Worlds of Honor

Is that the true secret of their mind glow's power? The loneliness? The fact that they cannot hear one another or taste one another's inner hearts, however much they long to? Such a terrible, terrible price, if it is . . . and yet such glory it produces! And how very much love they have to give. He shook himself once more, awed by the raw courage it must take to feel so much love when no human could taste his beloved's love in return. They know so much, are so clever, have so many tools and marvels, and yet I pity them, he thought wonderingly. But they are magnificent in their loneliness, in the isolation each carries with him even in the midst of all his fellows. 

Then the door opened.

* * *

Alvin Tudev saw the Princess stop dead. She didn't simply stop walking forward; she froze, with the sudden, absolute shock of someone who had just taken a bullet.

For a moment, that was precisely what he thought had happened, and a spasm of horror rocked through him. He hurled himself forward without conscious thought, bulldozing through the plainclothes sergeants of his own detail to reach her, and he was only dimly aware of startled shouts as he hurled other human beings aside. He was already gathering his muscles to leap on her, smothering her in his arms and slamming her to the ground while he offered his own body as protection against follow up shots, when she broke her momentary stasis. Her head snapped around, and Tudev just had time to throw his own weight to one side before he plowed into her from behind.

He grunted with anguish as his solidly muscled bulk drove shoulder-first into the old-fashioned brick wall of the SFS's new admin building. For a moment, he was certain he'd broken at least his collarbone, but that scarcely mattered. Indeed, he hardly felt it through a flood of relief almost more terrible than his original horror as he realized his Princess was unharmed.

But if she was unhurt, then why stop so suddenly? And why was she—?

The answer presented itself before his mind finished forming its second question. A small, sleek body dropped from the gutter with a high, ringing 'Bleeeeeek!' of joy, and Adrienne's arms opened to receive it. The treecat fell into her embrace with a grace that seemed inevitable, and a triumphant chorus of other treecat voices joined the newcomer's paean of exultation. Adrienne's arms closed about the 'cat, hugging it to her, her brown eyes blazing with a joy and raw, loving welcome that hit the lieutenant colonel like a fist, and the 'cat clung to her in return, rubbing his cheek ecstatically against her own.

Oh . . . my . . . God, Tudev thought with an odd, distant sort of calm. His Majesty isn't going to be at allpleased about this! 

* * *

Adrienne Winton stared into the brilliant green eyes, and an incredible wave of love and welcome poured from her. She'd studied all the information on treecats she could get her hands on, but none of it had prepared her for this moment. The descriptions of what it meant to be adopted had always struck her as maddeningly vague, incomplete, confusing. It had sometimes seemed as if all those fortunate souls were involved in some conspiracy to keep the rest of the human race from knowing what it felt like.

Now she knew better. They hadn't explained it because they couldn't. It was like smelling a color or trying to weigh diamonds with a spectrograph. There simply were no words for the sensation she felt at that moment, yet her brain stubbornly insisted on trying to find some way to process the information.

The treecat was an empath. She knew that, just as she knew that at this very moment, the lithe little creature could feel her own emotions and the brilliant welcome blazing in her soul, and she longed desperately for the ability to feel his emotions, in return. But she couldn't. Unlike him, she was only human, with the limited perceptions of a human brain. And yet . . . and yet there was something. . . . She couldn't pin it down, couldn't drag it out to look at it or analyze it. She couldn't even have proved she wasn't imagining whatever it was, and yet she was certain she was not. And whatever it was, it sank down into the dark and lonely depths of her spirit like cleansing lightning, bringing warmth and life to the shadows where she had been alone for far too long.

* * *

Seeker of Dreams stared into the human's round-pupilled brown eyes and tasted her confusion, puzzlement . . . and joy. He truly had not intended to bond to her when he reached out for her mind glow, yet now he had, and at last he fully understood that which had driven him to seek this moment. That yearning, that need and unused ability which had been part of him for so long, had flared bright and fierce in the instant he touched her mind glow. He had actually felt the sharp, reverberating 'Snap!' as the two of them socketed into place, each filling the hole in the other's soul. He did not know if he had been meant from birth for this human, or if another of the People might have filled the wound gaping at her heart, and it did not matter. What mattered was that he had found her, and in the moment of finding, they had come together. He could already feel the increased power of his own mind voice, the sharper, stronger reach of his ability to taste other mind glows. It was as if his person had become a warm, brilliant sun, beaming power and strength into him, making him more than he had ever dreamed of being.

Yet even as he crooned his loving welcome and rubbed his cheek joyously against hers, he also tasted the tragedy of their bond. He was like a tiny world, circling the sun of her mind glow as the humans said the People's world circled its sun. Like the world, he had life and purpose of his own, yet also like the world, he could no longer be whole and complete without his sun. In that sense, the two had become one . . . yet his human would never taste what he was tasting, never know the depth of his love as he could know hers. He felt oddly certain that she had already tasted more than most humans ever did—that, like some of Death Fang's Bane's younglings, she was more sensitive, more alive to the bond than other humans—but her experience would never be even a shadow of his own.

And he also knew Sings Truly had been correct. This was a young human, but not nearly so young as Death Fang's Bane had been. Perhaps she would live another fifteen turnings, which would be a long life indeed for a human, but then she would die, and Seeker of Dreams would have lived only twenty-four turnings of his allotted forty-eight.

He did not think she realized that. Not yet, at any rate, for he felt no sorrow, no grief for him, and he knew he would whenever she finally realized their bond was almost certain to cost him half his normal span. And it would be a tragedy, he thought, to go into the dark so young. But it would also be right, for he would cling to her glorious mind glow wherever it went, into light or into dark or into nothingness at all, and be content.

* * *

'Your Highness?'

Adrienne tore her eyes from the treecat as MacClintock's gentle voice invaded their reverie. She blinked at him, trying to refocus on something beyond the 'cat in her arms, and he smiled.

'Forgive me for intruding, Your Highness, but you've been standing there for just over five minutes,' he said apologetically.

Dunatis sat on his shoulder, crooning down at Adrienne and her 'cat—her'cat! she thought in exultant wonder—and beyond them she saw Colonel Alcerro and Musashi. Both older 'cats crooned as if to vibrate the bones right out of their bodies, and as she stared at them, she realized she was hearing the same sound from dozens of other sources. She raised her head, gazing up at the treecats lined up along the admin building's eaves, and the same soft, welcoming music washed down over her from all of them.

'Five minutes, General?' she asked at last, turning back to MacClintock.

'Almost six, actually.' His right hand fluttered for a moment, as if he wanted to grip her shoulder—an act which etiquette made totally out of the question—and his eyes smiled at her. 'The average is around thirteen, I believe. Left to my own devices, I wouldn't bother either of you until you were both ready to come up, but—' He waved the hovering right hand, and she blinked again as she followed it to the rest of her entourage.

Lieutenant Colonel Tudev stood watching with no expression at all. No, that wasn't quite correct. He was favoring one shoulder, and there were pain lines around his mouth, as if he'd injured himself somehow when she wasn't looking. For a moment she thought those lines were of disapproval for what had happened, but then she saw