Damn.

“With your permission, Your Grace?” she said, and Lady Harrington nodded.

“On your way, Ms. Zilwicki,” she said with a slight smile, and Helen jogged off towards her waiting instructor.

· · • · ·

Honor watched the youthful midshipwoman disappear, and her smile broadened. She approved of Ms. Zilwicki. Not that it was surprising that the young woman should have turned out as well as she had… and not just because her mother had been a genuine hero. Few PMVs had been harder earned than that of Captain Helen Zilwicki, but that had been when young Helen was only a child. The father was the place to look for the full flowering of the daughter’s strength, and over the last few T-years, Honor had gotten a better chance than most to appreciate just how strong that father was. And the reason Helen never doubted that she could do anything she set her mind to.

In fact, Honor often wished that she’d had a bit more of Helen’s confidence, if that was the right word, at the same age. She’d tasted enough of the youngster’s emotions through her empathic link with Nimitz to feel quite certain Helen would never have reacted the same way Honor had when Pavel Young had attempted to rape her. Well, after Young’s rape attempt, anyway, Honor corrected herself. At the actual moment, she would undoubtedly have done precisely what Honor had done, and possibly even more thoroughly than Honor had, judging from her scores in unarmed combat training. But later, when she’d had time to think about it, Helen would never even have considered not telling the Academy commandant what had happened.

If I’d been a bit more like her at her age, Honor reflected, my life would have been completely different. And Paul would still be alive. She felt a familiar stir of loss and the echo of grief and inhaled sharply.

Yes, he’d still be alive. But I’d never have met him-not the same way, at least, she reminded herself.

She allowed herself a moment longer to recall all she and Paul Tankersley had been to one another, and then she put the memory gently away once more and followed Andrew toward the range officer’s counter to sign in.

Technically, the letter of Grayson law required that she be accompanied by an absolute minimum of two armsmen wherever she went, and she knew LaFollet was far from reconciled to her decision to reduce her normal personal detachment to just himself here on the Island. Truth to tell, she’d been a little surprised when she realized how much she resented that reduction herself, even though it had been her own idea. Of course, her reasons for resenting it weren’t quite the same as Andrew’s. It was part of his job description to be hyperconscious of any potential threat at all times and in all places, and he was profoundly unhappy at the way it reduced his ability to guarantee her safety. Personally, Honor felt reasonably confident no assassins skulked in the shrubbery of Saganami Island, but she’d long since given up any hope that LaFollet’s institutional paranoia would allow them to see eye-to-eye on that particular point.