Kris Longknife - Emissary Read online

  “Yes, we will need someone very special,” Ron said. “That is why my Emperor has asked your King to send a very special emissary. We have asked for you, Princess Kris Longknife to be that emissary.”

  “That is very interesting,” Jack said, most circumspectly.

  It was good he did, because Kris was too intent on swallowing a response that would be most inappropriate for her children’s ears.

  Chapter 2

  Dinner turned into a very interesting experience. Ron only picked at his salad and the three adults struggled to find something to talk about.

  Ruth had been trained not to speak at the dinner table until spoken to. Young Johnnie was still struggling with the concept of silence, but he was so in awe of the big Iteeche at the table that he got his first two bites in with nothing said. However, with the adults having nothing to say, Ruth broke the ice.

  “Mother, I had a very good day at school.”

  “You did,” Ron said as if surprised. The Iteeche seemed to have gained in the skill of expressing emotions like a human. Kris couldn’t help but notice that the vestigial gills at his neck were now covered by a high collar. When she’d first met Ron, she could keep track of his mood by the color of those relics of when his ancestors swam in dark seas. She wondered if all the Iteeche at court had adopted the same fashion and how that was playing out. Kris had plenty of time to think because Ruth and John were busily filling Ron in on what they’d learned today.

  “Your palace of learning is quite good,” he said after a few minutes.

  “We have good teachers,” Ruth said, glancing down at the computer that hung around her neck on a sturdy Smart MetalTM chain with no clasp. She’d lost several computers; now a code was needed to get it off of her.

  “Is your computer one of Nelly’s children?” Ron asked, giving Kris a knowing glance.

  So, you know that Nelly has spun off a few kids of her own. What don’t you know? Or more importantly, what cards do you have up your many sleeve?

  Kris smiled back, and let Ruth answer, “No, Daisy is just a computer. But sometimes Nelly has something to say, so I think Nelly is checking up on us for Mommy.”

  “You bet I am,” Nelly said, and got a happy giggle from both kids.

  Not to be outdone, Johnnie held up his computer. “Mine is Hippo,” he announced loudly.

  Ron seemed to take a moment then grinned at Johnnie, “And a very nice hippo you have there.”

  He looked at both kids. “If I was your mommy, I’d never take my eyes off you, and I’ve got two of them for each of you,” the Iteeche said, and was rewarded with more giggles.

  The main course for the humans was meatloaf and mashed potatoes in Lotty’s special gravy accompanied by steamed mixed vegetables which resulted in Johnnie asking how much broccoli he had to eat.

  “There are only two broccoli florets on your plate,” Kris pointed out. Apparently, Lotty had taken mercy on him in the kitchen.

  “Do I have to eat both?”

  “Yes.”

  The youngster turned pleading eyes to his father, who shook his head. “I agree with your mother. We want you to grow up big and strong.”

  Johnnie studied the offending vegetable as if it was a poisonous mushroom, then cut off a bit of meatloaf and chewed it thoughtfully as he eyed the required two pieces of broccoli.

  About that time, Ron took his fork and stabbed it into the two-handled alabaster serving bowl that Kris had never seen before but apparently was kept for just the right moment. It had peacocks and flowers flowing around it.

  Ron drew out something like a fish, still wiggling on his fork. He plopped it in his mouth, lifted his head so it would have a straight run down his throat, and swallowed.

  “Wow,” Johnnie said, all thought of broccoli forgotten. “Can I have one?”

  “Me too,” Ruth put in, not to be outdone by her younger brother, who, at this moment, was a smidgen taller than her.

  Jack turned to Kris, clearly bemused by this strange territory.

  “Ah, I don’t think that would be a good idea, kids.”

  “Why, Mommy?” came immediately in chorus, as it did so often.

  “Ah, Uncle Ron is an Iteeche. His people didn’t come from Earth and the food they eat evolved on a different planet. Our food makes his tummy sick. I’m afraid that his food might give you a tummy ache.

