Kris Longknife: Mutineer Page 10

  He was adjusting his coat, putting on his formal face as he turned to the main entrance to his office. “Since you insist, I will tell you. I went to my father, your grandfather, for the money. He didn’t ask me for a damn thing. Now get out.”

  Kris scooted out a split second before Father opened the door to admit his next appointment.

  Chapter Eight

  “Is your da always like that?” Tommy asked.

  The drive home had been full of poisoned silence. Kris was grateful for any break, even if there was no answer to his question. Kris had had a lifetime to get used to her family. Tommy had been dumped in the deep end…and if Kris was honest, he had asked to be left out of the entire thing. “What about my father’s way of doing things are you curious about?”

  Tommy shrugged. “I don’t know. Is he always so legalistic. I mean, if I told my folks someone was out to kill me, they wouldn’t ask me if I had proof that would stand up in court.”

  “My father would.” Kris answered easily.

  “Then your da really would assign you to HellFrozeOver.”

  “Oh yes,” she answered without a moment’s reflection.

  “His own daughter. You’re kidding.”

  “I need a drink,” she announced, glancing out the car window and seeing her surroundings for the first time since she left her father’s office. They were cutting through a corner of the university district “Harvey, let’s stop at the Scriptorum.”

  Harvey didn’t touch the car’s controls. “Miss Kristine, I don’t think that would be wise.”

  “And what have I done so far today that was? Will you tell the car to head for the Scriptorum, or shall I have Nelly override you?”

  “I’ve had the car’s security upgraded since you graduated from college.” Harvey growled at her.

  “And I’ve had Nelly upgraded. Want to see who bought the better upgrade?”

  Harvey gave the car new instructions. Even though traffic in the university district was its usual mad scramble, the city computer found them a parking spot less than half a block from the Scriptorum; there are advantages to having personal plates bearing PM-4. The Scriptorum hadn’t changed in the four or five months since Kris graduated. A new crop of freshmen had taken over the tables near the door. There was the inevitable bull session going at the seniors-only table; Kris heard “devolution” and was tempted to join. But she wasn’t a senior anymore. And besides, it was one thing to argue for or against Earth when it was just a game. Now it was for real, and she was a serving officer who would have to face what the hard changes brought. Somehow the fun was gone.

  Kris settled for a table in the professors’ section.

  Relaxing into her chair, Kris tried to see the place as she had for the four years of her college education. The diffuse lighting showed every crack and flaw in the fake-brick, wattle-and-daub walls. Despite the aroma of pizza and beer, the overriding smell was of students: sweat, readers, and hormones, more like a library than a bar. The thick wooden tables were scarred by students’ carved graffiti. Across the room was the table Kris and her entire Twenty-fourth Century Problems class had carved their initials in on the last Saturday they met here; old Doc Meade had refused to talk about the problems of 600 planets without a beer in his hand, so they eschewed their classroom and met here every Saturday for a semester. That table was occupied; a dozen students had it covered with readers, flimsies, and keypads. Some were actually concentrating on the work, while several couples among them concentrated on each other. Kris smiled at the familiar scene.

  “Whaddaya want?” a waiter/student demanded with the usual lack of concern typical of service at the Scriptorum.

  Tom passed the question to Kris with a glance. Harvey sat in his chair, back ramrod straight, his face a study in Topkick disapproval. He’d driven Kris to school enough times, twelve years old and hungover as a deacon. Most likely, he’d turned her in to Grampa Trouble. Now he eyed Kris with all the silent disapproval that any Gunny Sergeant ever put into a blank face.

  That answered the question of why Kris took so easily to the Chiefs and Gunnies at OCS. Hell, she’d grown up with one of them at her elbow. Of course, she knew what they were thinking behind those blank, formal faces they wore when they addressed the future officers.

  “I’ll have tonic water, straight up with a twist of lime,” Kris said. And Harvey relaxed just that smidge that was all the approval he would ever give her. And it was all Kris ever needed.

  “I’ll have a soda, caffeinated, whatever they have on this planet,” Tom ordered.

