In Enemy Hands

From that viewpoint, at least, the existence of her file made it far more likely she and Nimitz would be separated. Indeed, had she been a Peep, she suspected she would have argued against allowing any prisoner to retain a "pet" she knew had killed people. Admitting that did absolutely nothing to make her feel confident, and she was shocked when she first realized how deeply her future’s looming uncertainties were affecting her.

It wasn't a sort of pressure she'd ever before faced, and it was one she was uniquely unsuited to handle. It would, she'd realized slowly, have been impossible to design a situation which could have turned the normal mainstays of her personality more cruelly against her. The very act of ordering Prince Adrian's surrender had turned her sense of duty and responsibility to her Queen and her Navy into a source of guilt, not strength. The matching sense of duty to her perso

And because she couldn't dispel her desperation, or her terror, they only grew, like sources of infection which could not be lanced and cleaned. The dark cores of fear grew deeper and stronger, eating into her reserves of strength and undermining her sense of self, and all she could do was try to ignore them. To avoid thinking about them. To pretend they weren't there... when she knew perfectly well that they were.

It was destroying her. She knew it was, felt her growing fragility as the poison of helplessness ate away bits and pieces of her, and she hated it. Hated it. Not just for what it was doing to her, but even more because of what it was preventing her from doing for the people she'd brought to this with her.

She suspected that only McKeon and LaFollet, and possibly McGinley, realized how she was eroding from the core out. She hoped no one else did, anyway. It was bad enough that the people closest to her should be forced to deal with her failures and her preoccupation with her private terrors when they had fears and worries of their own and a right to her support in coping with them. But...

A soft chime sounded, and Honor looked up gratefully, thankful to be pulled from the ever tightening spiral of her self-condemnation, as the compartment hatch slid open. Sha

"Yes, Citizen Commander?" she said, and as always, the steadiness of her voice surprised her. It should sound as frayed and stretched as she felt, quivering like an over-stressed cable.

"Citizen Admiral Tourville sent me to extend his compliments to you and inform you that we've received new orders, Commodore." If Honor's voice sounded u

"The dispatch boat has returned from Barnett," she went on, looking straight into Honor's eyes. "Citizen Admiral Tourville's dispatches were intended for Citizen Admiral Theisman, the system CO, and his commissioner, but Citizen Ransom of the Committee of Public Safety is currently in the system and she was, of course, shown the message."

Honor felt her breathing pause. She'd felt a momentary stir of hope at the name Theisman, for she and the citizen admiral had met, and enemy though he was, he was also a man of integrity and courage. But Cordelia Ransoms name brought any sense of hope crashing down, and she fought to keep the dread out of her expression as she made herself meet Foraker’s level gaze.

"Most of your enlisted perso

The citizen commander paused once more, as if she wanted to find some way, any way, to avoid completing her message. But there wasn't one, and her voice was even flatter when she continued.

"Citizen Ransom has instructed Citizen Admiral Tourville personally to conduct you to Barnett, Commodore. According to her message, she wishes to interview you in person before determining the precise disposition of your case."

"I see." Honors soprano didn't even waver. It was as if she stood to one side, watching a stranger use her body and her voice. She'd seen ONFs briefings on the Committee of Public Safety and its members. She knew Cordelia Ransom's record, and knowing it, she couldn't lie to herself about the reasons Ransom might wish to "interview" her... or what sort of "disposition" Ransom would make of her. Yet in a strange sort of way, she realized distantly, she was almost relieved. At least now she could no longer torment herself with false hopes.

She heard Nimitz's feet thump as he jumped down from Metcalf’s lap and crossed the deck to her. She bent without looking away from Foraker and scooped him up, hugging him to her breasts so fiercely she was surprised he didn't squeal in pain, and the universe seemed to have stopped about her. There was only Foraker, the misery in her eyes confirming the fact that she shared Honors own estimate of what her future held, and the living, infinitely precious warmth of the treecat in her arms.

But then she realized she was wrong. There was one more thing which, even now, she could not evade. There was duty. Duty to her Queen, whom she could not disgrace by showing weakness. Duty to her people, whom she could not fail by collapsing at the moment when they would need her most. And finally, there was duty to herself. The duty to gather whatever fragments of her frayed and eroded strength remained and meet whatever came with at least a pretense of dignity.

"Thank you, Sha