Nor would I say that Moscow was sent in anticipation of our own arrival, though that isn't impossible. Mr. Lawler's coming with new instructions has not precisely been kept a secret."

There was no real reason Lawler's arrival should have been, Michael knew, but he had a feeling that Hill was the type of man who kept secrets by reflex. Hill probably thought it would be a breach of basic security if he knew the color of his own socks.

"Ambassador Faldo is most impatient for our arrival," Lawler interjected happily, "but Captain Boniece tells me we cannot be shuttled planetside until tomorrow morning. That leaves us ample time to review."

For the next several hours, Michael tried not to think wistfully of the engineering sim he hadn't completed, nor about the trauma team drill Surgeon Commander Rink had promised to run for the middies. When the twittering of the com broke into Lawler's nearly uninterrupted lecture, Michael realized he'd been all but dozing.

"Ambassador Faldo wishes to speak with you and your shore party," the duty communications officer announced. "If you are free."

Lawler smothered a look of mild annoyance, then nodded.

"Please patch the Ambassador through."

"Just a moment, Mr. Lawler."

Cayen had leapt to his feet the moment the com chimed and, by the time the call came through, he had modified the desk unit so that the ambassador's face was projected on one of the cabin's bulkheads, sparing them the need to crowd around a terminal.

Ambassador Faldo, like Mr. Lawler, was a first-generation prolong recipient. Unlike Lawler, who managed to project incredible vigor, Faldo looked tired. His hair had apparently once been blond, but had now faded to a muddy gray with just enough of the original color left to make him appear molting. His eyes, sunk beneath puffy lids, were a washed-out brown, but their gaze remained direct and penetrating.

"The reaction," the ambassador began after minimal polite greetings had been exchanged, "to the presence of Prince Michael aboard Intransigent has been—to speak mildly—beyond my greatest expectations. Not only has the Chief Elder expressed a desire to meet Mr. Winton, but the Senior Elders are to be included in the reception. In fact, as far as I can tell, everyone who is anyone as well as everyone who wants to be thought anyone is attending some enormous conclave of Elders that the Faithful have 'coincidentally' announced will be happening at this time."

"That's wonderful, Sir," Lawler said.

"I suppose so," Faldo agreed. "However, it means I want to move up the time for our meeting tomorrow. We're to join the Chief Elder at precisely noon, and I want time to prepare for such an important event. The Chief Elder has honored us by putting at our disposal a meeting room at the Hall of the Just."