“Good morning, Henry,” the Protector said.

“Good morning, Your Grace,” Henry Prestwick replied, and moved aside to allow the fierce-faced, white-haired old man who had accompanied him to enter. The second guest carried a slender, silver-headed staff and wore a silver steadholder’s key on a chain about his neck, and Benjamin nodded to him in greeting.

“Howard,” he said in a much softer voice. “Thank you for coming.”

The old man only nodded back almost curtly. From anyone else, that would have been a mortal insult to Benjamin Mayhew’s personal and official dignity, but Howard Clinkscales was eighty-four T-years old, and sixty-seven of those years had been spent in the service of Grayson and the Mayhew Dynasty. He had served three generations of Mayhews during that time, and, until his resignation eight and a half T-years before, had personally commanded the Planetary Security Forces which had guarded Benjamin himself from babyhood. And even if he hadn’t, Benjamin thought sadly, I’d cut him all the slack there was right now. He looks… terrible.

He hid his thoughts behind a calm, welcoming expression and waved a hand for his guests to be seated. Clinkscales glanced at Prestwick for a moment, then took an armchair beside the coffee table while the Chancellor sat on the small couch flanking the Protector’s desk.

“Coffee, Howard?” Benjamin offered while the secretary hovered. Clinkscales shook his head, and Benjamin glanced at Prestwick, who shook his head in turn. “Very well. You can go, Jason,” he told the secretary. “See to it that we’re not disturbed, please.”

“Of course, Your Grace.” The secretary bobbed brief but respectful bows to each guest, then a deeper one to Benjamin, and exited, closing the old-fashioned manual door of polished wood quietly behind him. The soft click of its latch seemed thunderous in the silent office, and Benjamin pursed his lips as he gazed at Clinkscales.

The old man’s unyielding, weathered face had become a fortress against the universe, and loss had carved deep new lines in it, like river water eroding bedrock. There was grief behind the old eyes—an angry, furious grief, its expression chained and restrained by sheer strength of will yet seething with power… and pain. Benjamin understood not only the sorrow but the anger and the pain, as well, and he’d wanted to give Clinkscales time to deal with them in his own way. But he could wait no longer.

And even if I could have waited, I don’t think he ever will “deal” with them on his own.

“I imagine you know why I asked you here, Howard,” he said finally, breaking the silence at last. Clinkscales looked at him for a moment, then shook his head, still without speaking, and Benjamin felt his jaw tighten. Clinkscales had to know at least roughly what the Protector wanted, and the fact that he’d brought along the staff, which symbolized his duty as Regent of Harrington Steading, only confirmed that he’d guessed the reason for his summons. But it was as if by not admitting that consciously, even to himself, he could make that reason go away, cease to exist.