her interest in naval history. Maybe it was the way the Star Kingdom's dependence on the commerce pouring through the Manticoran Wormhole Junction made the Navy such a vital part of its life and prosperity. Maybe she was just fascinated by the thought of distant suns and planets, different people and cultures. Or maybe it was all just a romantic fantasy that she'd grow out of quickly once she experienced the reality. All she knew was that she'd read and viewed every scrap of naval history—all the way back to when warships had floated in water back on Old Earth, before humanity ever ventured beyond atmosphere the first time—she could get her hands on for as long as she could remember. And she knew—knew—she wanted a starship's deck beneath her feet in the service of her king. It was . . . important to her in some way she'd never been able to articulate clearly, even to herself.
But she would miss mornings like this one, she thought, looking around her and trying to absorb the essence of Sphinx through her pores. This was where she came from, this was who she'd grown up being, the place that would always be there at the center of her memories. She knew that even some of her fellow Sphinxians, far less people who'd been born and raised on Manticore, probably thought of people like her and her family as backwoodsmen. Rubes who weren't quite civilized, or they wouldn't let twelve-year-olds wander around the woods packing guns. Most of them came from cities, however, and Honor regarded anyone doomed to that sort of existence with a kind of bemused tolerance, even pity. People who thought that way shouldn't be allowed to wander around the woods where they might get hurt. That meant they would never enjoy a morning like this, though, and the loss was theirs.
Oh, stop it! she told herself with a grin. Yeah, you'll be headed off to the Academy in another four or five T-years. So what? It's only a few hours either way between Manticore and Sphinx, so it's not like you won't be able to get home for visits, now is it? And Daddy didn't exactly shake the dust of Sphinx forever from his feet when he joined the Marines, did he? Everybody grows up, and everybody has to decide where to go and what to do with their lives. At least you've already got a pretty good idea what you're going to do with yours.
She gave herself a mental shake and checked the GPS on her uni-link. Her father had insisted that she learn to find her way around with only a compass—uni-links, he'd pointed out, could be broken or lost, as could compasses, now that he thought about it, so while she was at it, why didn't she notice which side of the trees the moss grew on, too?—but she personally had no objection to knowing exactly where she was. And where she was happened to be a full three kilometers short of her destination, so she'd better get a move on.
* * *
Sharp Nose observed.
Laughs Brightly replied, sending his brother a mental picture of this same stretch of woodland from turnings' past.
Sharp Nose paused, the sensitive nose which had earned him his name pointed in the indicated direction. He cocked his head, looking very carefully, then twitched his whiskers.
he acknowledged.
Laughs Brightly's tail reached up to curl around a branch above his head and he swung himself up to a higher perch, gripping it with hand-feet and true-feet while one true-hand groomed his own whiskers.