"David Weber - Honor 09 - Ashes of Victory" - читать интересную книгу автора (Weber David)

gift, the higher the price it carried. Deep inside, in the secret places where
logic seldom treads, Honor Harrington had always believed that, and she'd
realized over the last two years that this was the price she must pay for her
bond with Nimitz. No other 'cat-human bonding had ever been so close, ever
spilled across to the actual communication of emotions, and the depth of her
fusion with her beloved companion was worth any price.

Even this one, she told herself. Even the knowledge that Hamish Alexander
loved her and of what might have been had the universe been a different place.
Yet just as he would never tell her, she would never tell him . . . and was
she blessed or cursed by the fact that, unlike him, she would always know what
he had never said?

"Thank you, My Lord," Lady Dame Honor Harrington said, and her soprano was
cool and clear as spring water, shadowed only by the slight slurring imposed
by the crippled side of her lips. "It's good to be home."



CHAPTER TWO

White Haven's pinnace, unlike the ones which had followed it into the boat
bay, was almost empty when it left. He and Honor, as befitted their seniority,
sat in the two seats closest to the hatch, but those seats were a virtual
island, surrounded by emptiness as their juniors gave them space. Andrew
LaFollet, Honor's personal armsman, sat directly behind them, and Lieutenant
Robards, White Haven's flag lieutenant, sat two rows back from there, with
Warner Caslet, Carson Clinkscales, Solomon Marchant, Jasper Mayhew, Scotty
Tremaine, and Senior Chief Horace Harkness scattered out behind him. Alistair
McKeon should have been there, but he had remained behind with Jesus Ramirez,
Honor's second-in-command, to help organize the transfer of her Elysians to
the planetary surface.

She really ought to have stayed aboard Farnese and organized that transfer
herself, but White Haven had been politely insistent about the need to get her
and her story on their joint way to higher authority. So Alistair had remained
behind, along with the other survivors who'd been with her since their capture
in Adler, and she glanced over her shoulder one more time at the handful of
people who would accompany her on the next stage of her journey, then returned
her attention to the man seated beside her.

It was easier than it had been. One thing about moments of tempestuous
emotion, she'd discovered: they simply could not be sustained. Indeed, the
stronger they were, the faster it seemed people had to step back to gather
their inner breath if they intended to cope with their lives. Which,
fortunately, both she and White Haven did. The murmuring undercurrent
remained, flowing between them even if she was the only one who could sense
it, but it was bearable. Something she could deal with, if not ignore.

Sure it is. I'll just keep telling myself that.