Undaunted

20

“Gunny Sergeant,” Jack ordered. “Make it so. Redeploy your Marines outside this room and assure that what is said in here stays in here.”

Under Gunny’s orders, the Marines withdrew by the numbers.

Ron said something, and the Iteeche Marines followed the humans out.

“Ms. Nightengale,” the king said, turning to Abby, “close down your recording equipment and wipe it clean. I want no record made of this meeting. If anyone has a recording device, and that includes computers, wipe them and turn them off.”

“I need to keep Nelly on to translate,” Kris said.

“Keep her on, but no recording,” the king snapped.

Nelly, keep RECORDING.

BUT The KING JUST SAID . . .

I know WHAT he SAID, BUT you HEARD Me.

Yes, Kris, I will keep RECORDING. AND I will lie if I AM ASKED ABOUT any RECORD I Make.

Yes, This is JUST BETWEEN us Two.

Abby finished closing down her equipment and stood. King Ray pointed at her. “You, out of here.”

“And take Cara with you,” Kris added.

“Cara?” Abby said, glancing around.

“Yeah. She’s hiding behind the sofa.”

The maid retrieved her niece and frog-marched her out to loud preteen protests that were ignored. A slight smile might have crossed the king’s lips as he watched the youngster go and glanced at Kris, but his attention was quickly drawn past her.

“Colonel Cortez, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“I don’t know you, and I choose not to trust you in this matter. Would you please wait outside?”

“As you wish, Your Highness,” the officer said, and left.

“Lieutenant Pasley, we’ve had dealings before. I mean no disrespect, but would you mind,” he said, indicating the door with a slight nod of the head.

She followed the colonel.

“Honovi Longknife,” the king said.

“I am my father’s eyes and ears,” the young politician pointed out, showing no willingness to move.

“And may well be his knife in someone’s back.”

“He has not used me that way. Yet.”

“I suspect it is only for lack of need lately,” the king observed.

“If you exclude me, I will feel free to guess.”

“But you will be guessing. You will not know. Please leave us.”

“And what of my father, your grandson and the prime minister of one of your most supportive planets?” Honovi pointed out, not budging from his chair.

“I would prefer to decide the moment and the place . . . if any . . . that I choose to bring him in on whatever this pile of steaming horseshit is that your sister dropped in my lap. He has enough on his plate. What he doesn’t know won’t contribute to his ulcer.”

What did that mean? “Is Father okay?” Kris asked as her brother headed for the door.

“No worse than usual,” Honovi answered, before the door closed behind him.

Now Kris found herself staring eye to eye with Grampa Ray. Was he about to order her out, too? The thought of bringing Ron this far only to be left out of whatever it was he carried was a kick in Kris’s gut.

Kris swallowed hard and steadied her breath even as her stomach lurched. If ordered, she would obey. She owed Grampa Ray that much as her king.

“Do you want to keep Jack here?” Grampa Ray asked Kris. It took her a moment to realize that she was to stay . . . and her king was asking her if she wanted Jack on the inside of whatever this was.

There was no way she could leave Jack in the dark, though it might be the best choice for him. Still, he was her shield as well as her right arm. No. He was more. He was Jack.

“Yes,” Kris said. “If he’s to provide for my security, he needs to know what I’m doing and why.”

Ray nodded, and did a turnaround before he sat back down. Kris, Ray, Trouble, Crossie, and Jack now faced across the table as Ron and his two green and whites and pair of Navy gray and golds stared back.

Apparently, Grampa Ray remembered or had been reminded by his computer that he could not order the Imperial herald out. The pole weapon holder in black stood his post, watching but ignored.

Grampa Ray settled into his chair, leaned forward on the table, and said, “Now will you tell me why Roth really sent you to hunt up his old war buddy.” Nelly translated.

Ron stepped forward to lay his elbows on the table, in a double imitation of Ray. From the chip of a smile Ray and Trouble gave him, there must have been a story behind it. One that old war buddies share only with each other.

“Teddon will brief you on the details,” Ron said through Nelly.

The Navy officer pulled a projector from beneath his robes and placed it on the table. It lit up, displaying a holographic star map. “You humans have been expanding quite a bit,” Nelly translated for him, as the occupied planets in human space lit up in red. A glance showed Kris that he had the Rim worlds very accurately identified. Yes, there were three of the four Sooner planets she knew of. And a few she didn’t.

