Worlds of Honor

<So this is the great meeting place,> Seeker of Dreams mused, and Leaf Stalker flipped his ears in agreement. They perched on the high, chalet-style roof of the brand new main administration block of the Forestry Service's HQ. A dozen more People perched with them, and Seeker of Dreams felt the welcome of their mind glows as they recognized the need which had brought him here. More than that, he felt their deep satisfaction with the bonds that same need had drawn them to establish.

<It is,> Leaf Stalker agreed, and turned to one of the others on the roof. <Greetings, Parsifal,> he said. <What are the humans so excited about?> 

Seeker of Dreams looked more closely at the one Leaf Stalker had called 'Parsifal.' The peculiar name had an odd taste in the Bright Water hunter's mind voice, and Seeker of Dreams felt a little thrill of excitement he knew was foolish as he realized that was because it had been intended as one of the two-le– As one of the human's mouth sounds. 'Words,' they called them, he reminded himself, trying to fit his mind voice around the sound and wondering how any creature could possibly make such strange noises as the humans did. But the name was more than a mere oddity, for it was the human custom to give new names to their friends after bonding. That was no doubt inevitable, for if the People could never make the sounds humans made, humans were equally incapable of tasting the names by which People called one another. Yet the acceptance of such human names was also of deep significance, for each was the formal acknowledgment of a person's acceptance of a bond which only death could dissolve.

<They aremuch excited, are they not?> the one called Parsifal agreed in a soft mind voice rich with tolerant amusement and affection. <My human has been carrying on almost since first light. She is one of the Guardians' hunters,> he added for Seeker of Dream's benefit. <Her special duty is to watch for evil doers and prevent them from acting against the law of the humans, or to hunt them down and punish them afterward if they do so anyway, and she is very good at it,> he said with a certain pride. <I believe that was the reason they summoned her so early.> 

<There is an evil doer here?> Seeker of Dreams asked in surprise, and Parsifal bleeked a laugh.

<There may be,> the older hunter said, <but that is not the reason for their excitement. Look there. Do you see the big black air car with the armed humans standing watch about it?> Seeker of Dreams recognized the human term—or one of the many(and often bewildering) human terms—for a flying egg and flirted his tail in agreement as he looked at the vehicle. <The one they call a 'princess' came in that, and my human was summoned to be one of those who help to protect her.> 

<'Princess'?> Seeker of Dreams repeated carefully.

<It is a title of respect, like Chief Clan Elder, or Memory Singer,> Parsifal explained. <We—> his mental wave took in the others on the roof with him <—have been trying to understand it more completely, for there are odd things about it. For one, our humans regard this 'princess' with great respect and treat her in all ways like the most senior of elders, yet she is little more than a well grown youngling. We have not been able to decide how one so young could be so important, yet there is no question that it is so. Also, Sylvester—> he nodded to one of the others, an older hunter sitting near the end of the roof line <—was close enough to taste her mind glow, and the taste of authority was strong in it. It was a very powerful mind glow,> Parsifal added in a mind voice of profound respect, <yet there is much pain in it for one so young.> 

'And this is the new boardroom,' Lieutenant General MacClintock said as he opened the double doors and stepped aside to usher Adrienne through them before him.

She nodded and stepped into the large, richly carpeted room, and her entourage followed. It wasn't a very numerous entourage, as such things went. Since they were indoors and under cover, the bulk of Alvin Tudev's protection detail was actually outside the building, watching the perimeter. Only Tudev himself and four handpicked sergeants in plain clothes accompanied her. Well, them and Nassouah Haroun, two PR flacks, Lieutenant General MacClintock, three other senior Forestry Service officers, the new admin wing's chief engineer, and a two-person HD news team. And, of course, two treecats: MacClintock's Dunatis, and Colonel Marcy Alcerro's Musashi.

'We're quite proud of it,' MacClintock went on, following her into the room's cool, quiet spaciousness. 'We needed the space, but to be perfectly honest, we took the opportunity to provide ourselves with, um, comfortable quarters while we were at it.'

'So I see,' Adrienne agreed with a smile, surveying the chamber appreciatively. Then her eyes narrowed as she saw the life-size portrait hanging above the room's massive conference table. She walked across the carpet, trailed by her escort, and gazed raptly at the painting.

It was a spectacular work, executed in the neo-oils style. Its custom-engineered photo-reactive compounds had been blended with a master's hand, trained and stimulated to grow into exactly the image the artist had sought and then frozen forever under a coat of stabilizer at just the right instant. With the proper computer support, the same technology could have created a visual image with the precise accuracy of a hologram coupled with the solidity and 'texture' no light sculpture could ever match. But this portrait had not been produced by a computer. It wasn't that perfect. What it was, she thought with a sense of awe, was a masterpiece—an interpretive masterpiece whose very imperfections were part of its magnificence, the proof it had been created by a human hand and mind and eye, and not by the uncaring perfection of electronics.

'That's an Akimoto, isn't it?' she asked quietly, and the SFS CO gave her another sharp look. She'd impressed him several times already with the breadth of her interests, and he supposed he should be getting used to it by now, but he wasn't.

'Yes. Yes, it is,' he agreed. 'But we didn't commission it, Your Highness,' he added hastily. 'Ms. Akimoto presented it to us as a gift.'

It was Adrienne's turn to look at the lieutenant general in surprise. She knew why he'd offered the explanation. An original neo-oil by Tsukie Akimoto would have cost almost as much as the Forestry Service's entire new administration center.

'She presented it as a gift?' she repeated.

'Yes, Your Highness. She chose the subject, executed the work, and presented it to us with the single stipulation that it be displayed in our board's meeting chambers.'

'But . . . why?' Adrienne asked, eyes back on the stunning portrait.

The woman in it was well past middle age. She had bright eyes and a mouth which looked like it smiled easily, yet she also radiated an aura of almost frightening energy and focused purpose. She was of slightly less than average height, with thick white hair, and she wore the green and brown of the SFS with a brigadier's two golden planets on her collar. She also wore the gold-bordered blue-and-white ribbon of the Order of Merit, and a cream- and-gray treecat sat proudly on her shoulder. The 'cat was larger than many, and badly scarred. The tip of its right ear was missing; the plushy fur on the right side of its face bore a pattern of white streaks, tracing the scars beneath; and its right foreleg had been amputated just below the shoulder. It sat on its person's right shoulder, its tail hanging down her back while its remaining true-hand rested on her head, and the artist had captured the love in both of her subjects' eyes with haunting fidelity.

'Because she wished to, Your Highness,' MacClintock said quietly. 'Perhaps you weren't aware that Ms. Akimoto was adopted by a 'cat herself some years ago?'

'What?' Adrienne looked at him, then shook her head. 'No, I wasn't. I knew she was a Sphinxian, of