Deserter (34 page)

“Certainly better than the green things you were wearing last time I saw you. Green and wet and everyone hungry. By the way, how did that stuff I donated work out?”

Kris froze her smile in place, tried to school every muscle in her body to act just so. Would Hank actually ask if he knew the answer? She swallowed to get her voice just right. “Most of it came in very handy. We really needed those trucks.”

“And the boats?” he asked, not a tick or quiver in his too beautifully handsome face.

“Had some problems,” Kris said, lowering her eyes to study him through the lashes. “There was a glitch in the smart metal. Third time you changed their design, they fell apart.”

“Good Lord, I never heard about that. I hope that didn’t happen when you needed them.”

What do I do now? Tell him the truth and let the chips fall, or tell a social lie and have fun tonight?
His tuxedo fit him perfectly. What more could a woman ask for in a night out than his elbow to lean on.

“I was on a raging river in a particularly narrow canyon with the water rising when I found out,” Kris said.

“Oh Lord. That’s terrible, Kris. I’m sorry.” And for a moment, that overly refined face looked like he meant it. Then Kris could almost see something click in behind his eyes, and her father warning her, “Never say anything we can be sued for.”

“That sounds more exciting than what I’m doing,” he said in a well-schooled voice. A smile came out that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Looks like you’re still having all the fun.”

He reached for the sash of the Wounded Lion and slowly ran it through his fingers. Was it an accident that one of his well-manicured nails also ran its way down between her breasts? “Earth must have liked whatever you did at that get-together in the Paris system,” he said as Kris failed to suppress a shiver.

Maybe someday she’d tell him the truth, but not now, not in front of everyone. “You know how it is, being a kid from the right family. Some old fools decide to put a crown on my great-grandfather’s head, and a guy in the housewares department back on Earth sends a fancy for the new Princess’s wardrobe.”

“Yes. Dad is rather proud our money dates back to when the Pope still had an Army. I imagine if I looked through the back of my closet, I might find a few doodads as well,” he said, but he no longer eyed Kris as a dance partner. No, it was more like the way you studied a cobra.

“Pardon me,” Jack said beside her. “We are blocking the car exits, and I think Mr. Sandfire is casting glances this way like he’s looking for Henry but doesn’t want to admit it.”

Sure enough, Kris’s main candidate for nemesis on this planet and a bevy of eye candy were circling in the distance, not enough to force eye contact, but not likely to be missed.

Hank started to frown but quickly suppressed it and morphed his face into a smile and a nod in Sandfire’s direction. “He’ll tie me up half the night with people who just want to be able to say they shook my hand,” he told Kris through his smile.

“I have people I need to see, too,” Kris admitted. “I’m surprised Ambassador Middenmite hasn’t already nailed me.”

“Duty calls,” Hank said, turning to Kris, taking her right hand, and bowing to kiss it. What his thumb was doing on the palm of her hand was enough to make any girl go weak in the knees.
Buck up, Lieutenant, you’ve got business, remember.

“Save a few dances for me,” Hank said, glancing up while still in midbow, still with thumb playing with her hand, her knees, and all parts in between.

“Even if I have to kill a few social climbers to keep the slots open.”

“Good. See you in an hour or so,” he said as he turned.

“You having fun?” Jack asked.

Kris shrugged, which in this dress set off enough shimmering to make her a hazard to navigation. “Girl’s got a right to spend a little time with a possible like soul.” Clearly, Tommy’s dance card was full of Penny.

Clearing his throat like some ancient duenna, Jack said, “I’ve spotted several of your political allies. You might want to edge to the left here.”

With only a tiny helping of self-pity, Kris turned to duty. She waded through a small throng of social greetings before she and Senator Krief occupied the same quiet eddy in the flow of well-dressed and gorgeous people. The Senator cut through Kris’s greetings with whispered glee.

“The President outmaneuvered himself, or at least the idiots telling him when and where to throw parties did. When I told Senator Earlic what happened to Nara, I didn’t even have to hint that my daughter was set up for something and his daughter was gotten out of the way by the President’s barbecue. He may be Conservative, but he’s not blind, and this is only the latest in strange coincidences. You top that with the sudden call in the Congress for a vote on war with Hamilton, and you’ve got a lot of people wondering if we aren’t being led around by our noses.”

