"My thanks."
With that, Hovan and Tarlac left the bridge, going to the meal hall to wait the hour or so that was "half a tenth-day." Once they were settled with mugs of hot chovas, Tarlac said, "You must have one hell of a lot of clan status."
"Enough," Hovan said with a smile. "I have six younglings shared, and I have an officer been for almost a year. That does status bring, near what Ch'kara's oldest male enjoys, close to Ka'ruchaya Yarra and she who for the Lords speaks, Daria."
Well, Tarlac thought with amused chagrin, there went his last night's speculation about females being property. He must have been tireder than he'd thought—he should never have gotten that idea after Hovan had referred to a Clan Mother administering the death penalty! Oh, well. "If it's not prying, how old are you?"
"You will soon of Ch'kara be; no prying is. I thirty-five Homeworld years have, almost forty-six Imperial Standard. You?"
"Thirty-five too, but Standard."
Hovan made a quick calculation. "Twenty-seven, Homeworld. And you already a Ranger are? That hard to believe is. How?"
"It's not really a matter of age," Tarlac said. "They grab all of us young, on purpose. They got me when I applied for the Naval Academy and took that ungodly battery of tests. Those ran for a solid week, and by the time they were over I was beat—so tired it didn't even register when, late afternoon of the last day, someone knocked on the door of my room. But when the door opened anyway and I rolled over to see who the intruder was, I damn near fainted. Linda Ellman was standing in the doorway grinning at me, and I thought for a while I was dreaming. Rangers do have better things to do than show up in cadet-candidates' rooms, after all. It just doesn't happen.
"But she was there, and she invited me into the group. I'm not too sure what I said, because the next day I'd decided all over again that it was a dream. It wasn't until later in the morning, when she showed up again as we were getting ready for the swearing-in ceremony, that I started believing. Until then, I'd had every intention of staying in the Navy. When she asked if I'd reconsidered, though, I realized I couldn't pass up the chance, and I said yes.
"When I did, she smiled and said, 'We thought you would,' then pinned a badge on my cadet tunic and took me to the Palace to meet Emperor Yasunon. We were together for most of the next two years, with her giving me on-the-job training." Tarlac smiled, reminiscent. "That was a good time. But I gather things were different for you?"