Audacious (19 page)

Two hulking Marines showed up to dress Jack, with two women Marines right behind them. Kris found herself dressed and marched down to the wardroom.

If the President of the Mess had suspended the uniform rules, no one else had the Word. But Kris ate the oatmeal and the stewed prunes that Abby set before her. After all, Jack ate the same, with Captain DeVar and two large Marines looking over his shoulder and offering encouragement… or else.

“I’ve come to accept that no good deed goes unpunished, but you’d think that saving that poor college girl’s life would be worth some slack,” Jack didn’t quite whine.

“Oh, I’m sure she’ll find a way to pay you back,” the captain snickered.

Kris caught the doc’s ear. “Abby wasn’t kidding about overdrugging me. I haven’t been this stoned since I was twelve, thirteen. I don’t want to go there again.”

Doc frowned. “Your file has nothing about addiction risk.”

“If you’re the prime minister’s brat, there’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t make it into your permanent record.”

Doc nodded thoughtfully, then looked at the pile of pills he’d laid next to Kris… and took a few of them back.

“Let me know how the pain is. And if you start taking heads off, you will take the pills I tell you to if I have to have the Marines shoot them down your gullet.”

“Yes, Doc, your Godhoodness,” Kris said with a grin.

“I got to have the Marines shoot that corpsman. I got to,” Doc said as he went off to fill his own plate with pancakes.

But he’d left orders for Kris with Abby. No sooner than she finished a very light breakfast than Abby was herding her back to her room. “Doc wants you to get some heat therapy for those bruises. This time we’re going to use that bath of yours for something other than a pleasure dip.”

Then she handed Kris a little bit of something. “And since the only other whirlpool in this embassy is in the ambassador’s quarters, you’re going to have to share your bath with Jack.”

“What’s this,” Kris said, holding up two bits of…

“That’s a string bikini. It don’t cover all that much of you, so if I need to, I can see about all of you.”

“And Jack?” Kris said, her eyes measuring the tub. She’d always thought of it as big enough for two… or four.

“Jack won’t peek, and besides, once you’re in the tub, he won’t be able to see much more than your pretty smile anyhow.”

Kris’s doubts must have still showed.

“If you don’t complain, you’ll stay in the tub and no one will get a look. And you’ll get to check Jack out. Unless, of course, you want him to get warmed up after you. We can do it that way. We got all day,” Abby said as if she hadn’t a care.

“I want a staff meeting as soon as we’re done here,” Kris snapped. “Where’s Nelly?”

“On your desk,” Abby said as she helped Kris out of the sweat suit and into what little she offered Kris.

“Nelly, tell my usual suspects I want to see them in here in a half hour. Oh, and add Doc and Captain DeVar to the collection.”

“Will do,” came from the next room.

Kris was deep in the water when Jack came in, wearing a blue hospital robe. When he dropped it, Kris got quite a view. There wasn’t any back to Jack’s suit, at least not much. Which gave her a good look at the ugly black-and-blue circles that covered his back and butt, circles that in several places merged into several huge blobs. Around the edges, they were healing already, swapping black and blue for sickening green and yellow.

“You look quite colorful,” Kris said, trying to sound chipper.

“You don’t look half bad yourself,” Jack said. Causing Kris to look down. Abby had the jets going on gentle. Still, there wasn’t all that much of her to see.

“Made you look,” Jack said, with only a small chip of his lopsided grin.

After that, they lapsed into quiet contemplation, or serious concentration on their bodies and how they were taking to the warm and gentle workings of the water. Nothing broke loose to spur an embolism.

Jack left first, now having added a warm pink to the few square inches of his skin that hadn’t been battered.

“We really ought to get you better protection. How about a ceramic girdle?” Kris offered.

“I never have figured out how you run in one of those damn things,” Jack said. “No, thank you. But I will tell the manufacturer that they need to thicken up their blues. There’s nasty stuff out on the street.”

“You tell’em, Jack,” Kris said.

She’d had enough of sweats. “Undress whites,” she ordered from Abby. She dressed herself… mostly. Abby saved her from bending over by tying her shoes. At 1000 sharp, Kris walked into her sitting room.

