In Enemy Hands

"One thing, Captain," she said quietly, and he turned back to face her. "From what I've seen of you, you're a man who believes in doing his duty, however unpleasant it may be," she told him, "but I've taken the liberty of sending a dispatch boat to Yeltsin. It left two hours ago, with the news of Lady Harrington’s presumed loss."

"I see." Greentree gazed at her for a moment, then exhaled heavily. "I understand, Dame Madeleine, and though I probably shouldn't be, I'm grateful."

"I won't say you're welcome," Sorba

She shrugged again, and Greentree bobbed his head.

"I'll be going, then, Ma'am," he said.

A moment later the door slid shut behind him, and Madeleine Sorba

"Good luck, Captain," she said softly, and then she squared her shoulders and walked back to the chair behind her desk and the responsibilities that went with it.

Thirty minutes later, a lift aboard GNS Jason Alvarez came to a halt and Thomas Greentree drew a deep breath and stepped out. He made himself walk as closely to normally as he could, yet he knew his face was like stone. He couldn't help that. Indeed, he wasn't even certain he wanted to, for what he was about to do was almost a rehearsal, on a very personal and painful level, of what would await him when he returned to Yeltsin's Star, and his expression simply matched the heart which lay like frozen granite in his chest.

He turned a bend, and his eyes flinched from the green-uniformed man standing outside Lady Harrington’s quarters. Normally, that duty belonged to James Candless or Robert Whitman, as the junior members of her regular three-man travel detail. When she was... away, however, someone else was responsible for guarding the sanctity of her quarters. As Andrew LaFollet's second-in-command, Simon Mattingly was too senior for that duty, but someone had to make out the assignment roster, and in LaFollet's absence that person was Corporal Mattingly. He could station anyone he wanted here, and he stood as straight as a spear, his shoulders square, buttons and brightwork shining like tiny, polished suns. He even wore the knotted golden aigulette with the Harrington arms which a steadholder's personal armsmen wore only on the most formal of occasions, and Greentree's jaw clenched.

He understood the silent armsman's unspoken message. The corporal's presence was no mere formality; it was an everyday duty. And the Steadholder wasn't gone; she was merely absent, and when she returned, she would find her liegemen doing their duty. However long it took, however long he had to wait, Simon Mattingly would stand watch for her, and in so doing he would somehow keep her from being gone.

The captain came to a halt, and Mattingly snapped to attention.

"May I help you, Captain?" he asked crisply.

"Yes, Corporal. I wanted to speak to Steward MacGuiness."

"Just a moment, Sir."

Mattingly pressed the com button and waited. Several seconds ticked past, a far longer wait than normal, before a voice Greentree almost didn't recognize responded.

"Yes?" The one-word response came heavy and dull, dropping from the intercom like a stone, and Mattingly’s eyes flicked briefly to the captain.

"Captain Greentree would like to speak to you, Mac," he said quietly. There was another moment of silence, and then the hatch slid open.

Mattingly said nothing more. He simply braced back to attention, and Greentree stepped past him into Lady Harrington's quarters. MacGuiness stood just inside the hatch opening into his pantry, and if his eyes were suspiciously swollen, Thomas Greentree was not about to comment on the fact. Unlike Mattingly, the stewards shoulders slumped, and for the first time in Greentree’s experience, he looked his chronological age. His arms hung awkwardly at his sides, as if the capable hands at their ends had somehow forgotten their utility; the lines prolong had kept age from etching into his face showed now, drawn deep by grief and worry; and the captain could actually feel the strength with which he made himself hope, made himself cling to the belief that there was some sort of news, as if by hoping hard enough he could make it so.

"Good morning, Sir," he said huskily, trying to smile a welcome. "Would you care for some refreshment? I'm..." His voice broke, and he cleared his throat. "I'm sure the Commodore would want..."

His hands clenched and his voice died, and Greentree felt a deep, irrational flare of guilt. It was his expression which had cut MacGuiness off, and he knew it. He saw it in the way the steward's face tightened, the way his shoulders hunched as if to fend off some dreaded blow. But there was no way to spare him, and the captain inhaled sharply.

"Admiral Sorba

"Thank you, Sir." It came out in a whisper, and MacGuiness blinked hard as he looked around the empty cabin. "It doesn't seem..." he began, then stopped, clenched his jaw, and turned his head away, concealing his face from the captain. "Thank you for telling me, Sir," he said in a strangely breathless voice. "If you'll excuse me, I... I've got some things I have to take care..."

He pulled away from the hand on his shoulder and walked quickly into Lady Harrington's sleeping cabin. The hatch closed behind him, and Greentree gazed at it for several silent seconds, then sighed and turned back to the hatch. He was certain Mattingly must have guessed the reason for his visit to MacGuiness, but that wasn't going to spare Greentree the task of telling him, as well. Of being the official spokesman for the news none of Lady Harrington's people wanted to hear.

Behind him, in Honor Harrington's sleeping cabin, James MacGuiness sat in a chair, staring up at the gemmed scabbard of the Harrington Sword above the crystal cabinet which held the Star of Grayson and the Harrington Key.

He made no sound, and his body never moved, and the tears sliding down his face fell as silently as rain.

Honor sighed, looked up from the book she'd been pretending to read for the last hour or so, and rubbed her eyes wearily. She sat for a moment longer, then laid the book aside, swung her long legs off the narrow bunk, crossed to the center of the single large compartment she shared with Marcia McGinley, Geraldine Metcalf, and Sarah DuChene, and began a series of stretching exercises.

McGinley looked up from the chess problem she was currently working through. She watched Honor for a moment without speaking, then glanced at DuChene and raised an eyebrow. The astrogator nodded in answer to the unvoiced question, and the two of them rose to join Honor. She moved aside to give them a little more space, and the three of them circled about one another in the strangely graceful almost-dance the limited deck space enforced upon their exercises while Metcalf watched them from her own bed. There was no room for her to join them until one of them sat down, and she waited patiently, but Nimitz was unprepared to see a perfectly good, and stationary lap, go to waste. He launched himself from the foot of Honors bed to Metcalf's, and the tac officer chuckled as he sprawled across her legs and turned his belly fur up to be petted.