Kris didn’t much care for that, but, per his authority over her, he could and did order it, and she had no choice but to follow her security chief. Again, Kris was reminded how much she did not like Grampa Trouble and Grampa Ray messing with her life.
By the time Kris finally rejoined the chief of her security detail, he had a whole lot of nothing to report.
“There’s not one active electronic device, one beating heart within a klick, maybe two,” Beni reported. He pulled an item from the top pocket of his battle armor, swung it around his head several times, then examined it. “No woodsmoke. I don’t think there’s so much as a candle burning in this town.”
Kris looked up the street to where the temple towered over the lower buildings. If she was going to find anything, it would be there. She was about to give that order when Beni spoke.
“Hold it; I got a heartbeat. It’s in that building,” he said, pointing to a two-story building that, like everything in sight, had a garden growing on its roof.
Kris held back on the order; now might be a good time to let things develop. A figure climbed the stairs out of the building’s basement. Like the people Kris had seen on their last stop, this one wore a kind of toga. Only as he made his way carefully toward Kris could she make out that he was a man. A man looking often back over his shoulder.
About halfway to Kris’s perimeter, he started to jog as poorly as anyone middle-aged and out of practice. Kris, Jack, and Penny headed for him. Gunny came along with a squad of Marines.
As they approached him, he shouted in a harsh, out-of-breath voice, “You have to get out of here. And take me with you. Please, take me with you.”
“What’s going on here?” Kris demanded.
“No time to explain now. You must leave.”
“I’m getting heartbeats, a couple of them,” Beni shouted. “About half a klick farther out.”
“You have to leave. They’ll kill you. Kill me,” the fellow shouted as he joined them.
Now Kris recognized the man. “Prometheus? Aren’t you the official who was our first contact last time we were here?”
“Yes, yes I was. Now please, get back aboard your shuttles and go. And take me with you. Do it now, before they kill all of you.”
“Kill us?” Kris echoed. “I don’t think you understand the power we have.”
“They will kill you. And me, now.”
To add emphasis, a rifle spoke. The wind from its bullet buzzed by Kris’s cheek.
“Guard detail,” Gunny shouted, and a dozen Marines formed a shield wall in front of Kris with their armored bodies.
Three more rifle shots came in fast succession. A Marine went down, cursing, only to stand up and remove a large rifle slug from his shoulder armor.
“Snipers,” was all Jack said.
Four M-6s snapped off single rounds. It was too far to hear the results, but there were no more rifle shots. None.
“Back to the shuttles. I think we need to talk to this man before we try to talk to anyone else here,” Jack ordered.
“Assuming we do any talking here,” Penny added.
The retrograde movement was handled smartly by the Marines. Kris and her new best friend ended up strapped into the first shuttle off. The Wasp dropped the fourth shuttle, loaded for bear with bombs and guns, to cover the liftoff of the last launch, but it wasn’t needed. Once Kris and Prometheus were gone, the city went back to making a tomb seem like party time.
44
Kris let Chief Beni start the interrogation while their shuttle was still taxiing downriver to find a good takeoff run.
“How did you hide your heartbeat? How did those snipers keep themselves hidden?” he demanded.
“We may be crazy, but we are not stupid,” the man snapped back. “We spent forty years seeking ways to make ourselves invisible to the coming alien hordes. Don’t you think we can handle a few minor things like our heartbeats? We have electromagnetic blockers the rest of you haven’t dreamed of.”
The chief didn’t look like he believed that, but with the evidence so recently rubbed in his face, he fell silent.
“Why do we have to take you with us?” Kris asked.
“Isn’t that obvious?” the man sneered. “I am a rogue, worse than a nonbeliever. I have talked to you, whom the Guides have placed under interdict. My life is forfeit in the worst and slowest way possible. However, rather than let me escape or talk to you, they would let me die quickly, a bullet in the brain.”
“And what is it that you are not supposed to tell us?”
