In Enemy Hands

Steadholder's. Grayson was a planet where female births outnumbered male by three to one, and where the only respectable female career for close to a thousand years had been that of wife and mother. That meant competition for mates had always been fierce, even with the Grayson practice of polygamy, and for all their decorous behavior, women had waged the battle between the sexes (and against their competitors) with a will. That was what worried Howard Clinkscales, for he'd seen exactly that same sparkle in countless female eyes over the years. Usually those eyes had been very young, looking forward to the glories of conquest with all the energy and passion of youth. But even though Allison Harrington's eyes were very young looking, they also held the confident assurance of long experience and a dangerously wicked sense of amusement.

Howard Clinkscales had no doubt that he would soon discover that Dr. Harrington was just as capable in her field as her daughter was in hers, but it was already obvious that she was very different from Lady Harrington in other ways. He was surprised to admit it, but a part of him was actually looking forward to watching her confront the conservatives. The rest of him cringed at the very thought, but that tiny inner part liked the twinkle in her eye, her obvious gusto for living, and her refusal to be pinned down and squeezed into anyone else’s box.

It might turn out to be a rough ride, but he suddenly realized that he had no doubts at all about the outcome. There were two of them, after all, and between them, Doctor Harrington and the Steadholder clearly had the rest of the planet outnumbered.

'...and this is your office, My Lady,' Miranda said, leading the way into the large, palatially furnished room.

Allison Harrington followed her and stopped, looking around and raising both eyebrows at the sheer luxury of its appointment. And not just in terms of comfort, either, she thought. The desk's built-in computer and communication interfaces were better even than those she had at home on Sphinx, but that wasn't really a surprise. Honor had promised her the best equipment, and she'd kept her word. The Doctor Jennifer Chou Genetic Clinic, Honor had chosen the name to honor her maternal grandmother, had the finest facilities Allison had ever seen. Her daughter had spared no expense, and Allison felt a quiet glow of pride in her. She knew Honors personal fortune had grown to a point which made all of this easily affordable, but she wondered how many other people it would have occurred to to make the investment in the first place. It wasn't as if Honor were going to see any return on it, after all... except, of course, for the thousands of children who would grow up strong and healthy as a direct result of it.

'I hope you like it, My Lady,' Miranda said, and Allison blinked, then gave her head a tiny shake as she realized she'd been standing there gathering wool. Miranda looked a little anxious, and Allison smiled.

'Oh, I like it all right!' she assured her guide. 'Honor promised I would, and she's always been a truthful sort of girl.' Her eyes danced at Miranda's expression as she referred to Honor as a 'girl.' Well, it wouldn't do these people a bit of harm to have someone take a little starch out of Honors reputation. Allison knew her daughter well enough to know that too much deference would be suffocating to her.

Besides, she told herself cheerfully, the girl's always taken life too seriously. It'll do her good if she gets back to find out I've made a spectacle of myself!

She smothered a giggle at the thought. Like Honor, she hated the way she sounded when she giggled. Both of them were convinced it made them sound like schoolgirls, and Allison’s small stature only made it worse. Not, she reflected complacently, that anyone who'd ever gotten a good look at her would mistake her for a child. That thought threatened another giggle attack, but she suppressed it firmly and waved a reassuring hand at Miranda as the Grayson regarded her anxiously.

Poor girl probably thinks I'm having some sort of attack! I wonder what she'd think if she knew I was planning an attack, instead?

Allison took several minutes to examine the office carefully, but only a part of her attention was on desks and coffee tables and credenzas. She was thinking about her sixty years in the Star Kingdom and rubbing gleeful mental hands together as she contemplated yet more worlds, literally, to conquer.

Allison Harrington knew perfectly well how the rest of the galaxy regarded those libertine Beowulfans. She sometimes wondered just how her home world had ended up as the uncontested holder of the Galaxy's Most Decadent Planet Title, given that Old Earth, for one, was every bit as sophisticated and 'libertine' as Beowulf, but the universe worked in mysterious ways. Perhaps it was because of Sigma Draconis' unrivaled reputation in the life sciences. Beowulf’s invention of the prolong process was only the most spectacular of its contributions to the health and longevity of the human race, which meant Dr. Harrington’s home world had produced a direct impact on every human being anywhere, second only to that of Old Earth herself, so perhaps it was inevitable that natives of Beowulf should somehow acquire larger-than-life status in the eyes of out-worlders. Which still didn't explain why everyone had fastened on the planets sexual practices instead of, say, Sigma Draconis' systemwide passion for grav-ski polo!

But whatever the reasons, Allison had known she would be entering another world, figuratively, as well as literally, when she fell in love with a scholarship student at Semmelweiss University named Alfred Harrington. Alfred had hardly been an untutored, gawking yokel, of course. The Star Kingdom had been one of the wealthiest, most technically advanced interstellar powers, certainly of those outside the Solarian League, for centuries, and its capital planet was probably as sophisticated as Beowulf itself. But Alfred wasn't from the planet of Manticore; he was from Sphinx, and Sphinx was undoubtedly the most straitlaced of the three habitable worlds of the Manticore Binary System. He'd been almost painfully earnest in explaining that to her, not because he wanted her to change to satisfy his home world's sometimes parochial standards, but because he was on a military scholarship that committed him to a minimum of fifteen years naval service. He would have no choice but to return to the Star Kingdom to fulfill that commitment, so if she accepted his proposal of marriage, she was going to find herself confronting the society from which he sprang.

If he'd been one bit less earnest, she would have smiled, patted him on the head, and assured him that she was all grown up. As it was, she'd been too touched by his concern to let her amusement show, and she'd assured him with admirable gravity that she appreciated his warning and that, yes, she believed she could survive in the boondocks if she truly had to.

And, of course, things hadn't proven nearly as onerous as one might have feared from his descriptions. The fact was that Beowulfans were no more 'libertine' than anyone else; they simply declined to pass judgment or declare that any single lifestyle, regardless of who sanctioned it, was the one true way, and Allison would never have accepted Alfred’s proposal if she'd had any intention of pursuing a lifestyle which would distress him. Nor would she have accepted it if she'd believed he would expect her to squeeze herself into one which distressed her. That didn't prevent her from feeling that Sphinxians were much too sexually repressed, nor had it kept her from worrying, a lot, over Honors total lack of a sex life prior to Paul Tankersley, but she'd never felt any actual temptation to be anything but monogamous.

Not that she'd exactly gone out of the way to make that fact public. The mere fact that she was from, gasp!, Beowulf had been enough to earn her sidelong glances from the more puritanical of Sphinx's populace, and her mischievous streak had been totally unable to overlook the possibilities that offered. After almost seventy years honing her skills, she could play a prude like a Stradivarius, and she took a devilish delight in doing so. It was so much fun to play to their prejudices and stereotypes and come as close as she possibly could to the edge without ever quite stepping over it. Besides, as a physician, she owed it to her critics. A little apoplexy from time to time elevated the pulse and improved the circulatory system.

Of course, she wouldn't dream of doing anything to embarrass Honor, well, not seriously, anyway. A little embarrassment would probably be good for her. Following Paul's death and Honor's duel with Pavel Young, Allison had finally found out about the episode at the Academy which had done Honors self- image such crippling damage. She understood a lot of things which her own upbringing, and Honors reticence, had prevented her from seeing at the time, but her daughter still seemed far too serious and emotionally detached. Paul had been dead for over five T-years after all, and deeply as he and Honor had loved one another, it was time she got on with her life. So if she needed something to shake her up a little, well, it was a mothers duty to look out for her daughter, wasn't it?