Redoubtable

21

Sevastopol was built around a series of bays. The minor bay that served as the fishing port was the closest, so that was where Kris aimed her team first. If Doc Maggie had caught a fishing boat to Sevastopol, and if she’d left behind some sort of record, and if that helped them find her . . . then maybe she could help them with the tougher part of the mission.

Even Kris had to admit there were a lot of “ifs” in that plan. The small wooden boats and nets looked like a picture that could have been taken anytime in the last three thousand years on old Earth. Birds mewed, and old men mended nets as others sailed out past the rocky breakwater into the rising sun.

“We got a problem, folks,” Chief Beni announced. “There’s no network up and running in this area.”

“Don’t the boats have computers?” Kris asked.

“Look at them,” Jack said, pointing with his chin. “Those boats are lucky to have bottoms.”

“There’s got to be a tax computer here. They catch fish. They have to record taxes,” Kris insisted.

“Maggie’s a doctor, not a fish,” Jack pointed out.

“But I’ll bet you she paid for her passage,” the chief said in support of Kris, “and someone’s bound to have taxed that.”

“I’ve spun off several net scouts,” Nelly said. “One of those overhead lines has to be carrying a net.”

They waited for a long five minutes while Jack drove as slow as he could around the bay.

“I got it,” Chief Beni yelped. “I’ve got a net. Now to get in. Oh, that was easy. I guess they don’t think the customs office down by the fisherman’s bay needs all that secure a net.”

“Or no one wants to mess with that fine old tradition of smuggling,” Abby put in through the gaping hole that might once have been a back window to the cab. “I think I could like these people.”

“What, you think they’re as nefarious as you?” Jack asked.

“Let’s hope so. If they’re all good little patriots for whoever is in power, we’re in trouble.”

“Okay,” the chief went on, “they do tax every fish that comes in, and there’s a new section in the database for recording everyone shipped in by these little boats, how much they paid, and where they went.”

“You got to love bureaucrats,” Kris said.

“Assuming they didn’t take a cut and forget to enter anyone,” Jack said. “Talk to me about Margarita Rodriguez, Chief.”

“She ain’t in here.”

“What?” Now it was Kris’s turn to yelp. “No, see if they misspelled her name.”

“We got a lot of Rodriguezes here, boss. Doing it by eyeball may take a while.”

“Do they have their profession? Jobs?” Kris and Jack said at the same time.

“Let me see. Spelling isn’t too good here, either. I could understand it from fishermen, but this guy’s supposed to be a bureaucrat.”

“A bureaucrat who weighs fish and knows what tax to demand for each kind,” Kris pointed out.

“Does ‘medico’ mean what I think it means,” the chief said.

“It probably does.”

“Well, M. Rodriguez was landed here four weeks ago. She was sent to the Central Employment Agency on Liberty Street.”

“That’s a big help,” Nelly carped. “The map doesn’t show a Liberty Street.”

“Peterwald types wouldn’t be all that hot for such a street. We probably need an updated map,” Kris said, “and we don’t need to go to Liberty Street; we just need to tap gently into its database. Chief.”

“I’m already there. Let’s see how they spell her name this time. Oh, they got it right. Want to bet she had to type it in herself.”

“That seems logical. Sal,” Jack said to his computer, one that usually stayed out of conversations unless specifically asked, “where’s that possible heavy-industry plant?”

“It’s farther up the coast. It’s got a heavy-lifting shuttle port right next door to it. That’s how it drew our attention.”

“You can hide the black cat in a deep dark hole,” Kris said, “but I love it when a twitching tail gets left out.”

“Let’s wait and see,” Jack said, and slowly headed the truck up the coastal road. Soon the road split into two streets. One was a lovely promenade along the shore, just the place for an evening stroll. The other, a block or so inland, was wider, badly worn, with potholes and had a heavy-duty railroad track down the middle to serve rows of warehouses.

“Let’s keep a working truck on a working road,” Jack said.

“We’ll draw less attention that way.”

“I’m in the employment database,” Nelly announced proudly. “Four weeks ago, our Doc Maggie was sent on a job referral to Bay View Medical Center.”

“And where is Bay View Medical Center?” Jack asked.

“On Bay View Boulevard, fourth road in from the bay,” Chief Beni announced.

Kris pointed to a blue sign with a white H. “Hospital,” she said.

“Yes, but that doesn’t much matter if she’s not there, people,” Jack said stubbornly.

“She’s working the night shift,” Nelly said. “She’ll be there until eight according to her work schedule.”

“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Jack snapped. “People in back, hold on,” he shouted as he made a hard left turn and headed up a hill.

There were a flood of complaints from the back, but they quickly died as the truck engine did its own imitation of death’s onset.

“It was doing great a second ago,” Jack said as he tried to cajole the truck up the steepening hill. It responded in chokes and fits.

