no longer gaunt and hunched, but the quick, eager mischief had gone out of him. His ears never rose from their half-flattened position, and he seemed to radiate a strange, dangerous aura, like an echo of the hunger Henke knew filled Honor. It was cold, as she was cold, and alien to everything Henke had ever sensed from him in the past. Still worse, perhaps, was the way he watched Honor. He sat quiet and still on her shoulder whenever she left the cabin; within her quarters, he refused to let her out of his sight, and his grass-green eyes were quenched and dark.
'Hello, Mike. I see we've arrived.'
'Yes.' Henke's reply came out awkwardly, in the tone of someone who didn't know exactly how to respond. There was no obvious stress in Honor's voice; indeed, the reverse was true, but its very lifelessness, its flattened timbre and deadness, made it a strangers. Henke cleared her throat and managed a smile. 'I've run a little interference with the newsies, Honor. If we can get you aboard fast enough, you may make it clear to
'Thank you.' Honor's lips formed a smile that never touched her eyes. Those dark, ice-cored eyes that never warmed, never seemed to blink even on
Honor Harrington was a killer. She'd always been one; Mike Henke knew that better than most, yet she'd also known that killer streak was controlled by the compassion and gentleness which were far more important parts of Honor. It was channeled by duty and responsibility and, in a sense, it was the complement and consequence alike of her compassion. Honor cared about things; that had made her capacity for violence even greater, in many ways, but it had also made it something she could use at need, not something that used her. It had threatened to break free a time or two, yet it never had. If the whispers from the Blackbird Raid were accurate, it almost had that time, but she'd managed, somehow, to stop it.
This time she didn't even want to, and Henke sensed her terrifying aptitude for destruction as never before. Henke had feared for her sanity; now she knew the truth was almost worse than that. Honor wasn't insane—she simply didn't care. She'd lost not only her sense of balance but any desire to regain it. She wasn't berserk. She was something far more dangerous, for her killer self was in command, inhumanly logical and cruel as a Sphinx winter, utterly devoid of her usual compassion and not at all concerned with consequences.
Honor stood silently, watching her best friend from within her icy walls. She felt Mike's fear for her through her link with Nimitz, and a tiny piece of her heart longed to comfort that fear. Yet it was no more than reflex, too small and lost to be more, and she'd forgotten how to offer comfort, anyway. Perhaps she would remember, someday, but it hardly mattered. All that mattered now was Denver Summervale.
'I suppose I'd better be going,' she said after a moment. She held out her hand, and Mike took it. Nimitz let Honor feel the tears burning behind her friends eyes, and that lost fragment of the woman Paul Tankersley had loved longed to feel her own eyes burn. But she couldn't, and so she squeezed Mike's hand, patted her gently on the shoulder, and left without ever looking back.
The side party came to attention and saluted when Honor caught the grab bar and swung from the boarding tube's zero gee into
'Captain,' she said quietly. It was a simple greeting, without the condolence she sensed Honor didn't want to hear.
'Eve.' Honor nodded to her, then to the side party, and beckoned one of her armsmen forward. 'Commander Chandler, this is Major Andrew LaFollet, commanding my Grayson security team.' That cold ghost of a smile touched her lips again. 'Protector Benjamin sent him along to keep me from doing anything foolish.' LaFollet's mouth tightened, but he shook Chandler's hand without comment. 'Please introduce him to Colonel Ramirez as soon as convenient. I think they'll find they have quite a bit in common.'
'Of course, Ma'am,' Chandler murmured.
'Thank you.' Honor turned to MacGuiness. 'See to getting my gear transferred, please, Mac. I'm going directly to my quarters.'
'Yes, Ma'am.' Chandler had never heard the steward sound so weary—or worried—and her heart went out to the exhausted, sad-eyed man.
Honor moved forward out of the entry port, headed for the lift, and LaFollet cleared his throat behind her.
'Armsman Candless,' he said quietly, and James Candless came briefly to attention and padded off on Honor's heels. Chandler looked at the major, and he shrugged. 'I'm sorry, Commander, but I have my orders.'
'I see.' Chandler gazed at him a moment longer, and then her expression softened. 'I do see,' she said more quietly, with a different emphasis, 'and we're all concerned for her. We'll work something out, Major.'
'I hope so, Commander,' LaFollet murmured, watching the lift carry his Steadholder away. 'I hope to God the Tester we do.'
The cabin hatch closed, sealing Honor away from Candless and her normal sentry. She felt a vague sense of guilt for failing to introduce the two men to one another or explain Candless's presence to the Marine, but there was too little of her left to spare for things like that.
She stood looking around the cabin, and dry-eyed agony twisted despite her armor as her gaze touched the holo cube on her desk. Paul smiled at her from it, laughing, wind whipping his ponytail while he held his flight helmet in the crook of his arm and the needle nose of a Javelin gleamed behind him.
She crossed to the desk. Her hand trembled as she lifted the holo cube, staring down at it, longing for the tears that would not come. Her mouth quivered, and her fingers tightened, but still her frozen soul refused to weep. All she could do was close her eyes and press the cube to her breasts, rocking it like the stony heart of all her loss and pain.
She never knew how long she stood there while Nimitz huddled against the side of her neck, keening softly and stroking her cheek with a delicate true-hand. She only knew she couldn't do anything else—and that she lacked the courage to open her sleeping cabin's hatch. There was too much agony beyond it, too many treacherous reminders of joy. She couldn't face that. Not now. It would break her, and she dared not break before she did what she had to do, and so she stood, a black-and-gold-uniformed statue frozen at the corner of her desk, until the admittance chime sounded behind her.
She inhaled sharply, nostrils flaring. Then she set the holo cube gently back on her desk. She ran a fingertip down Paul's smiling face like a kiss and pressed the com key.
'Yes?' The quaver in her voice surprised her, and she crushed it in a grip of ice.
'Colonel Ramirez, Ma'am,' her Marine sentry said.
'I don't—' She stopped herself. She didn't want to face Ramirez. He'd been Paul's second, and she knew him too well. Knew he blamed himself and expected her to share his self-condemning verdict. She didn't, but dealing with his guilt would open her own wounds wider, threaten her armor. Yet if she refused him admittance it might seem she did blame him. He deserved better of her, and when she had so little left she could give her own conscience refused to let her withhold it.
She drew another deep breath and straightened with a sigh.
'Thank you, Private,' she said. She touched the button to open the hatch and turned to face it.
Tomas Ramirez looked even worse than she'd feared, and she braced herself as he stopped just inside the hatch and it closed behind him.
'Dame Honor, I—' he began, but she raised a hand.
'Don't, Tomas,' she said as gently as the ice about her heart allowed. She knew she sounded mechanical, uncaring, and crossed to him. She rested one hand on his arm, trying to break through to herself in order to reach out to him and knowing she'd failed. 'You were Paul's friend. I know that, and I know it wasn't your fault. Paul wouldn't blame you for what happened... and neither do I.'
Ramirez bit his lip. A tear glittered at the corner of his eye, another of those tears she couldn't shed, and