  “Same for me,” Harvey said.

  “Right, Navy,” the waiter said, and added as he turned back to the bar, “Aren’t you burrheads out of bounds?”

  Kris blinked twice at the snide remark. Of course they were in civilian clothes, but Tom and Harvey both sported the usual crew cut of the uniform services, and Kris’s hair was a good two feet shorter and a lot more organized than it had been when she sat at Doc Meade’s elbow arguing for this or against that. Kris almost stood, called the kid back, and gave him a dressing-down. That was what ensigns did to undisciplined ratings.

  But the waiter was no spacer, and as Kris took in the Scriptorum with opening eyes, she was out of bounds for her kind. This room was chock-full of cloud dreamers who had no idea of the cost of their wild plans or responsibility for paying for them. Now that Kris had put her life on the line for a plan of her own making, this place seemed rather cheap, unreal, a waste of space. Almost, she got to her feet and marched out.

  Still, Tom had asked a question, and he deserved an answer. “Yes, if I crossed my father, he would get me assigned to HellFrozeOver, and I’d spend the rest of my Navy career there.”

  Tom looked blank for a moment, then connected her statement to his question of five minutes ago. “I can’t believe that.”

  Kris noted that Harvey said nothing. Again, that silence was all the verification she needed. She was reading her old man right. “My father is a politician,” she told Tom. “I once heard him say that a good politician is one who stays bought. Loyalty is about the only virtue I’ve ever heard him praise. If you’re loyal to him, he’ll move heaven and earth for you. Break faith, and he’ll damn you to hell without a backward glance. You haven’t seen the way he locked up when an ally of twenty years changed sides. He didn’t even blink, but that ex-friend never got the time of day from Billy Longknife again.”

  Kris leaned back in her chair, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “The pressures on my father must be hellacious.” A quick glance in Harvey’s direction showed the merest hint of a nod. “His threat is real, but to hell with that. I don’t want to add to the burden he’s lugging.”

  Tom pulled out his reader, began flipping through screens. “Maybe I can hitch a ride back to Santa Maria from here. Ensign Longknife, I’m beginning to think that knowing you could be a career-ending relationship.”

  “If it isn’t life threatening,” Harvey growled.

  Kris reached over and flipped Tom’s reader closed. “Get ready to march, crew,” she ordered as the waiter approached with their drinks. As the kid slapped them down, slopping sticky liquid on the table, Kris stood. Tom and Harvey were on their feet with her. Scared he was about to be stiffed for the drinks, the waiter opened his mouth in protest, but Kris slapped down a bill equal to twice the cost of three sodas. That silenced him.

  “My marines pried a six-year-old girl from terrorists last week,” she said in a voice she’d learned at her father’s knee and that carried through the place. “But apparently, people who work for a living aren’t good enough for this place.” As the tables fell silent, she glanced at the one she’d sat at last year. “You might add that to your problems of the twenty-fourth century.”

  Everything worth saying said, she marched for the door. Tom and Harvey fell in beside her. In step, they quickly covered the distance to the exit. A couple of students were just coming in. They took one look at the phalanx bearing down on them and
took two steps back, holding the door wide as Kris led her tiny detachment out into the sun, then they quickly scurried inside and pulled the door closed behind themselves.

  “That was fun.” Tom grinned.

  Kris squinted at the blue sky above her, sun glaring down out of a fine spring day. “We need to get Tommy a pair of sunglasses.”

  “Sunglasses,” the Santa Marian echoed.

  “Yes. You’re in my gravity well now, spacer,” Kris said, turning for the car. “No space helmet visor to protect those baby-blue eyes of yours, no suit between you and my sun. You’ll need some sunscreen as well, you pasty-skinned spacer.”

  “And why might I be needing all that?”

  “Harvey, my parents still keep the Oasis at the lake?”

  “And the dockhands still check her out each week to make sure there’s no problems, though the prime minister and his lady haven’t been on her for five, six years.”