“Think you can defeat the vote?” Kris asked.

“It doesn’t have a chance. My guess is their whip didn’t do a nose count today. Bad move for them, very bad move.”

“And the pictures you got today?”

“I’m not quite sure what I have, but I talked to someone who is. He says they show enough naval-size lasers to outfit a fleet twice the size of what we have parked in the yard below us. Makes you wonder why someone is spending money on so many more guns than we need,” she said, slowing to a thoughtful pause.

“What’s the size of Hamilton’s merchant fleet?” Kris asked.

DO YOU WANT ME TO ANSWER? Nelly said.

NO.

“I don’t know for sure,” the Senator said, “but I understand it’s larger than ours. Much larger.” Her eyebrow rose in alarm. “A whole lot larger than ours.”

“I think my computer can answer that. Nelly, do you have Hamilton’s approximate tonnage and bottoms?”

“The Hamilton Merchant Marine is just a shade less than triple Turantic’s in total standard tonnage. Their ships are, on average, slightly larger than Turantic, so the number of ships are about two and a half times Turantic’s number. THERE, KRIS, DID I DO IT RIGHT FOR A HUMAN, NOT PRECISE BUT IN APPROXIMATE TERMS SHE CAN USE?

PERFECT, NELLY. INCLUDE AN “ATTA GIRL” IN YOUR REPORT TO TRU.

ONLY ONE!

FOR NOW. NOW, QUIET.

The Senator edged herself over to a table and settled into a chair. Kris did the same, her guards closing in to keep the space hers. Kay shook her head slowly. “Hamilton doesn’t have so much as a patrol boat in orbit, not the last time I checked. Damn that communications blackout.”

“When do they say they’ll have it fixed?” Kris asked.

“God only knows, and she ain’t telling. Yesterday they announced they were tearing the entire system down to rebuild it from scratch. But they’ll be using the same parts. How will that make it better?” the Senator asked the ceiling and the unblinking stars beyond it. “Worse, for the last couple of days the problem up here has been knocking towns off our local net. First time that happened, the news was all over it, insisting the place must have come down with Ebola and the government was hiding it. We sent a convoy racing up there, over mountains and in the snow, no less. Even had a few newsies in it. Everyone was fine, just terrified about what was happening to the rest of the planet while they were out.

“Glad to hear that didn’t last long.”

“Ah, but we’ve had two more towns drop off net, and every time, someone in the media starts talking about Ebola.”

“It won’t go away,” Kris said.

“Or someone doesn’t want it to.”

“How is Bremen?”

“No more deaths reported. And Earlic heard something very strange. They didn’t actually do autopsies on the ones who died. Just cremated the bodies.”

“I thought Ebola was a pretty ugly way to die. Kind of hard to mistake.”

“It is, though the medical team in Bremen is pretty basic. Still, the bodies are dust, and no one can find the blood samples they took for analysis.”

“If they called it Ebola, they had to do blood tests.”

“Yes, we have the computer reports of the tests, but no one can find the blood samples to run a second test. All lost.”

“Are they sure it was Ebola?” Kris asked.

“No question, they’ve got fifty-seven early cases of Ebola.”

“Early cases?”

“Yes.”

“How early?”

“Another interesting question. Since I only have Earlic’s word that he heard this from someone who picked it up from a good friend who happens to know someone who has a relative in Bremen, you can understand it’s kind of hard to get to the truth.”

“In other words, a rumor.” Kris tried to squeeze the sarcasm out of her smile, but it still must have looked bitter as lemon.

“Isn’t it a mess? We’re making decisions that could shape my daughter’s future. My grandkids’ future. And we’re doing it by guess and by God. We may not all have computers like yours that are smart enough not to waste my time giving me tonnage to the last ounce, but we have some very good ones, and I can’t say what’s happening five hundred miles north of here, or on the next star system,” Senator Krief said with a bitter laugh. “You know something? President Iedinka could be right, and I would never know it.”

“Yes,” Kris agreed.

