Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young

cthia wrote:My drunken wiki informant informed me that Michelle was the one who reported Pavel's attempted rape of Honor to Commandant Hartley, though I don't rightly recollect that detail. And since I don't recall the particulars makes me question why Henke would do that w/o Honor's permission, which I'd guess she didn't have. It was a bit personal, though I know Henke did it for Honor's own good.

S'thing else on my APB list next read.

Robert_A_Woodward wrote:

cthia wrote:My drunken wiki informant informed me that Michelle was the one who reported Pavel's attempted rape of Honor to Commandant Hartley, though I don't rightly recollect that detail. And since I don't recall the particulars makes me question why Henke would do that w/o Honor's permission, which I'd guess she didn't have. It was a bit personal, though I know Henke did it for Honor's own good.

S'thing else on my APB list next read.

Michelle discusses this in Chapter 4 of _The Short Victorious War_, about 3/4ths of the way in.

Chapter 4 Short Victorious War wrote:-snip-

"Maybe. But if I know you, you ratted to the rest of the wardroom about it—probably through your faithful minion here—didn't you?" Henke demanded with a wave at MacGuiness. Honor looked innocent, and the commander groaned. "Yes, you did. And that means they're waiting to pounce with that stupid song! Damn it, Honor, you know I've got perfect pitch! Have you ever heard Ivan Ravicz try to sing?" She shuddered, and Honor turned a laugh into a hasty cough.

"I'm sure you'll survive," she soothed. "On the other hand, that's only one of the things I'm celebrating. We've got our orders, Mike."

"Oh?" Henke straightened in her chair and set her cup aside, levity vanquished by sudden interest.

"Indeed. Being in all respects ready for deployment, HMS Nike is directed to Hancock Station, there to take aboard Rear Admiral of the Red Mark Sarnow as flagship of Battlecruiser Squadron Five."

"Hancock Station as a squadron flagship—and a newly formed squadron at that, hey? Well, well, well," Henke murmured, and her dark eyes gleamed. "Not too shabby. And from what I hear, Sarnow should keep things lively."

"If he lives up to his reputation," Honor agreed. "I've never met him, but I've heard good things about him. And I know at least one member of his staff quite well."

"Oh? Which one?"

"His communications officer was my com officer in Basilisk. Lieutenant Commander Webster."

"Webster," Henke repeated thoughtfully "Would that be Sir James' cousin, or his grand-nephew?"

"Nephew. He's young, but he doesn't owe his rank to his relatives. I think you'll like him."

"If he does his job as well as his uncle, I probably will," Henke agreed, then smiled. "And, speaking of relatives, I've got one serving in Hancock, too."

"Really?"

"Yes. My cousin—fourth cousin, actually—is the repair base's exec." Henke cocked her head for a moment, regarding Honor with a quizzical expression. "As a matter of fact, you've met him."

"I have?" Honor was surprised. She'd met several of Henke's relatives—mostly exalted personages who'd dropped in to visit her on free days at Saganami Island—but she doubted any of them would be serving as an orbital base's executive officer.

"Uh-huh. You met him in Basilisk. Captain Paul Tankersley."

Honor tried—almost successfully—to keep her mouth from tightening in repugnance. Not, she told herself after the instant initial shock, that she had anything against Tankersley himself. To be honest, she hardly even remembered him. She tried to recall what he looked like, and frowned at the image's vagueness. Short, she thought, but square and solid looking. That was all that came to mind—that and his obvious discomfort at the situation he'd found himself in at the time.

"Paul told me about it," Henke said after a moment, breaking into her thoughts. "Or some of it, anyway. I think he'd have said more if he hadn't thought it would sound disloyal to an ex-CO. He's funny that way, even when the CO in question was Pavel Young."

This time Honor couldn't keep the cold, bleak hatred off her face, and her hand tightened about her cocoa mug in poisonous memory.

"You know," Henke went on, her voice carefully light, "you never did tell me what really happened that night."

"What?" Honor shook her head and blinked.

"I said, you never told me what really happened that night."

"Which night?"

"Oh, don't be silly, Honor! You know perfectly well which night." Henke sighed as Honor looked at her without expression. "The night," she explained, "when you beat the holy living hell out of Mr. Midshipman Lord Pavel Young. You do remember that night?"

"He fell down the stairs," Honor said almost automatically, and Henke snorted.

"Sure he did. That was why I found you hiding under the covers with Nimitz ready to go rip someone's face off!" Honor winced, remembering a time when Nimitz had done just that, but Henke didn't seem to notice. "Look, Honor, I know the official story. I also know it's bullshit, and in case no one's ever told you, there are all sorts of rumors floating around about it—especially since Basilisk."

"Rumors?" Honor set her mug down, feeling a sort of distant surprise as she saw the tremors in her fingers. "What rumors? I haven't heard anything about them!"

