"I could have asked my mom about it anytime, and she would've been delighted to teach me. Maybe that was part of the problem. She would have decided the 'ice maiden' had finally melted, and God only knows where that would've ended!" Honor laughed again. "Did I ever tell you what she wanted to give me as a graduation present?"

"No, I don't think you did," Henke said, and deep inside she felt a sense of wonder. For all their closeness, there'd always been a guarded core to Honor Harrington—one Henke suspected only Nimitz had ever managed to breach—and this bright-eyed, almost breathless Honor was a stranger to her.

"She wanted to buy me an evening with one of the best male 'escorts' in Landing." Honor shook her head and chuckled at Henke's expression. "Can't you just see it? A great big, towering gawk of an ensign with fuzz for hair out on the town with some glamorous hunk! Lord, I would have died! And just imagine what the neighbors would've thought if they'd ever found out!"

Henke began to chuckle herself as she pictured it, for Sphinx was far and away the most straight-laced of the Kingdom's planets. Professional, licensed courtesans were a fact of life on Manticore. It might not be considered quite the thing to seek their services, but everyone knew "someone else" who had. They weren't particularly unusual on Gryphon, either, but they were very rare birds indeed on Sphinx. Yet she could easily believe Allison Harrington would have done just that. Honors mother was an immigrant from the Sigma Draconis System's Beowulf, and the sexual mores which prevailed there would have curled a native born Manticoran's hair, much less a Sphinxian's!

The women faced one another across the table, and their chuckles turned into full-throated laughter as each saw the almost fiendish delight in the other's face. But then Honor's laughter slowly ebbed, and she leaned back once more with a sigh.

"Sometimes I wish I'd let her go ahead and do it," she said wistfully. "I could have trusted her to pick the best for me, and maybe then—"

She broke off and waved her hand, and Henke nodded. She'd known Honor for almost thirty T-years, and in all that time, there had never been a man in her life. Never even a hint of one, which seemed even odder somehow in light of her easy relationships and often close friendships with male officers.

And yet, perhaps it wasn't so strange. Honor didn't seem to have any problem regarding herself as "one of the guys," but it was painfully obvious she still thought of herself as the "towering gawk" and "hatchet-faced horse" of her girlhood. She was wrong, of course, but Henke understood how little right or wrong mattered in terms of self-image. Then there'd been Pavel Young, the only man on Saganami Island ever to express an interest in Ms. Midshipman Harrington—and the man who'd tried to rape her when she wasn't interested in return. Honor had kept that whole episode locked inside, but Lord only knew how it had affected a girl who already thought she was ugly.

Yet Henke suspected there was another reason, as well—one Honor herself wasn't aware of—and that reason was Nimitz. Mike Henke remembered the desperately lonely girl who'd been assigned as her dorm mate at Saganami Island, but that loneliness had extended only to other people. Whatever else happened to her, Honor had always had the assurance—not just the belief, but the proof—that one creature in the universe loved her... and that creature was an empath. Henke had known several people who'd been adopted by treecats, and every one of them seemed to demand more from personal relationships. They demanded trust.

Absolute, total trust, and very few human beings were prepared to extend that to anyone. Henke had always known that. It was one reason she was so immensely flattered to possess Honor's friendship, but she sensed, if only dimly, how that need for trust could cripple anything more than friendship, for a treecat's companion knew when another's trust—and trustworthiness—were less than absolute. In a sense, the price they paid for their bonds with their 'cats was a certain coolness, a distance, from other humans. Especially lovers, with their bottomless capacity to hurt them.

Some of them dealt with it through casual affairs, surface flings intentionally kept too superficial to ever get past their guards, but Honor couldn't do that. More importantly, she wouldn't do it. Despite her mother, there was too much Sphinxian in her... and too much stubborn integrity.

"Well, the past is past." Honor sighed, breaking the train of the commander's thoughts. "I can't get it back or do it over again, but I'm afraid it's left me without some of the skills other people take for granted." She touched her face—the left side of her face, Henke noted—and smiled wryly. "Like makeup."

"You don't really need it, you know," Henke said gently, and it was true. She'd never seen Honor wear even lip gloss, but that didn't detract from her clean cut, knife-edged attractiveness.

"Lady," Honor disagreed with half-embarrassed, half-laughing vehemence, "this face needs all the help it can get!"

"You're wrong, but I won't argue with you about it." Henke cocked her head, then smiled slightly. "May I take it you want me to help you repair the, um, deficiencies in your education?" Honor nodded, and Henke's eyes gleamed with fond mockery. "Or should I say, the deficiencies in your arsenal?" she teased, and chuckled as Honor blushed afresh.

"Whatever," she said with all the dignity she could muster.

"Well..." Henke pursed her lips thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Our coloring is just a bit different, you know."

"Does that matter?"

"Oh, Lord!" Henke moaned, rolling her eyes heavenward at the simple innocence—and abysmal ignorance—that question betrayed. Honor looked surprised, and Henke shook her head.

"Trust me, it matters. On the other hand, Mother always insisted that all her daughters be well instructed in the fundamental hunting skills. I think I can probably do a little something with you, but I'll have to make a raid on the ship's store, first. Nothing I use would work on you, that's for sure." She frowned and ran through a mental checklist of all she'd need, for one thing was certain; there were no cosmetics in Honor's medicine cabinet.

"How soon do you want to achieve the desired result?" she asked.

"Within the next week or so?" Honor suggested almost hesitantly, and Henke, to her credit, managed not to smile.

"I think we can manage that. Tell you what, this is Thursday—how about I drop by before supper next Wednesday and educate you in Drop Dead Gorgeous 101 then?"

"Wednesday?" Honor's blush was back. She looked away, studying the Queen's painting on the bulkhead, and Henke fought an urge to laugh, for Honor had dined regularly with Paul Tankersley on Wednesday nights for over six weeks now. "Wednesday would be good," she agreed after a moment, and Henke nodded.

"Done. In the meantime, however—" she rose "—I really do need to get some sack time for tomorrow. Meet to discuss the sim at zero-six-thirty?"

"That sounds about right." Honor sounded relieved by the return to a professional topic, but she dragged her eyes back from Queen Elizabeth's portrait and smiled. "And... thanks, Mike. Thanks a lot."

"Hey! What are friends for?" Henke laughed, then straightened her shoulders and clicked to a sort of abbreviated attention. "And on that note, good night, Ma'am."

"Good night, Mike," Honor said, and her smile followed the commander out the hatch.

"... and I believe that covers just about everything, ladies and gentlemen," Sir Yancey Parks said. "Thank you, and good night."

His assembled squadron commanders stood at his dismissal and departed with courteous nods. All but one of them, and Parks' eyebrows rose as Rear Admiral Mark Sarnow retained his seat.