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If anyone could have screwed up the nerve to ask him why he supported the changes, his answer would have been simple enough. It was his duty to his Steadholder. If pressed, he would have admitted (not without a choleric expression and a fearsome glower) that his support stemmed not simply from duty, but from devotion to a woman he'd come to respect deeply. What he would not have admitted was that he had come to view his Steadholder through a curiously mixed set of lenses, as a warrior, a leader, his personal liege lady... and also as one of his own daughters. He was proud of her, as proud as if she actually were his own child, and he would have killed anyone who dared to say so, for like so many people who care deeply, Howard Clinkscales went to great lengths to conceal his feelings from the world. Emotions had been dangerous chinks in a policeman's armor, and so the man who had become the commander-in-chief of a planet's security forces had learned to hide them, lest they be used against him. It was a habit he had never learned to break... but that didn't mean he was unaware of what he felt.
And that was part of the reason he felt uneasy at this particular public function, for his Steadholder should have been here for it, and his mental ante
But even that was only a partial explanation for his uneasiness, and he drew a deep breath and admitted the rest of it to himself as he watched the shuttle descend. He might have become more comfortable with the reforms around him, but at heart he was still an old-fashioned Grayson patriarch. He'd learned to admit that there were women in the galaxy, including quite a few homegrown Graysons, who were at least as capable as he was, but in the final analysis, that was an intellectual admission, not an emotional one. He had to have personal contact with a woman, actually see her demonstrate her abilities, before his emotions made the same co
Dr. Allison Chou Harrington was a native of Beowulf in the Sigma Draconis System, and Beowulf's society had a reputation for... liberal mores which would have curled a Manticorans hair, much less a Graysons. Clinkscales was fairly certain (or, at least, he thought he was) that that reputation had grown in the telling, but there was no denying that Beowulf was as famed for the many, and imaginative, marital and sexual arrangements of its citizens as it was for providing the human race's best medical researchers, and...
The shuttle touched down, and the opening hatch chopped off his thoughts. He watched the ramp extrude itself, then turned his head to smile wryly at Miranda LaFollet. She smiled back with a mixture of amusement and compassion, and the treecat sitting beside her bleeked a laugh of his own. Clinkscales was still getting to know Farragut, but he'd already concluded that his sense of humor was entirely too much like Nimitz's. Worse, Nimitz had spent forty years interacting with humans, which gave him a certain polish Farragut had yet to acquire, and the younger 'cat had quickly demonstrated a taste for practical jokes, usually of the low variety. But at least Miranda had spoken to him very firmly about the need to behave in public, and Clinkscales allowed himself to hope that her admonitions would have some effect.
He realized he'd allowed thoughts of Farragut to distract him when the band broke into the Harrington Anthem. Only a steadholder was greeted with the Steadholders' March, but any member of Lady Harrington’s family was properly saluted with her steading's anthem, and a shouted command brought the honor guard to attention. The perfectly turned out members of the Harrington Guard formed two ruler-straight rows of green-on-green uniforms, flanking the path from the foot of the shuttle pad to the terminal escalator, and a very small figure paused in midstride as the music surprised her.
Clinkscales blinked as he saw Allison Harrington for the first time. He'd known she was shorter than her daughter, but he'd been unprepared for a person this tiny. Why, she was actually shorter than the majority of Grayson women, and the thought that she had produced the Steadholder who towered over virtually all her steaders, including one Howard Clinkscales, was hard to accept.
It was obvious no one had warned her to expect a formal welcome, and Clinkscales swore silently at himself for not attending to that detail himself. Of course, it was likely that the Steadholder wouldn't have arranged for so much formality if she'd been here. She still had difficulty thinking of herself as a Steadholder, and she probably would have just hopped into an air car, flown over, and picked Dr. Harrington up without any of what she insisted upon calling "all this ridiculous hullabaloo." Clinkscales, unfortunately, couldn't do that without offering what might well have been construed as an insult, but he could have ensured that Dr. Harrington knew what was coming.
Yet it was too late for that, and her brief hesitation was over before it became obvious. She squared her shoulders and moved more sedately down the pad stairs, and Clinkscales and Miranda went to meet her. Miranda lacked the strength which allowed Lady Harrington to carry Nimitz on her shoulder, but Farragut seemed content enough to walk at her side, and he flirted his tail right regally while he padded along between her and Clinkscales as if the music and the honor guard were no more than his just due.
The welcoming party timed things almost perfectly, arriving at the foot of the stairs no more than a stride or two before Dr. Harrington stepped off the bottom tread. She looked up at her greeters, and almond eyes unca
"You must be Lord Clinkscales," she said, extending her hand to him, and dimpled as he bent to kiss it formally rather than shaking it.
"At your service, My Lady," he told her, and her dimples grew.
"'My Lady'?" she repeated. "Goodness, I see Honor was right. I am going to like it here!" Clinkscales' eyebrows arched, but she turned to Miranda before he could speak again. "And you're Miranda, I'm sure," she said, reaching out to shake the younger woman's hand. "And unless I'm mistaken," she went on, bending to hold her hand out to the treecat, "this is Farragut." The 'cat shook her hand in brisk, Nimitz-like fashion, and she laughed. "It is Farragut. Am I to assume that one of you two has had the sometimes questionable good fortune to be adopted?"