The man did not snap a quick reply to that question. He hunched down, seemed almost to shrink in his seat. When he finally spoke, it was hardly a whisper. “I really don’t know.”
When he made no effort to expand on that, Kris relaxed into her own seat. The shuttle went to full boost, discouraging conversation. Kris let it ride.
Xanadu was a puzzle. It had been so to start with. It was only getting worse as they got deeper into it.
It took two orbits to get all the teams back aboard. Prometheus sat huddled in on himself in her staff room, guards at the exits. He’d emptied his stomach on the way up; never in microgee before, it did not go well with him. Kris had a boffin doc look in on him. He prescribed a pill. The man took it, and a cup of water, but turned down food and drink.
Kris settled into her chair, as Jack and Gunny glided in last. Abby, Penny, and Captain Drago had been there first, followed quickly by Professor mFumbo, who made a point of reminding Kris that research had been promised the number-one priority next.
Kris had no time for squabbles. She was busy replaying the previous visit to Xanadu, trying to figure out this change. Yes, she’d played her cards heavy-handedly in the face of obstinate rejection from the Guides. That would account for the general reaction. But why was this man here? What had changed for him?
“When we last stopped,” Kris started slowly, “you and your son were our original contacts. Where is he?” Kris said, a guess. Maybe a shot in the dark.
“My son is gone,” the man whispered.
“Gone where?” Kris asked.
Now the man looked up at her, eyes misting. “I do not know. He’s gone. Not just out of town. He’s left Xanadu!”
“We found people from Xanadu on Pandemonium,” Penny said.
The man just shook his head. “You don’t understand. Lucifer didn’t run away. He left Xanadu with the Blessings of the Guides. That doesn’t happen. He left with three dozen young men and women. Together. All with Blessings. Never have the Guides done that. And they took their burial shrouds with them. Shrouds and a handful of dirt from our family garden. They will not come back alive.” Now he raised his eyes to Kris’s.
“Not unless you can do something to save my son. Will you? Please don’t tell me that I’ve thrown away everything I hold dear to save my son, and you won’t help me.”
The temptation to give a snap, “Yes, of course,” was hard on Kris’s lips. But throwaway words would be a travesty in the face of this father’s begging. He’d given up everything he believed in for his own flesh and blood. If Kris made him a promise, she’d better be willing to redeem it with the same coin.
Kris looked around. While Prometheus had been talking, Colonel Cortez drifted in and pulled himself down into a chair near the door. He took in the man’s grief with sad eyes.
Jack, however, showed what she saw on most faces. This man was a nutcase. He might have just walked away from a can of nuts, but just why was much open to doubt and not worth anyone’s blood.
That was it. The Marines had just paid a high price for a planet’s freedom. This man would have to trump that if he wanted them to take a bullet for him.
Kris measured her next words with a laser range finder. “Mr. Prometheus, let me see if I understand you.” The man locked eyes with her. Kris had often held people’s attention at political rallies, command meetings. She’d never held anyone’s attention as tightly as she did this man’s.
“You
r son has left Xanadu. Something that never happens.”
He nodded.
“He did so with a few dozen other youths on a mission for the Guides. A mission that they all believe will be suicidal.”
Again, the man in the toga nodded.
“But you have no idea what that mission is.”
Prometheus leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Correct,” he said, then added, “except that my son told me that they’d set the nonbelievers to such a war among themselves that the aliens would hardly find a dozen eyes to boil when they got here. He mentioned that once, then got quiet.” The man’s eyes lit up. “Could that help you?”
Jack shook his head. “Sir, human space has a hundred powder kegs just waiting to explode. Kris here has personally yanked a half dozen sputtering fuses out of as many kegs.”
The light went out of the eyes of the father.
“But,” Kris put in, “we are in the habit of chasing fuses and pissing on them. Hasn’t made us a lot of friends,” she said to a general chuckle around the room. “If your son has just become a fuse, or a set of tracks that will lead us to one of those fuses, I think you can count on us looking into this.”
