Worlds of Honor

she could not have stopped him. But that was against the most ancient traditions of the People. Deeply though he was tempted, he would not do it, for what would begin as an act of love could well become something else with the passing of time. Even the most well-meaning person could do incalculable damage if ever he decided what pain, what sorrow, he would take from another, for he could always find sound reasons to take one more pain, one more unhappiness . . . until the one he loved and had tried to help became like the empty human who had sought his person's life. Pain and sorrow were terrible burdens, to be shared with those who loved one and healed when healing was possible. Yet as he himself had told Parsifal, even among the People, the most powerful mind glows and the strongest People were often bred of sorrow and the need to face it.

Adrienne looked down at the 'cat, her eyes huge. The subtle touch deep within her was more sensed than felt—a presence which revealed itself only in the absence of her pain. No, she thought, not absence. The treecat had not taken her pain from her; he had simply . . . moved between it and her. As Alvin Tudev had placed his body between her body and harm, so the 'cat had somehow placed his love between her and her sorrow. It was still there, and it still hurt dreadfully, but she no longer faced it alone, and that made all the difference in the universe.

'Thank you,' she whispered, bending to press a kiss between his ears, and his purr buzzed still louder as he leaned his weight against her. For one more moment she allowed herself to luxuriate in his love, but she had her own responsibilities, and she refused to put off that which she must do.

She drew a deep breath and reached out to the com terminal. It wasn't a standard hospital unit, and her mouth crooked in a half-bitter grin. The special high-security com systems followed her wherever she went . . . even here, in a hospital room. Had a tech slipped in and connected it while she lay unconscious? Probably not, she decided. Among the many details her security detachment always worried about whenever she traveled was which hospital she would be taken to in case of emergency. If they worried about things like that, then they probably also saw to it that the hospital they chose would have the proper communications equipment if she happened to need it.

She pushed the thought aside and pressed the acceptance key beside the blinking light of a waiting message. A soft tone sounded, and she cleared her throat.

'Message release authorization,' she said slowly and distinctly. 'Adrienne Michelle Aoriana Elizabeth, Alpha Seven, Hotel Three, Lima.'

A moment passed while the computers considered her voice and the authorization code for this trip, and then the screen lit with her father's face.

He looks dreadful, she thought. His eyes were swollen, and the lines in his face looked etched and burned with acid as he stared into the pickup. He said nothing at all for several seconds, then inhaled sharply and began, abruptly, to speak.

'I know why you went to Twin Forks, Adrienne,' he said, and she sat very still, for his voice was different. It was flat, harsh, its edges eroded and ragged—a far cry from the toneless, uninvolved, and perpetually, lethally reasonable voice she'd come to dread. 'I knew you were going before you ever left Manticore, and it made me furious—just as you meant it to—but I didn't say anything. And because I didn't, I almost lost you.'

His flat voice wavered suddenly with the last four words, and he stopped and clamped his jaw, nostrils flaring while his cheek muscles clenched. Adrienne stared at the display, stunned, for she had not heard that much emotion from him in the entire ten years since Queen Solange's death.

'I know I've hurt you, Adrienne,' he said finally, his voice flat once more, but hoarse. 'I even know how and why. I'm not an idiot, however idiotically I've acted. But knowing wasn't enough. It should have been.'

He sounded almost as if he were rambling, but each little burst of words came out in a staccato rhythm, focused into laser sharpness despite his harrowed tone.

'It should have been enough. It would have been enough, if I hadn't been so afraid. But I thought– No, that's wrong. I didn't really think at all, but I thought I had. And it seemed safer to be cold, to push you away, to—' He paused and cleared his throat once more. 'I don't have to tell you all the stupid things I did,' he resumed after a moment. 'God knows that if I know what they were, you know even better. And I know I have no right even to hope you might understand why I did it . . . or forgive me for it. That's why I won't ask you to.

'But—' He stopped again and drew a long, shuddering breath, and his swollen eyes gleamed suspiciously. 'But I almost lost you today,' he said hoarsely. 'Perhaps I already have, and I won't blame you if that's true, but today I almost lost you forever, like . . . like I lost your mother. And I realized that if I had lost you, if you'd . . . died today, then any chance I might ever have had to tell you how sorry I am, or to tell you how much I love you, or to even try to repair some of the hurt and harm I've done would have died with you. And I can't have that, Adrienne. Maybe that's the ultimate cowardice—that I'm too terrified to lose you with the coldness still between us to keep that safe, uncaring coldness there. I don't know. I only know that when Colonel Tudev's first message came in, I—'

He broke off, face working, and covered his eyes with his hands. His shoulders shook, and Adrienne heard the treecat in her lap crooning to her as tears spangled her own burning vision.

'I'm sorry, baby,' he told her in a shaking voice. 'God, that sounds so stupid–so useless and tiny after all I've done, but I can't– They're the only words—' He sucked in a deep, wracking breath. 'I don't know another way to say it,' he said finally. 'I won't blame you if you don't forgive me. I made my choices, my decisions. They were wrong. They were stupid. They were cowardly. But I made them, and they hurt you horribly, and if you hate me for that, I earned it, and I know it. But this much I promise you. It may take something as horrible and terrifying as today to get through to me, but I can learn, Adrienne, and whether you can forgive me or not, I will never shut you out again. Perhaps we can never be like we were before your mother died. If not, the fault is mine, and I accept that. But now I know how stupid I've been. I can't turn away, pretend I don't know. So at the very least, I will treat you as a monarch ought to treat his heir—as someone to be consulted and involved, whose opinion counts and who has the right to demand explanations of me. I would like . . . like very much—' his voice cracked again '—to do better than that, as well. I would like to learn to act like a father once more, but I know that's not something I can demand of you or order you to let me be. It's a position I'll have to try to earn again. I may not succeed, but I intend to try, and—' he managed a shaky smile while tears trickled down his face '—one thing I've learned to do is try really hard when I want something badly.'

'I know you have, Daddy,' she whispered through her own tears as he paused once more, and her hands caressed the treecat in her lap. She'd waited so many hopeless, pain-filled years to hear those words. Now she had . . . and he was right. In her dreams, she'd seen them coming back together, their scars magically healed—seen him once more as her adored father, and seen her as his beloved daughter. But he'd hurt her too badly for that. The wounds went too deep, and that innocent perfection had been lost to both of them forever. They had become worse than strangers to one another; they'd become sources of pain, of hurt and loneliness, and that could be neither forgotten nor forgiven in a moment, whatever she wanted. Indeed, she didn't know if it could ever be forgiven at all.

But I do know that if we don't try, we can never even hope to fix it, she thought, feeling her tears splash her hands where they rested on the treecat's silken fur. And at least he's come this far, reached out this much to me after so long. I can't just rush home and tell him all is forgiven, that it's all water under the bridge. But I can go home and let him try, and I can try, and maybe we can patch something together between us once again, if only for the sake of Mother's memory. 

'On another matter,' her father's voice said from the com, and she blinked, then rubbed at her eyes with one hand, 'I understand I also have to change my opinion of treecats.' He managed a more natural looking smile, and there was a ghost of true humor in his voice. 'Colonel Tudev has kept me up to date, so I know one of them has adopted you. And I also know he and his friends are the reason you're still alive. Which means, of course, that I owe them and all their relatives a debt I can never hope to pay.

'But just because I can't pay it, doesn't mean I don't have to try, so as soon as I finish recording this message, I'll be sitting down with the Prime Minister to discuss the withdrawal of the Crown's opposition to the Treecat Rights Bill. The Sphinx Forestry Service will be getting a somewhat larger budget over the next few months,