Deserter (39 page)

“He got kind of quiet when you brought that up,” Abby said as she quickly responded to Penny’s move. Unlike Kris’s game, Penny and Abby moved pieces around the board like it was greased.

“When you grow up in my neighborhood,” Kris said, trotting over to bend down and get in Abby’s face, “you learn real quick not to give anyone a sound bite they can use on the news or in a court of law against your father.”

“Anyway,” Jack said, stretching his legs out on the couch and picking up his reader, “it doesn’t matter what plots he is or isn’t in on. Whether you, young Princess, are moonstruck or not. If he doesn’t call, nothing happens.”

“He doesn’t call, I have to figure out a new option for rearranging the plumbing upstairs,” Kris pointed out.

Jack shrugged.

Nelly gave a kind of light buzz that startled Kris. “A call is coming in.”

“Who?” Kris asked, struggling to swallow a grin. Abby brought her latest move to a roaring halt, a knight hovering in midair. Penny pulled her hand back from a move she was ready to make. Jack kept reading.

“Call has no identifier on it.”

“Well, accept it,” Kris said.

“Please hold a moment for Mr. Henry Smythe-Peterwald the Thirteenth,” a computer voice announced. A coat of arms filled the screen Nelly had opened.

WAS THAT TRUMPETS?

I WOULD HAVE TO RERUN IT AND ANALYZE, Nelly said.

WHO’S THE ROYALTY HERE?

YOU ARE, Nelly said. Kris wondered how you snorted derision at a computer.

“Hi, Kris, sorry I missed your call.” Hank actually did look sorry, a slight droop to the mouth, a bit of a slump to the shoulder. Breathlessly handsome, but tinged with regret.

“They keeping you busy?” Kris answered, trying to place the scene behind Hank, then realizing it was computer generated.

“Cal is up to his ears in things. I think he wants to impress me with his executive brilliance. Me, I’m wondering why he doesn’t delegate the half of this. But then,” he shrugged, “I’ve watched my dad in full fury a few times. Hope I don’t get like that when I’m his age. What are you up to?”

“It’s not what I’m up to. More like what I’d like to do for a while this evening. My social schedule kind of got lightened suddenly last night. You have any plans for tonight?”

“They’re never any more my plans than they are yours. Are you hatching a conspiracy to slip our handlers and maybe steal a few hours just for ourselves?”

“Think we could get hung for treason?”

Hank glanced around like a bad video conspirator. “They have to catch us first,” he whispered.

“Pick me up, say seven,” Kris offered.

“Sounds great.”

“What do I dress for, dinner, dancing, a movie?”

“Sitting alone with you for two hours while ghosts do all the speaking on a holostage is not what I want to do with you.” He smiled. This one reached across his lips, swept up to his eyes, and didn’t stop this side of his eyebrows. Nice smile.

“I’ll wear something for dancing,” Kris said.

“See you at seven.”

“Call if you can’t make it.”

“The only way I won’t make it is if somebody blows up the elevator and I get stuck on the ground.”

“Hank, don’t even think that! The way things have been going . . .” Kris let that thought wind down.

“Don’t worry. I think Cal’s had enough of the locals’ bumbling. Nothing’s going boom that he doesn’t want. Bye for now, duty calls, and I’m gonna get duty wrestled and tied up in a big bow by seven.”

Kris turned as the screen went blank. “He called,” she said, letting her own grin out to romp and play.

“He’s with Sandfire,” Jack pointed out.

“As an observer,” Kris countered.

“Maybe you can get him talking about a few of his observations,” Abby said slowly.

“That’s not what I want to do tonight.”

Abby and Penny went back to their rapid-fire chess.

The day passed slowly. Abby paid a milk and cookies visit to the new guard shift and came back with an offer of a date from the Sergeant in charge. “Cupid seems to be going through arrows at an alarming pace,” Jack drawled.

“You’re just jealous ’cause I got a date and you don’t,” Abby said.

Jack shrugged her off with “Sergeant just isn’t my type.”

About three, Kris asked the obvious. “When is Tom due back?”

Penny paused, rook halfway to taking Abby’s last bishop, gave a worried shrug, and went on with her game.

Jack took Kris aside. “I thought he’d be back by three. A quick stop at the embassy, then on to Penny’s place.”

