“Well, I don’t see any reason to try to convince her to tonight,” Katherine said after a glance at Elaine.

“I didn’t mean she won’t want to put him down tonight,” Allison told her wryly. “I meant she’s not going to want to put him down ever. Physical contact is very important to both sides of an adoption bond, particularly one where the human half is this young, and especially during the initial several months. I thought Nimitz had been grafted onto Honor for the first T-year or so!”

“Oh, my,” Katherine sighed on a very different note.

“And another thing, you’ll have to warn the adults who’re likely to enter her orbit to keep an eye on their own emotions.” Elaine looked at her sharply, and Allison shrugged. “For the most part, a ’cat makes a wonderful babysitter. No abusive personality is going to be able to fool him, and your family knows better than most how effective a protector a treecat can be.” Both Mayhews nodded at that, and Allison shrugged again. “Unfortunately, ’cats are also very sensitive to emotions directed at their persons… or that they think might end up directed at their persons. Which means that he’s going to be very tense around people who are angry in Rachel’s presence, whether it’s at her or something with no connection to her at all. And finally, you’re going to have some very interesting experiences when she enters puberty.”

Katherine’s eyes widened, and Allison chuckled.

“No, no. As far as I’ve ever been able to determine, ’cats have no interest at all in their people’s, um, amatory adventures. But they’re empaths. When all those hormonal mood swings start hitting her, both of them are going to be irritable as hell. The only good thing about it is that by our best estimate Hipper is about fifty T-years old. That means he’s about the age Nimitz was when he adopted Honor. It also means he’s got a lot more maturity than Rachel does, and if he’s anything like Nimitz was, he won’t put up with his person’s whining at all. Not a minor consideration with a teenager, I think.”

“Oh, dear.” It was Elaine this time, yet there was a bubble of laughter under her sigh, and she shook her head. Then she sobered. “Actually, that may be the least of our worries, Cat,” she said quietly. “What about the other girls?”

“Jealousy?” Allison asked, equally quietly, her eyes back on Rachel and Hipper. Rachel’s sisters were coming forward now, going to their knees around her while Jason and Andromeda looked on with bright, interested eyes. Alfred and Benjamin stood to one side, talking softly, and she smiled, then looked back at the Mayhew wives.

“Honor was an only child, so my experiences were undoubtedly different from what yours are going to be, but I don’t think that will be a problem,” she assured them.

“Why not?” Katherine asked.

“Because Hipper is a ’cat,” Allison explained. “He’s an empath. He’ll be able to feel their emotions as well as Rachel’s, and that’s one of the very best things about childhood adoptions. They may be rare, but they’re very good for the child, because their ’cat teaches them to be sensitive to the feelings of others. You’ll want to keep an eye on her for a few weeks or so, of course. Even the best kids can get smug and start thinking of themselves as better than anyone else when something this special happens, and the bond is going to take a couple of months to start settling. She could really put the other girls’ backs up in that interval, with all kinds of long-term consequences. But unless something like that happens—and I don’t think it will—Hipper is going to spend an awful lot of time playing with the others, too.” She shook her head with a grin. “For that matter, he’s going to think he’s in ’cat heaven when he realizes he has four of them to spoil him rotten!”