“Folks, my old man had a truck like this,” Gunny Brown said. “I suggest we all get out.”

“I think the man’s right,” Abby said. It wasn’t long before everyone, even Chief Beni, was afoot.

Jack got the rheumatoid truck to the next street and turned down it before letting the truck coast to a halt and turning off the engine. “Where’s this hospital?” he asked.

“I think it’s the tall building at the top of the hill, next street up.”

“It is,” Nelly and the chief both agreed.

“This truck ain’t gonna make it,” Jack said.

“I can walk the rest of the way,” Kris said.

“Not alone,” Jack, Gunny, and Abby said in harmony.

“I’ll stay with the truck,” Chief Beni offered, eyeing the climb.

One Marine was left with him, a farm boy who offered to take a look under the hood. “My old man and his pappy didn’t believe that a truck ever had to die. Let me see what I learned from them.”

Kris wished him well and started hiking.

“Tell me, Nelly, where does Doc Maggie work?”

“She’s assigned to the Emergency Room. She often does a shift and a half. Things are pretty busy.”

“So we didn’t have to drop everything and catch her before eight?” Jack said.

“Quit grouching, Jack. She’s here. We were going by. Why not get her when we can?”

“Because, my dearest little princess, things tend to get harder as time goes by, and I’d rather save the easy part for last.”

“Assuming picking up Vicky’s BFF is the easy part,” Abby said with measurable doubt.

The Emergency Room was located on the east end of the building, readily available to traffic coming both from the harbor and from inland. At least in that respect, finding the Emergency Room was easy.

Then it got hard.

“You can’t come in here,” a young man in something close to a blue uniform told them as they approached where an ambulance was just pulling in.

“Why can’t we?” Kris asked with her best princess smile.

“Can’t you read the sign,” he said, waving a thumb over his shoulder at one that announced AMBULANCES ONLY. “Walkers have to go in the front door and see a nurse. She decides if you really need to see a doctor.”

“Don’t you just love bureaucrats,” Jack whispered out of the side of his mouth.

“None of us are sick,” Kris said.

“Then don’t come here,” the young guard said, cutting Kris off. “There is no loitering. I will call the police if you cause any trouble.”

“What do you say I break his arm,” Jack whispered, “then we take him in to see a doctor.”

The kid heard that and went for the pistol at his waist.

Big mistake.

In a blink, Gunny had him in a choke hold. Abby put a sleepy dart into his butt.

The boy went limp, and Gunny gently tossed him over his shoulder.

“Oh dear.” Abby sighed. “I think the poor thing done come down with the galloping punies. I do hope he doesn’t develop a terrible case of the falling-down plague from standing around out here in the cold night air. We must get him inside.”

Since everyone agreed, Kris led the way, following the last gurney through the double doors.

As Kris expected from experience, inside she found bedlam, only moderately controlled by the cool professionalism of the medical teams of doctors and nurses.

Still, it only took a moment before a person in green scrubs was asking. “What seems to be the problem with this young man?”

“I don’t know,” Kris said. “He suddenly passed out.” Kris hated the thought of lying to a doctor, so she told her a large part of the truth.

But, as so often was the case, Kris didn’t share anywhere close to the whole truth.

They laid the young man out on a table, and the woman began an initial examination. Kris took the opportunity to head for the central station. Jack was close on her heels.

“Could you point me toward Dr. Margarita Rodriguez?” Kris said to any of the five men and women working the station.

A tall, solid woman said, “Why do you need to know?” without looking up from the med board she was studying.

“I have a message for her,” Kris said.

“Give it to me. I’ll pass it along to her when she’s not busy,” the woman said, still not giving Kris so much as a glance.

“Hey! What’s this?” came from behind Kris.

“I think that’s called a sleepy dart,” Gunny told the woman. “Haven’t you ever seen one before?”

“No, I haven’t,” the medic said, eyeing the offending dart as she held it up to the light.

“It does strange things to a man,” Gunny told her.

“And how would you know?” was a question Kris really didn’t want Gunny to answer.

“I don’t have a written letter for Doc Maggie,” Kris said, reaching out to tap the woman who insisted on ignoring her.

At the touch, the woman almost jumped. She finally did look at Kris though it was a look usually reserved for something vile that had been left behind by a sick cat.

“Who are all of you? What are you doing here?” the chart-scanning woman demanded. “You all have to leave.”

“And you said this would be the easy part,” Jack whispered to Kris.

She threw him a nasty look of her own. Then, only too aware that this was not going well, she drew in a long breath and played the card that usually worked.

“Listen. I’m Princess Kris Longknife of Wardhaven, and I really need to see Dr. Rodriguez.”

It would be inaccurate to say that with that announcement the Emergency Room went silent enough that you could hear a pin drop. Around the room, patients continued to moan and whimper. One child even continued to scream, the results of an earache that needed treatment. However, with the exception of a nurse’s aide who chose that moment to drop a tray of syringes and needles, creating quite a clatter, most of the medical professionals in the room did indeed go quiet.

