“No doubt,” he said, still in that flat tone, and Honor felt the anger grinding about in him like boulders. This man had learned to hate. His hatred might not rule him, but it was a part of him—had been for so many years that his belief she was StateSec was interfering with his thinking.

“Look,” she said, “you and I need to talk—talk, Commodore. We can help each other, and with luck, I believe, we may even be able to get off this planet completely. But for any of that to happen, you have to at least consider the possibility that my men and I are not Peeps.”

“Not Peeps, but you just happen to turn up in Black Leg uniform, with Peep weapons, on a planet only the Peeps know how to find,” he said. “Of course you aren’t.”

Honor stared at him for ten fulminating seconds, and then threw up her arm in exasperation.

“Yes, that’s exactly right!” she snapped. “And if you weren’t as stubborn, mule-headed, and hard to reason with as your son, you’d 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, I’ve met your wife, Rosario, and Elena and Josepha, as well.”

“Tomas—” he whispered, then blinked and shook himself. “You know little Tomacito?”

“He’s hardly ‘little’ anymore,” Honor said dryly. “In fact, he’s pretty close to your size. Shorter, but you and he both favor stone walls, don’t you? And he’s 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 can’t be more surprised to meet me than I am to meet you. Your family has believed you were dead ever since the Peeps took Trevor’s 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 Ramirez’ Captain Benson was talking about as soon as I heard the name. If Tomas were on this planet, I’m sure he’d have ended up in Camp Inferno, too. But who would’ve 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 under—and in—which she had spent the day.

“Have a seat in my office here, and I’ll 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 People’s 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 People’s Republic and all its works with an unswerving devotion that sometimes seemed to verge just a bit too closely upon obsession for Honor’s peace of mind.