"Exactly." Rajampet nodded firmly.

"In that case, I'd better be getting the technical data over to ONI. I know you want to tell Karl-Heinz about Karlotte yourself, Sir, but I'm afraid we're going to need to move pretty quickly on this if we're going to have those models and analyses by tomorrow morning."

"Hint taken," Rajampet said with a tight smile. "Head on over to his office. I'll screen him while you're on the way over. Probably be a good idea to give him something else to think about as quickly as possible, anyway."

* * *

Elizabeth III sat in her favorite, old-fashioned armchair in King Michael's Tower. A three-meter Christmas tree—a Gryphon needle-leaf, this year—stood in the center of the room in the full splendor of its ornaments, mounting guard over the family gifts piled beneath its boughs. Its resinous scent filled the air with a comforting perfume, almost a subliminal opiate which perfected the quiet peacefulness which always seemed to surround King Michael's, and there was a reason it was here rather than somewhere else in Mount Royal Palace. The stumpy, ancient stonework of the tower, set among its sunny gardens and fountains, was a solid, comforting reminder of permanence in Elizabeth's frequently chaotic world, and she often wondered if that was the reason it had become her and her family's private retreat. She might well conduct official business there, since a monarch who was also a ruling head of state was never really "off duty," but even for business purposes, King Michael's Tower was open only to her family and her personal friends.

And to some people, she thought, looking at the tall, almond-eyed admiral sitting sideways in the window seat across from her, with her long legs drawn up and her back braced against one wall of the window's deep embrasure, who had become both.