Nelly, RECORD THAT.

Kris, This Doesn’T feel RIGHT. Ron TRUSTS us.

If I GET To FEELING GUILTY, I can always HAVE YOU erase IT. If IT’S NOT There, I won’T HAVE IT if I NEED IT.

Yes, MA’AM.

The king took a long minute to examine the map, then glanced at Trouble and Crossie before saying, “You seem to have a pretty accurate assessment of our growth.” Ray left the question How? hanging unspoken.

“We have our ways,” the Iteeche captain answered. “You may tell your Ms. Nightengale that her reports did not make it any easier to find Princess Kris,” he added with a slight bow to her.

Kris accepted the praise with a frown. Clearly, the Iteeche have not ignored humanity like we have them. Or have we? Kris shot a questioning glance at Admiral Crossenshield. He ignored it and, like Trouble and Ray, continued the study of the map.

Nelly, how ACCURATE is IT?

Very. They EVEN HAVE The Two alien PLANETS we FOUND THROUGH The new fuzzy JUMPS. I Don’T know how Much They know ABOUT The JUMP TECHNOLOGY, BUT They are on The Map.

The silent study period lengthened until the Iteeche Navy officer tapped his projector. “We have also been growing.” Now a section of stars turned golden. Like most humans, Kris had only a rough estimate of the range of the Iteeche Empire.

Eighty years ago, humanity’s 150 planets had formed a very small crossbar to a “T” where the bottom was a long sweep of Iteeche space. Now human space had expanded away from the Iteeche side, widened, and even begun to curve around. The Iteeche had thickened around their middle and grown away from human space.

HAVE you GOT a COUNT YET, Nelly?

They HAVE Gone FROM 2012 PLANETS To 2456, Kris. We’Ve Grown FROM 152 To 643 PLANETS. I’Ve CHECKED. NONE OF THEIR PLANETS ARE ON THE NEW FUZZY JUMP POINT MAP. THE ODDS ARE VERY HIGH THAT THEY DO NOT HAVE THE NAVIGATION TECHNOLOGY WE NOW HAVE.

Thank you, Nelly.

Kris waited for King Ray to say something. Instead, he turned to Grampa Trouble and gave him the smallest hint of a nod.

“I’m glad to see you’ve had some healthy growth. Though isn’t it a bit fast for what your grampa told us was usual for the Empire?”

“My chooser told me that you’d probably notice that,” Ron said through Nelly. “Yes, we sped up the pace of our exploration and colonization now that we know we are not alone in this corner of space. I can’t help but notice that you did not slow down your human drive for ‘water to swim in.’ One might even say you picked up the pace.”

“You are, no doubt, aware of the Treaty of Wardhaven that our mutual friend Ray here pushed through while he was still president of the Society of Humanity. It exerted control over that growth,” General Trouble said evenly. Nelly translated.

“My chooser noted it, but was quick to point out that it did not so much slow down your expansion as confine it to specific space. Humanity filled in its territory in concentric rings. Still, you spread.”

“That is what our people do,” Trouble said. “Go new places. See new things. Have big families and lots of friends.”

“So my chooser observed both to me and to the emperor. And as you also observed to my chooser, we Iteeche like our large, bustling cities surrounded by familiar, well-ordered lands.”

“I don’t imagine it was easy for you to get colonists for so many new planets,” Grampa Trouble said.

“It has caused discomfort to many,” Ron said. Beside him, his green-and-white counselors looked up from their intense study of the table and nodded as they met Kris’s eyes. Their necks showed purple. Kris had never seen an Iteeche go purple.

Nelly, WHAT’S purple Mean?

I Don’T know, Kris. IT’s NOT in any of The Books.

Score another for informal censorship. Kris glanced at King Ray. Or maybe it was quite intentional. He didn’t look all that bothered by what he saw. His face would have fit comfortably at any poker table. His eyelids flicked at a steady rhythm. His breath was slow and stable. Otherwise, he was motionless as a statue.

But behind the eyes, you could almost see the brain working, gnawing every word, every motion. Now Kris understood why her great-grandfather was a legend.

