House of Steel The Honorverse Companion - By David Weber Page 0,7

in Mortenson’s case. He was a natural worrier, and Roger couldn’t remember the last time—or the first—he’d ever heard the Prime Minister crack a joke, but that might not be such a bad thing in a chief minister. Even if it was a pain in the ass to have Mortenson looking over his shoulder and pressing tactfully (or that was how the Prime Minister probably would have put it; Roger had rather a different perspective on it) now that he was forty-one T-years old—or would be tomorrow, at any rate—for him to “find a nice girl,” put aside his youthful enthusiasms like the Navy, and settle down to his real career in politics.

And while he was about it, produce an heir.

“I suppose I can’t really blame him,” Roger said now, setting his cup back on its saucer. “Hard to remember that, sometimes, but I do try, Mom. But I’m not really planning on becoming King for another—oh, thirty years or so, either—if it’s all right with you. And I’m not really interested in giving up the Navy just yet. Especially now.”

The atmosphere in the pleasant, sunlit dining room seemed to darken. Samantha sat back in her chair at the head of the table, and her treecat companion abandoned his own meal to flow down into her lap and croon to her softly.

“I’m doing all I can, Roger,” she said quietly.

“I know that, Mom.” Roger shook his head quickly. “And I know it might help in some ways to have me available to trot out for debates. But I’m not as good a horse trader yet as you are, and I think—at the moment, at least—that I can do more good arguing the case from inside the Service.” He made a face, then took a piece of bacon from his plate and offered it to Monroe, seated in his own treecat-sized highchair beside him. “If we’re really going to make the kinds of changes you and I both agree we’ve got to make, someone’s got to . . . convince the Navy’s senior officers it’s a good idea.”

“Have you tried a sledgehammer?” his sister asked more than a little bitterly. “It’s been six T-years since that first letter of yours in the Proceedings, Rog, and I haven’t noticed any radical realignments, have you?”

“At least some of them are starting to listen, Katie,” he replied, and watched her quick, involuntary smile as he used the nickname only he had ever applied to her. “I admit it’s an uphill fight, but since the Peeps finally started coming out into the open, a few of my seniors—and quite a few more of my contemporaries—are starting to actually think about it.” He smiled mirthlessly. “In some ways, the timing on Janacek’s response to that much-maligned letter of mine is working in our favor.”

Caitrin laughed. It was a harsh sound, but there was at least some genuine humor in it, her mother thought. And Roger had a point. In fact, he had a much better point than she might have preferred.

It was hard for a lot of people, even now, to accept what had happened to the Republic of Haven. Partly, she supposed, that was because it hadn’t happened overnight. In fact, it had been an agonizingly slow process, one drawn out for the better part of two T-centuries, long enough for it to turn into an accepted part of the backdrop of interstellar politics. And it had all been internal to the Republic, after all. If Havenite citizens wanted to reorder their political and economic systems, that was up to them and really wasn’t anyone else’s business. Unfortunately, the process—and its consequences—were no longer a purely internal matter. That minor change in the interstellar dynamic was (or should have been, anyway) becoming increasingly evident to anyone. Even her best analysts were still split over how and why it had happened, yet the consequences were clear enough for those who had eyes and were willing to use them. Unhappily, however, quite a few people weren’t willing to do that, and too many of those people wielded political power in the Star Kingdom.

In her more charitable moments—which were becoming steadily fewer and farther between—she actually sympathized with those who failed to see the danger. Haven a threat to interstellar peace? Clearly the entire notion was ridiculous! Why, for almost three T-centuries, the Republic of Haven had been the bright, shining light, the example every system in and out of the Haven Quadrant wanted to emulate. A vibrant,