“Can you save my son’s life?”
Kris reflected on the trail of death and gore she’d left over the four years of her Navy career. That sent a shiver down her spine. “I can try, sir, but I can’t promise anything.”
She glanced around her table. None would tell this father that he’d come to the right person to plead for someone’s life. People died around Kris. Friends, enemies, Kris was an equal-opportunity totem of death. She hadn’t set out to be that, but there was something about the name she bore. Longknife.
People who got too close to a Longknife got dead.
“Captain Drago, set course for Cuzco,” Kris said. “It’s big. Maybe they can tell us the latest in rumors.”
“And we can find out about our prize money,” the ever-piratical captain added.
45
The Wasp docked at High Cuzco station just in time for a late supper. That was perfect, since the principal partner in Cut, Throat, and Hack insisted on doing his talking to “Her Highness,” over dinner, not in his office.
“Why should we tie ourselves to the salt mines? That’s for the lesser people.” The man, likely older than her father, gave off strong hints they might make an evening of it.
Kris took an immediate dislike to the fellow. Not yet an intense dislike, but she suspected the night was yet young.
“You’re not going without a security detail!” Jack insisted.
“I’m going on a date with my lawyer. Why should I need a security detail for a date on a safe station like High Cuzco?”
“Little lady, you weren’t safe on a date on New Eden, the gun-control capital of human space,” Jack pointed out.
Kris refused to laugh at his joke. “Krätz and the Surprise aren’t alongside, are they?”
“No, so Miss Vicky Peterwald is probably elsewhere plotting murders we know nothing about.”
“And which need not concern us. No, Jack. This Morley Preston wants some private words with me. I want to hear them. I do not want him surrounded by my henchmen. Understood?”
Jack growled, “I hear you.”
“Good.” Kris surveyed herself in the full-length mirror; Abby had outdone herself. Kris almost looked beautiful . . . to her own eye. The nose was still too large. But the padded push-up bra made good use of what little Kris had, using it to catch the male eye, then switching to padding for what wasn’t on full display. And none was explosive; Kris had double-checked that.
Cinched at the waist, the blue ensemble flared out to sway nicely when she walked and give her plenty of space if she needed to run. It also hid her automatic very nicely.
Kris wasn’t totally stupid.
Captain Drago appeared at the door of her stateroom. “There’s a Morley Preston, Esquire, waiting on the quarterdeck for you. He says he’s your date for tonight.”
“Those words,” Jack spat.
“I’m quoting,” the captain insisted.
“Kris, this is a bad idea.”
“Now, Jack,” Kris said, “if he gets out of hand, I’ll break both his arms and one leg and walk home, okay?”
“What’s wrong with shooting him?” Jack asked.
“And leave that mess for the waiters to clean up, Jack? People talk about me enough. I simply will not add anything unnecessary to all the rumors.” So saying, Kris gave Jack a peck on the cheek . . . and got a whiff of him. All man. Why hadn’t he invited her out for the evening? Now that would be a date.
Abby handed Kris a wrap that was gossamer thin.
“Gosh, Princess, you look beautiful,” came from a certain twelve-year-old peeking from behind Captain Drago.
“Abby, you’ve got to teach that girl a proper appreciation for classical beauty. And that flattery will get her nothing around me.”
“Well, baby ducks, you may not think yourself a beauty, but what I done with you sure qualifies for beau-dacious.”
Kris couldn’t argue with that.
Jack did not follow Kris to the quarterdeck. Caption Drago did only long enough to remind her . . . again . . . to look into the matter of prize money for the pirate ship they’d captured. And to report that the Serpent had just jumped into the Cuzco system.
“With you running us at 1.25 gees and them keeping to an economical .5 gees, I’m amazed they aren’t farther behind.”
“I’ll also look into selling that ship,” Kris said.
“I hope the Cuzco legal system doesn’t tie the Serpent up in legal limbo,” the captain said.
