At All Costs

"Are you sure you're not borrowing trouble, Honor?" her father asked. She looked at him, and he shrugged. "They've been married longer than you've been alive," he pointed out, "and they've never had a child. Did Emily even want children?"

"I haven't really discussed it with her," Honor admitted. "She's a wonderful person, but we're all still feeling our way into this relationship. She's a lot more Beowulfan-" she smiled at her mother "-about this than I am, and she's the one who took the initiative in resolving how Hamish and I felt about one another. But there are still some things we simply haven't discussed, either because we haven't had enough time for it yet, or because we might have felt... awkward."

"And does this come under the heading of 'not enough time' or 'I'd feel awkward as hell'?" Allison asked.

"The latter, I'm afraid."

Honor folded her arms once more, and Nimitz shifted his weight on her shoulder as she leaned back, propping herself against the edge of her desk.

"I think Emily probably did want children, at least once," she said slowly. "I think she'd have made a wonderful mother, and I think it would have been incredibly good for her to have a child to invest herself in. And I think she and Hamish fully intended to produce children-and an heir to White Haven-when they married."

"Then why didn't they?" Allison asked, frowning thoughtfully as she listened intently to her daughter. "I'm not asking you to violate any confidences, Honor, but that sounds rather unlikely in a lot of ways. While I realize the nature and extent of her injuries would make a normal pregnancy impossible, they could easily have had a child fertilized in vitro and tubed, or used a surogate. And they're obviously well provided with staff; finding caregivers couldn't have been a problem."

"I'm not positive, but I think I know," Honor said. "Mind you, this is all speculation on my part, since we've never discussed it."

"So speculate," her father said.

"All right. You know, obviously, that just like me, Emily doesn't regenerate?" She paused, and both of her parents nodded just a bit impatiently for her to continue. "Well, I think she's afraid any child of hers would inherit the same inability."

"What?"

Allison blinked. She looked at her daughter for several seconds, then shook herself.

"That's ridiculous," she said. "Even if it weren't, look at you! God knows I wish you'd been a bit more careful about getting bits and pieces of yourself shot off, but regen or not, you're still fully functional. Are you telling me she's afraid a child of hers would not simply be unable to regenerate but experience the same sort of catastrophic damage she did?"

"I know it sounds irrational," Honor said. "But I think that's what it is. I know, from something Hamish once said, that they were waiting to have children until his schedule was a bit less hectic. He was working himself almost as hard at the time of her accident as he is now, and both of them wanted to be available as full-time parents. So I'm guessing whatever changed their plans is related to what happened to her. I suppose it's possible she felt her injuries would prevent her from being a 'proper mother,' but, as you just said, she has to've known she and Hamish could still have provided the best child care on Manticore. And on the one or two occasions when the subject of regeneration has come up-most people are pretty careful not to discuss it around her-what I've 'tasted' of her emotions strongly suggests she's not as completely rational about what happened to her as most people assume she is from how well she copes with it."

"It's certainly possible," Alfred Harrington said before Allison could respond. His wife and daughter both looked at him. "I've seen a lot of serious neural damage," he said, with massive understatement. "Admittedly, very little of it's been as severe as what happened to Lady Emily. I haven't reviewed her case file, obviously, but the fact that she survived at all is obviously a not so minor medical miracle. And even people with far less severe impairment than she's suffered often experience difficulty adjusting to it. You've done far better in that regard than many do, Honor," he added, gesturing at her artificial arm, "but I strongly suspect that even you have the odd moment when you're less than totally reconciled to what's happened to you."

"I don't know if I'd say I wasn't 'reconciled," to it," Honor replied after a moment. "I will say there are times I deeply and intensely regret it, though. And times I still experience the 'phantom pain' you warned me I would."

"But you aren't trapped inside totally nonresponsive a body," Alfred pointed out. "Emily is, and she's been that way for over sixty T-years. She's learned to compensate, as much as anyone possibly can, and to get on with her life, but the fact that she's had to accept her impairment doesn't mean it's stopped hurting-especially for someone who was as physically active as she was before the accident. I think the thought of even the remotest possibility of her seeing someone else she loved in the same situation, rational or not, would terrify her. So, if she's managed to fixate on the possibility of her passing her inability to regenerate on to her children, she could, indeed, have simply closed off all consideration of having children in her own mind."

"That's exactly what I think she's done," Honor said. "And if she has, if Hamish and I have a child, I think we may rip her wounds wide open. I don't want to do that to her. In fact, I'll do anything to keep from doing that to her."

"I'm not at all sure you have that choice, Honor," Allison said with a certain implacable gentleness. Honor looked at her, and her mother's expression was an odd blend of serenity and ster

"I'm not speaking just as your mother," Allison continue. "I'm also a physician, and not just any physician. I'm a geneticist-a Beowulf geneticist-and Emily Alexander is Hamish Alexander's wife. She may have decided to force the issue of the way you and Hamish feel about one another, and she may have decided to embrace both of you. For that, I respect and honor her. But that doesn't change the fact that she's his wife, and as her husband he has a deep-seated moral obligation to tell her about this, just as you have a deep-seated moral obligation to tell him. You may want to 'spare her,' Honor, but I don't think you have the right to. And even if you tried to, what would happen if she later discovered what you hadn't told her? What would happen to her trust in you-and Hamish?"

Honor stared at Allison, and Nimitz rose on her shoulder, wrapping his tail protectively about her throat. She felt him pressing against her, radiating his support... and his agreement with what he read in her mother's emotions. And the hell of it was that Honor could read those emotions herself. And that she knew her mother was right.

"I don't know how to do this," she admitted after a moment.

"I don't either," Allison said, "but I do know how you should start. And so do you." Honor looked at her, and Allison snorted. "Go find Hamish and tell him. I know both of you may have believed your implant would prevent this from happening, but it takes two, and he shares responsibility. Don't you try to take all of this on your shoulders, Honor Harrington. Just this once, spread some of it around where it belongs."

"Pregnant?"

Hamish stared at Honor. They were in his Admiralty House office, the one place whose security she could be sure of, yet which was neither her Landing mansion nor White Haven. He'd seemed just a bit baffled when she screened him and requested a few minutes of his time on undisclosed 'official business,' but he'd cleared the last half-hour of his day's schedule for her.

Now she sat stiffly upright, facing him with Nimitz in her arms. Samantha's head had come up, the instant Honor and her mate entered the office; now she leapt from her perch behind Hamish's desk onto the back of his chair and sat upright, bracing herself with a light true-hand on the top of his head.