The Senator spotted someone, waved to get his attention, then slipped by Kris’s security cordon and launched into an animated discussion. Kris nodded to Jack to drop shields and found herself being introduced to three vineyard owners by Ambassador Middenmite. She smiled prettily, complimented the wines they had her sample, and tried to diplomatically praise all three without saying anything that would end up in tomorrow’s advertising feed. When they moved off, the Ambassador held back.

“I was so sorry to hear about what happened to my assistant who was working with you. Damn bad show.”

“Have you heard anything about who might have done it?”

“I’m sorry, but I have to admit I’m rather busy with other things at the moment. All those stories circulating about how Wardhaven has been favoring Hamilton over the years. I don’t know where they come from. They say they’re documented. There’s nothing in our files to support them.”

“But the media has ‘full documentation’ on their story?”

“Well, they say so. I can’t say that I’ve seen the stuff; you know how newsies are about giving away anything that might reveal a source. But I know what we’ve bought from Turantic, and it’s a good bit of business. I keep trying to get on shows, tell people all that we’ve done, but no one seems to be listening.”

“Telling people what they already know isn’t news.”

“That’s what they say. Damn, I wish I had more Wardhaven files. I assumed if we needed something we could order it from home. I didn’t want trade confidential files on my system. I’m told security is good, but you hear of this teenager or that cute six-year-old who wandered into this or that on the net.”

“Hard to know what is a good risk and what’s too much,” she agreed as the old man wandered off, shaking his head. Kris spent the next half hour shaking hands at a more leisurely pace. Either there were fewer people here tonight, or fewer wanted to brag tomorrow that they’d shaken the hand of a real Wardhaven Princess. Kris suspected it might be the latter.

An hour gone, Kris wondered if Hank might be getting near the end of his command performance. NELLY, COULD YOU RING UP HANK’S COMPUTER AND SEE IF IT WILL TELL YOU WHERE HE IS?

“I don’t like that bored look on your face,” Jack said. “You wouldn’t be thinking it would be nice to spend some time with that good-looking trillionaire, would you?”

“And if I was?” Kris sniffed.

Jack scratched behind his ear, resettled his receiver in place, and shrugged. “I’ve been thinking of briefing Klaggath on the bad blood between your family and the Peterwalds. Wonder how he’d take to your spending time with—”

“What, a security risk? Hell, Jack, Hank knows as much about how the universe spins as I do.”

“How about a major threat to your life and limb? Kris, he showed up on Olympia, and you almost got killed.”

“My office got rocketed while I was away at lunch with Hank. That saved my life.”

“Kris, you know about the other times as well as I. Damn it, woman, you’re a big girl, now, and you need to start acting like one.”

Problem was, Jack was right; she was acting like a big girl. Real grown woman. She whirled on Jack, wanting to ask him where he suggested she find a man, her man. Tommy was joining all the others that gravitated toward her since high school. They’d get near enough to her to get a good look, and look good, then grab onto someone else. If she was a bridesmaid to one more best of friends, she was going to . . . To what?

Behind Jack, Hank hove in view. As he spotted her, his face lit up in a smile that just about took in his whole body. He waved. Kris snorted, trying to drive out all the mixed feelings, put on a smile of her own, and waved back. Jack forced a smile as he turned and the two security teams began a careful approach as their primaries rushed into each other’s arms.

KRIS, WE HAVE A PROBLEM, Nelly said.

“Hank, you got free early.”

“Told Caley he could take some of his cronies and shove them. I had a dance card to fill up.”

WHAT DO YOU MEAN, PROBLEM?

THERE IS A FIRE AT THE TURANTIC CAPITOL.

TURANTIC CAPITOL?

THE CAPITOL HOUSES THE LEGISLATURE. THE BUILDING IS BURNING.

Hank looked distracted two seconds after Kris found herself no longer staring into his eyes but off into space, both their arms slipping to their sides.

“Sounds like a minor problem,” Hank said, but his voice didn’t reflect that.

“They have, or had, a vote scheduled tomorrow on going to war with Hamilton. I hope the fire isn’t bad,” Kris said, but she could hear the doubt in her own voice.

“My report says the building is fully involved,” Hank said.