Around the large table that occupied its center sat Penny and Chief Beni, Doc, and Captain DeVar. Jack was just arriving, having switched into undress khakis. Abby started to settle onto the couch, but Kris silently pointed her to a chair at the table. If Doc or the captain thought it strange to have a maid in their counsel, they kept it to themselves. But then, the Corps had seen Abby’s shooting skill more than once and probably had spread the word to beat clear of her.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I am tired of being a target. I will not walk into any more shooting galleries that anyone hereabouts sets up,” Kris said, opening the meeting as soon as Abby and Jack declared the room free of bugs.

“Here, here,” “I’ll say,” and “About time” greeted that.

“How do you propose to avoid said galleries?” Jack asked.

“That’s why we’re having this meeting. I’m open to suggestions,” Kris said, throwing it open to the floor.

The floor just lay there, saying nothing.

Kris shook her head after a moment. “Thank you for your sage advice. Okay, lets do this by the numbers. Nelly, Beni, Captain DeVar, what do we know about yesterday’s auto-gun?”

The two flesh-and-blood types eyed each other. Even Nelly stayed quiet, leaving Kris with a mental image of her pet computer joining the very human ritual.

“Nelly, what do we know?” Kris snapped.

“The auto-gun is a standard make readily available on this planet,” the computer started slowly.

Doc snorted. “So much for our vaunted gun-control laws.”

“Actually,” Nelly answered, “estates with security systems often enforce their perimeters with auto-guns like these. Usually monitored by the security agents.”

“Was this one under human monitoring?” Kris asked.

“There was no net connection in the wreckage,” Beni put in. “I would have caught the gun earlier if it was sending on a net. It was jury-rigged with a sound and movement-control system.”

“Any identifiers on the gun. Unique aspects of the chips?” Kris shot back.

“Serial number on the gun was filed off, if it ever was there,” Captain DeVar put in. “The fire-control system had a incendiary device that burned the system when we tried to take it apart. Not a lot left,” he finished with a scowl.

Kris let that bounce around her brain for a long moment. “First time out, someone managed to jam Nelly’s network. This time out, they’ve put together dual-use parts to make a unique— for this planet— targeting system. Anyone see a pattern?”

“Electronics,” Beni said, sitting up from his eternal slouch. “Whoever is after you has one large pot full of electronics capability.”

“And here on Eden where most of the computer stuff is about the most complicated in human space,” Penny added.

“Nelly, start a search on new computer chips and software companies in town.”

“I will try, Kris, but it will not be easy.”

“Why?”

“Kris, advertising seems to be mostly by word of mouth or through select industry-type journals. I don’t know which ones to subscribe to. The records and reports of the Federal Bureau of Financial Statistics are not a publicly available database. Even using the access you have as a Nuu Enterprises stockholder, what I get back is little more than the addresses of home offices and the dividends they paid out last year.”

“And with that they keep the business’s around here legal?” Kris muttered.

“I’m not sure they really do,” Penny said. “Until a scandal gets huge, it doesn’t even make the news.”

“Father tries to keep the government from getting too much in business’s face. If he gets too heavy into regulations, Grampa Al comes screaming into his office. But you have to keep the playing field level. Who’s doing that?” Kris eyed Doc. “How long have you been here?”

“Twelve, thirteen years, I think. My third wife definitely wanted me gone and she had pull with the right staff. Or was it me that wanted to be as far away from her as possible?” He looked up, those gray eyes sparkling. “I don’t remember.”

“You do remember the difference between the skull and the pelvis bones, don’t you?” Captain DeVar asked.

“Usually, young man, but for you I can make an exception.”

“Doc, who really runs this embassy?” Kris shot into that round of chuckles.

“I was wondering when you’d ask,” Doc said, eyeing DeVar.

“It’s pretty obvious the ambassador is a figurehead,” Kris said. “So, who does the heavy lifting. Who’s reporting to Admiral Crossenshield?”

That brought a sigh from Doc and a raised eyebrow from the Marine captain.

“We’ve gone though nine or ten political affairs officers in the time I’ve been here, Your Highness,” Doc said slowly. “They keep being declared persona non grata for a whole raft of reasons, usually involving young women or men. More correctly, girls and boys.”

“That’s disgusting,” Kris snapped, then thought. “All of them?”

“Rather routinely,” Doc said with a shrug.

