Furious

8

Next morning, Kris found a soak in a warm tub essential before stumbling out to breakfast. A breakfast that was another matter.

The buttery turned out to be as obstreperous as the gym. Penny had to resort to physically searching the pantry for honest food. In a pout over Kris’s and Penny’s refusal to breakfast on pate foie gras or a salmon soufflé, the kitchen closed up.

Nelly, of course, wouldn’t let that happen. The pantry doors did open for Penny, but the stove had to be managed personally by Mimzy, or Penny’s bacon and eggs would have been left cold or burned to a crisp.

“There is such a thing as programming a computer to be too helpful,” Nelly observed. “Maybe I should adjust this one’s parameters a bit.”

“Let’s don’t and say we did,” Kris said. “Remember, Nelly, this boat belongs to someone else. They’ve gotten everything the way they want it. We need to leave it the way we found it.”

“There is that,” Nelly agreed, then couldn’t avoid another try. “I could back up the old code and reload it before we leave.”

“No!” came from both Kris and Penny.

Kris chose to drink her breakfast; a healthy shake that assured her of all the vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber she would need for an active morning.

And Kris’s morning was active. Penny saw to it that Kris subjected herself to another session with the infamous trainer.

“Can’t we talk about something?” Kris asked, as Penny settled her into the box.

“Nope. I didn’t understand half of what Juan said about what your Grampa Al pulled on New Eden. What’s there can wait until we get there to be dumped into your lap. What I would like to know is, what is it with your Grandfather Al? What’s he think he’s doing?”

Kris shrugged as the machine began to beat up on her. No gentle massage to start with today. “I don’t remember a lot about Grampa Al. I was only ten when he and father had their blowup after poor Eddy was kidnapped. Father thought the proper response was to get aggressively involved in making Wardhaven safe for everybody. Grampa Al didn’t.”

Kris paused, to catch her breath and to remember. “I’d never seen grown-ups shout at each other like my father and his father did that evening over supper. I never saw Grampa Al again until I was a boot ensign and discovered how dangerous it was to be one of those damn Longknifes. I think I went to see my grampa with some idea that I could help him. Foolish me.”

“How’d the visit go?” Penny asked, sweating in the throes of her own contraption.

“Short,” Kris said. “You have no idea how hard it was to make it through all his checkpoints; and then he had nothing to say to me. He did offer me a job, deep inside his secure web. He’s offered me jobs several times. Always with the same requirement. Let myself be bricked up inside his fortress.”

“But he’s coming out of his web, or at least sending agents out to mess with the rest of us,” Penny said.

“That’s what bothers me. When Grampa Al and my father were arguing about Father’s going into politics, Al was dead set against it. ‘Get out of the public eye,’ he shouted. ‘Make money and let it build a wall around us.’ But here he is trying to take over Eden. That doesn’t sound like the Grampa Al I remember. Yes, I know he’s gotten more crazy about his personal safety. Still, you and I know any walls he’s built won’t stand a second if a monstrous mother ship makes orbit over Wardhaven.”

Kris paused for a moment. “But why didn’t Al go talk to his own father? King Ray wants folks ready for the aliens. Why doesn’t Al work with him?”

Penny shook her head. “And what is our beloved king doing?” she scowled. “First, he locks you up on Madigan’s Rainbow, then he starts some sort of PR campaign to test the waters to see if people are willing to do something about maybe defending themselves.”

Kris felt like spitting but had neither the air nor the spare liquid.

“Both your grandpa and great-grandpa are alike in one thing,” Penny said.

“What’s that?”

“Neither one trusts the rest of humanity with the problem it faces. Both are doing what they think is right, but both are all too willing to keep the rest of us in the dark.”

Kris leaned back to think, while the machine did its thing, sweating the poisons that she’d swallowed so easily in the last months out of her body and soul.

Penny had a point. Longknifes were all too ready to apply their own solution to humanity’s problems. Of course, if Kris was honest, humanity’s problem was there because of what a certain Kris Longknife had done.

NOT FAIR, KRIS, Nelly said, interrupting Kris’s thoughts with some of her own. THOSE ALIENS HAVE BEEN OUT AMONG THE STARS FOR A HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS OR MORE. HUMANITY HAS BEEN OUT HERE LESS THAN FOUR HUNDRED. WE WERE LUCKY THAT WE NEVER RAN INTO ONE OF THEM BEFORE. THEY WERE UNLUCKY ENOUGH TO RUN INTO YOU AND THOSE THREE HELLBURNER TORPEDOES. THE FIRST MOVES IN THIS WAR HAVE BEEN MADE. THE ONLY RATIONAL QUESTION IS WHAT MOVES DO WE MAKE NEXT? YOUR GRAMPA RAY THINKS WE NEED TO THINK ABOUT IT A WHILE. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOUR GRAMPA AL THINKS HE CAN DO, BUT I DON’T TRUST EITHER OF THEM. DO YOU?

Mentally, Kris shook her head. I AGREE WITH YOU, NELLY. GRAMPA RAY WANTS TO TAKE TIME HE MAY NOT HAVE. I DON’T KNOW WHAT GRAMPA AL THINKS HE’S DOING, BUT IF IT’S ANYTHING LIKE WHAT HE’S DONE FOR THE LAST FIFTEEN YEARS, IT WILL INVOLVE TRYING TO BUY HIMSELF SECURITY. I KNOW I DON’T LIKE RAY’S SOLUTION, AND I DOUBT I’LL LIKE AL’S SOLUTION ONE WHIT MORE.

Kris concentrated on the work at hand while trying to decide whether she’d burned off enough of her dissolute ways to reward herself with some real food for lunch.