“I hadn’t thought of that.” And she’d better, or whoever tried to steal Panda might get by with paying even less for the lost gamble.
Morley Preston was not exactly waiting for her on the quarterdeck. He was talking to someone on net, talking quite forcefully. “Stand up to them, George. They’re robbing us blind. You’ll never make partner giving away our clients’ lifeblood.” His pacing took a turn at that point that brought Kris into view. “Now, I’m having dinner with a very attractive young lady. Talk to me in the morning. And bring me good news.”
He blinked, which may have been his way of cutting the connection, and with the blink took on a totally different persona. The angry man was gone; a gracious host took his place. The man’s bio said he had five years on Kris’s father. If so, then his years had been much more kind. There was no gray in his black hair. His belly would fit comfortably on a Marine, though Kris suspected they earned the flat quite differently.
And he smiled, a toothy affair that involved most of his face. Kris should have felt warmth.
She didn’t.
Maybe it was the quick change from anger to smile. Or how lightly the smile fit, like it might blow away at any moment.
Kris offered him a wholehearted smile, teeth flashing, and took his offered hand.
“There are so many quality restaurants to choose from,” he said. “We have a reputation across half of space for fine food.”
“It’s your station,” Kris said lightly. “Point me where you want to go.”
“Well, I’m a simple man at heart. Meat and potatoes. What do you say to a little place that treats a steak so well that steers are lining up at the back door to get in the meat locker.”
Having once stocked a meat locker for a restaurant, Kris found the exaggeration almost funny. She suppressed the laugh, and said, “Lead on.”
The steak was as good as promised. Smothered in mushrooms and peppers and a sauce that did not overpower the beef but brought out its flavor and expanded on it, Kris ate it with a fork. Mr. Preston dominated the table conversation. He knew business. He and Grandfather Al would have enjoyed the time. Kris enjoyed the steak.
When Morley did invite Kris to carry the conversational ball, she talked about what the boffins wanted to do in the coming voyage of discovery. Kris hadn’t realized s
he’d captured so much of what the scientists told her until she realized what she was saying was boring her dinner partner if not to tears, at least into changing the conversation.
Mr. Morley Preston enjoyed talking about Mr. Morley Preston and he knew his topic endlessly. But among all the dross he threw her way, there was an occasional gold nugget.
“You’re not really planning on jumping to Birridas, are you?”
“Is there a problem? It has a half dozen jump points and the shortest one to a nebula that most fascinates my boffins.”
“You might want to take a detour. It just joined the Greenfeld Alliance. A rather sudden arrangement. Poor fools placed a contract for a full space-defense system before the breakup. A half dozen firms on Cuzco formed a consortium to bid on it, too, but Peterwald undercut us.” He almost spat that.
“Turns out there was more riding on the contract than just money. The defense system started late and stayed behind schedule. So there was nothing to present a counterargument when a Greenfeld battle squadron showed up last month and suggested they join the Alliance.”
“That’s a story we hear a lot,” Kris said, thinking detour.
“Strange thing is, I understand Henry Peterwald was very excited about the new addition to his empire. There’s the red-striped hornlizard that roams South Continent. A real nasty beastie. Henry’s already off to hunt it. I hope they get that planetary defense up before he gets there.”
Kris didn’t give much thought to the space-defense system. If a battle fleet took it, it was likely still in orbit. But a new planet, just occupied and not fully broken to its slavery? And a fast, deadly monster to hunt? How many ways can a man die?
And if you threw in a few dozen young kids on a suicide mission from their Guides . . . ?
Kris swallowed a bite of steak and let her lawyer talk of anything he wanted to. She’d learned early on to ignore mere noise. Now, sharp edges, bullets, and lasers. They were real. Those she did not ignore.
Somehow that flat stomach of his didn’t require him to pass up dessert. While he enjoyed a magnificent confection of chocolate and nuts, Kris paid tentative honor to a fruit dish.
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