"Of course not. Who's going to breathe a word about them around you? But after the way he tried to stab you in the back at Basilisk, there aren't too many people who doubt them."

Henke leaned back, eyes steady, and Honor shifted uncomfortably under their weight. She'd done her level best never to reveal any hint of what had actually happened, and she'd hoped—more desperately than realistically, she thought now—that the story had finally died a natural death.

"All right," Henke said after a moment, "let me tell you what I think happened. I think the bastard tried to rape you, and you kicked his balls up between his ears. Yes?"

"I—" Honor stopped and took a sip of cocoa, then sighed. "More or less," she said at last.

"Well, for God's sake, why didn't you say so at the time?! Lord knows I tried to get it out of you, and I'm sure Commandant Hartley did, too!"

"You're right." Honor's soprano was uncharacteristically soft, almost inaudible, as she stared down into her mug. "I didn't realize it at the time, but he must have known. Or guessed. But I was just—" She broke off and inhaled deeply. "I felt so dirty, Mike. Like he'd soiled me somehow, just by touching me. I was . . . ashamed. Besides, he was an earl's son, and I wasn't even pretty. Who would have believed me?"

"I would have," Henke said quietly, "and so would Hartley. So would anyone who knew both of you and heard both sides of the story."

"Oh?" Honor's smile was crooked. "You would have believed the Earl of North Hollow's son tried to rape a hatchet-faced overgrown horse like me?"

Henke flinched inside at her friend's bitter tone but bit her tongue against a quick reply. She suspected very few people guessed how ugly Honor had thought she was at the Academy. And, in truth, she had been on the homely side then, but her sharp-planed face had matured into a clean-cut beauty in the years since. She wasn't "pretty," and she never would be, Henke thought, but she also had no idea how other women envied her unique bone structure and dark, exotically slanted eyes. Her face had a mobile, expressive aliveness, despite the slight stiffness of its left side, and she didn't even know it. Yet the pain in her eyes now wasn't for her supposed homeliness. It was for the girl she had been, not the woman she was. And, Henke knew, for the way she'd betrayed that girl by not seeking justice for her.

"Yes," she said softly. "I would have believed you. As a matter of fact, that was pretty much what I thought had happened at the time. That's why I went to Hartley."

"You went to Hartley?!" Honor's eyes widened, and Henke shrugged uncomfortably.

"I was worried about you—and I was fairly sure you weren't going to come forward with the truth. So, yeah, I told him what I thought happened."

Honor stared at her, and her memory replayed the agonizing scene in the commandant's office, the way he'd almost begged her to tell him what had really happened, and she wished—again—that she had.

"Thank you," she said softly. "You're right. I should have spoken up. They might've have broken him if I had . . . but I didn't think about all that then, and it's too late now. Besides—" she squared her shoulders and inhaled again "—he finally got his."

"Yes and no," Henke countered gently. "His reputation's shot to hell, and he knows it, but he's still in the service. And he's still on active duty."

"Family influence." Honor gave a ghost of a smile, and Henke nodded.

"Family influence. I guess none of us who have it can really help using it, whether we want to or not. I mean, everyone knows who we are, and there's always someone who wants us to owe them a favor, even if we never asked for it. But North Hollow—" She shook her head distastefully. "People like him make me sick. Even if you weren't my friend, I would have loved to see Young busted. Hell, with a little luck, he might even have drawn brig time, but—" Henke's mouth quirked "—I forgive you. It's hard, you understand, but I guess I'm just naturally big-hearted."

"Gee, thanks," Honor said, relieved by the lightening tone of the conversation, and Henke grinned.

"Don't mention it. But I think you should know that Paul never did like Young, and he likes him a lot less now. As far as I can tell, it's mutual, too. Something about Paul's helping the brass deliberately sabotage his refit so Warlock didn't get back to Basilisk in time to keep you from making him look like the stupid sack of shit he is."

"What? I never knew that was deliberate!"

"Paul never said it was, but he sure did something Admiral Warner liked. They pulled him out of Warlock and transferred him to Hephaestus before you were even back from Basilisk, and he's been playing yard dog ever since. He's up to captain junior grade now, and Daddy tells me they're probably going to sneak him onto the list sometime soon. But don't you dare tell him I told you that!" Henke said with a sudden, ferocious frown. "He'd be madder than hell if he thought someone was pulling strings for him."

"Is someone?"

"Not as far as I know. Or, at any rate, not any more than they do for anyone they think is good at his job. So don't breathe a word to him."

"My lips are sealed. Not that I expect to have much opportunity to exchange confidences with him."

cthia wrote:Michelle discusses this in Chapter 4 of _The Short Victorious War_, about 3/4ths of the way in.

Fox2! wrote:

cthia wrote:Now for either a blue ribbon of a question or a dunce cap, whichever comes first in merit.

What demon actually possessed Pavel Young to make him seek a career in the navy?