“So,” Grampa Ray said, suddenly entering the discussion. “You’ve told us that you’ve been keeping an eye on us, just like we’ve been keeping an eye on you.”

Kris had been doing her best to imitate her great-grandfather’s poker face. But at that, her eyebrows shot up. Truly, there was a lot she did not know about her world. Her and a couple of hundred billion other people.

“You’ve shown us your map, which pretty much agrees with ours. Roth didn’t need to send his kid for this. Certainly not at the price it must have cost him in political chits if it meant getting old sticks-in-the-mud like these counselors moving along. Ted, what’s really going on here?” the king finished, fixing his eyes on the Iteeche Navy officer.

The Iteeche barked one of their laughs, but said nothing as he turned to Ron.

The young Iteeche nodded. Kris reminded herself that a nod here was a shake to her. “My chooser said you were sharp. Much sharper than my counselors would expect you to be,” Ron said, and put a hand each on his green and whites, giving them a shove sideways. They went back to studying the table as soon as they had returned to their place.

“The Iteeche are in trouble, King Raymond,” the Imperial Representative said through Nelly. “That is the message my chooser ordered me to bring to you. That is the burden of the message my emperor placed upon me. That is not a message my counselors agree with. At the moment, the court of my emperor is very divided. Yet, the situation is fraught with such dark danger and chaos that my chooser dispatched me to you with these words. May I speak them?”

Kris recognized that as pure high court Iteeche. A messenger did not drop bad news on an emperor without his permission. More than one dynasty had fallen while an emperor sat quietly in his garden, a long line of refused messengers waiting without for permission to enter.

King Ray sighed. “Speak your words. I am attentive,” was the most positive reply.

“Our exploration ships are vanishing again,” Ron began.

“Near human space?” the king cut in.

“No,” Ron shot back. “Teddon, show him.”

Three stars began flashing white. They were as far from human space as they could get, well beyond the edge of the Iteeche Empire farthest from humanity.

“You are exploring far afield,” General Trouble said.

“The discovery of you by our Wandering Men who admitted no allegiance to any rule was very unpleasant for the old emperor. He did not want to repeat that again. He began, and his Wise and Heavenly Chosen Successor has continued to send out ships to map the stars as a Heavenly Chosen should.”

“And what have you found?” Trouble asked.

“Many planets suitable for Iteeche to swim in, just as you have found many planets for your people to walk on. Until recently, all had gone well and left us full of harmony and peace.”

“Until?” Ray said.

Ron turned to Ted. The Navy officer took up the story. “A ship failed to return. It was not the first ship that did not return its crew to the People. Accidents happen to Iteeche as they do to humans.” No debate there.

“We sent a second ship to follow in its wake. It also did not return.”

Both Grampa Ray and Trouble emitted a low whistle. “Once may be chance. Twice, and you look for enemy action,” Trouble said.

“That is something I learned while still sucking scum off the pond,” Ted said.

“I learned it at my pappy’s knee,” Trouble agreed.

“As I often tell other Iteeche,” Ted said, eyes burning holes in the heads of two green and whites, “wisdom does not count elbows. We sent out a number of ships, one to each of the planets the missing ships were ordered to explore.”

“A good approach,” the king said.

“The ship sent to this one did not return,” Ted said. A planet quit blinking white and turned to a steady bright white.

“Do you know anything about that planet?” Trouble asked.

“We have sent two more ships. We have not gotten so much as a messenger pod back,” the Navy officer said.

“Not good,” Trouble said.

How could something blast a ship out of space before it could even get a messenger pod back through the jump point it had just come through? Someone or something must be right there ready to hit them with massive force. Kris started to open her mouth, then closed it. The Iteeche must have extracted every bit of information from those events long before they told her. The problem was that there was so little data available.

The words hung between them. No one spoke. What could anyone say?

When the silence stretched so far it was about to bend into a pretzel, Kris could keep her mouth closed no more. “What do you want from us?”

“Help,” Ron said. One word, simple, yet pregnant with unidentified needs.

“What kind of help?” Kris asked.

“Just a moment, Mr. Imperial Representative,” King Raymond said. “Kris, you’ve probably figured out by now that Trouble and I answered the reporters’ questions honestly, but if they didn’t ask the right questions, we didn’t help them get the whole story.”

