A Rising Thunder-ARC (25 page)

“Yes, and she got it from her uncle,” Allison Harrington interjected.

“Well from someone with the same genetic package, at least.” Benton-Ramirez y Chou smiled sweetly at his twin. “For that matter, Alley, you’re the geneticist. You know nurture trumps nature in cases like this. So much as I’d like to, I don’t really think I can honestly claim the credit.”

“Oh, stop it, both of you.” Honor shook her head. “Whatever my faults may be—and I’m sure they’re legion—I don’t think either of
you
is brave enough to let Mac’s dinner get cold, either. So why don’t we all just head back and let the two of you finish threshing out who’s to blame for the dreadful way I turned out over supper?”

“My goodness, you really
are
a superior strategist, aren’t you?” her uncle replied. “Who would’ve thought it?”

Chapter Thirteen

The bedside com’s rippling attention signal was quiet and discreet, almost apologetic, yet Honor’s eyes opened instantly.

It was still dark outside the bedroom windows, but just the faintest edge of dawn gilded the horizon. It brought back memories, that knife-edge of light. Memories of sleepy Sphinxian dawns, before the Queen’s Navy had gifted her with that instantaneous transition between sleep and awareness. Memories of a younger Honor Harrington who now seemed incredibly far away…and far more innocent than the woman looking out those windows this predawn morning. For just an instant, as she saw that glow kiss the eastern sky, she wished she were still that teenaged girl looking out her bedroom window at the four hundred-year-old greenhouse and the ancient, ninety-meter crown oak, its bark carved with Stephanie Harrington’s initials and the name “Lionheart.” The girl who’d never worn the uniform, who had no blood upon her hands, no burden of beloved dead, and for whom the universe was a new, unstained promise on the horizon.

That edge of grief, that flare of loss, flashed through her, sharper than a razor and crueler than winter, in the instant the chimes roused her. It struck her in that first moment, before her defenses were back in place, and she clenched internally. But then, almost before the razor had cut, she felt another presence.
Two
more presences: the loving glow from the sleeping ’cat on his bedside perch, and the warm, deeply breathing presence at her back, arms wrapped protectively about her even in sleep.

They were there with her, Nimitz and Hamish. They were there
for
her, just as they always would be, reminders that the universe was filled with even more love than loss.

Then the chimes sang again, and she patted the hand on her ribs.

“Um?” a voice uttered indistinctly.

Unlike Honor, Hamish Alexander-Harrington seldom woke without a struggle. Or, rather, he had an ability (which Honor frequently envied but had never managed to acquire) to turn the Navy’s hardwired “Wake Up
Now
” switch off and then on again as needed. At the moment, he clearly had it in the “off” position, and she patted his hand again, harder.

“Wh’ zat?”

He didn’t sound any clearer, so she jabbed with a reasonably gentle elbow.

“
Urruuff!
”

That got his attention, and she smothered a giggle as he twitched awake.

“One of us has to take that call,” she observed, still gazing out the windows as the com chimed yet again.

“So?” His voice was still soft-edged with sleep, but she tasted his amusement an instant before his lips nuzzled under her braid to nibble the nape of her neck with slow, teasing thoroughness. “And you’re telling
me
this exactly why?” he inquired between gentle nips.

“Because the com is on
your
side of the bed,” she told him severely. “And because—
stop
that!”

“Stop what?” he asked innocently, and she sighed as the hand she’d patted earlier cupped her breast. “Oh. You mean stop
this?
”

“No…I mean,
yes!
”

She laughed and twisted in his arms, turning to face him and putting her own arms around him. She kissed him thoroughly while the com continued patiently (and with steadily rising volume) to chime for their attention.

“I don’t think you really
do
mean that,” he told her.

“That’s because you’re a wicked, evil fellow who knows me entirely too well.” The severity of her tone was somewhat undermined when she paused in mid-sentence to kiss him again, and she felt Nimitz’s and Samantha’s silent laughter as they roused on their perches.

“And it’s also because
I’m
a weak, easily distracted person who hasn’t had nearly enough time to do this sort of thing in the last few months,” she continued. “But Mac or Spencer wouldn’t let calls through at this ungodly hour—especially not since they both
know
I’m a weak, easily distracted person who hasn’t had nearly enough time to do this sort of thing in the last few months—if it weren’t important. So”—she drew back languorously, then poked suddenly with a rigid forefinger—“answer the com!”

