War Of Honor

Honor stared at her in disbelief, and Emily chuckled.

"Oh, you'd never be a natural politician the way Willie is! And, like Hamish, you'd always be most comfortable in the sort of collegial atmosphere the House of Lords is supposed to be. But I've viewed your speeches, and you're much more effective as a public speaker than Hamish is." She smiled at her husband. "That's not an aspersion on him, you understand. But he gets impatient and starts to lecture, and you don't.

"There's more to being politically effective than giving good speeches, Emily," Hamish objected.

"Of course there is. But Honor has already demonstrated her ability to analyze military threat situations and devise strategies to meet them, and just listening to her speak in the Lords, it's evident to me that she can bring that same analytical ability to bear in other arenas, once she learns the conditions which apply there. She still has a lot to learn about politics, especially the cutthroat version practiced here in the Star Kingdom, but it seems to me from watching her over the past few years that her learning curve is steep. She's spent forty T-years learning to be a naval officer; give me half that long in politics, and I'll make her Prime Minister!"

"Oh no you won't!" Honor said roundly. "I'd cut my own throat in less than ten!"

"That seems a bit drastic," Emily observed mildly. "Perhaps there's more of Dona Quixote in you than I'd realized."

Her green eyes flickered for just a moment, and Honor felt her brief flare of regret over her choice of words, but the countess brushed it off quickly.

"No, just more sanity," Hamish observed, oblivious to the quick glances the two women exchanged. He wasn't looking at them, anyway. His attention had strayed back to Samantha, as it had done periodically all evening, and he took another celery stalk from the bowl on the table and offered it to her.

"You're going to make her sick, Hamish," Emily scolded, and he looked up quickly, his expression so much like that of a guilty schoolboy caught in the act that Honor chuckled.

"Not without a lot more celery than that, he's not, Emily," she reassured her hostess. "Mind you," she went on more sternly, transferring her attention to Hamish, "too much celery really is bad for her. She can't digest it, and if she gets too much of it, she'll get constipated."

Samantha turned to give her a dignified look of reproval, and Honor was relieved to feel the female 'cat's amusement. Despite the transcendent joy of having bonded with Hamish, Samantha had been almost instantly aware of the dismay and consternation which had afflicted both Honor and her new person, and that awareness had sent its echoes reverberating through her, as well.

From the feel of her emotions, she still wasn't entirely certain why they were so upset. Which, Honor thought, only served to emphasize that despite all of their centuries of association with humans, treecats remained an alien species. For Nimitz and Samantha—as probably for all of their kind, given their ability to sense one another's emotions—there was absolutely no point in trying to conceal what one felt. Nimitz had accepted over the years that there were times when it was inappropriate, among humans, at least, to show his emotions, especially when they consisted of anger directed at someone senior to Honor in the Navy. But even for him, that was more a matter of good ma

Which explained the growing frustration Honor had received from both of them as the pain of suppressing and denying her feelings for Hamish grew within her. They knew how much she loved him, they knew how much he loved her, and by treecat standards, it was willfully insane for the two of them to subject themselves—and one another—to so much hurt. Which, to make things still worse, was also a hurt the 'cats had no choice but to endure with them.

Intellectually, both Nimitz and Samantha realized that all humans, with the notable exception of Honor herself, were what their own species called "mind-blind." They could even understand that because of that mind-blindness, human society had different imperatives from those of their own. But what they understood intellectually hadn't affected what they felt, and what they'd felt was not only frustration but anger at the inexplicable human willfulness which prevented Honor and Hamish from simply admitting the truth which was self-evident to any treecat and getting on with their lives without all this pain and suffering.

But now that the immediate euphoria of recognizing a human partner in Hamish and bonding to him had passed, Samantha was back face-to-face with the realities under which her human friends lived. And because Samantha was extremely intelligent, and an empath, she knew just how badly her adoption choice had disturbed those realities, even if she was still working on fully assimilating all of the reasons why it had.

"If they can't digest it, and if it, um, clogs their systems, then why do they all love it so much?" Emily asked.

"That was something that puzzled every human who ever studied 'cats," Honor said. "So once they learned to sign, we asked them, of course." She shrugged. "Part of their answer was exactly what you might have expected—they love the way it tastes. Think of the most chocolate-addicted human being you've ever met, then cube her craving, and you'll start closing in on just how much they love it. But that's only part of the reason. The other is that there's a trace compound in Sphinxian celery that they need."

"In Sphinxian celery?" Emily repeated.

"They love the taste of any celery from anywhere," Honor told her. "But back when humans first came to the Manticore System, we had to make some minor adjustments in our Old Terran flora and fauna before we introduced them into their new environments. As," she added in a dust-dry tone, gesturing briefly at herself, "we've done with human beings themselves, in a few other cases. We didn't do anything really drastic in the case of Sphinx, but a few minor genetic changes were designed into most of the Old Terran food plants to prevent the fixing of elements we didn't need in our diet and to discourage some particularly persistent local parasites and the plant diseases they carry. The basic idea was to get the genegineered plants to manufacture and store a Sphinxian organic compound that's harmless to humans but serves as a natural insect repellant. It worked in all of them, but better in some than in others, and it was most effective of all in celery, of all things. The version in the descendants of the modified Old Terran plants is slightly different from that which occurs in the native flora, sort of a hybrid. But it appears to be either necessary or extremely beneficial to the maintenance of the 'cats' empathic and telepathic senses."

"But where did they get it from before we came along with our celery?" Emily demanded.

"There's a Sphinxian plant that produces the native plants' version of the same compound. They call it 'purple thorn,' and they've known about it forever. But it's scarce and hard to find, and, frankly, they say celery just tastes a whole lot better." Honor shrugged again. "And that, it turns out, is the answer to the Great Celery Theft Mystery which first brought humans and treecats together."

"That's fascinating," Emily said, gazing at Honor raptly, and then moved her gaze to Nimitz and Samantha. She watched them for a moment, and they looked back at her solemnly until she drew a deep breath and turned back to Honor.

"I envy you," she said sincerely. "I would probably have envied you anyway, just for having been adopted in the first place, but to be answering so many questions, finding the answers to so many puzzles after so many centuries . . . That has to be especially wonderful."