“Could he have been held up at the embassy?”

Jack shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

At four, Abby pushed back from the table. “Eight to eight. What do you say we leave it as a tie? There’s always tomorrow.”

“Just one more.” Penny sighed.

“I really have to get Kris into a bath.”

“Okay,” had nothing but resignation.

“I’d offer to play you,” Jack said, “but color me totally intimidated. I’ve never seen people play like you two.”

“Saves me from thinking about anything but the game,” Penny said, then snapped at the door. “Where is that man?”

“He’ll call,” Kris got out before she thought about it.

“I don’t want him to call. I want him to walk his thin-skinned body through that door, preferably with no new black-and-blue marks on it.”

Kris retreated to the bath; it wasn’t nearly as relaxing. No sooner was Kris in the tub than Abby was showing her how to turn her falsies into bombs. “Stretch them out, or they’ll totally block the pipes and never get to where they need to be.”

Kris nodded. “How dangerous are those things to wear?”

“I only know of them going off prematurely once, and she shot her mouth off too much,” Abby said, giving Kris a wicked grin.

“I’ll take a vow of silence when I’m wearing them,” Kris said, hefting a booby bomb with both hands. It was light; she slowly settled it into the water. It barely floated.

“You arm it by pushing down on the nipple; that arouses it,” Abby said with a straight face. “Turn it three hundred sixty degrees, then depress it. Your breast is now dangerous.”

Kris shook her head. “That’s a disturbing picture.”

“You are far too literal,” Abby said, retrieving the bomb.

Kris relaxed, or at least soaked. Her mind spun. She was launching an attack on a sovereign planet. Did she have that right? Hell’s bells, was there any chance she could trip up this planet’s mad rush to war even after this crazy stunt? Where was Tommy? Where was some returned intel from the yard? How many girls going on a first date with a cute guy thought about these things? Kris just shook her head.

The real question was Hank. Was he out to kill, kidnap, or otherwise mess with her life? And most girls just worried about their hair and makeup at a time like this. “It would be nice to be just a girl sometime,” Kris muttered, willing the jets to work their relaxing miracle on her muscles. But what could relax the tension between her ears?

After thirty minutes, Abby got her out, patted her dry, and started on her hair. About the time Kris was all sudsed up, Jack stuck his head in. “Tom called from the lobby. He says to stand by. If he needs help getting back in, he’ll yelp.” Abby went right on working Kris’s hair.

Five minutes later, Nelly chimed from the edge of the dressing counter, “Tom’s at the door. The new Sergeant doesn’t want to let him in.”

Kris stood up; Abby was already stepping back to give her room. Tightening her robe, Kris headed, water dripping and barefoot, for the suite entrance. Jack stood in the doorway, Penny beside him. A half-dozen guards blocked them from Tom. Armed only with his lopsided smile, the kid from Santa Maria faced the grays. Kris charged in, coming to a halt only when she stood beside Jack. “Is there a problem here, Agent, Sergeant?” she said, using The Face that Grampa Trouble might use to freeze a laser. Surprisingly, her hair didn’t grow icicles.

“There seems to be,” Jack said.

“No, ma’am,” the Sergeant said, eyes flinching to the floor.

“If
our
security agent says so, there is,” Kris said, invoking the imperial plural.

It had the desired effect. The Sergeant blanched and swallowed hard. The guards got a whole lot more interested in Kris than in Tom. He edged forward into their midst as Kris snapped, “
We
dispatched this young man to the surface of your planet because a member of
our
entourage required certain items from her home. Items required because she last came up here directly from the hospital, were she was being treated for a savage beating she received while supposedly under Turantic Security protection. Why are you delaying him?”

The Sergeant’s Adam’s apple was doing a full dervish dance. “Sorry, Your Highness, we were only trying to protect you.”

“We appreciate your protection,” Kris said, cutting him off even as she noted her transformation from “ma’am” to “Highness.” “This matter has been well handled up to this moment. Let us leave it at that.”

Tom moved through the guards with a regal dignity of his own, as befitted a Princess’s courtier. The guards morphed from roadblock to honor guard without moving so much as a step. As Tom passed through, he rewarded them with a nod as royal as any Grampa Ray bestowed. Only when Jack had closed the door behind them did he deflate with a sigh that would have been the envy of all his Irish grandmothers. “Holy Mother of God, I thought they had me there,” he said collapsing on the couch.