“Yeah, and I’m the Queen of Sheba,” the solid woman said, and made a show of turning her attention back to the med board.

“You know, Gail, she does look a bit like that woman who was on all the vids when she saved Henry Peterwald’s life.”

“And what would a Longknife be doing on St. Pete, Rosy, deep in the bosom of Greenfeld?”

“I don’t know. You tell me. But she does look like that Longknife dame.”

“You are so blind I don’t know how you keep your license,” Gail said. “She looks nothing like that trollop.” But Gail did take a long moment to eye Kris.

Kris ran a hand through what little hair she had at the moment. “You are catching me at a bad time.”

“She’s been sick,” Jack put in. “Came down with a bad case of bombs.”

At one of the workstations, a male in blue scrubs brought up a picture of Kris. “It kind of does look like her,” he opined.

“What do you want with old Doc Maggie?” a woman said as she closed a set of curtains behind her. “Get this woman up for a CAT scan stat. She’s just had a stroke. I won’t know how to treat her until we know what’s going on inside her head.”

“Maggie, the CAT’s booked solid,” the guy in blue scrubs said.

“Make a hole for this woman in the next thirty minutes or tell them they’ll have Maggie the Terrible to deal with.”

“Be it upon you, Doc,” the tech said, and got busy making a call.

“Now, what was this I heard about you having a message for me,” the doc said, eyeing Kris.

“Is there someplace we can talk in private?” Kris asked.

“Somewhere there must be such a place on this blighted planet, but I don’t have time to go there, not if I’m going to save my quota for the night,” the doc said, pulling off her gloves.

“My message is from a friend of yours. I’m not sure you’d want everyone to know about it.”

“This is Kris Longknife, Maggie,” said the gal who had first tried to get Gail to consider that Kris might be who she said she was. “You know, the Wardhaven Princess.”

“Did she bring me a new CAT scanner?” Maggie asked.

Kris shook her head.

“Sorry, I really don’t have time for you and any message from my past. Okay?”

Kris took a deep breath and dived in. “Vicky said she was never better than when she had you to share her ideas with.”

“She did, did she? And when did she tell you that.”

“After dinner on a battleship up at the space station. She asked me to come find you.”

“And why didn’t she come herself?”

“You know why,” Kris said.

“She never calls. She never writes. But you say she suddenly has this overwhelming need to talk about old times. Why didn’t she just call me?”

“She couldn’t find your number down here. She couldn’t do much of a search for you. You know that people she gets too close to get suddenly dead. She didn’t want that to happen to you.”

Maggie eyed Kris like, maybe, she was starting to believe her. “Vicky’s a part of my life that’s past and gone. Why should I reopen that can of worms?”

“Here,” Kris said, taking in the sweep of the Emergency Room, “you can save a dozen. Maybe two dozen each night. Advising Vicky, you could save the lives of millions.”

“Who’s this Vicky,” Gail demanded.

“A kid I knew a long time ago,” Maggie said.

“A kid who can save millions?”

“She’s grown up now,” Maggie answered.

“And she’s trying to carry the heavy burden of her birth,” Kris said. “She needs help. Help from someone who lets her be her better self.”

“I need some time to think about this,” Maggie said.

“I have to keep moving. You can come with us now. If you don’t, I don’t know if I can come back for you later,” Kris said.

“Hold it,” Gail cut in. “Who’s this Vicky?”

“Just a kid I knew,” Maggie repeated.

“Who now has dinner on a battleship with the likes of Princess Kris Longknife,” Gail went on. “I’ve heard tell that Victoria, murdering bitch, Peterwald is on a battleship up at our station. Is that the Vicky you’re talking about? It has to be.”

“And if it is?” Kris said.

“I don’t want to work with nobody that helped that murdering bitch over the sniffles. The doc should have drowned that one at birth.”

“So much for the Hippocratic Oath,” Maggie said softly.

“Kris, we really need to be not here,” Jack said.

“Maggie, I offered to talk to you in private.”

“Yes, yes, I know.”

“Will you please come? Now!” Kris said.

Maggie looked at her coworkers. Blood was rising in their eyes. Even some of the patients looked ready to grab something and start swinging. If ever Kris had wondered how the average person on the street in the Greenfeld Alliance felt about the Peterwalds, the unanimous vote tonight in this small part of their realm was not going well for the ruling family.

“Okay, okay,” Maggie said, stripping off her unused gloves and following Kris toward the exit. Jack stepped between Kris and Maggie, grabbed their elbows, and forced them to a trot.

Behind her, Kris could hear sidearms coming out from where the Marines had hidden them. “Calm down, folks. We’re moving on. No need for anyone to get hurt.”

Once out the door, Jack said, “Run,” and they did.