  Not to mention eating raw fish. Who knows where it’s been.

  “Aww,” came from two very disappointed kids.

  “Would a goldfish taste like his food?” John Junior wondered.

  “Nobody is eating the goldfish out of the pond,” Jack said sternly. “You are a civilized human being. You eat your fish cooked.”

  Think we might offer him some sushi? Kris asked taking advantage of Nelly net.

  Jack took the thought and ran with it. “If you want to try raw fish, we could bring you home something called sushi. It has fish and rice and vegetables.”

  “Could you?” Johnnie asked. “That would be great,” Ruth said over him. A year or two ago, she would have pushed John’s head under the table to make sure she was heard.

  Thank heavens that stopped. It probably had to, now that little brother is the bigger of the two.

  “Does the shusss, ah, fish stuff have broccoli in it?” Johnnie added, spotting a possible weakness in his parents’ latest concession.

  “I don’t think it does,” Kris said.

  “I’ll make sure that your sushi has no broccoli when I order it,” Nelly said.

  “Thank you, Aunt Nelly,” Johnnie said, then turned back to address his broccoli problem. He cut a small sprig off, buried it in mashed potatoes and gravy and manfully put it in his mouth. The little fellow looked like he was doomed and this was his last meal.

  Kris made an effort to take her eyes off her offspring. She treasured time with them, but she knew she could smother them if she held them too close. Her parents had been way too distant; she and Jack were hunting for a middle ground.

  She turned to Ron, and did her best to begin a conversation. “How was your voyage across the neutral zone?”

  “The weather in space this time of year was quite pleasant,” Ron said with a near human grin.

  “There’s no weather in space,” Ruth said with the disdain of a six-year-old for grownup folly. “Space is cold vacuum all the time.”

  Kris covered her mouth with her napkin, doing her best to wipe away a grin of her own.

  “Uncle Ron knows very well what space is like, Ruth. He was making a joke,” Jack told his young daughter.

  “His jokes are as bad as Aunt Nelly,” Ruth said, but softly as she was, once more addressing her supper.

  Ron watched Kris’s interaction with her children. “You keep your young with you from the first moment they hatch.”

  “Ruth grew in my own uterus for nine months before she came out into the world and was placed on my breast,” Kris said. “I fed her for the first two years of her life, completely at first, then less and less.”

  “I have read of this way of you humans. It has to be seen to be believed. We Iteeche are not chosen by our choosers until we are halfway through our time in the Palace of Learning.”

  “I would dearly miss my time with my children from their birth until they were halfway through school,” Kris said, most pointedly.

  “Our children spend eight years in grammar or middle school,” Jack said, “then four years in high school and another four years in college. Some spend longer. What is half way through the Palace of Learning to you?”

  The two eyes on the left side of Ron’s head gazed up at the ceiling for a brief moment, then he again focused on Jack. “Our year is longer than yours, but I would say we begin in the smaller ponds and progress upward for six years. Then we are chosen and swim in the larger pools for another six years. For those of us who have specialized work, such as those you would call officers in your Army or Navy, or Officials at Court, there are several more years before we can take the ex
am to swim in the wide ocean of affairs. I studied longer, although there were few to teach me about you humans. I had to learn to swim with you by myself.”

  “As I will, no doubt, have to if my king chooses me for his emissary to you,” Kris said through a thoughtful frown.

  Ruth took that moment to announce, “I’ve finished half of my meatloaf and all my vegetables. Can I go now? Devi promised to read us a story after supper.”

  Kris eyed her daughter’s plate. She was eating less and less meat; was she going to turn into a vegetarian?

  “Are you full?” Jack asked solemnly.

  “Yes, Daddy.” Somebody knew which of her little fingers her daddy was wrapped around.

  Jack raised an eyebrow Kris’s way.

  “Okay, you can have your nanny read you a story,” Kris said, and Ruth bolted from the room.