  “Their loss.” Kris grabbed her fellow ensign by the elbow. “Tommy, me boy, you are about to discover how great it feels to have wind in your hair, a tall ship beneath you, and a good star to guide her by, even if it is just to the other end of a lake.”

  “A real-live sailing ship!” Tommy enthused with underwhelming excitement. “Any chance I could get Thorpe to let me hide out on the Typhoon for the next six weeks? My bunk back there is looking better and better.”

  “Come now, Tommy, you’ve sailed the stars. Haven’t you ever wondered how the ancients first sailed the seas of old Earth?”

  “No. I never wanted to swim, either.”

  “Have no fear, me boy, I’ll hitch you up with a life belt that’ll keep you safe should you encounter more water than you can drink.”

  “Just what I’ve always wanted, a bit of cork and plastic between me and suffocation.”

  “And what’s a space suit?” Kris laughed.

  “Something I’m very familiar with.”

  “Harvey, to the lake.”

  As the car slipped into traffic, Kris took a moment to commune with Nelly. “Do a planetwide search on Longknife and Peterwald, every contact they or their businesses have had in the last eighty years. Then expand the search to the entire Society of Humanity. Before you go too far, check Aunty Tru’s computer to see anything she might have on the topics.”

  “Tru’s computer has very good security,” Nelly noted.

  “Yes, but you might find a file or two in a less-secure vestibule on Sam. Father told me not to talk to Tru, but I’m assuming that you and Sam are not covered by that.”

  “Beginning search.”

  Kris relaxed back into the car’s leather seat. Even if someone did want her more than the usual dead that she’d learned to live with as the prime minister’s daughter, here on Wardhaven she’d be her usual self. She had six weeks to decide if a certain boot ensign had more than the usual problems of a Navy career to worry about. That was plenty of time. Growing up with a politician in the household, that was one thing Kris had learned early. Time could change anything.

  ****

  The next day, slightly sunburned but happy as Kris could only be when a tacking wind had blown the cobwebs from her brain, she and Tommy were in starched whites as Harvey drove them into the driveway circle in front of the Museum of Natural History. Its immense ballroom had been dragooned into what Harvey grumbled was going to be the worst of a long line of back-patting jamborees.

  “May they break their bleeding arms,” was the old trooper’s fond hope. Tommy had done his best to duck out, but Kris had dragged him along, protesting all the way.

  “What’s there to worry about? No one’s ever been hurt at one of these things.” Kris assured her friend.

  “Be my luck to be the first.”

  “Not possible. There’s absolutely no way anything can go wrong,” Kris said with a confidence that evaporated as Harvey brought them into the drop-off circle. Several limos were already taking up parking spots there, including one identical to Kris’s, except for the red and yellow paint dripping down its shiny black exterior.

  “Whose is that?” Tommy asked.

  Gary, riding shotgun, pointed his wrist unit at the blotched limo and punched a button. “One of ours, number four. Had General Ho of Earth today. I thought we had the anti-Earth demonstrators far enough back.”

  “I didn’t see any demonstrations,” Kris said.

  “So I guess we had them far enough away for you,” Harvey drawled as he pulled up next to an even larger white limo that needed four rear tires to support itself.

  “Who owns that monster?” Tommy asked.

  Again Gary shot his query at a rig, then smiled. “Thought I recognized it. Not too many like that one. Henry Smythe-Peterwald the Twelfth’s private battleship,” Kris’s security guard announced.

  Tommy raised an eyebrow as he opened the door. “And didn’t you say no one ever got killed at these shindigs?”

  “And didn’t you say there’s always a first time?” Kris brogued right back as she measured the vast, hulking transport beside them. Body armor was light enough for unpowered battle gear. So what was all the weight that made that white elephant need four huge tires?

  “How am I going to explain to me ancestors my coming before them with no descendants to carry on the family name?” Tommy said as he stepped gingerly out and held the door for Kris.

