Worlds of Honor

'Well, yes,' she said finally. 'I suppose it was better. At least there were no mid-airs, were there?'

Her voice was perfectly conversational, but Hedges winced. The barely averted mid-air collision between one of Broadsword' s pinnaces and two from HMS Cutlass which had been the focal point of yesterday's exercises had been almost entirely his fault, and he knew it as well as the exec did.

She let him reflect upon that for several more seconds, then smiled slightly.

'In fact, I believe every one of our birds got home without a hull scratch or even a single last-minute evasion maneuver, and Halberd and Cutlass report the same.'

'Yes, Ma'am.' Hedges winced again, but only inwardly this time, and her smile grew.

'Not only that, but every one of Major Stimson's squads hit within fifty meters of its exact drop point. In snow, in the Attica Mountains, in winter, no less. I wouldn't want to suggest that we're establishing any trends here, Mister Hedges, but I suppose we could call that an improvement if we really wanted to.' She paused one more beat, and then her smile became something suspiciously like a grin as she added, 'The Captain certainly called it that when he discussed the drop-ex with Commander Nouaya Tyumen, at any rate.'

'He did?' Hedges couldn't keep himself from blurting out the question, and his face went magenta as Harrington chuckled. Her 'cat's cheerful bleek of laughter echoed her amusement, and Hedges blushed even darker before his own sense of humor came to his rescue and he grinned back.

'Yes, he did, Johnny,' she said, and gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder. She didn't do that often, and he beamed at her as he savored the rare sign of approval.

'On the other hand,' she added more warningly, 'we've still got another week of exercises. Plenty of time for us to screw up thoroughly if we put our minds to it. So let's not do that, right?'

'Aye, aye, Ma'am!' Hedges assured her, still grinning. 'I'll have those birds running as regularly as Andermani air buses, Ma'am. And my coxswains will put those Marines down anywhere you want to aim them— guaranteed!'

'Good, Johnny. Very good.' She patted his shoulder again, then reached up to scratch her 'cat's chin. 'But you've got a lot to do to make good on all those boasts, I imagine. So let's be about it, shall we?'

'The beginners' slope,' Susan Hibson said in tones of profound disgust. ' `Kiddy Hill! ' Can you believe that?'

Her breath smoked in the morning sunlight, and she kicked viciously at a bank of piled snow the maintenance remotes had swept from a walkway. A chunk of ice exploded into the air and disintegrated into a rainbow-spray, and she glowered at it angrily.

'I did warn you, you know,' Ranjit said in a cautiously neutral voice, then shrugged as she glared up at him. 'It's their job, Sooze.'

'They could at least let me try the intermediate runs,' she protested, and he shook his head.

'They're not going to let you go out and break your neck on a slope you're not ready for no matter what you say.'

'I am so ready for the intermediate slopes!'

'Oh?' He cocked his head at her. 'And just how well did you do in the sim this morning?'

'That's not fair! Besides, everybody knows sims aren't really like the real thing!'

'Didn't ask that,' he told her. 'I asked how well you did in it.'

'Not well enough—obviously,' she admitted through gritted teeth. She looked as if she wanted to hit something, but Ranjit's smile held too much sympathy to make him a legitimate target, so she kicked the snow again. Harder.

'It's not fair, anyway,' she grumbled. 'Nobody told us they'd have sims at all! Or that they'd use the stinking things this way, either.'

'No, they didn't. On the other hand, I can't help wondering if maybe Ms. Berczi didn't know all about it.'

'Huh!' Susan stopped kicking snow to consider that, then grunted. 'I bet you're right. It's just the kind of thing she would do, isn't it?'

Her tone did not suggest that she thought well of Berczi at that particular moment, but Ranjit was sure that would pass. Csilla Berczi was the head chaperone for their trip. She was also in charge of the history curriculum for Unicorn Eleven and one of Susan's favorite teachers, which probably had something to do with the fact that she had attained the rank of major in the Marines before a training injury pushed her into early retirement. She obviously liked Susan, and she'd become a source of discreet support for the girl's military ambitions, but she was hardly the sort to put up with any nonsense where her own responsibilities were concerned.

That was why Ranjit was privately certain that she had, indeed, known all about the Athinai Resort's simulators. He'd been surprised by their sophistication himself, although he didn't intend to admit that to Susan; an older brother had a certain image to live up to, after all, and managing that with Susan for a sister was already harder than it ought to be. But it would appear Athinai's cash flow supported a much more capable installation than he'd expected, for the simulators' VR had been as good as or better than any full-sensy he'd been allowed to play around in, which put it several cuts above the plebeian, barely adequate 'instruction grade' sim he'd anticipated. Indeed, the combination of late-generation sensory input, physical interaction with 'skis' which had produced a totally convincing illusion of unlimited mobility in all axes, and judicious use of counter-grav and a cunning wind- tunnel effect had sucked him in completely. Within the first ten seconds, he had completely forgotten that he wasn't truly on the slopes of Mount Pericles, high above Athinai, and he grinned wryly as he recalled his own high-pitched shouts of glee and wondered what the sim operators had thought of them.

He could see where it made excellent sense to allow patrons to dust off their skiing skills (if necessary) in the safety of the simulators before letting them loose on the actual slopes, and he was grateful that such a training device would be available to him. (He also intended to ask Mr. Gastelaars if Unicorn Eleven might not be able to find the budget for one or two of them back home, as well, which was something else he didn't plan on discussing with Susan just now.) But the resort had also used it to sort out the real skill levels of its youthful charges, and his mother had been right. Susan hadn't been able to talk her examiners into passing her for the more challenging slopes.

'It's not the end of the world, kiddo,' he offered after a moment. 'We're here for ten days, you know, and you're a fast learner. They'll let you off the beginner slopes a lot sooner than you may think right now.'

'Yeah. Right,' Susan snorted, then stabbed him with a sharp-edged green gaze. 'And just what skill level did they assign you?'

'Advanced-intermediate,' he replied without thinking, and then swore at himself mentally as something flickered behind her expression. Susan might complain bitterly when she was held back from something she wanted to do, and she was capable of arguing her points with unendurable tenacity and earnestness, but one thing she did not do was sulk or go hunting for sympathy. Which didn't mean Ranjit hadn't learned to recognize the times when a part of her wanted to do those things. He'd seen that same flicker in her eyes before, often enough to know it for a sure sign of her refusal to whine, and he reached out to lay a hand on her shoulder.

'Hey, just because they said I could go advanced-intermediate if I wanted to doesn't mean I do want to,' he told her. 'I almost busted my butt twice on the sim run for that difficulty level. It wouldn't hurt me a bit to start out on the beginner slopes myself when it's for real—at least until I'm sure I've got myself sorted out. For that matter, it'd probably hurt a lot less to do it there, now that I think about it!'

'You don't have to do that just to keep me company,' Susan muttered. 'I'm not a baby, Ranjit.'

'Didn't say you were,' he said, and gave her shoulder a squeeze. 'A pain in the butt, and the neck, and several other places I can think of, yeah. That you are. But a baby?' He shook his head, and her lips twitched as she fought not to grin up at him. 'But you're my kid sister, too, and I'm serious about wanting to ease back into things myself, so why not kill two birds with one stone? I'll keep you company on the beginners' slopes, for the first day or so, anyway, until I'm fairly sure I won't break something I'll need later. By that time, they may've cleared you for something a little tougher on your own. And even if they haven't, you'll probably have made a bunch of new friends amongst the other `retards,' right?'