"Oh, for God's sake!" Honor snapped. "Warlock didn't have any real problems—and downsizing the picket was Janacek's policy!"

"Sure, but you don't expect them to admit the Conservatives created the mess, do you? Especially not when everyone on the Opposition side of the aisle still blames you for how the Government amended the Act of Annexation after the station blew up in your face! You certainly do have a penchant for ticking off politicos, don't you, love?"

There was too much tender amusement in his voice for her to protest or resent the statement. Especially when she knew it was true.

"Look, Paul," she said instead, "if it's all the same to you, I'd really rather not discuss it. As a matter of fact, I'd prefer not even thinking about it—or Young."

"Fair enough." His instant response sounded so penitent she smiled and caught his face between her hands to kiss him. He leaned into it, savoring the taste of her lips, then drew back with a smile of his own.

"Actually, I didn't mean to discuss it at all when I arrived. What I meant to do was issue an invitation."

"An invitation?"

"Absolutely. You need to get out of this cabin, Honor. In fact, you need to get off Nike and leave it all behind for a while, and I, in my ever efficient fashion, have found just the place for you to go. And one with no press, too."

"Where?" Honor demanded. "The weather station on Sidham Island?"

Tankersley laughed and shook his head. Sidham Island, well above Sphinx's arctic circle, was probably the most barren, desolate, and generally godforsaken piece of technically inhabited real estate on any of the Manticore binary systems three habitable planets.

"No, I don't think we're quite that desperate yet. But it is an island. How do you feel about a jaunt to Kreskin Field?"

"Kreskin Field?' Honor twitched upright, eyes suddenly intent. Kreskin Field was the main air facility for Saganami Island, site of the RMN's Naval Academy.

"Exactly," Tankersley said. "I can file the flight plan down in my name, and you know the Academy will cover for you as long as you keep a low profile. The press won't even know you're there, and, frankly, you need to smell some sunshine. Besides," he jerked a thumb at the sailplane etched into a heat-twisted golden plaque on the cabin bulkhead, "haven't you been telling me for months how handy you are in primitive aircraft?"

"I have not," she said indignantly.

"Really?" He scratched his chin in manifest thought. "Must have been Mike, then. But I distinctly remember someone telling me rather boastfully that you hold the all-time Academy sailplane record. Are you saying you don't?"

"Of course I do, you snot." She jabbed for his ribs, but he was expecting it, and his elbow blocked hers neatly.

"I find that hard to believe," he sniffed. "It's always been my observation that small, compact people are better in the air when they can't rely on counter-grav to hold them up."

It was Honor's turn to laugh. Paul was one of the very few people in the universe who could tease her about her height without irritating her.

"Is this a challenge, Captain Tankersley?"

"Oh, no, not a challenge. Just a friendly little match to see who's really best. Of course, I do have a certain advantage. Not only am I one of those small, compact people, but I bet I've been up more recently than you."

"Practicing beforehand, huh? Don't you know that spoils the fun?"

"Spoken like a true barbarian. Interested?"

"Sailplanes or powered?" she demanded.

"Oh, sailplanes are so... so passive. Besides, if we used them, you'd have the advantage, not me. No, I talked to Kreskin and they've got a pair of Javelins standing by for us."

"Javelins?" Honor's eyes lit with pure delight, and Tankersley grinned at her. The Javelin advanced trainer was a deliberate technical anachronism: an old-fashioned, variable geometry airfoil jet aircraft with no counter-grav but incredible power. It was small, sleek, and fast, and the Academy instructors had always insisted flying it was even better than sex. Honor couldn't quite agree with that now that she'd met Paul... but she was willing to admit it was the next best thing.

"Javelins," Tankersley confirmed. "And," he added enticingly, "they've agreed to midair refueling if we decide we want to stay up a while."

"How in the world did you swing that much flight time? There's always a waiting line for the Javelins!"

"Ah, but I was able to conjure with the name of a famous naval officer. When I told Kreskin Flight Control who I'd be flying wing on—after, of course, swearing them to strictest secrecy—they could hardly wait to roll out the red carpet." Honor blushed, and he flipped the tip of her nose with an affectionate finger. "So how about it, Dame Honor? Game?"

"Bet your life I am!" She scooped Nimitz up with a laugh and set him on her shoulder. "Come on, Stinker—we've got an appointment to pin back someone's ears!"

Honor slammed the throttles wide and rode the rudder pedals as she hauled the stick back into a near-vertical climbing turn. Twin, screaming turbines shook the air-frame, and the artificial nerves in her rebuilt left cheek shivered with electric fire as acceleration squeezed like a fist. The sensation was strange but not really painful, and she watched the icons of the Heads-Up-Display on her flight helmet's visor shift as her vision tunneled.

Paul was "it" in their game of gun-camera tag at the moment, and her lips drew back in an acceleration-flattened smile as she shot away from his aircraft. She'd caught him napping this time, and she waited, watching the HUD and counting seconds. His nose flipped up and he committed to a pursuit curve... and she reversed her turn, slammed the stick forward, and pitched into an even steeper dive that had her floating against her harness straps as she howled down toward the distant sea.

No simulator, no small craft with its grav generators or pinnace with its inertial compensator and impeller drive, could match the sheer, wild delight of a moment like this. Honor's flight computers were simpleminded and minimal, for the Javelin had been designed to be one thing and one thing only: a pilot's aircraft—and her whoop of triumph was an eagle's shriek as she pulled out.

She roared into the north with wings swept for maximum speed and Paul in pursuit, and Saganami Island, site of the RMN's naval academy for over two and a half Manticoran centuries, grew below the aircraft's needle nose like a sunstruck emerald, rich with memories as she shot toward it at Mach six.

Honor was no stranger to salt water. She'd been born within sight and smell of Sphinx's Tannerman Ocean—in spite of which, Ms. Midshipman Harrington had found the Academy took some getting used to. The twenty-five percent lower gravity had made her feel wonderfully light on her feet, but Saganami Island lay at the mouth of Silver Gulf. The deep, glittering inlet which linked Jason Bay and the Southern Ocean was just twenty-six degrees below the capital planets equator, and Manticore was near the inner edge of its primary's liquid-water zone while Sphinx lay barely inside its outermost limit. The fact that the Academy was on an island had helped, yet she'd taken weeks to adjust to the unending, enervating warmth.

Once she had, of course, she'd gone overboard in enjoying it. She could still remember the hideous sunburn she'd managed to inflict upon herself despite all warnings. Once had been enough, especially when poor Nimitz—still grappling with his own adaptation to the change in climate—had been forced to endure it with her via their link. Chastened but wiser for the experience, she'd explored her new environment with more caution and soon found that sailing tropical waters was just as much fun as roaming the colder, rougher seas of home. And the updrafts had made hang gliding almost as glorious as, if less excitingly treacherous than, those of Sphinx's Copper Wall Mountains. She and Nimitz had spent endless hours of precious free time soaring above the gulfs magnificent blue waters with a fine disdain for the emergency counter-grav units native Manticorans insisted on hauling along just in case.