“Couldn’t Eden come up with a new excuse?” Penny asked. “Isn’t it obvious when you rerun the same play year after year?”

The only answer Doc gave was another shrug.

“So you get to know too much about Eden and you get shipped out of here with a smear on your name,” Kris said.

“Last one left about a month ago,” DeVar added.

“About the time I got orders,” Kris said with a sigh that would have made any of Tommy’s Irish grandmum’s proud.

“Okay, if I want to stay alive, I’ve got to get to the bottom of this planet. While avoiding compromising involvement with little boys and girls.”

“Don’t bet on that being possible, Your Highness,” Doc said. “They’ve shipped our people off on some pretty flimsy excuses.”

“But this time they’re dealing with a princess. And a Longknife. Enough said?” Kris growled.

“That does make this round interesting,” Jack said through a painful-looking grin.

“Captain, what do you bring to the table?” Kris asked.

“I command the largest Embassy Marine detachment we’ve deployed. A reinforced rifle company, say a hundred and twenty-five trigger pullers. Supporting them are another fifty technical-and heavy-weapons specialists. We drill monthly on evacuating the embassy and getting the entire staff up the beanstalk for transport on the first available U.S. merchant or warship.” The captain rattled off the words of his mission and capability like he said them every night before bed. And being a Marine officer, he just might.

“Special operations capable?” Penny asked.

“Of course, Lieutenant. But we don’t advertise.”

“Nelly, have you finished your analysis of the underground media? Any pattern? Any reporters better at hitting the mark?”

“Yes Kris, but I am not finding much gold in this gravel.”

“Good metaphor, Nelly,” Penny said. “But why no gold?”

“Some reporters are better at getting the hot stories, but they get hired away to main media. And even the best are wrong half the time. This place is an enigma even to its residents.”

“And the opposition party hasn’t bothered to drop by and say hi to me,” Kris said with a frown.

“I think all the folks with the power kind of like things the way they are,” Doc said.

“So why is someone trying to bump me off?” Kris asked.

The room was quiet for a long time on that one. Finally Jack said the obvious. “Vicky Peterwald?”

Kris nodded, but wasn’t about to swallow it whole. “Is this just the usual Peterwald thing? Does Eden have nothing to do with it? Come on crew. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire, and where there’s a cover-up, there’s usually something being covered? I don’t buy that it’s just me. There’s something being hidden and they’re spending a lot to hide it. And they ship off planet anyone who gets too close to it.”

Kris eyed those around the table. She had their interest. “I want to know what it is. Now, before it kills me.”

“The best source we have,” Abby said softly, “may well be the two kids I made friends with.”

Kris shook her head. “I am not involving kids. They get too close to one of those damn Longknifes, they could get dead.”

“I believe Sherlock Holmes did quite well with the Baker Street Irregulars,” Doc put in.

“Sherlock Holmes is a fictional character,” Kris shot back. “These kids are real people and they could get real dead. No, Doc, Abby, and you, too, Jack. We do this with grown-ups. No kids. Doc, you’ve been here the longest. You know many locals?”

“Not many. The embassy stays pretty closed in. And as you know, those that concentrate outward seem to get shipped home rather quickly.”

Captain DeVar raised an eyebrow at Doc.

“Okay, I do have a lady friend, but no, no way am I getting her involved with a Longknife. You hear me?”

They listened to the silence of that for a long moment.

Abby sat bolt upright. “Kris, I’ve got to take a call.”

The maid listened to her earbud for a second, then tapped it. “Please repeat that?”

Now the sound came loud and clear to the group. The voice was young and high-pitched and clearly frightened.

“Auntie, Bronc’s vanished. A gang has kidnapped him.”

25

“Are
you sure?” Abby asked.

“Auntie, Bronc’s not like other men. When he says he’ll do something, he does it. He said he was going by the shop today to show off his new gear. He spent yesterday playing with it, getting it tuned in. Figuring out what it would do. He was like a baby with a new rattle, I told him. He was fun.

“But he didn’t make it to the shop. Mick didn’t see him. And the Bones, they aren’t on the street today. At least none of the ones I spotted would talk to me. They’re avoiding me. The Bone Man has to have taken him. Abby, I don’t dare go to the Crypt to see the head Bone Man. Not by myself.”