“Elaine and I have the degrees that go with what we know; most Grayson women don’t have that certification, but that doesn’t mean they’re ignorant. And, of course, Elaine and I are from the very tip-top of the upper class. We really don’t have to work if we don’t want to, and most women can at least turn to their families or clans for a household niche to fill even if they never manage to catch a husband, but there have always been some women who’ve had no option but to support themselves in the workplace. Most people try to pretend they don’t exist, but they do, and that’s one reason all three of us—” she waved her hand at her husband and sister wife “—were so delighted to see women like Honor and yourself. Anyone with a halfway functioning brain knows women can, and have, and do ‘work’ just as hard as any man on this planet, but you and Honor rub their noses in it. You’re even more visible than Elaine and I, in some ways, and you and other Manticoran women are one of the big reasons other Grayson women are stepping into the work force at last. In fact, I understand Honor insisted that the Blackbird Yard actively recruit local women, and I hope to goodness other employers have the sense to do the same!”

“I see,” Allison said. And, intellectually, she did. Emotionally, the sort of society which could draw such artificial distinctions to start with was too alien for her to truly empathize with. She considered it for several more seconds, then shrugged.

“I see,” she repeated, “but I can’t really claim any special credit, you know. All I’m doing is going right on as I always have.”

“I know,” Katherine said. “That’s why you’re such an effective example. Anyone who sees you knows you’re more interested in getting the work done than in ’making a point’… which, of course, only makes the point more emphatically.” She smiled gently. “It was exactly the same thing that made Honor so effective, too.”

Allison blinked on unexpected tears and felt Alfred’s arm slip around her and tighten. Silence lingered for a moment, and then Katherine went on.

“But as Benjamin says, I did read the report. The appendices were a bit too abstruse for me, but you did an excellent job of explaining the major points in the text, I think.” She shook her head with a look of ineffable sadness that sprang from a very different source, and Allison reminded herself that between them, Katherine and Elaine Mayhew had already lost five sons to spontaneous early-term abortion.

“To think that we did it to our birthrate ourselves.” Katherine sighed, and it was Allison’s turn to shake her head.

“Not intentionally or knowingly,” she pointed out. “And if whoever it was hadn’t done it, there wouldn’t be any Graysons today. It was a brilliant approach to a deadly problem, especially given the limitations under which it was implemented.”