“That has crossed my mind.” Kris admitted dryly. On the table, Nelly went right on translating everything into Iteeche.

“Well, there’s a thing that I learned about the Iteeche from Ron’s grampa. The Iteeche take the long view. Show them a problem, and they start looking at it from every direction immediately. They like to get all the input, all the information, everything they can know about it before they start doing something about it. They also like to start doing something about it a whole lot earlier than we humans might want to. Have I got that right, Mr. Ambassador?”

“That is the way of it.”

“They sure got into a war with us fast and furious,” Kris pointed out.

“Yes, but we were an exception to their normal rule. Maybe the previous emperor had allowed the Wandering Men to get more out of hand than normal. Some advisors thought it was smart to let misfits wander away from a civilization they didn’t fit. Right, Imperial counselors?”

“It is possible that such fools who failed their master and the heavens might have wasted air,” one of the green and whites admitted. He followed that up by spitting on the deck, whether because of the admission or because of the blunder, Kris was left to guess.

“So, they weren’t expecting us,” King Raymond said, “and had no reason to suspect they weren’t alone in the universe. Then bang, we collide head-on and there are blood and guts all over the place and not a lot of brains. For an Imperial court that prided itself on its foresight, it took them a while to admit that they’d been blindsided and do something about it.”

Which left Kris something new to chew on, but it didn’t answer her immediate question. “So, what are Ron and his grandfather expecting from us? Action, a shoulder to cry on, a battle fleet?”

Grampa Ray turned to Ron. “I think this comes under the heading of a warning to us. There’s a problem out there. He wants us to know about it and maybe start getting our rumps moving toward some kind of alliance. Am I right on that?”

“All of that,” Ron said, “but my chooser said to tell you that we also would like more.”

The king’s eyes grew wide, and he leaned back in his chair, giving General Trouble a quick nod.

“What kind of ‘more’?” Grampa Trouble asked.

“Before I met Princess Kris and her amazing Nelly, I did not believe the words my chooser gave me. Now I understand much more about the remarkable and intelligent machines you humans have. He asks if you might provide us with very small explorers who can slip into a system and back out again without setting off the weapons that destroyed our ships.”

Now it was Grampa Trouble’s turn to lean back in his chair. “Kris, you’re the one that’s been doing the exploring. What are your thoughts on this?”

Kris had rather enjoyed sitting in a meeting and not having to say a word. It also had been a joy to see two old legends doing their stuff. Suddenly, she was reminded that she was one of those damn Longknifes and had to earn her keep.

“I’m divided,” she said for an opener to keep the silence at bay. “I’d like to help Ron,” Nelly translated. “I’d like to do something to show his People that us humans can be a good ally.”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Trouble said.

“There is,” Kris agreed. “Not having any idea of what’s on the other side of the jump, I’d hate to make a present to them of our best technology. I don’t want to show them what we’ve got. I really don’t want to let them capture and reverse-engineer it.”

“All good points,” Ray agreed. “Still, in my lifetime we’ve gotten into one war already we didn’t have to fight. I suspect Roth might be looking for some way to avoid a repeat of that experience.”

“That is so,” Ron said, “but with the disappearance of each ship and crew, he begins to have trouble seeing through the murky water to any other outcome. ‘We are at our wits’ end,’ his words for me to tell you. He hoped that you humans might have a different, ah, perspective. A way of looking at things.”

The idioms Ron and Roth threw around told Kris, even more than the accurate map of human space, that someone had been studying humanity quite a bit.

“Yes,” Grampa Ray said with a sigh. “Yes, we humans do have different ways of looking at things. Not just different ways from you Iteeche, but different ways of doing things and seeing things among ourselves. I need time,” King Raymond said.

“My chooser told me you would. I am prepared to wait.”

“Good, now, if you will excuse me, I hope you will stay here while I get things moving outside. And maybe have a few words with my great-granddaughter. Crossie, would you take care of them. Don’t tell them too much, if you can, and see if you can’t get something worthwhile out of them.”

“You’re asking a lot, Your Highness. Can I at least have the famous Miss Nelly?”

Kris nodded yes.

“So much for the benefit of this job,” Ray grumbled. “Trouble, you want to come with me? You, too, Jack.”

The four of them left Admiral Crossenshield staring across the table at five Iteeche, with no one saying a word.