Nimitz and Samantha had flowed onto the other end of the couch, where they were curled tightly together with Samantha's muzzle buried against Nimitz while he crooned to her and his true-hands caressed her long, silken coat.
The four of them sat that way for a time which could not possibly have been as long as it seemed, simply absorbing the comfort of the others' presence. But for all her joy at seeing him again, the dark thunderhead of his mind glow—and Samantha's—hammered at her empathic sense like a hurricane just beyond the horizon. The minutes stretched out, and then, finally, he took another pull at his drink and opened his eyes again.
"I need this," he said softly, and she knew he wasn't talking about the whiskey. "I can't believe how badly I need this. And Emily is going to need it, too, as soon as you can get dirtside on Manticore."
"I want to see her, too," Honor told him equally quietly. "But I don't think it's going to happen soon." He looked at her, and her smile was more crooked than usual. "Hamish, we're already taking advantage of our positions, just sitting here. I don't think anybody's going to complain, and I'm pretty sure we've got enough official business to discharge to keep us from feeling too guilty. But I'm not going to abuse my authority by cutting myself orders to Manticore or Sphinx to see my family when the rest of the people under my command can't do the same thing."
The darkness flared within him as she spoke. For a moment, she thought it was anger at her refusal to abuse the privileges of her rank, but its taste wasn't quite right for that. She was still trying to parse his emotions out when he shook his head.
"You won't have to cut yourself any orders, Honor," he said. "And it won't be a case of favoritism, either. Trust me, Elizabeth's going to want you on Manticore as fast as you can get there. She's going to want to hear how Pritchart and her people reacted to all this. And she's going to want your reaction to it, as well."
She started to object, then changed her mind. He was undoubtedly right, after all.
"I suppose that's fairly inevitable," she admitted instead, and he snorted.
"You can leave out the 'fairly,'" he told her, and she smiled briefly. But then her smile faded, and she set her untasted beer on the coffee table and reached out with her flesh-and-blood hand to touch the side of his face.
"All right," she said. "I take your point. And I won't even try to pretend I don't want to see Emily as badly as she wants to see me. Or as badly as I want to see the kids, for that matter. But I think you're forgetting I can taste mind glows, Hamish."
His eyes darkened, as if shutters had just come down behind them, and her fingers stroked his cheek gently.
"Whatever it is, you can't protect me from it forever," she said very softly.
"I—"
He stopped, looking into her face, then exhaled.
"I know," he said, and she tasted the pain behind the words, the realization that despite how desperately important to him she was, she was also only one of literally millions of people who couldn't be "protected from it forever." Not that realizing that kept him from wishing with all his heart and soul that he could.
"So tell me," she said.
He looked at her a moment longer. She felt him steel himself, felt him gathering himself the way both of them had gathered themselves as missiles began to fly and people under their command began to die.
"Debris from the strike on Vulcan got through to the planet," he said, and his voice was flat, harsh, the words quick and unflinching, offering her the stark honesty of one professional officer to another, now that the moment had finally come. "One of the tugs—the Quay— did her damnedest, but she couldn't catch it all. One of the strikes, a big one, probably up in the multi-hundred thousand-ton range," he looked straight into her eyes, "took out Yawata Crossing, Honor. The entire city."
Someone punched Honor squarely in the chest. She stared at him, literally unable for several seconds to process the information. Then she sucked in a deep, agonized breath, and he reached out to take her face between both his hands and leaned forward until their foreheads touched.
"All three of your aunts," he said, and his voice was soft, now, the voice of her lover and husband, shadowed with his own grief at inflicting this upon her. "Your Uncle Al was away on business, but Jason and Owen were both at home. So"—he inhaled deeply again—"were all the kids. And your cousin Devon, and his wife, and two of the children. Matthias and Frieda. Holly and Eric. Martha." He closed his eyes. "Al is all right—or as close to it as a man can be when his wife and kids are. . . And Devon's daughter Sarah, and your cousin Benedict and cousin Leah, were all away. But the rest were all there. It was your Aunt Claire's birthday, and . . . ."
His voice died, and tears trickled down Honor's cheeks as the list went on and on in her mind, adding the other names. All the names. The Harrington clan was a large one, but most of its members had always lived in and around Yawata Crossing, and family affairs—like birthdays—were important to them. They always gathered for moments like that, all of them who could, and she pictured them there, laughing and teasing the guest of honor as they always did. Her father's sisters, their husbands, their children—their grand children. Cousins and in-laws .
"I'm sorry, love," he whispered. "I'm so sorry."
She tasted his love, his shared grief, the pain he felt for her pain and the special guilt he felt for having inflicted it upon her. She knew, now, what monster had ridden his shoulders . . . and why there'd been no mention of collateral damage to Sphinx in any of the official correspondence which had accompanied her recall. Hamish Alexander-Harrington was the First Lord of Admiralty, and whether it had been an abuse of his position or not hadn't really mattered to him. She was not going to learn about something like this through some cold letter or recorded message. No, he'd taken that crushing task upon himself, in person. She knew that now, just as she knew he wasn't done yet.
"Tell me the rest," she said, and her voice was just as harsh as his had been, ribbed with the steely selfcontrol fighting to hold back the darkness.
"Andrew and Miranda were taking Raoul to Claire's party," he said, and her heart seemed to stop. "Your dad and the twins were supposed to be there, too, but there'd been some kind of delay. They were in transit between Manticore and Sphinx when the attack hit. They came through it just fine, and Andrew, Raoul, and Lindsey had swung by your parents' place to pick up your mom. They hadn't gotten to Claire's yet, either, but Miranda—"
He shook his head, and she closed her eyes. Not Miranda, too, God , she prayed. Not Miranda, too!
She heard both 'cats keening their own lament, and a fresh spasm of anguish went through her.
Of course , she thought. Of course Farragut was with her. And no wonder Toby saw to it that Hamish and I could be alone when he told me .
"Andrew?" she heard her own voice ask. "Raoul and Mother?"
The look he gave her filled her with terror. Her own shocked grief and pain threatened to drown the universe, yet even through it, she tasted his mind glow. Knew he would rather have had his own heart ripped out than bring her this news.
"Raoul and your mother are fine," he said quickly, then made a harsh, ugly sound deep in his throat. "Well, as fine as they can be. But they were too close to the Yawata strike. Andrew got the two of them—and Lindsey—punched out in time, and they're all fine, although Lindsey came out of it with a badly broken collarbone. But—"
His hands slid down from her face, and his arms went back around her.