But if Artemis was watching with amused affection, Hipper wasnt. He was crouched on all six limbs, leaning forward almost like a human sprinter poised in the blocks before a race, with his tail straight out behind him. Only the very tip of that tail twitched in quick, tiny arcs; aside from that, he was motionless, and he wasnt even glancing at the kittens. His grass-green eyes were locked on the Mayhews.
No, Allison thought with sudden understanding. Not on the Mayhews; on a Mayhew.
The realization flicked through her in an instant and she began to open her mouth, but not quickly enough. Hipper suddenly shook himself and leapt forward in a cream-and-gray blur, streaking across the library towards the children.
Rachel Mayhews personal armsman saw him coming and reacted with the spinal-reflex quickness of his training. Intellectually, he knew no treecat would ever threaten a child, yet his reflexes were another matter, and his hand flashed out to sweep the girl aside and place himself between her and the potential threat.
But he didnt quite manage it, for even as Hipper had started forward, Rachels head had snapped around as if someone had shouted her name. Her brown eyes settled on Hipper with unerring accuracy, and as her armsman reached for her, she dodged his arm with astonishing agility. She crouched, opening her arms with a blinding smile of welcome, and Hipper catapulted from the floor into her embrace.
She was only eleven years old, and at 10.3 standard kilos, Hipper was one of the largest treecats Allison had ever met. Which, coupled with Graysons 1.17 g gravity and the conservation of momentum, had predictable results.
Rachel went back on her bottom with a thump as the cat landed in her arms, and Allisons hand flashed out. She caught Rachels armsmans wrist out of sheer reflex, without even thinking about it, and only later realized that shed stopped his hand on its way to the pulser at his hip. But it didnt really matter. Even as she gripped it, she felt his muscles relax in sudden, explosive relief as everyone in the library heard Hippers high, buzzing purr of delight and watched the cat rubbing his cheek ecstatically against Rachels.
Rachels sisters stared at her, stunned, and the adults were little better. Only Miranda moved. She scooped up Farragut and came over to kneel beside Rachel, but the girl never even noticed. At that moment, Hipper was her entire universe, just as she was his.
"Oh... my," Katherine murmured finally. She shook herself and looked at Allison.
"This is what I think it is, isnt it?" she asked very quietly, and Allison sighed.
"It is. And you have my genuine sympathy."
"Sympathy?" Katherines brow furrowed. "Surely you dont mean he might hurt her or?"
"Oh, no! Nothing like that!" Allison reassured her quickly. "But, well, its very unusual, shall we say, for a cat to adopt a child. Not unheard of, of course. The very first adoption on Sphinx was of a child about Rachels age... or Honors. And its a very good thing, in most ways, but there are some... adjustments."
"What sort?" Elaine asked, moving to stand behind her sister wife, and Allison smiled crookedly.
"For one thing, hes going to be even worse than a Graysons personal armsman. Youre never going to be able to separate them, not even for baths or doctors visits, and you can forget about leaving him home on state occasions! And shes not going to want to put him down, either."
"Well, I dont see any reason to try to convince her to tonight," Katherine said after a glance at Elaine.
"I didnt mean she wont want to put him down tonight," Allison told her wryly. "I meant shes not going to want to put him down ever. Physical contact is very important to both sides of an adoption bond, particularly one where the human half is this young, and especially during the initial several months. I thought Nimitz had been grafted onto Honor for the first T-year or so!"
"Oh, my," Katherine sighed on a very different note.
"And another thing, youll have to warn the adults whore likely to enter her orbit to keep an eye on their own emotions." Elaine looked at her sharply, and Allison shrugged. "For the most part, a cat makes a wonderful babysitter. No abusive personality is going to be able to fool him, and your family knows better than most how effective a protector a treecat can be." Both Mayhews nodded at that, and Allison shrugged again. "Unfortunately, cats are also very sensitive to emotions directed at their persons... or that they think might end up directed at their persons. Which means that hes going to be very tense around people who are angry in Rachels presence, whether its at her or something with no connection to her at all. And finally, youre going to have some very interesting experiences when she enters puberty."
Katherines eyes widened, and Allison chuckled.
"No, no. As far as Ive ever been able to determine, cats have no interest at all in their peoples, um, amatory adventures. But theyre empaths. When all those hormonal mood swings start hitting her, both of them are going to be irritable as hell. The only good thing about it is that by our best estimate Hipper is about fifty T-years old. That means hes about the age Nimitz was when he adopted Honor. It also means hes got a lot more maturity than Rachel does, and if hes anything like Nimitz was, he wont put up with his persons whining at all. Not a minor consideration with a teenager, I think."
"Oh, dear." It was Elaine this time, yet there was a bubble of laughter under her sigh, and she shook her head. Then she sobered. "Actually, that may be the least of our worries, Cat," she said quietly. "What about the other girls?"
"Jealousy?" Allison asked, equally quietly, her eyes back on Rachel and Hipper. Rachels sisters were coming forward now, going to their knees around her while Jason and Andromeda looked on with bright, interested eyes. Alfred and Benjamin stood to one side, talking softly, and she smiled, then looked back at the Mayhew wives.
"Honor was an only child, so my experiences were undoubtedly different from what yours are going to be, but I dont think that will be a problem," she assured them.
"Why not?" Katherine asked.
"Because Hipper is a cat," Allison explained. "Hes an empath. Hell be able to feel their emotions as well as Rachels, and thats one of the very best things about childhood adoptions. They may be rare, but theyre very good for the child, because their cat teaches them to be sensitive to the feelings of others. Youll want to keep an eye on her for a few weeks or so, of course. Even the best kids can get smug and start thinking of themselves as better than anyone else when something this special happens, and the bond is going to take a couple of months to start settling. She could really put the other girls backs up in that interval, with all kinds of long-term consequences. But unless something like that happensand I dont think it willHipper is going to spend an awful lot of time playing with the others, too." She shook her head with a grin. "For that matter, hes going to think hes in cat heaven when he realizes he has four of them to spoil him rotten!"
Book Two
Chapter Eight
"Haa-haaaa-choooo!"
The sneeze snapped her head back so violently stars seemed to spangle her vision. Her eyes watered, her sinuses stung, and Commodore Lady Dame Honor Harrington, Steadholder and Countess Harrington, hastily dropped the metal comb and rubbed her nose in a frantic effort to abort the next onrushing eruption.