“As well as can be expected, both of them. Dr. Gagarian has a new therapy he wants Emily to try, and Father isn’t taking the winter very well, but—”

He shrugged again, like a man testing an old wound and finding its familiar pain unchanged, and Webster nodded silently. Alexander’s father, the Twelfth Earl of White Haven, was almost sixty-four years old—over a hundred and ten T-years—and his had been the last pre-prolong generation. He could not have many winters left, and Lady Emily Alexander was one of Manticore’s greatest tragedies, one Webster—like everyone who knew her personally and thousands who had never met her at all—felt as his own. Once acknowledged as the Kingdom’s premiere holo-drama performer, she remained one of its most beloved and respected writers and producers, but she had been forced from the HD stage by the aircar collision that had left her a total invalid. Her damaged nerves had persistently refused both grafts and regeneration, and not even modern medical science could rebuild destroyed motor control centers.

Webster suppressed an expression of useless sympathy he knew would only make Alexander uncomfortable and shook himself, looking more closely at the officer before him. Hamish Alexander was forty-seven—just over eighty standard years old—himself, though he looked less than a third his father’s age, but there were fresh worry lines around his eyes and a few new strands of white at his temples.

“And your brother?”

“The Honorable Willie?” Hamish brightened instantly, eyes gleaming with sudden laughter. “Our noble Lord of the Exchequer is in fine form! Had quite a few words to say to me—rude ones, too—about the last Naval Estimates, I might add.”

“He thinks they’re too high?”

“No, he just thinks he’s going to have the devil of a time getting them approved by Parliament. Still, I imagine he’s getting used to that by now.”

“I hope so, because next year’s are probably going to be worse,” Webster sighed.

“I imagine. But somehow I don’t think you wanted to see me to hear what Willie has to say about the budget, Jim. What’s up?”

“Actually, in a way, I did want to sound Willie out—through you—about something that’s come up. Or, no, not Willie, so much, as the Government in general.”

“Now that,” Alexander said, “sounds ominous.”

“Maybe not ominous, but certainly difficult.” Webster ran a hand through his hair in an atypically harassed gesture. “It’s Basilisk Station, Hamish.”

“Oho,” Alexander murmured. He swung one leg, staring down at the toe of his mirror-polished boot. Basilisk had always been a political hot potato, and given the current First Lord’s views on the system, it was hardly surprising that Webster should make a discreet—and unofficial—attempt to sound out the Government without involving his civilian superior.

“Oho,” Webster agreed sourly. “You know what’s going on there?”

“I’ve heard there was a little excitement.” Alexander shrugged. “Nothing specific, aside from a few wild rumors.”

“In this case, they may not have been all that wild.” Alexander raised his eyebrows at Webster’s tone, and the First Space Lord grimaced. He reached into his desk and extracted a sizable heap of message chips.