1. It provided a place to spend his time waiting for his father to die, so he could inherit the seat in Lords

2. It would provide the foundation for him to build a platform as a "Naval Expert" and be able to steer graft into the CA (and North Hollow) coffers.

3. It provided large numbers of menials to bow and scrape before so magnificent a presence, in both his social status and his military rank. Remember that a ship commander, especially on a distant station, is the next thing to God and the Sovereign as far as his crew is concerned.

WeirdlyWired wrote:1) Two-legs have always baffled The People. All the customs and rituals, "diplomacy" ...

2) Honor's self-image as an ugly cow, especially compared to her mother, coupled with the difference in social status, the inevitable "he said, she said" all conspired in her mind to disuade her from speaking up.

cthia wrote:1) Yes, but in the present discussion, the geiger counter is set to detect the bonding's effect on a human, Honor, and how Nimitz and his species' overall worldview would affect how a human, in this case Honor, assimilates her dilemma. A bonded human is always in a treecat's "peripheral vision." The human is always being watched. A human loses one very important intangible -- that of privacy. The need for privacy is synonymous with being human and is a basic need -- in complete opposition to a treecat and a treecat's world.

Rest in peace Joan Rivers. I miss you. But can we talk? Can we talk?...

To explain it without a doubt, a human should find it quite difficult to masturbate after becoming bonded.

<I know what you've been doing. I can appreciate your trying to hide the fact from me somewhere in your intense concentration. But you've got that same old shit eating grin on your face as you always do when you're avoiding eye contact -- even without the alarm being sounded in your mind-glow that's screaming at me>

There's an implied relationship that a reader can miss. Treecats are not pets, but they are constantly in your sphere, like pets but totally unlike what another human would be allowed to do. We take a break from our friends, our lovers, our spouses and our parents. If not, someone would always be there to judge us or make us feel self-conscious. Yet a treecat, a person not unlike a human — even worse since they can peer inside your mind via your emotions — is always present. "Seeing" with inhuman-like clarity your every move and misstep.

IOW, being bonded means there is always someone in your business.

The light that you shined on how a bond might effect a treecat in conjunction with being confused about two-legged weirdness is in chapter two, but just as important.

2) Under the surface I find Honor's "ugly cow syndrome" hard to swallow as well.

a) She wasn't ugly. She was simply in a weird place in the prolong stage, hardly an uncommon phenomena.

b) Even though she couldn't sense other peoples emotions around her then, Nimitz could. And it would have been obvious in short order after spending so much time with Nimitz when he was perturbed by someone for thinking bad thoughts about her.

c) No one ever told Honor she wasn't beautiful.

drunken wiki wrote:The files included information concerning Baron High Ridge's involvement with the Jordan Cartel, as well as a detailed account of the actions of the cabal that planned the Assassination of Roger III Winton. (HH4, HHA2.3: QG)

Louis R wrote:The parallels between Manticore and Georgian Great Britain run much deeper than just ships that engage in broadside combat behind great walls of 'gunsmoke'.

One of them is that to people like the Youngs, there is a very limited range of acceptable occupations for the Earl and his heir: politics and/or government, Crown service or, just maybe, the Law. But most certainly not, you may be sure, busying themselves with the source of their wealth. Having a wastrel layabout for an heir wouldn't really be an acceptable option for Dmitri, so employment is a necessity. Politics, of course, is the Earl's preserve, and I have trouble imagining that even North Hollow could get Pavel taken on in the diplomatic service, or anywhere else where the Crown takes an interest. I'm inclined to suspect that law would be too plebian a profession in the Honorverse, but even if it wasn't the mind boggles at the thought of Pavel Young in that role, so since it appears the Youngs have a tradition of Naval service it was the Navy for him. [In Manticore, unlike Great Britain, it's the Navy that's the more prestigious Service, so it wouldn't be the Army]

Dmitri's takeaway is that his heir is suitably engaged in the Crown's service while waiting his turn at the helm. [or trough, if you prefer, but don't say it where the CA can hear you]

Fox2! wrote:

cthia wrote:Now for either a blue ribbon of a question or a dunce cap, whichever comes first in merit.

What demon actually possessed Pavel Young to make him seek a career in the navy?

1. It provided a place to spend his time waiting for his father to die, so he could inherit the seat in Lords

2. It would provide the foundation for him to build a platform as a "Naval Expert" and be able to steer graft into the CA (and North Hollow) coffers.

3. It provided large numbers of menials to bow and scrape before so magnificent a presence, in both his social status and his military rank. Remember that a ship commander, especially on a distant station, is the next thing to God and the Sovereign as far as his crew is concerned.

Epiphanous moment!

cthia wrote:Certainly I am not expected to believe that Honor never masturbated, especially considering her lack of—how did Dmitri put it? Well, loosely paraphrasing—"a buck to rut between her legs."