''Is this Sam?'' was the queen's first question.
''This is the one, Grandmama,'' Aholo said, putting her hand in her great-grandmother's.
With an effort, the old woman reached across with her other hand to take the young man's hand and pulled it forward to rest on Aholo's. ''May the sun and the sea smile upon the two of you and your children,'' she said, then lay back exhausted.
The two youths knelt beside her bed, young hands in hands, resting on the withered parchment of a hand that had seen so much of human history.
''And you, Princess Longknife, you have found your warrior's face, I see,'' the queen said, rousing herself. Kris knelt by the other side of the bed and took that ancient hand. But the queen squinted into the shadows. Kris wondered what she sought.
''Aren't you a Santiago?'' the queen whispered.
''Sandy Santiago. I skipper the Halsey,'' its Captain said as she came to kneel beside Kris.
''Oh, good. So Kris has found a Santiago to save her ass. With a good person like you to cover her back, maybe she'll live to be as old as that rascal Ray.''
''I'll see what I can do,'' Sandy said in promise.
The eyes closed. The breathing slowed and became irregular. The wrinkled hands would have collapsed back onto the bed were they not held by loving hands on both sides.
KRIS, I AM GETTING A CALL FROM THE MAYOR OF STANLEY. THEY HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET A CALL THROUGH TO THE QUEEN, BUT THE DOCTOR WILL NOT PUT THEM THROUGH. HE SAYS HE THINKS HA'IKU'LANI WILL DIE HAPPY IF SHE HEARS THIS.
''Your Majesty, can you hear me?'' Kris whispered.
There was a fluttering of eyelids.
''We freed the hostages, but the delegates insisted on staying to do what they came to do, giving Hikila a new government, one that will last.'' Was that a smile adding to the lines on the old woman's face?
''Would you like to hear what they have done?'' Behind Aholo, the doctor was waving, No, no. Eyelids seemed to flutter Yes.
Kris raised an eyebrow and a question to Aholo. Tears ran down the princess's face as she nodded. NELLY, PUT THEM THROUGH.
''Your Highness,'' the mayor of Brisbane began softly and without preamble, ''we assembled here are proud to present you with a first draft of our efforts. There will be many devils to tame in the details, but we propose to structure our government around ports. Thirty ports in the Islands and seventy on the Mainland. We will have two bodies in our legislature. The House will be elected based on population, but each port will have at least one representative. The Senate will have two people elected from each port and must approve all important votes by 60 percent.
''We recognize that such a distribution does not guarantee that the Islands can block something they strongly oppose. We have agreed to give the queen a veto of any legislation that she thinks goes to the heart of the Island culture for twenty years. A mere majority vote can continue that veto in twenty-year increments. We hope this meets your wishes.''
Aholo squeezed Sam's hand and her queen's. ''I doubt that I will ever have need of exercising that authority,'' she whispered, her voice choked her with contesting emotions.
The smile seemed to deepen, but then the mouth fell open, and it was clear that the deathwatch had begun.
''The queen, my mother's grandmother, smiles her thanks, but now I beg you leave us to a very private time.''
The Brisbane Constitutional Assembly bowed off-line with expressions of sympathy. Kris watched Aholo for a sign that she was included in that dismissal, but none came. Her own father's grandfather had sent her here to hold a war buddy's hand.
God knew, Kris had killed men and women in the last year. She'd watched the results of what she'd done and, while it turned her stomach, she regretted none of it.
But this was different. Old and failing, still the queen's body refused to give up the fight for each breath, each heartbeat. Kris found herself wanting to refuse the finality of this, to order the doctor forward, to do something, anything.
Through it all, Aholo knelt there, tears softly making their way down her cheeks. Finally, she bent to kiss a cheek. ''Go, Grandmama. Go to the sea where the wind is always fair and the sun never fails.''
The funeral was the next day, with all local Islanders in attendance. The funeral bier was Afa's canoe. Since the tradition of just setting the body to drift on the sea tended to draw sharks, the Islanders had borrowed a page from another book and included firewood on the canoe. They fired it as it drifted out of the lagoon and let it burn.
The queen's head, of course, was handed over to the elder women for honors. On the anniversary of her death, Queen Aholo would install it with her own hands in the niche reserved for it in the Long House.
Kris did attend the coronation of Queen Ha'iku'aholo … both coronations. One at Nui Nui and a second at Port Brisbane before the Constitutional Assembly, where there were still demons of various size and nastiness being wrestled to the ground and dehorned. It was agreed that the vote to approve the new constitution and join United Sentients would be on the same ballot.
Kris attended the coronations as a representative of United Sentients, in dress whites. She found herself looking at the Islanders longingly and pulling on her choke collar more than once. She was also there when Queen Aholo explained to Sam's dad that the simple blessing that her grandmama had passed over them was all that was needed for a wedding among the Islanders.
Aholo demonstrated superb diplomacy when she had a more traditional Mainland wedding appended to her Mainland coronation. There wasn't a dry eye in the Brisbane Convention Center, the only place large enough to hold the show.
There being something contagious about weddings, before Aholo's, Kris found herself with Afa explaining to the young man that she really appreciated his offer to move with her to the Big Island and accept her as a business partner, but she really wasn't prepared, just now, to marry him… ''or anyone else.''
''My good name is slandered on Wardhaven. I have to return to face those charges,'' Kris reminded him.
''Maybe you'll come back then.''
She left it at that.
The voyage back to Wardhaven was almost fun. The Halsey's crew was in full celebration mode. Clearly, they ruled. Their time, from drop to last shot, if you started the clock from when the Zodiacs hit, had to be the best, rated per dead terrorist body, that anyone had done in eighty years. And since it had been a Navy and Marine team, the whole crew was riding high.
Kris got the skipper's approval on the scope and range of her medal proposals before she had Nelly start the write-ups, then when Nelly finished so well, and so soon, offered to have Nelly pitch in on the rest. Kris had yet to meet a Naval officer who enjoyed paperwork, so it was no surprise when Sandy jumped at the help.
That left them more time to join in the wardroom talks over coffee. Now, nothing was off limits, and all topics were fun.
But Kris saved the most tactful one for a drop by the captain's private cabin. ''Why'd you chose to back me up?''
Sandy put aside a reader. ''You had a good plan.''
''I had a good plan when I left the ship. Why did you wait to back me up until I was standing there at the gate of hell?''
The Halsey's skipper took in a deep breath and blew it out. ''Because I needed to see if you were just good at shoving my sailors out there onto the tip of the spear or if you'd be out there yourself, leading the way. You may have noticed lots of people can talk the talk. Don't meet many who match it with the walk, do you?''
''No,'' Kris agreed. ''But it sure would have saved me a bit of tummy lining if I'd known you were coming. Might have had Abby bake you a cake.''
''With what in it? Who is that woman?''
Kris shrugged.