“We’d have retrieved you sooner or later,” Kris assured him.

“You need me sooner. Can Nelly do her bug-catching thing?”

I AM WORKING ON IT. I AM WORKING ON IT, Nelly told Kris.

“Just a moment,” Kris told the rest. The air sparkled and zapped around them.

HEY, SOME OF THESE ARE MINE! TOM BROUGHT BACK SOME RECON BUGS!

INTERROGATE THEM LATER. TOM NEEDS TO TELL US SOMETHING.

I AM VERY AWARE OF YOUR PRIORITIES, KRIS. JUST A MOMENT MORE, PLEASE.

Kris drummed her fingers on the end table as she knelt beside Tom. Penny had settled in beside Tom, an arm around his shoulders. Abby stood behind Kris. Jack moved around so he had a good view of Tom . . . and the door.

“All clear,” Nelly said. “Tom, you brought back some of my recon nanos from the yard!”

“I was hoping to pick up a few. I borrowed Abby’s second computer, and it reported I got rid of all this morning’s drop real fine. You can have yours back, Abby. I picked up new ones for Penny and myself at the embassy.”

“Was that what took you so long?” Penny demanded, bouncing on the couch with impatience.

“Well, wouldn’t you know but the Ambassador himself wanted to tell me to tell Kris not to do anything ‘unseemly.’ His word. ‘We will work all of this out. We don’t need her youthful exuberance leading her into some unseemly display.’ ”

“I’ll try not to be unseemly,” Kris said, adjusting her robe to make sure it was properly closed where she knelt.

“Penny’s boss also took me aside for a little talk.”

“Oh dear,” Penny said.

“Kris, he also doesn’t want you to do anything.”

“Penny, you left me with the impression this boss of yours had guts. He sounds like a ninny who raids the Ambassador’s long skirt collection.”

“He usually isn’t. Tom, did he give you a reason why Kris should lay low? Does he have some irons in the fire?”

“Doesn’t he wish he had. He didn’t say a lot, other than to make sure I was who I claimed to be and to get as much out of me about what Kris has been up to for the last week.”

“What’d you tell him?” Kris growled.

“Only what he’d get from reading the papers,” Tom said, primly brushing the legs of his slacks.

“So he didn’t tell you why he wants us to be good little children and wave as the army marches off to war?” Kris said, letting the sarcasm run free.

“Yes, he did tell me,” Tom said, real worry showing on his face. “I don’t know how to tell you this, Kris. He wouldn’t tell me how he knows it, but he says that Sandfire has something personal against you. I told him I knew a few good reasons. He seemed disturbed I knew so much about all that led up to the mess at the Paris system. Anyway, he says that Sandfire wants you personally in chains when this is over. Sandfire seems to think Hank Smythe-Peterwald’s dad would love to have you served up naked to him. What happens next involves knives and doesn’t end with you alive,” Tom finished with a hard swallow.

That knocked Kris back. Literally. She settled into a cross-legged sit. She’d been afraid before, terrified even. It usually came before the shooting started. Once outgoing and incoming were flying, she was too busy staying alive to bother with fear. Suds rolled down her forehead; she wiped them away. Abby produced a towel and wrapped it expertly around Kris’s head. Kris sat lotus and tried to calm the sudden roiling in her belly.

Sandfire wants me a prisoner, tortured, and dead,
she said to herself, tasting it. Feeling it.

No surprise there; she knew she’d been dodging Sandfire’s assassins for at least the last year. When Eddy was kidnapped and killed, was it Sandfire?
Was he going for the both of us? Did poor Eddy’s demand for an ice cream cone save me?

Kris stood up slowly, not leaning on anything, anyone.

“Sandfire wants a war started. I want it stopped. Sandfire wants me dead. I like being alive. Nothing’s changed. Nelly, let us know when you have something to show us on the yard.”

“Nelly,” Jack said, “do you have any access to the lasers on this station?”

“What do you mean?” Kris growled.

“Nelly, do you have any way you could shut down the lasers they’ve got targeted for ships making for a jump out of here?

“Nelly, ignore that. Concentrate on the yard mapping.”