  “Can I go too?” Johnny pleaded. He’d eaten all his meat and potatoes, except for what was smeared around his plate. Of his broccoli, half a crown sat forlornly in the middle of the wreckage. The eyes focused on Kris were wide and so doleful.

  “Go get your story,” she decided.

  He vanished at the speed of light, or at least as quickly as his growing legs could carry him.

  Kris shook her head, and allowed herself a smile as the tornado that were her children relinquished the room to the adults.

  Jack reached for the coffee pot that sat at his elbow and poured himself a cup, then offered one to Ron and lastly Kris. “You thinking of taking the job?” he asked her.

  “I don’t know, but if Grampa Ray says the job is mine, how will I not take it?”

  “You did insist on this desk job,” Jack pointed out. Then he eyed Kris and a soft smile crept onto his face. “This budget thing didn’t have you sending Megan out to buy you a lottery ticket, did you?”

  Some wag at Main Navy had started a betting pool on how long Kris would last at a desk. Initially, the betting was which hour. Then which day, then week. Present betting was sporadic and involved months. That Kris would have her aide buy a ticket on when she’d bolt from her desk job was a running joke between them.

  “I may have,” Kris admitted. “It was a really bad day.”

  “Budget days are never anything else.”

  “Let’s wait and see,” Kris said. “There have to be better diplomats in the Royal US Foreign Service.”

  Kris sipped her coffee and eyed Ron. “Why would your Emperor ask for me by name?”

  “You are the most known human in the Iteeche Empire, after your King Raymond. You are honored even among us for what you did to the aliens, beating them back from our door.”

  “But I was blowing stuff up, Ron. This looks like a very different job. More like keeping things from blowing up.”

  The Iteeche managed to raise the skin on the ridges above his eyes. It looked like he’d had eyebrows penciled in. Maybe even tattooed.

  Clearly, at least Ron was doing his best to “go native,” but Kris wasn’t quite sure what message he was trying to convey.

  “You solve problems, Princess. We need problems solved. Colonies of our people are sprouting up on many of your space stations where they are helping you with your power generation upgrade. In the Empire, we are also accepting colonies of humans who are helping us with your Smart Metal ships, as well as the new, more powerful lasers. Your king has not agreed to let us have the technology of your beam weapon, but we are still agitating for it.”

  Kris suppressed a curious frown. Why would Grampa Ray hold back on the beam weapon?

  If the aliens discovered the human and Iteeche sector of space and attacked the Iteeche first, the more murderous space raiders that the Empire blew away the better for humans. Kris would have to ask her grampa what the problem was when she saw him next.

  But Ron was still talking.

  “So far, both of our peoples have stayed locked up in their little colonies and had as little interaction with each other as possible. Still, people can only stay locked up in a tin can for so long. What do you call it, cabin fever?”

  Kris thought back to the need that had driven her fleet personnel and industrial workers on Alwa Station to own a bit of dirt, to get outside in the fresh air. It had caused her no end of trouble, but they’d sure been happy when Kris got them their land.

  “Yes, folks need a break,” she agreed.

  “And when they take their breaks, my people among yours and yours with mine, there will be friction when we rub elbows,” Ron said, and raised all eight of his elbows.

  “I hope that doesn’t mean we’ll have four times the trouble with your people,” Jack said, but he grinned as he said it.

  “I think you will find my people much more cooperative than your people. We are too many and used to living in very close quarters. We learn to follow the rules very early or we can be unchosen.”

  Kris hadn’t heard about that. That was another thing she’d need to figure out if she took this job.

  “That is why,” Ron went on, “that we need to establish clear rules. While your people will likely do their best to bend them, if they are anything like you, Princess, my people will do their best to follow the rules.”

  “Are you suggesting that my wife’s devious, corkscrew of a brain will be just the thing you need to come up with rules that other devious, corkscrew brains won’t be able to wiggle out of?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Ron said, all four hands coming up to fend off any angry attack from Kris.

  “No, you didn’t, but my loving husband did,” Kris said, sending Jack a most sarcastic air kiss to keep him warm. He might need it for sleeping on the couch.

