Day of Honor 01_ Ancient Blood - Diane Carey [74]
His eyes burned as he made his cold announcement.
“We are your betters.”
Tension reached critical mass in the small cabin, braced passively by the fire snapping crisply in the hearth.
The sailors remained silent, riveted by the friction between the cousins, so clearly defining the little, sparking war that now embraced two continents.
“Everyone is better than someone,” Jeremiah allowed. “I cannot deny others the chance to acquire betterment.”
“One cannot ‘acquire’ the status of a gentleman,” the sergeant clarified. “One must be born to that status. Officers and gentlemen have run the British government and military since ancient times, and that is why Britain has survived. Tradition must be respected, else we are no longer civilized. Look at France! Where would that cesspool of peasants be if not for the aristocracy? Should the elite crumble, Europe would go to pot. The class system in the military is the only reason the lowest soldier can eat. So it is in all of society. The system is run on our honor. While we are out here, thousands of miles from our king, we still owe loyalty to him. We owe loyalty to the system that feeds us. If it falls, we fall.”
“You’re living an illusion,” Jeremiah told him quietly. “You’ve simply never seen any other way.”
“Oh?” Sandy’s eyebrow went up like a rising barometer. “Do you know you’re insulting me now?”
“I’m insulting myself, then,” Jeremiah said, “for mine is high birth as well.”
Sandy Leonfeld’s eyes narrowed, and his shoulders squared once again upon that narrow figure.
With great luster he said, “Not as high as mine. I am a peer of the realm. My descendants will be dukes and princes, lords, barons, and kings.”
Picard leaned toward Alexander. “And Klingons,” he murmured.
“Jeremiah, be reasonable!” the sergeant pleaded. “Do you honestly believe this clatter of colonies is a nation? Do you think you can survive without selling yourself to another foreign power? There is a king in your future, America, for that is where the power lives, and you need power to survive against power. Soon or late, the colonies will make deals with kings. If you’re successful in breaking from Britain, I hope you enjoy being a Spaniard or a Dutchman. Or, God forbid, French! Independence! What a lie!”
He stalked away from Jeremiah, putting what precious little distance between them this cabin’s keeping room allowed. As he paused near the fireplace, glaring into the fire with menacing eyes, he cast a single glance at Picard, noted what had just been said, but decided not to apologize. The sergeant seemed as baneful as he was appalled, and the level of his conviction was clearly met by the conviction in Jeremiah Coverman’s face, and those of the two women.
He placed his hands on his hips and glared around at the cabin and its humble accoutrements; certainly, he was measuring it up with the splendor of his life, and Jeremiah’s former life, as the aristocracy of Britain and Austria. Surely this place was humbled by the past of both these young men, and all that was reflected, down to the sconces, in Sandy Leonfeld’s contemptuous survey.
“Freeze program.” Picard waited for the computer to slow the holoprogram, but it didn’t happen. Instead, all the people in the room turned to look at him and try to figure out what he was talking about.
“I beg your pardon, lieutenant?” Jeremiah asked.
Aunt Mercy craned about as if expecting spirits to come out of the wails.
“Computer, I said freeze the program,” Picard repeated.
Finally the holoprogram slowed to a stop.
He turned to the boy.
“Why did you stop it?” Alexander asked, his adolescent fists balling with attempted manliness. “It was just getting good!”
“Alexander, how did you know?” Picard wondered. ” Before Jeremiah said anything, you realized he was no longer loyal to the Crown, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” The boy looked at him, his face crumpled