  “I’m sure your Blarney-kissing Irish tongue will come up with a fine story to regale them,” Kris answered, dismounted, and squared her shoulders. While it was true that real blood was never spilled at these affairs, the political equivalent of the red stuff could run knee deep. Before, she’d just been Father’s darling daughter, Mother’s eligible debutante. Today, she was Kris Longknife, ensign, serving officer and medal recipient. Maybe she should rethink this.

  With a shrug, Kris joined the flow of people moving up the stone steps of the museum and into the rotunda. A six-meter-tall, horned and rampant tusker stood in the center of the room, more a tribute to the taxidermist’s art than to the actual creature that had terrified the original landers on Wardhaven. Most tusker habitat had been replaced by Earth-type flora; still a few herds managed to survive up on North Continent. The young Kris always considered this stuffed creature a thing of sadness. At the moment, it reminded her that today’s power broker could end up as tomorrow’s stuffed rug. And you wanted to be your own person. A part of her laughed.

  The high-ceilinged reception hall was resplendent in tall marble pillars, rich gray rock run through with bright streaks of reds, oranges, and blues. The vast expanse of plush royal blue carpet beneath her white shoes brought out the colors in the marble and made the cool power of the immense room even more overbearing. What a splendid room for this moment’s great to celebrate their instant of glory.

  Kris took in the human company and found it rather shrunken by its surroundings. Most of the men were ignorable in white tie and black tails, tights, or trousers as they chose…and not always because they fit well in them. Mother had set the women’s fashion with a floor-length red dress that took up a good four feet around her, flounced out by at least a score of petticoats, Kris estimated. The top of the arrangement ended way too soon for Kris’s tastes in a tight, gleaming bustier that forced up what a woman had for all the world to see, except all the women were wearing them, and the men seemed too busy being seen to notice all the pulchritude around them. All the men except Tommy.

  When Kris first put on the dress whites’ high-necked choker, she’d figured it for a torture device. Count on Mother to come up with a worse one. Kris, with nothing for the bustier to force up, was quite content behind her starched whites. Unfortunately, the whites did not bug out Tommy’s eyes like the bustiers did.

  Mother held court on the far south corner of the ballroom with most of the social women, parliamentary wives and the likes. Father, for his own reasons, circled through most of the men of parliament and business in the northern corner. Big brother Honovi, still in his first term in parliament, wa
s right at Father’s elbow. He was learning the family trade from the best; Kris wished him well.

  The east corner was anchored by a fleet of admirals and generals. Captains and majors formed an outlying picket line that seemed to shelter the big brass from all but the most insistent civilians. Kris considered taking refuge in their ranks, but at the heart of it was another cluster of family, her Great-grandfathers Longknife and Trouble. She had no idea how to handle meeting them for the first time in ten or fifteen years. Does an ensign throw her arms around an old general and give him a hug, or stand stiff at attention and throw out a brisk “Good afternoon, sir.” General McMorrison, Chief of the Wardhaven Staff, stood elbow to elbow with General Ho, the Chairman of Earth’s General Staff. Around them was an unusually large contingent of other planetary staff chairmen. Somehow Kris doubted she had the security clearances for their small talk.

  Resigning herself to the inevitable, Kris turned for the prime minister’s contingent to see what official duties were assigned her. Before Kris reached Father, Honovi detached himself from the prime minister’s elbow and moved to intercept her. Following in his wake was a new fellow who, judging from dress and crew cut, had to be a security agent. Kris smiled greetings to both. The agent actually nodded in her direction. Honovi launched immediately into the business at hand.

  “Little sister, you really have the old man bent out of shape. It’s worse than when you ran off to the Navy.”

  “I do seem to have that effect.” They exchanged a mutual shrug they’d mastered long ago for the inevitable.

  “Well, I’ve got him calmed down for the day. What do you say we don’t risk you two having a bit of a chat?”

  “I could just circulate and smile and say a few nice words.”

  “Very few, very nice words,” Honovi emphasized with that irksome way that he had of making like he’d won Kris over to what she’d already surrendered to.

  Kris came to an exaggerated attention. “Yes, sir, no questions asked, sir.”