  “I thought you were proud of your Longknife corkscrew brain?” Jack said, grinning as he defended himself.

  Kris scrunched up her face, as if to think hard, then shook her head. “I don’t mind being devious and applying my corkscrew brain to things like blowing shit up. But legal shit. That stuff with lawyers? Not so much.” She turned to Ron.

  “Will your people be represented in this bargaining by men of the law?”

  “We have elders that stand up with those accused of misdeeds when they go before the holders of the Emperor’s, ah. Nelly, help me. It’s not a club exactly. It is weighted on one end and a double handle on the other end.”

  “Is it made of wood?” Nelly asked.

  “Now it is usually bronze or silver for someone who holds senior hearings.”

  “How about a mace? A mace of office,” Nelly said, and presented one as a hologram above the table.

  “That is close to it. I would show you one, but this computer I have only holds what Nelly and I worked out during our last trip. I had no imagination that you would want me to show you about my world.”

  That gave Kris pause. The two of them had been very curious about each other and their worlds. They’d turned the Forward Lounge on the old Wasp, the old, old corvette size Wasp, into a full-fledged roundtable to study the different views each species had about the Iteeche - Human War.

  Before Kris could form a question to direct the conversation gently in that direction, Ron asked Jack about what it was like to fight the aliens and that easily took them back to Alwa. Somehow Granny Rita’s survival came up and that led to cheerful talk of their wedding.

  Again, Ron was left shaking his head, something that involved most of his body above the strange hip bones of his that handled four legs. “So you know whose eggs your seed quickens because you have committed yourself to live your entire life with her?” he said, eyeing Jack.

  “That is how we humans try to do it. It doesn’t always work out that way, but it’s the ideal. Two of us, trying not to kill each other,” Kris said, throwing Jack a toothy smile, “while we raise our kids, and try not to let them kill us.”

  “Or us kill them,” Jack pointed out. “Remember the time Ruth got her diaper off and proceeded to stuff all the heat vents . . .”

  “Enough, Jack. Ron does not need to know everything about what immature hu
mans can get into.”

  Ron was swiveling his body back and forth. “When I think of all the things I did when I was a youngling in the House of Learning, I am only too glad that my chooser knew nothing of my past misconducts.”

  “How does this choosing work?” Kris asked. “You never had much to say about it when we were last together.”

  “It’s a very personal matter among us,” Ron said, leaving Kris with a strong yearning for good old days when she could tell the emotional state of an Iteeche just by looking at those old gill slits. This new collar fashion was crimping her style. As it was, she had no idea what was going on with Ron.

  And she didn’t much like it.

  Again, Ron deftly turned the conversation back to their time on Alwa as well as the Sasquans and seemed to really fear letting the cat critters with atomics loose in the galaxy.

  “The Empire, just as you humans, chose during the war not to violate our own edicts concerning atomic weapons. It took us so long to force them back into the shell, we did not want to have to do that again. Can we trust them to pack away in a deep, dark pit of the ocean such weapons of chaos? That is where they belong.”

  “That is Grand Admiral Santiago’s chore as we speak,” Jack said. “I’m glad it’s hers and not mine . . . or Kris’s.”

  Kris rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “Better anyone else but me.”

  “About this other species you found, you call them the Verdant Ones?”

  “They’re intelligent, bipedal and quadrilateral like we humans, but they seem to have a film of chlorophyll all over their bodies,” Kris said. “All I’ve seen is the most preliminary of reports. My Navy job eats up my time like candy.”

  “I wonder if there might be one of them to come as an ambassador to my Emperor’s court. He was most interested in seeing one of those green men. Oh, and one of those cats too, and a bird as well. He is very curious about all these species that you humans are encountering.”

  “Is he willing to lend some battlecruisers to defend those planets?” Kris said.

  “You will have to ask him,” had a vagueness around the edges that raised the hackles on the back of Kris’s neck.