Honor stared at him for ten fulminating seconds, and then threw up her arm in exasperation.
"Yes, thats exactly right!" she snapped. "And if you werent as stubborn, mule-headed, and hard to reason with as your son, youd realize that!"
"My what? " He stared at her, shaken out of his automatic suspicion at last by the total non sequitur.
"Your son," Honor repeated in a flat voice. "Tomas Santiago Ramirez." Commodore Ramirez goggled at her, and she sighed. "I know him quite well, Commodore. For that matter, Ive met your wife, Rosario, and Elena and Josepha, as well."
"Tomas" he whispered, then blinked and shook himself. "You know little Tomacito? "
"Hes hardly little anymore," Honor said dryly. "In fact, hes pretty close to your size. Shorter, but you and he both favor stone walls, dont you? And hes also a colonel in the Royal Manticoran Marines."
"But" Ramirez shook his head again, like a punch drunk fighter, and Honor chuckled sympathetically.
"Believe me, Sir. You cant be more surprised to meet me than I am to meet you. Your family has believed you were dead ever since the Peeps took Trevors Star."
"They got out?" Ramirez stared at her, his voice begging her to tell him they had. "They reached Manticore? They" His voice broke, and he scrubbed his face with his hands.
"They got out," Honor said gently, "and Tomas is one of my closest friends." She grinned wryly. "I suppose I should have realized you were the Commodore Ramirezs Captain Benson was talking about as soon as I heard the name. If Tomas were on this planet, Im sure hed have ended up in Camp Inferno, too. But who wouldve thought?" She shook her head.
"But" Ramirez stopped and sucked in an enormous breath, and Honor reached up and across to rest her hand on his shoulder. She squeezed for a moment, then nodded her head at the roots of the tree underand inwhich she had spent the day.
"Have a seat in my office here, and Ill tell you all about it," she invited.
Jesus Ramirez, Honor reflected an hour or so later, really was remarkably like his son. In many ways, Tomas Ramirez was one of the kindest and most easygoing men Honor had ever met, but not where the Peoples Republic of Haven was concerned. Tomas had joined the Manticoran Marines for one reason only: he had believed war with the PRH was inevitable, and he had dedicated his life to the destruction of the Peoples Republic and all its works with an unswerving devotion that sometimes seemed to verge just a bit too closely upon obsession for Honors peace of mind.
Now she knew where hed gotten it from, she thought wryly, and leaned back against the tree trunk while Tomas father digested what shed told him.
I wonder what the odds are? she thought once more. Ramirez beat the numbers badly enough just to survive to reach Hell, but that I should run into him like this? She shook her head in the darkness which had fallen with the passing of the sun. On the other hand, Ive always suspected God must have a very strange sense of humor. And if Ramirez was going to get here at alland not get himself shot for making troubleit was probably inevitable hed wind up at Inferno. And given that "troublemakers" are exactly what I need if Im going to pull this off at all, I suppose it was equally inevitable that we should meet.
"All right, I understand what you want, Commodore Harrington," the deep voice rumbled suddenly out of the darkness, "but do you realize what will happen if you try this and fail?"
"Well all die," Honor said quietly.
"Not just die, Commodore," Ramirez said flatly. "If were lucky, theyll shoot us during the fighting. If were un lucky, well be Kilkenny Camp Number Three."
"Kilkenny?" Honor repeated, and Ramirez laughed with no humor at all.
"Thats the Black Legs term for what happens when they stop sending in the food supplies," he told her. "They call it the Kilkenny Cat method of provisioning. Dont you know the Old Earth story?"
"Yes," Honor said sickly. "Yes, I do."
"Well, they think its funny, anyway," Ramirez said. "But the important thing is for you to realize the stakes youre playing for here, because if youif we blow it, every human being in this camp will pay the price right along with us." He exhaled sharply in the darkness. "Its probably been just as well that was true, too," he admitted. "If it werentif Id only had to worry about what happened to meI probably would have done something outstandingly stupid years ago. And then who would you have to try this outstandingly stupid trick with?"
A flicker of true humor drifted out of the night to her, carried over her link to Nimitz, and she smiled.
"Its not all that stupid, Commodore," she said.
"No... not if it works. But if it doesnt" She sensed his invisible shrug. Then he was silent for the better part of two minutes, and she was content to leave him so, for she could feel the intensity of his thought as yet again his brain examined the rough plan shed outlined for him, turning it over and over again to consider it from all directions.
"You know," he said thoughtfully at last, "the really crazy thing is that I think this might just work. Theres no fallback position if it doesnt, but if everything breaks right, or even half right, it actually might work."
"I like to think I usually give myself at least some chance for success," Honor said dryly, and he laughed softly.
"Im sure you do, Commodore. But so did I, and look where I wound up!"
"Fair enough," Honor conceded. "But if I may, Commodore, Id suggest you think of Hell not as the place you wound up, but as the temporary stopping place youre going to leave with us."
"An optimist, I see." Ramirez was silent again, thinking, and then he smacked his hands together with the sudden, shocking sound of an explosion. "All right, Commodore Harrington! If youre crazy enough to try it, I suppose Im crazy enough to help you."
"Good," Honor said, but then she went on in a careful tone. "There is just one other thing, Commodore."
"Yes?" His voice was uninflected, but Honor could taste the emotions behind it, and the one thing she hadnt expected was suppressed, devilish amusement.
"Yes," she said firmly. "We have to settle the question of command."
"I see." He leaned back, a solider piece of the darkness beside her as he crossed his ankles and folded his arms across his massive chest. "Well, I suppose we should consider relative seniority, then," he said courteously. "My own date of rank as a commodore is 1870 p.d. And yours is?"
"I was only eleven T-years old in 1870!" Honor protested.
"Really?" Laughter lurked in his voice. "Then I suppose Ive been a commodore a little longer than you have."
"Well, yes, butI mean, with all due respect, youve been stuck here on Hell for the last forty years, Commodore! Thereve been changes, developments in"
She broke off and clenched her jaw. Should I tell him Im a full admiral in the Grayson Navy? she wondered. But if I do that now, itll sound like
"Oh, dont worry so much, Commodore Harrington!" Ramirez laughed out loud, breaking into her thoughts. "Youre right, of course. My last operational experience was so long ago Id have trouble just finding the flag bridge. Not only that, you and your people are the ones who managed to get down here with the shuttles and the weapons that might just make this entire thing work."
He shook his head in the darkness, and his voiceand the emotions Honor felt through Nimitzwere dead serious when he went on.
"If you truly manage to pull this off, youll certainly have earned the right of command," he told her. "And the one thing we absolutely cant afford is any division within our ranks or competition for authority between you and me. I may technically be senior to you, but I will cheerfully accept your authority."