“I don’t know if they understand exactly how it happened even now, but they know it was the result of a human attack. Personally, I wouldn’t have blamed them for turning their backs on all humans, but that’s not the way treecats’ heads work. Apparently they’ve been passing around Nimitz’s experiences with you, and especially what happened with Lieutenant Mears, for some time now. And, according to Song Shadow, they’ve overheard at least part of the newscasts about President Pritchart and Dr. Simões; some of the SFC rangers were viewing the news channels during a medical visit to Moonlight Dancing. They’ve figured out Nimitz and Samantha must’ve actually met Simões, and the clans want them to come home for the memory singers to get their first-hand experience with his mind-glow, but I think that’s just a formality. They figure that if he were lying, or if he were crazy, Nimitz would already’ve told you. For that matter, they know you can sense emotions. So there’s not much question in their minds that Simões is telling the truth…or that Mesa is behind everything that’s happened.”

“I’m glad they don’t blame us for it, although God knows I sometimes do,” Honor said somberly. “I still don’t understand why they wanted to come see you in person, though. For that matter, I don’t see how Song Shadow got the word all the way from Bright Water that they did! Nothing I’ve ever seen has suggested they’ve got enough range to reach halfway around a planet.”

“I’m pretty sure they relayed from clan to clan,” Arif said. “And the reason they wanted to see me is that Sorrow Singer has a proposal.”

“A ‘proposal’?” Honor’s eyes narrowed. “What sort of ‘proposal’?”

“She wants to tell you herself,” Arif replied, and a slender, dappled brown and white form jumped into her lap and into her com’s field of view. The treecat sat up on her rearmost limbs, facing the com, her eyes and body language somber. She looked so small, so fragile, Honor thought, feeling the tears at the back of her own eyes.

“Sorrow Singer?” she asked softly, and the treecat nodded.

Honor wanted to reach out and hug that distant ’cat. To share with her the depth of her own grief for what had happened to Sorrow Singer’s clan. Her sense of guilt that humans—any humans—could have caused such an atrocity. But she couldn’t, and so she simply bent her head in a small half bow of acknowledgment.

Sorrow Singer inclined her own head in response. Then her hands rose, and she began to sign with a flowing grace that somehow communicated a bottomless sea of sadness.