municipal suburb community of the Harrington family home), County Duvalier, in the Duchy of Shadow Vale on the planet Sphinx, in the Manticore binary star system. Sphinx is the second inhabited planet with a long slow orbital year and long seasons orbiting around the star 'Manticore A' of the three inhabited planets of Star Kingdom of Manticore, located much farther out in the liquid water zone than the planet Manticore, which is nearer the inner margin of inhabitable zone, whereas the third inhabited world Gryphon orbits 'Manticore B'. Her ancient house and the Harrington family seat dates back to the second migration and first settlements of Sphinx and is located near the city of Yawata Crossing, which will become nearly destroyed by huge pieces of the destroyed space station, HMSS Vulcan, during the sneak attack by the Mesan Alignment in 4025 AD (1922 PD). She is the daughter of neurosurgeon Alfred Harrington and physician/geneticist Allison Benton-Ramirez y Chou Harrington, both with towering renown and fame of their own among the Manticore and Beowulf medical establishments; and her father is known to have one of the most beneficial and dominant genetically modified gene variations that he has passed onto Honor. A former officer in Manticore's Naval Medical system, he is well regarded by the Manticore admiralty as well. Class background Socially, by virtue of her father's ancestry, she is born a yeoman—meaning that she is a descendant of paying settlers of the second wave of settlement of the Star Kingdom of Manticore, not a member of the nobility—who for the most part can claim descent from the first colonists who invested in the joint venture purchasing settlement rights to the new system and who subsequently underwrote the migration of that first wave of colonists in slow ships to Manticore. Yeomen are socially ranked above a "zero balancer"—someone who could not afford to buy passage to Manticore during the second 'faster than light' migration wave, nor had valuable skills that the colonial government persuaded to immigrate with favorable terms, but whom the administration offered passage with a term of indenture required to pay back the colony. Officially, yeomen have ancestors whose skills were in enough demand that Manticore paid their way. Her mother is a direct immigrant from the long-established planet Beowulf, one of Earth's first colonies, which is known for its leading research and expertise in the life sciences, and it