“You realize you’re going to pay for that later,” Hamish said as he sat up, rubbing his rib cage.

“I’m looking forward to it,” she told him with a smile, then reached out to touch the side of his face. “And thank you,” she said softly.

“Thank me?” He raised a quizzical eyebrow. “Thank me for
what?
”

“For being you…and for being here.”

His blue eyes softened, and he cupped a palm over the hand still on his cheek.

“You’re welcome, Your Grace. And it works both ways, you know.”

She nodded, wishing he could taste her emotions as clearly as she tasted his.

You know, that’s sort of unreasonable of you
, she told herself as he punched the “audio only” accept key.
How many people are lucky enough to have what you already have with him and Emily? I know it’s human nature to always want more, but let’s not get
too
greedy, okay?

“Yes?” Hamish said.

“I’m sorry to disturb you, Milord,” James MacGuiness’ voice responded.

“That’s all right, Mac. I think we were about to get up anyway.” Hamish gave Honor a wicked, laughing look, then glanced at the time and grimaced. “For that matter, I’ve got that early meeting at Admiralty House, and I need to be in the air in the next couple of hours.”

“I know, Milord. In fact, that’s one reason I went ahead and woke you. Doctor Arif’s on the com for Her Grace, FTL from Sphinx. And I think Her Grace should probably take the call before you leave, Milord.”

“I beg your pardon?” Hamish frowned at Honor, who shrugged.

She had no idea why Adelina Arif might screen her this early, or why MacGuiness thought Hamish should be part of the conversation, but…

“Ask her to hold a few more seconds, please, Mac,” she said, raising her voice.

“Of course, Your Grace,” he replied, and Hamish muted the com.

“I think we should go ahead and get decent,” Honor continued, giving her husband one more peck on the cheek before she rolled out of bed.

“Some people,” he returned, surveying her with obvious approval, “
wake up
decent because they wear pajamas, you know.”

“No, really?” She laughed and stretched luxuriously, arching her spine and savoring the sharp, bright flicker of desire flowing through his emotions, then scooped up her kimono and slipped into it. “Doesn’t that waste a lot of time?” she asked innocently.

“And you called
me
a wicked, evil fellow! A case of the pot and the kettle, don’t you think?”

“Certainly not.” She sniffed virtuously. “
I’m
not a ‘fellow’!”

“No, you’re not, thank God,” he conceded fervently.

“I’m glad you approve. Now get your butt out of bed and into a robe!”

“Yes, Your Grace. At once, Your Grace. As you command, Your Grace,” he said obsequiously, and ducked as she hurled a pillow at him.

* * *

“All right, Mac,” she said a few minutes later, seated at her workstation in their suite’s comfortable sitting room. Hamish sat beside her, casually dressed in a pullover shirt and slacks. “Please put Dr. Arif through.”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

The display blanked briefly. Then an attractive, dark-complexioned woman looked out of it at her.

“Adelina,” Honor said. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you, too, Your Grace.” The woman who’d taught the treecats to sign smiled after a brief lag. Despite the fact that she was several light-minutes away, in her office on Sphinx, the delay was little more than ten seconds. “I apologize for screening so early, though.” Her smile turned a bit sheepish. “Actually, I hadn’t realized it was quite
this
early for you. I counted the time zones wrong.”

“That’s all right,” Honor assured her, and glanced at Hamish. “We needed to get up early this morning, anyway.”

“I hope you’re not just saying that to make me feel better,” Arif chuckled a handful of seconds later. “Anyway, though, the reason I’m disturbing you this early is that something came up about thirty-five minutes ago, and I thought you ought to hear about it ASAP.”

Honor cocked her head and frowned. If she had the numbers right, the time in Arif’s office in the Sphinxian town of Green Bottom was just past Compensate, the “midnight hour” (thirty-seven minutes, actually) inserted into the middle of Sphinx’s night to “round out” the twenty-five standard-hour planetary day.

“You’re up kind of late, aren’t you, Adelina?”

