"Very well, Ms. Prosecutor. You may call your first witness."

"Thank you, My Lord." Captain Ortiz rose once more and looked at the sergeant-at-arms. "My Lord, the prosecution calls as its first witness Captain the Countess Dame Honor Harrington."

The court-martial board filed into the conference room set aside for its deliberations. Not a word was exchanged as its members passed the Marines flanking the room's single door, and the soft click as that door closed behind them was almost deafening.

Earl White Haven seated himself at the head of the table, looking down its length at Admiral of the Green Theodosia Kuzak at its foot. Their juniors took chairs flanking the polished slab of native golden wood, two on each side, and he let his cool, expressionless eyes study them as they settled.

Of them all, he knew Kuzak best. For reasons of her own, the red-haired admiral had nourished a reputation as a strict, humorless disciplinarian almost from Academy graduation, and her green eyes and severe features could produce a poker face that went well with that perception. Except, he thought fondly, for those who knew the woman behind them. He and Theodosia had been friends literally since childhood—and once, briefly, they'd been much more. It had been a difficult time in White Havens life, a time when he'd been forced to accept at last that his wife's injuries were real and permanent. That no medical miracle would let her leave her life support chair ever again. The accident hadn't been his fault, but he hadn't been there to prevent it, either, and he'd been wracked by guilt and almost unbearable grief as he watched her turn into a frail and fragile ghost of the beautiful woman he'd loved. The woman he still loved, and with whom he could never again have a physical relationship. Theodosia had understood he could no longer be strong. That he'd needed comfort—no more and no less—from someone whose integrity he knew he would never have cause to question... and he hadn't.

Rear Admiral of the Green Rexford Jurgens, at Kuzak's left, was a very different proposition. He was a blocklike, chunky man with sandy hair and a permanently belligerent expression, but his belligerence was more pronounced than usual today, and his light brown eyes were like shutters. He didn't look like a man facing a decision; he looked like one who'd already decided and prepared himself to defend his position against all comers.

Admiral of the Red Hemphill, next in seniority after Kuzak, was harder to read, even after all the years she and White Haven had spent as adversaries. As fair-skinned as Kuzak, Sonja Hemphill was a handsome woman, golden haired and with striking blue-green eyes, but where Theodosia's face often hid the real Theodosia, the determination that was Hemphill's driving force tightened her features and made her look almost as opinionated as she actually was. Though twenty years younger and far junior to White Haven, she'd made her name early in the R&D community, and she was a leading advocate of the jeune ecole's material-based "new tactical thinking," whereas the earl was the acknowledged leader of the historical school. He respected both her personal courage and her abilities in her own areas of competence, yet they'd never liked one another, and their professional differences only made their natural antipathy worse. Their clashes had assumed mythic stature over the last fifteen T-years, and there were other worries this time: she was also a cousin of Sir Edward Janacek and heir to the Barony of Low Delhi, and, like Jurgens, her spiritual home was the Conservative Association.

The third female member of the board, Commodore Lemaitre, was a complete contrast to Theodosia Kuzak, and not just physically. She was dark haired, dark skinned, and whippet thin, with intense brown eyes, and she radiated taut, barely leashed energy. Another member of the jeune ecole, Lemaitre was nonetheless an excellent tactical theorist, though she'd never commanded in action. She was also, despite an abrasive personality, a superior administrator. White Haven suspected her support for the jeune ecole stemmed less from a rigorous analysis of its merits than from her family ties to the antimilitary Liberal Party and its fundamental distrust for all things traditional, yet sheer ability had her on the fast track for a rear admiral's star. Unfortunately, she knew it did, and she lacked the one thing which made Hemphill endurable. Sonja might be a hard driver and more than a bit ruthless, and she was oppressively confident of the merits of her own pet technical and tactical theories, yet she was willing to admit she herself was fallible. Lemaitre wasn't. She was totally convinced not only of her own rectitude but of the superiority of any ideology she chose to honor with her support, and he'd seen her nostrils flare when Captain Harrington took the stand.

Captain The Honorable Thor Simengaard was the board's junior officer, and also its largest. His family had migrated to Sphinx two T-centuries before, but they'd come from Quelhollow, an ancient world, settled before Old Earth's Final War and the galaxy-wide ban on the practice of genetically engineering colonists for their new homes. The massively stacked Simengaard stood just over two meters tall, with hair so intensely black it hurt the eye. His dark coppery complexion made his startling, topaz eyes appear even brighter, and his mild, homely features masked a stubbornness more than equal to Jurgens' more obvious belligerence.

It would not, White Haven thought, be a pleasant task to preside over these personalities.

"All right." He broke the silence at last, and five pairs of eyes swiveled to him. "We all know the pertinent regs, and I trust we've all reviewed the JAG's procedural notes and the specific wording of the articles cited in the charges?" He let his gaze circle the table until they'd all nodded.

Even the way some of them did that only shouted that they'd already made up their minds, whatever the regs said about considered judgments, and he leaned back in his chair, resting his elbows on its arms and intertwining his fingers above his lap as he crossed his legs.

"In that case," he went on quietly, "let's get to it. We've all heard the evidence, but before I open discussion of the charges, let's admit that our decision—whatever it may be—is going to set off a political warhead."

Lemaitre and Jurgens stiffened, and White Haven smiled without humor. Bringing politics into a court-martial decision was forbidden. Indeed, each officer had been required to affirm under oath that his or her decision would be apolitical, rendered solely on the basis of the evidence, and he was certain Kuzak and Simengaard had so sworn in good faith. He was equally certain Jurgens hadn't, and Lemaitre's expression was informative, to say the least. Hemphill, though.... He wasn't certain about Sonja. She simply looked back at him, and if her lips were tight, her aqua eyes were unflinching.

"I'm not suggesting that any one of us would use his or her vote for partisan purposes," he went on. One must, after all, be polite. "Nonetheless, each of us is a fallible human, and I'm certain all of us have considered the political ramifications."

"May I ask exactly what your point is, Sir?" Commodore Lemaitre asked stiffly. White Haven turned his cool, blue eyes on her, then shrugged.

"My point, Commodore, is that each of us should realize that our fellows are as aware of the political dimension as we are ourselves."

"It sounds to me, Sir, as if you are suggesting someone might cast a partisan vote," Lemaitre returned, "and I, for one, resent the imputation."

White Haven carefully said nothing about shoes that fit, but he smiled faintly, holding her eyes until she flushed and looked down at her blotter.