“I think everybody’s working strange hours lately, Your Grace,” Arif replied. “Although, when I realized I’d dragged Mac out of bed, I started to tell him not to disturb you. But he mentioned it was about time for him to be getting you up. Besides”—she shrugged with something that wasn’t quite a grin—“the ’cats are sort of insistent about talking right now. They, ah, don’t seem quite as obsessed with clocks as humans are.”

“You’ve got that one right!” Honor snorted. “It took a couple of years for Nimitz to catch on that two-legs really cared exactly when they got around to doing something.” She smiled. “Actually, it came in kind of handy for a while. I got to be late and blame it on him…until Mom and Daddy figured out who was
really
to blame, anyway.”

Nimitz made an amused sound, and Arif chuckled.

“I can believe that. And most of the ’cats I’ve been working with are still ‘wild,’ of course. They haven’t had the advantage of Nimitz’s earlier training.”

“No, but they’re probably less
stubborn
than him, too,” Honor said, reaching up to stroke Nimitz’s ears.

“Far be it from me to agree with you about that,” Arif said a bit primly, and Nimitz bleeked a laugh as Samantha nodded vigorously from the back of Hamish’s chair.

“Anyway,” Arif went on, her expression more serious, “earlier this evening, I was discussing today’s progress with Song Shadow when she suddenly stopped in mid-sign. She just sat there for several seconds, obviously ‘listening’ to someone else. It’s not like her to just stop like that, without at least warning me, and whoever she was talking to, the conversation went on a long time for a ’cat. When it was over, she asked me to send an air car to Bright Water Clan.”

Honor felt herself frowning. She wasn’t going to interrupt with questions—even with the grav-pulse com, interplanetary conversations quickly disintegrated if people started breaking in on one another—but her curiosity burned brightly as she wondered where the linguist was going.

She’d never met Song Shadow, but from her name, she was obviously a “memory singer.” Arif was still exploring exactly what memory singers were, but she’d already learned enough to recognize they were absolutely central to treecat society as its historians and teachers. From what Arif had so far discovered, a memory singer could literally “record” and play back the actual experiences of another treecat. In fact, they could play back
centuries
worth of those experiences.

Honor doubted any human—even she, who’d developed her own version of the treecats’ empathy—would ever truly grasp what that meant, appreciate the continuity “mind songs” bestowed upon a telepathic species who could literally “hear” the mind-voices and experience the very emotions of treecats who’d died centuries before their own birth. But the fact that
Samantha
was a memory singer had been critical to Arif’s success in teaching the ’cats to sign, because once
she’d
learned how, she’d been able to “teach” any other treecat the same thing.

“I sent the car, of course,” Arif continued. “It took an hour or so to get to Bright Water’s range, and the SFC ranger had to wait a while for all his passengers to arrive. Then they had to fly all the way to Green Bottom.”

She grimaced, and Honor nodded. Green Bottom was halfway around Sphinx from Bright Water Clan’s home range. And, she thought more grimly, from the ruins of Yawata Crossing, as well.

“Thanks to all the delays, they only got here about an hour ago, and I was more than a little surprised by who Song Shadow had sent a ride for.” Arif shook her head. “It was seven other memory singers.”

Honor felt her eyes widen. One thing they
had
learned about memory singers was that they virtually never left their clans’ ranges. Which, of course, raised the question of exactly what a memory singer by the name of Samantha was doing bonded to a human. Honor had the impression that neither Nimitz nor Samantha was being as forthcoming about that as they could have, although it was obvious Samantha wasn’t exactly your
typical
memory singer.

Obviously, there’d always been some exceptions (besides Samantha), especially recently, since memory singers had been involved with Dr. Arif’s efforts from the beginning. But Honor didn’t think there’d ever been more than two or three of them in Green Bottom at any one time before.

“I know I don’t have to tell you how surprised I was when the ranger opened the car door and seven
memory singers
piled out!” Arif said wryly. “I’d met three of them before: Wind of Memory, Songstress, and Echo of Time.” Honor pursed her lips in a silent whistle as Arif named all three of Bright Water Clan’s senior memory singers. “Song Shadow introduced the others once they got to my office. Songkeeper and Clear Song are the senior and second singers of Laughing River Clan. Winter Voice is the senior singer of Moonlight Dancing Clan. And then”—Arif’s eyes darkened and her voice dropped—“there’s Sorrow Singer.” The linguist swallowed. “She’s the only surviving memory singer of Black Rock Clan, Honor.”